The rest of the mons I would consider solidly PU. B+ are the mons I think everyone should run at least some amount of the time, B- are role players for certain teams or against certain scouts. I think you can do very well in this tier exclusively building with the top 10.
Scyther
This might be the mon I flip flopped most on. I started thinking it was really stupid and potentially banworthy, then I’ve seen it fail so often I thought it was trash until for now I landed on it being pretty good. Scyther is the fastest mon in the tier and has really scary offensive potential. In my opinion there are two ways to use scyther: As a lategame sweeper like seaking or as a midgame revenge killer like primeape.
After a single swords dance it can KO primeape and magmar and deals massive damage to most other mons in the tier. At +4 it just beats everything except the dedicated walls graveler and gastly (It even has a chance to OHKO gastly with wing attack). Getting up a single swords dance isn’t to difficult, anything more can be tricky. Scyther has an awful defensive typing and mediocre bulk , meaning most of the tier can 2HKO or paralyse it, so to sweep with scyther you need to wait to either get a free entry (on a sleeping mon or a vensaur), or wait for everything to be chipped down enough +2 scyther can sweep. This means you really need to hide your scyther (otherwise your opponent will keep something to check it), making it an even bigger liabilty than seaking in the midgame, playing a 5v6. And even if you get it into the perfect situation scyther can throw. HB has 90% accuracy, it often needs to hit ranges and a single miss mean it’s gone. Even at +4 it can crit and fail to KO. Also even on mons it usually can set up, a single slam para can stop you. Agility can help to fight para, but you’re just introducing more turns you can get fully paralysed. For all those reasons I don’t think dedicated sweeper scyther is great.
Scyther as a midgame cleaner imo has a lot more to offer. Its the fastest mon in the tier and has a risk free button to deal big damage with slash. This is another reason I’m a bit down on back magmar, scyther genuinely might be a better second fast mon with primeape. It’s also often a decent choice to just SD up in the midgame, ko something and then trade 70-80% on the incoming check. You also don’t have to chose, you always have the option to keep scyther for the lategame sweep, you just shouldn’t be scared to use it early.
Scythers biggest weakness and the reason I wouldn’t use it to much is that it gets walled by gastly and graveler. This is even more pronounced as a midgame mon, since your opponent will still have them around when you reveal it.
Battling against scyther means you either need to prevent it from setting up or keeping a reliable answer. If you don’t have a hard wall, golduck, nidoking and seaking all tank a +2 beam and 2HKO so as long as you keep one of them around you should be fine. They all have the problem that they can just miss their blizzard and lose. Your own scyther also can take down a weakened scyther at +2 and can even gamble the speed tie against +4 scyther. Magmar can’t switch in, but almost always kos with fire blast so it wins the 1v1. The best Scyther answer on your standard team will be pory. It
almost (that’s why I kinda hate this mon) **always tanks a +2 HB, can para the scyther and deals big damage with blizzard. Don’t try to predict the Hyper beam though, unless you’re really confident, usually it’s better to let scyther get a ko and bring pory in afterwards. Sometimes they will get the 15% range and ko, not much you can do that’s just the game. If you drop blizzard on your pory it can get dicey, scyther can easily trade, and agility scyther just straight up sets up on you.
I think wing attack is clearly the better choice for the fourth move. Being able to damage gastly is huge and it’s marginally useful as a 100% move at +2 against flying weak mons. Agility is a high risk win more move, it sometimes can win you games singlehandedly, but often times just trading out with HB after being paralysed is better than trying to sweep by dodging FP+ miss 3+ times. I have seens scouts with 0 gastlies in that case, sure go for agility but otherwise stick to wing attack.
Exeggcute
Exeggcute is your main alternative to Venusaur and has some amazing traits. It trades the awful poison type for a great psychic type, giving both defensive and offensive value and solves all of Venusaurs passivity problems by having stun spore and explosion (Maybe a hot take: I think venusaur with stun spore would be a contender for the #1 spot).
It really pays a lot in the stat department for that. Exeggcute is really slow, it gets outsped by everything except graveler, so it’s an easy entrypoint for opposing sleepers (it especially struggles against drowzee). Itao also naturally gets outsped by seaking and all the random stuff venusaur gets a free sleep against like machamp or wigglytuff. It’s also significantly frailer. The physical side is fine (though it also takes hits there a bit worse than venusaur), but the difference in special bulk is significant. All the blizzards Venusaur tanks 2HKO egg easily, which means a single powder miss gives it up for free against nidoking, golduck, seaking, blizzard staryu, pory and some random ZU mons. This makes Egg a lot less reliable at getting sleep of. Not having razor leaf means you lose the defensive utility against the waters, in particular egg is not a seaking check (Your best bet is stun spore into boom, but don’t get crit or frozen or miss). Lastly its offensive stats are pretty medium, its Nidoking has a chance to survive 2 psychic hits, it’s not even close to 2HKO venusaur and even staryu tanks an explosion.
