Metagame ORAS RU - A comprehensive look at RUBL

[feen]

Hi everyone,

I was looking through the teambuilder and noticed that we have quite a good size of RUBL mons that may or may not be broken for the current meta of ORAS RU:






















I did ask this in #oras-ru in RU discord and a handful of the prominent RUPL players and veterans supported unbanning some of the Pokemon.

The goal of this thread is to discuss and pinpoint at most 3 Pokemon that might be worth suspect testing to be unbanned. It seems to me that unlike the Talonflame suspect test of SM RU, people want to see a change in the ORAS RU metagame.

Here are few of the Pokemon that may be worthwhile to look at (courtesy of the people commenting in the discord):

Shuckle
Steelix-Mega
Tyrantrum
Noivern
Yanmega
Honchkrow
Dragalge
Abomasnow-Mega

Please give your thoughts of this, I will eventually make a survey after discussions here and we will move forward if possible.

Tagging prominent ORAS RU players (ignore if you're uninterested or just say smth like "I am okay with the status quo"):
EviGaro Feliburn lighthouses Denial DugZa Chaitanya Killintime Master Chief MZ Xiri Windsong Ruffles Ajna Miyami~~~ GoldCat MrAldo neomon fran17 Real FV13 Floss Santu eifo

 

[Ruffles]

& the rest of RUBL
To me, these mons are a big no. They are all high BST mons that will absolutely warp the tier, and with cleric and wish being common, i can imagine them being very hard to outlast or get rid of.


These mons are borderline. Honchkrow is gonna be an insanely strong pursuiter, noivern superfang + roost + taunt sounds hard to deal with, and sharpedo super fang/taunt + 2 (or 3) attacks can be difficult as well. They are all concerning, but I would be lying if I say they would be devastating.


I can see these mons dropping. Dragalge offers strong offensive power, and/or tspikes. Tspikes feel really useless in the tier thanks to Venusaur, and the omnipresence of Registeel/Slowking makes me think the offensive side can be handled. Plus, it would be nice to gain a good venusaur switchin that is immune to poison. Yanmega I cannot see being that useful except against offense. Double weak to rocks, completely walled by registeel, and no throat spray this gen to boost. Shuckle on the other hand doesn't provide much outside of Sticky Web which shouldn't shake up the tier at all.


Alternatively; not doing anything is a completely valid option as I actually think this tier is quite fun / consistent, and feels like in the past year we've had some new developments that seems promising to me for the future.

 

[lighthouses]

Just to reiterate my points from our discord convo into the thread i believe keeping the tier as is to be a very plausible option, the metagame is balanced and i dont believe in changing things up to 'add interest to the tier' and things like that, the meta should be the best it can be and then people play it if they like it.

My other point was that, if we were to unban things, then it should be with clear purpose and not just adding more threats into the tier that could create more chaos without contributing to balance, the playerbase is small and the meta is only pushed foward for real once a year in rupl, breaking the tier would likely take years to fix if a fix even happens.

So to that end we should focus on the only obvious possible issue with oras which is the omnipresence with venusaur, this had arguably already been addressed by the playerbases new interest in offenses centered around omastar/barb and other setup sweepers that seek to take advantage of the mandatory sneasel/scarf draps on teams as psychic/ghost checks. Like the very popular evi ho and some other teams that were used recently, i even built an offense for evi to use in rupl semis centered around this concept with cm meloetta + omastar. All of this to say that building teams that are (somewhat)venusaur proof is completely doable as is and it being the best pokemon in the tier does not necessarily implicate a tiering issue.

In addition if i were to entertain any drops it would be with this venusaur aspect in mind, which is why i suggested dragalge and noivern to be considered as well as possibly moltres but quite iffy on it. Noivern has clear weaknesses in the fact that despite it threatening venusaur out(which i consider a positive) it cant really be switching into sludge bomb like that, and at the moment the only truly good removal option is flygon, which would lead to obvious teambuilding hurdles when using noiv. I imagine it being used on hard offense as a taunt mon which i can see being too much to deal with for sure.

Dragalge is another option for an actual offensive switch in into venusaur that would still not enjoy switching into a leech seed for example, but right now there is a lack of truly great offensive switch ins into venusaur which is part of the reason its so good, we currently have escav and sigil and both have its negatives(sigil possibly needing to roost after sludge into trapped or taking a knock while escav is much safer but venu can run hp fire). I think specs dragalge could potentially be adapted to bc fat teams have no shortage of good protect mons and pivots but once again i totally can see this being too much.

Whatever is done i encourage holding some suspect tournaments and using them to gauge interest on this, if interest in those is low then i suggest we keep the tier as is, it is completely balanced at present and even the mons i suggested are so borderline that i would not feel comfortable freeing them without playing in a meta with them first. I dont believe a single mon in that banlist is safe enough to drop without playing first even and i dont believe the small playerbase for this tier would be able to adapt fast enough to multiple unbans nor do i think there would be enough active and continuous tiering on oras ru to justify such a move, it being an old gen and all

Thats all i love this tier its a good one if you actually try it please be careful with it :(

 

[neomon]

It would be interesting to know how things like shuckle sableye and shaymin got banned in the first place. I wasnt around for CG Oras so i dont know and am not entirely sure how to judge it
On a surface level Shuckle, and dragalge look like positive additions, the rest im not so sure about, maybe as ruffles said, yanmega aswell or well, sableye and noivern can be fine too i guess but maybe there is Some technology that i dont know that made them banworthy

Other than that i think the other stuff looks ridiculous to deal with

 

[Miyami~~~]

apologies in advance if this post is somewhat nonsensical I'm on very little sleep

So first off, I'm gonna preface this by saying that I don't think this is a good idea. There's been a pretty big deal of innovation from the people who actually play oras beyond a surface "I'll do it for teamtours" level that's been wonderful to see. As some of you know, I'm a very big proponent of oras not being solved and people are just lazy, and I think people wanting unbans just to "shake up the tier" are pretty fundamentally in the wrong. Do more!

Anyways, gonna give my thoughts on some of these guys and why basically none of them should come back

Spoiler

Let's start with one that would probably be genuinely bad, and the only one I'm really unopposed to. Offense is currently in a very good spot in the tier, but actual sticky web offense is nowhere to be seen. Smeargle, our current best/only webber, is unranked for good reason. Unfortunately, Shuckle doesn't actually add much off of smeargle despite looking like it. While its bulk means it doesn't have to run focus sash and can therefore run stuff like mental herb to improve its offense matchup, or like, lefties? I guess. I dunno what this mon wants to do it's bad, its main problem is just awful matchups into our various removers. You can land a toxic on flygon, but it still defogs for free without a single thing shuckle can do, and Xatu is immune to basically anything you do. Hitmonlee would take a bit of a hit as offense's current go-to remover, but that doesn't change shuckle being a suicide lead that fails to leave you in a good spot vs the two best removers in the tier, and pivots to like, scarf defog flygon offenses over stuff like evi ho would be fairly simple. Webs also doesn't seem good in this tier outside of trying to anti-offense, with most balances (incorrectly, imo, but still) forgoing speed control outside of max speed flygon, which conveniently doesn't care about webs at all, in favour of just being fat. I think webs would still struggle with a lot of abysmal matchups in the tier, although I guess it'd be a little better than before?


