★ PU Council Updates

[gum]

We got a few things following the tier shifts, and we've voted on all of them

Mesprit has been banned from PU! We also discussed Vulpix following its unban from NU despite not originally being in the slate. No one was concerned over freeing it as we've banned Heat Rock anyway, so Vulpix has been unbanned from PU! Tagging Kris and Marty to implement, thank you both a ton!

With the DLC being around a week from now, we don't really plan to act on anything until then despite some council & community members voicing concerns over Pokémon like Veluza and Hisuian Sneasel. There's just not enough time for a suspect and we don't feel like they deserved to get quickbanned, anyway, especially not when the metagame should change very soon.

 

[gum]

woo post dlc voting slate!! sensei axew's vote will be edited in later, but it won't impact final results anyway and i have to post puwc semis so! (e: it has now been edited in)

we voted on what came up in council chat, and ended up banning duraludon and indeedee-m! tagging Kris and Marty to implement, thank you!!

with this meta only lasting 2 more weeks we don't expect to take more action, but we'll keep a close eye on porygon 2 & the rest of the metagame. see u when we get 30+ mons :D

 

[ishtar]

Alongside the drops tomorrow, we will be unbanning all of the PUBL mons: Duraludon, Indeedee-M, Lilligant, Magneton, Mesprit, Oricorio Pa'u, Primeape and Vivillon, as well as any PUBL drops! Tagging Kris and Marty to implement please, thanks!

Happy new year to all and thank you for making PU special this 2023 <3

 

[gum]

Following its quickdrop, the council has voted on Terrakion!

Following an unanimous vote, Terrakion has been banned from SV PU. Due to an oversight on our end, we forgot to include Damp & Heat Rock in the above post. As such, Damp Rock and Heat Rock have been unbanned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and Kris to implement these changes, thank you both a ton!!

While we originally wanted to wait a couple of days before voting on anything, Terrakion stands out for rather obvious reasons. In a tier with no switchins, the only forms of counterplay so far have been Tera and faster Pokemon, who themselves are susceptible to Tera and sets like SD + Quick Attack. Letting it come into the field was usually a death sentence, and we felt like the tier couldn't develop properly unless we quickly took action. We will continue to closely monitor the tier as this metagame develops, and you can expect another slate getting voted on by Thursday.

In other news, Vulpix03 has decided to take a break from council for now, but he'll be back once SPL comes to an end.

 

[asa]

The council voted on some of the more contentious Pokemon that joined the tier this month. These were the Pokemon mentioned in the council chat, but there's been some notable community backlash against them, too. Here are the results:

As a result, Abomasnow, Emboar, and Oricorio-Sensu are now banned from PU. Tagging Kris and Marty to implement these bans, thank you very much in advance!

We will be voting again on Sunday. Please feel free to discuss other Pokemon/elements you think are broken before then, especially if you think we missed anything this time! Your feedback is always appreciated, and we want to do everything we can to stabilize the tier for both tournament players and the community at large.

Below are the reasonings behind everyone's votes:


Banned - 6/7

Reasonings

gum: i don't really think snow is an issue personally, but aboma is still the main enabler of the playstyle. i think just banning aboma and then voting again on sunday if snover / vulpix end up being just as good as enablers is fine. if that's ends up being the case, i'm fine with banning snowslash or another element

zS: I want snow gone one way or another and i have been convinced by my fellow councilmen that while snowslash might be the root of the problem we'd suffer less from losing Aboma

sensei axew: instant snow+its good typing is too annoying and enables pokemon like frosmoth and alolaslash too well

ishtar: snow is silly and enables other sillies while aboma is a decent enough mon on its own

asa: Ngl, I'm really not convinced that snow is a problem yet. Still, voting ban to err on the side of caution. I can see how potentially frustrating things like Aloslash, Glastrier, and Frosmoth are under snow and possibly behind veil.

DugZa: snow archetypes are obnoxious and abomasnow is what enables them the most between hail, screens and having its own decent offensive presence outside of utility stuff

fish anemometer: snow with this guy is crazy

Not banned - 2/7

Reasonings

gum: pretty borderline, and there's a chance i vote to ban it sunday, but for now i'm not convinced and i think this could end up being a good meta addition. a lot of sets are scarier on paper than in practice, and i think that if emboar leaves, there'll be more possible exploration in the builder to deal w this and the qd mons

zS: I was on the fence on this one but the base typing is way too bad and it needs unreasonable structures to function to its fullest potential which hinders it a lot imo in this current meta. Definitely something I could see end up being broken in the future, but for now i think we have reasonable answers to it and it puts too much of a burden in the builder to be even that good

sensei axew: haven’t seen enough of this doing broken shit yet

ishtar: pretty brutal with a certain level of unpredictability in terms of sets, but terrain prob pushes it over the edge on its own

asa: On the fence about this one, but I think the tier would be better off without Braviary-H. Agility + SFLO consistently applies a ton of pressure both in the builder and in-game and can be tricky to revenge kill without Sucker Punch, while Calm Mind + Esper Wing sets are just incredibly cheesy (even without factoring in Tera) and can run away with games pretty easily. I wouldn’t mind if this doesn’t get banned, though, it does have legitimate counterplay that isn’t ridiculous to try and employ. It’s also not that fast and not that bulky, the typing is not great defensively, Hurricane is an awful move to rely on, etc.

DugZa: haven't seen it being overbearing yet; thought cm 2 atks roost sets might go off but hasn't been as dominant as i expected it to be

fish anemometer: borderline but worse defenively than emboar

Banned - 6/7

Reasonings

gum: we just don't have switchins to this, it kills everything and has multiple good sets. normal counterplay to choiced pokemon such as offensive pressure and immunity + resist to ease predictions don't work against sets like bu, who are much harder to take down and can trade with pretty much everything. cb's one downside is that it ends up killing itself clicking flare blitz, but it abuses all of our defensive mons and naturally pairs well with our healing wish mons (mesprit and shaymin), which is more of a bonus than anything

zS: it's definitely an insane breaker with very little that is able to take a hit, let alone 2. but it's a bit too slow and while the fact that there's too much going on was not stopping sensu from being ridiculous, this is a slowed down a lot by that. I think it could end up being problematic in the future, but for now it's definitely just another strong breaker.

sensei axew: way too versatile with no real counters

ishtar: too strong too bulky too hard to switch into, its like iron hands but baby waaah

asa: Emboar basically invalidates balance lacking Dachsbun or something obscure like Tera Fairy Appletun. Bulk Up sets trade way too easily against most things (on offensive and defensive teams alike) while still hitting really hard initially, whereas Choice Band trucks through teams without much effort. Choice Scarf is mostly fine, though I don’t like that it’s a scarfer that basically gets to go for CB Floatzel’s Wave Crash every turn. Emboar’s low Speed is a real flaw, but it’s got the bulk and typing to 1v1 more Pokemon than you’d think, so I honestly don’t think being slow really balances it out.

DugZa: bulk up sets and choiced sets have taken off, switch-ins are almost non-existent; the two sets also mandate slightly different counterplay and hard to predict what set is being used and wrong prediction can cost the game almost immediately sometimes

fish anemometer: too strong, fat, just fast enough

Not banned - 2/7

Reasonings

gum: very good chance this ends up being broken, but as of now i think it's just a good mon. it's kinda awkward to build with considering its typing and speed, especially in a metagame filled with so many hard hitters that can annoy it despite tera. it's for sure very good at trading, but so far it has felt pretty manageable

zS: Too slow, takes a while to get going, and struggles in fast paced metas like this one. it's a good 2 for 1 trade mon but it's hard to fit and never does more than trade usually. for now it's not a problem

sensei axew: still too fat and powerful for the tier and tera can make it go from shitty defensive type to broken defensive type

ishtar: Simply haven't seen enough of it and it seems somewhat easy to pressure (?) Imma look dumb as hell when this turns out to be broken in 2 weeks...

asa: I think Glastrier would only ever be a problem on snow, mainly because of its low Speed and bad defensive typing. The bulk is good and it can trade okay versus some teams, esp. with Tera, but Glastrier can be a huge Tera sink and requires extensive support to consistently work before it Teras/if it can't Tera.

DugZa: its very bulky and annoying to ko and can easily break through common defensive cores, the speed is a limiting factor but even with the bad speed it almost always claims a few mons before going down esp if its with good support

fish anemometer: might be broken but hasnt proven it yet, to me. slow/knock weak/wants to tera etc

Not banned - 3/7

Reasonings

gum: good mon, just not the easiest thing to setup with, and it feels really tera reliant in a metagame where a lot is. fire / flying is just not good in the current metagame, and it feels much easier to pressure than sensu. another mon i think is worth reevaluting on sunday, but i'm not worried as of now

zS: combines the qualities of sensu with the downsides of braviary, i also haven't seen much from as it's been overshadowed by sensu a lot and the typing is much much worse to begin with. An argument could be made for a future ban but for now i don't think so

sensei axew: same with sensu, qd+revelation dance is just so broken

ishtar: This hasn't yet popped off but I believe it has similar offensive capabilities and would eventually become obviously silly doofus head

asa: I was gonna vote DNB tbh, since this is basically budget Sensu and thus easier to pressure + more Tera reliant. However, for the sake of consistency with my Abomasnow vote, I'll err on the side of caution and vote ban. Some people have expressed concern about the other QDers becoming too much if we ban Sensu/Baile, but I think it's more likely that Baile just becomes Sensu 2 than it is that Venomoth/Vivillon/Lilligant become broken.

DugZa: not as broken as sensu and the typing isn't as great, easier to check defensively and without sensu to account for in the builder it'll get even easier to handle this i think

fish anemometer: usually needs to burn tera to set up

Banned - 7/7

Reasonings

gum: too much set diversity, and every set is excellent. it doesnt struggle to find setup opportunities thanks to its typing, which is what sets it apart from baile imo, which is much more tera reliant. don't think this is like, extremely broken and i'd be fine with giving it more time, but with circuit right around the corner i think it's best to get this out asap to see if other quiver dancers pop up as issues

zS: way too free and overcentralizing, while we do have some ways to beat it short term, it gets impossible with all the threats there are to deal with at the moment.

sensei axew: ghost/flying stab combo with the opportunity to turn the ghost type into anything+quiver dance makes this so broken

ishtar: qd w amazing offensive coverage and tera, yea goodbye birdie!

asa: Oricorio-Sensu’s customizability and initially good typing make it difficult to reasonably stop it from setting up as well as consistently deal with it after it sets up. Bulky QD sets are especially annoying to pressure and revenge kill, even more so when you factor in Tera, which completely changes how you have to respond to it.

DugZa: broken as expected, decent defensive typing which makes it better than the other 2 formes and tera to break through its checks without much trouble makes it overbearing

fish anemometer: great typing gives it a ton of qd opportunities without burning tera

Not banned - 0/7

Reasonings

gum: don't think this is an issue, even with snow, and i'd much rather target aboma first anyway. we have so many good and fast scarfers, and this feels really vulnerable to teras flipping around the mus (vileplume and wo-chien for example). if snow is something people think is stupid still on sunday, i'll vote to ban this

zS: see above [referencing Abomasnow vote]

sensei axew: abomasnow is the main problem with this thanks to snow warning

ishtar: Save Slash at all costs!

asa: Only ever a problem on snow teams, and outside of them, it's an incredibly healthy presence.