That all sounds very negative but there is a reason I rank it relatively highly still. It’s the best abra check in the tier and it does take a bit more from primeape than Venusaur, but it still is very likely to get sleep of and if it does, your opponent is in such a bad spot due to the threat of stun spore. And even though it gets outsped by the other sleepers, if they already used sleep, egg easily sits on venusaur and gastly which again force your opponent into a bad spot. Not being setup fodder for scyther is also good. I can not emphasize enough how great boom and stun spore are. You just really need to take advantage of eggs good traits and have a reason to use it. Don’t use it like venusaur you need to push your advantage with it, just throwing it on a team leads to you having a slow, frail and overall worse venusaur.
I don’t think there’s any alternative to boom, powder, stun spore and psychic.
Gastly
The last mon in my top10 and the last mon I think you need to bring some amount of time. It honestly is quite a bad mon, I understand why a lot of people rank it lower and at face value it’s probably worse than some of the B- mons. What it keeps here is that it’s a tax to pay, you need to bring a wall sometimes to deter people of loading scyther and pidgeot every game, and in my opinion gastly is a lot easier to fit than graveler.
Playing it against scyther is a bit trickier than graveler, you really don’t wanna switch it into a SD, since Wing attack 2HKOs then. The correct play is usually to hit the scyther with whatever is in on the SD turn than switch gastly into the HB to finish it of with tbolt. Against Pidgeot you are pretty safe you just need to be careful against mirror move. Don’t click psychic and if you miss a hypnosis it might be better to switch out to scout for mirror move (It only works if you stay).
It still has uses againt other mons, which you need to utilize to make gastly a worthy bring. It’s a great venusaur answer after it has slept something, so I like it a lot on Water spam teams which can have trouble against venu. It’s also decent against the waters and primeape. If ape ever drops rock slide for tbolt you actually just wall it. Trying to fish for a hypnosis against magmar isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Gastly really has bad stats though. The combination of being relatively slow and frail is bad, and without a stab move it needs super effective hits to do meaningful damage. There aren’t actually that many physical moves that can hit Gastly, so most of the time it’s pityful physical defense is manageable, the big problem is Nidoking. Nidoking has such an oppressive matchup against gastly, it outspeeds, OHKOs and can come in for free on tbolts. Having such a bad Nidoking matchup is especially bad, since nothing likes to switch into Nidoking. You can try to win the worst mind game and get a flying type in, but if you get called out and get hit with blizz/tbolt it’s awful. Golduck is a desperate switchin, you’re banking on a 50/50 and give up your golduck. Pory can hope to not get crit and try to hax with recover stall or at least get one blizzard in. Other than that you are kinda out of options, other than staying and dying from full (Maybe this should’ve been part of the Nidoking section actually). Gastly really appreciates people being comparatively down on Nidoking, some people have <50% Nidoking usage. If this changes in the future Gastly could really go down.
Abra
The slowest of the fast mons, or the fastest of the slow mons. Abra finds it’s niche with a big, fast and powerful stab psychic, which hits most of the tier very hard. It’s excellent at revenging Nidoking, deals a lot to Venusaur and 1v1s Golducks without specific tech against abra. Twave is also a nice move to have, even though abra rarely has the time to click it. It does mean it can beat pory without the relatively rare hyper beam without much trouble. Getting a sub up is potentially game winning if you battle a para’d opponent call out switches or get in on a sleeping mon.
Abra does really hate the speed of the tier. Having 4 mons that outspeed and can OHKO means Abra needs to get its value quickly. You don’t really get to mindgame any of them since just clicking body slam beats you, counter unfortunately doesn’t get the ko. The later the game goes on the more difficult it can be to get abra on the field, I’ve seen a few games, where primeape or magmar just keep bullying abra out, and beat it in the endgame. Exeggcute and Drowzee are also bad news for Abra cause they remove the one key advantage it has, being awful to switch into.
I brought probably the abra weakest teams into the tour (highest Venu and Nidoking usage) and I never felt particularly threatened by it. And at some point I just brought some Eggy and fast spam teams and crushed the Abras. It’s a solid mon in the tier, but you should use it sparingly and need to proactively get it in.
Pidgeot
Pidgeot is a mon I’m really unsure about. It feels like it should be really good, having solid stats and those incredible STAB normal moves. It didn’t really impress me in my practice games and I ended up barely bringing it. The main thing is that when I wanna gamble not to run into a graveler or gastly, I prefer Scyther most of the time. It’s faster and has that game winning potential. Similarly to Abra, Pidgeot also doesn’t like that there are 3 mons faster than it, so it can get revenged pretty easily. I had it even lower a couple of weeks ago, but I have found appreciation for its strengths.
