It is that time of the year. PU will update its VR. Like last time, the data will be interpreted with the Vapicuno method.
Requisites to vote were awarded for meeting at least one of the following criteria:
To submit a VR, post your VR in this thread, or privately message me here or on discord (@caktusbronkitus). For the sake of the method used to create VRs, only your numerical rankings count, so your choices for individual ranks (S, A+, B3, etc.) are irrelevant, but you may include them if you wish. Data on submissions will be released to the public after the VR is released. The Tiermaker can be seen here, but an ordered list is also acceptable. Cutoffs will be decided by the council by looking at voter's submissions, and unless another tier cutoff is specified, C will be interpreted as the start of Pokemon not ranked in PU. If you think you should be getting reqs but I forgot, please tell me as soon as possible!
Thanks to Volk because I stole his template (again).
Requisites to vote were awarded for meeting at least one of the following criteria:
Finishing Top 4 in RBY PU Cup:
Chloe
Maris Bonibell
Sabelette
Wanted in 49 States
Winning at least one RBY PU set while playing at least three such games in RBYPL VI:
BeatsBlack
boomp
ButtGallon
Chloe
PHB11677
Plague
virae
Zpice
Receiving requirements to vote for the Rapidash Suspect, and has played at least one tournament game of the new format:
AM
Maris Bonibell
Sabelette
THE_CHUNGLER
Wanted in 49 States
Zpice
Chloe
Maris Bonibell
Sabelette
Wanted in 49 States
Winning at least one RBY PU set while playing at least three such games in RBYPL VI:
BeatsBlack
boomp
ButtGallon
Chloe
PHB11677
Plague
virae
Zpice
Receiving requirements to vote for the Rapidash Suspect, and has played at least one tournament game of the new format:
AM
Maris Bonibell
Sabelette
THE_CHUNGLER
Wanted in 49 States
Zpice
To submit a VR, post your VR in this thread, or privately message me here or on discord (@caktusbronkitus). For the sake of the method used to create VRs, only your numerical rankings count, so your choices for individual ranks (S, A+, B3, etc.) are irrelevant, but you may include them if you wish. Data on submissions will be released to the public after the VR is released. The Tiermaker can be seen here, but an ordered list is also acceptable. Cutoffs will be decided by the council by looking at voter's submissions, and unless another tier cutoff is specified, C will be interpreted as the start of Pokemon not ranked in PU. If you think you should be getting reqs but I forgot, please tell me as soon as possible!
The deadline will be two weeks from now on December 21th, 11:59 UTC-7.
Thanks to Volk because I stole his template (again).
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I think magmar is the best mon in the tier rn, it and ape are close but I think magmar kinda wins. Nothing likes taking fire blast. Duck can't really switch in since you need your duck for the opp duck most of the time. Two relavant mons outspeed it (Primeape and Scyther). Ape is a legitimate concern but still risks getting burned, and Scyther just dies to fire blast.
The one mon u include on every team but I don't think its nessecarily worthy of #1 for that. Most games just have your duck trading with the opposing duck so it doesn't have a high ceiling. Because of the fact that the ducks trade, it doesn't really have an opportunity to check stuff like magmar. The fast four all outspeed it so it can get revenged easily as well. Magmar and Ape generally bring more to a game from what I've seen so I value them more.
You don't have to save this for lategame. The SD sweep route is overrated due to how many odds u have to overcome (crits, hit hyperbeam, dont crit yourself at +4, etc). However Slash is a really good click. Midgame Scyther as a revenge killer should be explored and used more.
Don't know why everyone thinks this is ass all of a sudden but it is a great check to Pidgeot/Scyther. Pory/Egg can switch into it which isn't great but hard walling Pidge and Scyther is a big thing it can do, and it's definitely the better of the two mons that check the normals.
Very underrated imo, a lot of nidos greeding no fblast. Similar to Scyther, Pinsir the Slash user > Pinsir the SD user, tho SD helps with pressuring Porygon so still worth running.
Gastly kinda sucks ngl it's slower than Nidoking and dies to EQ so tbolt is kinda never a safe click, and you kinda NEED to click tbolt on stuff like Pidgeot/Scyther sometimes. Hypnosis is unreliable as fuck as always, I think Graveler is much better as a "fuck over normals" mon.
