np: SV UU Stage 1: Re-Entry (Beta starts now, bye Espathra!)

[PrincessGardevoir]

I can't say for sure but top 5 definitely is a stretch; it's still great but when it's put up with some of the other 'best' mons in the tier (Slither, Gengar, Tink, Hawl, Talon, hell even Lucario or Slowtwins) it just really doesn't have everything to keep up with them. It lost its best Encore targets in Hydreigon and Espathra, Taunt is a bit less of a commodity and while Knock Off is great, you can get punished by Flame Body or Helmet, and lots of defensive mons don't mind too much their items being removed. It isn't even a great First Impression resist in spite of, well, being a resist. SD sets are funny but have a large number of hard walls if you don't pack coverage specifically for them (Low Kick for Orth/Tar/Bisharp, Tera Blast Fire for Tinkaton, Facade in the event you get burned, etc) and lose to priority if you don't use the EXTREMELY gimmicky Copycat.

Will echo the sentiment of top 15, maybe top 10? But we're also not that long after the banning of two metagame warping mons and I haven't seen anything barring rain that's made itself definitively one of the best mons/team styles in the tier. If we get another mon susceptible to Encore in the top 3, I wouldn't be surprised to see Grafaiai usage skyrocket again and for its viability to go up again.

Atleast the Foggers are somewhat decent though (said no one ever lol).

Talonflame's great and Altaria is usable, which while isn't exactly wide coverage and varied options still leaves you with an option pretty good on Stall and an option that's very splashable rn and arguably one of the best resists to the best pivoter and priority user in the tier rn. There's also a few really niche but cool spinners like Coalossal that I think are underexplored and have merits (Melt Gibson was running a team with Coalossal and was based for it.)

I will say that hazard removal being lackluster sucks but I think--

People genuinely coped about Tatsugiri being usable during the Alpha stages

oh we're fighting then, tatsu is my favorite spinner rn

 

[gulch]

Just want to throw out some thoughts I've had on some mons as of late!

I have been made a believer. This thing is actually fucking insane. Dealing with Lokix, Raptor, Grafaiai, Maushold, Orthworm, and even to an extent, Slither Wing, Tsareena, and Gallade are very valuable qualities in the current meta. Flame Body combined with very very respectable bulk of 110/120/90 provides unconventional answers to a lot of the meta's current big boy threats. Access to Rocks, Spikes, and Spin also certainly isn't bad either. Overheat, Spin, Will-O, and your pick of hazard fits in on a lot of teams that aren't using Talonflame. Granted, that's rare, since Talon is a top 5 UU mon at the moment, but it's still definitely worth considering as hazard removal options at the moment aren't great.

Life is god's cruel joke and this poor bastard is the punchline. Does anyone remember during the last two gens in RU, where Donphan was really bad, even to the point of being blacklisted on the VR, but it never dropped because low ladder kept using it for role compression? That's exactly what's happening to Forre. Spin and all forms of hazards with Volt Switch is... neat? But it kinda loses any value when you have no serviceable qualities that other, better spinners don't. Coalossal and Donphan can deal with certain offensive threats and also set their own hazards. You shouldn't be running both Stealth Rock and Rapid Spin on Donphan, but you can. Tsareena can pivot while actually hitting Wo-Chien, and doesn't get blasted into outer space by Taunt or walled out by Hippowdon. Brambleghast can set hazards, spinblock, and even kill opposing spinblockers with good predictions. Avalugg is really fat. Tatsugiri and Cryogonal have actual offensive presence outside of spinning. Please, for the love of god, let the coconut die.

It can actually be good now that Hydreigon is gone! Nasty Plot on other things is worth using now that it isn't centralized to the single biggest threat in the meta. Gengar kinda uses it, but it isn't the most common thing in the world. I think Tera Ice with dual STABs and Blast is worth exploring. I think Mossy Sandwich was the first one to mention it? Regardless, Mowtom was good in the early stages of the meta and I think it's got some breathing room now that Hydreigon and Baxcalibur are gone.

Don't sleep on this one is all I'm gonna say. Does the same stuff as Hydreigon without being too big of a problem, it's faster, it hits hard, Knock U-Turn is surprisingly good, Booster Energy is underexplored and makes it lightning fast or hit like a freight train. Contender for top 10 I think.

Never in my life did I think I'd be making a post on how Polteageist is a problem. Psychic Terrain HO is just this thing with Indeedee, Hawlucha, and Klefki plus your two filler picks and it works every single time if you have half of a brain. Shell Smash in PsyTerrain, especially with screens up, is just downright terrifying. Lack of priority makes this thing genuinely fucking impossible to kill at times, especially with the added caveat of forcing you to play around Weak Armor so you don't accidentally make it faster than your scarfers and lose the game by default. It has a lot of problems, notably being very frail and kind of helpless without the support of its team. It's like Maushold, in the way that it's not very splashable and your team has to be built around it for it to succeed. I don't think it's worth taking tiering action on quite yet, especially with the new addition of Tyranitar, but I do think it's worth keeping an eye on.

 

[MasterPlayer]

Has anyone messed around with Cacturne recently? Because that thing looks quite decent and could help to check Floatzel

 

[gigi44t44]

Just want to throw out some thoughts I've had on some mons as of late!

I have been made a believer. This thing is actually fucking insane. Dealing with Lokix, Raptor, Grafaiai, Maushold, Orthworm, and even to an extent, Slither Wing, Tsareena, and Gallade are very valuable qualities in the current meta. Flame Body combined with very very respectable bulk of 110/120/90 provides unconventional answers to a lot of the meta's current big boy threats. Access to Rocks, Spikes, and Spin also certainly isn't bad either. Overheat, Spin, Will-O, and your pick of hazard fits in on a lot of teams that aren't using Talonflame. Granted, that's rare, since Talon is a top 5 UU mon at the moment, but it's still definitely worth considering as hazard removal options at the moment aren't great.

Life is god's cruel joke and this poor bastard is the punchline. Does anyone remember during the last two gens in RU, where Donphan was really bad, even to the point of being blacklisted on the VR, but it never dropped because low ladder kept using it for role compression? That's exactly what's happening to Forre. Spin and all forms of hazards with Volt Switch is... neat? But it kinda loses any value when you have no serviceable qualities that other, better spinners don't. Coalossal and Donphan can deal with certain offensive threats and also set their own hazards. You shouldn't be running both Stealth Rock and Rapid Spin on Donphan, but you can. Tsareena can pivot while actually hitting Wo-Chien, and doesn't get blasted into outer space by Taunt or walled out by Hippowdon. Brambleghast can set hazards, spinblock, and even kill opposing spinblockers with good predictions. Avalugg is really fat. Tatsugiri and Cryogonal have actual offensive presence outside of spinning. Please, for the love of god, let the coconut die.

It can actually be good now that Hydreigon is gone! Nasty Plot on other things is worth using now that it isn't centralized to the single biggest threat in the meta. Gengar kinda uses it, but it isn't the most common thing in the world. I think Tera Ice with dual STABs and Blast is worth exploring. I think Mossy Sandwich was the first one to mention it? Regardless, Mowtom was good in the early stages of the meta and I think it's got some breathing room now that Hydreigon and Baxcalibur are gone.

Don't sleep on this one is all I'm gonna say. Does the same stuff as Hydreigon without being too big of a problem, it's faster, it hits hard, Knock U-Turn is surprisingly good, Booster Energy is underexplored and makes it lightning fast or hit like a freight train. Contender for top 10 I think.

Never in my life did I think I'd be making a post on how Polteageist is a problem. Psychic Terrain HO is just this thing with Indeedee, Hawlucha, and Klefki plus your two filler picks and it works every single time if you have half of a brain. Shell Smash in PsyTerrain, especially with screens up, is just downright terrifying. Lack of priority makes this thing genuinely fucking impossible to kill at times, especially with the added caveat of forcing you to play around Weak Armor so you don't accidentally make it faster than your scarfers and lose the game by default. It has a lot of problems, notably being very frail and kind of helpless without the support of its team. It's like Maushold, in the way that it's not very splashable and your team has to be built around it for it to succeed. I don't think it's worth taking tiering action on quite yet, especially with the new addition of Tyranitar, but I do think it's worth keeping an eye on.

A great answer and counter to this strategy is with encore paired with or grassy seed . either attacks thus seting up grassy or it doesn't thus allowing encore to work

 

[gigi44t44]

A great answer and counter to this strategy is with encore paired with or grassy seed . either attacks thus seting up grassy or it doesn't thus allowing encore to work

A great mon that i have been using is

Lucario @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252HP 252Atk 4Def
Admant Nature
-Sword Dance
-Bullet Punch
-Extreme Speed
-Drain Punch
it's so good that the only other 2xpriority it is quad resitant too and all slow bulky mon can be abused with drain punch for recovery and all the fast mons with priority.
note all the ghost type in this tier are rather frail so bullet punch take them out

 

[kino]

Hi pokemonisfun told me to post for tea ban so here goes
Ive been playing the tier on ladder a fair amount, watched a ton of Mimilucha games and while ive mostly had my fun i wanna address some issues and a love letter to a few mons


As predictable as always but god this is annoying to face. Ive even seem some sub or protect variants (or psyterrain support) that made revenge killing with our strong priority options bordeline impossible. Since teacup usually only needs tera fight + stored power to do its work you're not missing a crucial slot and sub can allow you to setup on careless stuff like Blissey or w/e would like to status fsr. Id love to see it gone its just too much of an headache to prep against.


While i think they're more manageable than the above these two are pretty annoying too. Our strongest revenge killing tools (FI) isnt good against either and again, makes them kind of an headscratcher to prep against.

I think on a whole, and as with a lot of early metagames, HO has way too many tools to cheese its way out of most matchups. One might say it punishes lazy teambuilding and while it's not untrue, I think the removal of the overly dominant options wouldnt hurt the tier. Im not the biggest rain hater in that regard, and I dont know what the general stance about that is, but is another one of these mons I consider to be pretty overwhelming offensively. is obviously another one that deserves a mention and i'd so love to see it gone too, but while its probably more meta wrapping than the above I think the counterplay against it is -somewhat- more consistent. I also hate Armarouge ftr


Done with the problematic now onto the fun stuff. I've loved Salamence for the few games that Ive used it. Losing Defog and Toxic might be a blessing in disguise since it has very little options over 3 atk roost (or Dragon Dance which im less of a fan of). The spreads are extremely splashable, so is the tera type and it can function as a nice defensive and offensive glue at once.