No.

This is the most centralizing defensive presence to ever touch oras ru. worse than mola, worse than venusaur, etc. If you think the tier is stale or solved or whatever now, you really haven't seen anything yet. Take Registeel, give it a volt immunity (and, in the interest of fairness, a scald weakness), make it even fatter and immune to knock off, and add a high enough attack stat to 3hko venusaur uninvested with heavy slam and you have mega steelix. This mon didn't even need set variety or anything to be banned last time, it just ran the same four moves and identical EVs everywhere, and absolutely nothing has changed since it was last here to make it any less constraining on the tier.


was barely kept in check by mega lix, and while regi can take a couple scarfed head smashes, literally nothing else can take a scarfed head smash, let alone a banded one, not even the current bulky flygon spread, and it has the coverage in outrage/eq/superpower to blow away anything on a read anyways. We do have a lot of fighters, but even our bulkiest ones (Scrafty, Yama) just kind of get 3hkoed by scarf and 2hkoed by band. Hope you like using poliwrath!


Honestly I think this mon is just dumb as hell in gen 6 since it's primarily a hurricane bot and gen 5/6 hurricane is probably the most high variancy move in the franchise and the tier cannot remotely benefit from that, but I guess it's objectively less broken than the others. Send in regi/diancie or die sounds supremely unfun though, and I think noivern would probably be too good into offense, which leads me to...

()
Do you like offense being good in the tier right now? Do you hate The Core? Would you like nothing but The Core to ever be good again? Then unban these guys. Similar to above, yanmega forces an extremely predictable "just throw in a steel/diancie" gameplay loop that is fairly easily exploitable, but the real problem is that offense cannot beat them. Our priority options in this tier are quite dire, and both of these have the power, coverage, and access to speed boost to make them some of the best offense killers the tier has ever seen. They're also much harder to check defensively than you'd think, since shark can viably run mixed and yanmega mandating you keep your steel/dian at full health so spikes can't wear it down. I think they're just too strong and would fundamentally reshape the tier into something worse.


I could maybe see this, since it's not too dissimilar to Absol, who is kind of bad right now, and when it was here we were also dealing with the much stronger shaymin and slurpuff, who dropped at the same time iirc. Its main advantage over Absol is brave bird, which would certainly help it break past mons like tisse or granbull, but I'd really have to see it in action. It does have similar coverage to Absol as well, with access to superpower for steels and even steel wing for diancie if you want to be funny. I think Moxie really could push it over the edge even if it is sucker reliant, but I'd really have to see it in action. I would lean towards not freeing it long-term, though.

It would be interesting to know how things like shuckle sableye and shaymin got banned in the first place. I wasnt around for CG Oras so i dont know and am not entirely sure how to judge it
On a surface level Shuckle, and dragalge look like positive additions, the rest im not so sure about, maybe as ruffles said, yanmega aswell

seed flare + earth power shaymin broke the tier so badly we were running miltank, hope this helps

In short, I don't think we need to do anything, and agree fully with lighthouses, rufflespro, and anyone else who might post that I suspect has similar thoughts. "To drum up interest" or "to change the tier" aren't good reasons for unbans, especially when the metagame is moving on its own as we speak. If you absolutely, categorically want to do anything:

- Shuckle might just be bad
- Froslass could be worse than glalie long term but oras dbond is extremely stupid and not something I want in the tier
- Noivern and Yanmega probably kill offense too hard on top of those fun 30%s we all know and love
- Honchkrow could be fine but I don't really think the tier needs any change so I don't really care enough to look at it
- everything else is either way too broken or would completely restructure a tier with a very low playerbase, which is actively bad

 

[LBN]

Considering I've played ORAS a ton (less so in team tours but a ton of classics, ROA tours etc) and perform well in them so I'll share some primary thoughts on some of these options.

Do Not Unban These God

This is what I call the "Fuck No" tier. All of these are unholy abominations that shouldnt be ever entertained besides MAYBE Moltres. Kyurem is immortal, strong as hell and dunks on basically every paste in the history of ORAS. Zoroark would be insufferable and the people talking about Diancie forget that thing is absurdly easy to abuse if you want to between knock hazards and yolo HP Steels. Same applies for Mega Houndoom but add an even dumber speed tier. Kingdra would just be goofy. Sub focus energy, sub dd, rain dance, the list continues. It'd be too much. Moltres is a pokemon that, whenever it doesnt have to hit hurricanes will ALWAYS find a way. It doesn't have to hit hurricanes here, tier is far slower so stuff like SubTox is absurd into any team without a diancie and idk about you all but mandatory diancie does not sound like my idea of fun. Hard Pass. Pangoro would be an obscene breaker with disgusting power, silly substitute sets pmuch everything would be too much. I love tyrantrum; keep it locked up I promise yall this shit wouldn't be acceptable. Didn't we have doublade with this shit and it was still stupid? M-Steelix was like literally it and other picks like Torterra or Registeel that could handle head smash struggled with other clicks. Idt this one should be seriously considered.

Real Considerations

For better or for worse, this would change very little. The main hazard deterrences are Flygon, Xatu and then more fringe stuff like Golbat, Blastoise and Hitmonlee. For the most part though its the former 2. It's completely helpless to Xatu, and Flygon being immune to webs makes it so traditional "just be faster" approach isnt great, though webs -> braviary block might be a little too easy of a route. That said, the other issue is most teams dont care about webs that much and those that do can adapt. I think its quite a safe unban since honestly I don't think it'd even be that good, but the issue is how do you sell it? What actual problems does shuckle solve? Sure, its very likely not broken; banned back in ORAS Beta with kyurem and other HO goons still legal but its reintroduction is a small breath of life into HO and reviving webs as a playstyle. Beyond that, its impact doesn't rlly exist.

Now THIS, THIS is a real Pokemon. Back when it got banned, it was done in a really weird duo-suspect test with Tyrantrum where suspect week 1 was ttrum and then week 2 was this or some nonsense- either way it got banished. What it did before was be almost undoubtedly the best mon. Now though, I think it'd be an excellent but not broken mon. Sure, parterning with Alo + cleric; like Alo + Granbull or Alo + Diancie would make it really fat, but these cores have direct issues. No removal, struggles into Venusaur and other breakers like SD Gallade or Virizion. I think its reintroduction would be a shakeup, but not something adaptations couldn't handle like SD Torterra (already a good mon btw). The discussions of it "reshaping the tier" are not that big of a deal; look at ADV UU Arcanine. It dropped and it took a comfortable top 3 position in the tier; but the playerbase saw what it brought; soft scyther check, a fire type that doesnt suck ass and espeed utility and came to adore it. A mon restructuring a lower tier isnt a reason to not unban something; the playerbase will adapt and those dedicated will make it work.

