Lower Tiers RBY Tradebacks Metagame Hub

[Plague von Karma]

I think “but they’re glitchy” is a perfectly valid reason to say no to this lol. I’m not the end-all be-all authority on this but yeah, even if they are obtainable and even if they’re not gamebreaking and won’t change the meta… why? I mean I guess I understand the point you’re trying to make with “the spirit of Tradebacks” but I don’t agree. I don’t think allowing glitch moves/Pokemon is in the spirit of the game at all. Call this handpicking over what we allow from GSC/what we don’t (you could get into legal DVs and all that yadda yadda yadda) but I think this is probably going to be a no under the unwritten “common sense clause” that the RBY Council uses. I think this was invoked recently when we were discussing all moves needing max PP Ups when it came to Wrap PP underflow. It’s just easier on everyone to not open up a can of worms for that issue, and I think similarly here as well.

I don't see banning them for being glitches as common sense at all. In fact, I think that's thoroughly irrational. They're perfectly obtainable in normal gameplay, even if by chance, and are completely balanced as well. They are like any other move and are below standard. If anything, they're very interesting, and would allow for some players to have a little fun. Buffing Machamp isn't going to kill anyone. It seems like the opposite of common sense to disallow them given these points. We play with numerous glitches already, and these aren't exactly out of the ordinary. If anything, they're pretty tame.

I don't see why we would go down any slippery slopes by allowing moves obtainable via Tradebacks in Tradebacks solely because they're glitches. You could argue the fact this metagame exists at all is a glitch. You don't need to go down the slope because here's no reason to! What, are you going to go to OU and demand every Glitch Pokemon gets tiered? You see how weird this sounds, right? These moves are obtainable via the mechanic, so it is in the spirit of said mechanic to allow them.

20/5 edit: I get that developer intention is clearly not there for Glitch Moves, unlike what can be inferred through Tradeback Moves "themselves", but RBY and its tiering go so far out of the realms of developer intention that it seems like a moot point. I say "normal gameplay" in that it's very easy for Little Timmy and his ragtag friends to do this on accident when trying to evolve his Machoke. A few people in the RBY server mentioned that given this is the game's "interpretation of the move" in that it's trying its best to rationalise an irrational move, but like, it's working, yeah?

 

[Plague von Karma]

Ayup, may as well talk about what I used in Triple Threat.

I used these teams;
W1 VS txixtas
W3 VS Ctown6, W4 VS Mr.Bossaru
The first team isn't much to write home about so I'll leave it out. I think it's pretty bad. It has little defensive resourse and I think you'd be better off replacing Gengar and Hypno with Pokemon that are less Lax-weak. Probably wants Stun Spore Exeggutor.

The second team is really cool though! It runs off the theory that Articuno's weaknesses as a sweeper are better made up for by Rolling Kick Electabuzz than Zapdos. I believe this take to be accurate: Electabuzz beats Chansey pretty consistently and isn't that mithered by paralysis. Its newfound coverage helps its mediocre attacking stats a lot and makes it a neat supportive Pokemon. However, I think the team's sets are a bit problematic, so you may want to sit down and think hard about them. This seems like a strong buff to the Gar+Birds team as an issue that team has is that trading wrong often leaves you beaten by one of Rhydon or something else, and at least Electabuzz has contingency plans for that. Neat Pokemon!

 

[y-roc?]

Some Tradebacks thots now that I’m done with the grand Slam.

Persian:

While lots of ink has been spilled about Persian already I just Wanna note that I don’t like Persian as a lead and usually don’t even bother with hypnosis. Amnesia is such a cool boon for Persian for the extra defensive utility it gives in endgame scenarios against special attackers and letting it take advantage of resting mons. I usually value bubble beam for Rhydon a lot more than hypnosis on such a vulnerable but dangerous endgame sweeper. But having hypnosis to threaten with is still useful enough to use it sometimes.