Ive been loving those two as well. Tauros Paldea Fire can switch on a shit ton of physical threats and wisp, while the latter can do that (and bulk up instead) or run CB sets just fine. Im pretty sure offensive sets can be explored for fire bull as well, but i consider the wisp + bu/tect value to be superior. Here again the spreads are splashable depending on what one needs to check and they fit on a lot of bulky offensive/balanced teams.
Funnily enough Ive been mostly running paldea fire with tera water and vice versa. All things considered it might not be too optimal on the fire type, since id value a tera that helps checking DD tar/iron tar more. Tera Fire on BU water bull on the other hand allows it to avoid fast wisps from Talon, which is honestly valuable enough on its own to use ; and it allows to punish an aggressive grass/psychic switch in decently

 

[gigi44t44]

Hi pokemonisfun told me to post for tea ban so here goes
Ive been playing the tier on ladder a fair amount, watched a ton of Mimilucha games and while ive mostly had my fun i wanna address some issues and a love letter to a few mons


As predictable as always but god this is annoying to face. Ive even seem some sub or protect variants that made revenge killing with our strong priority options bordeline impossible. Since teacup usually only needs tera fight + stored power to do its work you're not missing a crucial slot and sub can allow you to setup on careless stuff like Blissey or w/e would like to status fsr. Id love to see it gone its just too much of an headache to prep against.


While i think they're more manageable than the above these two are pretty annoying too. Our strongest revenge killing tools (FI) isnt good against either and again, makes them kind of an headscratcher to prep against.

I think on a whole, and as with a lot of early metagames, HO has way too many tools to cheese its way out of most matchups. One might say it punishes lazy teambuilding and while it's not untrue, I think the removal of the overly dominant options wouldnt hurt the tier. Im not the biggest rain hater in that regard, and I dont know what the general stance about that is, but is another one of these mons I consider to be pretty overwhelming offensively. is obviously another one that deserves a mention and i'd so love to see it gone too, but while its probably more meta wrapping than the above I think the counterplay against it is -somewhat- more consistent. I also hate Armarouge ftr


Done with the problematic now onto the fun stuff. I've loved Salamence for the few games that Ive used it. Losing Defog and Toxic might be a blessing in disguise since it has very little options over 3 atk roost (or Dragon Dance which im less of a fan of). The spreads are extremely splashable, so is the tera type and it can function as a nice defensive and offensive glue at once.


Ive been loving those two as well. Tauros Paldea Fire can switch on a shit ton of physical threats and wisp, while the latter can do that (and bulk up instead) or run CB sets just fine. Im pretty sure offensive sets can be explored for fire bull as well, but i consider the wisp + bu/tect value to be superior. Here again the spreads are splashable depending on what one needs to check and they fit on a lot of bulky offensive/balanced teams.
Funnily enough Ive been mostly running paldea fire with tera water and vice versa. All things considered it might not be too optimal on the fire type, since id value a tera that helps checking DD tar/iron tar more. Tera Fire on BU water bull on the other hand allows it to avoid fast wisps from Talon, which is honestly valuable enough on its own to use ; and it allows to punish an aggressive grass/psychic switch in decently

ive been running +

Arboliva @ Light Clay
Ability: Seed Sower
EVs 252 HP 252 Def 4Spdef
Bold Nature
-Reflect
-Light Screen
-Encore
-Memento


Hawlucha @ Grassy seed
Ability: Unburden
Tera Type: Steel
Evs: 60HP 252Atk 196Spe
Admant Nature
-Sword Dance
-Taunt/Roost
-Drain Punch
-Acrobatics
if you tera steel then you loose all the weaknesses and gain hp with grassy terrain
pretty good

 

[Monky25]

I personally believe Gengar to be a very unhealthy and restrictive presence in the tier and advocate for its removal. Gengar was chalked up to be one of the big threats since day 1; just the meta had even stronger Pokemon like Baxcalibur, Hydreigon, and Espathra that took away the spotlight from Gengar. On the council slate last week, I voted DNB on Gengar, not because I thought it was balanced, but because I hadn’t found it problematic enough to warrant removal from the tier. However, after experimenting and playing lots with Gengar, I strongly believe it would be in the tier’s best interests to remove it soon.

To begin with, Gengar has a LOT of different sets it can run, and none are really tied to a particular archetype. Substitute + 3 Attacks, Choice Specs, Nasty Plot, Hex, and Choice Scarf are all viable and prominent within the metagame. This doesn’t make a Pokemon banworthy at all, but a closer look will especially show that Gengar’s 2 main sets, Choice Specs and Hex, can both circumvent counterplay very easily and just be incredibly difficult to deal with and you may not know what you are dealing with until it is too late on top of the other possible sets. Choice Specs mainly runs Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb, Focus Blast, and a filler slot, usually Trick, but other moves such as Energy Ball to OHKO Gastrodon as well as Will-O-Wisp and Toxic Spikes to spread status are certainly usable. What differentiates Gengar from other choiced wallbreakers like Slither Wing, Tyranitar, and Staraptor is that its attacks are much more spammable and face little drawbacks. Shadow Ball is generally free into a lot of teams, as Ghost resists and immunities aren’t too common. Within the Great and Good tiers, which are generally the relevant Pokemon in the metagame, we see that only Grafaiai, Tyranitar, Bisharp, Iron Jugulis, Lokix, and Maushold resist or are immune to Shadow Ball. Nearly all of these Pokemon are exclusively offensive in nature and will be taking massive damage, not to mention that a well-timed Sludge Bomb or Focus Blast can put them out of commission quickly. Gengar’s only real drawback is that it is frail, but with amazing pivots like Talonflame, Slither Wing, Sandy Shocks, Slowking, and more to give it many entry chances, a well played Gengar is the scariest thing one could face. Meanwhile, even though Hex sets lack the immediate power of Choice Specs, they easily can play the longer game by using Will-O-Wisp or Toxic Spikes, sometimes even both, to punish typical switch-ins on bulky offense and balance and outlast them while wearing them down. Not only is the Tinkaton, Bisharp, or Tyranitar at risk of being muscled through or hit with Focus Blast, their longevity and offensive power is heavily hampered and allows Gengar’s other teammates to take care of them even easier. Pokemon like Tinkaton and Gastrodon shouldn’t be relegated to exclusively taking on Gengar, but they are terrified to take enough chip damage to be in range of getting blasted by Shadow Ball. Our lack of removal plays a huge part too; every calc should have at least a Spike and/or Stealth Rock because a realistic event is that these Pokemon will be compounded by residual damage as well. Let’s analyze what could be considered as counterplay from the Great and Good tiers.

Gastrodon-generally the best pivot into Gengar as it tanks Specs Shadow Ball to a decent degree and has reliable recovery. However, one well-predicted Energy Ball OHKOes Gastrodon, not to mention Hex sets do well against it. Hex takes advantage of Gastrodon being so common as Gengar counterplay by ruining its longevity and playing the long game. Will-O-Wisp blocks Leftovers and makes it burn through Recover very quickly, and while Toxic Spikes can be circumvented by a Tera Poison, it still can heavily punish Gastrodon users who may not expect this set and have to pivot into Shadow Ball to save a teammate. Tera Ghost also makes Gengar even more insane.

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Energy Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gastrodon: 480-568 (112.6 - 133.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gastrodon: 160-190 (37.5 - 44.6%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Gengar Hex (130 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gastrodon: 174-205 (40.8 - 48.1%) -- 66% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes, Leftovers recovery, and burn damage
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ghost Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gastrodon: 214-254 (50.2 - 59.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery

Grafaiai- gets 2HKOed by Sludge Bomb and has good odds to outright drop to Focus Blast.

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Sludge Bomb vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Grafaiai: 144-169 (53.9 - 63.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Grafaiai: 255-301 (95.5 - 112.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

Hippowdon- needs max spdef to remotely handle it. Hates Will-O-Wisp and Toxic Spikes more than most. Tera Ghost moment lol.

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 174-205 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- 77% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Gengar Hex (130 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 187-222 (44.5 - 52.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes, Leftovers recovery, and burn damage
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ghost Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 232-274 (55.2 - 65.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Tinkaton- I hope you won’t have to use your Tinkaton for anything else because this Pokemon gets worn down FAST. Tinkaton often gets compressed into too many roles and can be easily overwhelmed. Shadow Ball compounds over time, while Will-O-Wisp ruins it and Hex just blows past it. Tera Ghost moment again lol.

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 172+ SpD Tinkaton: 147-174 (39.3 - 46.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Gengar Hex (130 BP) vs. 252 HP / 172+ SpD Tinkaton: 159-187 (42.5 - 50%) -- 91.8% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes, Leftovers recovery, and burn damage
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ghost Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 172+ SpD Tinkaton: 196-232 (52.4 - 62%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

As for the other "counterplay", they aren’t reliable either. Tyranitar deters Gengar’s STAB attacks but gets blown away by Focus Blast and ruined by Will-O-Wisp. Not showing the calc because we all know it drops to Focus Blast barring like super specially defensive sets which are garbage. Bisharp is the same story, bonus points for being able to KO with Sucker Punch but Will-O-Wisp ruins it and Substitute + 3 attacks still is prominent enough to where you have to consider the possibility of it, creating mindgames for the Bisharp user. Also Tera Fairy exists. Iron Jugulis is slower and gets 2HKOed by Sludge Bomb. Lokix can threaten well with priority, as Banded Sucker Punch dispatches both common Tera types, but the Pokemon is very frail and won't like switching into Gengar's attacks. Moreover, Will-O-Wisp neuters it, Substitute on the Hex set itself is still a possibility to stop Sucker Punch, Gengar can just switch out and now the Lokix user is locked into an exploitable move, and in general Banded Lokix is very difficult to fit on a team. Blissey wasn’t in the Good Tier even though it’s pretty impactful but only really exists on stall which doesn’t help its case. Other offensive checks like Mimikyu, Maushold, Kilowattrel, Noivern, and Talonflame can work, but none want to switch into Gengar at all. Gengar practically has very limited defensive counterplay, but factoring in Tera Fairy to gain resists to certain attacks and circumvent offensive counterplay or Tera Ghost to give it free Adaptability, Gengar just muscles past its counterplay and can freely fire off attacks by virtue of it forcing many switches because of how strong it is.