Now dragalge would be interesting. A new member of the anti-Venusaur task force; but one that could be adapted to in a couple ways. EQ Venu isn't common; but this would apply alot of pressure while not being unmanageable on a defensive front. Offensively, there's registeel. My issue is the list pmuch ends there. Half measures to Draco are basically non-existent; stuff like Magneton explodes to meteor p handily but its also slow as balls and prone to revenge killing; pursuit trapping and being setup on by pokemon who can handle -2 meteors like Gallade or Meloetta. It would be good, and i think adaptations like Escavalier and simply running out of dracos in longer games paired with it getting knocked p easily makes it fine enough in practice, even moreso if Mega Steelix comes down too.

This thing being compared to absol is a good comparison honestly, and its power is stifled by apparent 4MSS and an inability to really switch in. Needs steel wing for Diancie, wants night slash for consistent dark type DPS, wants roost to actually stay alive, needs superpower for Registeel, and that still ignores stuff like Pursuit. I think its very on paper; and in practice it would struggle alot to accomplish alot. Sure; if it lands the right set at the right time it'd go off but it'd need alot of baby sitting to get there. I'd keep an eye on it but I think we have better options to go for.

Late at night so I'm not gonna continue the essay writing but I support giving these a degree of attention. Definitely not a priority, but worth looking at as prospects.

--------------------------------------------

This is more a broad statement; but I think looking at the tiering options does give benefits that aren't obviously apparent. Personally speaking; I had no interest in ADV UU before they started their retiering expedition. And when I heard about it, I actually took interest. Playing it in multiple team tours and some individuals; they've since unbanned Jumpluff, Ninjask, Arcanine, Lapras, NFE Clause and banned Linoone. Some of these changed more than others, Arcanine and Lapras are tier staples that shook up building and changed some approaches to building. Obviously, ORAS RU does not have the same amount of obvious candidates that could be unbanned, but its worth noting that alot of the complaints ORAS has; laziness in the builder, constant recycling and the omnipotency of Venusaur and the RegiVenuGon cores can be solved by doing these changes. There is alot of niche-end options in this tier; stuff like Torterra, Garbodor, regular Rotom and Shiftry are unique options in the builder that are perfectly serviceable. A slight change in scenery would do a lot for the tier and I wholly support doing so. As for who first, I think Dragalge would be the best start, with shuckle being a close second. Dragalge provides immediate tier benefit while not being overbearing in most cases as I outlined.

 

[fran17]

ill add my two cents on every of these mons trying to group them to speed up the process a bit, but for me unbanning anything is crazy because these mons were broken when the meta was really active and there was more way to play around it and find good solutions, unbanning anything right now is crazy because the adaption would take a lot of time and the tier is still struggling to adapt at HO being a decent solution when it hasnt been for years

mons that are too broken/influential

these 4 have a good combination of having a ton of stats everywhere and being way too good to not just slap them on a team and call it a day.
mdoom/kyurem are self explanatory - huge stats and perfect movepool for the tier to handle;
megalix is a 10 time better registeel with much more damage and ground type which was very useful;
moltres could sound like a crazy name with the other 3 but playing the moltres meta was awful and there were people who just refused to play the game because of it - it was way too good and way too strong to handle without some borderline mons. this post alone should justify its stay in rubl;
durant was broken as fuck, did way too much damage and could interchange between band / scarf / hone claws

mons whose ability/movepool makes them way too good for current oras

dragalge got buffed by the release of adaptability and become too strong. specs set were clamining a kill per switch considering its very good movepool. bulky sets were good too although not too broken they were still annoying because of great typing and bulk;
honchkrow is a much stronger absol, moxie+coverage+sucker was too much for the tier. the checks get easily crippled by its coverage and have no actual form of recovery, except alomomola
during its stay in oras abomasnow had to share the meta with megalix and could be checked by faster steel types like cobalion or bulky mon like cresselia but it was still creating holes as its coverage just destroyed the most common cores of the time (and it also beats the most common defensive core of this meta). could also interchange between sd sets and special sets, both needing different solutions. the best way to beat it was to revenge kill but giga drain recovery
noivern is a good mon, it could be put in this meta but would become a prominent threat in no time, stats are not too high bar speed but specs switcheroo sets or pivots one were a pain in the ass to play around. it completely annulled the offense teams forcing the meta to be more defensive oriented, while still delivering against that kind of teams too
pangoro had a strong movepool paired with decent bulk and BU/SD to pair, mold breaker to beat checks like quagsire, drain punch for recovery, koff was the strongest offensive move of the gen, gunk shot for fairies.
kingdra was actually funny to play but agility critdra was crazy strong in late game and it had some other good sets too, in this meta it would just destroy everything.
sharpedo is a late game monster, can switch up between physical and special and sweeps up teams with ease after a bit of opening by other mons. double dark core would be too much for the tier to handle imo.
shaymin is fast, strong, incredible movepool and cant be crippled by status, would just destroy the meta atm
sableye has a decent bulk and wow+taunt+prankster would just make all the team used rn useless, would create too much discomfort in the tier to be a good addiction.it would be banned afterwards the adaption time anyway since there is no actual way to handle it with the current metagame design
tyrantrum is too strong to handle. CB sets have no actual switchin and rock polish would be too good for late game considering its bulk
yanmega has the same problems as tyrantrum. specs set have virtually 2/3 switchings that can be easily crippled, while speed boost sets can easily clean up late game
venomoth's accesso to sleep powder, quiver dance and tinted lens is too much for the metagame. the only reliable check would be escavalier which is not the greatest at the moment and can be trapped by mag anyway
zoroark could be an addiciton to the meta but the combination of its ability and movepool would be too much and become a problem, forcing too many 50/50 that would make the tier very toxic

mons that i think can be tested but i wouldnt anyway

shuckle and froslass were the only two mons that weren't banned because of their great power or stats but just because they defined their meta. they could always get their hazards up while giving plenty of support in the process, shuckle with encore+final gambit for a free setup afterwards and froslass with twave/taunt/dbond/wow. flygon being the only good hazard remover in the tier (blastoise fell off a lot :( ) would make team too dipendent of him.
i would propose a test in a different state but i think adding them right now, when its 1 and an half year that people are getting beaten by the same 3 HO everytime (which arent even that strong in my opinion) would make it too difficult to actually adapt without ruining the state of the tier

tl;dr everything is broken bar froslass and shuckle which shouldnt be added anyway

sorry if something isnt very clear i typed it fast

 

[Killintime]

I'll try to be short im not big on the essays and a lot of people have shared similar comments to this.

honestly don't even mind keeping it bl since if it added anything to the tier it would just be obnoxious and nothing else.