Tangela:

One Pokémon that I firmly believe is an OU caliber mon in tradebacks but that I haven’t seen much of is Tangela. Specifically, Amnesia Tangela. One of my favorite things about tradebacks is the ability to have an option other than Exeggutor to reliably switch into Rhydon. The speed at which amnesia boots Tangela’s damage and healing makes a massive difference when compared to growth. Sleep Powder/Amnesia/Mega Drain should be the standard that allows Tangela to go toe to toe with most lax. (keep in mind that because mega drains 40 bp is so weak, I’ve found its optimal to get to +4 before you start draining for healing and damage reasons.) while this set is hard stopped by plenty of Pokémon Sleep powder allows you to deal with at least 1 of your potential counters (Eggy, Chansey, Zapdos, Gengar, and Hypno are the main ones we’re seeing right now). If your opponents first response is their lax it is very possible that Tangela can just sweep right then and there. The last move slot I’m still undecided on. Rest is what I’ve used mostly so far but its so passive and gives the opponent a bit too many opportunities. Important for going the distance against other amnesia users and Paralysis, but even that’s not reliable. Stun spore should probably be the standard as it is the most punishing thing Tangela can do besides sleep to its switch ins. I would hate to paralyze something like a Chansey and then not be able to beat it in the endgame though. Bind allows for pivoting and the potential chipping down of paralyzed counters but I haven’t tested with it much yet. And Solarbeam sounds like a fun idea to let Tangela actually burst through the Pokémon its put to sleep 2HKOing (I guess 4 turn koing really) all of its counters at +6, but at that point you are better off just having a Tauros or Persian to come in and punish the mons you’ve put to sleep. Tangela goes great with the electrics to answer Rhydon. And is a great mon with Rhydon who can answer Zapdos. Once people realize how to respond to Tangela and start planning for it its immediate power will be reduced, but its ability to sweep and sleep will keep it a very good midgame option as a Rhydon response and stun spore/Bind shenanigans will still keep it impactful even once you know its coming. A couple of other things: Growth/Reflect is an option in tradebacks which is decent against tauros but its so slow it just isn’t worth it. Amnesia/Mega Drain/Swords Dance/Wrap could be doable if you wanted to drop sleep and use sd wrap to get through chansey and egg, but that seems bad to me if a bit interesting.



Nidoqueen:

Nidoqueen is an excellent lead imo; albeit one that has very specific teammate needs. Its speed tier allows it to beat Eggy and Lax leads soundly, but against most other leads you’ll be forced to play a dangerous game or switch out. You need Gengar or Rhydon to be able to swap into Persian Leads, You should still try to play the accuracy game to see if you can get the sleep, but you need a good response if you lose it (I prefer Gengar to Rhydon on the off chance of bubblebeam but Lead Persians almost never have room for it so Rhydon is still probably fine). You’ll also need Starmie as a response to jynx since you’ll probably lose the sleep game to it. You will also need chansey to respond to the t-wave psychics (Its not much of a restriction since you should have chansey on almost every team anyway). Chansey also responds to jynx but especially as a for-sure early game plan I wouldn’t wanna play the freeze games with my Chansey. Mid-game Nidoqueen can be used as a pivot into electric moves and then spread damage with stab earthquake + coverage. Its bulk allows it to get chip onto almost any 1 opponent reliably and it is decent at trying to crit through a non-ice beam chansey. Nowhere near being a standard lead. But with specific team support it can play around its bad matchups while being incredibly good against its good matchups. (is jolteon Lead ever gonna be a thing? Maybe on a double electrics team w/ Tangela?)
Nidoking & Aero:

I just wanna mention these 2 as mons I like but are definitely not great. Aero can turn its normal resist and ground immunity into prime earthquake spam. And if you crit sky attacks its a great breaker, but still super vulnerable to para and outclassed by most everything as an endgame sweeper. Nidoking is very fun to spam earthquakes with and much like persian can use amnesia as both a defensive and offensive tool. But its so hard to come in on anything other than a sleeping mon or the odd jolteon that it is very hard to use and not really worth it. Nidoking is still My favorite though.

 

[Ema Skye]

With the monthly ladder starting tomorrow, I want to talk about a few mons. TBs OU is really not that different from normal OU because a lot of the stuff is overhyped. There are 4 TB moves worth talking about but only one of them is really significant to the meta.