Overall, Gengar is a very unhealthy Pokemon due to its significant strain on the teambuilder, especially for BO and balance teams, due to its set versatility and ability to beat out its “checks.” It just freely clicks buttons into the greater metagame with little around to stop it. With it gone, players no longer have to walk on eggshells to avoid getting destroyed by Specs Shadow Ball and allow their Pokemon to focus on other threats. I do concede Gengar is much easier to handle in-game, reminds me of Thundurus-Incarnate from Gen 8, but at a higher level when Gengar has all the advantages it could need, it will wreak havoc with very little to stop it as its set versatility + incredible raw power + entry hazards being even more defining is just too much. I plan to push for tiering action very soon.

 

[Negative Charge]

Hi pokemonisfun told me to post for tea ban so here goes
Ive been playing the tier on ladder a fair amount, watched a ton of Mimilucha games and while ive mostly had my fun i wanna address some issues and a love letter to a few mons


As predictable as always but god this is annoying to face. Ive even seem some sub or protect variants that made revenge killing with our strong priority options bordeline impossible. Since teacup usually only needs tera fight + stored power to do its work you're not missing a crucial slot and sub can allow you to setup on careless stuff like Blissey or w/e would like to status fsr. Id love to see it gone its just too much of an headache to prep against.


While i think they're more manageable than the above these two are pretty annoying too. Our strongest revenge killing tools (FI) isnt good against either and again, makes them kind of an headscratcher to prep against.

I think on a whole, and as with a lot of early metagames, HO has way too many tools to cheese its way out of most matchups. One might say it punishes lazy teambuilding and while it's not untrue, I think the removal of the overly dominant options wouldnt hurt the tier. Im not the biggest rain hater in that regard, and I dont know what the general stance about that is, but is another one of these mons I consider to be pretty overwhelming offensively. is obviously another one that deserves a mention and i'd so love to see it gone too, but while its probably more meta wrapping than the above I think the counterplay against it is -somewhat- more consistent. I also hate Armarouge ftr


Done with the problematic now onto the fun stuff. I've loved Salamence for the few games that Ive used it. Losing Defog and Toxic might be a blessing in disguise since it has very little options over 3 atk roost (or Dragon Dance which im less of a fan of). The spreads are extremely splashable, so is the tera type and it can function as a nice defensive and offensive glue at once.


Ive been loving those two as well. Tauros Paldea Fire can switch on a shit ton of physical threats and wisp, while the latter can do that (and bulk up instead) or run CB sets just fine. Im pretty sure offensive sets can be explored for fire bull as well, but i consider the wisp + bu/tect value to be superior. Here again the spreads are splashable depending on what one needs to check and they fit on a lot of bulky offensive/balanced teams.
Funnily enough Ive been mostly running paldea fire with tera water and vice versa. All things considered it might not be too optimal on the fire type, since id value a tera that helps checking DD tar/iron tar more. Tera Fire on BU water bull on the other hand allows it to avoid fast wisps from Talon, which is honestly valuable enough on its own to use ; and it allows to punish an aggressive grass/psychic switch in decently

I have always been a huge fan of Water Tauros. Leftovers Sub BU has been pretty consistent throughout the lifespan of the tier. Up to this point I have been running Tera Dark as an emergency anti-prankster option, which compliments raging bull nicely to completely derail HOs standard play flow. Tera Dark also allows you to potentially mess with Slowking users who future sight into chilly reception because you can keep your sub up if you tera dark on turn 2. I would really like to experiment with Cud Chew variants.

 

[Turtlek]

What is the best move set for Bisharp? Hesitate Knock|Low Kick

 

[YataGarasu]

Snip-No disrespect intended wanted to focus on something I'm confused about*

Hippowdon- needs max spdef to remotely handle it. Hates Will-O-Wisp and Toxic Spikes more than most. Tera Ghost moment lol.

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 174-205 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- 77% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Gengar Hex (130 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 187-222 (44.5 - 52.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes, Leftovers recovery, and burn damage
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ghost Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 232-274 (55.2 - 65.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 Atk Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gengar: 360-426 (137.9 - 163.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ghost Gengar Energy Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 288-340 (68.5 - 80.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
0 Atk burned Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gengar: 180-213 (68.9 - 81.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and sandstorm damage
252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Energy Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 288-340 (68.5 - 80.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, Leftovers recovery, and burn damage

0 Atk burned Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Ghost Gengar: 90-106 (34.4 - 40.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

So a note of what I'm saying:

Scenario 1: Sub/Wisp/Hex/EB Tera Ghost. T1: Gengar WoW Hippo. Hippo EQ: Gengar loses ~30-40% of it's health: Health values without factoring SR and spikes [because it's 2HKO for Energy ball regardless + burns + leftovers I assume) Gengar: ~60-70%. Gengar Energy ball + burns Hippo EQ: Gengar loses 30-40~40 again. it should be between 20-30% at this point. (Hex doesn't change the outcome either way) If you factor in Sandstorm damage it should approximately be between 20%>X>10% or approximately 20%<X<30% That's without Gengar being factored for also being hit by chip damage by entry hazards and sandstorm.

Scenario 2: TS poison Hippo. Gengar can't burn Hippo, and Hex still takes two turns, and since Specs is the more major threat damage wise, EQ still OHKOs. Sub is worthless in this situation Even if it tries to toxic stall with TS/Sub/Prot/Hex (or Energy Ball)... It would be a pretty niche set and be a weird unorthodox way to run Gengar.

Just to make clear of a non specs Gengar: 252 SpA Gengar Hex (130 BP) vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 207-244 (49.2 - 58%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, Leftovers recovery, and burn damage ...
252 SpA Gengar Energy Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 192-228 (45.7 - 54.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, Leftovers recovery, and burn damage

If it does Sub stall it would still have to lose more health to sub at least twice to not get EQ'd, and SS damage + EH chip unless it's running some random Heavy Duty boot niche set or goggles to stop the SS from hitting through sub (let's not assume that scenario though because that is a bad theorymon). Even if it Tera's in S2 EQ still does approx 60-70 breaking subs instantly.

Hippo still checks or at least leaves Gengar barely hanging on in either case (best case scenario it subs/protect stalls: 50% gone + Sandstorm damage + chip unless it runs heavy duty boots). It also can't switch less risking getting hit by EH again and chipping even further down unless running HDB set. Keep in mind I also lowballed 34% to ~30%. Which is still a difference of 8%~10% extra damage that wasn't applied + SS damage + chip from EH to Gengar. Ok one more idea:

S3: Wisp/Trick/Hex (Energy Ball)/Protect (Sub)

It wisps first turn. Hippo retains 99.9% of it's health EQ's into Tera Ghost. Gengar eats 30~40%. Gengar Tricks Specs onto Hippo for leftovers. Gengar eats another 30~40% Without factoring SS and EH damage it should be easily within priority range. If it protects it can't sub, sub takes an additional amount that it doesn't have with the factors added up.


My issue with the scenario is if you aren't tricking it, you still have Gengar whittled down. If you don't Specs forces you to switch and Hippo can bide until later in the match and reset leading to the same conclusion bar Gengar will be taking EH damage unless running a ridiculous HDB (niche) set, and then it has to burn Hippo who at 0 ATK investment still mutilates to a decent agree.

Gengar is definitely a threat, but Hippo does not require full SPD investment to thwart (Fine it takes a decent amount leaving you only like 80-90 EV's left fair enough on that statement) it and even if it goes tera to prevent further esc. damage from Hippo, hippo hits just hard enough even under burns to break the subs and if it's poison it doesn't matter because then Gengar will be whittled by having to sub spam + EH damage + SS damage. (Without taking into account lead Gengar) If that's the case Hippo must be burned as TS didn't have time to settle, and Gengar would be foolish to throw out spikes risking a EQ because even if it Tera's That's 60~70% of it's health. and even if it Whisp right after 30~40 on tera Ghost gengar from Hippo 0 ATK investment EQ.

Full HO Gengar dies to EQ without burning Hippo. If it does it still takes 30~40 if it uses tera Sandstorm still hits twice before it can even switch leaving it at around ~50% health. Toxic inflicted Hippo does full damage and forces Gengar to stall but the problem with that is it can't be specs unless trick but trick has to be used first before status and therefore does less damage and takes longer to finish. Either way it should still substantially be in somewhat of a bind to any priority user after that, well at least non-SP priority/Quick attack/ES. Every other priority at that point should kill, and if it runs Scarf it's in a worse situation even with trick because it has to tera and wisp turn one, and still eats 34~40% damage. If it doesn't switch out and goes for Hex, Hippo survives and hits it for another 34~40%. Lowest damage: 68%~80%. Without factoring sandstorm and entry hazards.

 

[Celebiii]

Heyo UU, I wanna highlight two great mons that have been flying a bit more under the radar but I think deserve more use!

Vaporeon @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Wish
- Protect
- Calm Mind
- Ice Beam

Vaporeon works as an alternate Water Absorb user to Gastrodon and Quagsire that poses much more of an offensive threat itself. The addition of Calm Mind in Gen 9 turns Vaporeon into a dangerous boosting threat, allowing it to tank and out-heal even powerful hits like Choice Specs Gengar's Shadow Ball after a single Calm Mind boost, while simultaenously making it more dangerous in its own right with Ice Beam. Ice Beam needs to be used over Surf for the matchup against opposing Water Absorb / Storm Drain Pokemon, but Vaporeon doesn't even mind this, as it gets lots of chances to fish for freezes thanks to its excellent bulk and healing. Vaporeon is no slouch on the physical side either, and the fact that it uses Ice Beam makes it a good check to several boosting threats like DD Salamence, DD Haxorus (a little less so for this one), Throat Spray Noivern, and SD Hawlucha. Finally, even if Vaporeon can't get in position to boost up itself, it's still an excellent support Pokemon for its team. Its great defensive typing and bulk allows it to pass Wishes easily, and Water Absorb in conjunction with these traits makes it a nightmare for rain teams to deal with. Please give Vaporeon a try - you won't be disappointed!