DugZa: has been annoying to deal with under snow but i think that's mostly because abomasnow is what enables it to that extent, think it'll be more manageable if aboma didn't exist

fish anemometer: crazy in aboma snow+normal team

Not banned - 1/7

Reasonings

gum: this is really really good, but it has so far felt balanced. it's not the hardest mon to switch into considering its mid offensive stats, and its speed tier isn't that great in the current metagame. i think calm mind sets have the most potential for stupidity, but again this is something i'm fine with letting around for 3 more days to evaluate

zS: Completely unfair, the guessing game between sets makes this thing completely ridiculous in my opinion. There are answers for each set but they're so appart from one another that they can't be called reliable checks to virizion. And even when guessing the set right, guessing the tera wrong might also lose you the game on the spot. this thing has nothing to do in PU in my opinion.

sensei axew: i think we have way too many options to check this defensively like plume, decidueye, muk, tera physical walls and it’s actually kinda easy to revenge kill in this meta

ishtar: I could see this popping off pretty hard eventually, but I believe our defensive answers are decent enough right now.

asa: Not immediately convinced that Virizion is broken. I think that Calm Mind and mixed sets could prove problematic, but Swords Dance is by far the most common set and has relatively consistent offensive and defensive counterplay (Decidueye, physdef Poisons, handful of faster guys like Sneasel, Tera can block it pretty hard). Virizion’s weakness-laden typing, bad physical bulk, and only middling offenses are also some pretty big flaws imo, esp. in a meta as offensive as ours currently is.

DugZa: strong 4mss and vileplume exists

fish anemometer: lacks power on secondary stab, weak to a lot

 

[gum]

Another pre-circuit slate, as promised!! We voted on what survived last slate (minus snowslash) and what we've seen get mentioned, whether by council or community members. ishtar has been v busy with irl stuff so she didn't have the time to vote for this slate

Following this slate, Braviary-Hisui, Frosmoth, Oricorio-Baile, and Venomoth have all been banned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and Kris to implement, thank u both a ton!!

No reasonings this time as certain people are lazy, but a lot of us felt like both Frosmoth and Venomoth had to go if Oricorio-Baile also left the tier. With this slate addressing most of the controversial threats left, we don't expect to vote on anything again this month unless something problematic pops up

 

[gum]

Following today's tier shifts, we've decided to free all of PUBL (Abomasnow, Braviary-Hisui, Frosmoth, Oricorio-Baile, Oricorio-Sensu, Toxicroak, and Venomoth)! We will also be voting on everything we freed + some of our new options on sunday.

tagging dhelmise to implement, thank u x

 

[gum]

First february slate!! fish has been busy with old meta due to circuit so he decided to abstain for this slate

As a result of this vote, Drought, Oricorio-Pom-Pom, Oricorio-Sensu, and Zoroark are now banned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and dhelmise to implement, thank u both a ton!!

Sun has been a controversial topic since last month, but Ninetales's and Tauros-Paldea-Blaze's arrival has pushed the playstyle over the edge for many. The only new addition that helps against the playstyle is Snorlax, which is very easy to overwhelm. Registeel's loss also impacts Sun's viability a lot; tera dragon sets were very common, and against Sun, the tera was often very free due to it being able to trade with multiple Pokémon, and you often didn't need to preserve this resource for anything else. We've decided to target Drought as a whole rather than Ninetales due to its previous controversial status, but we'll be keeping a close eye on Sun to see how manual Sun develops. There are also way too many good abusers to be able to only target one, making this the better course of action.

Oricorio-Pom-Pom & Sensu have been problematic in multiple lower tiers this generation, and it's just PU's turn I guess..! Very little can stop them from winning, and what separates them from the other forms is how good their typings are pre-tera, making them considerably less reliant on the mechanic. However, when they do tera, it's usually because the game is over. We'll be keeping a close eye on Baile, but for now we aren't too worried.

Lastly, Zoroark has proven to be an extremely potent and constricting threat, in the builder and in game. With multiple excellent sets, such as Choice Specs and Swords Dance, nothing can reliably switch into it. These sets also lack solid answers, making dealing with Zoroark nearly impossible from a defensive standpoint. As for offensive counterplay, most faster Pokémon can't take a +2 Sucker Punch. Illusion just adds to all of this; even if you correctly guess whether you're facing the real thing or Zoroark, you then have to guess the correct set. All of this makes Zoroark one of the most broken Pokémon we've had to deal with this generation, and was seen as a rather easy ban.

We'll be voting again next week, before week 1 of PUBD. See you then!

 

[asa]

As promised, here's the Bom Dia Eve vote! The priority here was revisiting the more controversial Pokemon on our last slate as well, with Bruxish being added after some discussion in the council chat. sensei axew's votes will be edited in later, but they will not change any of the results.

Following this slate, Galarian Articuno is now banned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and dhelmise to implement, thank you very much in advance!

Below are the reasonings for everyone's votes. DugZa's reasonings will be added later, he couldn't type them up right away.


Banned - 5/6

Reasonings

asa: Agility + Calm Mind sets are still kinda dumb and kind of auto-win in some games with little to no problem. Beating every common Haze user is also stupid, and you have enough bulk to set up semi-comfortably against most of the tier even without Tera. It just feels too reminiscent of Veluza in earlier metas, only with Competitive and arguably greater defensive utility in exchange for needing more turns.

gum: i think specs and recover 3 attacks sets are very healthy and good, but sadly double dance is pretty stupid. we have very little that can stop it after only 2 turns, and it doesn't really struggle to find those opportunies thanks to its great bulk, cm boosting its spdef, and tera generating more turns for it. my main issue with it is that, if it gets 2 turns to setup, the game is usually over at that point; "answers" like snorlax and skuntank lose to certain variants, or after some chip. hrav does a lot of similar things but it's worse at being a dishonest mon, so not a huge loss anyway

zS: i’ve never really struggled with it, but i just find it not that threatening and if anything i like mesprit more in its role, losing the ground immunity post tera hurts it a lot esp since it wants to tera psn/steel most of the time from my experience.

fish anemometer: gets going really fast and stats allow for so much flexibility

ishtar: broke

Not banned - 1/6

Reasonings

asa: See Fauros reasoning.

gum: another super scary mon but it's very mu reliant in a tier where wo-chien is super common. scarf is a bit troublesome, because it has the strenght of a breaker while being really fast, but it's very prediction reliant and it feels more like a good cleaner than anything broken. cb and sd are similar, in that both are very scary on paper but then u realize that it's really frail and not super fast, which means it requires a lot of support and forces u into awkward team structures to truly make it worth, while some of the issues about choice scarf remain. great addition to the tier, just not broken imo

zS: budget floatzel

fish anenometer: crazy breaker but almost always needing choice locking and being just slow enough makes it fine to me.

ishtar: asa ltp

Not banned - 2/6

Reasonings

asa: Voting ban because PUBD is coming up and I’m a little worried this might get more and more centralizing with time. Specifically with Fauros, I could totally see BU mirrors becoming the norm like they were with Pauros before + CB kind of just kills everything not named Dachsbun.

gum: still not 100% certain on this, but for now i think it's fine. bulk up sets struggle vs sandaconda, tera wo-chien / snorlax, chip damage, while generally not being something u'll struggle to trade with too much. the speed tier makes it extremely reliant on trailblaze, as otherwise it's easy to revenge kill with something like scyther, tornadus, and scarf bruxish. scarf is great but obviously not an issue, while choice band is rly strong but very prediction reliant, while once again giving a lot of things u don't want to give free turns, free turns

zS: good mon, maybe even top 3, just not overwhelming imo

fish anemometer: boots noticeably not strong/fast enough off rip while choiced gets chipped fast

ishtar: not broken

Not banned - 3/6

Reasonings

asa: See Fauros reasoning.

gum: it's just kinda underwhelming for a pokemon with that special attack and speed. bleakwind storm and hurricane are both very unreliable stab moves, while without choice specs it doesn't hit that hard, meaning it can be easy to manage with bulkier pokemon like snorlax. hitting it hard is the main counterplay, as it doesn't have the best of matchups against of offensive threats, making it rather easy to offensively pressure. breakers like tornadus that are not particuliarly bulky for how hard they hit are also really susceptible to the opponent clicking the tera button and reversing the matchup

zS: i’m on the fence with this one but i think for now it’s manageable, could definitely foresee it being broken in the near future tho.

fish anemometer: needs to make enough sacrifices to achieve banworthy conditions that its ok i think.

ishtar: broken

 

[ishtar]

Another vote! As mentioned on Monday, we would be looking at these three Pokemon during the weekend, and with the support of your posts and lovely words, we have come to a decision!

Following the vote, Tauros-Paldea-Blaze and Tornadus are now banned from SV PU! Tagging Marty and dhelmise, thank you so much!

Reasonings for bans below, with the exception of gum, who will post his reasonings in the upcoming future.


Banned - 5/7

Reasonings

DugZa: The STAB combination is deadly and there are not true counters in the tier for the BU set and almost always mandates tera to deal with it. Even the choiced sets are equally bad, if you predict the wrong move, it sets you back a lot; similarly, if you predict the wrong set and switch to the wrong mon, it can end the game almost immediately. Intimidate is also a nice ability for it, helps give itself decent setup opportunities which otherwise might not be as free. The "counters" are limited to Oricorio and Dachsbun, Oricorio gets nailed by a rock move and Dachsbun just isn't good in the meta outside of serving as a Pauros check. Trailblaze BU sets are very hard to revenge kill and mandates very specific Scarf users to outspeed it. All in all, it's too much for the tier right now so it needs to go.

fish anemometer: Switching into this thing amounts to guessing correctly between its stabs or going a helmet mon and bringing it down with you although you die first. Also forces a lot of tera pops to deal with it. I found that it gets more opportunities to come in and click than expected as well. Way over the edge for me no doubt.

asa: See my post.

ishtar: Mostly still sharing the same sentiment that I initially expressed in my post except for my point regarding the state of the tier without it. I think there's enough physically offensive threats that cover similar bases as Tauros the more thought I give things. Ex: Hariyama, Viriz, Pass initially come to mind, and they're also not broken! Isnt that just a lovely thing!

zS: it’s a key piece of building and of a lot of interactions in current meta but it feels more like a metagame controller to me than something overwhelming

sensei axew: easy to check defensively, needs the right set in the right MU

Banned - 5/7

Reasonings

DugZa: The only real downside for Tornadus is the lack of special moves with reliable accuracy, other than that it's extremely overpowered right now and can force progress in almost every matchup. The NP sets have been gaining more and more traction and successfully take out multiple mons before going down and it really isn't that hard to find an opportunity get a free Nasty Plot. That said it's bulk is not thaaat great but I think its speed tier makes up for it coz its gonna outspeed and kill most Pokemon anyway, its bulk only really affects it when faster scarfers are trying to RK it. Not to mention, Tailwind has been used as its 4th move to circumvent the issue of being RK'd fairly easily. While I don't think its as broken as Tauros, its still an unhealthy presence and needs to go.

fish anemometer: Way too strong and fast for PU. There's really no downsides to running it as you can pick your own checks. Can also pivot out and be annoying or bring back lost games with tailwind. Takes command of games way too easily and the command itself is extremely felt. Way over the edge, zero doubt broken to me.

asa: See my post.

ishtar: See my post.

zS: i again almost voted ban on this, but it’s a bit awkward. there’s no denying that it’s annoying and that the potential to be broken is there in a tier with lackluster hazard ctrl and access to fast knock and uturn on top of an already great damage output but… idk can’t explain it he’s just not that guy i’m sorry.

sensei axew: very hard to check defensively, knock turn + strong flying stab is way too much for this tier

Not banned - 4/7

Reasonings

DugZa: Personally I think Haviary is the most troublesome of the three. Sheer Force boosted STABs + Heat Wave give it perfect coverage to OHKO or 2HKO almost everything bar Snorlax in the tier. Its also a very versatile Pokemon as it fits perfectly on both offensive and more defensive oriented builds; defensively checking it out mandates tera more often than not. It has also led to some. not-so-standard sets like Heatproof Bronzong being used in an attempt to deal with it better, defensively. With good pivots, its not hard to bring it in safely on balance structures and on HO, the it can easily get going and claim multiple kills easily after an Agility.

fish anemometer: This one is harder because I think the meta and playerbase is learning to play around it better. Sheer force is very susceptible to knock and rocks, mons like birdier and skuntank are starting to pick up more. But it also really is sometimes 1 turn away from winning a game and if it can boost before a knock it'll probably deal some damage. Choice scarfers must be faster than this at+2 which isn't a bad thing. Leaning very very slightly on ban because of how much stronger this and other breakers are than our defensive counterplay atm, but it's not this mon's fault per se so it pains me a bit to do so.

asa: Breaking from what I said in my post. I can agree that Brav-H doesn't really add anything to the meta that we don't already have, and the MU fish aspect could be argued to be a bad thing. Still not 100% on this being broken, but I can live with removing it from the tier, especially if it does go on to see crazy experimentation.

ishtar: See my post.

zS: i get why this is being considered broken by some players but it has been extremely underwhelming from my experience. contrary to guno, it’s not bulky enough to be this reliable of a cheese, and the other sets while good are clearly a cut under imo

sensei axew: hesitant on this one but I haven't seen it to doo much post shifts so I'm willing to give it more time

 

[ishtar]

As previously stated, we voted on these four Pokemon this weekend. Thank you all for your posts and words in regards to this new meta!