+Lovely Kiss
This is about the only TB move that isn't overhyped, though it ends up being a weird lax set. Like sing chansey, the biggest boon to LK lax is that you don't need to give up a fourth moveslot to a sleeper. However, it ends up worsening your MU vs other lax if sleep is already active due to the difficulty of running LK+reflect on the same set. this set also doesn't hit gengar unless it runs EQ over rest, which cuts into its longevity substantially. this definitely needs to be experimented with more because there's obviously a lot of value here but fitting it in somewhere is hard.

+Ice Punch
tying into the above because more lax usage likely means more gar usage, especially as people are trying to experiment with LK+reflect. ice punch gar has freeze vs chansey which is pretty cool, and it affords a 2HKO on rhydon. however, this gives it a worse MU vs zam in exchange for slightly more damage (still a 4HKO) on egg. night shade ends up being more consistent so i dont think its an auto-replace. im also kinda interested in restgar given snorlax's dominance as a gar with lots of longevity could be worth it.

+Hypnosis
The fastest sleeper, but I'm not very sure about it as a sleep lead. It doesn't function well vs mie/zam leads, though the jynx MU is okay. Gar MU is very weird because, like mel said, gar wakes up on persian anyways. back sleep also seems unreliable for the same reasons mel said. it's overhyped. amnesia is a bad set due to its coverage and it gets walled by rhydon while trying to do everything.

+Amnesia
this is the last of the notable TBs moves but its also really weird. it lacks slowbro's bulk though without the tbolt weakness it is less prone to randomly dying to a crit. hypno is also walled by other psychics unlike bro (also means less attacking PP trying to break mie/zam/chan. it also never 2hkos zam). my thought is that both are equally viable.

That's really the list. There are a lot of niche options for mons that are buffed, but the buffs aren't significant enough to make them OU relevant (ex. Electabuzz, Rapidash, Poliwrath, Aerodactyl) as the mons are still substantially flawed.

 

[Teh]

With the end of the Tradebacks OU spotlight ladder, I figured I would post my own personal VR. I managed to peak at #1 on the ladder at one point, and by the end I was around #4. Some of this is based on vibes considering I couldn't test everything out.

S Tier
S:
S-:

A Tier
A+:
A:

B Tier
B:
B-:

OU/UU Cutoff (unordered)
C:
D:

Explaination

I'll only be going over mons that has their place in the meta change in Tradebacks. I'll maybe talk about the UU mons at a later date

The big cheese. I already hold the opinion that Snorlax is equally as viable as Tauros in regular OU, so Snorlax getting Lovely Kiss added to it's repertoire just barely manages to push it past the bull. Being a physical attacker with a sleep-inducing move is incredible in this metagame. Snorlax is impossible to sleep block with paralyzed mons, which lets you play a lot more aggressive with paralysis in the early game. Of course, slotting in Lovely Kiss means you have a lot less firepower, losing Hyper Beam on PhysLax sets and only having Body Slam on Reflect sets, but the the threat of sleep makes up for that. Lovely Kiss is far from a mandatory move, but it's a great addition to lax's toolkit.

This is one of the only mons that become "worse" in a tradebacks meta. Physical attackers are better than ever here, and sing sets are far less valuable with the addition of so many new sleepers. It's still very hard to drop, but I think Chansey-less teams can be viable.

Alakazam and Starmie are perfectly equipped to handle the new threats introduced in Tradebacks.

Lead Alakazam got a nice buff in Ice Punch, allowing it to fish for freeze in the lead spot (although I've found that T1 TWave strats are mostly better.) Thunder Punch is pretty mediocre, but it can still put in the work vs. Starmie. Overall though, the elemental punches were definetely overhyped. More often than not I would rather just use Seismic Toss for the consistent damage. The reason I ranked Alakazam above Starmie is it's better speed tier (outspeeds Persian) and it's much better Hypno matchup when using Seismic Toss.

Starmie is just as good as ever, but I like it more in the back rather than as a lead. It functions basically the same here as in regular OU.

IMO still the best and most consistent sleep inducer around. I wouldn't really use this with Lovely Kiss Snorlax or Persian considering they benefit from T1 Twave, which Eggy doesn't like at all. Explosion is an even better tool here due to Tradeback's much faster pace, and it allows you to remove a lot of the gimmick mons as well.