You can maybe argue this thing is fine, but flying stab is pretty significant, we act like this thing is going to have a hard time coming in when it shined on a lot of volt turn cores and could very easily become an issue at +1 just by picking something off. Rocks are its biggest issue, but it can probably keep them off with offensive pressure and team support. It can probably make its way into ru but I wanted to warn people of just how obnoxious something with a decent speed tier, great coverage, and stab prio can be. Stab BB+ super is no joke.

As for the rest of everything mentioned, I played this tier vehemently while it was CG and remember every ban/reason for being in BL. I think most of them deserve to stay there.

As much as people will tell you noivern is fine, just take a look at sm ru and realize we lack most of those tools to deal with it, the average base speed is like 60, and im sure most people don't want to run random hp ice or diance on every team because a bulky set with hurricane or thrower absolutely laughs at everything slower than it. You can argue ice shard/pursuit but those mons are also rocks weak and a bulky set will outlive them fairly easily when it's so great at denying rocks itself.

Honestly I liked the meta this was in, but we also don't have amoonguss/tangrowth/doublade etc that shared the tier with it at the time, and people need to be aware this thing did work outside of just being a rocker. Toxic the bulky water and you can overpower slowking/mola etc with ease by just running rest and slamming things. I would be lying to you if I said this thing wouldn't be adv uu kanga tier, Id just keep this thing banned.

Lol, this doesn't need much explanation imo. Its broken trust me. Most of the tier that has a chance of checking it is weak to ice shard and the other half is slower than it (a sad state of affairs)

In the dreams of all oras ru players, a mon that pisses off venu and punishes its entry.... unfortunately its also capable of killing everything in its path without a specs lock in. It learns focus blast and registeel (please don't say bronzong) is like your best bet..? It hits like a freken truck and av slowking is like the best thing you can use to keep it in check for a semi extended period until you eat a sludge bomb poison. I don't want it in the tier just because an offensive tect 3 attack set can quite easily slaughter teams with the least of support.

Okay crucify me if you want, but I always thought this thing was fine and forced a lot of people to build less fat and boring teams. We have normal lix, alo to scout, pukezong, seisma, plethora of fighting types, registeel, rhyperior and a few others that may come into play. This mon went through 2 suspects and survived the first one and barely got away on the second. So I understand being apprehensive about it. Can it hit all those I mentioned? Ye, and it can DD but that has a very short halflife and fails to 2hko a lot of what I mentioned. Band can 2hko/ohko most of the tier but is something you can trade back and forth with. Scarf is a real threat but ultimately suffers from the same flaws DD did.

As for everything else, I think they're all frankly absurd to the point id be wasting my breath, I used to run sp.def safety goggles emboar with 2 fire stabs because the possibility of sub disable or sleep powder veno was too much of a hurdle for a lot of teams. Most of those mons that were allowed in the tier before being banned involved people running very silly mons to keep consistent MUs.

Hope my thoughts help at all.

 

[EviGaro]

Shuckle: yes sure. Webs would be an interesting twist but its really hard to see them as meta defining when they do not bother significant threats or a standard balance archetype. Plus making Malamar more relevant is always funny.

MegaLix: yes probably. Would it change the tier? Absolutely. Is it a bad thing? I am honestly unsure. But if people thought Talonflame changed SM RU too much my hope for that happening is nonexistent lol. Anyway MegaLix got screwed over in a stupid double-suspect littered with terrible arguments and irrational panic. We never actually saw the meta without Tyrantrum and just MegaLix, so who knows. I think it would change the makeup of the tier pretty favourably moving away from the do nothing steels structures and instead add back some real oomph to these teams - you don't just lose on the spot to BU Brav anymore - which I can see being concerning for some but frankly I think it would make the tier better lol

Everything else I can't see. Sableye has prankster wisp at 12.5% with taunt that hits the whole tier, and our fairies are still awful and hate its knock + wisp so you can't punish it. Shaymin is significantly bulkier than Venusaur, stronger than Venusaur, doesn't even fear Scald like Venusaur and it still beats Registeel despite Clear Body, and has amazing chemistry with virtually all the big ORAS breakers. Honchkrow was stupid in a meta with MegaLix AND Tyrantrum, it really doesn't have much of a 4MSS because you want superpower and pursuit every time, those are why its stupid broken and you don't need to tech on Diancie that much like that mon really isn't that good. Sharpedo???? People complain about Omastar + spikes being spammed in tours so often, with Sharpedo you get a WAY better Omastar that needs one flinch to win a game outright because its checks can't even switch into it with spikes up. Like, no? Dragalge does help with Venusaur kinda, but yeah like was said there's one mon in the tier that takes hits from it, and funnily enough that one can get scald burned by it and it loses after that so uh, yeah. Tyrantrum... I still don't see it. Scarf doesn't have many issues compared to its sm counterpart - ORAS has like no good fast scarfer and Accelgor is no Mega Sceptile I'm sorry - so its gonna be super easy to spam without much punishment. Mega Abomasnow... Ice Types are already broken. Noivern is too fast for the tier, plenty strong enough, has no problem tricking annoying items. It's spammed to hell in a meta that handles it way better and it still shines so much.

 

[DugZa]

The current state of the tier is perfectly fine, the hate is just overblown at this point and most of it is from people who don't even actively play it. I thought Scrafty was a bit much at one point but even that has been adapted to perfectly fine nowadays and the tier is fine the way it is. Unbanning stuff for the sake of stirring things up just coz people don't like seeing repetitive structures (also not true btw) is just lol. The tier is not "solved" at all as some people were suggesting in RU cord; there is enough room for innovation as is, people like Chait, Evi, Ruffles, killintime have been consistently innovating new stuff in team tours. The tier is only boring if you reuse the same teams from 6 years ago and load sample-like 6s week in week out. Agree with lighthouses that unbans should only be looked at if there is a genuine issue with the tier that needs to be tackled, that is not "the tier is boring." Venusaur is the only thing you can argue for that but that mon is also perfectly fine and is not broken. Unbans so late into ORAS being an old gen (10 years later?) is also very undesirable. Feels like we are trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. The tier is fine as is, nothing needs to be unbanned from RUBL.

 

[TTK]

ORAS RU is a special tier to me seeing how it was the first Smogon format I ever played back in gen 6. Even coming back to it for ORAS Slam this year was a nice moment for me and I still somewhat remember some of these RUBL goons before they were banned though it's been 10 years and I can't remember specifics. I'll just say my piece on some of these guys.



Even freeing any one of these guys would significantly just change the tier and I don't think they should even be considered. They're just damage bots and while Dragalge seems to have some merits defensively, it's also a part of this "hits too hard" crew.

