- DNB. I've played a lot of games against Quaquaval and definitely found it more threatening than before, but it's clear that there are ways to adapt around it that are still reasonably within scope to me. Colbur Berry (or itemless) Slowtwins, Bellibolt, Rocky Helmet users, Bellibolt and Salamence are Pokemon I've used that help a lot with beating Quaquaval, and with its inability to fit all of Swords Dance, STABs and Roost, it felt reasonable to prevent it from getting opportunities to snowball.
- DNB. I really didn't feel this one, barely ran into it on ladder and the ones I did run into weren't particularly more difficult to beat than before. It forces some weird interactions between Weak Armour and Bitter Blade but I think it'd be better to see how this goes after the inevitable Quaquaval ban since that's also a decent hit to HO. Poltergeist is a nice buff but I think running itemless Pokemon is a genuinely worthwhile thing to do in this metagame, considering Knock Off is everywhere too.
- DNB. It's just not very good, I dunno. Guts is annoying to switch into but with the increased focus on Knock Off and Rocky Helmet it's even harder for it to get opportunities than before, and the Bulk Up sets take too much to get going IMO. The teambuilding constraints are really awkward too, you tend to get smoked hard by Electrics when using this. Easy DNB for me.IP will edit these in within a couple of hours once he gets home from whatever the hell he's doing
Misa wrote her reasoning here already, though by the time we ended up voting she voted Ban on Ceruledge.
- DNB - Knock Off is a great move for the ducky from DLC but the amount of fear it has generated seems overblown for me. While it can indeed hit a large portion of the tier between stabs, knock, and tera I feel that the tier has an adequate amount of answers. It's an amazing pokemon that can quickly steamroll with Moxie and Aqua Step but ultimately it doesn't really feel more powerful than it was before the DLC (insanely good but not banworthy). Options like Tera Blast and Substitute are difficult to fit with how often one wants to stick with SD Stabs Knock too. - BAN - While admittingly a bit fishy, Ceruledge's classic Swords Dance Sash set is overbearing. Poltergeist is a great new STAB to have on top of Bitter Blade. Weak Armor allows Ceruledge to advantage of common U-turn and other weaker physical attacks after using Tera. On top of the Swords Dance variants though, Choice Band is very threatening. Ceruledge's natural bulk isn't stellar, but it's enough to fully abuse its gifted coverage. - DNB - All previous reasoning stands + if anything it got worse in the tier post dlc - Ban. In my opinion, this mon was already pretty borderline before it gained knock off. Most teams without a slowtwin had to play extremely careful to not lose to it, given its access to moves like ice spinner for the grass ghost types/salamence. However, once people started adapting by hitting the slowtwins with tera ghost blast, this mon started getting even more complaints than before, as it seemed like it truly had no counters. Quaquaval at least had to invest tera to do this, but in a post-DLC world with this mon having access to knock off, it genuinely stands out above everything else. With quaquaval now being able to tera to boost its aqua step damage or flip the script on other counters with another defensive tera type, it finds itself winning games much more easily than before. - Ban. Gaining access to poltergeist in the DLC has eliminated ceruledge’s past power issues, as the move not only makes this mon much more potent in regards to sweeping, but also makes it immediately threatening. Having tried both the sash sd set as well as choice band, I’ve found that ceruledge finds way too many opportunities to either straight up end games as it comes in on an empty field or blow significant holes in the opponent’s team. Resisting every relevant priority move outside of lokix’s sucker punch, while also being able to get a ‘second chance’ with focus sash via bitter blade healing makes revenge killing this mon a nightmare. Regarding the choice band set, ceruledge is a huge u-turn deterrent with weak armor, especially in more bulky offense matchups where it can simply tera ghost and start nuking things. The tension of not wanting to click knock off with using this mon is definitely real, however I think that it’s a fair concession, and even if you have knock off on your team I find the interaction to not come up often enough. - Do Not Ban While I sympathize with people because this mon is incredibly hard to switch into, it is threatened by almost all of our top-ranked offensive threats on the viability rankings. Ursaluna’s typing, while great offensively, leaves it vulnerable to many common attacks in the meta right now, like close combat, focus blast, grass knot, and a variety of water moves, all of which are typically used by mons faster than it. Ursaluna is also prone to being worn down very quickly, being hit by all hazards and not having stab on its drain punch if it opts to use that. Bulk up sets often require too much time to become threatening, and while these sets eventually do become too hard to stop, I think they are manageable before reaching that point.You can already find Lyssa's reasonings in her post here.