New fastest sleep inducer AND having STAB Slash? Sign me up! I hope I can effectively convey how strong the combination of strong physical attacks + sleep-inducing moves is in RBY, but to summarize: it's incredibly strong. Before Tradebacks, every viable sleeper was a Special attacker, meaning they had no realistic way of breaking past a paralyzed Chansey/Starnie/Alakazam without significant luck or by using Explosion (which obviously means you can't sleep anything anymore.) Now enter Persian, with a 140BP no-drawbacks STAB move in Slash, which completely tears apart Paralyzed mons. The only Pokemon that can reliably switch into Persian without taking a trillion damage is Gengar, everything else takes massive chip or is outright 2HKOed.

Persian's best use is in the back, rather than as a lead. Lead Persian doesn't take advantage of all the strengths that Persian vs. paralyzed mons, and is incredibly prone to paralysis leads.

Gengar gets Ice Punch in Tradebacks, which is a pretty decent buff, but far from a mandatory option. Night Shade and Psychic are still really good as 4th moves. Walling non-Amnesia Persian is incredibly valuable, and Explosion is always a nice tool to have. Persian is still a faster sleep-inducer than Gengar,, but I would still rather use Gengar as a lead over Persian.

The two amnesia users. Generally I prefer Slowbro due to it not having ass physical bulk (Hypno is 3HKOed by Snorlax Body Slam lmao) but Hypno does have a nice against teams that spam TBolt Starmie. I don't really know what the best set is for Hypno, but it's probably Hypnosis + Twave + Amnesia. Just don't ever use Rest on Hypno unless you're using Reflect (and if you are using Reflect, why not use Slowbro?)

This is the most 'in-theory' Pokémon on this list. In theory, with a worse Chansey and a strong Persian, Lapras seems to have a lot of positive traits. However, I'm not sure if this will end up panning out. We'll see!

On the one hand, you're even more likely to get the TWave lead matchup as Jynx, on the other hand, Jynx's ability to sleep-block is far worse here than it is in regular OU. Persian and LKiss Lax completely stomp Jynx after it's paralyzed, which means you're effectively trading an entire team slot for an early sleep (which really isn't worth it anymore.) Might honestly be UU.

 

[acidArmourSpam]

With the end of the Tradebacks OU spotlight ladder, I figured I would post my own personal VR. I managed to peak at #1 on the ladder at one point, and by the end I was around #4. Some of this is based on vibes considering I couldn't test everything out.

S Tier
S:
S-:

A Tier
A+:
A:

B Tier
B:
B-:

OU/UU Cutoff (unordered)
C:
D:

Explaination

I'll only be going over mons that has their place in the meta change in Tradebacks. I'll maybe talk about the UU mons at a later date

View attachment 514013
The big cheese. I already hold the opinion that Snorlax is equally as viable as Tauros in regular OU, so Snorlax getting Lovely Kiss added to it's repertoire just barely manages to push it past the bull. Being a physical attacker with a sleep-inducing move is incredible in this metagame. Snorlax is impossible to sleep block with paralyzed mons, which lets you play a lot more aggressive with paralysis in the early game. Of course, slotting in Lovely Kiss means you have a lot less firepower, losing Hyper Beam on PhysLax sets and only having Body Slam on Reflect sets, but the the threat of sleep makes up for that. Lovely Kiss is far from a mandatory move, but it's a great addition to lax's toolkit.

View attachment 514015
This is one of the only mons that become "worse" in a tradebacks meta. Physical attackers are better than ever here, and sing sets are far less valuable with the addition of so many new sleepers. It's still very hard to drop, but I think Chansey-less teams can be viable.

View attachment 514018View attachment 514019

Alakazam and Starmie are perfectly equipped to handle the new threats introduced in Tradebacks.

Lead Alakazam got a nice buff in Ice Punch, allowing it to fish for freeze in the lead spot (although I've found that T1 TWave strats are mostly better.) Thunder Punch is pretty mediocre, but it can still put in the work vs. Starmie. Overall though, the elemental punches were definetely overhyped. More often than not I would rather just use Seismic Toss for the consistent damage. The reason I ranked Alakazam above Starmie is it's better speed tier (outspeeds Persian) and it's much better Hypno matchup when using Seismic Toss.