Following the vote, nothing has been banned! Tagging.....no one!

Reasonings for votes below, with the exception of fish and sensei axew who will post them soon.


Not banned - 2/8

Reasonings

zS: there's way too few checks and way too much momentum is lost when checking which set you're running into. it's a bit too strong for my liking and felt a bit unhealthy thus far

DugZa: I think Lazzle is a bit much for the tier to handle right now, having access to great STAB, NP and other utility moves like Sub, Encore, Knock Off and Toxic pushes it over the top. Running any of Sub, Encore, Protect and Toxic mandates the opponent to play the game slightly differently, would-be switch-ins like Lanturn, AV Yama, and more niche options like Whiscash and Probopass are all crippled significantly by poison and/or Knock Off. The Pokemon that can reliably switch-in to its attack without worrying about status are Naclstack and Snorlax, both of which can also be played around to an extent with Encore. The switch-ins aren't actual switch-ins considered they are one poison away from being nearly useless. Revenge killing it is just as difficult considering only Jolteon, Electrode-H, the rare Sceptile along with the choice scarf Pokemon are the only ones that can outspeed it (out of the viable Pokemon in the tier). Most of the choice scarfers can't even OHKO it from full btw and the ones that do can be easily played around with Protect + tera.

avarice: Salazzle is a great pokemon with its Spa and Speed, but right now I believe its limited coverage holds it back well enough for the tier. It's very frail and does not have too much power until it Nasty Plots, so it is not a brainless pokemon. Pretty balanced for me, maybe worth looking into if Jolteon goes but I kinda doubt that happens.

asa: IMO, the only annoying thing about Salazzle is that it's fast. Its typing does give it decent opportunities to set up, and it almost always has a spare moveslot to run tech options, but its initially middling damage output combined and paper bulk hold it back from being too much. Salazzle can't afford to trade with most Pokemon, meaning you're usually not 100% helpless against it, and the average team is more than capable of pressuring it both defensively (ex.: Snorlax, Heatproof Bronzong, Hariyama, Rhydon) and offensively (ex.: Jolteon, Electrode-H, scarfers like Bruxish/Floatzel).

gum: common defensive pokémon like heatproof bronzong, snorlax, and hariyama can handle it. it's very frail and doesn't get a lot of opportunities, as most of the things it "beats" are things it can't comfortably switch into, or that can beat it with the right tera type. the list of things it beats is also rather short, as most of what'd u expect a special attacker to beat (stuff like sanda, palo) can trade vs it in a pinch. offensively, we have options like jolteon, scarf bruxish, grafaiai, and prio users like floatzel, skunk, bombirdier, and lycanroc


ishtar: I was super on the fence about this but I just can't frankly say that this mon is problematic so far. I see its massive potential to be a top tier breaker with an amazing number of techs able to disrupt teams, but it's higher ceiling means that it might take a little bit longer for people to get properly creative with it. I expect this thing to turn tour games upside down and I think experimentation with Sub/Tox/Encore/Disable, etc. will prove to be very fruitful, it just hasn't happened yet, so for now it'll be my main priority to look into.

Not banned - 2/8

Reasonings

zS:this one i was more on the fence with. it's blazing fast which makes it a pain to revenge kill especially since without bauros there's no real strong physical scarfer that hits it hard enough to threaten it properly. however we do have defensive counterplay to some extend, and it doesn't do that much damage but the combination of cm + volt switch is just wayy too threatening in a tier that does not have sturdy grounds. It's also the biggest enabler this tier has to offer making threats like Alolan Exeggutor completely disgusting by either wearing down possible checks like heatproof zong and Wo-Chien or by just attracting grounds and giving Eggy free turns

DugZa: Has been underwhelming in practice, at least compared to how dominant people expected it be. Not having great coverage is definitely a huge limiting factor and it can be very reliant on tera more often than not. You can't also cover all the switch-ins with a single tera type so its a trade off which leaves it vulnerable against a bunch of Pokemon regardless of what tera is opted for between grasses, grounds, Lanturn and all the other decent SpD switch-ins. It's also not hard to RK with scarfers and has a hard time setting up since it doesn't force switches as much as Lazzle imo. So I think it's fine to keep in the tier right now.

avarice: Electric Fairy coverage on top of Tera potential is really difficult to account for currently. Passive pokemon like P2 just are not enough for me to think Jolteon should stay given how difficult it makes things for offense. Its natural speed and passable spdef after a CM can be make it somewhat annoying to revenge kill as well. Also, compared to lazzle it's not weak to Accelerock

asa: On the fence here. I can see how Jolteon feels like an enabler for other scary threats, which is kind of messed up seeing as it's also an effective wincon and method of speed control. The VoltTurn chains it can start with Scyther/Bruxish are also fairly annoying. That said, though, I don't think it's that crazy on its own or as support. Jolteon sort of has the same issue as Salazzle for me: it often can't afford to trade without using Tera or terrain support, and even its boosted hits aren't *that* strong (sometimes even with Tera boosting them). I think the fact that its Volt Switch can be blocked + it shares certain checks with a lot of the offensive wallbreakers it wants to bring in also holds it back in my eyes.

gum: this feels a bit worse than i expected it to be tbh, it's really tera reliant even when not using tera blast sets cuz ur coverage options (sball, alluring voice) don't pair super well with electric and are rather weak. i think this holds it back pretty heavily in a metagame where u want to preserve your tera for something else, whether for it's for defensive or offensive use. even after setting up, it's possible to revenge kill with our many scarfers and priority users, or just with a tanky pokemon

ishtar: Similarly to Salazzle, Jolteon is an amazingly fast breaker with crazy potential. It's massive tera reliance is somewhat of a hindrance, but one that every player using this mon will naturally accept. The way I see Jolteon diferénciate itself from other fast Electrics is that it is a mon that is both able to break and be an amazing pivot at the same time. In that sense it is Electrode's older cousin with setup, a bit of tera reliance, and also great at forcing certain things in and enable other breakers. With that being said, it's mediocre coverage, good number of SpDef mons that accurately beat it and somewhat lackluster offenses even after tera imo make it just fine to keep for now, but just like with Salazzle, I'm a little on the fence. This mon proves to be more problematic in my eyes due to what it enables rather than what it brings on its own, so it requires a bit more nuance.

Not banned - 0/8

Reasonings

zS: this has no switch ins, however it's also a part of the jolteon moment where every strong breaker that pairs with it suddenly becomes quite unbeatable. I would've voted ban if not for Jolteon hopefully leaving the tier, because I want to see how it would do without Jolt giving it free turns

DugZa: Barely seen it being used and hasn't really looked broken at all when used. Haven't seen anyone bring it up as a concern either and haven't had issues with it personally either so no reason to believe its broken right now.

avarice: Eggy is a great nuke but even with its solid bulk I don't think it gets in easily enough to warrant a ban. Being weak to U-turn really blows for it. If Scyther goes though I could definitely see it becoming more a problem.

asa: Down to keep an eye on this, but I'm not convinced Eggy-A's a problem yet. Choice Specs Eggy-A can be really annoying with VoltTurn backing it up, but it's not completely unwallable and suffers from being slower than even some defensive Pokemon (ex.: Uxie, which can neuter it with Knock Off, and Decidueye-H, which can chunk with Triple Arrows or U-turn). Eggy-A is definitely effective, it just feels awkward to use/position and not that difficult to pressure, even with the bulk, resistances, and possibility to Tera.

gum: specs / breaking sets are not as oppressive as they were in swsh and even sm now that we have a real steel, as well as real spdef walls. i've tried cm sets a lot and it just struggles to get going, while otr sets don't hit hard enough or have to rely on draco meteor, which is just sad when you're a sweeper. i sorta? get the concern, but this feels more than fine between our defensive and offensive counterplay

ishtar: Will I be punished for my naiveté? I have not found this mon to be as problematic as its been stated yet despite its amazing offensive profile. It has a good amount of set versatility in the form of CM, OTR, obviously Specs, that makes it scary, but i have yet to see some of these sets become more than nuisances in practice. Its defensive profile is poor and relies on tera to trade with certain things, and its naturally neutered by a good amount of the tier.

Not banned 4/8

Reasonings

zS: i think it's fine, the only thing that could push it over the edge is the nasty combination it makes with Jolteon but outside of that i think our counterplay is good enough and that it even is offensively checkable

DugZa: On the fence about it but leaning slightly towards the unhealthy side, it doesn't really have a lot of reliable, long-term answers and +2 DW KOs a lot of physical walls after minimal chip which isn't hard to get between hazards and U-turning on them once or twice. It also has a lot of coverage options between QA, Trailblaze, CC and Knock Off and a few different tera options, all of which mandate slightly different counter play. It also has decent defensive stats but its speed isn't that great right now considering we have Pokemon like Jolteon and Salazzle in the tier.

avarice: As it stands I do not think we have enough tools post Torn and Blauros to deal with Scyther reliably. Trying to deal with both Trailblaze and Quick Attack variants of Swords Dance Scyther can be rather difficult. It can also do the usual U-turn nonsense and once you get up some hazards vortex a looooot of mons.

asa: The more I use and play against Scyther, the more oppressive it feels. SD has little to no long-term counterplay and can easily wear its own checks down with U-turn, all at no cost unless the opponent has Rocky Helmet on their team or sacks an Aftermath user. Scouting what moves Scyther is also tricky, with Tera Normal Quick Attack and Tera Grass Trailblaze each requiring different lines of play to avoid losing. Whether it has U-turn or Close Combat also matters, and Team Preview alone is not a reliable indicator one way or the other. Defog sets are obviously fine, but they're not worth keeping around with SD being the premier set.

gum: super susceptible to chip, and the speed tier is good but also nothing really special these days. between its poor typing and just average bulk, it also struggles to find setup opportunities, and when it does, it usually needs a lot to be taken care before it wins; rocky helmets knocked off, opponent to have used up their tera, 2 turns of setup if trailblaze / plenty of chip on the faster pokemon if quick attack, physical walls softened up. also not exactly an answer, but encore aiai is really annoying. i do get how it wins better than anything else we currently have, but to me it just fits the description of a good late game pokémon that wins once every condition is fulfilled

ishtar: Scyther is the best mon in the meta imo. While it shares a good amount of defensive checks between its two main sets, its ability to flip the script on others with not only tera but SD QA is simply too powerful. Even some of its sturdier defensive checks are forced to tera or simply fold to +2 DW after some chip. Recent bans have made this mon much better than it was and it feels slightly similar to Tauros where you had to resort to massive chip bots to reliably end up dealing with it after a while. Scouting against its sets is annoying and can result in snowballing and even U-turn sets turn it into a powerful pivot into other pretty scary breakers.

This vote was fairly close for a lot of the candidates, and clearly there's enough variance in opinions here to continue looking into these particular threats. This is probably the most awkward time to have to deal with such a complicated slate since we are getting a huge shift next month, and suspect tests aren't the most viable at this point in time, timewise as well as simply from a tiering perspective, so we will discuss internally how to address these potential issues as well as keeping an eye on how the meta develops. As always, we encourage people to talk about the state of the meta. Thank you so much for reading!