Even the least tame BL knights here in Shuckle and Froslass, I can't even say confidently that I would like to have them in the tier. Personally, I'm not too adverse to changing things in oldgens, BDSP for example had tier shifts for the lower tiers post-CG and some pokemon ended up in the tier that they really belong, some players were annoyed that BDSP PU changed so much. The same would happen to ORAS RU and like Lighthouses said earlier "if we were to unban things, then it should be with clear purpose and not just adding more threats into the tier that could create more chaos without contributing to balance." Is there any benefits to adding any of them back into the meta? I listed 12/20 of them as "100% dnb."

 

[Ajna]

i don’t have much time right now to make a super succinct and well organized post, but what are we doing? are we just bored? why are we trying to add mons to stabilized, classic (my personal bias would say iconic) metas? outside of being vehemently against the philosophy of adding/removing mons from old gens unless something is blatantly unbalanced/uncompetitive, all of these mons are outright ridiculous? we are thinking of adding mega abomasnow???? regular abomasnow is a formidable breaker in its own right in this tier, mega abomasnow in a meta w ample clerics and mola wishes is nonsensical.

we wanna free tinted lens yanmega in a tier where xatu can keep them off forever in half of matchups? doesn’t that thing 3hko registeel? my only guess here is that people are bored of seeing similar structures, but that’s just what an incredibly balanced meta game looks like. also adding stuff like dragalge would just force regi mola wars every game, which i doubt anyone wants to watch.

newer oras players are much more open to creative mons and sets and we’ve seen some pretty cool stuff in the past couple years. teams that consistently dominated years ago are no longer playable because of sets like sub spdef scrafty, and that’s a great thing. the tier is still evolving. adding random mons because we woke up one day and thought it’d be fun isn’t how old gens should be handled, especially ones that were tiered incredibly during the time they were the current gen.

if y’all are bored and wanna add shuckle, go for it. xatu will be on even more teams, and we’re gonna see nonsense like infestation encore give the shuckle user a ridiculous advantage in the first few turns vs every other comp. every other mon is insanity

 

[Cheryl.]

Hello, I know I'm probably not known by almost anyone in this thread, but I've had a lot of experience with ORAS RU both when it was current gen and in the past few years from being one of Miyami's training partners for their tourney games. From our sessions, I've gotten to really appreciate the "new" ORAS meta and how ripe it is for innovation compared to how I viewed it in 2021/2022 as another of the "wow Venu makes this tier so BORING" crowd. Personally, the tier is very not just Venu + Steel + Water + Flygon cores every game and there's been a lot of development to fight back against those standard balance teams. Hyper Offense teams have seen a lot more use compared to ORAS' heyday, and they tend to match up well into those standard teams. Sets like Growth Venu, SubDD Scrafty, Sub Mega Camel and any Braviary have seen more use in current times and serve as nightmare scenarios for a lot of those slower teams. That being said, Venu cores are still pretty king for a reason and I can sympathize with those who find the mirror to be a bit boring to play into. Tier isn't for everyone (although it isn't nearly as dead as some claim it to be), but I don't know if that justifies unbanning BLs that naturally have a good matchup into the common Venusaur cores because of the other effects they could have on the meta at large.

In my eyes, though, any of the current BL list that is commonly agreed to not even reach B rank in current ORAS should be unbanned on principle. I've held that position for any tier and have seen the scenario play out before when Jumpluff was finally unbanned in ADV UU, only to never be brought once ever in serious play. Mons like that, that were banned during a very different time and are almost universally agreed to not impact the tier in much serious way, should never ever be BL. So yeah I support a Shuckle unban, Gastro Acid sets don't even work on Magic Bounce so the best it can do is be a poor matchup fish praying it doesn't run into Xatu and even if it doesn't, Defog Gon kinda cooks it lol. If it wouldn't be good, then it doesn't deserve to be banned.

The other inmates are more interesting, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are too controversial to ever see legitimate re-suspects. In my opinion some of them would be more than fine and are being completely overblown:

Ah yes, the insane breaker that takes a billion from Stealth Rock, a billion from Life Orb chip, a billion from clicking Brave Bird at any point + said Life Orb, has a "decent" speed tier of 71, and apparently can fit Roost to not die from 2 Brave Birds while having mediocre bulk and a lack of any useful resistances outside of Psychic immunity and the rare Hoopa. Oh and Sucker Punch is soooo scary. Yeah no, this mon would likely act as a slightly better Absol (and even then it has a lot of downsides compared to Sol like no Knock Off to spam and somehow being even slower) and it would definitely be a viable breaker, but people doompost about this Moxie sweeping them, Pursuit trapping every Psychic/Ghost, and destroying all of their fat cores like its actually doing that all in a single match. 4MSS and the fact that Honchkrow simply fucking sucks in every meta it's been in because of its crappy stat spread and knack for killing itself through recoil and Rocks (which are really easy to get UP in this tier although admittedly not too hard to keep off with the right team) before doing anything significant lead me to believe this should receive a test to prove if Honch doomers are actually correct and can pilot the mon as a S rank threat. Flying STAB is a signficant upgrade over Absol as a breaker, sure, but Absol is barely scraping relevancy here and Honch is nearly the same mon but with "potential man" snowballing factor. I would genuinely love to see a suspect tour period or something for this because I think actually seeing it in play would either prove that it's just a potential man (my thought) or maybe it would actually be more consistent than I'm thinking and would actually be a problem. This is a mon you can't just theorize about though because it really does just kill itself half the time. If we were to ban mons off of "oh god the theoretical Moxie Sucker sweeps that I can't 50/50 and it can Roost and Pursuit and Superpower and wait it has 4 moves only?" then SS Blaziken would still be locked up in Ubers. Give this mon a chance.

Then everything else... there's valid reasons to keep them banned. Except maybe Froslass considering I'm not even sure if that would be used over current Glalie HO as a Spiker, but I'm not very interested in that mon anyway so I'll let others deal with it. The only other mon I feel is worth discussing and maybe giving a test period to is:

And I mean MAYBE. Dragalge has been hyped up in the Discord as the ANSWER to our Venusaur problems. An offensive-leaning Venusaur check that wouldn't be too difficult to handle for both balance, stall, and offense alike. And I do agree with some of that sentiment, but I do think that argument also comes from people who... haven't used Dragalge? Like I saw people saying that Slowking is valid defensive counterplay and uh okay let me pull this up:

252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Bomb vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Slowking: 164-194 (41.7 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Obviously the answer is to run more SpD on AV King but I'm not gonna lie you can see the holes. It's not even clicking it's strongest move in Draco and it's already threatening one of the biggest special sponges in the entire tier after hazards and potential poisoning. Also, are we really fucking with AV Slowking like that these days? I don't think we are, and any other King set besides like full SpD Calm is just food for Dragalge. As for the Steels, there's Registeel which is a pretty valid answer considering you can scout Dragalge pretty well with Regi partners like Mola. It is worried about taking too much chip from Focus Blast, though, and as someone else pointed out, Dragalge does have a way to inflict broken ORAS burn on Regi which neuters it completely. Bronzong is a counter but already gets Pursuited on by the entire tier, technically even worse if Honch is freed. Steelix is a soft check which can at least give you momentum on what Dragalge gets locked into? but even max SpD is taking 50 from Draco I don't know if thats all that worth LOL. Magneton is not doing shit and Escavalier is actually pretty decent but outside of Zong is probably the worst right now as a meta Steel largely because Magneton is a good Pokemon. Honestly the defensive counterplay to Specs is pretty meh as expected, but I'm looking at this mon like its Honchkrow right now. What would Dragalge actually do in a match if its being brought as this amazing offensive Venu answer?