Starmie is just as good as ever, but I like it more in the back rather than as a lead. It functions basically the same here as in regular OU.

View attachment 514022
IMO still the best and most consistent sleep inducer around. I wouldn't really use this with Lovely Kiss Snorlax or Persian considering they benefit from T1 Twave, which Eggy doesn't like at all. Explosion is an even better tool here due to Tradeback's much faster pace, and it allows you to remove a lot of the gimmick mons as well.

View attachment 514024
New fastest sleep inducer AND having STAB Slash? Sign me up! I hope I can effectively convey how strong the combination of strong physical attacks + sleep-inducing moves is in RBY, but to summarize: it's incredibly strong. Before Tradebacks, every viable sleeper was a Special attacker, meaning they had no realistic way of breaking past a paralyzed Chansey/Starnie/Alakazam without significant luck or by using Explosion (which obviously means you can't sleep anything anymore.) Now enter Persian, with a 140BP no-drawbacks STAB move in Slash, which completely tears apart Paralyzed mons. The only Pokemon that can reliably switch into Persian without taking a trillion damage is Gengar, everything else takes massive chip or is outright 2HKOed.

Persian's best use is in the back, rather than as a lead. Lead Persian doesn't take advantage of all the strengths that Persian vs. paralyzed mons, and is incredibly prone to paralysis leads.

View attachment 514026
Gengar gets Ice Punch in Tradebacks, which is a pretty decent buff, but far from a mandatory option. Night Shade and Psychic are still really good as 4th moves. Walling non-Amnesia Persian is incredibly valuable, and Explosion is always a nice tool to have. Persian is still a faster sleep-inducer than Gengar,, but I would still rather use Gengar as a lead over Persian.

View attachment 514032View attachment 514033
The two amnesia users. Generally I prefer Slowbro due to it not having ass physical bulk (Hypno is 3HKOed by Snorlax Body Slam lmao) but Hypno does have a nice against teams that spam TBolt Starmie. I don't really know what the best set is for Hypno, but it's probably Hypnosis + Twave + Amnesia. Just don't ever use Rest on Hypno unless you're using Reflect (and if you are using Reflect, why not use Slowbro?)

View attachment 514038
This is the most 'in-theory' Pokémon on this list. In theory, with a worse Chansey and a strong Persian, Lapras seems to have a lot of positive traits. However, I'm not sure if this will end up panning out. We'll see!

View attachment 514031
On the one hand, you're even more likely to get the TWave lead matchup as Jynx, on the other hand, Jynx's ability to sleep-block is far worse here than it is in regular OU. Persian and LKiss Lax completely stomp Jynx after it's paralyzed, which means you're effectively trading an entire team slot for an early sleep (which really isn't worth it anymore.) Might honestly be UU.

Also been in the top few of the ladder both times its been run. I agree with most of this.

I would have Vap next to Hypno in the dangerous but hard to use camp.

I think Snorlax lovely kiss warps the meta so much it is clear number 1 now with the other 4 all similar levels (Bull, Chansey, Zam, Mie). Zam is arguably third given how often it leads.

Curious why Nidoqueen is a tier above Nodoking although I only tried king.

Other than that, agree with everything.

 

[Teh]

Curious why Nidoqueen is a tier above Nodoking although I only tried king.

Nidoqueen's defensive calcs are much more relevant versus mons like Tauros, Snorlax, Chansey, while Nidoking's extra Attack and Speed literally never matter. Amnesia on Nidoking is also a real nothing burger considering that it and Lovely Kiss are mutually exclusive.

 

[Sabelette]

Bet, I’ll steal Teh’s format and make a VR. I held first on the ladder for most of the spotlight and was #1 at the end but honestly that’s not impressive on a dead ladder, I only had like 1380 something ELO by the end and played ~45-50 games.

This isn’t backed by tours - I only played the first round of the spotlight tour and I had some personal shit going on (plus tbh my opponent was a major ass about scheduling) so I half assed it and dropped out. I’m gonna wait for Slam to help solidify these opinions but this is tentatively what I think.