 

[ishtar]

PU's 5th SV Tiering Survey

After some deliberation, considering the closeness of the previous tiering votes, as well as community support, we've decided to do a survey for this meta discussing the potentially problematic elements of the tier. The results will not have long term effects with the last DLC shift coming around next month, but we still felt like giving the community a chance to comment further on the current meta, and potentially voting once again this sunday based on results. Hariyama is the only example here of a Pokemon that was not previously included in the slate, but that has been brought up in Council. We excluded Exeggutor-Alola due to its 0 ban votes and included Grassy Terrain.

Link to the survey: https://forms.gle/8vG1vNqn6xqGFwAUA

Please fill it out by Saturday 11:59 pm GMT -6, and thank you for your interest!

 

[ishtar]

Hii, results for survey are in! Thank you so much for taking the time to complete this. We got 80 votes which is pretty awesome considering how quickly we had to set this up! As stated before, this was a pretty tricky month to tier with the big shift right around the corner, but thanks to your support we've been able to come up with a couple ideas as to how to move forward within the current tier.

Competitiveness and enjoyment

The average vote for this question resulted in a 7.2 average for enjoyment of the tier! This is a pretty solid number! Seems like people are enjoying themselves with the tier.

Similarly, people seem to believe that the tier is fairly competitive with an average of 7.1. Despite the numbers being higher on the upper end here, there is a slightly more vocal dissatisfaction amongst a 30.7% of the playerbase, who considers that the tier's competitiveness is lower than 7. This minority is important to note and keep track of too, so hopefully we are able to address these votes accordingly.

Tier elements

A majority of people feel strongly about Salazzle being a problematic aspect of the meta. In response to this, we will be holding a vote, the results for this vote will come out almost immediately after this post goes live.

The rest of the votes showed a very minor need for concern in terms of tackling other issues within the tier. Highest concern would be Scyther with a 35% of people wanting action on it. As stated before, looking into threats like this would normally result in us being a lot more careful and looking out for these specific threats within the meta, but with our time situation, we can just promise that we will look into how these Pokemon turn out to be post-shifts.

Apart from these results, we got a fair amount of people having different ideas as to what makes Grassy Terrain problematic, even if the numbers aren't particularly high. This means that a lot of people either feel indifference towards the playstyle, are unsure as to how to fix its potential problems, or simply do not see it as a major element that would require action. We will keep an eye on it as well.

We are glad and thankful that people seem to be enjoying this meta, and hope to continue to provide the best decisions for all of us. Continue posting and interacting with us so we can make PU the best! Thank you!!!

 

[ishtar]

And with that out of the way:

Following this slate, Salazzle is now banned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and dhelmise to implement, thank you very much in advance!

This is our last vote before next month's shift most likely. See y'all next month!

 

[ishtar]

As usual, we will be unbanning the entire PUBL alongside drops tomorrow: Tauros-Paldea-Fire, Salazzle, Tornadus, Zoroark, Articuno-Galar, Oricorio Sensu, Drought as well as previously banned possible drops Emboar and Duraludon are now, or will be, unbanned!

Tagging dhelmise and Marty. Thank you both so much!

Last giant shift coming right around the corner, thank you for sticking around and I hope you all enjoy what the tier ends up looking like. Also happy trans day of visibility!

 

[asa]

As promised on Monday, the council voted on some of the tier's more immediately notable/controversial Pokemon as well as Damp Rock. To note, a 6/8 majority is needed to ban something to PUBL. Below are the results of the vote:

Following the vote, Damp Rock and Drednaw are now banned from SV PU! Tagging Marty and dhelmise to implement these bans, and thank you both in advance.

Below are our vote reasonings. DugZa's will be added when he has the chance to provide them.

Banned - 8/8

Reasonings

sensei axew: With new strong rain additions like Kingdra, Tornadus, and Drednaw+many viable prankster rain dance setters, rain teams plow through most offensive teams and many balances as well unless they have a dedicated check to each one of the plethora of options that rain has.

Vulpix03: There are too many rain abusers that are made broken by damp rock extending rain and are middling outside of rain. Would much rather a damp rock ban than potentially Kingdra etc.

zS: rain is dumb

ishtar: I don't think the tier is well equipped to handle rain in its current state, and I am not convinced in that changing with the guaranteed Drednaw ban thats coming up next. Too many tools in the form of Kingdra, Kilo, Torn without even considering Drednaw. It restricts teambuilding in an awkward way and we have enough sillies running around.

fish anemometer: too many crazy abusers outside drednaw. Kingdra, float, wetbull, inteleon, poli... gastro and milo help but these teams have ways to get around them and are especially deadly if these two arent around.

avarice: Rain is simply too strong even with potential drednaw ban, there is a lot to account for currently and I think the tier needs to be more stable until we keep this.

asa: Besides Drednaw, none of the individual rain guys feel problematic enough to justify removing them instead of Damp Rock. I went into more detail in my post, but the best fix to rain right now is to just ax Damp Rock.

Banned - 8/8

Reasonings

sensei axew: Easiest ban for me, shell smash sets made this thing very hard to revenge kill and giving it dark STAB with tera makes it virtually unwallable

Vulpix03: It's just too strong for the tier with Shell Smash and Tera. Most people are using Tera Grass but you can branch out to Tera Dark (to block Encore and give you STAB Strong Jaw Crunch) as well as use other surprise Teras to allow you free set up or beat a normal "check". This means Drednaw does't really have any true counters in my eyes.

zS: he is dumb asw not even needing to go jolly is ridiculous

ishtar: Drednaw is annoying and dumb. I don't think its worth keeping around since it offers very little defensively and is a pain to take down. Rain only makes it worse but I believe its fairly broken without it. Our water resists are easily exploitable and Drednaw's coverage + Tera pushes it over the edge in terms of how hard it is to handle for balance and offense equally. Sorry etern, you were WRONG!!!

fish anemometer: shell smash is way too much for the tier nuff said

avarice: It sets up way too easily and is not easy to take out once boosted either. Hits like a truck and do not really have the tools to handle it consistently with tera.

asa: Also went into detail about this in my post, but it's silly and doesn't require rain to function (or much support at all, really). Very little stops +2 Drednaw defensively and very little handles it offensively.

Not banned - 4/8

Reasonings

sensei axew: I originally was going to vote ban but I've changed my mind because I think there's a lot of good counterplay to pom-pom and it's not hard to fit 2 different checks to it. I will monitor it for the future though.

Vulpix03: I don't necessarily find any one Pom-Pom set broken in itself (Taunt Roost probably the closest), but the sheer amount of sets it can run coupled with the fact that most sets requires different counterplay just makes Pom-Pom too much for the tier.

zS: way too much free setup opportunities and often gets to +2 without much trouble

ishtar: I am fairly sure that this mon will result problematic in the long run, but I am willing to see how the meta develops around it. My tiering philosophy now that we are back to 3 month shifts means that I wanna take things slow and not be too ban happy. This is a very likely suspect test mon, but I cant in good faith decide to ban it rn since I've not struggled with it much under the current meta.

fish anemometer: Amazing base typing to let it steal games and i only see it getting better as it adapts to meta trends.

avarice: I think it's very difficult to fit answers for all the variants on a team, especially if you guess wrong and fight even more of an uphill battle against it already boosted further. It has not been the most immediately pressing mon with all the offense but I think it should still go.

asa: Even with how obnoxious Oricorio-E can be, I think there's plenty of reasonable ways to slow it down (or outright beat it) that will pop up more in the future, and it can't Tera its way past every single one of them. For a few examples, non-Tera Steel Ori can't reliably deal with Clear Smog Gastrodon, Toxic/Shell Side Arm Glowbro, Psyshock Delphox and Meloetta; non-Tera Fairy can't block Dragon Tail from Goodra; and non-Taunt can't stop Trick, Haze, Roar, opposing setup from Heatom, etc. Figuring out exactly what set it is is admittedly tricky, but the only one that feels problematic is Taunt + Tera Steel, which only gets one attacking move + I can't really conclude is QB-worthy right now.

Not banned - 1/8

Reasonings

sensei axew: This is another Pokemon that I can see being broken in the future but as for right now, I want to give it more time to see if it can be adapted to, which the first week of the new meta has kind of proven that it can be.

Vulpix03: Flamigo is a Pokemon I want to keep a close eye on and potentially suspect test but I don't think it's banworthy *yet*. It's by far the best scarfer in the tier and the role compression it provides is unmatched. What may push Flamigo over the edge however are its non Scarf sets. Band is insanely strong and hard to switch into and Swords Dance can provide surprise factor and break through most fat teams with ease.

zS: slower than pompom and being pompom fodder hurts, and the speedtier is not that great with all the brokens

ishtar: Flamigo is the best scarfer in the tier and one of the most solid breakers and cleaners, but I believe it offers much more good than bad to the tier, being able to outspeed annoying fast breakers like Intel, Tauros, Zoro, check slower ones like Scrafty, Heracross and make good progress against the tier without being ridiculously obnoxious. I know people are generally afraid of the impact of SD and Banded sets, but without proper evidence this is a DNB from me.

fish anemometer: I think it's a cool offensive pivot and stab clicker and isn't overbearingly storng with scarf and isnt overbearingly fast with band.

avarice: Better than raptor but still balanced, role compression it provides is pretty nice as well.

asa: Choice Scarf Flamigo feels healthier and healthier as time passes, imo; offers amazing role compression without hitting too hard or being too fast. The real problem sets for me are Choice Band and Swords Dance, but no one's really used these so far, which makes it hard to judge how problematic they actually are.

Not banned - 3/8

Reasonings

sensei axew: Extremely powerful wallbreaker and phenomenal scarfer that isn't overbearing imo? Bellibolt and Bronzong are 2 of the top 5 defensive options that we have in the tier and both handle staraptor pretty efficiently. It's bulk makes it very easy to revenge kill with a faster scarfer or priority as well as the fact that by far its best 2 sets (scarf and band) are easily pressured by stealth rock.

Vulpix03: Echoing my points about band Flamigo but to a more extreme level. The slight boost in Speed over Flamigo coupled with the fact that outside of Bronzong Staraptor can 2 hit KO the entire tier just pushes it over the edge in my eyes. It is rocks weak, and it's main STAB requires it to kill itself in the process of breaking, but I don't think that stops the Band sets from doing its job. It forces kills in an unhealthy way in my opinion.

zS: no defensive or offensive answers, broken

ishtar: I was initially very pro ban on this, since I believe that it functions like a faster Flamigo that offers no defensive utility and just nukes shit, often in exchange for itself, but I've decided to once again take things a bit slower. I do not think that this mon adds a lot to the current meta but that in itself does not make it warrant a ban. I do worry that this mon is gonna neutralize certain structures in a very restrictive way, much more so than Flamigo does, so it will be at the top of my priority list moving forward.

fish anemometer: suspect this. can really just click sometimes but being a breaker weak to rocks taking so much recoil makes it pretty manageable.

avarice: Raw strength is cool but it's worn down too fast to be seriously considered for a ban.

asa: Choice Band Staraptor almost always goes 1-for-1 (or even 2-for-1) against fat if positioned well, and Choice Scarf is an offense killer that still kinda feels like it's holding CB. While I do think it's very flawed and can be slowed down with stuff like Glowbro, Houndstone, and Heatom, it adds less to the tier than its main competition Flamigo or anything else on the slate. Totally OK with it staying tbh, but I can see how having a guaranteed kill or two vs a lot of teams is unhealthy.

Not banned - 0/8

Reasonings

sensei axew: Very strong but needs to get a few turns right in order to sweep and, in my opinion, I haven't seen it been too successful in doing that.