Drifblim @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unburden
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Defog
- Will-O-Wisp
- Strength Sap
- Shadow Ball

Hazard removal can be really hard to fit in this tier, but even knowing this, you might scoff at Drifblim, a chronically low tier Pokemon in past generations. However, you might not realize how bulky this Pokemon actually is, and how well it can absorb physical hits while dishing out burns. Drifblim's typing and bulk make it a great check to several physical threats, such as Slither Wing, Lokix lacking Throat Chop (i.e. most of them), Maushold, Lucario lacking Crunch (many of them), and more. Once it burns the opposing Pokemon, it also has recovery in Strength Sap to make taking opposing attacks even easier while healing itself. It also has Shadow Ball to allow it to maintain some offensive output and not allow Pokemon like Gengar, Armarouge, and the Slow twins free entry. Unburden also comes in handy quite often, since it's fairly easy to get Drifblim's item knocked off switching into Tinkaton, which brings it up to a blistering 394 Speed, allowing it to check even more Pokemon more effectively. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Drifblim gets Defog! Its ability to spread burns onto many common hazard setters like Tinkaton, Tyranitar, and Donphan allows it to easily remove the hazards set by these Pokemon, while keeping itself healthy with Strength Sap and wearing the opposing Pokemon down with burn damage and Shadow Ball. If you're doubting this Pokemon like I initially was, here's some calcs to show you just how bulky it is:

+1 252 Atk Salamence Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Drifblim: 348-409 (69 - 81.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252 Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Drifblim: 370-436 (73.4 - 86.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Sharpness Gallade Psycho Cut vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Drifblim: 274-324 (54.3 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Slither Wing Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Drifblim: 382-450 (75.7 - 89.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

This EV spread is not optimized by any means, and Drifblim could probably afford some SpDef EVs as well for scouting things like special attacking Salamence variants and mixed Tyranitar variants. As a final bonus, Drifblim's partial Ghost typing along with good bulk and partial Flying typing allow it to spinblock against essentially every Rapid Spin user in the tier. I encourage you all to experiment with this mon, especially if you've been struggling to find alternate hazard removal options to Talonflame.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 168 HP / 252 Atk / 88 Spe / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Earthquake / Superpower
- Superpower / Low Kick / Ice Punch

This is what I have seen ttar commonly run or what sets have been recommended in the past. But I want to recommend a better 4th move for you which is fire punch. What does fire punch hit that superpower, low kick, or EQ doesnt hit? well it hits everything for weaker that is right.... but getting 50/50'ed sucks, fire punch for ex. covers a play such as bisharp -> bramblegeist play which covers the eq, and superpower play while making ttar get rekt for trying to crunch on the switch in. Fire punch can be extremely helpful in those matches as every turns matters for ttar, and it also does 50%+ to orthworm which makes it unable to freely switch in.

Iron jugulis is another pokemon I want to reccomend, with the banishment of hydreigon I want to shout out this pokemon as being like the pokemon that benefited the most off of it.

Iron Jugulis @ Choice Specs
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Flying / Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Hurricane
- Fire Blast / Flash Cannon / Earth Power
- U-turn

This is what I would run on such a pokemon especially with hurricane being able to nuke most dark resists such as slither wing, tauros, woo chien, lokix, florges, sylveon, etc. While dark pulse covers most flying resists such as rotom-heat, sandy shocks, iron thorns, tinkaton, orthworm, etc. I feel like this is a very good pokemon and its 108 speed is a very valuable trait to have in this tier esp considering how naturally fast it is

 

[pokemonisfun]

Hi pokemonisfun told me to post for tea ban so here goes
Ive been playing the tier on ladder a fair amount, watched a ton of Mimilucha games and while ive mostly had my fun i wanna address some issues and a love letter to a few mons


As predictable as always but god this is annoying to face. Ive even seem some sub or protect variants that made revenge killing with our strong priority options bordeline impossible. Since teacup usually only needs tera fight + stored power to do its work you're not missing a crucial slot and sub can allow you to setup on careless stuff like Blissey or w/e would like to status fsr. Id love to see it gone its just too much of an headache to prep against.

Alright there are a few mons that I think should be voted on by council, well, now, I don't think we need to wait.

I'm going to focus on Polteageist in this post but just putting it out here, these are my thoughts on the potentially bannable things:

• Tyranitar - Taunt/Substitute Tera Flying in posts like this by Mossy Sandwich are pretty much broken https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-uu-creative-and-underrated-sets.3714369/#post-9470236 - they abuse the ground types so badly and take away Tyranitar's one real issue, the bad typing. You could even go dual stab imo with Magnezone support since Tinkaton is the only long term issue for you in terms of coverage (Lucario is too frail). I would have voted on this now that I know about this set to ban it.
• Slitherwing - I don't think this is broken at all tbh, wouldn't even support voting on it. All it has is power, as long as Flame Charge doesn't become standard it will never have the speed to sweep (although I think Flame Charge is underrated and **might** become broken, nobody has really impressed me with it yet)/
• Floatzel/Rain/Kilowatt - I don't think it's amazingly strong because of how fishy it can be - they honestly badly struggle vs Gastrodon, but bar a couple water immunities and like bulky Salamence, the water spam is too strong. I'd have banned this.
• Gengar - the lack of switch ins is troubling indeed, ghost + focus blast is already basically perfect so it has room to run extra coverage, the speed is pretty much perfect bar Talonflame in our tier https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-668422 - think we should vote and ban this
• Hawlucha - Taunt is great on the last slot in terrain teams, I find this mon very dangerous
• Luke - very worried about this if Gengar goes to be blunt but not yet.
• Armarogue - it's next to impossible to wall and Weak Armor sets can sweep at a moment's notice, especially with Endure/Weakness Policy. Not sure if I love this mon but there are more pressing things to ban right now.

Polteageist - I argue it's broken for two main (and related) reasons - it's a stupidly effective fish and it lacks effective defensive counterplay.

1) This fish is not my cup of tea
The set I'm talking about is Tera Fighting shell smash Shadow Ball Stored power + white herb or focus sash. Something like this although the nature is variable (Timid lets you outspeed Scarf Sandy Shock and +1 Mence/Staraptor but you'll never out speed Scarf Gengar after a Shell Smash).

Polteageist-Antique @ Focus Sash
Ability: Weak Armor
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Tera Blast
- Shell Smash
- Stored Power

It just barrels through too much of the metagame after a single turn of set up. It's not easy to set up but we have fairly decent Screen options in Indeedee, Espeon, Klefki and Scream Tail + Focus Sash often guarantees a set up. This is a bit like if Gengar and Espathra had an evil baby. We'll remember, Espathra was partly so hard to counter because all of our Dark and Steel types struggled badly vs Dazzling Gleam and Tera Fighting, bar Tinkaton. The way I saw it, Espathra was a Psychic type but also a Fairy type much of the time, and it's ridiculous to expect to switch in your Dark type to beat a Fairy sweeper most of the time.

Polteageist has a similar issue, Tyranitar/WoChien/Iron Jugulis/Brute Bonnet is just obliterated after a boost with Tera Blast Fighting, Bisharp even before the boost. So our Dark types are essentially useless if Polteageist can keep the tera.

Normally, this is still okay since Polteageist is not easy to set up and we still have priority. But these dang Psychic terrain teams can ruin priority as well, not to mention Polteageist can naturally resist/immune to a large amount of priority. There really isn't reliable counterplay to terrain that you can reasonably fit, it's not like anyone ever puts Ice Spinner on a team to get rid of Terrain. Defog sort of works but it's still not something every team can fit and you can't always spend time doing it even if you have Defog vs the fast nature of HO that Psychic terrain uses.

Here is a gross ass sweep (admittedly if Inder had DWB on mence, he could have won, but apparently he didn't have it): https://smogtours.psim.us/battle-smogtours-gen9uu-668422, I do think Fighting is better than Fairy but it didn't matter much in this MU.

There are just too many games like this, where Polteageist wins without giving the opponent much of a chance.

2) Please let me stall in peace

Another issue with Polteageist is that it really doesn't have any defensive counters bar Tinkaton (let's hope tera ground/fire doesn't get popular!).

It OHKOs Blissey after two Shell Smashes (with SP, stronger than TB), so Blissey can never switch in Focus Sash Polteageist and White Herb is still a struggle since Polteageist can eat Shadow Ball once it Tera Fightings. Quagsire nearly gets OHKOd through unaware by SP after a Smash. The dark types were already discussed above.

Tinkaton is really the only one and technically she still loses if it switches into Sash Polteageist since +2 Shadow Ball can 2HKO.

We're past the point in competitive pokemon where we ban things because it has no single counter - Lucario for example has no counter, talonflame can get rock moved, Slowbro gets Crunched, Hippo can get nuked by CC through CB for example.

BUT. This is a single Polteageist set that basically always runs the same 4 moves and almost always the same Tera. A single set with a single Tera - now that generally speaking should have counters in the tier. But it simply doesn't, bar a shaky spdef Tinkaton and maybe like Garfaiai, which becomes much less effective in Terrain anyways.

Back to the Luke example, the standard Bullet Punch/SD/CC/Extremespeed indeed does have counters, like Body Press Slowbro and Tera Ghost Talonflame.