Nidoking: On a similar justification as Golduck, Nido is #2 because... tbh there's just no reason not to be loading Nidoking on almost every team. There are a lot of good mons in PU, but all the best ones except Golduck and Nido have counterplay. Pory doesn't like fighting the psychics/fightings, and doesn't want to risk eating twaves. Ape doesn't like fighting the grasses/gastly. Magmar is bad at answering all the common sweepers (pory/seaking/scyther). The "oh fuck I really hate fighting X pokemon" trend continues for all the next best mons until like... drowzee? Maybe staryu? Point is, you can't use any of the other top mons nearly as often as you want to use Nidoking. Nothing wants to switch into it, even golduck risks eating like 70% in the raw 1v1, it's great for capitalizing on a feared double status turn from something like your own eggy to get entry safely, it has decent set variability (fblast for pinsir, substitute for free turns, counter if you're cool af), it's just a super reliable staple mon that's not going to leave you wanting.
Primeape: Ape is really really good, and it's understandable that a lot of people have it in S. I do think you want to bring this thing more often than not, but it's held back by being a bit exploitable. All the sleepers except drowzee appreciate earlygame ape as an entry point, and if you play too cavalier with this as your main neutral fastmon to revenge a golduck, it can really come back to bite you. By like w3 of PL everyone had caught onto that, and back venu/egg/gastly became a very real threat for early primeape lines. It certainly doesn't ruin the mon or anything (it's the best of the 4 main fastmons for a reason), but it's a notable black mark on an otherwise universal mon. It also struggles a bit with 4 moveslot syndrome— if you had the option, you'd like to run all of bslam, hbeam, submission, rslide, tbolt, stoss, and counter, but with only 4 slots you have to make compromises and sacrifice odds in key matchups. Generally, this works out in its favor— it's more a case of set diversity than a case of truly needing more moves than you have, so you have the chance to specialize into different roles to better fit with the rest of your team. Bottom line: ape is goated, the speed tier alone is crazy useful even without its great moveset and stats.
Porygon: The duck that put Staryu out of a job. Being immune to bslam para and walling venusaur/magmar is certainly a nice boon for it over the star, but its also just got better all-around bulk and a better movepool. It loses out on surf, but like... do you really want it? Staryu would way rather have pory's movepool than the other way around. Not only does it have better bulk, it's better in literally every stat except speed. Which don't get me wrong, speed is important, but unless you're above 268 the returns are very deminishing. Those two factors (better movepool & better stats) let it run wild a lot more than staryu tends to. Want to run a physical attacking pory for abra/drowzee? Yeah, you can do that. If you're a real psycho you can even run sharpen + hbeam and try to be a physical attacking sweeper, but with graveler/gastly running around that's probably a bad idea. Its most common set has turned out to be psyblizz, which makes sense. Psy helps for a lot of things: nido, opposing pory, primeape, gastly, even venu to an extent, and blizz sures up some of the weaknesses psy presents (lets you hit egg, super effective on scyther/pidgeot/graveler). Agility, Tbolt, Hbeam, & DEdge are all viable but harder to slot given the relatively smaller upside opportunities. It walls out opposing magmar, venu (after sleep), seaking, and pidgeot, which is already helpful enough given their relative placements on the list, but its vulnerability to psychic mons and the same problem primeape has of inviting in sleepers makes it a bit hard to use in the midgame.
Seaking: Truly the king of robbing unfavored endgames, a seaking with an agility up and no pory/staryu/golduck to check it can reverse sweep entire teams. All the best mons in the tier except for the three mentioned above don't like fighting this thing. Unfortunately, it means you really can't reveal the mon until the endgame without sabotaging a huge wincon, since if they know for sure you've got a robber fish, they'll keep their counters safe.
