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Lower Tiers RBY UU Hub
- Thread starter Shellnuts
- Start date
Attention TLDR
I want to throw a thought out there - I could imagine a UU where we had, say, Jolteon, Slowbro, Victreebel, Lapras, Hypno, and Articuno legal working quite well in theory, which could happen if next OU VR doesn't lower the cutoff to keep those mons in the tier. Would people theoretically be open to this, even though it means undoing tiering so far, ala what NU recently did? Would people be open to a theory-tournament where these 6 were legalized? Yes, Lapras would still probably be a royal pain, but its speed tier makes it manageable when the tier's power level is higher and its not ripping apart entire teams that can't do more than 30% per hit to it. Hypno is likely more manageable with another Psychic in the tier and generally higher bulk. Jolteon has checks between Grass-types and Golem and it also has incentives to run Body Slam and Hyper Beam to cover Dug and Pin Missile to cover Grass/Poisons (and ig you could run Double Kick and 6HKO Golem, like 4HKO on average with crits) so it's stretched thinner here than OU. Slowbro is slow as shit and perhaps more exploitable here, Victreebel was ass last time but looks better when it outspeeds half the new top mons and resists Jolteon's STAB, Articuno is definitely not problematic with Lapras around and becomes more of a surprise 6th mon (and Jolteon and Slowbro help check it too).
It's very theory but I think it's a reasonably possible and if there's support I'm down to run this hypothetical as a tour closer to the end of the year and see what shakes out.
It's very theory but I think it's a reasonably possible and if there's support I'm down to run this hypothetical as a tour closer to the end of the year and see what shakes out.
I'm interested in the idea and would likely participate (although I think Slowbro would be a problem.)
Hello everyone,
I will try to keep this post brief since I do not have a ton of time to go into the data very much, however after two and a half years we finally have a new Viability Rankings. Thank you to the voters Ice Yazu MrSoup NotVeryCake royzin Sabelette Shellnuts Torchic Tree69420 Unowndragon Volk YBW for submitting your Viability Rankings. Also thank you to Sabelette juoean Tree69420 Torchic Unowndragon and Volk who helped decide where the cutoff should be in discord.
Without much delay, here is the new RBY UU Viability Rankings.
S1:
S2:
A1:
A2:
B1:
B2:
B3:
- - - - - - - - U U - N U - L I N E - - - - - - - -
C1:
C2:
D:
For those curious about what the average rankings were, here are all of the Pokemon which were ranked by more than 3 players with their average rankings listed as well.
In addition, here are the plots of the dissimilarity matrices, dendrograms, and a zoomed in list of the mons which were analyzed by the VR, for people to analyze. I will attempt to make a full writeup of everything later when I have a bit more time.012.36
012.36
032.73
043.73
054.73
065.82
078.18
088.32
099.0
1010.55
1110.73
1212.73
1313.0
1414.09
1515.18
1616.59
1716.86
1818.0
1919.41
2020.2
2121.1
2221.91
2322.7
2423.78
2524.33
2625.88
2726.8
2826.8
2927.2
3027.33
3127.5
3228.8
3332.33
3437.67
Lastly, given that Hypno is currently banned and since a new change of style seems in order, we now have some new artwork for the UU Viability Rankings, also drawn by myself.
View attachment 601176
Thank you everyone for your patience.
Interesting to see the changes that RBY UU went under in my time away from here-a Sleep Ban in UU(2nd ever in the series after the universal one in BW!) before an immediate revert, Hypno getting kicked for Being a Jack too Good at all it's Trades, Art getting kicked back to Borderline like the old days since it has the strongest non-Mewtwo Special STAB in the game, and now this: showing Golem climbing out of the Waterworld Hell that sent him nosediving to NU(and apparently almost RU/PU at one point? yeesh) to get back to not quite it's "GolDon" Prime Days but at least in a more respectable place of UU....while Victreebel seems to have taken the fall in it's place going by this(unless I'm misreading something, since the Dex Page still has it listed in OU rank?)
What a wild time that must have been. Curious to see all the further developments, and thanks to Big Yellow's vids with breakdown of the meta playing catchup shouldn't be too hard either.
Late but yes I've mentioned before I would be interested in trying an UU where the cutoff is lower and we drop the stuff mentioned above.
Current UU is very unbalanced due to the amount of Rng the top dogs can produce and requires removal of Dug, Kadabra, Tent (Wrap), Kanga, possibly Dnite to balance it out. The theory meta might be worse but I'd rather try theory meta than ban half the format.
#StopBo5Propaganda
Planning on banning all PT for the tour, I want a snapshot of a potential real future for UU and not just another interim "needs work" meta.
Hello, I heard this tier is the closest thing to Chess in Smogon? This is cool! Here is my VR from my replays watched:
If anyone wants to play. I am down! I am in the discord!
If anyone wants to play. I am down! I am in the discord!
responding to these because i clearly cant in the discord:
idk how well this meta has been tested but im all for this ngl wrap is bullshit and hypno lapras meta lowkey was not that bad
still concerned about them and their inaccurate sleep and what it does and would like to see replays and stuff but adding bulk to the tier cant be bad especially with the state the tier is currently in and the amount of bans we would need to even start fixing it
also ban sing and hypnosis if real and based
TLDR ban wrap
btw ur not catching my source of these messages ;)
If there is any appetite to test anything in the upcoming ALT PL (manager signups go up sometime next month), let me know.
no partial trapping > anything else suggested.
So I am just going to leave it like this:
If PT is banned before ALT PL starts, then likely nothing will be tested in ALT PL and it will just be the standard no-PT meta just created.
If PT is not banned before ALT PL starts, then it will be a no-PT tour throughout.
I do not run this tier and don't make any decisions on it, so no need to use this as a reason to not vote on PT beforehand if that's what everyone wishes to do - ultimately up to whoever is in charge here, but ALT PL will be no PT if banned or if not banned regardless. ALT PL signups go up next month.
If PT is banned before ALT PL starts, then likely nothing will be tested in ALT PL and it will just be the standard no-PT meta just created.
If PT is not banned before ALT PL starts, then it will be a no-PT tour throughout.
I do not run this tier and don't make any decisions on it, so no need to use this as a reason to not vote on PT beforehand if that's what everyone wishes to do - ultimately up to whoever is in charge here, but ALT PL will be no PT if banned or if not banned regardless. ALT PL signups go up next month.
Im finished playing UU for RBYPL . Time for a VR and thoughts. Getting these out kinda quick before i sleep, so ill likely will skip over a lot and write what i really care about the most.
Everything i put on this vr i would bring, and have brought to a tournament game.
It is very likely some of this will be obsolete rather soon when wrap gets banned, but given arcanine and fearow were both kept in PU you never know what the community will decide on right? good luck
also thank you BeeOrSomething for giving me a shot at playing a version of this tier that is still rather unoptimized. I am not the most eloquent person at explaining my building process but i am glad you trusted what i loaded.
Everything i put on this vr i would bring, and have brought to a tournament game.
1. I used to drop this mon a lot because the speed tier is simply serviceable and has no setup. It is, however, an absolute menace of a pokemon to bring in after sleep, with no real switchins, even having some defensive utility into dugtrio and dragonite. Absolutely terrorizes everything slower than it. I learned the hard way how good this is during rbypl by sleep sacking it during sets where it would've won me games by itself. Articuno leaving really moved this thing way up in viablity: there is no need for a 4th move and tentacruel, it's worst matchup, has gotten worse.
2. This might be the best revenge killer in the tier. Tentacruel, Kadabra and Dugtrio all have the speed tier, but the first two wall each other and Dugtrio checks are dime a dozen. Persian runs into the issue of relying on slash for damage, so kang and dragonite don't risk much by switching in, whereas dodrio can crit + paraslam at any point. On top of that, Dodrio can be useful at any points in a game: it underperforms a little compared to other leads but it is serviceable and doesn't allow any sleepers in. As said above, it is a very dangerous revenge killer -- body slam crit into hyper beam kos most of the tier, barring it's few checks. It can even win endgames without much effort -- sometimes it just needs 1 crit or two to win and it can even set up on itself. Articuno leaving the tier really improved this thing's viablity: you could get counterswept by a hyper beam hitting it at the wrong time: now the worst case scenario is losing 70% to a slow rock type after coming in. Could easily be #! without golem and omastar to check it: It is also unreasonable to run a check to it every game --- they're all exploitable by something common.
3. I used to sour on this pokemon for being essentially dead weight after an agility mon sets up. It really needs to get value early in a game and played very carefully to not die like that. Persian being more common and tentacruel being less good after Articuno made a more hostile environment for it. It only has Tent and itself as entry points, though it is a very good revenge killer after the other Kadabra is dead. Notably also revenges Kangaskhan from a very high range with an extremely spammable move from 50%.
