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Gen 6 ORAS NU Discussion
- Thread starter Rabia
- Start date
Alright time for a NUFL post, I'll give the teams I used in this tournament with a brief description and some thoughts on the tier. For some context, before this tour started, I basically knew nothing about this tier despite the few games I played ages ago. I always liked ORAS RU so I figured NU would probably be a tier I could enjoy so I signed up on a whim and Teh and Todd were crazy enough to draft me as a starter (love you guys) and I ended up with a 5-2 record only losing to Ruffles so I'm pretty happy with that.
Week 1 -
Alright so for the first week I was playing feen and I decided to go with a team centered around Samurott. I added an hazard stacking core and some offensive pressure with speed control. I would not recommend this team in the end because it has a very unreliable matchup into tier staples like Scarf Mesprit and struggles to switch in against any Ground-type coverage from the likes of Steelix or Archeops. I ended up winning my game thanks to some lucky interactions in the early game and feen not really caring about the w.
Week 2 -
So despite my first team being my least favorite of the whole tournament, this week 2 team is probably my favorite. I wanted to use Kangaskhan because double priority looked very strong in the tier and I paired it with Scarf Primeape which can take advantage of its partner's breaking potential. The other unconventional set I use is bulky Mesprit which just has crazy chemistry with Steelix and Lanturn and brings great support to the offensive core with a slow pivot, Knock Off and Healing Wish for Kangaskhan. This set (and core) worked great in every game I played and Mesprit always managed to force consistent progress throughout the games. I rounded up the team with a Psychic immunity, removal and special offense in Skuntank. The team worked great against LessThanThreeMan, mostly because Primeape had an insanely good matchup. This Pokemon is definitely not C+ and deserves around B+ in my book. Xatu and Vileplume being everywhere prevent it from being above this but other Poisons and Flying are quite easy to wear down which makes it a great cleaner coupled to it being one of the fastest Choice Scarf user in the tier.
Week 3 -
This week I wanted to use a setup sweeper and I ended up building around Klinklang because I saw a few games with it in NUPL and I liked how it owns common walls like Vileplume or the other Poisons. I then built a defensive core able to put Klinklang's check in range of its attacks. I used Gourgeist because I really wanted a Pokemon able to switch into Rhydon (and ORAS NU doesn't have a lot of these) with Rock Slide to lure in and heavily damage Fire-types like Magmortar and Pyroar which are a pain for Klinklang. I then paired it with specially bulky Audino with Knock Off to weaken Steelix and offer Wish support for Mesprit and Skuntank aka what is starting to become one of my favorite utility cores. Mesprit has Ice Beam primarily to annoy Steelix and Xatu. Tauros rounds up the team by offering some speed control and breaking potential to ease Klinklang's job. The game ended up being decided on a bunch of speed ties which was a bit frustrating but I still think this team is very good.
Week 4 -
The scout showed a clear lack of good Ice resistances so I went with a Jynx build. You can probably start to see a pattern here but I then created a defensive core to support it. Lanturn works great to safely switch Jynx in against key targets like Vileplume and Hariyama and pairs well with Weezing which patches my Ground coverage concerns in this tier by checking mons like Rhydon and Piloswine. Ferroseed brings hazard support and some healing for the rest of the core. Hitmonchan is here for removal and physical pressure and Rotom brings speed control, additional pivot and special cleaning potential. I ended up getting a pretty bad matchup but Hitmonchan clutched it up in the end. I think Ferroseed in this Xatu meta is very hard to use but on the other hand Weezing is pretty great because it spreads status very easily which makes a ton of matchup a lot easier.
Week 5 -
For week 5, I had a great SubTox Mantine team prepared which would have had a good matchup but at this point I wanted to use something a bit more fun. Floatzel looked great on paper as this speedy Samurott so I tried it out and it worked very well. I wanted hazard support that could forever pressure Xatu which is how I ended up with this Shadow Ball Metang. I think this Pokemon has a fine niche in the tier since it basically walls Mesprit and Jynx while being a potent hazard setter. Rotom is here to cover the Grounds and add more chip damages. Hitmonchan and Lanturn help with the Pyroar/Magmortar matchup while adding removal and more pivot. I got a HORRIBLE matchup but somehow found a path to victory by pressuring Gastrodon and putting Floatzel in a position where it could clean.