Choice Specs were Knocked Off! Black Sludge was Knocked Off! Dragon Fang was Knocked Off!

Oh right, Venu gets that. And is going to click it absolutely EVERY time if it sees a Dragalge that's going to be brought in. Like deadass, Dragalge isn't a bad check or anything, but even Black Sludge sets with more longevity than Specs aren't going to function like how you want them to when Venu is Knocking your shit off and likely being paired with a hefty dose of hazard goodness. That being said, it is a meta impact to have Venus be more inclined to run standard Knock shit considering sets like Growth Venu get cucked hard by Dragalge and would likely see a decline as the teams they fit on would be super threatened by it. Is that a good thing, though? Growth Venu is already a great deterrent to standard Venu cores, honestly being completely broken against those teams and being pretty alright into everything else. Making that set worse but making standard Knock Venu balance.... not better persay but also kind of better seems like a potential step back in creating the "creativity" that people seem to desire. I'm really not sure, though, and is why I'd probably prefer to have a Dragalge re-suspect period to test how it fairs in-game. Perhaps it would still be too annoying and constricting as a breaker, even when Specs are likely not staying on versus the average team (also forgot to mention Knock Mola would likely see a rise for Dragalge, that mon is going to go itemless LOL). Would players adapt to Drag's longevity issue by just running it with Wish users, potentially ditching the more offensive sets and going with stuff like Dragon Tail for phazing or just spamming Scald? Substitute sets maybe? I think there's a world where this is a fine mon to add that would have some level of meta impact, but not as crazy as people think. The issue is that I don't know if 1. that world exists LOL and 2. if that theoretical meta being changed by Dragalge is an actual improvement in the end. Still, out of everything else besides Shuckle, Honchkrow, and maybe Froslass, Dragalge has, in my eyes, the greatest case for being tested just to see what would happen.

Okay like I said before, everything else is valid being banned for various reasons (for people saying Yanmega wouldn't be broken, Specs Tinted Lens tyvm) but I want to highlight Noivern for a moment as I have had many thoughts about a potential Noivern meta. It would be cool.... and if you are really super against the current Venusaur cores AND the offense wave, Noivern serves as a deterrent for both. Hell, it even outspeeds +1 max Speed Scrafty and threatens it, which is a greater positive impact on the tier than everything else currently in RUBL! However, dropping Noivern adds undoubtedly a top 5, likely top 3 mon to the tier that would absolutely change the way we build and be pretty centralizing. I think this type of unban CAN work and help a tier out, like when ADV UU dropped Arcanine, a top 3 mon currently, and only served to improve from it's addition. However, it would need EXTENSIVE testing and considerable community support to ever go through, and considering the current backlash to dropping shit like SHUCKLE, yeah we're not getting this anytime soon. But just saying, if you really want a great level of CHANGE in this tier, for better or for worse, hijack the council and start re-sussing Noivern....

To end off this post, I'd also like to make a request to the current ORAS RU community. We're currently in a period of great innovation for the tier, despite what the many naysayers say, but... it is not reflected well at all. The current samples, to put it bluntly, SUCK. THEY SUCK. Outside of a few teams that are shiest and represent parts of current ORAS well enough (Barb + Flygon sample, the HO which could maybe be updated a bit or have some counterparts listed considering HO is becoming more and more meta, and I like the Mega Camel balance well enough) the rest don't really work well both as teams currently and in showing the current meta. The fact that we don't have a SINGLE Scrafty, Growth Venusaur or more than one Mega Glalie team is appalling, and certain playstyles like stall and SpikeStack BO are completely omitted which also seems bad. Hell, balance could use way more selections as well. There's way more variety to this tier than 5 teams. I would like to encourage more ORAS tour players to post their best teams that they feel represent the meta well, as there's so much room for improvement in showing that ORAS RU isn't just fat Venu core central and is a tier that offers a TON of options to the builder. DugZa made an incredible team post last year that I have been profiting off of in test games utilizing his unique sets and builds (which has made me realize that Accelgor is a SHIEST mon in the tier btw), and I'd love to see more of that going forward. Honestly if we don't go forward with any of these unbans (I wouldn't like this but considering what I saw when an A- level mon at best got re-sussed in SM I wouldn't be surprised LOL), at the very least let's make a community-wide effort to improve the resources, mainly samples cause we need way more than what we got and the current pool does not represent the current meta well at all. It would be great for newcomers, potentially increasing our player pool, and also for the haters to actually see what's meta and to see that current ORAS RU is actually fun!!!

 

[MrAldo]

Mmm, this is honestly kind of weird to entertain. Id say current ORAS RU meta is fine as it is. So many of the mons in RUBL are a bunch of centralizing fucks but I could see some considerations for MegaLix, Shuckle, and Noivern.


MegaLix is based on very hypotheticals but seeing the mon on a tier without the interaction it had to dance with Tyrantrum would definitely be interesting to see how a meta with just megalix would look like, but I feel this is like the best scrafty partner ever and idk if we wanna make that thing even better than it is atm, I think its inclusion is something worth testing, but given how it kind of invalidates some niche mons like particular fairy types while making other things much stronger, so on paper it could be a very polarizing presence. Worth testing to see but as much as I love the mon idk if having a steel type that is THAT proactive is a good idea.

Shuckle is the definition of a mon that is harmless on paper but that will just add an annoying element to the meta. Now, annoying is all a matter of perception, and idk allowing Webs some relevance is essentially a bad thing. It would definitely promote even more Xatu and weird adaptations to the classic Flygon water Grass structures, but I dont think thats a bad thing. Id say some of the interesting development is the rise of some really heavy offenses. This is a very likely test tbh, it sounds more annoying than harmful in the long run so worth testing.

Now Noivern... is definitely the most controversial, but it is honestly the only one I would consider even testing. Fast glue mon that can put a dent on offense by just existing, and having a good matchup versus pretty much every style, it will be an immediate top tier pick for sure, and thats the problem I have. Now, the meta where we tested this was one of the most unstable metas ever, we lost like 8 mons in a whim, and we had to resort to *check notes* Cryogonal to check it, but tbf there were a lot more issues during that time. I think we could try to test this, but I dont feel too positive about the outcome of some tests.