Seismic toss is also an overrated 4th for it. It's not useless , but it is entirely possible to avoid a Kadabra mirror. I am pretty sure these mirrors are as common as they are due to tentacruel having it's usage as high as it is. I experimented with Substitute, Reflect(on lead) and Rest. Remember, if you successfully trade paralysis with the other kadabra you are both essentially dead, Seismic Toss is just icing on the cake.
-Substitute is pretty much used to paralyze tent then fish, or on sleep sacs, as kadabra is extremely painful to come in when given free turns. It's definitely my favorite choice.
-Reflect has the notable edge of letting Kadabra survive a haunter explosion on lead, and also letting it get away with stupid nonsense like fighting ninetales or dragonite in lead. If you really want to lead kad I highly recommend bringing it.
-Rest allows kadabra to trade thunder waves with itself in the mirror and then fish for special drops and try to click rest. That's it. This is a decisively poor option if your opponent doesn't bring tentacruel, but it can be woken up on wrap otherwise.
-Kinesis is a) how to ruin agility setups b) how to set up your own agility sweepers. I barely got to click it this tour.
4 Relying on Slash to deal damage really keeps this thing from being any higher. Slash is an extremely consistent move, which allows dragonite to simply switch in and threaten paralysis back: it depends on body slam and hyper beam to defeat it's superiors critical hits to try to salvage back desperate situations. It also switches into almost nothing: gyarados body slams are the one thing i think it can bear to switch into without being immediately unfavored in the matchup. However, this is an excellent dugtrio partner, especially against the conventional 2 dugtrio check structures: kang and dragonite are the best pokemon to switch into it, as it speed creeps everything but 3 other pokemon. Thus it is very easy for persian to break dugtrio's checks for it to finish afterward. Haunter is not REALLY a check, sleeping persian means it has slept the pokemon it was fully walling anyway, Please run hyper beam on this thing. You will be glad you had it when you fight dodrio endgame(me)
5. This is a pretty difficult pokemon to switch into and a very good reason to keep a high kangaskhan and clefable usage. Wrap sets actually have the potential to be pretty oppressive after thunder wave but i didnt use them much. Agility gives it potential to absolutely steal games. Brutal lead if it manages to agility up and then win the trade, threatening a faster twave or hyper beam, depending on what you can fit on it. This got much better with articuno leaving but still lacks some of the power dodrio has, in exchange for very good coverage. I used to never fit body slam on it but it's good to have a midground for when dugtrio decides to stay and fish for crit , or just having a 100% accurate move to finish something off. Dont be like me and run blizzard/hyper beam/twave/agility almost every game.
6. Now that there's no need to check articuno, it isn't as necessary to have Tentacruel every game nor have articuno checks every game, so it is far easier to load "fat": teams full of normals that dugtrio struggles to break. Loading something like kang clef dodo persian + 2 is extremely unpleasant for an opposing dugtrio user and entirely feasible, i ran these structures fairly often. It's a pretty good cleaner when it gets the endgames it needs, but some teams will just be too fat for it to break. Like Kadabra, it is also completely worthless after an agility user has managed to set up, so not every endgame is good for it. This is why I struggled to load it much this rbypl: kadabra felt somewhat limiting to build without and loading dugtrio + kadabra both feels like asking to lose to dodrio/dragonite. The matchup spread on this one is very swingy: 100 to 0 vs haunter, yet can hardly break dragonite , gyarados or kangaskhan without critical hits. It is fairly valuable for haunter , electrode and kadabra alone, but sometimes it wont run into any of these and find itself praying for crits.
7. i am gastlies.
This is the best golem abuser in the tier. The downside of running Sing on this thing is the fact that almost everything is faster than it. Not golem though. Provided it lands sing on the first try, it can get pretty ridiculous momentum for it's team. It also can manage something into just about every pokemon in the tier: thunder wave means this is about as bad to switch into as dragonite is, except that it has no wrap to get free switches. Counter is very dangerous for persian and kangaskhan to try to scout since paralysis is almost always on the table and Thunder Wave should never be dropped. Counter also allows it to switch into dodrio hyper beam and instantly ko it, barring crit. Blizzard, Psychic and Hyper beam are all excellent moves for this. I used to not think highly on body slam because of how weak it is compared to blizzard and hyper beam, but it is serviceable as a dugtrio and kadabra midground, not a 100% slot by any means, but good in small doses. The higher special bulk is also very relevant for matchups against the electrics, kadabra, and tentacruel. I would say the cuno ban definitely helped Clefable, but it's also a case of it being underexplored -- much like kang it will always find a way to go at least 1 for 1, but sometimes manages a much higher ceiling. This is definitely a UU pokemon and won't be returning to NU anytime soon.
8.
This is the biggest loser from the Articuno ban, and i soured on it pretty hard this tournament, evidently from my usage. I believe I had 16% usage around Week 6. The thing about Tentacruel is that it does have to be accounted for in the builder due to wrap and it's speed tier. It does have a pretty incredible kangaskhan matchup due to surf/hydro pump threatening crit OHKOs and kadabra being the only reliable switchin to it's water type moves other than itself and vaporeon. It is, however, very droppable unlike Kadabra. And ive found that tentacruel's favored endgames are not as easy to generate as the agility users(Dodrio Dragonite) or for the fast mons(Dugtrio Persian).
Tentacruel is vulnerable to being finished off by all to be above pokemon as well after even moderate chip and doesn't have many switchin opportunities into them either. There are other ways to deal with tentacruel(Kadabra, electrics, Vaporeon). It also allows kadabra in completely for free and it feels very much like a rhydon/tauros situation in ou: immediately forced out and extremely easy to exploit by the tauros player. Staying in is also a complete crapshoot --- Tentacruel is forced to wrap pre-emptively to avoid giving kadabra a free turn and that can just miss anyways --- it's a valid click if you predict a recover from the kadabra user, but it's still a risk.
I do not understand the people who had close to 100% usage with Tent. Every other mon i ranked above it has does not have a matchup as ridiculous as Kad/Tent, and wrap is just not as good when average team speed has increased and Persian and agility users are more common. I had 16% usage with this thing and genuinely did not feel it's absence like I did every other mon above it. It's awkward to load a pokemon that lacks the bulk that pokemon like Vaporeon, Kangaskhan, Clefable and Gyarados have to survive a hit from the agility users while also being completely helpless in another matchup. Tentacruel + Kadabra is exploitable and so is Tentacruel WITHOUT kadabra -- I found myself more able to freely build with a slower but bulkier water without a weakness to psychic and access to body slam paralysis like vaporeon or gyarados.
tldr: this pokemon isn't "broken". it's just good. that's it. move on
9.
More persian with no Articuno is pretty good for this guy. Though Ill admit the dugtrio matchup is atrocious and this guy really needs to do work early in a game or it feels rather dead weight and it is scary to load a team with no golem, kadabra or dugtrio to switch in to stomach hits from it after sleep and threaten it back. Notably relying on sleep to defeat kangaskhan is extremely meme and dangerous(and sometimes that will be the best entry point for it), but it risks much less sleeping something like dragonite or gyarados. Pseudo-checks stuff like Raichu, Dragonite, and Psychic-less Clefable due to it's very high special and having psychic, but exploding early can generate easy momentum. Im sort of wondering if Rest haunter has a point due to some of these matchups + psychic special drops alone, but that's for next tour.
10.
This is still a really good pokemon without Articuno around, and arguably got better. The trend of loading 1 water instead of 2 every game means it is very hard to switch into vaporeon once that water is down, and Quick attack/Acid armor/Body Slam give it plenty of options to be extremely annoying to Tentacruel. It also just has crazy bulk across the board: kadabra risks multple turns of body slam barring crits or special drops, and this is one of the few pokemon content to fight clefable because of it's enormous bulk. It's a good alternative to Tentacruel and i definitely developed a preference for it. One of the few consistent switch-ins to golem,dragonite , tentacruel and fire leads all in one, but the lower speed and lack of wrap do allow gyarados and haunter in for free.
11:
This is a really good lead into the common leads: electabuzz, fire leads, haunter, kadabra, and dodrio. It can literally opt to click any of it's 4 moves into electabuzz and none of them are an especially bad call. Explosion gives golem the option to even settle for doing 60-80% to something like dragonite/kangaskhan that risks a ko with a critical hit, so even in some unfavorable matchups it can cut it's losses. Admiteddly, this pokemon is extremely abused by things like Clefable, Vaporeon, and Tangela in specific completely humiliates it. On the upside, this is by far the best dodrio check in the tier and also keeps this a serious tier: it took the electrodes somewhere else. It's definitely not possible to load every game and golem is unable to finish games by itself, but it can get the ball rolling early or deny progress to dodrio at a crucial moment: it's also a fairly decent kangaskhan removal plan, which many pokemon do want removed to make progress(including your own kang). Also a pretty solid target
12
s/o gastlies for the helpful flowchart
absolutely disgusting into teams with no golem, tangela, back electrics and once dugtrio is weaknened or removed. i think it's actually better to fish for critical hits instead of going for paralysis in many occassions given how frail kangaskhan and persian are on the special side.