S:
S-:
A+:
A:
B:
B-:

Comments
- Adding LK makes this obviously #1 just for sheer variety of options. LK is good but honestly it costs Lax a lot and Gar Cloy continues to wall it. Even just Gar alone does a lot to slow Lax down, IMO, but an unwallable sleeper is still obviously really good. Just forcing people to switch out due to fear of LK is really good, regardless. Waiting to see some LK Amnesia type shit though. Also, pretty much any LK Lax can be hard walled by either Reflax or Reflect Chansey so I expect to see more of that. I barely used this on ladder, but all my teams had ways to check LK.

- chub said zam 3 and honestly I thought about it and agree. It’s not the elemental punches, it’s the fact that it outspeeds Gar and Persian and revenge kills everything relevant in a meta with more physical sleepers, more Gar, less Jynx, etc. It’s also a good lead as always, lead is the main place I’d run a punch move.

- it's Chansey as always but honestly the physical sleepers are rough for it, surprised there isn't more Counter Chansey on ladder but that's still prone to failures. Not a necessity but Zam Mie are still godlike and Egg still v good so... Also, Reflect Chansey is a *little* iffy but still staves off Bull/Lax/Cat with good play (Reflect isn't for Persian but Chansey can para the cat and chip it down).

- again, it's still Starmie; increased Gengar isn't great for it overall but it's a good Persian check and an emergency Lax check.

- one of the most obvious beneficiaries of TBs, Ice Punch is useful, walling Persian and a lot of LK Laxes is useful, and the LK Laxes it can't wall lose to Cloyster.

- most misused mon of all time, Hypnosis/Slash/Amnesia/Thunderbolt is so fucking bad it hurts. Body Slam lets it break Reflax rest loops and Bubble Beam stops you from getting rolled by Rhydon, both are immensely better than Amnesia in 90% of games. Leading this for fastest sleep is an option but pretty weak IMO, save it for revenge opportunities I think.

- crushes the typical ladder shit, we'll see in tour.

- also crushes the typical ladder shit + eggy, which Rhydon loses to but isn't very common. I like Rhydon better atm but lots of Zam/Mie/Cat/Gar so Zapdos can crush.

- underutilized, it's still a very good check to a very centralizing mon, but more Gar isn't good.

- I might be being a bit harsh on Jynx, it's not *bad* and there are still a lot of Psychic leads, but imo the real deathblow to it is that it provides zero defensive utility in a tier with so many physical attacks flying around now. Still very usable, but Gengar walls stuff while asleep and Jynx does jack shit.

- 80 Def is so fucking bad. For real. This thing has never once threatened to sweep me and Rest is trash, you just get rolled by Tauros once you click it. IMO Hypnosis/Amnesia/2 attacks and go for highroll bullshit or Twave/Amnesia/2 attacks and look to boost on non-Stoss Chansey and wallbreak, but honestly not even sure this belongs above C.

 

[Tree69420]

i spammed the same like 3 teams on ladder so i dont have experience with like most the mons but whatever
also i was at like 1200 because i went from farming highladder to giving away free points with disconnects/AFKs

kisslax lets it break literally anything but the opportunity cost is pretty big on refrest sets idk
also if you sleep lead kiss is like not even worth the slot most the time i think
i mean big 3 is big 3
zam kinda goes crazy cuz outspeeds cat and mie, punches let it beat mie/egg better but toss is just more reliable
mie cracked too
i mean egg is egg idk i didnt use it
gar getting ice punch is pretty huge also double or triple sleep is fun also it can act like jynx lite and triple ohko which is stupid at times
i never tried don on tbs but its probably just like regular don
cloy gets better and worse at the same time because 3attacks kiss lax is pretty nice and cloy gives you a defensive backbone for that but it also isnt a reliable lax answer anymore
amnesia pers is stupid just run hypno slash slam bbeam/tbolt either lead or back also i swear this mon is always slower than mie
it seems really good on paper like top 5 material but i really feel like it kinda falls flat in game
zapper is zapper, bro just does bro things
jynx gets worse because gar good but its still pretty solid
i mean t1 twave is a lot more clickable now but idk its still jynx
hypno is so ass lol half the hypno sets i saw on ladder were headbutt cheese literally just use bro like 80 physdef is hella mid
also uh why use jolt when you can use the other electrics like zam and mie and gar

also forgive the lack of line breaks and crap its almost 2 AM

 