It does hit really hard, and even though magmar and ape outspeed it, it actually tanks their hits and can 2HKO back. Sand attack also really helps into gastly making it less awkward having to switch out of it. Having a Nidoking switch-in, as risky as it may be is also really valuable. Pory does wall it, but it needs full HP, and is in genuine danger of getting crit. If your opponent doesn’t have an answer it really can dominate the game.
Funnily enough Pidgeots movepool is so bad, that it actually has a few options. HB and Dedge are must-haves but other than that bring whatever you want. Agility is just a generally good move, Sand Attack means you’re a bit less helpless against gastly, Sky Attack does actually threaten it. Keep in mind that if you get slept in the charge turn of sky attack you get trapped and can’t do anything until you wake up. Mirror move is a cool option especially in combination with sand attack, you sand attack their sleeper hope it misses and sleep them back. Substitute is always an okay option and Quick Attack is a move that probably does something some of the time.
Overall it’s a fine mon in the tier, in a vacuum it’s better than a couple of mons above it, I just found it hard to fit.
Drowzee
There maybe should be another subtier below Pidgeot, I think everything from here is a good bit worse. Drowzee is another option for a sleeper, has twave and a strong psychic stab. Its stats kinda suck, but its big special stat means it can hit hard and its just fast enough to outspeed Pory and Egg. This is its main usecase pory and egg are both pretty spammable and drowzee punishes that. Having the threat of sleep against egg means it actually has no switch-ins, though in fairness most things are just fine sitting and hitting drowzee. Its sleep is actually really bad, slow hypnosis really isn’t what you wanna rely on, except against the 2 slow mons, twave + spamming psychic is what you wanna do, unless you’re desperate.
As as with all the NFEs its stats hold it back, it really can’t switch into anything except the slow mons (not graveler) and abra, it’s slow and can just get crit doing nothing. But it has a legitimate niche in the tier and is definitely PU.
Staryu
I’m not a staryu believer at all, it just keeps falling lower and lower in my estimation. Like the rest of the NFE squad it really struggles with its stats, it maybe feels it the worst of them all. It doesn’t have a standout feature and just loses into most mons higher than it. It loses to all porygon variants, loses to primeape and gets destroyed by venusaur (blizzard doesn’t even 2HKO). And despite its typing even the seemingly good matchups are not great, it is not a good magmar switchin (if you get slam parad or crit you just lose), its not a good amnesia golduck switch-in (You really need to pray for crits), it is just a straight up 50/50 against Nidoking. Even in the B tier Scyther and Pidgeot outspeed and 2hko, gastly wins, drowzee wins, it’s one of the few mons abra can just switch into and beat. Just writing this and thinking it through made me put staryu a place lower.
It also really struggles with 4 MSS. You need Tbolt and Twave, otherwise it stops doing the one thing it’s really good at, without blizzard you get another losing matchup into eggy and Venusaur and the flying types beat you even more, dropping surf means your 50/50 against Nidoking now needs to hit an unfavourable range as well. It also makes your damage into neutral targets pathetic (I love 4HKOing abra and gastly). The best option and the one I used before I stopped using Staryu completely is 3 attacks + twave. Dropping recover might sound crazy, but staryu is just so frail it barely gets to recover. Even against magmar just hitting is usually better than recover stalling waiting to get slam para’d. You will sometimes miss it, especially against seaking, so dropping either surf or blizzard is fine, but you do lose some of the few okay matchups you have.
I don’t think winrate is a great indicator of a mons viability, but in the last 4 weeks of rbypl staryu managed to show up 14 times without winning a single game (
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/rbypl-vi-replays-and-usage-stats.3772490/post-10787070).
For now it still hangs on in the tier by being a really solid seaking answer. Dedge seaking is rare, so it is forced to try to either freeze or HB crit you. Seaking is a scary threat so having a wall that can para and ko it is valuable. Water also just is a good type, it pairs well with other waters for water spam, and twave means it can at least cripple something before dying.
Graveler
I might be doing graveler dirty by ranking it below staryu. It’s the other normal wall you can bring and has some decent matchups into magmar and gastly. Explosion is also a good button to have. I found it a lot more difficult to fit than gastly, that’s why I rank it so much lower. Competing for a slot with nidoking is tough, you can run both, but this is a water heavy tier. It’s other matchups also aren’t great, primeape is okay, cause it needs to hit double submission, but the waters and venusaur and all the special attackers give it a hard time. It also can be awkward to use, you wanna utilize its powerful boom but you need to keep it around for eventual scythers.
Don’t have much to say about it, I used it sparingly, mainly when I expected a scyther. It works okay, imo it’s the last mon I consider standard and a part of PU.
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.