Vulpix03: To be frank I haven't seen enough of Toxtricity from spectating games or playing myself to vote ban. Similar to Staraptor and Flamigo it is a potent breaker that has very few switch ins, however it is much slower. Shift Gear sets and Specs are very threatening on paper but again, I haven't seen it do enough to justify a ban vote. Similar to Flamigo I think we should keep a close eye on Toxtricity, though.

zS: biggest disappointment, he’s not even good…

ishtar: This is another potentially terrifying offensive threat with equal ability to break as to clean up games, due to its main sets Specs and Shift Gear. Shift Gear is imo the only potentially broken set, but I think that the guessing game between the two plays a big role in its ability to get out of control. I wanna give balance and BO teams more of a chance to develop post rain ban in order to see how this one plays out.

fish anemometer: another suspect one for me, hit or miss mon but i think its extremely powerful when its in hit.

avarice: It has felt very very clicky with choiced variants and its shift gera sets are no slouch but I think the reliance on tera to really excel in breaking nudge it back towards whatever for me.

asa: Toxtricity does not feel very consistent. Maybe slowing the meta down by banning Drednaw and nerfing rain will help it shine more, but it really does just feel like Hoopa Jr. a lot of the time. I think the defensive utility Toxtricity has in checking opposing Electrics and absorbing TSpikes is a little cheap, but only Shift Gear actually takes proper advantage of this. SG also lacks the initial strength of Choice Specs, which does give you time to react and prevent it from getting both +1 SpA and +2 Speed for free.

Not banned - 2/8

Reasonings

sensei axew: It's a stupid pokemon for sure but I don't think it classifies as broken

Vulpix03: I'd prefer to ban Icy Rock honestly but there just aren't enough abusers outside of Cetitan to justify it. Cetitan under Aurora Veil often forces game deciding Tera 50/50s which I don't think is healthy. Knock Off + Ice coverage is nearly impossible to defensively check and +6 Ice Shard can pick off faster Pokemon.

zS: might be a problem post rain but for now has been slightly unimpressive

ishtar: Snow is fairly annoying but its being carried by this fat whale a lot. Just like with some of the prior threats mentioned earlier, I believe that the tier can properly adapt to countering it in a more healthy way than now without the worries of Rain running through your shit as much. This is another one of the mons that offer very little to the tier so I would be happy to remove in a future vote if it stays annoying and dumb, but for now Cetitan better thank me for not voting his ass to PUBL! You're welcome, Cetitan!

fish anemometer: this thing needs positioning but if it can get it it's really toxic and hard to take down without a rotom or something. annoying mon that shapes the game around itself.

avarice: Rain has felt much stronger than snow, Cetitan is definitely solid but it needs some time "on its own" to fairly justify a ban to me.

asa: Rain slows snow down and it's not impossible for walls/Terastallized offensive Pokemon to tank Ice Shard and mess Cetitan up. It admittedly has a place on non-snow teams, but the support it requires to work there is more substantial. Down to reexamine Cetitan after rain is out of the picture, but it's not consistently wowing me.

Not banned - 1/8

Reasonings

sensei axew: I can see it being a problem in the future as its stabs+speed+np make it very hard to switch into but as for right now I think with scream tail, heatproof bronzong, and milotic being so popular its not that much of a threat

Vulpix03: Nasty Plot sets are very strong but I don't think Delphox is ban worthy. Its mediocre physical defense coupled with a Speed stat that leaves it just shy of mons such as Pawmot, Scyther and Mismagius means there are plenty of ways to offensively check it, even if it's very hard to defensively beat Nasty Plot sets.

zS: she’s demonic, way too hard to deal with defensively and her speedtier is quite nice too

ishtar: I've used Delphox all week through PULT and I've had a lot of fun using it. Despite that, I do not think that its a problematic element within the tier. I could see that changing with the meta severely slowing down and Delphox praying on slower archetypes with coverage, Encore, Psyshock and obviously, NP, but for now it just seems like a slight upgrade from Salazzle, despite its lower speed. Will keep an eye on it though.

fish anemometer: i think the stats are not there for it to be too much but it is rly good at its role. needs more time

avarice: Delphox is a good pokemon with nice speed but I have not been particularly impressed with it thus far to where it has to go. I think it'll remain good for awhile but should not be too much.

asa: Not QB-worthy imo, at least not yet. NP + Encore puts a ton of pressure on fat, but even fat always has something that's faster than 337 and can threaten Delphox. Offense on the other hand welcomes seeing something slower than Pawmot, Scyther, Tornadus, etc. Non-NP sets feel pretty questionable rn, too. Choice Scarf seems mediocre while Choice Specs has to predict a ton to even work (and can still fail vs stuff like Milotic), and both becoming vulnerable to entry hazards limits what they can realistically do by a lot.

This is not all the tiering action we plan to take. If something proves to be an issue that we dismissed here or didn't even consider, we will gladly vote again or even hold a suspect test. We understand that rain and Drednaw stole some of the spotlight from other things, so we'll be keeping a close eye on the tier, especially with SSNL and PULT still going on. Thank you all for your feedback so far, and please keep posting so we have a better idea of what to focus on going forward!

 

[asa]

New week, new tiering action post. The point of this vote was revisiting the Pokemon we voted on last week and adding Grimmsnarl and Tauros-W, two strong offensive threats that have picked up in usage this past week and have drawn some ire. Again, a 6/8 majority is required to ban something to PUBL. Here are the results of the vote:

Following the vote, Oricorio-Pom-Pom is now banned from SV PU! Tagging Marty and dhelmise to implement this ban, and thank you both in advance.

Below are our vote reasonings. The reasonings that haven't changed since last week will be indicated, and you can read them here (the post directly above this one).


Banned - 7/8

Reasonings

fish anemometer: Same reasoning as last time.

sensei axew: i originally voted DNB but I'm changing to ban this vote because I think it's set versatility with both bulky taunt and offensive QD is too much for the tier with its typing.

asa: Seen and used more of this, and the effect bulky QD + Taunt sets have on the tier is noticeably negative. I still do think people could do more to get around it, but it's hard to deny the strain it puts on bulky teams without being total dead weight against offense.

ishtar: Gave this a week and its as uncompetitive as I thought it'd be. Taunt sets r rlly dumb and snowball extremely hard into a lot of mus, restrict certain comps and force super awkward counterplay.

Vulpix03: Same reasoning as last time.

DugZa: I think Pom-Pom effectiveness is very exaggerated. We have a lot of decent counterplay for it; Clear Smog Gastrodon, (AV) Goodra, (AV) Meloetta, Toxic-Glowbro, Rotom-H, A-Slash, Regirock, CM users etc. the list goes on but Pom-Pom can't deal with all of them reliably even with tera and has to pick and choose what it wants to beat and what it's going to leave itself weak to. Taunt is the closest to "broken" but even that faces the same issues of having to pick and choose what it wants to beat and what its gonna lose to. All in all has not felt broken whatsoever.

zS: Same reasoning as last time.

avarice: Same reasoning as last time.

Not banned - 5/8

Reasonings

fish anemometer: Same reasoning as last time.

sensei axew: it's a cheese pokemon that can easily sweep teams under snow given the right positioning

asa: Down to remove Cetitan from the tier. It doesn't really add anything positive and can steal games pretty easily with its high ass HP and Tera. Seeing more Thick Fat instead of Slush Rush changed my mind some too, feels like Thick Fat lets you get more out of it and doesn't always force you to Tera.

ishtar: Snow is just a bit silly but Cetitan seems like the only issue that pushes it over the edge. I believe sets outside of Snow are also annoying and it's just not a mon that adds much to the tier but force a lot of awkward interactions with random Teras, abilities.

Vulpix03: Same reasoning as last time.

DugZa: It's only really good on Snow teams but Snow teams in general have felt underwhelming to me and it requires a lot of factors to be able to setup and sweep. We also have stuff like Rotom-H and Bronzong that is has trouble dealing with reliably. It does fit on some non-Snow teams but it is significantly worse on those structures and is much harder to make it work and has been pretty underwhelming even on those teams.

zS: Same reasoning as last time.

avarice: Same reasoning as last time.

Not banned - 0/8

Reasonings

fish anemometer: Same reasoning as last time.

sensei axew: Same reasoning as last time.

asa: Same reasoning as last time.

ishtar: Same reasoning as last time.

Vulpix03: Same reasoning as last time.

DugZa: I originally voted to ban it last week but I've changed my mind since. It's a healthy component in the tier and adds a lot. Similar to Staraptor the Band sets are very strong but a very prediction reliant but is fairly slow so leaves it vulnerable to a lot of offensive threats. Scarf is are arguably the "best" set on it and has a lot of role compression and is not overbearing to warrant a ban. It also has some set variety with non-choice options like SD, Sub etc.

zS: Same reasoning as last time.

avarice: Same reasoning as last time.

Not banned - 3/8

Reasonings

fish anemometer: suspect

sensei axew: Same reasoning as last time.

asa: Same reasoning as last time.

ishtar: Same reasoning as last time.

Vulpix03: Same reasoning as last time.

DugZa: Scarf sets are not hard to switch-in to since it fails to 2HKO most defensive Pokemon in the tier while Band sets are too slow, failing to outspeed most offensive Pokemon in the tier. It also kills itself very fast with its STAB options and it very prediction-reliant to do well. One Pokemon with Protect and its effectiveness drops significantly. Has felt underwhelming everytime I've seen it. A poor man's Flamigo that's weak to rocks and kills itself faster.

zS: Same reasoning as last time.

avarice: Same reasoning as last time.

Not banned - 0/8

Reasonings

fish anemometer:

sensei axew:

asa: Grimmsnarl is annoying, but I don't think teams are so utterly helpless against it that it warrants a quickban. With Fairies, Poisons, defensive Grounds, Encore, and Intimidate all on so many teams, it feels like Grimmsnarl needs a lot taken care of before it can even attempt to win. Entry hazards being as good as they are tends to limit what SubBU can do, while RestTalk is begging not to play against Trick and only gets one attacking move. I wouldn't even call Grimmsnarl a fishy Pokemon, I just don't think it's as oppressive on average as some say.

ishtar: One of the most annoying setup mons is the tier, Grimms is able to singlehandedly own some forms of HO and even balance that are unprepared for it. I think this is due to how underused its been, but I believe that the tier has a lot of tools to deal with it, and as the meta progresses, it will become much more of a healthy presence for the tier.

Vulpix03: Really good Mon but in no way strong enough to quick ban.

DugZa: Has felt a bit annoying at times but I think that's mostly because it was ignored in the builder. Sub BU sets and RestTalk sets are both decent but it needs multiple turns to setup and get things going leaving it a bit vulnerable until it gets a few Bulk Ups in. We also have hazers like Milotic and Gastrodon that can annoy it and decent Fairy-type Pokemon that threaten it well. Tera Poison mayyybe a bit annoying to deal with at times but I think it should be given some time before action is taken.

zS: great wincon, but i feel more like it’s a premiere suspect candidate rather than a quickban material mon. I would like to see how the metagame develops around it and if more counterplay can appear with the meta developing

avarice: Prankster sleep talk can be scary with good luck but takes too long to get going for me to be very concerned about its place in the metagame. Other sets are kinda "basic" and don't feel overwhelming ever really.

Not banned - 1/8

Reasonings

fish anemometer: from playing it feels like it snowballs ways too fast and easily, although every set has a big tradeoff which is why im fine with dnb and slower action.

sensei axew: Same reasoning as last time.

asa: Same reasoning as last time.

ishtar: Same reasoning as last time.

Vulpix03: Same reasoning as last time.

DugZa: Not the most consistent Pokemon and the below-average speed tier for an offensive Pokemon doesn't help. On paper, it sounds great but has felt underwhelming in practice between its middling bulk and being fairly easy to play around once the set is revealed and it is fairly tera reliant + needs a turn to setup and get things going while the choiced sets are very very prediction-reliant.

zS: Same reasoning as last time.

avarice: Same reasoning as last time.

Not banned - 1/8

Reasonings

fish anemometer: Same reasoning as last time.

sensei axew: Same reasoning as last time.

asa: Same reasoning as last time.

ishtar: Same reasoning as last time.

Vulpix03: Same reasoning as last time.

DugZa: NP sets are fairly threatening against the right team but its defense stats are not particularly great and allows it to be revenge killed fairly easily. Encore sets are annoying for more defensive teams to deal with but even then they can be played around fairly efficiently and most teams have one or two mons that outspeed it. We also have decent water types like Milotic, Gastrodon etc. and other bulky mons like Scream Tail that can deal with it decently.

zS: Same reasoning as last time.

avarice: Same reasoning as last time.