- Ban. Knock Off was just too much of a buff to Quaquaval to have it remain in the tier, simple as that. It did have a way to hit Basculegion, Slowtwins, and reactive Tera Gastrodon via Tera Blast Ghost but this required Quaquaval to commit to Tera for a sweep. Now, Quaquaval can use a lot of options as a Tera for safe setup options and avoiding revenge killing attempts while still overcoming the roadblocks that kept it from success. Tera Steel, Fire, and Electric have been the most effective Tera Types in my experiences, allowing Quaquaval to get around so many Pokémon like Tornadus, Thundurus, Galarian Zapdos, Rillaboom, and more with at least one of these options. It’s already an insane sweeper with a great typing and extreme snowball potential backed up by a perfect movepool but Tera adds too much flexibility for Quaquaval as a sweeper that ultimately pushes it over the edge. - Ban. I honestly was surprised when another council member first brought it up for being banworthy because I didn’t expect Poltergeist to be such a large buff, but after actually playing with it a lot Ceruledge is way too strong to remain in the tier. Poltergeist truly is a blessing for Ceruledge as an insanely powerful attack that just so happens to be one of the most spammable types in the game. Bitter Blade is a strong move that heals Ceruledge and Close Combat covers Hydreigon and Tyranitar while just being an overall great neutral move that compliments the STAB combo, ultimately resulting in Ceruledge being nearly unwallable barring itemless Water-types which is concerning to have as the main out to Ceruledge. What breaks Ceruledge for me is the flexibility it has in tera types in conjunction with Weak Armor. Fighting, Fairy, Ghost, and Steel are all legitimate options that can flip a revenge killing attempt into a full on sweep and really makes handling Ceruledge difficult because one wrong turn ends the game. Ceruledge also decently bulky on the Specially Defensive side and I’ve been actually set up on stuff like Alomomola and just win the game when it clicks Flip Turn. It took me some time to really decided this and I support it being retested when DLC changes fall into UU but as of now Ceruledge is too strong, motivating me to vote ban. - Do not Ban. My reasoning regarding Ursaluna is largely the same as last time. To quote from my vote earlier in the month, “Ursaluna is a Pokémon that requires a lot of support around it. Pivoting, Wish, Grassy Terrain, they all are integral in making Ursaluna good but I don’t think it’s insane based on its own merits. Yes, it’s strong and hits hard, but it’s insanely prone to wearing itself down between hazards and recoil from Flame Orb and we have so much to revenge kill it. Quaquaval, Tornadus, Thundurus, Basculegion, Galarian Zapdos, Salamence, Scizor, Breloom, Iron Leaves, Volcanion, Hydriegon, Zarude, Gyarados, and Rillaboom are some of many Pokémon that can reliably revenge kill Ursaluna. Its basically every offensive threat ranked highly as well. There’s a few outs defensively with Helmet Users and general prediction but I think the sheer offensive pressure Ursaluna has to face makes Flame Orb not a broken set to me.” In this reasoning, I also said I had yet to form a solid consensus on Bulk Up but after using it a lot I’m set on it being balanced too. Just gets overwhelmed way too easily without having to burn Tera to avoid its weaknesses being targeted and even then it’s still not perfect. Flip Turn Wish Alomomola is not that crazy of a teammate to make Ursaluna an unkillable demon and Ursaluna also doesn’t invest too much into attack on this set meaning it takes a while to start doing damage and it’s definitely able to be kept in line before it gets out of hand. If you play passively or use passive teams then yes Ursaluna will be tough to face but even Balance teams (remember how Balance means both offense and defense) don’t have to go too far to handle it. Pretty easy DNB vote. - Abstain. I decided to Abstain on Quaquaval mainly because I'm 50/50 on that Pokémon. I trully think it's a A+/S rank material Pokémon which is able to snowball even better than before. Knock Off brings so much utility to it and allows Quaquaval to pressure its past checks while being able to make progress. However, I also think it's a Pokémon you can pressure and while it's true Quaquaval can use Tera to switch its weaknesses, the same