13. - i am tired and do not have much to say about you
14. this is still a pretty good neutral mu lead and i noticed while building that unless you're loading golem/tangela it is very annoying to load something to cover for it in the lead slot. gg electabuzz.
15.
This is a very similar pokemon to Ninetales in lead, the differences being higher attack and speed, but lower everything else. This means it will sometimes paraslam electabuzz or kadabra before they get to act, but it will be put in ko range by critical hits and special drops easier. The most notable matchup is definitely tentacruel, as rapidash is guaranteed to get one body slam off before being ko'd by tentacruel, sometimes 2. It also has agility in the lead to be able to hyper beam/body slam if it wins the trade. I seriously suggest any Ninetales believers to give Rapidash a try. I felt it performed about as well.
16. guh
17. can't switch into stuff as easily as trode but not as walled, dont have much to say
skipping to 24 now
24:
This is essentially a sleeper whose entry point is Kadabra. This means Drowzee is very able to get sleep off of kadabra, but this pokemon is very lackluster against teams that don't have it. It's definitely not consistent across multiple games to spam being a slow sleeper with hypnosis and way less bulk than Clefable, but it performed alright in the games I did use it. Exeggcute can do something similar to this but that pokemon is a) weak to blizzard and b) takes more from kadabra's psychic
too tired to add the rest.
I used to drop this mon a lot because the speed tier is simply serviceable and has no setup. It is, however, an absolute menace of a pokemon to bring in after sleep, with no real switchins, even having some defensive utility into dugtrio and dragonite. Absolutely terrorizes everything slower than it. I learned the hard way how good this is during rbypl by sleep sacking it during sets where it would've won me games by itself. Articuno leaving really moved this thing way up in viablity: there is no need for a 4th move and tentacruel, it's worst matchup, has gotten worse.2.
This might be the best revenge killer in the tier. Tentacruel, Kadabra and Dugtrio all have the speed tier, but the first two wall each other and Dugtrio checks are dime a dozen. Persian runs into the issue of relying on slash for damage, so kang and dragonite don't risk much by switching in, whereas dodrio can crit + paraslam at any point. On top of that, Dodrio can be useful at any points in a game: it underperforms a little compared to other leads but it is serviceable and doesn't allow any sleepers in. As said above, it is a very dangerous revenge killer -- body slam crit into hyper beam kos most of the tier, barring it's few checks. It can even win endgames without much effort -- sometimes it just needs 1 crit or two to win and it can even set up on itself. Articuno leaving the tier really improved this thing's viablity: you could get counterswept by a hyper beam hitting it at the wrong time: now the worst case scenario is losing 70% to a slow rock type after coming in. Could easily be #! without golem and omastar to check it: It is also unreasonable to run a check to it every game --- they're all exploitable by something common.3.
I used to sour on this pokemon for being essentially dead weight after an agility mon sets up. It really needs to get value early in a game and played very carefully to not die like that. Persian being more common and tentacruel being less good after Articuno made a more hostile environment for it. It only has Tent and itself as entry points, though it is a very good revenge killer after the other Kadabra is dead. Notably also revenges Kangaskhan from a very high range with an extremely spammable move from 50%.Seismic toss is also an overrated 4th for it. It's not useless , but it is entirely possible to avoid a Kadabra mirror. I am pretty sure these mirrors are as common as they are due to tentacruel having it's usage as high as it is. I experimented with Substitute, Reflect(on lead) and Rest. Remember, if you successfully trade paralysis with the other kadabra you are both essentially dead, Seismic Toss is just icing on the cake.
-Substitute is pretty much used to paralyze tent then fish, or on sleep sacs, as kadabra is extremely painful to come in when given free turns. It's definitely my favorite choice.
-Reflect has the notable edge of letting Kadabra survive a haunter explosion on lead, and also letting it get away with stupid nonsense like fighting ninetales or dragonite in lead. If you really want to lead kad I highly recommend bringing it.
-Rest allows kadabra to trade thunder waves with itself in the mirror and then fish for special drops and try to click rest. That's it. This is a decisively poor option if your opponent doesn't bring tentacruel, but it can be woken up on wrap otherwise.
-Kinesis is a) how to ruin agility setups b) how to set up your own agility sweepers. I barely got to click it this tour.
4
Relying on Slash to deal damage really keeps this thing from being any higher. Slash is an extremely consistent move, which allows dragonite to simply switch in and threaten paralysis back: it depends on body slam and hyper beam to 5.
This is a pretty difficult pokemon to switch into and a very good reason to keep a high kangaskhan and clefable usage. Wrap sets actually have the potential to be pretty oppressive after thunder wave but i didnt use them much. Agility gives it potential to absolutely steal games. Brutal lead if it manages to agility up and then win the trade, threatening a faster twave or hyper beam, depending on what you can fit on it. This got much better with articuno leaving but still lacks some of the power dodrio has, in exchange for very good coverage. I used to never fit body slam on it but it's good to have a midground for when dugtrio decides to stay and fish for crit , or just having a 100% accurate move to finish something off. Dont be like me and run blizzard/hyper beam/twave/agility almost every game.6.
Now that there's no need to check articuno, it isn't as necessary to have Tentacruel every game nor have articuno checks every game, so it is far easier to load "fat": teams full of normals that dugtrio struggles to break. Loading something like kang clef dodo persian + 2 is extremely unpleasant for an opposing dugtrio user and entirely feasible, i ran these structures fairly often. It's a pretty good cleaner when it gets the endgames it needs, but some teams will just be too fat for it to break. Like Kadabra, it is also completely worthless after an agility user has managed to set up, so not every endgame is good for it. This is why I struggled to load it much this rbypl: kadabra felt somewhat limiting to build without and loading dugtrio + kadabra both feels like asking to lose to dodrio/dragonite. The matchup spread on this one is very swingy: 100 to 0 vs haunter, yet can hardly break dragonite , gyarados or kangaskhan without critical hits. It is fairly valuable for haunter , electrode and kadabra alone, but sometimes it wont run into any of these and find itself praying for crits.7.
i am gastlies.This is the best golem abuser in the tier. The downside of running Sing on this thing is the fact that almost everything is faster than it. Not golem though. Provided it lands sing on the first try, it can get pretty ridiculous momentum for it's team. It also can manage something into just about every pokemon in the tier: thunder wave means this is about as bad to switch into as dragonite is, except that it has no wrap to get free switches. Counter is very dangerous for persian and kangaskhan to try to scout since paralysis is almost always on the table and Thunder Wave should never be dropped. Counter also allows it to switch into dodrio hyper beam and instantly ko it, barring crit. Blizzard, Psychic and Hyper beam are all excellent moves for this. I used to not think highly on body slam because of how weak it is compared to blizzard and hyper beam, but it is serviceable as a dugtrio and kadabra midground, not a 100% slot by any means, but good in small doses. The higher special bulk is also very relevant for matchups against the electrics, kadabra, and tentacruel. I would say the cuno ban definitely helped Clefable, but it's also a case of it being underexplored -- much like kang it will always find a way to go at least 1 for 1, but sometimes manages a much higher ceiling. This is definitely a UU pokemon and won't be returning to NU anytime soon.
8.
This is the biggest loser from the Articuno ban, and i soured on it pretty hard this tournament, evidently from my usage. I believe I had 16% usage around Week 6. The thing about Tentacruel is that it does have to be accounted for in the builder due to wrap and it's speed tier. It does have a pretty incredible kangaskhan matchup due to surf/hydro pump threatening crit OHKOs and kadabra being the only reliable switchin to it's water type moves other than itself and vaporeon. It is, however, very droppable unlike Kadabra. And ive found that tentacruel's favored endgames are not as easy to generate as the agility users(Dodrio Dragonite) or for the fast mons(Dugtrio Persian).
Tentacruel is vulnerable to being finished off by all to be above pokemon as well after even moderate chip and doesn't have many switchin opportunities into them either. There are other ways to deal with tentacruel(Kadabra, electrics, Vaporeon). It also allows kadabra in completely for free and it feels very much like a rhydon/tauros situation in ou: immediately forced out and extremely easy to exploit by the tauros player. Staying in is also a complete crapshoot --- Tentacruel is forced to wrap pre-emptively to avoid giving kadabra a free turn and that can just miss anyways --- it's a valid click if you predict a recover from the kadabra user, but it's still a risk.