Semi-finals -
I went with the same call as week 4 here by using Choice Scarf Abomasnow. The team is pretty standard otherwise except maybe that Liepard set that I felt like I needed to cover cheesy sets. I got a good matchup but the game ended up being pretty difficult because the team lacks physical pressure and struggled to break past Clefairy.
Finals -
For the runback on Ruffles I wanted to come back to staples while keeping comfort picks and eventually adding some sauce. That's how I ended up with this Leafeon Primeape team which is not a new core at all but was a great fit considering my view on the tier. Primeape is a great cleaner and Leafeon can basically break through any Pokemon that can be a problem for it. The rest of the team is pretty standard. The matchup was definitely okish (despite 4 mons preventing Primeape from clicking Close Combat...) but I missplayed my Magmortar, probably because I didn't get enough prep with the Pokemon, which ended up meaning my Leafeon couldn't really do the job and the team kinda fell apart from there. I truly think Leafeon is a good Pokemon but it's quite difficult to line it up well or switch it in because most defensive staples have coverage that can hit it sufficiently damage it to put it in any prio move range.
I enjoyed this tournament immensely and a big part of it is because ORAS NU is a just a great tier in my opinion, well balanced with room for some originality. Bulky offense is definitely the prime archetype because basically every Pokemon has a way to apply pressure and not be passive which makes for pretty dynamic games without allowing cheese to roam free aka the perfect mix. The few takes I have on the tier would be that Mesprit's non Choice-locked sets are criminally underused. Rhydon and Piloswine are borderline impossible to reliably check while being very bulky unlike other Pokemon barely impossible to check that are more manageable thanks to being squishy like Tauros and Archeops. Hitmonchan is absolutely top tier because it fits in countless structures with its AV and LO sets and always manages to do good. Linked to the previous point but removal is dire in this tier, Skuntank and Hitmonchan are the most splashable options with Xatu but the rest is pretty bad since Mantine and Pelipper are not bulky enough to consistently removed rocks due to being weak to them + Shiftry and Kabutops really don't want to be clicking Defog and Rapid Spin.
Anyway I look forward to playing this tier more in future NU tournaments and will conclude this post with shout-outs to the people who helped me prep and contributed to this tournament being so fun for me; huge thanks to you guys Cao Jie, Oathkeeper, quziel, @LastBastiodon (idk their smogon tag but absolute goat).
Week 1 -
Alright so for the first week I was playing feen and I decided to go with a team centered around Samurott. I added an hazard stacking core and some offensive pressure with speed control. I would not recommend this team in the end because it has a very unreliable matchup into tier staples like Scarf Mesprit and struggles to switch in against any Ground-type coverage from the likes of Steelix or Archeops. I ended up winning my game thanks to some lucky interactions in the early game and feen not really caring about the w.
Week 2 -
So despite my first team being my least favorite of the whole tournament, this week 2 team is probably my favorite. I wanted to use Kangaskhan because double priority looked very strong in the tier and I paired it with Scarf Primeape which can take advantage of its partner's breaking potential. The other unconventional set I use is bulky Mesprit which just has crazy chemistry with Steelix and Lanturn and brings great support to the offensive core with a slow pivot, Knock Off and Healing Wish for Kangaskhan. This set (and core) worked great in every game I played and Mesprit always managed to force consistent progress throughout the games. I rounded up the team with a Psychic immunity, removal and special offense in Skuntank. The team worked great against LessThanThreeMan, mostly because Primeape had an insanely good matchup. This Pokemon is definitely not C+ and deserves around B+ in my book. Xatu and Vileplume being everywhere prevent it from being above this but other Poisons and Flying are quite easy to wear down which makes it a great cleaner coupled to it being one of the fastest Choice Scarf user in the tier.
Week 3 -
This week I wanted to use a setup sweeper and I ended up building around Klinklang because I saw a few games with it in NUPL and I liked how it owns common walls like Vileplume or the other Poisons. I then built a defensive core able to put Klinklang's check in range of its attacks. I used Gourgeist because I really wanted a Pokemon able to switch into Rhydon (and ORAS NU doesn't have a lot of these) with Rock Slide to lure in and heavily damage Fire-types like Magmortar and Pyroar which are a pain for Klinklang. I then paired it with specially bulky Audino with Knock Off to weaken Steelix and offer Wish support for Mesprit and Skuntank aka what is starting to become one of my favorite utility cores. Mesprit has Ice Beam primarily to annoy Steelix and Xatu. Tauros rounds up the team by offering some speed control and breaking potential to ease Klinklang's job. The game ended up being decided on a bunch of speed ties which was a bit frustrating but I still think this team is very good.