I just find it absurdly constraining that stall should always have a bad MU vs Polteageist unless it decides to use Spdef Tink, which of course has other roles and may not be able to always beat Polteageist. For example in this game, in the discussion on turn 46, Polteageist could easily have swept the stall team despite the stall team playing extremely carefully against it the whole game: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...-new-hello-sv-uu.3711749/page-10#post-9441074

 

[Monky25]

0 Atk Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gengar: 360-426 (137.9 - 163.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ghost Gengar Energy Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 288-340 (68.5 - 80.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
0 Atk burned Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gengar: 180-213 (68.9 - 81.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and sandstorm damage
252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Energy Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 288-340 (68.5 - 80.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, Leftovers recovery, and burn damage

0 Atk burned Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Ghost Gengar: 90-106 (34.4 - 40.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

So a note of what I'm saying:

Scenario 1: Sub/Wisp/Hex/EB Tera Ghost. T1: Gengar WoW Hippo. Hippo EQ: Gengar loses ~30-40% of it's health: Health values without factoring SR and spikes [because it's 2HKO for Energy ball regardless + burns + leftovers I assume) Gengar: ~60-70%. Gengar Energy ball + burns Hippo EQ: Gengar loses 30-40~40 again. it should be between 20-30% at this point. (Hex doesn't change the outcome either way) If you factor in Sandstorm damage it should approximately be between 20%>X>10% or approximately 20%<X<30% That's without Gengar being factored for also being hit by chip damage by entry hazards and sandstorm.

Scenario 2: TS poison Hippo. Gengar can't burn Hippo, and Hex still takes two turns, and since Specs is the more major threat damage wise, EQ still OHKOs. Sub is worthless in this situation Even if it tries to toxic stall with TS/Sub/Prot/Hex (or Energy Ball)... It would be a pretty niche set and be a weird unorthodox way to run Gengar.

Just to make clear of a non specs Gengar: 252 SpA Gengar Hex (130 BP) vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 207-244 (49.2 - 58%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, Leftovers recovery, and burn damage ...
252 SpA Gengar Energy Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 192-228 (45.7 - 54.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, Leftovers recovery, and burn damage

If it does Sub stall it would still have to lose more health to sub at least twice to not get EQ'd, and SS damage + EH chip unless it's running some random Heavy Duty boot niche set or goggles to stop the SS from hitting through sub (let's not assume that scenario though because that is a bad theorymon). Even if it Tera's in S2 EQ still does approx 60-70 breaking subs instantly.

Hippo still checks or at least leaves Gengar barely hanging on in either case (best case scenario it subs/protect stalls: 50% gone + Sandstorm damage + chip unless it runs heavy duty boots). It also can't switch less risking getting hit by EH again and chipping even further down unless running HDB set. Keep in mind I also lowballed 34% to ~30%. Which is still a difference of 8%~10% extra damage that wasn't applied + SS damage + chip from EH to Gengar. Ok one more idea:

S3: Wisp/Trick/Hex (Energy Ball)/Protect (Sub)

It wisps first turn. Hippo retains 99.9% of it's health EQ's into Tera Ghost. Gengar eats 30~40%. Gengar Tricks Specs onto Hippo for leftovers. Gengar eats another 30~40% Without factoring SS and EH damage it should be easily within priority range. If it protects it can't sub, sub takes an additional amount that it doesn't have with the factors added up.


My issue with the scenario is if you aren't tricking it, you still have Gengar whittled down. If you don't Specs forces you to switch and Hippo can bide until later in the match and reset leading to the same conclusion bar Gengar will be taking EH damage unless running a ridiculous HDB (niche) set, and then it has to burn Hippo who at 0 ATK investment still mutilates to a decent agree.

Gengar is definitely a threat, but Hippo does not require full SPD investment to thwart (Fine it takes a decent amount leaving you only like 80-90 EV's left fair enough on that statement) it and even if it goes tera to prevent further esc. damage from Hippo, hippo hits just hard enough even under burns to break the subs and if it's poison it doesn't matter because then Gengar will be whittled by having to sub spam + EH damage + SS damage. (Without taking into account lead Gengar) If that's the case Hippo must be burned as TS didn't have time to settle, and Gengar would be foolish to throw out spikes risking a EQ because even if it Tera's That's 60~70% of it's health. and even if it Whisp right after 30~40 on tera Ghost gengar from Hippo 0 ATK investment EQ.

Full HO Gengar dies to EQ without burning Hippo. If it does it still takes 30~40 if it uses tera Sandstorm still hits twice before it can even switch leaving it at around ~50% health. Toxic inflicted Hippo does full damage and forces Gengar to stall but the problem with that is it can't be specs unless trick but trick has to be used first before status and therefore does less damage and takes longer to finish. Either way it should still substantially be in somewhat of a bind to any priority user after that, well at least non-SP priority/Quick attack/ES. Every other priority at that point should kill, and if it runs Scarf it's in a worse situation even with trick because it has to tera and wisp turn one, and still eats 34~40% damage. If it doesn't switch out and goes for Hex, Hippo survives and hits it for another 34~40%. Lowest damage: 68%~80%. Without factoring sandstorm and entry hazards.

Thank you for the response. However, I think you missed some of the messages my post was conveying and I'd like to clarify them. First, at the comment of Hippowdon not needing max Special Defense to handle Gengar, I disagree and think it does, shown by the calcs below:

With a Spike (common scenario)

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 192-226 (45.7 - 53.8%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 174-205 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- 14.8% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery

With Stealth Rock

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 192-226 (45.7 - 53.8%) -- 42.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 174-205 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

No entry hazards

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 192-226 (45.7 - 53.8%) -- 2.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 174-205 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

As shown, 252 Special Defense completely eliminates the possibility of a 2HKO with no entry hazards and with Stealth Rock only as well as minimizing the 2HKO chance after a single layer of Spikes. However, the 160+ spread you suggested still fails to reliably check Choice Specs Gengar, the set that is even more common than Hex and just as good in terms of viability. In regards to Hippowdon doing massive damage to Gengar, you’re right but also miss the idea of check vs counterplay vs counter. In a strictly 1v1 scenario, in which the winner is dictated as a check, then sure, Hippowdon is a check as it will pretty much beat Gengar in a 1v1. However, it is not that great of a counterplay, as it fails to switch into Choice Specs when a Spike is up (considering we’ve got good setters like Gastrodon and Sandy Shocks and removal is ass so it will be up) and gets severely ruined by status sets and fails to reliably check Gengar throughout a game because it is always on the verge of being 2HKOed. With Gengar, you can just switch out! Let's use a scenario:

Gengar is in vs one of Hippowdon’s common teammates that it forces out like Slither Wing, Slowking/Slowbro, or a spinner like Tsareena/Brambleghast. The Hippowdon user will naturally go to Hippowdon seeing as it can tank a hit and retaliate back/switch into a resist. Hippowdon switches in and gets hit by Will-O-Wisp. The Gengar user switches out. Eventually, Gengar will be in a situation where it can nab a KO because of its power, but now that Hippowdon is burned it cannot switch in and will drop to Hex, opening Gengar up more.

My point is that Pokemon doesn’t exist in 1v1s, Gengar will not be whittled down because it will switch out rather than take an Earthquake into a teammate that can because of how weak the move is now and inevitably catch Hippowdon with Will-O-Wisp on the switch and the user can bide their time to eventually get Gengar in again to wallbreak as Hippowdon will be 2HKOed by Hex. Pokemon like Hippowdon, Gastrodon, and Tinkaton can’t just be used to check Gengar, because even the slightest bit of chip from a U-turn or other random attack can turn 3HKOes into 2HKOes. To sum up, Hippowdon needs Maximum Special Defense to be able to switch into Shadow Ball aka fulfill its purpose of a special wall. Additionally, it may switch into Will-O-Wisp expecting a Shadow Ball, stopping Leftovers recovery and weakening its Earthquakes and now gets 2HKOed by Hex. The Gengar user has all of the control, as it gets in with the support of pivots and now the Pokemon you are using to switch into Gengar fails to switch into it, undermining its ability to act as counterplay. The issue with Gengar is that Choice Specs is already difficult to prepare for with its strong Speed tier and amazing coverage, but taking into account the fact a lot of the soft checks to the Choice Specs set get ruined by Will-O-Wisp, Gengar is too strong and too unhealthy to be a part of the metagame any longer. Hopefully I cleared up any questions and I appreciate the response. To avoid clogging up the thread, feel free to join the UU Discord and we can discuss more there if you desire to continue the conversation.

 

[YataGarasu]

Thank you for the response. However, I think you missed some of the messages my post was conveying and I'd like to clarify them. First, at the comment of Hippowdon not needing max Special Defense to handle Gengar, I disagree and think it does, shown by the calcs below:

With a Spike (common scenario)

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 192-226 (45.7 - 53.8%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 174-205 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- 14.8% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery

With Stealth Rock

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 192-226 (45.7 - 53.8%) -- 42.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 174-205 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

No entry hazards

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Hippowdon: 192-226 (45.7 - 53.8%) -- 2.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Hippowdon: 174-205 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

As shown, 252 Special Defense completely eliminates the possibility of a 2HKO with no entry hazards and with Stealth Rock only as well as minimizing the 2HKO chance after a single layer of Spikes. However, the 160+ spread you suggested still fails to reliably check Choice Specs Gengar, the set that is even more common than Hex and just as good in terms of viability. In regards to Hippowdon doing massive damage to Gengar, you’re right but also miss the idea of check vs counterplay vs counter. In a strictly 1v1 scenario, in which the winner is dictated as a check, then sure, Hippowdon is a check as it will pretty much beat Gengar in a 1v1. However, it is not that great of a counterplay, as it fails to switch into Choice Specs when a Spike is up (considering we’ve got good setters like Gastrodon and Sandy Shocks and removal is ass so it will be up) and gets severely ruined by status sets and fails to reliably check Gengar throughout a game because it is always on the verge of being 2HKOed. With Gengar, you can just switch out! Let's use a scenario:

Gengar is in vs one of Hippowdon’s common teammates that it forces out like Slither Wing, Slowking/Slowbro, or a spinner like Tsareena/Brambleghast. The Hippowdon user will naturally go to Hippowdon seeing as it can tank a hit and retaliate back/switch into a resist. Hippowdon switches in and gets hit by Will-O-Wisp. The Gengar user switches out. Eventually, Gengar will be in a situation where it can nab a KO because of its power, but now that Hippowdon is burned it cannot switch in and will drop to Hex, opening Gengar up more.