I do not understand the people who had close to 100% usage with Tent. Every other mon i ranked above it has does not have a matchup as ridiculous as Kad/Tent, and wrap is just not as good when average team speed has increased and Persian and agility users are more common. I had 16% usage with this thing and genuinely did not feel it's absence like I did every other mon above it. It's awkward to load a pokemon that lacks the bulk that pokemon like Vaporeon, Kangaskhan, Clefable and Gyarados have to survive a hit from the agility users while also being completely helpless in another matchup. Tentacruel + Kadabra is exploitable and so is Tentacruel WITHOUT kadabra -- I found myself more able to freely build with a slower but bulkier water without a weakness to psychic and access to body slam paralysis like vaporeon or gyarados.
tldr: this pokemon isn't "broken". it's just good. that's it. move on
9.
More persian with no Articuno is pretty good for this guy. Though Ill admit the dugtrio matchup is atrocious and this guy really needs to do work early in a game or it feels rather dead weight and it is scary to load a team with no golem, kadabra or dugtrio to switch in to stomach hits from it after sleep and threaten it back. Notably relying on sleep to defeat kangaskhan is extremely meme and dangerous(and sometimes that will be the best entry point for it), but it risks much less sleeping something like dragonite or gyarados. Pseudo-checks stuff like Raichu, Dragonite, and Psychic-less Clefable due to it's very high special and having psychic, but exploding early can generate easy momentum. Im sort of wondering if Rest haunter has a point due to some of these matchups + psychic special drops alone, but that's for next tour.
10.
This is still a really good pokemon without Articuno around, and arguably got better. The trend of loading 1 water instead of 2 every game means it is very hard to switch into vaporeon once that water is down, and Quick attack/Acid armor/Body Slam give it plenty of options to be extremely annoying to Tentacruel. It also just has crazy bulk across the board: kadabra risks multple turns of body slam barring crits or special drops, and this is one of the few pokemon content to fight clefable because of it's enormous bulk. It's a good alternative to Tentacruel and i definitely developed a preference for it. One of the few consistent switch-ins to golem,dragonite , tentacruel and fire leads all in one, but the lower speed and lack of wrap do allow gyarados and haunter in for free.
11:
This is a really good lead into the common leads: electabuzz, fire leads, haunter, kadabra, and dodrio. It can literally opt to click any of it's 4 moves into electabuzz and none of them are an especially bad call. Explosion gives golem the option to even settle for doing 60-80% to something like dragonite/kangaskhan that risks a ko with a critical hit, so even in some unfavorable matchups it can cut it's losses. Admiteddly, this pokemon is extremely abused by things like Clefable, Vaporeon, and Tangela in specific completely humiliates it. On the upside, this is by far the best dodrio check in the tier and also keeps this a serious tier: it took the electrodes somewhere else. It's definitely not possible to load every game and golem is unable to finish games by itself, but it can get the ball rolling early or deny progress to dodrio at a crucial moment: it's also a fairly decent kangaskhan removal plan, which many pokemon do want removed to make progress(including your own kang). Also a pretty solid target
12
s/o gastlies for the helpful flowchart
absolutely disgusting into teams with no golem, tangela, back electrics and once dugtrio is weaknened or removed. i think it's actually better to fish for critical hits instead of going for paralysis in many occassions given how frail kangaskhan and persian are on the special side.
13.
- i am tired and do not have much to say about you14.
this is still a pretty good neutral mu lead and i noticed while building that unless you're loading golem/tangela it is very annoying to load something to cover for it in the lead slot. gg electabuzz.15.
This is a very similar pokemon to Ninetales in lead, the differences being higher attack and speed, but lower everything else. This means it will sometimes paraslam electabuzz or kadabra before they get to act, but it will be put in ko range by critical hits and special drops easier. The most notable matchup is definitely tentacruel, as rapidash is guaranteed to get one body slam off before being ko'd by tentacruel, sometimes 2. It also has agility in the lead to be able to hyper beam/body slam if it wins the trade. I seriously suggest any Ninetales believers to give Rapidash a try. I felt it performed about as well.
16.
guh17.
can't switch into stuff as easily as trode but not as walled, dont have much to sayskipping to 24 now
24:
This is essentially a sleeper whose entry point is Kadabra. This means Drowzee is very able to get sleep off of kadabra, but this pokemon is very lackluster against teams that don't have it. It's definitely not consistent across multiple games to spam being a slow sleeper with hypnosis and way less bulk than Clefable, but it performed alright in the games I did use it. Exeggcute can do something similar to this but that pokemon is a) weak to blizzard and b) takes more from kadabra's psychic
too tired to add the rest.
It is very likely some of this will be obsolete rather soon when wrap gets banned, but given arcanine and fearow were both kept in PU you never know what the community will decide on right? good luck
also thank you BeeOrSomething for giving me a shot at playing a version of this tier that is still rather unoptimized. I am not the most eloquent person at explaining my building process but i am glad you trusted what i loaded.
RBY UU VR/RBYPL retrospective time, I actually really enjoyed building this tour so I'll post stuff I used vs dawn dreams and stuff I gave to Kristyl, who is my fucking GOAT and continues to validate my opinion that all of us low tier players suck and need to level up so we stop getting beat by ppl who haven't played these tiers once; I also built some for Shellnuts and some of those might show up below but I'm thinking as I type and I built for them a millennium ago
Anyway all the tiers are very rough and I have zero surety in my opinions, just vibes, don't take this as my gospel truth, and absolutely zero of these mons are undroppable, anyone who thinks Tent Kad or Kang are mandatory is huffing paint
RBYPL Stuff
Sabelette Week 4 vs Dawn Dreams
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-802237
https://pokepast.es/335273003bdd5e53
My first "superman"/flier spam team, Golem was there to blunt momentum one time basically and also baits Earthquake pretty hard because it's such a threat. I was very proud of turning this one around after turn 1 freeze into critting my Gyarados, losing half my fliers immediately completely fucked the gameplan but Aerodactyl is so clutch into people who use too many frail mons and Gyarados ended up getting enough value anyway thanks to Kadabra paralyzing once, plus Golem vs Dodrio is just a 2 for 1 machine
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-802247
https://pokepast.es/308dc610a3bb88b5
Cuno-era looking team that relies on Golem/Haunter/Gyara defensive core to blockade big threats a couple times and grab momentum back, similarly trusting Kadabra to slow down Tentacruel a couple times because of how slow my back mons are. The opening ends up being silly but I would've been content with 50% on kang and eating Counter, though the miss is favorable to me. Of course, I eat another first hit freeze and this immediately destroys my entire team by removing my Tent answer without getting even one turn of value from it, and then Dugtrio crits my Gyarados, leaving me absurdly weak to Dugtrio in what would have otherwise probably been a fine game, but that's RBY; ultimately, I think I needed to take my sleep chance with Haunter and try to make a callout somewhere and I needed to run a faster team. Most likely, dropping Tent for something faster would have been a better call, but it's hard to evaluate how "bad" relying on Kadabra so much was on this team or if this was just an RBY moment
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-802255?p2
https://pokepast.es/6b4897021ae6bf47
Another team that's maybe a bit too slow and a bit too Dug weak? I think I misplayed the Vaporeon, but also, Blizz miss into get repeatedly crit by Dugtrio (Vaporeon had decent odds to live noncrit, everything else always lived without crit) was pretty unfortunate. Still, could have built differently to lower the odds of this, but I think on most days this team won this game, especially because I recognized the team and I'm 99% sure their unrevealed is a Dodrio, which just autoloses to my Golem if Clefable doesn't miss and I don't lose speed tie + get crit with Dug. Again, hard to eval how much of this was my building/play versus just unfortunate luck, especially when writing this at 1am
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-802277?p2
https://pokepast.es/6408cc5ddbe6bc2f
The Trode on this team is actually just here for the win-win boom - either I highroll Dugtrio out and enable Raichu more or I use it as free setup for Dnite. Anyway, game's very straightforward, not much to say, luck was back and forth but I was pretty salty that after the freezes and the Dug dodge + crit sweep in previous games that I also get crit Hydro'd out of a near-guaranteed endgame. I Slammed with Dnite to not risk a miss + Hyper Beam is not guaranteed Slash range unless it highrolls bigtime so I took the more favorable odds of "don't get hit + crit by Hydro Pump" + 30% chance of paraslam giving me another 7.5% to just autowin. Raichu haxing Persian was pretty fortunate but ofc Dodrio missed Hyper Beam for huge damage right before that, which would have led to an equally favorable situation, overall getting crit Hydro'd isn't that unlucky but certainly felt like a slap in the face after some of the earlier stuff. No shade to Dawn Dreams or how they played, just RBY being annoying