The rest of mons are a bunch of douchebags that offer absolutely NOTHING but headaches. Either they are an obnoxious breaker that at worst 3hko their own checks, or sableye, which fuck that.


I lean more into keeping the tier as it is and awaken that building spirit a bit more, I think there is potential to explore in this meta, but I wouldnt be too opposed to shake things up a bit for the sake of research

Like, why the hell not?


My 2 cents

 

[fran17]

Hello, I know I'm probably not known by almost anyone in this thread, but I've had a lot of experience with ORAS RU both when it was current gen and in the past few years from being one of Miyami's training partners for their tourney games. From our sessions, I've gotten to really appreciate the "new" ORAS meta and how ripe it is for innovation compared to how I viewed it in 2021/2022 as another of the "wow Venu makes this tier so BORING" crowd. Personally, the tier is very not just Venu + Steel + Water + Flygon cores every game and there's been a lot of development to fight back against those standard balance teams. Hyper Offense teams have seen a lot more use compared to ORAS' heyday, and they tend to match up well into those standard teams. Sets like Growth Venu, SubDD Scrafty, Sub Mega Camel and any Braviary have seen more use in current times and serve as nightmare scenarios for a lot of those slower teams. That being said, Venu cores are still pretty king for a reason and I can sympathize with those who find the mirror to be a bit boring to play into. Tier isn't for everyone (although it isn't nearly as dead as some claim it to be), but I don't know if that justifies unbanning BLs that naturally have a good matchup into the common Venusaur cores because of the other effects they could have on the meta at large.

In my eyes, though, any of the current BL list that is commonly agreed to not even reach B rank in current ORAS should be unbanned on principle. I've held that position for any tier and have seen the scenario play out before when Jumpluff was finally unbanned in ADV UU, only to never be brought once ever in serious play. Mons like that, that were banned during a very different time and are almost universally agreed to not impact the tier in much serious way, should never ever be BL. So yeah I support a Shuckle unban, Gastro Acid sets don't even work on Magic Bounce so the best it can do is be a poor matchup fish praying it doesn't run into Xatu and even if it doesn't, Defog Gon kinda cooks it lol. If it wouldn't be good, then it doesn't deserve to be banned.

The other inmates are more interesting, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are too controversial to ever see legitimate re-suspects. In my opinion some of them would be more than fine and are being completely overblown:

Ah yes, the insane breaker that takes a billion from Stealth Rock, a billion from Life Orb chip, a billion from clicking Brave Bird at any point + said Life Orb, has a "decent" speed tier of 71, and apparently can fit Roost to not die from 2 Brave Birds while having mediocre bulk and a lack of any useful resistances outside of Psychic immunity and the rare Hoopa. Oh and Sucker Punch is soooo scary. Yeah no, this mon would likely act as a slightly better Absol (and even then it has a lot of downsides compared to Sol like no Knock Off to spam and somehow being even slower) and it would definitely be a viable breaker, but people doompost about this Moxie sweeping them, Pursuit trapping every Psychic/Ghost, and destroying all of their fat cores like its actually doing that all in a single match. 4MSS and the fact that Honchkrow simply fucking sucks in every meta it's been in because of its crappy stat spread and knack for killing itself through recoil and Rocks (which are really easy to get UP in this tier although admittedly not too hard to keep off with the right team) before doing anything significant lead me to believe this should receive a test to prove if Honch doomers are actually correct and can pilot the mon as a S rank threat. Flying STAB is a signficant upgrade over Absol as a breaker, sure, but Absol is barely scraping relevancy here and Honch is nearly the same mon but with "potential man" snowballing factor. I would genuinely love to see a suspect tour period or something for this because I think actually seeing it in play would either prove that it's just a potential man (my thought) or maybe it would actually be more consistent than I'm thinking and would actually be a problem. This is a mon you can't just theorize about though because it really does just kill itself half the time. If we were to ban mons off of "oh god the theoretical Moxie Sucker sweeps that I can't 50/50 and it can Roost and Pursuit and Superpower and wait it has 4 moves only?" then SS Blaziken would still be locked up in Ubers. Give this mon a chance.

Then everything else... there's valid reasons to keep them banned. Except maybe Froslass considering I'm not even sure if that would be used over current Glalie HO as a Spiker, but I'm not very interested in that mon anyway so I'll let others deal with it. The only other mon I feel is worth discussing and maybe giving a test period to is:

And I mean MAYBE. Dragalge has been hyped up in the Discord as the ANSWER to our Venusaur problems. An offensive-leaning Venusaur check that wouldn't be too difficult to handle for both balance, stall, and offense alike. And I do agree with some of that sentiment, but I do think that argument also comes from people who... haven't used Dragalge? Like I saw people saying that Slowking is valid defensive counterplay and uh okay let me pull this up:

252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Bomb vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Slowking: 164-194 (41.7 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Obviously the answer is to run more SpD on AV King but I'm not gonna lie you can see the holes. It's not even clicking it's strongest move in Draco and it's already threatening one of the biggest special sponges in the entire tier after hazards and potential poisoning. Also, are we really fucking with AV Slowking like that these days? I don't think we are, and any other King set besides like full SpD Calm is just food for Dragalge. As for the Steels, there's Registeel which is a pretty valid answer considering you can scout Dragalge pretty well with Regi partners like Mola. It is worried about taking too much chip from Focus Blast, though, and as someone else pointed out, Dragalge does have a way to inflict broken ORAS burn on Regi which neuters it completely. Bronzong is a counter but already gets Pursuited on by the entire tier, technically even worse if Honch is freed. Steelix is a soft check which can at least give you momentum on what Dragalge gets locked into? but even max SpD is taking 50 from Draco I don't know if thats all that worth LOL. Magneton is not doing shit and Escavalier is actually pretty decent but outside of Zong is probably the worst right now as a meta Steel largely because Magneton is a good Pokemon. Honestly the defensive counterplay to Specs is pretty meh as expected, but I'm looking at this mon like its Honchkrow right now. What would Dragalge actually do in a match if its being brought as this amazing offensive Venu answer?

Choice Specs were Knocked Off! Black Sludge was Knocked Off! Dragon Fang was Knocked Off!