My point is that Pokemon doesn’t exist in 1v1s, Gengar will not be whittled down because it will switch out rather than take an Earthquake into a teammate that can because of how weak the move is now and inevitably catch Hippowdon with Will-O-Wisp on the switch and the user can bide their time to eventually get Gengar in again to wallbreak as Hippowdon will be 2HKOed by Hex. Pokemon like Hippowdon, Gastrodon, and Tinkaton can’t just be used to check Gengar, because even the slightest bit of chip from a U-turn or other random attack can turn 3HKOes into 2HKOes. To sum up, Hippowdon needs Maximum Special Defense to be able to switch into Shadow Ball aka fulfill its purpose of a special wall. Additionally, it may switch into Will-O-Wisp expecting a Shadow Ball, stopping Leftovers recovery and weakening its Earthquakes and now gets 2HKOed by Hex. The Gengar user has all of the control, as it gets in with the support of pivots and now the Pokemon you are using to switch into Gengar fails to switch into it, undermining its ability to act as counterplay. The issue with Gengar is that Choice Specs is already difficult to prepare for with its strong Speed tier and amazing coverage, but taking into account the fact a lot of the soft checks to the Choice Specs set get ruined by Will-O-Wisp, Gengar is too strong and too unhealthy to be a part of the metagame any longer. Hopefully I cleared up any questions and I appreciate the response. To avoid clogging up the thread, feel free to join the UU Discord and we can discuss more there if you desire to continue the conversation.

Well yeah, I understood that part, but you could argue that Hippo can rely on the rest of the team as well, and generally I would never try to switch in on Gengar, that usually constitutes a counter. Hippo checks Gengar and with EB/HEX sets checks Hippo, it doesn't counter it. Which I can understand a multi-versatile Pokemon being a major issue, but in the same way I ignored chip damage in each calc, Gengar can also be worn down and has to be weary of switching in if forced out in such a situation. Which also gives Hippo multiple chances to slack off in case of burn throughout the battle, where as unless you are running ST for Wish support Gengar has to risk assess when it can appropriately switch in and not be worn down. If it runs Sub doubly so. Protect not so much. Edit: Wish support still risks the switch of getting KO to recieve the healing support.

I'll note this does give Gengar multiple oppertunities to revenge kill but it still has to be careful as again if you have EH up it's being slowly worn down, and can't just switch into any hard hitting non-normal/fighting attacks. So it's still kept under pressure from chip in the same manner is all my intention for argument was.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Well yeah, I understood that part, but you could argue that Hippo can rely on the rest of the team as well, and generally I would never try to switch in on Gengar, that usually constitutes a counter. Hippo checks Gengar and with EB/HEX sets checks Hippo, it doesn't counter it. Which I can understand a multi-versatile Pokemon being a major issue, but in the same way I ignored chip damage in each calc, Gengar can also be worn down and has to be weary of switching in if forced out in such a situation. Which also gives Hippo multiple chances to slack off in case of burn throughout the battle, where as unless you are running ST for Wish support Gengar has to risk assess when it can appropriately switch in and not be worn down. If it runs Sub doubly so. Protect not so much. Edit: Wish support still risks the switch of getting KO to recieve the healing support.

I'll note this does give Gengar multiple oppertunities to revenge kill but it still has to be careful as again if you have EH up it's being slowly worn down, and can't just switch into any hard hitting non-normal/fighting attacks. So it's still kept under pressure from chip in the same manner is all my intention for argument was.

Gengar can usually ctach many things easily, it can switch in on slowking using slack off, orthworm going for body press, quagsire going for recover or toxic, tsareena in general trying to spin or synthesis, be brought in via double switch, or be brought in via pivoting. You can easily bring it in esp with good prediction

Gengar has very good opportunities to come in and even would be counters such as sp. def ttar, tink, hippo, bisharp, grafaiai, and they want nothing to do with wisp gar at all, like it just fucks them over. No way gengar isnt a major issue

 

[YataGarasu]

Gengar can usually ctach many things easily, it can switch in on slowking using slack off, orthworm going for body press, quagsire going for recover or toxic, tsareena in general trying to spin or synthesis, be brought in via double switch, or be brought in via pivoting. You can easily bring it in esp with good prediction

Gengar has very good opportunities to come in and even would be counters such as sp. def ttar, tink, hippo, bisharp, grafaiai, and they want nothing to do with wisp gar at all, like it just fucks them over. No way gengar isnt a major issue

I meant with entry hazards. If you've worn it down to ~60% (EQ hitting for 34~40% of its health in return) after getting hit by hippo EQ exchanging a burn for that EQ hit on tera Ghost to mitigate ~60-70% in said scenario, sandstorm chip + EH chip makes it harder to keep switching in and if you keep forcing it back out, it can't just do it whenever. The player using Gengar in this scenario must be methodical when to use it and when to backrow as win con. If you have wish support you can try to come in on status but if you guess predict it trying to come in and hit it, that ~60% gengar is going to be near KO if not KO'd flatout, and won't be able to switch in on EH again unless running HDB which nullifies specs mass damage.

If you are trying to spin while Gengar is at ~60% health [after earlier encountering hippo and eating an EQ) (less with SS + EH damage around 40%) and Tsareena instead uses U-Turn predicting Gengar coming in on it, it eats a U-Turn for ~22/27% + SS chip and dies. Sure EH are still up but now Tsareena has an easier time RS the hazards and Gengar can not just come back in to continously revenge kill random mons on the opposing players side.

~20% health with EH in play and SS means Gengar can't adequately just come in willy nilly without healing support/set up. This is what I meant when I said EH/Chip damage pressures it, and even if you have to make a sacrifice to do so, but that's how Pokemon battles work all the time. Sometimes you don't get to have your cake and eat it while removing a major or powerful threat.

Edit: The first paragraph implies it's lead Gengar. As it wouldn't have been hit by EH yet after exchanging Will O for EQ. If it's not lead, it's lower than ~60%. Without factoring SS damage. So around ~50% not ~60%. Edit 2: If it's not going to Tera ghost or what not it's even worse off taking a full ~64%-~70%. Which leaves it at 36% which means it has less switch in opportunities again unless running HDB but loosing some of the damage output.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

I meant with entry hazards. If you've worn it down to ~60% (EQ hitting for 34~40% of its health in return) after getting hit by hippo EQ exchanging a burn for that EQ hit on tera Ghost to mitigate ~60-70% in said scenario, sandstorm chip + EH chip makes it harder to keep switching in and if you keep forcing it back out, it can't just do it whenever. The player using Gengar in this scenario must be methodical when to use it and when to backrow as win con. If you have wish support you can try to come in on status but if you guess predict it trying to come in and hit it, that ~60% gengar is going to be near KO if not KO'd flatout, and won't be able to switch in on EH again unless running HDB which nullifies specs mass damage.

If you are trying to spin while Gengar is at ~60% health [after earlier encountering hippo and eating an EQ) (less with SS + EH damage around 40%) and Tsareena instead uses U-Turn predicting Gengar coming in on it, it eats a U-Turn for ~22/27% + SS chip and dies. Sure EH are still up but now Tsareena has an easier time RS the hazards and Gengar can not just come back in to continously revenge kill random mons on the opposing players side.

~20% health with EH in play and SS means Gengar can't adequately just come in willy nilly without healing support/set up. This is what I meant when I said EH/Chip damage pressures it, and even if you have to make a sacrifice to do so, but that's how Pokemon battles work all the time. Sometimes you don't get to have your cake and eat it while removing a major or powerful threat.

Edit: The first paragraph implies it's lead Gengar. As it wouldn't have been hit by EH yet after exchanging Will O for EQ. If it's not lead, it's lower than ~60%. Without factoring SS damage. So around ~50% not ~60%. Edit 2: If it's not going to Tera ghost or what not it's even worse off taking a full ~64%-~70%. Which leaves it at 36% which means it has less switch in opportunities again unless running HDB but loosing some of the damage output.

1) gengar will never ever stay in vs hippo, even if its burnt, and if hippo is burnt it most likely loses to chip gengar, but i doubt any team isnt unable to abuse it

2) Sure u shouldnt go gar every time, but there is plenty of counterplay within the tier such as talon which fuck over tsareena by burning it, if gar is ur counterplay and u have no other pokemon that can pressure it then ur pretty screwed

3) A lead gengar will not will o wisp a hippo, ever lol. Like that is a bad trade, I would rather force something out to get a wisp, spam specs ball, or just NP + ghost tera up

 

[YataGarasu]

1) gengar will never ever stay in vs hippo, even if its burnt, and if hippo is burnt it most likely loses to chip gengar, but i doubt any team isnt unable to abuse it

2) Sure u shouldnt go gar every time, but there is plenty of counterplay within the tier such as talon which fuck over tsareena by burning it, if gar is ur counterplay and u have no other pokemon that can pressure it then ur pretty screwed

3) A lead gengar will not will o wisp a hippo, ever lol. Like that is a bad trade, I would rather force something out to get a wisp, spam specs ball, or just NP + ghost tera up

1) I know it's not staying in. But to burn Hippo coming in not switching in, coming in off revenge kill or lead burn Gengar if Tera-Ghosting in this match has to take 1EQ regardless. That was the original scenario proposed. It switches out, but Hippo is still alive. Hippo can return to heal with Slack off at any point, and even fi Gengar wants to revenge kill the rest of your team it must choose wisely based off of EH + other chip damage points within the match. Otherwise Hippo is not burned and thus hitting far harsher whether it's Tera Ghost or not. That's not really a counter argument to the scenario.

Being burned can still chip Gengar, the same as Hippo can easily help chip Staraptor (or in Raptor's case trade) which has been a personal pain in my rump.

2) If they switch in Tsareena you still get RS off and your clazards cleared and only a 30% assuming FB ability. Then you switch out. Hazards gone Tsareena did it's job.

I'll make it very clear:

I am not saying: Gengar is not a powerful threat.It is. I am not saying you are instantly in the advantage here, Gengar can still be a wincon on backrow for that very reason, however it is not an instant wincon. Unless you have no answer on your team to it, which if you don't then that's a team building issue I would claim in this situation.

What I am saying:
Gengar has a bit of counterplay and 4MSS gives it a slight disadvantage depending on sets There are options to handle it, not guaranteed with some exceptions but if we were to use the team argument you could argue Garganacle or Gholdengo is 100% busted in OU, powerful sure, broken.... I'm hardpressed to agree there. Gengar is not the same thing as Hydreigon in similar stature who was never pressed to switch out, having to switch out on checks means it is indeed not on the same level as it or Bax or even Shellsmashgeist which does have answers but are very specific with little to none counterplay outside of it and can just come in early to stop chip damage KO.