Kristyl Week 5 vs Unowndragon
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-804251
https://pokepast.es/ca6a2a65eb1850d7
Four Twaves and a Tent to mop up, pretty obvious concept, back Persian provides some insulation against Dugtrio and enemy Kadabra should things go off course, we goofed a little bit on a couple turns but this was Kristyl's first tour game in UU and overall she kicked ass
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-804253
https://pokepast.es/b3cf1a2599a1a098
Very unrevealed flying spam team, Haunter did so much work after walling Persian that there was nothing to do here, but Aero would've gotten immense value into the Dodrio if it had crit the Haunter out anyway
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-804255
https://pokepast.es/32b44232baecb72c
First attempt at using Dash after liking what Maris did with it and it instantly paid off, not much more to say, spamming Agility gets consistent high value trades if you're even slightly ahead and so this whole team is just spammy offensive pressure
Kristyl Week 7 vs Maris
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-807780
https://pokepast.es/2472608472a070d0
Aggressive team relying on Cat + Dug to not let Tent get out of control, Kang is just a hit trader, Omastar as a one time momentum blunter into Dodrio/Dnite that also can just trade hits with a Persian or Kang or whatever as it did, Aginite without Twave last aimed at cleaning up and punishing preserving mons/being able to do enough damage to finish stuff that might typically come into Oma after it chips them a bit. Kad lead gets shored up a bit by a back Rock that protects it from Dodrio especially but also helps with Kang, though it's worse than Golem at this; we're running it cause it covers for the typical Dnite sets too and does better into Persian
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-807786
https://pokepast.es/9c37092755dfc4ef
Last flier spam variant I built, 3 fliers this time + Tangela to shore up back Golem matchups instead of just getting fucked by Rock Slide. 3 fliers completely dominate Kad Dug, Aero + Dug + Kad is a lot of speed control. Definitely was nervous when paralyzed Hydro Pump Gyarados had to hit through a bunch of Substitutes since it was our last Golem check at that point, otherwise team worked out pretty well and got some luck
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-807793
https://pokepast.es/ece09153d6d5273f
DugCat offense with a twist thanks to the sheer bulk of the double Waters in back, Haunter also really shows off how stupid it can be here by permawalling Tangela and waking up on Persian later thanks to good management of Dugtrio HP. Vaporeon's bulk is so stupid that it gets 2 shots at paralyzing Kadabra even after eating a crit Psychic on entry, making this game much easier to play than it otherwise would have been
Too tired to go over weeks 1-3, I wasn't being very creative for those, hope people enjoy the writeup and don't mind me being a little salty, but I have to be a complaining boomer sometimes to preserve my ego and also to not fall into the trap of results-based thinking. RBY UU gets way too much hate, there's a lot of cool shit you can do in this tier and I think there are some really creative ideas here left to find. Ban Wrap though
Anyway all the tiers are very rough and I have zero surety in my opinions, just vibes, don't take this as my gospel truth, and absolutely zero of these mons are undroppable, anyone who thinks Tent Kad or Kang are mandatory is huffing paint
1. Kangaskhan - unwallable mon, held back by mid Speed and awful Special, hard to get no value from it though. Blizz > Slide is obvious post Cuno ban and nerfs Golem/Dnite hard when formerly Dnite actually was kind of a switch-in. Most splashable mon in the tier, no team is ever unhappy to have it and the fact that it can semi check Dugtrio helps it fit on basically any team, but many teams can and should drop it to specialize harder, IMO
2. Dodrio - by contrast, very wallable mon, but bringing a Rock-type every single game to stop this is mega cope and exploitable since again, there are zero mandatory mons and no guarantees you're running into Dodrio to get the matchup. If your opponent brings Golem you get completely fucked for having this mon or it'd be #1 and near undroppable for me. Trickiest thing about this mon is figuring out when and where to use it, it's a great breaker for other things like Persian or AgiNite but you also want to save it till later and scout for Rocks, but if you save it too long you get Aero'd or Troded or something. Still, 110 Attack Body Slam + Hyper Beam + Drill Peck and the threat of Agility is ridiculous, game ending threat
3. Kadabra - I agree with Maris, use this to grab momentum 1-2 times, do not use it to trade with opposing Kadabra if you don't have to. Bringing this mon, especially alongside Dugtrio, gives you a horrific weakness to fliers and Normals, but it's somewhat mitigated if you don't spend so many resources trying to keep Kadabra healthy. Recoverless is probably viable for a fair few teams but all of the 4th move slot techs just work better over Seismic Toss anyway unless you specifically need to hit the shitty non-UU Psychics but still have your funny Counter/Reflect/Substitute tech (all of which are interesting mix-ups, I support them). Overall, move away from gluing teams together by using this to check Tent and use it instead to steal momentum
4. Persian - broken Speed, broken typing, solid coverage, but giving Haunter entry is ass and it sucks that you're relying on an autocrit, giving up the obscene highroll chances that Kang/Dodrio get. Still, it 1v1s a lot of things, you can use Slam/Beam to highroll if needed, and it even 1v1s non Twave Dnite pretty effectively, which is funny. Just having this mon makes you so threatening into Tent/Kad/Dug type teams, but thankfully everyone's realizing those aren't good
5. Dragonite - good-ass mon with many set options, feasts on Kadabra and Dugtrio-reliant teams, obviously struggles with Haunter but not as bad as Gyara/Aero do, surprisingly gets 2HKOed by Golem which sucks ass. Agility with no Twave loses to Cat/Kang and can lose to Dodrio easily, Agility + Twave leaves you a little tight on attacking moves, Wrap is looking less and less useful but should still be slotted sometimes because it pressures slow Waters that otherwise happily come in and can do stupid things to paralyzed mons. If you run lots of different sets with this you become very hard to check without some level of guessing games. The existence of this/Gyara/Aero go a long way to nerf Dugtrio or at least restrict the teams it works on
6. Dugtrio - Dugtrio feels very matchuppy to me and running it alongside stuff like Kadabra feels dangerous, a lot of people only run 1 flier right now and I think that's often wrong because fliers beat multiple things besides Dug, but obviously the crit machine just wins games even when you're super behind. I think using this early is a big time trap on most teams and it should be saved more instead of playing these Kad on Kad 50/50s between Psy/Twave, it sucks ass letting Gyara/Nite in early on a lot of teams even if you hit them for 25% on entry. Aerodactyl is so obscene into Kad + Dug teams that it feels untenable to spam them anymore, you just get cleaned late game for free
7. Clefable - big glowup, from NU to niche UU to UU staple. Solid bulk, unwallable Twave because you can't ever send Golem or Dug on this, hits as hard with Slam/Beam as Dnite does, impossible to trade better than 1 for 1 with it, and it can tech stuff like Sing or Counter to sometimes just ruin your life and 2 for 1. 4MSS kinda sucks but I think Clefable's super good and hard to play around when it's in on some frail or slow mon like Golem/Dug/Kad
8. Golem - Hard walling the most threatening physical attacker in the tier is amazing, and so is 2HKOing most of the tier and having boom. Kangless teams struggle super hard into Golem and even if you don't switch into a Dodrio, Golem farms paralyzed stuff late-game and rarely fails to find at least an even trade, unless you save it too long and get oneshotted by a Water at the end. Gravelgod learned from this GOAT
9. Tentacruel - It's still a 100 Speed mon with great special offense and Wrap to choke half the tier, but it's super droppable, wrapping down stuff like Kang is not worth it, and it gives up momentum to Kadabra all the time. Tent teams vs Tentless are just entirely different styles of play and both are viable but the density of Agility setup chances and the increasing offensive pace of the tier seems to indicate to me that slow playing Wrap is asking to lose games you shouldn't lose, even if it also steals some games you shouldn't win. Definitely has underexplored techs but the lines aren't clear for things like Swords Dance yet
10. Haunter - has an obscene amount of entry points, held back by poor consistency and bulk, but having sleep and boom is disgusting in this tier. The worst part of its bulk is that switching into and 1v1ing Persian is rarely going to give you a chance to hit sleep later, so you kind of have to sleep Persian despite "walling" it. Haunter single handedly stops Gyarados from being a top pick and is another problem for slow Waters, Aero, Tangela. Substitute is an interesting option for it, Night Shade is still a usable move, I think the lines with this are interesting even if the swinginess is annoying.