Venusaur: The OTHER Dunning-Kreuger mon. Early in this tier's lifecycle you had a lot of newcomers thinking it was the best thing ever, and reactions to the mon from experienced players pendulumed a bit too far in the opposite direction I feel. People have said this mon is dogshit for a while, but it's honestly quite good. Being able to comfortably switch in on midgame Primeape and Porygon is nice, the latter being notable because unlike Exeggcute, pory bliz doesn't 2hko venusaur, so pory is a lot more scared of you landing sleep powder than you are of missing it. Once sleep is off the table though, it's walled by Gastly and Porygon, which does suck pretty bad. If your opponent is a known "switch healthy porygon into venu after sleep" enjoyer though, you can actually beat Pory if you're a bit brave by SDing on the switch. Pory only does 40% with bliz, and +4 venu hbeam ohkos pory, so as long as you're not paralyzed or below 40% health after landing sleep, you can get a lot of mileage out of venu with an SD+hbeam set. Also worth noting that this mon really doesn't appreciate almost everything packing a super effective move. Of everything from S to B2 on my list, 10 of the mons typically pack super effective moves for venu, and its speed tier is just a bit shy of the 268 threshold for outspeeding anything that's not slow as bricks.
Pidgeot: For the most part, everything I said about Scyther's strengths also applies to Pidgeot, but trading slash and sweeping abilities for extra bulk, stab on the normal moves, and access to sand attack & mirror move for niche anti-sleeper or anti-sweeper options. Because you don't feel the need to preserve pidgeot for a potential sweep, you can be a lot more cavalier while playing with it. Also worth noting that the standard set tends to crumble into Gastly even harder than scyther does, because there's no chance for a boosted wing attack 2hko. Though with mirror move or sky attack, you can potentially turn that matchup around by mirror-moving after a failed hypnosis or clicking sky attack on a predicted switch-in. Mirror Move in general benefits from pidgeot's nice speed tier + access to agility and enables some cool tech— Chloe in RBYPL used mirror move to steal porygon's recover and essentially stall it out long enough to fish for crits and kill it. You could also switch in on a graveler/nidoking earthquake and mirror move to get decent damage off (it's the only way pidgeot can touch graveler at all, and it's slightly stronger than double edge against nidoking + no recoil). Overall it's the strongest immediate beatstick in the tier thanks to stab on its strong normal moves, but as far as speed tier goes, it's the slowest of the 4 fastmons.
Exeggcute: Very similar to Venusaur in terms of archetype, but with less bulk and more tricks up its sleeve. Losing razor leaf is really unfortunate, but the two main mons that want to switch in on venusaur post-sleep and wall it (porygon/gastly) both fumble hard into eggy. Psychic is understandably an effective tool for taking out gastly, but it's also pretty great at fighting porygon, too. psychic does 30% and risks special drops, plus Explosion can do up to 65% AND deny recover. Double powder is also something Venusaur wishes it had, since it can actually paralyze incoming mons on the switch, and if you paralyze Porygon it loses all its effectiveness as a cleaner. A psychic resistance means you're also one of the few things in the tier that can find entry points on Abra and Drowzee. Both mons packing twave + psychic means they have a lot of potential to cripple you if they get in, but eggy is already slow, and only takes like 20% from psychic, so it's happy to take that bullet for the team to try getting a sleep powder off. You do really feel the lack of bulk elsewhere though, and if you try to use eggy the same way you use Venusaur, you're going to come up short. Proactively switching into something like a primeape body slam does ~25%, plus para chance, plus you have to take a second one before attempting sleep. Primeape body slam is only a possible 5hko on venusaur, and while it still hates being paralyzed, the extra special bulk means it can take 2 body slams + a blizzard from any blizzard user and still live, which can't be understated. If eggy takes 2 body slams and gets para'd by either one of them, first off after FP odds your sleep powder is only 56% accurate. Second off, even if you land the sleep powder, suddenly you're at 50% and every blizzard user in the tier + pidgeot ohkos you, and while you still have explosion to get some damage off on the way out against the mons that don't ohko you, it's reliant on predicts at that point— and you'd really prefer to get an extra turn off for stun spore/psychic before just ripping a fairly-predictable boom. Eggy is still good, and I'm probably higher on it than most, but people using it as trickier venusaur are missing the ball imo.