applies the other way and you can play around this to catch it out of guard and remove it. I'm also not of a fan of acting on a Pokémon for basically a 1 week metagame. This could be seen as a bad reason to not ban it / abstain but this is the choice I decided to make. I'm pretty sure it will be banned eitherway and we'll see it again in a week after the DLC shifts. - Do not ban Even tho Poltergeist is a massive addition for Ceruledge, I don't think it pushes it over the edge. I think it's a good thing this Pokémon is able to shine more than before and be more effective at what it does. I feel like you'll always be in a situation where you have to pick between Close Combat or Shadow Sneak as your filler slot. Without Close Combat, Ceruledge doesn't break things such as Tyranitar / Hydreigon that well and without Shadow Sneak, it becomes pretty weak to priorities (even resisted one due to its ability which can act as a double-edge sword). I also think there is some room to play around it with Pokémon such as Hippowdon or itemless fat Pokémon which are a good way to handle it. This also serves vs the many Knock Off abusers we have right now. - Do not ban I trully have no idea why people are thinking that big bear is an issue for the tier, even when taking into account Grassy Terrain support or our new best Wisher : Alomomola. Ursaluna is one of the best Pokémon if you look at it in a 1v1 perspective but otherwise it's trully lackluster. It's easy to chip it and we have so many powerful and faster threats which are able to dent / nuke it, especially after the DLC move updates. Things like CB Rillaboom forces it out easily as well as Weavile. Like, even Alomomola can now flip turn on its face for a quarter of its health..! Of course you will struggle to pressure it if you're playing passive teams but this has been the case in the last generations too. Pokémon like Conkeldurr was as dumb in SS vs fat teams. I know Tera can flip over its weaknesses but like I said for Quaquaval, the same applies the other way. - Ban, too many tera sets and the addition of Knock changed its situation greatly, and its usual checks are no longer able to reliably beat it. Aqua step is just a broken move in combination with SD and moxie, and its incredibly painful to deal with. - Ban. Too many good sets, Poltergeist just sets it over the edge in combination with its bulk and bitter blade. We also lack decent switchins, and theres not a lot of downside to building teams around this guy. - Do not ban, from using it its felt really clunky and people are using a lot of techs to reliably damage it, and those techs are also applicable to the rest of the tier so its not like its very centralizing in the builder. The speed tier holds it back a ton, the meta is really offensive atm so slow breakers that are matching up well into fatter teams are not as strong in my opinion. Recent meta trends have also made it worse and while it is still a very good pokemon, I do not think it is ban worthy. - ban. already was pretty fringe, knock off opens tera flexibility and it forces extremely linear counterplay if you are respecting every single set that exists. just too much pick your own counters roulette and the mon is as threatening in practice as on paper. - dnb. strong mon, not anything banworthy to me. support needed for the best set (SD sash) to have ideal circumstances, priority keeps weak armor in check well, its tera is very restricted since it can lose E-speed immunity, lokix quad resist etc. not a ton of defensive counterplay but there are good enough initial switch-ins. - dnb. brings far more positives to the tier than negatives with its status absorption and Ground typing, and none of the sets are overbearing with the speed issues. if anything my opinion on this mon has gone down since the first time we voted on it. - ban. not much i can add here that hasnt already been said, was already an obnoxiously good sweeper and general offensive threat before home with tera ghost and now with knock off it can completely shift over to defensive tera options that screw over its small amount of checks. electric can get around torn, static bellibolt, twave slowbro/king, steel / dark can cut off future sight plays, fire blocks burn, etc. some defensive cores can get around it by committing tera to blanket neutral types i.e. fairy hippo or skeledirge but this kinda forced interaction was already