11. Gyarados - another mon that dominates Kad/Dug, has a lot of moves you want and not enough slots. Hydro sucks ass but 2HKOing Kang is pretty nice (not just for the 1v1 but for enabling other mons like Kadabra), aside from a Water move and Body Slam you can tech it to what your team needs - Hyper Beam to murder Kad, Blizzard/Tbolt for coverage, just depends what you need it to do. Outside of Haunter, nothing wants to have to switch into this, and even Haunter ends up in range of Kadabra Psychic after one Surf, but forcing Gyara to click Water moves instead of Body Slam is a pain.
12. Vaporeon - good water dog. Techs for various situations, great bulk, really punishes overreliance on Tent/Kad, and it can fight anything that doesn't have Tbolt 1v1. Might be the mon with the most unexplored space in terms of team comps/sets/how to use it, so I don't have too much to say yet other than "this is clearly a UU mon"
13. Electrode - despite having it higher than the other Elecs, it feels usable on fewer types of teams, but it does the "spam stupid fast mons" thing really well, boom continues to be the best move in RBY, and it has the patented Twave - Boom combo to immediately end any Agility sweep. 25% crit rate lets it cheese past a lot of things, main problems aside from autolosing to Golem are the only 33% chance to OHKO Dug (aside from crit chance) with Boom and just getting stuck against other Elecs/Tang and having nothing to do but boom, but it peaks high
14. Tangela - I kind of hate using this mon but autosleep vs Dug + enough bulk to reasonably sleep most things + entry points on Elecs/Golem make it decent enough to me. Like Trode, I actually think this goes on fewer teams than a lot of mons below it, but is more "viable" if that makes sense? Idk how to explain it
15. Raichu - Agility is so fucking good or this wouldn't even be on the radar, nice Agispam mon, nice Agi + Twave mon, and it has a lot of reasonable move options you can slot in to fit whatever the team needs. Biggest issue imo is the kind of Agispam teams that want to use this want Dodrio/Dnite first and you quickly end up with compounded weaknesses depending on your sets, but there's a lot of other ways you can use this mon. Speed tier is kinda painful compared to the other Elecs, you can get robbed sometimes by Dodrio or Kadabra as a result
16. Omastar - Bad Golem in a lot of ways because you don't have the obscene Quakeslide damage, but better matchup into Persian by a mile, not afraid of Fire Blast, and this walls a ton of Dnite sets because Tbolt isn't common. Also, it obviously OHKOes Dugtrio and does way more damage to Kang than Golem does, which sometimes matters. Critical Haunter weakness + getting owned by Elecs hold it back, but mainly it's just that Golem 2HKOes things and Omastar has to fish for 30%s to make progress once it gets its entry on Dodrio. Still has a clear niche to me
17. Electabuzz - clearly does things but it annoys me how shit this thing's stats are, I am still figuring out what the best ways to use it are but I would usually rather have the traits of the other mons; Psychic isn't nearly enough for me
18. Rapidash - Maris made a good case for this and I think with the way things are shaping up, Dash's increased physical offense and Agility outvalues Ninetales' better bulk, pretty clearly a lead-slot-only mon unless big changes happen
19. Ninetales - Still has value for ruining Haunter lead and parafusion assholery
20. Dewgong - I could easily also put this in C, but I still respect STAB Blizzard for now + my current valuation on Waters and fliers makes me think this has some potential
21. Aerodactyl - Cracked mon that I want to put much higher but still need to figure out where Dug/Kad/Tent/Dodrio usage are gonna land longer term since people are now seeing how hard that can get dumpstered. I could genuinely see this going up to like 13-15 very easily, and I think spamming Flying-types is genuinely just a very good strategy. Moveslots still feel a bit uncertain but Dedge-Beam-Fblast-Sub seems safe? I also put Agility on some of them so they could take a paraslam and still go in
22. Venomoth - I think this is genuinely UU and again I might put this around Tangela-level given a bit more time, 90 Speed consistent-ish sleeper is unfortunately automatically pretty decent
2. Dodrio - by contrast, very wallable mon, but bringing a Rock-type every single game to stop this is mega cope and exploitable since again, there are zero mandatory mons and no guarantees you're running into Dodrio to get the matchup. If your opponent brings Golem you get completely fucked for having this mon or it'd be #1 and near undroppable for me. Trickiest thing about this mon is figuring out when and where to use it, it's a great breaker for other things like Persian or AgiNite but you also want to save it till later and scout for Rocks, but if you save it too long you get Aero'd or Troded or something. Still, 110 Attack Body Slam + Hyper Beam + Drill Peck and the threat of Agility is ridiculous, game ending threat
3. Kadabra - I agree with Maris, use this to grab momentum 1-2 times, do not use it to trade with opposing Kadabra if you don't have to. Bringing this mon, especially alongside Dugtrio, gives you a horrific weakness to fliers and Normals, but it's somewhat mitigated if you don't spend so many resources trying to keep Kadabra healthy. Recoverless is probably viable for a fair few teams but all of the 4th move slot techs just work better over Seismic Toss anyway unless you specifically need to hit the shitty non-UU Psychics but still have your funny Counter/Reflect/Substitute tech (all of which are interesting mix-ups, I support them). Overall, move away from gluing teams together by using this to check Tent and use it instead to steal momentum
4. Persian - broken Speed, broken typing, solid coverage, but giving Haunter entry is ass and it sucks that you're relying on an autocrit, giving up the obscene highroll chances that Kang/Dodrio get. Still, it 1v1s a lot of things, you can use Slam/Beam to highroll if needed, and it even 1v1s non Twave Dnite pretty effectively, which is funny. Just having this mon makes you so threatening into Tent/Kad/Dug type teams, but thankfully everyone's realizing those aren't good
5. Dragonite - good-ass mon with many set options, feasts on Kadabra and Dugtrio-reliant teams, obviously struggles with Haunter but not as bad as Gyara/Aero do, surprisingly gets 2HKOed by Golem which sucks ass. Agility with no Twave loses to Cat/Kang and can lose to Dodrio easily, Agility + Twave leaves you a little tight on attacking moves, Wrap is looking less and less useful but should still be slotted sometimes because it pressures slow Waters that otherwise happily come in and can do stupid things to paralyzed mons. If you run lots of different sets with this you become very hard to check without some level of guessing games. The existence of this/Gyara/Aero go a long way to nerf Dugtrio or at least restrict the teams it works on
6. Dugtrio - Dugtrio feels very matchuppy to me and running it alongside stuff like Kadabra feels dangerous, a lot of people only run 1 flier right now and I think that's often wrong because fliers beat multiple things besides Dug, but obviously the crit machine just wins games even when you're super behind. I think using this early is a big time trap on most teams and it should be saved more instead of playing these Kad on Kad 50/50s between Psy/Twave, it sucks ass letting Gyara/Nite in early on a lot of teams even if you hit them for 25% on entry. Aerodactyl is so obscene into Kad + Dug teams that it feels untenable to spam them anymore, you just get cleaned late game for free
7. Clefable - big glowup, from NU to niche UU to UU staple. Solid bulk, unwallable Twave because you can't ever send Golem or Dug on this, hits as hard with Slam/Beam as Dnite does, impossible to trade better than 1 for 1 with it, and it can tech stuff like Sing or Counter to sometimes just ruin your life and 2 for 1. 4MSS kinda sucks but I think Clefable's super good and hard to play around when it's in on some frail or slow mon like Golem/Dug/Kad
8. Golem - Hard walling the most threatening physical attacker in the tier is amazing, and so is 2HKOing most of the tier and having boom. Kangless teams struggle super hard into Golem and even if you don't switch into a Dodrio, Golem farms paralyzed stuff late-game and rarely fails to find at least an even trade, unless you save it too long and get oneshotted by a Water at the end. Gravelgod learned from this GOAT
9. Tentacruel - It's still a 100 Speed mon with great special offense and Wrap to choke half the tier, but it's super droppable, wrapping down stuff like Kang is not worth it, and it gives up momentum to Kadabra all the time. Tent teams vs Tentless are just entirely different styles of play and both are viable but the density of Agility setup chances and the increasing offensive pace of the tier seems to indicate to me that slow playing Wrap is asking to lose games you shouldn't lose, even if it also steals some games you shouldn't win. Definitely has underexplored techs but the lines aren't clear for things like Swords Dance yet
10. Haunter - has an obscene amount of entry points, held back by poor consistency and bulk, but having sleep and boom is disgusting in this tier. The worst part of its bulk is that switching into and 1v1ing Persian is rarely going to give you a chance to hit sleep later, so you kind of have to sleep Persian despite "walling" it. Haunter single handedly stops Gyarados from being a top pick and is another problem for slow Waters, Aero, Tangela. Substitute is an interesting option for it, Night Shade is still a usable move, I think the lines with this are interesting even if the swinginess is annoying.