Not banned - 0/8

Reasonings

fish anemometer: i think this thing is broken and clicks and breaks way too easily but i like it's priority and intimidate vs HO at the moment, taking tiering action more slowly im dnb for now.

sensei axew: some of the best defensive mons in the tier currently are gastrodon, scream tail, slowbro-galar, and altaria and aqua-bull struggles really hard to break through these defensive cores even with a bunch of set versatility

asa: Not feeling that this is problematic enough to quickban either. Bulk Up sets never have the perfect combination of moves and really hate not having CB, while Choice sets have sturdy immunes/resists that can pivot around its moves easier than they would around, say, Staraptor. The defensive profile on Wauros is great for an offensive Pokemon, and what set it's running isn't always immediately obvious, but I really don't think its impact on the tier is that negative.

ishtar: Wetbull is fine, theres a lot in the tier that's able to stop it from snowballing from Glowbro, Gastro, Altaria. I think that its myriad of sets can make it slightly tricky but I think that there's enough counterplay. I also believe BU sets have been underwhelming and require a lot of careful maneuvering to succeed.

Vulpix03: This Mon has plenty of counterplay from sets like tera ghost gastro (very common) as well as altaria. Not ban worthy

DugZa: Hasn't felt particularly great; the main thing it has going for it is the unpredictability between Scarf, Band or BU sets but both choiced sets are very prediction reliant while BU sets mean its easier to deal with offensively due to its middling speed tier. BU sets also have trouble picking and choosing between Sub or coverage options in its last slot. All sets have trouble against common Pokemon like Altaria, Houndstone etc.

zS: one of the best pokémon in the tier, but none of his sets have felt broken for now so i’ll leave it at that

avarice: It's cool seeing this mon gain traction but it has not been all that impressive to me thus far, I think we have enough resists to deal with it and tools to deal with the different teras for now.

 

[ishtar]

PU's 6th SV Tiering Survey

We finally have a real tier, and with a real tier comes new challenges! It is your choice to influence the trajectory of PU by sharing your gamer insight with us. These results could have a long-term effect in our tier, so feel free to express any complaints and wishes about the meta. As noted previously, with our finally fleshed out PU we are taking a slower approach towards action, but giving a voice to you becomes even more important than before. Every Pokemon included in the vote was either previously voted on by Council or brought up by either Council members or community remembers through different channels. Hope we didn't miss anything, but if we did, let us know in the last section of the survey! Hope you're all enjoying this new meta!

Link to the survey: https://forms.gle/Gk4EFX2N73rGW43B6

Please send it before Tuesday, May 7th at 23:59 pm GMT -4. Thank you!

 

[asa]

The survey results are in, a big thank you to everyone that took time to fill it out!

We got responses from 127 people this time, which is considerably more than we got from our last survey.

Enjoyment and competitiveness

​

The average enjoyment score is 7.17, right around where enjoyment polled last time. More of the playerbase is having fun playing PU, and that's great!

​

When it comes to how competitive people find the tier is, though, the average score drops some to 6.89. While this still indicates overall satisfaction, 35.4% of respondents feel we could stand to make the tier more competitive, and that's a pretty significant number. Hopefully we can address their concerns and increase this score going forward.

Pokemon and tier elements

​

While not an overwhelming majority in either case, there is more support for acting on Toxtricity and Staraptor than not acting on them. It's worth noting that, despite more people supporting action on Staraptor than Toxtricity, more people are also against acting on Staraptor than against acting on Toxtricity. Considering this, as well as general community and council discussion, we will be suspect testing Toxtricity after this post goes live. This does not mean Staraptor will or will not be suspected after, the council just believes that Toxtricity is a higher priority as of now.

​

None of the other Pokemon on the survey received substantial support for action. Zoroark and Paldean Tauros-W have the most support among these, so we'll be keeping an eye on them as the meta continues to evolve, but the big problems for a lot of people seem to just be Toxtricity and Staraptor.

Bellibolt received more mentions than anything else in the "other concerns" section, clocking in at seven (7). While there are currently no plans to act on Bellibolt, we will keep an eye on the electric Dorito frog as things progress.

Thanks again for your feedback, and thank you for playing even if you didn't fill out the survey! Please don't hesitate to post your thoughts on the tier, the Pokemon mentioned above, anything we didn't already highlight, etc. See you all very soon when @shitar ishtar posts the suspect thread.

 

[ishtar]

We voted on both Raikou and Inteleon following a good amount of discourse here and in the Discord server. Raikou was decided to either be quickbanned or kept as a potential suspect test candidate, while Inteleon was either gonna be suspect tested or not at this point in time. 5/7 to reach a vote:

Banned - 6/7

Reasonings

asa: will send reasonings later

fish anemometer: While its strengths are exaggerated by many (difficulty in scouting and checking sets is overstated, as well as its ability to "6-0 teams"), it has a chokehold on the builder limiting to an even smaller amount of special sponges, and the real kicker being scald which can badly cripple anything that wants to sponge said hits bar gastrodon and rest-talk wo-chien.

DugZa: It's high stats and good coverage has pushed things over the edge for me. I originally thought that 4 Atks HDB would easily be the most dominant set but CM sets have taken off and can be annoying to deal with; it's also hard to know what set (and what tera) to expect on preview so making the wrong switch and giving it an extra turn or two can set you back sometimes. Its speed is decent too and there's only a handful of (viable) Pokemon that can outspeed and all of them are special attackers so revenge killing is not the easiest thing to do. Tera also allows it quite comfortably to circumvent its natural checks and weaknesses; with this and all the possible sets and having Pressure as an ability, it can easily pick and choose its counters. Most of these counters are not that hard to pressure. People have experimented with Pokemon like Lanturn (still loses to Sub CM btw) that have no niche outside being somewhat decent vs. Raikou which further hints at its effect in the metagame right now.

ishtar: While not the most problematic element of the tier in a vacuum, Raikou is heavily restricting on the builder and has a much higher ceiling than other problematic Pokemon in the tier thanks to its access to Sub Cm sets with different Teras and the possibility of PP stalling threats. This in conjunction with its other sets which are also solid means that you require a higher number of Pokemon than otherwise desired to deal with the threat of Raikou lest you're willing to risk losing to x or y variant of it.

zS: will send reasonings later

avarice: Raikou doesn't have enough immediate power for me to think it deserves a quick ban. That being said, it does a good job at getting Calm Mind winning games. I think those are well deserved though. Raikou is very solid but doesn't seem absurd just yet.


MZ: I think for the sake of taking immediate action for tier improvement, it would help to remove Raikou right now. On its own it's not too crazy but it really shines on the variability front. I've already seen sub lefties, tera fairy, coverage like aura sphere and shadow ball, and i think the calls to have a more stable, post-PUPL environment to test if it can really be healthy for the tier are appropriate (even if I think Inteleon is the more QB-worthy mon)

Suspect - 7/7

Reasonings

asa: will send hers later

fish anemometer: The speed and power is ridiculous being top 5 in the entire tier in both categories. Can easily pivot out if it cant quite start clicking water moves. On balance, it forces pretty much the same highly passive defensive pieces as raikou, though with some more leniency to bulky waters and tatsurigi. It's not only limiting to balance though, it's also faster than most offensive mons and usually crushes standard (non unburden) HO if it has a tera to resist espeed/shadow sneak as well. Extremely limiting mon.


DugZa: I've heard mixed opinions on it and controversial opinion but I personally do not think this Pokemon is broken or banworthy. However, I can understand the concerns brought up regarding its impact and how linear its checks/counters are which can also force building to be a certain way; you'll see one of Milotic of Gastrodon on almost every Balance/BO team and most of the time this is because of Inteleon's presence. It has a speed stat even better than Raikou and is only outsped by a handful of Pokemon, most of which have fallen out of favor in current metagame trends. While Milotic and Gastrodon can take hits from it pretty reliably, we've seen things like tera Grass being used to circumvent these issues. Personally haven't felt it to be overbearing to play against and not to mention, its coverage options are average at best and very linear really. All this said, which I'm not leaning towards a ban at the moment but I do think a suspect test is the right step forward given the support from the community and council alike.


ishtar: Intel has become a fairly controversial mon in the last month or so thanks to its limited but very functional toolbox. Its ability to simply tera past would be counters such as Gastro, Milo means that Intel easily gets chances to click moves easily into endgames or break defensive cores early. I believe that this mon has been somewhat nerfed in current meta due to the higher usage of Gastro/Wo-Chien thanks to Raikou, as well as Raikou itself, but the newest drop has also made Milotic less desirable as a SpDef wall, which would be a much better Intel answer, meaning that Intel's viability, while having to deal with more defensive answers on teams, also has ways of taking advantage of these more exploitable answers. All of these facts make Intel a great candidate for a suspect test.


zS: no switchins if the right move is clicked, nothing else to say, get rid of this shit

avarice: We've had much more time with lizard, and I think it's time for it to go. It's more one dimensional than the other Pokemon on the chopping block, but it does its job a bit too easily. The raw strength its STAB can be felt p easily with the common backbones seen this PUPL. U-turn pivoting allowing it to set up any of the other strong breakers in the tier can be rough as well.


MZ: Minimal counterplay is restricting the meta and I want PU to be even more fun

Following this slate, Raikou is now banned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and dhelmise to implement, thank you very much!

Raikou is not a Pokemon that managed to stay within the tier for an extended amount of time, and it compounded with other problematic elements within the tier also made it hard to rate on its own. For that reason, we will be revisiting this Pokemon after PUPL. On the other hand, Inteleon has definitely taken up the spotlight as the premier breaker, and I believe that the meta will be shifting back to how it was before Raikou now, meaning that Pokemon such as Gastrodon and Wo-Chien will be used less. This will make for a very interesting suspect test that we hope is able to decide once and for all the future of the lizard. Thank you so much for contributing to the discussion around these two mons and we're hoping for some epic meta developments coming up! Suspect test thread out soon!

 

[ishtar]

Hello, ProbablyUsed playerbase. We have a new survey out! This survey will inform us about your opinion on certain strong Pokemon such as Decidueye, Scrafty, etc. It will also help us determine how you feel about the possible reintroduction of Damp Rock and Raikou into the meta.
Just as a disclaimer, these results will not affect PUPL, they will just help us determine our direction after the tournament is over. Thank you so much for your time and involvement with us.

Click here for survey!

Deadline for this will be Sunday 18th 8pm -6.

 

[ishtar]

Survey results are in! Thank you to everyone who voted!

We got 70 responses which is a lot less than on our previous survey. I attribute that to the new Smogon survey format, which requires you to have a Smogon account, which should give us more accurate data. Hopefully as we continue doing these we can see an increase in those numbers.

General survey

Enjoyment and competitiveness!

A really positive change from our last survey, from 7.1 to 7.6. People seem to be enjoying the meta a lot more, poggers!

Competitiveness saw an even higher raise from 6.89 to 7.6. People seem to believe the meta is very competitive! We will continue to address concerns regarding our meta in the weeks after PUPL.

Pokemon and Tier elements!

Raikou reintroduction received the highest percentage of votes with a 38.6% with action into Tauros-Paldea-Aqua and reintroduction of Damp Rock had interest from 31.4% and 30% of voters respectively. We will be looking into these numbers, particularly Raikou suspect test moving forward.


Qualified survey

A total of 20 voters had either made it to Round 5 of PU Open or had played a minimum of 3 PUPL games and won one.

Enjoyment and competitiveness!

An even higher average here, 7.8 is great in terms of enjoyment from tournament players within the tier!

This is the highest number we've had in terms of the competitiveness of the tier: 8.1. Qualified players believe that the meta lends itself to very competitive play, this is great news!

Pokemon and Tier elements!