[chub]

wish we had more time and chances to explore this meta but what I can say without a doubt is don't drop Zam in tb and don't feel like you have to run a punch move even though you should def mix up the 4th slot. zam is pretty much the undisputed best lead and somehow just as good in the back so if you aren't running it in the back there's no reason to not lead it. Might be too high on nidoking but I'm a big fan of physical sleepers. Sorry, I'm not a big fan of electrics but ofc you should always be wary of them and respect them. Boom is a lot stronger in tb than standard so I'd be interested in testing things like Golem but I'm still very doubtful it can get back to ou in this meta. Anyone curious about my water types in B+ I'm a big believer in these mons even in standard ou and consider them some of the most underrated mons in standard outside of Cloyster who gets his due, they're even better in tb than standard. anyways my vr is probably far from perfect as the meta is fairly unexplored but this is how I'm feeling.

 

[Teh]

As of today, I am now the owner of this thread. This means that we'll be able to update the resources in the main post, including sample teams and a VR. If anyone is interested in submitting a sample team, please DM me on Discord.

We'll also be doing a new VR after the ongoing tournament concludes. I haven't decided on the specific reqs yet, but they likely won't be very restrictive. Again, please contact me on Discord if you have any suggestions.

 

[Tree69420]

People should definitely lead less Jynx (and therefore less lead gar). Physical attackers with sleep is an incredible hinderance. If Jynx is forced to rest, it's dead if your opponent is trying to get sleep off with Snorlax or Persian. You are going to play a 5v5 where one of your 5 is a resting Jynx.

I kinda disagree, when we have physical sleepers trying to push sleep past Jynx then the secret sauce (counter) becomes really effective. You do need to get the turns right but if lax takes any chip its basically dead, and persian is always just dead. It's clearly not as good as in regular OU but i feel like its still a solid mon.

 

[Teh]

NEW VR LESGOOOOO​

With the conclusion of Tradebacks Open II, it's time to finally update this godforsaken viability rankings. It's been nearly 2 years since the last one and meta shifts have made it incredibly outdated. The criteria for voting will be as follows:

1. Place Top 8 in Tradebacks Open II.

Spoiler

YBW
Torchic
Sabelette
royzin
Toxin boost
Tree69420
King Billu
Gastlies

2. Have at least 2 non-act wins between Tradebacks Open II and the ROA Swiss Tournament.

Spoiler

TibarnWasTaken
chub
NotVeryCake
igiveuponaname
Magmar5
Melbelle
Eledyr
Shellnuts
nicole7735
Cao Jie

This gives us 18 total voters. The deadline for submissions will be August 27th @ 11:59pm GMT-4. DM me on Discord (@ smogon ((yes really)) or on Smogon to submit. Feel free to post them in this thread too!

Tierlist maker can be found here!

MAKE SURE YOUR TIER LIST IS ORDERED!!!

 

[Heika]

Tagging everyone for TehTayTeh so everyone sees this
YBW Torchic Sabelette royzin
Toxin boost Tree69420 King Billu Gastlies TibarnWasTaken chub NotVeryCake igiveuponaname Magmar5 Melbelle Eledyr Shellnuts nicole7735 Cao Jie

 

[NotVeryCake]

S
A1
A2
B1
B2
-------------------------------------------------------
C1
C2
D
E

 

[royzin]

 

[Toxin Boost]