Oh right, Venu gets that. And is going to click it absolutely EVERY time if it sees a Dragalge that's going to be brought in. Like deadass, Dragalge isn't a bad check or anything, but even Black Sludge sets with more longevity than Specs aren't going to function like how you want them to when Venu is Knocking your shit off and likely being paired with a hefty dose of hazard goodness. That being said, it is a meta impact to have Venus be more inclined to run standard Knock shit considering sets like Growth Venu get cucked hard by Dragalge and would likely see a decline as the teams they fit on would be super threatened by it. Is that a good thing, though? Growth Venu is already a great deterrent to standard Venu cores, honestly being completely broken against those teams and being pretty alright into everything else. Making that set worse but making standard Knock Venu balance.... not better persay but also kind of better seems like a potential step back in creating the "creativity" that people seem to desire. I'm really not sure, though, and is why I'd probably prefer to have a Dragalge re-suspect period to test how it fairs in-game. Perhaps it would still be too annoying and constricting as a breaker, even when Specs are likely not staying on versus the average team (also forgot to mention Knock Mola would likely see a rise for Dragalge, that mon is going to go itemless LOL). Would players adapt to Drag's longevity issue by just running it with Wish users, potentially ditching the more offensive sets and going with stuff like Dragon Tail for phazing or just spamming Scald? Substitute sets maybe? I think there's a world where this is a fine mon to add that would have some level of meta impact, but not as crazy as people think. The issue is that I don't know if 1. that world exists LOL and 2. if that theoretical meta being changed by Dragalge is an actual improvement in the end. Still, out of everything else besides Shuckle, Honchkrow, and maybe Froslass, Dragalge has, in my eyes, the greatest case for being tested just to see what would happen.

Okay like I said before, everything else is valid being banned for various reasons (for people saying Yanmega wouldn't be broken, Specs Tinted Lens tyvm) but I want to highlight Noivern for a moment as I have had many thoughts about a potential Noivern meta. It would be cool.... and if you are really super against the current Venusaur cores AND the offense wave, Noivern serves as a deterrent for both. Hell, it even outspeeds +1 max Speed Scrafty and threatens it, which is a greater positive impact on the tier than everything else currently in RUBL! However, dropping Noivern adds undoubtedly a top 5, likely top 3 mon to the tier that would absolutely change the way we build and be pretty centralizing. I think this type of unban CAN work and help a tier out, like when ADV UU dropped Arcanine, a top 3 mon currently, and only served to improve from it's addition. However, it would need EXTENSIVE testing and considerable community support to ever go through, and considering the current backlash to dropping shit like SHUCKLE, yeah we're not getting this anytime soon. But just saying, if you really want a great level of CHANGE in this tier, for better or for worse, hijack the council and start re-sussing Noivern....

To end off this post, I'd also like to make a request to the current ORAS RU community. We're currently in a period of great innovation for the tier, despite what the many naysayers say, but... it is not reflected well at all. The current samples, to put it bluntly, SUCK. THEY SUCK. Outside of a few teams that are shiest and represent parts of current ORAS well enough (Barb + Flygon sample, the HO which could maybe be updated a bit or have some counterparts listed considering HO is becoming more and more meta, and I like the Mega Camel balance well enough) the rest don't really work well both as teams currently and in showing the current meta. The fact that we don't have a SINGLE Scrafty, Growth Venusaur or more than one Mega Glalie team is appalling, and certain playstyles like stall and SpikeStack BO are completely omitted which also seems bad. Hell, balance could use way more selections as well. There's way more variety to this tier than 5 teams. I would like to encourage more ORAS tour players to post their best teams that they feel represent the meta well, as there's so much room for improvement in showing that ORAS RU isn't just fat Venu core central and is a tier that offers a TON of options to the builder. DugZa made an incredible team post last year that I have been profiting off of in test games utilizing his unique sets and builds (which has made me realize that Accelgor is a SHIEST mon in the tier btw), and I'd love to see more of that going forward. Honestly if we don't go forward with any of these unbans (I wouldn't like this but considering what I saw when an A- level mon at best got re-sussed in SM I wouldn't be surprised LOL), at the very least let's make a community-wide effort to improve the resources, mainly samples cause we need way more than what we got and the current pool does not represent the current meta well at all. It would be great for newcomers, potentially increasing our player pool, and also for the haters to actually see what's meta and to see that current ORAS RU is actually fun!!!

is this post ragebait? how do you type ive played a lot of oras ru when was CG but think honchkrow is not broken when it was incredibly disgusting back in the time? also why the bulk of a glass cannon with the second strongest priority move of the gen stabbed should be taken in consideration?
also cant wait to use perma av king and registeel because my opponent can slap a dragalge on their team and call it a day, surely wont cause havoc and building restriction
noivern won't even stop venu being incredibly good because it cant switch on it? it just makes offense shit and makes you too reliant on having mola+steel for recovery in your team or diancie while pivoting in/out with uturn - also i dont think a nerf to offense is needed since the playstyle is not broken is people just getting stamped by it because they play too passively

 

[Cheryl.]

is this post ragebait? how do you type ive played a lot of oras ru when was CG but think honchkrow is not broken when it was incredibly disgusting back in the time? also why the bulk of a glass cannon with the second strongest priority move of the gen stabbed should be taken in consideration?
also cant wait to use perma av king and registeel because my opponent can slap a dragalge on their team and call it a day, surely wont cause havoc and building restriction
noivern won't even stop venu being incredibly good because it cant switch on it? it just makes offense shit and makes you too reliant on having mola+steel for recovery in your team or diancie while pivoting in/out with uturn - also i dont think a nerf to offense is needed since the playstyle is not broken is people just getting stamped by it because they play too passively

No it isn’t ragebaiting, it’s called my genuine opinion. Also if you couldn’t tell I am also quite concerned with the potential impact Dragalge would have on the meta but that is also why I wouldn’t mind having a test period on it. I think it’d be a great benefit to be more open to at least trying things out. And anyways even if you take my post as rage bait, contribute and help update those samples of the meta you want to defend.

 

[Adriyun]

As someone newer to old gen’s ru and have only played in the oras ru open.. my opinion may not be as good or well rounded as others :p.

In my time in the tier I think most of these RUBL pokemon don’t provide much value in the tier. I agree with Lighthouse with his opinion on if we were to unban it shouldn’t be for chaos/unbanning straight offensive threats.

If i were to suspect or unban anything in RUBL it would most likely only be Mega Steelix and Noivern. I think every other RUBL pokemon is either too defining/too much power. The only ones that weren’t banned due to sheer strength were froslass and shuckle, but in a tier where flygon is your main removal i don’t know if these unbans would provide anything for the tier other than unnecessary chaos.

All i’ve heard about Mega Steelix is people being mostly on the fence due to not really experiencing it in a meta without tyrantrum. I think it’s worthy of a suspect, wouldn’t say a 100% unban because it’s still a high strong bst pokemon with great typing and partnership with other threats in the tier.

Noivern would be a good way to deal with the omnipresent Venusaur/Bulkier cores. But i’ve also seen the argument on how noivern is absurdly good in SMRU whereas oras ru doesn’t have a lot of the things stopping it from being broken in smru. I think it would be better off to keep it banned but a suspect wouldn’t be hell on earth.

A third option is keeping the tier how it is, I love the tier personally in the short time i played. I didn’t really use many different teams but fighting them felt fun, it was fun. If the tier stayed the same It wouldn’t be a bad thing, Sorry for parroting a few opinions kek

 

[feen]

Thanks for all your feedback. It seems that the majority of the playerbase is fine with keeping the RUBL list as it is, and as such, we will not be enforcing any unbans in ORAS RU.