Decidueye rose above and beyond the rest of the elements in the survey in terms of supporting action. This is very meaningful data to us and might decide the future of the Pokemon within the meta after PUPL concludes. We will keep you all updated on this when the time comes.
​

Apart from the aforementioned Pokemon, there were considerable mentions regarding Venusaur as well as Sun elements, which we will discuss internally as well. Once again, I appreciate the commitment from everyone put in time to fill in this survey, and we will be back after PUPL to discuss some of the intricacies of these votes. That is not to say that something will or won't happen, but the time for that decision will come then. Really happy with how people feel about the meta, and we will utilize this information to better improve our tier further. Goodbye!

​

 

[asa]

It's been a while, but we're back with another set of votes on another set of controversial Pokemon and meta elements. The main idea here was seeing whether we need to quickban anything or not, with Damp Rock and Cetitan added at the request of certain council members. For Damp Rock, the option was whether to unban it or keep it in PUBL; for Cetitan, we could choose between unbanning, resuspecting, or keeping it in PUBL. Below are the results of the vote:

As of posting this, Indeedee is now banned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and dhelmise to implement this change, thank you in advance! Below are the vote reasonings for each council member. kyuss will submit his later, he was busy at the time of submission (edit: all reasonings are now available).


6/7 - Banned

Reasonings

MZ - Specs is borderline too much, especially with the other terrifying things running around, but auto-enabling crazy terrain sweepers really seals the deal.

ishtar - Simply too strong and provides too much utility to its teammates.

zS - i don’t think it’s outright broken but it puts a strain on the builder i dislike and enables a lot of mons a bit too easily imo

DugZa - Very centralizing and has extremely limited "counterplay" if you can even call it that; stuff like AV Melo still take a ton on switch-ins while the Darks are still get goobed by Normal STAB or Fairy coverage. Its speed is nothing amazing but there are only a handful of Pokemon faster that can reliably revenge kill it and Psychic terrain makes the many priority users we have not-so-effective in dealing with it too. Would be open to suspect it back into the tier at a later point though if there is sufficient support for it.

asa - Expanding Force is incredibly unhealthy to build around, and you can't just use HO to deal with Indeedee because its Terrain turns off priority and enables Unburden sweepers to pick offense apart. Building too much with Choice sets in mind also leaves you weaker to those Unburden sweepers, since you'll be harder pressed to use something like Roar Mudsdale over Copperajah, which doesn't always have room for Whirlwind and loses to something like Hitmonlee.

fish anemometer - meloetta is better. Psychic terrain is volatile and its dubvious whether a better indeedee can push it over the edge. I'll take the risk and try to gather more data, but I do worry about the influx of fast breakers.

kyuss - at first, I wasn’t planning to ban it because I figured it was just better than Indeedee-F and not as strong as Meloetta. But after some playtesting, I realized it’s basically a one-click nuke with no real downsides, crazy speed for its tier, and it can’t be bothered by priority moves. Even losing offchecks like Bronzong, Scream Tail, Milotic, and Slowbro-G didn’t help much. Plus, Tauros was a big threat that could outspeed and KO it easily. So yeah, in this setup, I think it deserves a ban, but as long as some of the above fall back to PU it's worth suspecting.

0/7 - Not banned

Reasonings

MZ - It seems like we've got stuff for it. I hate the thing, it's very annoying, and maybe we revisit this in a week, but I don't anticipate Venusaur entirely dominating the tier just yet

ishtar - I think MZ put it best in regards to Venusaur this last week in that it's ridiculously annoying and sorta impossible to cover in the builder without a v short list of answers, but once its in the field you often find ways around it. I believe it might be worth looking at cuz I do believe if you approach the builder in a very linear way it definitely looks like a pain in the ass, but I also do not think that that is necessarily how SV building should be approached. I still wanna consider its potentially warping effects and want to keep an eye on it and I'm not against a suspect at this point in time, though I wanna have more time to analyze it in the current meta.

zS - great mon but not broken

DugZa - 2 of its (semi-reliable?) switch-ins in Bronzong and AV Glowbro along with another check in Kilo leaving the tier benefits a lot. I do think it can be obnoxious to switch-in to and think it can be overbearing in the current meta but would like to give it some time and see how it actually performs before getting rid of it too early.

asa - Slow enough with plenty of weaknesses and without being unkillable, though I do still find Venusaur pretty annoying. Losing all of AV Glowbro, Kilo, and Bronzong makes dealing with it a little worse, so I'd like to suspect this going forward.

fish anemometer - lol overrated. defensive is a net positive and offensive loses too much bulk, to still not be fast enough or strong enough to be broken.

kyuss - Venusaur is solid both offensively and defensively, but it’s not really causing any major issues. It lost some of its checks, but overall, it’s not over the top or anything.

0/7 - Not banned

Reasonings

MZ - Shifts made it worse! But yeah this is not a problem, I need to see reasoning for it being on here.

ishtar - Decid has definitely gotten worse lately. I think if this turns out to pop off again we will survive for a bit with the same guys we've been already using, since they're still all in the tier, but as it stands I believe that the offensive nature of this meta does not even allow it to do what it used to to previously nearly as effectively. A lot of the guys it enjoyed setting up on have left, and even then, Decid itself is a great offensive Pokemon, so we'll just have to see how it pans out moving forward. Rn im not convinced its much of anything more than a pretty cool strong guy.

zS - if anything indeedee dropping made it a lot worse, but i could see it being broken shortly. i think this is our next suspect candidate

DugZa - I used to think Decidueye was not really a problematic Pokemon at all and yes, in-game it does not do broken things most of the time but the strain it has on the builder has been annoying to say the least. Forcing every balance/BO structure to run a Dark (Skuntank, Bombirdier, Hwilfish etc.) is unideal. That said, with the shifts it did lose some Pokemon that it likes to come in on and take advantage of and the meta in general has shifted to be more offensive which could go both ways for it, either SD sets will be even better or it'd fail to keep up with the more fast-paced meta. Would like to see how it actually does with the changes before voting to ban.

asa - If you asked me during PUPL, I would've said to send this thing to triple Ubers; now, I'm mostly fine with it? The lower power level benefits it to an extent, but it lost a lot of Pokemon it used as entry points or fodder. I think we should still keep a Decidu*eye* on this, though, unless things really do get so fast and offensive that it can't keep up.

fish anemometer - not broken in any capacity. tier has adapted to it well, and some fodder for it left.

kyuss - same story as Venusaur, but Decidueye used to be way more of a pain to deal with. The recent changes might have nerfed its usefulness a bit, so I think we should hold off and see how things go. It’s not something that needs an immediate ban, but I’m open to keeping an eye on it based on what players are saying in surveys.

1/7 - Not banned

Reasonings

MZ - Like Venusaur it's pretty crazy and I wanna keep an eye out, but it still seems like we have enough for it and can start digging into the pockets a bit more. Maybe Dudunsparce blows up now idk.

ishtar - Dura has become a premier breaker in the tier and some of its defensive answers have left us during this shift. This is probably the main mon I'd consider a suspect test on in the current meta, but I do not feel comfortable quickbanning it.

zS - this on the other hand has gotten out of hand. the departure of most of his checks makes it close to impossible to switch into. it should go

DugZa - We did lose some checks and switch-ins to this (depending on the set) like Bronzong, Milotic, Scream Tail, (AV) Glowbro, Waterbull. So I think it easily be overbearing at this point. However, just like the previous 2 I wanna give it some time before banning it, I think the meta will also be more fast paced and offensive so non-scarf sets might be too slow to keep up with most other threats although Specs sets would be extremely annoying to deal with for more defensive structures.

asa - As I said in my post, I think suspecting Duraludon is better than quickbanning it, probably before Venusaur if both end up needing suspects because it looks harder to answer given its gamer stat spread and stronger, more spammable moves. Still, hard to judge other special breakers right away when we have the expander in the tier, so I'm ok with waiting at least another week on this.

fish anemometer - Offers the tier the benefits of a physically defense steel/dragon which is super cool. Offense has many tools to beat it tho i can see fatter teams struggling now. Suspect and only ban with more data.

kyuss - Duraludon has a great defensive profile and is super tough to switch into comfortably. However, we’ve been handling it fine for months now. It lost some of its key checks, but I’d like to give it more time to see how the meta evolves. It might be worth keeping on the radar for now.

2/7 - Not unbanned

Reasonings

MZ - I don't think Rain would be healthy

ishtar - My opinions on this are two-fold: On one hand, abusers like Kilo, Tauros and Croak have left. On the other hand, water checks such as Milo and Toxicroak + a much lower power level means that other Pokemon will feel the pressure to handle a playstyle that does not have a place in the nebulous ecosystem that our tier is in at the moment.

zS - why?

DugZa - We did lose some rain abusers but at the same time the overall power level of the tier also dropped by a decent bit. We also lost Milotic and Toxicroak, two Pokemon that rain teams would've had trouble dealing (esp Milotic). As far as switch-ins go we have very limited options like Gastrodon, Tatsugiri, the latter of which doesn't even get used much or we'd have to resort to suboptimal Pokemon like Poliwrath like when Inteleon was still in the tier. Most Gastrodon's would no longer have the option of running Sticky Hold (arguably more common than Storm Drain nowadays) due to rain's overbearing presence. Abusers like Kingdra, Torn, Poliwrath etc. would just not be fun to deal with at all.

asa - I mean, the power level of our rain guys definitely went down since last time, but I don't really see how the tier is meant to withstand rain without resorting to Storm Drain Gastrodon or SpDef Tera Water Florges on every team. Even offense can't *always* deal with rain either, stuff like Floatzel is way faster than a lot of Unburden guys and priority only works if everything is sufficiently chipped, which isn't a guarantee.

fish anemometer - This one might require a Kingdra ban, but with Kilo gone and wetbull gone, I think the tier has the tools to healthily acclimate to rain. We still have plenty of water resists, and rain is manual, its abusers are frail and kill themselves/can't run boots. Water resisting teras like dragon and water are still good options.

kyuss - right now IMO sun seems to be in a better spot than Rain when it comes to threats. I’d like to see Sun back in play to reevaluate things. Kingdra might be too much to handle, but Damp Rock isn’t really making a splash in the tier anyway. Letting it stay could encourage more diverse strategies and kingdra is a small sacrifice for diversity sake.

1/7 - Not unbanned, no resuspect

Reasonings

MZ -I'd like to let other stuff settle first, if we don't need to tackle Venu/Dura/rain stuff if Damp Rock is freed then a resuspect would be interesting. It seems like it'd be more broken than last time but it was pretty borderline.

ishtar - I do not entertain the idea of reintroducing Cetitan into the meta as I believe most of the reasons it was broken and banned back when still apply to now.

zS - whyyyy?????

DugZa - I was pretty surprised that unbanning Cetitan was brought up. The overall power level just dropped by a lot and we also lost stuff like Pauros-Water, Bronzong (with tera), and Milotic (if you wanna speed creep and haze ig), so I don't see how this could be healthy for the tier right now when it was already considered overbearing when we had some other checks already in the tier.

asa - Not feeling this one, losing Wetbull (and Indeedee, spoilers) reduced offensive counterplay while losing PhysDef Glowbro and Milotic reduced defensively counterplay. That combined with a generally lower power level, which Cetitan benefits from immensely given its stats, makes reintroducing Cetitan a really hard sell.

fish anemometer - With the departing of wetbull, nothing beats this and tera ghost is free. Bad timing to free it.

kyuss - this one’s a bit controversial since I voted to ban Indeedee. My main reason for considering it for a suspect ban was that I believe a metagame where Psychic Terrain is so prominent would keep Cetitan from being a big threat. It relies on priority moves to handle a lot of the meta, and Indeedee basically shuts it down. Plus, Cetitan needs to use a Sitrus Berry, and with hazard removal being tricky right now, it’s already down 75% HP just to get going. Knock Off is everywhere, making it even harder. With Indeedee getting quickbanned, I worry about it getting unbanned, but if the meta develops to be more offensive/fast paced (which I think it will), Cetitan shouldn’t be too much of a problem—not as bad as Meloetta or what Wauros was.

