S Tier - Use on every team, very good, pls do not drop
Mr. Mime defines a lot of the game, being the best Psychic-type available. Unresisted coverage, only really contested by itself. I think people are playing it way too liberally right now, when it's paralyzed you can really abuse it, since all damage it takes is permanent. I've seen people sleep sack this thing, what the hell are you doing?
However, I do think that "Mimeless" is possible, considering the current heuristics. If it's so disposable, maybe it's not that Mime is powerful, but that it is less valuable than it looks. I know Sevi has been a proponent of it, but he doesn't show off in bracket much due to a busy life, so who knows when someone will finally crack open the casket of this objectionable concept.
A+ Tier - Use at least 1 on all teams, start your builds from here + mime
These Pokemon are noticeably above the rest and form what you can see as NU's Big 4 alongside Mime. However, it's far from what you see in other tiers, this one's power level is very low.
Charizard is the one I would call almost-undroppable. The offensive synergy with Mime had a big showing this tournament, and I think it will only continue to strut its stuff in future ones. Many end-game scenarios come down to Charizard and Mime finishing everything off, and you can't even really give Charizard a turn. What I wrote
here still stands. If you really really really wanted to change this tier, you would look at this first.
Blastoise is by far the bulkiest Pokemon available and has a surprising amount of set variety. Recent exploration of sets without Rest have been very interesting and I think this will continue for a while. It just allows a lot of teams room to breathe, and gives a safety mechanism against Poliwhirl. I really like Counter lure sets, being able to punt another Blastoise is great. You should use this on most teams, but I think it can be replaced with Kabutops sometimes.
Clefable is the best Mime check, as well as the best check to itself, which can come up quite a bit. It stops Mime's progress quite a bit, but is also vulnerable to just getting worn down and/or gank'd by Mime anyway, so I think it may be worse than the rest. I've run teams without this quite a bit but my opinions are improving. It can run a lot of cool stuff and I hope to see set discussion for it a lot more in the future.
A Tier - Use a couple or all on most teams
Poliwhirl is just nuts and you could convince me to put it in A+ with a bit of adderall. Hypnosis + Amnesia is enough to put any team into nicotine shot and if you don't know how to fight it it's winning almost on its own. Luckily, it's an NFE with almost solely Speed to give it its strength, and that's why it's not Mime-tier. The main problem outside of that is, true to its forgetfulness, it's very inconsistent, and finds itself being stalled (not walled, important distinction) by either Exeggcute, Blastoise, or both depending on its coverage. Plus, Hypnosis is omegalul and dansgame. If you want to gank people on ladder, though, bring this little memelord.
Kabutops hits so hard and I love its typing, you can use this over Blastoise sometimes and I would not laugh at you. Lots of ways to go about its offence and defensive sets aren't bad either. +2 HB is a tried-and-true concept, Slash hits very hard, Surf means Golem doesn't laugh at you, so on, so forth. The main issue is that +2 EQ Charizard hurts this poor thing so much. Regardless, this is the best SDer outside of Charizard, so if you're like me, you're spamming this all day.
Nidoking finally manages to find its footing in NU, with amazing coverage and a typing that makes it immune to Toxic and Electric-type moves, which is insanely valuable for many team styles. While defensively weak, it pivots in and out of battle while not losing offensive momentum, this is such an important distinction for understanding why it works so well. QuakeSlide
and BlizzBolt, plus other neat niche options like Body Slam, makes this Pokemon quite literally the perfect offensive Pokemon! It's just...bad defensively, which is why it's not on its rightful throne...
Golem hits really hard.
Venomoth is fast and sleeps things, then either gets sacked to status to block for the game, or dies. It's got a case of Jynx syndrome, where it's good because of sleep and just very little else. Like sure, you've got powders and Psychic, maybe a bit of Mega Drain tomfoolery, but if Venomoth actually gets a kill off of damage alone then you should buy a lottery ticket.
B+ Tier - These are good!
Kingler is simple: get that one, super important hit in, and win from there. Swords Dance is hard to set up, but at this power level, it's hitting immensely hard regardless, you can use Body Slam, Crabhammer, and Hyper Beam liberally. It's still great for breaking past Blastoise, though, so you should bring it! Crabhammer is its most important move, making mincemeat of Golem, which it switches into cleanly.
Exeggcute is Enigami's dark child and one of the better Mime checks. Powders, has STAB Psychic, can explode, that's all very neat! It's an LC in a pool of very powerful FEs though, so it does have to watch itself...
I don't like Moltres much and I think I could rank it lower. It has stats galore and the potential to do serious damage but it just does not see that happen often. AgiliSpin is terrible in my experience, when
Charizard of all things can set up on it during its rampage you know it's bad. I know the Rest sets are cool but eh...nobody's bringing up teams or using it much, so I think I can drop it here. I think it has the most potential, but it's just potential...