Staryu: Diet Porygon. Have you ever wished that Porygon's ability to stall out Magmar/Seaking/Pidgeot/Venusaur/Gastly/Staryu/Graveler only worked on half as many pokemon? Yeah, Staryu isn't immune to body slam para, has worse stats across the board (except speed), and has a grass weakness, so now Magmar/Pidgeot/Venusaur all have a relatively achievable way through you. As a result you're not going to be able to switch in on any of them the way Porygon could. In exchange, you get access to surf to 2hko both Magmar/Nidoking and ohko graveler, and no fighting weakness means Primeape/Machamp submission aren't going to totally cripple you. They do a little more than 50%, so with submission's accuracy, you can pretty safely heal off the damage. But your non-immunity to body slam para and vulnerability to a 2hko from both with slam -> beam means that upside is pretty negligible. You do outspeed Venusaur & eggy and speed tie with Nidoking unlike Porygon, so they're less inclined to find entry points on you due to blizzard, but it's inconsistent in practice. Overall, Staryu is a more offensively oriented version of Porygon that can pair quite nicely with it on the right team, and it CAN muscle through some weaker matchups with twave + recover and a bit of luck, but in the most cases you'd rather just take the consistency of Porygon.
Abra: Slower than all the fastmons, but faster than everything else. And it hits quite hard into anything not named Exeggcute or Drowzee, too. It's great at cleaning up Nidoking, Venusaur, and Gastly, and it can cripple Porygon safely with twave. If Primeape is paralyzed, Abra can also put in solid work revenging it. There's a huge defense-stat-shaped hole in its viability though. Its physical bulk is nonexistant, and so much of the tier OHKOs it. By my count, 11 pokemon out of the top 19 have a greater than 50% chance to OHKO it from full, and all 4 of the fastmons outspeed AND ohko. It's really rough, and really relevant in endgames with how prevelant the fastmons are. It can put in solid work in the right team, and in the lead slot it works well into people with low Magmar/Primeape lead, but it's got serious flaws that hold it back in-game.
Drowzee: He's a little weird but he's chill. Take Abra, remove all of its speed, make it die to 2-3 physical attacks instead of 1, give it access to a hypnosis, and you have Drowzee. He's honestly pretty solid, maybe even better than Abra. Access to double status (and unlike Eggy 100% accurate paralysis) plus solid offensive power into anything in the tier is a recipe for success, and if this thing had better stats it'd be a mainstay for sure. He's just too slow and a bit too frail to really find purchase too often. A slowmon's gotta bring something really solid to the table— Porygon has amazing stall and movepool, Seaking can sweep, Eggy can sleep more consistently and deal big damage with explosion, Drowzee being "just decent" and having low speed makes it hard to justify. It does outspeed both Porygon and Eggy, so Drowzee is a really good reactive switch-in to punish a Porygon, and with how often you see pory, it's not unlikely for it to pop off and sleep a porygon + cripple whatever comes in with paralysis + psychic damage.
Machamp: Machamp is on fraud watch in the public eye right now, but he's really not so bad. He's got great bulk, solid offense, and a varied movepool, even if his speed tier is pretty bad. Notably he gets earthquake unlike Primeape, so he can hit Nidoking and Gastly super effectively. He also outspeeds the slowest of slowmons (graveler/porygon/exeggcute/wigglytuff), and he can chunk 3 of them super effectively with Submission. Also notably, outspeeding Eggy and hitting harder than Primeape means that if Eggy tries to switch into you the way so many people try to against Primeape, it's kind of super prone to fumbling. Slam slam beam from Machamp just kills Eggy, so if it misses a single sleep powder or gets paralyzed by either of the body slams and FPs, you just win an entire Egg for free. Machamp also works well as a pretty reliable trade machine given its solid bulk, it can bring most things down to like 20-30% health in a raw 1v1 for a fastmon to clean up, it's genuinely underexplored in the meta right now, and underbought in my opinion. It does have the obvious venusaur problem, where venu switches in, eats like 25%, and since machamp is pretty slow, doesn't even get another turn of body slam before getting slept. But back venusaur is not omnipresent, and genuinely take a look at this thing's 1v1 matchup against the entire rest of the tier and tell me it's ZU garbage. It's not.
Kingler: This mon is heavily scout dependent. If there's any chance your opponent is bringing venusaur, kingler just becomes dead weight. This thing is the freest venusaur switch of all time. It deals like 20% with any of its moves, gets outsped and put to sleep the next turn, and it's also OHKOd by razor leaf if sleep isn't on the table. Kingler has a solid 1v1 profile into a lot of the tier, but its bad matchups are so glaringly bad that you run the risk of a huge tempo loss if your opponent is packing one of them. Most of the time you're hitting something with either body slam or crabhammer, and it's pretty predictable which one you'll be clicking. Staryu switch into crabhammer decently well and since it outspeeds you, mindgame you with either tbolt or recover. In the Staryu v Kingler 1v1 at that point, recover beats hyper beam, hyper beam beats tbolt, tbolt beats SD, and SD beats recover. Gastly and Venusaur are content to switch in on either a crabhammer or a body slam since they outspeed and clobber it with either sleep, razor leaf, or tbolt. It's not unlikely for Kingler to get you value in a game, but it's also quite likely you just thud into a counter, give free sleep, and have to play the game 5v6.