Edit: Oh and if you switch Talonflame in on Tsareena either RS or U-Turning out and it's not burned, I just switch back to Hippo, take a small amount of damage and wall Talon. Then I slack off as you switch out, and now I've literally reset Hippo like I mentioned in my first post about this scenario. At any time you try to switch in Talonflame I can send it back out to wall. I have 7PP of Slack off left, and Burned Hippo loves stallin mons while chipping teams with EH up + SS. Talonflame doesn't like it, sure it can roost, but then I'm forcing you to roost on a burned Hippo. Think about that or I can WW spam your team similar to OU Ting-Lu and start chipping your other non-HDB members since I assume TF is running HDB to prevent EH damage.

Edit 2: Let's not also forget in this scenario Gengar is running Specs. So it has to switch after Will-O anyway. Assuming it's running Trick/Will/Shadow Ball (or Hex) and final slot. This set though is limited to two move coverage, and although Will-O is annoying because of cripple most ghosts can do the same thing. That is not an exceptional Gengar thing, in fact Gengar being far more fragile makes it more risky Edit3: As will-O spammer unlike plenty of other ghosts types. It misses a Will it dies.

Edit4: Missed 3) from your post. Even then I get to SR up as you switch out but then why even lead, and if you're not leading Gengar, I can keep Hippo until later, since it's not burned and threaten Gengar or start Ting Luing your team, and drag Gengar out potentially thus chipping it. In a real match you're not always going to have favorable position with Gengar is the point sure if you assume it always gets favorable position it's broken but in reality and outside of bad theorymon...

 

[gulch]

I just wanna give my thoughts on some mons that I've seen talk about suspecting/quickbanning, either here on the forums or in the UU room :)

The elephant in the room. It has like, four or five viable sets, an amazing speed tier, is super splashable, pretty much everything you could ever want. Now that Hydreigon is gone, SubNP is more viable, and every other set is still doing what it's been doing ever since the little shit dropped. If you genuinely want to argue that Gengar is not at the very least a top 3 pick in UU right now, you're delusional, point blank, period, full stop. However, while I do think some form of tiering action is appropriate, I'm not quite in favor of a quickban as opposed to a suspect. I think that, while they are relatively few and do depend on the set, Gengar's checks do tend to be more consistent than the checks to other noteworthy threats like Maushold and Polteageist. Grafaiai especially, seeing as Tera Dark Psychic isn't very common to my knowledge. Still, I do think Gengar is worth looking at and a suspect test would be appropriate.

However, this fucker is a different story. I made a post about it previously, everything I said there is still true except for the very last part where I said I wanted to wait for the meta to develop and didn't think a quickban would be necessary. I changed my mind. Please for the love of god get this thing out as soon as possible. It's a super effective matchup fish that's just genuinely unfun to play against. As much as I'd love to not give stall players a win, I have to stay consistent with my logic, and like Hydreigon, this thing invalidates entire styles of play by simply existing. Ban, please.

I'm genuinely on the fence about this one. On one hand, burns just immensely fuck it over and not being able to click PopBomb is a huge detriment. Bite is fine against most ghosts in the tier, but does miss some kills without hazards or a Tidy Up. Granted, these are likely scenarios to encounter, but I do still feel that's a fact worth mentioning. I did see mentioned that Tera Fire, both for Tera Blast and immunity to burns, was a thing, and while I haven't encountered it personally, it seems reasonable enough that I'm willing to accept it. Talonflame with higher speed and Will-O is kind of an answer? But if the Maushold in question is running Protect then it's not. Coalossal fucks it over hard, but Coalossal itself is a very niche pick to begin with and you shouldn't have to run it just to beat the mice. There's also the fact that, like Slither Wing and Lokix, anything it can't kill it can often just U-Turn out on, taking away opportunities to wall it and kill it back. Maushold teams also tend to be centered around large scale usage of Knock Off, removing any chances of being hurt by Rocky Helmet. That said, Maushold is not splashable in the slightest, and without several Tidy Up boosts or using PopBomb, it's fairly weak. It also does have a skill floor, requiring a fairly large amount of scouting before you can just bring it out and clean. I think I need more time to decide how I feel about this one.

 

[avarice]

I’ve been anti-Gengar for a while now but I’m gonna give a quick blurb about the other ghost-type with a few mentions recently

Polteageist has been cheesing through teams since Sword and Shield and it can be an annoying mon to find yourself randomly getting bopped by. However, I think it isn’t any more cheesy than it was the last generation. Especially with how the terastal phenomenon works both ways. As far as common one-dimensional sweepers go Lucario is scarier for me since it can get away with a game without needing Tera and gets more setup opportunities than Polteageist for me. Polteageist can often struggle to sweep without Tera even with White Herb given the distribution of priority and Encore users in the tier too. Typically not horrible trying to fit a Pokémon like Grafaiai, Tyranitar, etc when you’re running a passive mon i.e. Gastrodon for Polteageist to set up on. The purely "defensive" counterplay is admittingly rather limited with Polteageist's Ghost/Fighting coverage but it should not be necessary-- we don't tier for specific playstyles (in this case, stall) to have a better standing in the metagame. Sets like Substitute and Tera Dark Polteageist also come with a heavy trade off and isn't ever that practical. As for Psychic Terrain teams with the Teapot, they're pretty gimmicky as a whole and can fall apart against standard breakers before a sweep commences as well. Easier to keep offensive pressure up than do some long route of clearing Terrain into priority move. Don't see this getting banned before Gengar or even Lucario really.

 

[pomfpomfpluff]

I find it pretty interesting that the hit list for many people looks so large at the moment, especially since I feel like the metagame is (mostly) healthy after everything broken got either banned or naturally rose to OU. So I thought that talking about a couple of the mons I've seen people advocate for when it comes to a potential hit list might be a good idea since I have a few strong opinions about them.


So for starters I'll just get the freest mon out of the way first because me and many others have talked about it extensively at this point.

Ban

I'm not gonna bother repeating myself on the things I've already said here so I'll just focus on the new things but this is the TLDR:

It feels like this is the first time I've ever seen someone else put Gengar high on their suspect list, since everyone I've asked always goes with the basic duo + some other filler pick. I could not agree more with the notion that Gengar just completely dumpsters the entire format at the moment and I honestly find it shocking that more people don't parrot this opinion. Maybe it's because it wasn't as suffocating during the Alpha period solely because of how it's two greatest checks, Grafai and Tinkaton were borderline omnipresent during the Alpha because of how they also served as amazing checks to the best mon in the tier, Espathra, who was dumpstering the format at the time. But with these two becoming signifficantly less common I predict that Gengar is going to shine ever brighter than ever before.

Either way the counterplay against this mon is nonexistant thanks to every potential check getting Tricked, Sludge Bomb Poisoned or 2hko'd with a proper prediction. When I use a bulkier team I often find myself having to dedicate two teamslots to pokemon that can check this and even then the matchup is still shaky solely because of how idiot proof Gengar is 9/10. This would be fine is Gengar didn't have any defensive utility to speak of, but that's just not the case since it 4x resists the most reliable form of priority and has 2 immunities, while also being one of the fastest mons in the tier. Maybe it's the stall bias kicking in, but either way I can not wait for Gengar to leave the tier.

One new thing that I've noticed while playing with/against Gengar is that it has the exact same issue as Hydreigon but to a worse degree, where it has like 7 viable sets it can run and guessing wrong essentially means that you're losing one of your checks for the rest of the game. Sub + Wisp can be checked by Blissey but if you switch it into Specs and get tricked you're fucked, Graf and Tink can take most attacking moves but become useless once wisped etc. The previous bans have only summented Gengar as a bigger threat thanks to the opportunities to explore new sets it was afforded.


Anyway with one elephant out of the room comes a 2nd seemingly larger one stampeding in to take it's place.

Here's :clap: :clap: the motherfucking :clap: :clap: tea.

Do Not Ban

I'm extremely unsure about this mon solely because I personally don't find it to be particularly broken by itself, especially since it needs to take up your Tera in order to even remotely break and dies to most forms of revenge killing since it's slow as balls even while running timid (it's 1 point slower than base 100 scarfers), lacks setup opportunities thanks to it's middling defensive typing and stats and dies to most forms of priority. Stored Power not being stab hurts it a lot since that's the move it wants to spam. It's obnoxious but not particularly degenerate.

However if we're talking about it in conjunction with Psychic Terrain then that's a different story, since that makes up for 2 of it's major flaws, aka it's inability to break and the fact that it dies to most forms of priority. It goes from losing the 1v1 vs Blissey to beating it for an example. The issue of it requiring Terastilization to break isn't as big since you're using a teamstyle that can afford to save Tera for it and since you're pairing it with 2 other mons that can easily break early game and clean lategame respectively Polt doesn't need to gain maximum value to get it's job done.

But to me this just seems cheese than anything, especially since it still struggles to find setup and can still get easily revenge killed by scarfers. I've seen many people complain about Armarouge and Hawlucha too and I've never found either to be particularly dangerous outside of terrain either, so therefore I think that if you really wanna hit any of these mons you should just ban Psychic Terrain itself. Not saying that I find the playstyle to be broken or anything (I barely find 1/6 of the members broken), just sayin that if people genuinely find all 3 to be problematic then the playstyle is the bigger issue.

Calcs

It goes from this:
+4 252 SpA Polteageist Stored Power (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey: 505-595 (70.7 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

To this:
+4 252 SpA Polteageist Stored Power (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey in Psychic Terrain: 657-773 (92 - 108.2%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

And also this:
+4 252 SpA Polteageist Stored Power (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Tinkaton: 331-390 (88.5 - 104.2%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO

To this:
+4 252 SpA Polteageist Stored Power (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Tinkaton in Psychic Terrain: 430-506 (114.9 - 135.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The prior sentence also echnoes my opinions on and btw if that wasn't clear enough, I don't find either of them to be particularly banworthy. I'm not gonna go in depth here but TLDR Lucha is weaksauce and any non Unburden set is awful, while Armarouge has offensive and defensive utility on par with Gengar but with less viable sets, Utility and Speed. Both are perfectly fine at the moment.