a red flag for something being bad for the meta. offense has a pretty small pool of mons to stop a quaq snowball as well, anyone thats been laddering has probably seen the infestation of lokix and glide rilla (still loses to tera) - ban. same as above @ most things said already, access to the perfect move it was lacking before now makes it much more capable of barreling through teams + is much easier to snowball with tera out of xyz bad matchup since most of the things that can threaten base typing ceru are physical moves. does have an initially awful defensive typing but isnt hard to support especially on HO that already lines up a bunch of other threats behind screens/spikes/terrain. while there's a good bunch of fat walls like mola hippo etc can wall it decently by giving up an item to block poltergeist, that in general is pretty poor and makes them into much worse pokemon overall. less egrigious than quaq though imo as its much more one dimensional, would probably be a good idea to ban for now and suspect back in soon - dnb. dont think this thing has quite the same level of danger that makes me want to nuke conk from ss; somewhat vulnerable defensive typing, no stab on drain punch, no priority, less capacity to leave lasting damage via knock off even if played sub optimally. still not a fan of mons like this though, but its definitely not much of an issue for now, could be later on when meta settles but thats a long way out - ban. it was already a v good sweeper pre drops, esp with the tera ghost set that was trendy at the time, it got knock off now so it doesnt need to commit to terastalisation to break through slowking and ghost gastrodon (gastro would have to run fairy now which is significantly worse of a tera type for it given the role it usually has on balance), 2 very key answers for balance/bulky offense. other means of counterplay also got worse (notably fairy dirge, but again needs to commit tera, notice a trend?). knock off also justifies other sets such as sub bulk up and different teratypes, which further increases the matchup roulette aspect, as all the possible options have very different means of counterplay. - ban. ceruledge now has access poltergeist to break through the common bulky water types that would usually stop him. this is going to sound pretty straight forward: polter does damage and is v hard to stop. you usually have to trade at least one mon in order to be able to kill it, and in many instances you have to be careful about using physical attacks because of weak armor. I find it more unhealthy than duck as of now given the variance it forces while playing against it, i also feel endure variants may be underexplored but it already is a big issue rn, also saw a fair amount of cb sets get used. - do not ban. would like to refer to my previous reasoning. luna is just not all that hard to check and also contributes to the tier in a healthy way, i dont think its even close to being banworthy. - ban. bordering on a free win if piloted well imo, previously it could roll bad mus for sure, with offensive checks being viable like things that pressure well at +1 and prio existing, but now with Knock u don’t need tera as much offensively to be a reliable/consistent wincon, I think there’s a very viable winpath witn quack every game it’s in and “outplaying” it is completely suffocating and relying on your opponent to fumble in the process of setting it up (if it even needs one) - do not ban. i definitely understand the hype but i don’t think this mon is too suffocating or necessarily completely broken or anything like that. It is definitely very strong but off of HO i’m not a massive fan of it and there are definitely scenarios where there’s a clear difference between it and quack when it comes to the sheer ease of setting up and cooking. It is very strong but I don’t support a ban at the moment, would like to see how it fairs for a while longer. - do not ban. very potent but definitely wouldn’t put it even close to the level of quack or even ceru imo. it’s slow and not the hardest in the world to pressure, if it’s stupid flame orb stuff it’s really easy to pressure and if it isn’t stupid flame orb stuff it is not nearly as immediately threatening. Either way I think it’s speed tier and typing isn’t good enough to make it overwhelming for the tier at the momentAs always, if you have any questions, feel free to let me know.