Week 4 -
The scout showed a clear lack of good Ice resistances so I went with a Jynx build. You can probably start to see a pattern here but I then created a defensive core to support it. Lanturn works great to safely switch Jynx in against key targets like Vileplume and Hariyama and pairs well with Weezing which patches my Ground coverage concerns in this tier by checking mons like Rhydon and Piloswine. Ferroseed brings hazard support and some healing for the rest of the core. Hitmonchan is here for removal and physical pressure and Rotom brings speed control, additional pivot and special cleaning potential. I ended up getting a pretty bad matchup but Hitmonchan clutched it up in the end. I think Ferroseed in this Xatu meta is very hard to use but on the other hand Weezing is pretty great because it spreads status very easily which makes a ton of matchup a lot easier.
Week 5 -
For week 5, I had a great SubTox Mantine team prepared which would have had a good matchup but at this point I wanted to use something a bit more fun. Floatzel looked great on paper as this speedy Samurott so I tried it out and it worked very well. I wanted hazard support that could forever pressure Xatu which is how I ended up with this Shadow Ball Metang. I think this Pokemon has a fine niche in the tier since it basically walls Mesprit and Jynx while being a potent hazard setter. Rotom is here to cover the Grounds and add more chip damages. Hitmonchan and Lanturn help with the Pyroar/Magmortar matchup while adding removal and more pivot. I got a HORRIBLE matchup but somehow found a path to victory by pressuring Gastrodon and putting Floatzel in a position where it could clean.
Semi-finals -
I went with the same call as week 4 here by using Choice Scarf Abomasnow. The team is pretty standard otherwise except maybe that Liepard set that I felt like I needed to cover cheesy sets. I got a good matchup but the game ended up being pretty difficult because the team lacks physical pressure and struggled to break past Clefairy.
Finals -
For the runback on Ruffles I wanted to come back to staples while keeping comfort picks and eventually adding some sauce. That's how I ended up with this Leafeon Primeape team which is not a new core at all but was a great fit considering my view on the tier. Primeape is a great cleaner and Leafeon can basically break through any Pokemon that can be a problem for it. The rest of the team is pretty standard. The matchup was definitely okish (despite 4 mons preventing Primeape from clicking Close Combat...) but I missplayed my Magmortar, probably because I didn't get enough prep with the Pokemon, which ended up meaning my Leafeon couldn't really do the job and the team kinda fell apart from there. I truly think Leafeon is a good Pokemon but it's quite difficult to line it up well or switch it in because most defensive staples have coverage that can hit it sufficiently damage it to put it in any prio move range.
I enjoyed this tournament immensely and a big part of it is because ORAS NU is a just a great tier in my opinion, well balanced with room for some originality. Bulky offense is definitely the prime archetype because basically every Pokemon has a way to apply pressure and not be passive which makes for pretty dynamic games without allowing cheese to roam free aka the perfect mix. The few takes I have on the tier would be that Mesprit's non Choice-locked sets are criminally underused. Rhydon and Piloswine are borderline impossible to reliably check while being very bulky unlike other Pokemon barely impossible to check that are more manageable thanks to being squishy like Tauros and Archeops. Hitmonchan is absolutely top tier because it fits in countless structures with its AV and LO sets and always manages to do good. Linked to the previous point but removal is dire in this tier, Skuntank and Hitmonchan are the most splashable options with Xatu but the rest is pretty bad since Mantine and Pelipper are not bulky enough to consistently removed rocks due to being weak to them + Shiftry and Kabutops really don't want to be clicking Defog and Rapid Spin.
Anyway I look forward to playing this tier more in future NU tournaments and will conclude this post with shout-outs to the people who helped me prep and contributed to this tournament being so fun for me; huge thanks to you guys Cao Jie, Oathkeeper, quziel, @LastBastiodon (idk their smogon tag but absolute goat).
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