Brief Explanations

S tier
The big three are still dominant and can fit on any team. I think lax is better than Tauros because lovely kiss but both should be used on every team regardless, and while you could make an argument to drop chansey it improves almost every team it's on so it's S tier.
A+
Zams added unpredictability and versatility are huge points but with it's horrible physical bulk I can't justify putting it in S tier.
Exeggutor benefits a lot from the more offensive meta especially since it can switch in to many top threats and immediately shift momentum.
A
Starmie is still cracked however it doesn't appreciate fast paced teams with chansey (which is most of them) and now fears thunder punch from zam and hypno, it's still a widely useful mon though.
Rhydon usage is way down in this meta making zapdos an obvious choice and with the influx of ice moves zapdos team can still get work done even if the don is there, and zapdos itself doesn't mind ice punch too much because of its high special.
Rhydon appreciates less exeggutor and more jolteon. More ice moves is a big yikes for it but a lot of teams lack good switch-ins so once paralysis is spread on important pokemon like chansey starmie and exeggutor rhydon can clean easily, and checking zapdos is never a bad thing.
B+
Hypno has a lot of options and solid stats but a lack of reliable recovery holds it back, it usually only gets one kill. Imo it has potential to go higher but it would take a very good player to get the most out of it.
Gengar is good but is ice punch really enough to put it in A tier, it doesn't matter how hard you punch things if your hypnosis misses, But still normal immunity and more variety justify B tier.
Persian gets hypnosis and amnesia but it's hard to justify using both and it's really fail meaning it's quite hard to utilize especially for new players.
Cloyster does the same things it always did but now it has to worry about more electric moves and the influx of ice punch don't really help is since they're on mons it can't beat one on one and most of them get thunder punch anyway, it can still do some great work as checking the normals is always great and same for explosion
B
Growth is pretty cool and it can help jolteon sweep but that rarely happens and jolteons main role comes from being a zapdos check that can also outspeed everything and use its high crit rate to bail its team out late game.
Jynx is still a pretty good lead with zam being so common but outside that it's kinda bad and can only fish for freezes.
Slowbro is still doing his thing just leave him be ok he's having fun (except when he get's crit lmao)

I won't bother with C tier the real difference is I would bring the C tier mons to a legitimate game I would only bring the C- mons if I'm really trying to flex.

 

[Sabelette]

Maybe i'm hitting the blunt but w/e, order matters letter ranks don't

 

[Eledyr]

Sorry for the delay, I forgot multiple time to do it
I didn't rank mons I wasn't familiar with, also letters don't matter much

 

[midsommer]

I see Nidoking/queen are being ranked pretty high compared to regular OU. How has lovely kiss and amnesia impacted it's usage and matchups, despite the weaknesses of their typing?

 

[NotVeryCake]

I see Nidoking/queen are being ranked pretty high compared to regular OU. How has lovely kiss and amnesia impacted it's usage and matchups?

They are the fastest physical sleepers with a reliable sleep move, and are also not walled by anything.

 

[Teh]

Hey everyone. Really sorry for the delay.
A while ago we decided to update the viability rankings since frankly the old one kind of sucked. Here are the results
Thanks to Tree69420 Gastlies Melbelle Torchic YBW Sabelette royzin Toxin boost Eledyr NotVeryCake igiveuponaname Eledyr Shellnuts Cao Jie for submitting!
(Also thanks Shellnuts for compiling all the data. You're a lifesaver)

Methodology:

• Every person who gained reqs submitted their own viability rankings.
• Every Pokemon that was ranked less than 4 times was excluded from being ranked.

Here's the new VR!
S:
A:
B1:
B2:
C:
D:

Old VR

S:
A1:
A2:
B1:
B2:
C1:
C2:
C3:
D:

The new VR has quite a few differences compared to the old one. Opinions on Persian and Hypno are far less high as they used to be be (#2 to #8, and #6 to #12 respectively). Alakazam is seen as much better than Chansey now, jumping from #7 all the way to #3, beating out Chansey! Vaporeon also seems to have fallen out of favour massively, dropping far below what most people would consider to be OU. Some of the old C-tiers like Rapidash and Electabuzz have completely vanished from the rankings.

Aggregate Rankings

Outlier-compensated Rankings

Dendogram

Dissimilarity Matrix

I also made a Google Sheet that lists each participant's VR submission, which you can view here.

Anyways, now that we finally have an actually useful VR, we need to vote on where the OU/UU cutoff will be. If you got reqs to submit a VR, feel free to share your thoughts below (even if you didn't submit.) If I missed something or if you have a different interpretation of the data than what I posted, feel free to reach out to me. Thanks to everyone that submitted!

 

[Sabelette]

Seems really obvious to me that it goes below B2? It’s pretty parallel to regular OU, almost nobody has used any of the C or D mons in this meta

 

[NotVeryCake]

In my opinion Vaporeon is better than bottom of C

 

[NotVeryCake]

In my opinion the cutoff line for OU/UU is directly beneath Lapras or Nidoking