B Tier - These are good but less good
Porygon, Porygon, Porygon...a funny little blighter that walls random things. In this case, you can fit Conversion and wall Mime. But, that's more of a gimmick set, you have to drop coverage or (god forbid) Thunder Wave for that. I think that set can be optimised though...maybe Psywave tbh? Anyway, it's one of the only Recover Pokemon around, and that's big. It's got an OU movepool in a low power level tier, balanced solely through its catastrophicly poor stats. This can definitely rise when people start finding where they can splash it.
Ninetales is fine, it deals with Mime better than the other Fires and that's why I'm putting it here. It can also contest Charizard...sort of. 100 Speed Fire Spin is part of why we like Charizard, Ninetales is just that but without the funny moves really. Can't knock that. People are mortally opposed to the very idea of Fire Spam, but 2 Fires is still a tried-and-true core to me. Try it!
Raticate is amazing! Please use it! Super Fang is fantastic in a tier with so much permanent damage and its Speed tier is finally acceptable. You saw those teams I made, go spam them on the ladder and you'll see what I mean! Also, reference
this!
Fearow has boundless potential. I think leading off with Toxic + Mirror Move sets is completely fine and it gives it some strong leverage; Toxic the wrappers, Mirror Move the sleepers when they miss (we're being optimistic here). Drill Pecking Venomoth is also quite neat. Outside of that, Fearow can definitely use Agility sweeper sets in the back, they just need working on more. It has a lot of cute gimmicks.
Wigglytuff is a second Clefable, and that in and of itself is great. I think ClefTuff is a very usable team comp with a lot of build directions and that's why it's here.
B- Tier - Alright you're getting pretty based here
Seadra is really neat but gets walled by Blastoise a bit too much. In fact, it's Blastoise but with a shite movepool and Agility as consolation. This makes it a nice sweeper in theory: Hydro/Surf/Blizz/Agi is cool, but also, you will find the waters having a party. It's great at PP stalling, though, Ika has showed me some awful endgames involving AgiliRest builds doing that (which I came up with to contest fire spam, ironically enough)
I love Sandslash and I think people just continually undersell it on account of its history of swinging and missing. This time I think it's real, it's not outclassed by Golem at all. Lack of a Ground weakness and the ability to 1v1 Golem easily while providing the TWave immunity is great for me and those teams I submitted should hopefully prove there's a place for that.
Arcanine is weird. It's been continually falling off its defensive niche because it's hard to fit, and EQ Charizard + Golem just continues to rip it apart. It's not terrible, it's just facing unfavourable shifts. I think Agility sets may be the direction to go in with the increasing need for "fast" Pokemon, and Arcanine tends to pummel them once set up. Keep in mind, it's juuust fast enough to outrun stuff like Poliwhirl, and has among the best Attack stats in the tier...give it a try. There's certainly a team for this. I was gonna use
this in the Spotlight Tour but it's obviously not panned out, so maybe someone can take my torch.
Rapidash is fine, just inconsistent. Faster than Charizard, has Body Slam and Fire Spin, can technically AgiliSpin but really doesn't need to. I think the direction is Body Slam / Hyper Beam / Stomp or Fire Blast or Toxic / Fire Spin. I think people just saw the old win rates, clawed their eyes out, and demanded it drops to PU immediately. And we say cancel culture is bad, eh??? Rapidash did nothing wrong!!!
Pinsir hits hard.
Primeape is a really cool lead that Enigami (of course) came up with, it happens to have the perfect coverage while being sufficiently low value to sack because it's a Fighting-type. I don't know much about it but someone will probably reply with 3 paragraphs.
C-D - Approaching critical levels of based, warning!
Only gonna talk about my additions cus I'm getting lazy.
Aha! You rank Seadra in B+ in the current VR, but fail to rank Seaking! I am very intelligent. But seriously, Seaking certainly works like Seadra but has a physical bias, which does help it against Mime. I strongly believe it's better than the current D Ranks, and even at the top of my C Tier, simply because it can run the same set with roughly the same effectiveness, just played ever so slightly different. Yes, this is PvK's Wales, where we promote Cultural Seakingism. I think this Pokemon was just forgot, to be honest.
I think I went on a rant about Magmar somewhere in an analysis thread, read
this and it'll probably say something.
Arbok is better than Ponyta and thus I will put it here. Glare is cool, it has decent coverage, I dunno you could probably bring it. Either rank this or cut off where it is.
Staryu has been theorymon'd a lot and I think there's merit in giving it a fair trial. Someone bring it to the spotlight tour, yeah?