11. Gyarados - another mon that dominates Kad/Dug, has a lot of moves you want and not enough slots. Hydro sucks ass but 2HKOing Kang is pretty nice (not just for the 1v1 but for enabling other mons like Kadabra), aside from a Water move and Body Slam you can tech it to what your team needs - Hyper Beam to murder Kad, Blizzard/Tbolt for coverage, just depends what you need it to do. Outside of Haunter, nothing wants to have to switch into this, and even Haunter ends up in range of Kadabra Psychic after one Surf, but forcing Gyara to click Water moves instead of Body Slam is a pain.
12. Vaporeon - good water dog. Techs for various situations, great bulk, really punishes overreliance on Tent/Kad, and it can fight anything that doesn't have Tbolt 1v1. Might be the mon with the most unexplored space in terms of team comps/sets/how to use it, so I don't have too much to say yet other than "this is clearly a UU mon"
13. Electrode - despite having it higher than the other Elecs, it feels usable on fewer types of teams, but it does the "spam stupid fast mons" thing really well, boom continues to be the best move in RBY, and it has the patented Twave - Boom combo to immediately end any Agility sweep. 25% crit rate lets it cheese past a lot of things, main problems aside from autolosing to Golem are the only 33% chance to OHKO Dug (aside from crit chance) with Boom and just getting stuck against other Elecs/Tang and having nothing to do but boom, but it peaks high
14. Tangela - I kind of hate using this mon but autosleep vs Dug + enough bulk to reasonably sleep most things + entry points on Elecs/Golem make it decent enough to me. Like Trode, I actually think this goes on fewer teams than a lot of mons below it, but is more "viable" if that makes sense? Idk how to explain it
15. Raichu - Agility is so fucking good or this wouldn't even be on the radar, nice Agispam mon, nice Agi + Twave mon, and it has a lot of reasonable move options you can slot in to fit whatever the team needs. Biggest issue imo is the kind of Agispam teams that want to use this want Dodrio/Dnite first and you quickly end up with compounded weaknesses depending on your sets, but there's a lot of other ways you can use this mon. Speed tier is kinda painful compared to the other Elecs, you can get robbed sometimes by Dodrio or Kadabra as a result
16. Omastar - Bad Golem in a lot of ways because you don't have the obscene Quakeslide damage, but better matchup into Persian by a mile, not afraid of Fire Blast, and this walls a ton of Dnite sets because Tbolt isn't common. Also, it obviously OHKOes Dugtrio and does way more damage to Kang than Golem does, which sometimes matters. Critical Haunter weakness + getting owned by Elecs hold it back, but mainly it's just that Golem 2HKOes things and Omastar has to fish for 30%s to make progress once it gets its entry on Dodrio. Still has a clear niche to me
17. Electabuzz - clearly does things but it annoys me how shit this thing's stats are, I am still figuring out what the best ways to use it are but I would usually rather have the traits of the other mons; Psychic isn't nearly enough for me
18. Rapidash - Maris made a good case for this and I think with the way things are shaping up, Dash's increased physical offense and Agility outvalues Ninetales' better bulk, pretty clearly a lead-slot-only mon unless big changes happen
19. Ninetales - Still has value for ruining Haunter lead and parafusion assholery
20. Dewgong - I could easily also put this in C, but I still respect STAB Blizzard for now + my current valuation on Waters and fliers makes me think this has some potential
21. Aerodactyl - Cracked mon that I want to put much higher but still need to figure out where Dug/Kad/Tent/Dodrio usage are gonna land longer term since people are now seeing how hard that can get dumpstered. I could genuinely see this going up to like 13-15 very easily, and I think spamming Flying-types is genuinely just a very good strategy. Moveslots still feel a bit uncertain but Dedge-Beam-Fblast-Sub seems safe? I also put Agility on some of them so they could take a paraslam and still go in
22. Venomoth - I think this is genuinely UU and again I might put this around Tangela-level given a bit more time, 90 Speed consistent-ish sleeper is unfortunately automatically pretty decent
RBYPL Stuff
Sabelette Week 4 vs Dawn Dreams
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-802237
https://pokepast.es/335273003bdd5e53
My first "superman"/flier spam team, Golem was there to blunt momentum one time basically and also baits Earthquake pretty hard because it's such a threat. I was very proud of turning this one around after turn 1 freeze into critting my Gyarados, losing half my fliers immediately completely fucked the gameplan but Aerodactyl is so clutch into people who use too many frail mons and Gyarados ended up getting enough value anyway thanks to Kadabra paralyzing once, plus Golem vs Dodrio is just a 2 for 1 machine
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-802247
https://pokepast.es/308dc610a3bb88b5
Cuno-era looking team that relies on Golem/Haunter/Gyara defensive core to blockade big threats a couple times and grab momentum back, similarly trusting Kadabra to slow down Tentacruel a couple times because of how slow my back mons are. The opening ends up being silly but I would've been content with 50% on kang and eating Counter, though the miss is favorable to me. Of course, I eat another first hit freeze and this immediately destroys my entire team by removing my Tent answer without getting even one turn of value from it, and then Dugtrio crits my Gyarados, leaving me absurdly weak to Dugtrio in what would have otherwise probably been a fine game, but that's RBY; ultimately, I think I needed to take my sleep chance with Haunter and try to make a callout somewhere and I needed to run a faster team. Most likely, dropping Tent for something faster would have been a better call, but it's hard to evaluate how "bad" relying on Kadabra so much was on this team or if this was just an RBY moment
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-802255?p2
https://pokepast.es/6b4897021ae6bf47
Another team that's maybe a bit too slow and a bit too Dug weak? I think I misplayed the Vaporeon, but also, Blizz miss into get repeatedly crit by Dugtrio (Vaporeon had decent odds to live noncrit, everything else always lived without crit) was pretty unfortunate. Still, could have built differently to lower the odds of this, but I think on most days this team won this game, especially because I recognized the team and I'm 99% sure their unrevealed is a Dodrio, which just autoloses to my Golem if Clefable doesn't miss and I don't lose speed tie + get crit with Dug. Again, hard to eval how much of this was my building/play versus just unfortunate luck, especially when writing this at 1am
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-802277?p2
https://pokepast.es/6408cc5ddbe6bc2f
The Trode on this team is actually just here for the win-win boom - either I highroll Dugtrio out and enable Raichu more or I use it as free setup for Dnite. Anyway, game's very straightforward, not much to say, luck was back and forth but I was pretty salty that after the freezes and the Dug dodge + crit sweep in previous games that I also get crit Hydro'd out of a near-guaranteed endgame. I Slammed with Dnite to not risk a miss + Hyper Beam is not guaranteed Slash range unless it highrolls bigtime so I took the more favorable odds of "don't get hit + crit by Hydro Pump" + 30% chance of paraslam giving me another 7.5% to just autowin. Raichu haxing Persian was pretty fortunate but ofc Dodrio missed Hyper Beam for huge damage right before that, which would have led to an equally favorable situation, overall getting crit Hydro'd isn't that unlucky but certainly felt like a slap in the face after some of the earlier stuff. No shade to Dawn Dreams or how they played, just RBY being annoying
Kristyl Week 5 vs Unowndragon
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-804251
https://pokepast.es/ca6a2a65eb1850d7
Four Twaves and a Tent to mop up, pretty obvious concept, back Persian provides some insulation against Dugtrio and enemy Kadabra should things go off course, we goofed a little bit on a couple turns but this was Kristyl's first tour game in UU and overall she kicked ass
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-804253
https://pokepast.es/b3cf1a2599a1a098
Very unrevealed flying spam team, Haunter did so much work after walling Persian that there was nothing to do here, but Aero would've gotten immense value into the Dodrio if it had crit the Haunter out anyway
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-804255
https://pokepast.es/32b44232baecb72c
First attempt at using Dash after liking what Maris did with it and it instantly paid off, not much more to say, spamming Agility gets consistent high value trades if you're even slightly ahead and so this whole team is just spammy offensive pressure
Kristyl Week 7 vs Maris
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-807780
https://pokepast.es/2472608472a070d0
Aggressive team relying on Cat + Dug to not let Tent get out of control, Kang is just a hit trader, Omastar as a one time momentum blunter into Dodrio/Dnite that also can just trade hits with a Persian or Kang or whatever as it did, Aginite without Twave last aimed at cleaning up and punishing preserving mons/being able to do enough damage to finish stuff that might typically come into Oma after it chips them a bit. Kad lead gets shored up a bit by a back Rock that protects it from Dodrio especially but also helps with Kang, though it's worse than Golem at this; we're running it cause it covers for the typical Dnite sets too and does better into Persian
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-807786
https://pokepast.es/9c37092755dfc4ef
Last flier spam variant I built, 3 fliers this time + Tangela to shore up back Golem matchups instead of just getting fucked by Rock Slide. 3 fliers completely dominate Kad Dug, Aero + Dug + Kad is a lot of speed control. Definitely was nervous when paralyzed Hydro Pump Gyarados had to hit through a bunch of Substitutes since it was our last Golem check at that point, otherwise team worked out pretty well and got some luck
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-807793
https://pokepast.es/ece09153d6d5273f
DugCat offense with a twist thanks to the sheer bulk of the double Waters in back, Haunter also really shows off how stupid it can be here by permawalling Tangela and waking up on Persian later thanks to good management of Dugtrio HP. Vaporeon's bulk is so stupid that it gets 2 shots at paralyzing Kadabra even after eating a crit Psychic on entry, making this game much easier to play than it otherwise would have been
Too tired to go over weeks 1-3, I wasn't being very creative for those, hope people enjoy the writeup and don't mind me being a little salty, but I have to be a complaining boomer sometimes to preserve my ego and also to not fall into the trap of results-based thinking. RBY UU gets way too much hate, there's a lot of cool shit you can do in this tier and I think there are some really creative ideas here left to find. Ban Wrap though
Post-RBYPL V VR
Mighty Magmars FTW
Mighty Magmars FTW
My First Team Tour win! (I think? Over 4 years of RBY atp there's been a lot of tournaments)
Format sucked really bad this tour, got so burnt out the last half of the tour. I had such an insane amount of fun with YBW + Mel on prep the early weeks, but once Mel had to dip things really went down hill for me mentally in the tier. 3-5 (really 3-4, act win instead of deadgame was lame af from Shell tbh) isn't too great but I at least was consistent only losing to the same people. Very primed to take #1 of pool without burnout and irl stuff, but eh stuff happens. GGs to Shellnut, Torchic, DD, UD, and Maris. Not too happy mine and Maris' back and forth tour sets have started leaning her way so heavy, hopefully we both play in ALTPL so that can be addressed :).