Ok now back to your regularly sceduled programming.


Possibly suspect worthy

Probably my bias speaking here but this mon is extremely obnoxious to deal with and is the entire reasoning for why I cannot build a team without Tera Ghost Talonflame these days, which says a lot given that even Talonflame can be forced into mindgames against it if it's chipped enough. To me this mon is exactly as broken as the Polteageist haters seem to think that Polteageist is, especially since it requires half as much team support, has even less checks and has utility outside of being a lategame sweeper. Many of the Lucario's checks (Mainly the afforementioned Talonflame and the Slowtwins) are often tasked with dealing with other Physical Attackers and can therefore be effectively chipped into E Speed range or lured easily by mons they'd usually check or by an alternative Lucario set (I've seen people use Crunch which honestly makes me cringe).

This mon is definitely the 2nd most banworthy mon but I'm still not 100% sold on it yet. It still has defensive counterplay, can still be revenge killed, needs Tera to effectively sweep and can struggle with finding setup opportunities. It's a solid mon but definitely not even close to as broken as the other mons we've Quickbanned, so therefore I think waiting until after Gengar gets banned and suspecting it afterward is definitely the best course of action atm.


Do Not Ban

I'd personally put this thing in B+ tier right now since I'm just not a big fan of it. This mon is only offensively threatening if your opponent doesn't have a single Rocky Helmet or Flame Body mon on their team and can only sweep if your opponent has 0 priority. Tidy Up is an awful setup move since it cleanses your own Hazards but this mon is such a non threat without it that you're kinda stuck with it, especially since it can't reliably break with anything other than Wide Lens.

As you can tell I hate this mon solely for the fact that it's awful, I still remember when I tried this thing on an HO team and used population bomb on an incoming Orthworm only to them do 50% and die from Rocky Helmet recoil. I have not used this thing since and have only seen it used against me once after that.


Do Not Ban

If I were to put every mon on a list to measure which mons I find the most broken this thing would definitely be in 3rd place as the only other mon I think should even remotely be banned or tested, which speaks volumes to how fair this tier is overall. The only suffocating thing about this is that First Impression is suffocating vs offense but even that has counterplay. It 2hkos like the entire metagame with CB (aka the only set worth a damn) outside of Bulky Mence but also has an awful typing and low speed to go along with it, alongside having Stabs that are extremely exploitable atm. I could see SW maybe becoming an issue after Gengar gets banned but even that's kinda stretching it a bit.


Do Not Ban

When are we gonna stop pretending like DD is actually a particularly dangerous set? It's not hard to defensively check, it has terrible defensive utility, needs Tera to actually be effective etc. That's literally just all of the issues Iron Thorns has except it's also easy to wall, Tar is completely fine atm. The only thing I could possibly see changing for Tar is CB becoming more common after Gar gets banned which might push it over the edge (bdum tssk), but atm it's just ok.


Don't Care

Rain is moreso obnoxious if anything and makes building offensive teams a pain because you need to use a Rain check. It's a very constraining and annoying playstyle but it's extremely easy to counterteam and loses against pretty much any Balance/Semi Stall/Stall build ever. My own teams would not be affected by this teamstyles removal whatsoever but I can see why people find it obnoxious.

Also Rain has gotten a bit of a resurgence in OU so it might just naturally rise (it's currently at the threshold with 5% usage according to Pikalytics) so we'll just have to wait and see.


Either way that's it for the takes I have on these mons. I'd vote ban on each and everyone of them in a heartbeat, so giving my honest thoughts about what I think about them is kinda pointless. But I'm bored and felt like making a post about something since I haven't posted on this page yet.

 

[TyCarter]

Since everyone is talking about potential bans, suspect-worthy threats and what not, I wanted to share a thought that I mentioned in PIA discord and you can consider it food for thought. pokemonisfun has talked about a fair bit how broken is, and other threats like Weak Armor and are. After giving it some serious thought, perhaps the main culprit here is Psychic Terrain itself or rather Terrain Extender in particular especially since those 3 are notoriously good at abusing this.

While you may be able to handle one abuser, handling multiple threats within 1 session of Psychic Terrain in addition to the number of abusers it can enable over the course of a match may be asking a lot. Most defensive teams more or less can not really handle both Hawlucha and Polteageist under Psychic Terrain. Hawlucha has a field day with taunt and if you wanted to, you could even run no speed investment if you wanted to and have some bulk thrown in since Unburden makes it so fast it will outspeed every relevant scarfer at no investment.

Polteageist under psychic terrain basically gets to negate Priority since that's usually one of its main forms of counterplay. Yet outside of terrain, Polteageist basically has to work for its sweep more or less, and is a much more limited Pokemon. This does not include the numerous other abusers such as Oricorio, a fair share of DD Users, Cloyster etc. that can benefit even more from getting effectively 7-8 turns of Psychic Terrain to work with. Realistically, any competent player should be able to get psychic terrain up twice at minimum per match so it's really 14-16+ turns of psychic terrain to work with over the course of a game and plenty of opportunities to get screens up and set up relatively safely among other things and even 7 consecutive turns alone can be devastating enough. If terrain extender was taken out of the equation, you basically have 4 turns each time for your abusers to get work done. (so like 8+ turns each game and less room for error)

I personally believe either Terrain Extender should at least be looked at/considered for a suspect/ban. The Drewvitational that is ongoing right now has clearly shown us just how well psychic terrain teams can work and it puts a heavy constraint on team building as a whole.

Some Drewvitational Replays showcasing Psychic Terrain

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-668865
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1773402976-m2og3b9p7gf7cikwmeiycq8mxg7liaipw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-668842
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-669165

Generally, even 1 duration of extended terrain in some of these matches were enough to basically seal the deal depending on how vulnerable teams are and the limited amount of viable Ice Spinner/Defog users in UU currently does not help matters either. A fair share of teams had to make multiple sacs just to contain 1 of these threats due to the terrain being active and then lacks the manpower to actually handle the remaining sweepers on the team and these teams usually have 2-3 sweepers at minimum.

Ironically, one of the better ways to combat psychic terrain/terrain extender teams is with Rain given the primary abusers of Rain happen to be fast enough to overcome Hawlucha and/or can at least overwhelm psychic terrain teams and limit sweeping opportunities although Rain is a whole separate matter that I'll talk about some other time. If terrain extender was gone, I think it would at least ease up teambuilding and make psychic terrain far more manageable although I honestly could see Psychic Terrain being booted too if it came to that. This is just my two cents.

TLDR: I think something like Polteageist isn't broken on its own but Psychic Terrain Teams allows mons that normally would not overwhelm many team structures to do just that and if it was neutered/removed from UU some (realistically Hawlucha is still pretty busted regardless) potential mons people have discussed as suspect/ban-worthy threats would be far more manageable/less constraining to handle in builder and in battle.

Also, it's 1AM in the morning so cut me some slack please and thank you (maybe)

Edit: Also not the best choice of words when I originally wrote this as kind of a shower thought although Moute brought up a valid point and in my defense, I actually did show one of the better ways to go about handling it, maybe "devastating" was not the word I was looking for when describing it although I am still of the thought that it is pretty constraining to build against it.

 

[Moutemoute]

Alright so I'm kinda in the rush so I'll not talk about the whole post complaining about Psychic Terrain / Terrain Extender being an issue since I personally do not believe those are problematic whatsoever. This playstyle like most HO can be dismantle if your opponent is playing with at least 2 brain cells (like you'll be able to see in this post). However I would like to comment the replays which have been shared since they are supposed to show "how devastating" Psychic Terrain based HO are.

MichaelderBeste2 vs. Indigo Plateau : The opponent of IP sent Quagsire in order to deal with Hawlucha which is a bad play in every common world since almost all Hawlucha currently run Taunt as their last filler move. Even without this rare Tera Grass Hawlucha that IP played, Quagsire wasn't going to beat that Hawlucha in the 1v1. The opponent also made a mistake by switching out its +1 Atk/Def Hariyama. When you're playing vs a HO, you must be agressive in your plays to prevent the opponent to setup. Overall Psychic Terrain did nothing the whole game and it was just a final sweep of Polteageist vs a really damn slow and passive team, pretty logic ending.

Sulo vs. Redgoop115 : Weird game tbh and once again I failed to see where is the problematic part with Psychic Terrain. Sulo stalled out pretty effectively Polteageist but also the Psychic Terrain overall, even tho their team didn't have any answer to handle a Polteageist after a turn of setup. Fortunately for them, their non-Prankster Grafaiai was able to Toxic Polteageist which allowed them to stall it out. Also, like they said in the end, they messed up a bit. Psychic Terrain helps the opponent to be more effective for sure but this wasn't over the top.

WunderTusk vs. Finchinator : Once again, weird game. The opponent of Finch used Sucker Punch under Psychic Terrain. This doesn't mean Psychic Terrain is broken but only shows Finch's opponent didn't know / remember how Psychic Terrain works (or maybe they were trying to stall a couple of turns of it). Hawlucha (which some people tend to cry about) got absolutely blasted by Bisharp thanks to Tera Fire. It's something which happen a lot when you're using this Pokémon (source : I used it). On turn 15, they used Iron Head on Oricorio-Pom-Pom when there wasn't any resistance to Dragon-type STAB. Once again, I don't think Finch won because of Psychic Terrain but because he was better than his opponent.

Moutemoute vs. lax : First of all, I was quite baffled to see my replay vs lax being used to advocate for Psychic Terrain / Terrain Extender being too strong when it doesn't do shit in this game. I'm trully and honestly willing to understand where in this match Psychic Terrain can be considered over the top ? lax stalled it out pretty effectively and in the end it was only a lucky sweep of Pom-Pom because I got two lucky 30% Air Slash flinches in a row. Hawlucha got blasted once again by a Bisharp (did you said déjà-vu ?) and Polteageist wasn't able to bypass lax's team and he didn't even used Bisharp priority to deal with it, just meticulous plays to play around it.