Wigglytuff: Like Machamp/Kingler before him, Wiggly absolutely hates venusaur. Slower than it, doesn't deal much damage to it, and gives it free sleep. Outside of the venusaur matchup though, Wiggly has a more even matchup spread than Kingler, and is content to fight basically anything that's in front of it and either cripple it with para or do some solid damage, often both. The downside of an early-midgame para spreader though is that you give your opponent a sleepblocker. Obviously it's nice to paralyze something like a magmar or a primeape, but now suddenly if you're running Venusaur/Exeggcute, you just have something that you can't use without giving magmar free entry and forcing something to eat a STAB 120bp move for no benefit. This can be worked around with solid play and teambuilding of course, but so far in RBYPL I wasn't thrilled with how I saw it used. With some more development I could see this going above Graveler and passing my cutoff for ZU, but right now the opportunity cost of bringing Wiggly over something better is just too high for my liking.
Muk: Okay I'll be real you should not be using anything below Pinsir unless someone's scout is particularly vulnerable to it. Muk was put on my radar when Maris' team brought it against me in semifinals, and it's not without its merits, but it's just way too flawed for my liking. Pure poison typing plus being super slow is not doing it any favors in a tier with 9 psychic/ground users, especially when it isn't hitting particularly hard or inflicting status. The best it's got is being a diet bulky trademon that can fight both Scyther and Seaking (the two main sweepers) decently well. It's also got a rather strong explosion to chunk a bad matchup midgame which is nice to have. But like Pinsir above him, this thing totally thuds into Gastly, and doubly so since you might be exploding. It also gets reactively exploited by Graveler, Nidoking, and Venusaur. It's not unusable, but like most of the stuff down here it's just got too high of an opportunity cost.
Poliwag: This thing is technically the fastest sleeper in the tier and can be a lead into low venusaur and low magmar scouts or switch into golduck and outspeed it with hypnosis. That's not nothing, that's pretty big. But the downside is that the rest of the mon is fucking poliwag. This thing hits like a wet paper bag and takes hits about as well. It has amnesia to boost after landing sleep, but with how many fastmons are in the tier and outspeed and do 70%+ to it in a single hit, you better have landed sleep without taking any damage first. It's not inconcievable for this mon to actually help win games, but it's exceedingly rare.
Nidoqueen: How the mighty have fallen. Nidoqueen maybe could be higher than this, but every time I've ever seen it used it just does like 60% and then dies. Nidoking is a great mon, it's pretty unexploitable, so... could it be worth it to have a second one? In my opinion, not really. King/queen don't work well on a team together, and king hits better damage thresholds and more importantly has a better speed tier. It's only a little bit of a speed drop, but that crucial 10 points of speed means you can no longer outspeed Golduck, Nidoking, Staryu, Pinsir, Gastly, and Venusaur. That's a HUGE deal. And you're hitting less hard than King to boot. If you're ever thinking about bringing Nidoqueen as a diet 2nd King, consider bringing Pinsir/Machamp instead. They at least fill different niches and have different entry points, rather than a strictly worse copy of a mon you already have.
Vileplume: A bulky grass type with double powder? If you want a venusaur that can hit stun spore and then die, or a slightly faster exeggcute that can't hit anything, Vileplume is for you.
Slowpoke: It has twave and amnesia (chat amnesia is short for two calm minds btw), and has surf and psychic. It could maybe do something but don't count on it. Too many fast physical attackers for this thing to make meaningful progress.
and 
Whoops, I must have misplaced these guys, I forgot they're better than Drowzee, Pinsir, and Machamp, mons that actually do something. My bad y'all.
Weezing: Muk with a worse explosion (the thing you're using it for)
Dragonair: It has twave and blizzard and agility, and is only weak to opposing blizzard. It doesn't do anything completely terribly but it doesn't do anything very well either.