On the meta, Tentless has really risen in popularity which was the main change during this tournament. I personally ran mostly off of the formula of Tent Kad Nite Kang 5th 6th, with 5th and/or 6th being a Ground-type, with some deviations from there. I don't think Tent is suddenly some 10th in the tier mon or whatever, Kang Nite Dodrio and Golem are all at incredibly high stocks, but Wrap stocks have definitely plummeted. I personally think the tier is like fine rn and could use a lot more time to develop it before we start messing with it heavy, though I'm pretty fine with a Wrap ban idt it actually does all that much.
Venomoth is really good, been using it a solid amount the last 3 or so tournaments and its WR for me has been incredible. That speed tier for a double powder is so good and I like using it so much more than Tangela. Its shitpiss dmg Psychic is also noticeably more immediately dmging than whatever Tangela hits with. Tangela still ranks higher purely due to how extreme its MU vs Grounds are though.
Anything in C tier on my VR could easily be ranked UU, I just think they have immediate alternatives that I would use moth of the time. i.e Raichu vs Buzz and Trode, Vap vs Oma and Gong, Ninetales vs Rapidash. Preference primarily, anything in C or above is a realistic tour bring.
D idgaf about. There's inherently a niche for just insert any Fire mon in the tier, Seadra has specifically strong Agility endgames, and Poliwrath like inherently cant be that bad.
Format sucked really bad this tour, got so burnt out the last half of the tour. I had such an insane amount of fun with YBW + Mel on prep the early weeks, but once Mel had to dip things really went down hill for me mentally in the tier. 3-5 (really 3-4, act win instead of deadgame was lame af from Shell tbh) isn't too great but I at least was consistent only losing to the same people. Very primed to take #1 of pool without burnout and irl stuff, but eh stuff happens. GGs to Shellnut, Torchic, DD, UD, and Maris. Not too happy mine and Maris' back and forth tour sets have started leaning her way so heavy, hopefully we both play in ALTPL so that can be addressed :).
On the meta, Tentless has really risen in popularity which was the main change during this tournament. I personally ran mostly off of the formula of Tent Kad Nite Kang 5th 6th, with 5th and/or 6th being a Ground-type, with some deviations from there. I don't think Tent is suddenly some 10th in the tier mon or whatever, Kang Nite Dodrio and Golem are all at incredibly high stocks, but Wrap stocks have definitely plummeted. I personally think the tier is like fine rn and could use a lot more time to develop it before we start messing with it heavy, though I'm pretty fine with a Wrap ban idt it actually does all that much.
Venomoth is really good, been using it a solid amount the last 3 or so tournaments and its WR for me has been incredible. That speed tier for a double powder is so good and I like using it so much more than Tangela. Its shitpiss dmg Psychic is also noticeably more immediately dmging than whatever Tangela hits with. Tangela still ranks higher purely due to how extreme its MU vs Grounds are though.
Anything in C tier on my VR could easily be ranked UU, I just think they have immediate alternatives that I would use moth of the time. i.e Raichu vs Buzz and Trode, Vap vs Oma and Gong, Ninetales vs Rapidash. Preference primarily, anything in C or above is a realistic tour bring.
D idgaf about. There's inherently a niche for just insert any Fire mon in the tier, Seadra has specifically strong Agility endgames, and Poliwrath like inherently cant be that bad.
altpl meta is better than current uu (but c+ is even better, and i predict even UUBL -Wrap/PT would also be better on the off chance OU drops nothing (and im pretty sure all of jolt,bro,vic will))
most of the people saying the contrary did not play altpl uu (albeit only a handful, and only 1 other experienced player, actually did)
im unlikely to continue playing uu if wrap (or at the very least, tent) stays at least in tours after spotlight (not as a threat, there's people who'd be happy if this happened anyway)
most of the people saying the contrary did not play altpl uu (albeit only a handful, and only 1 other experienced player, actually did)
im unlikely to continue playing uu if wrap (or at the very least, tent) stays at least in tours after spotlight (not as a threat, there's people who'd be happy if this happened anyway)
Hello,
Not trying to rush anything but UUFPL will be happening soon (Week 1 starts sometime in March), so was wondering if there were any plans to hold a vote or otherwise have this mattered settled by then. I dont think we need another “suspect” slot for this and would prefer to use whatever the standard RBY UU is at that time.
Not trying to rush anything but UUFPL will be happening soon (Week 1 starts sometime in March), so was wondering if there were any plans to hold a vote or otherwise have this mattered settled by then. I dont think we need another “suspect” slot for this and would prefer to use whatever the standard RBY UU is at that time.
Actually I take it back if people want to yolo the Python C++ meta for UUFPL I might be down
Questioning a bit if I really want to sign up for UUFPL to play RBY this tour still (sort of want to SV) but I would prefer no bans and just keep it regular UU. The RBY C+ tour is coming to a close soonish and would be better to consider things after a breakdown of the tour via stats/usage/etc. I also didn't think the no wrap meta was that much better in ATPL, even if slightly it felt like the same format minus Tenta, still kind of the same luck fest due to the top mons. While I don't really agree with posts from the debate thread advocating for the use of Partial Trapping in UU (lower tiers in general) I think it wouldn't be fair to those who want to play RBY UU as is to be forced into playing a revised version of it.
Would it be possible to test UUBL for UUFPL? As in wrapless Lapras + Hypno + Articuno. C+ seems to be a step in the right direction for the tier but obviously Jolteon and Slowbro dropping isn't guaranteed. Testing to see if the meta would be good with just the UUBL + Wrap ban would help with laying out all the options for the tier in case Jolteon / Slowbro don't drop.
I think this can also be tested for April RBY UU spotlight which may be better to allow at least one more tournament with untouched UU
Not really against doing it for UUFPL either, I want UUBL (no wrap/pt) tested for one of these tours and actually believe it may be better than C+, but sympathize with the idea that UU will have not had a 'real' tour for a bit now. You could argue though doing it for a PL is better data though and the spotlight can be the one as standard UU instead.
Think it'd be more fun to play UUBL but not sure if UUFPL should be the one to do it is all. Would be cool if it was tho
If the partial trapping issue is adjudicated before UUFPL begins, think I'd be in favor of dropping the UUBLs for the tour to gather some data. If it's not adjudicated though then I'm leaning towards just whatever standard RBY UU is at the time to help provide more current RBY UU data for the future decisionmakers.
it kinda makes sense since i think most uu players dont want uu without wrap without also unbanning something
i think any version of uu with lapras+hypno is better than without and no wrap is the perfect opportunity to retest them
no wrap is kinda unstable and hypno+lapras adds some stability instead of just being a pure kang pers dodo dug kad hitfest
i think any version of uu with lapras+hypno is better than without and no wrap is the perfect opportunity to retest them
no wrap is kinda unstable and hypno+lapras adds some stability instead of just being a pure kang pers dodo dug kad hitfest