The council agrees that suspecting Duraludon is a good next step, though the new meta was in such an unclear state with Indeedee around and occupying a lot of attention that we want to give Duraludon (and Venusaur) more time, just to confirm whether they're worth quickbanning, suspecting, or doing nothing about. We'd appreciate feedback from everyone about our decision, especially since we're going to start seeing the current meta play out in multiple tournaments. For now, though, the plan is to revote on Duraludon and Venusaur next weekend. Thanks for reading, and we hope the tier is more fun without the expander around making the battlefield all weird.

 

[ishtar]

As previously mentioned, we voted on Duraludon, Flamigo, Tauros-Paldea-Blaze, Venusaur, Toxtricity and Meloetta. Duraludon and Venusaur were previously on the slate and we promised to look at them again, while the other Pokemon were thought of as potentially problematic by certain council members. Also shoutouts Bouff for joining us as rotating council, your insight was very valuable and we're so happy to have you! Without further ado, here are our results:

And with 2 6+ votes reaching the ban threshhold, Duraludon and Flamigo are now banned from SV PU! Tagging dhelmise and Marty, arigato! kyuss will post his reasonings later as he was busy this weekend.

Reasonings

fish anemometer: no switch ins+ too fast

MZ: Way too strong for the tier, we don't have good Dragon resists and the immunes die to Flash Cannon. Enables everything, runs tons of sets, too good.

ishtar: Specs is the truly broken set imo, but evio being a viable option gives it also very nice defensive value with a punch. My opinions about it from last week to now haven't changed, except now I know its too much. Good riddance!

Bouff: it was kinda op before shifts but there is like one good midground in the tier to it and that midground (av copper) is praying it isn't using body press and even if it is, it's extremely easy to wear down unless you use the rare wish florges with it or something. the tier isn't really built to last against dragons especially with zong and av glowbro leaving

DugZa: Without AV Glowbro and Zong mainly, offensive sets have gotten out of hand; our steels don't really deal with it too well and the fairies get nuked by Flash Cannon. Most of the SpD options in the tier are naturally weak to it too so it doesn't help.

asa:Not much to say here that others and I haven't already; Duraludon is simply too strong, too bulky, and too restrictive. I can't picture our tier improving without Duraludon taking its shiny metal ass back to PUBL.

zS: as I said in the last vote. this has gotten out of hand and fast. what I failed to mention however, is how it pairs extremely well with other brokens and chews the work of those mons making them look probably more obnoxious than they actually are. no brainer

Reasonings

fish anemometer: not truly potent at anything imo

MZ: Annoying but balanced

ishtar: It's not broken, hard to fit coverage options, not fast or bulky enough. Just a nuisance but not a super restrictive one and is often a lot easier to play around in the game than it is when theorycrafting a team.

Bouff: if it could run max evs in every slot and 5 moves it would probably be broken, but it can't so it isn't. it has good matchups for sure, but i feel no matter what you're going to run into a matchup where it's super super clunky and you end up really wishing you had just the right set. shifts help it absolutely but i think the metagame is gonna trend towards it being hard for venu to truly excel, so i don't feel comfortable banning it

DugZa: Not as overbearing as I thought it'd be; the speed tier is a big limiting factor with the whole meta becoming more offensive now compared to before shifts. Doesn't help that the best Pokemon right now take advantage of it really well. After other bans though and the tier settling down a bit I can see it being problematic sometimes but dnb for now.

asa: Venusaur is probably healthier than not, offers nice defensive utility without being too bulky, fast, or immediately strong. I'm a bit concerned about whether these bans will benefit it too much going forward, but I'd be lying if I said I think Venusaur is broken.

zS: if it could have 6 moves and RBY evs maybe it’d be banworthy. just a good mon

Reasonings

fish anemometer:
brainless clicking of cc is too hard to stop for non offense

MZ: I think the ability to just spam Scrappy CC with 1 real resist (Weezing) is too much. Band sets KO everything, non-Choice Roost sets are incredibly annoying to wear down because our best check to this is Helmet/Recoil/Aftermath, and Scarf continues to be really good in a tier where we have less and less things capable of tanking its hits. Wouldn't be mad if we suspected but I think it's clearly over the top at this point.

ishtar: The most broken mon of the shifts imo. Our physical walls are simply not equipped to deal with this mon long term with the added damage from tera. The few defensive options that are sort of just alright are simply not good enough into the rest of the tier and often leave you too passive into the tier as a whole.

Bouff: went into detail on this in my post in the np thread so i won't just regurgitate the like 3 paragraphs from there but tera cc is very easy to spam and doesn't have much drawback

DugZa: No switch-ins really; just the STABs alone can OHKO or 2HKO the entire tier. Only defensive options are Bellibolt (relying on static coz it gets 2HKOed by band too) or niche options like weezing. With good teammates its very easily to pivot in safely and then just go wild every time.

asa: This is likely getting banned anyway, and I've gone back and forth on how to vote here, but I'd rather suspect Flamigo than quickban it. Flamigo feels more borderline to me right now than anything else, mostly because it primarily runs Choice Scarf and thus needs chip on things, Tera, or both to really get the ball rolling. A lot of what gets thrown into Flamigo *is* easy enough to chip, but stuff like Bellibolt, Gastrodon, Altaria, Palossand, and even Weezing and Houndstone all have some form of recovery to offset that, which makes withstanding it easier unless they're already way too low. Losing Duraludon makes the U-turn aspect of it less frustrating and also makes using some of the Pokemon mentioned earlier more feasible. I also think offensive teams as counterplay are being written off too much, and I find that Flamigo's other sets introduce enough opportunity cost to make them acceptable, but I'm definitely in the minority here.

zS: I used to be on the other side for this one, because I was thinking that maybe without duraludon and poison types being a lot more potent than they are now it’d be fine. and then i used sd migo. no way this stays

Reasonings

fish anemometer: give it more time, also a brainless clicker but ghosts being immune+full hazard weakness sets it back+scarf is too weak.

MZ: Can't freely click like Flamigo into Ghosts/Intimidate, generally more abusable. But it also has stronger coverage, better setup, and more weird variability. I would like to move into a suspect test immediately.

ishtar: Perfect suspect test subject imo. It's incredibly strong but easier to account for than Flamigo, mostly after Duraludon ban, which should free up some options in the form of phys def gastro again as well as others. I think its ceiling is quite high and it sorta always has ways around its checks, but I wanna see it reach those peaks in practice before moving forward with a ban.

Bouff: i wouldn't be too upset if this thing got banned but im leaning towards dnb at the moment because i haven't used it enough compared to pretty much every other mon here. haven't really seen it bust games wide open to the point like flamigo or dura have and i feel like its a little more annoying to bring in

DugZa: Probably the mon I'm most concerned about after Flamigo and Duraludon but as of now I don't support a QB but would be in favor of a suspect test. Losing Glowbro is really great for it but as far as Fighting-types go I think Flamigo is the problematic Pokemon and I wanna give it some time to see if it continues to be overbearing even after other bans.

asa: This is a somewhat hesitant quickban vote, but I really do think Intimidate and the higher bulk and Speed make a big difference for Redbull in comparison to Flamigo. Bulkier teams do about as well against Redbull as they do Flamigo, but Redbull's better matchup against offensive teams makes it feel a bit too good across the board for me. Not much on offense both outspeeds and actually threatens the bull out, while Intimidate, the bulk and Speed, its and resists give the bull a lot of ins. Redbull's different sets also have much less opportunity cost than Flamigo's in my opinion, and all of them require slightly different counterplay, which makes the initial guessing game and dancing around its coverage more daunting for me.

zS: this guy however, i feel benefits greatly from duraludon being completely completely broken and I think he’ll be fine in the long run. There’s no denying that he’s one of the most annoying threats rn but i feel like it might calm down a little without duraludon. would be my prime suspect candidate if it weren’t for meloetta.

Reasonings

fish anemometer: too slow to be over the edge rn

MZ: Very strong but kept in check by its speed. Wow so cool.

ishtar: Too slow and I believe it might be more manageable when everyone and their mom isnt tryna deal with the battery mon as if its the only special breaker that has ever graced this tier.

Bouff: can really mess you up if you let it but i never feel like a good team has had to stretch its resources too thin to deal with it. being proactive with hazards / having priority is really obnoxious for it in the long term and its kind of awkward to fit on teams.

DugZa: Obviously a very strong breaker and if it clicks the right move everytime it's killing everything but that's a big IF. Almost every team has a good resist or immunity to all of its moves so clicking the right move is huge for it and if it gets it wrong it sets you back a lot. For specs sets, the speed tier is also pretty underwhelming right now; with the meta as a whole becoming more offensive it can't keep up with the other threats speed wise and has limited opportunities to come in more often than not. Scarf just lacks the same breaking power and is still slower than most if not all other scarfers anyway.

asa: I don't find Toxtricity all that crazy, not gonna lie. Duraludon leaving does make us lose a good check and emergency pivot against it, but, to me, Toxtricity is something you can always plan around in-game even if you forgot about it in the builder. Shift Gear sets can never beat everything they want to and offer some much-needed defensive utility to offense, while Choice sets are honestly very inconsistent and have reasonable counterplay on various team structures.

zS: great breaker, also benefits heavily from the dural (starting to see a pattern here) but i think even with duraludon around it has felt nothing but healthy.

Reasonings

fish anemometer: this one might be sus worthy in the future but darks being so good keeps it in check for now

MZ: Also very strong but I think we have more reasonable tools for it, especially if Dura and Migo go. They're really holding back some defensive mons from being usable and my hope is this thing would become easier to handle. But even as is, we have enough for Meloetta.

ishtar: Just a cute nifty pokemon, oh how I love Meloetta! I think its fine, the darks in the tier are still really solid and it might get a lot better from the builder being a bit less restrained. Just a solid poke with good utility, strength, but not overbearing quite yet.

Bouff: i think this mon might warrant a suspect down the line - i've thought it was really really good for months now even with the better answers in the tier because specs is just such an absurd nuke. i think it's more overbearing than toxt, but not as much as flamigo and it is definitely manageable given how good the darks are (even though melo outruns them, you still have to be very wary of sucker). i think it should probably be suspected before tauros if we go that route but i don't think it's on the level of the other two qb mons where it just feels you're always on the backfoot against them

DugZa: really annoying to switch into and the coverage is nice. our spd options in general are lacking but would like to see how it performs in a meta after flamigo and duraludon are banned to see how it does when most of our resources are not exerted on trying to check those two so for now dnb but open to a suspect or a future ban.

asa: Meloetta's still a damn good wallbreaker, and it'll definitely be able to click more freely without Duraludon, but I think Pokemon that it really doesn't like to see are thriving a bit? Fast Fighting-types, Scyther, Skuntank, and bulky Dark-types are my main examples here, all of them are great right now and do well at scaring Meloetta out or taking advantage of it for clicking the wrong move. Meloetta might be worth reexamining in the near future just because it's probably the new best special attacker again, but I think that can wait until we see it start dominating like it did before.

zS: yeah meloetta has nothing to do in this tier anymore. i do think it’s a lot less broken than migo/dural but he’s honestly felt a lot more toxic than the other two. the combination of cm / specs sets have felt like they were too much and the shifts allowed for more tera diversity. if it doesn’t get banned now i sure as hell hope it gets tested soon

Having considered these reasonings as well as internal talks, the PU Council has decided to suspect Tauros-Paldea-Blaze. Expect a thread detailing that in the upcoming hours. Thank you all for reading!

 

[asa]

PU's 7th Tiering Survey

As alluded to on Discord and in the PS! PU chat room, we're rolling out another tiering survey now that the Tauros-Paldea-Blaze suspect test has concluded. Our goal is to continue improving the state of the tier, so please share your thoughts on the Pokemon specified in the survey as well as on anything you think we might have missed! Your feedback is valuable for giving us a clearer sense of direction going forward, but we want to let the meta breathe some before jumping into another suspect test, especially with PUWC pools now going on.

Click here for the survey!

The deadline to fill out this survey is November 4th at 11:59 (GMT -4).

Thanks for reading and continuing to play and care about the tier, everyone. Have a nice rest of your day :)