Hello RBY UU players, my team has just been knocked out of uufpl, and despite my miserable record I spent alot of time studying and practicing this tier during this season.
The following post will be a combination of things
1. My overall take on the metagame.
2. My personal VR constructed throughout this tour.
3. I changed my mind teamdump will be separate.
To start off, I do not believe this meta is healthy whatsoever. My main concerns remain hypno, wrap, Other unavoidable rng concepts. By far the most important of these in my eyes is hypno, I believe hypno is droppable but its very difficult to justify doing so because when you dont have hypno, your opponents is that much stronger. But even the suggestion that "everyone has it so they can just cancel eachother out." Is frankly nonsense and ignores the absurd amount of rng involved in hypno mirrors, let alone hypnos interactions with the metagame at large.
Hypno in a lead slot is rather selective to abuse or exploit. You can use wrap/other pt options to simply trap the hypno and go out to your own or another check. This has many issues, firstly that going to your own hypno just creates another 50/50 which can easily set you behind. Or even worse the trapping move can just...miss and now your partial trapping lead(
) is paralyzed and for well...pretty much all of these pokemon this is a death sentence and ends in your attempted counter-lead outright losing the lead.
The other way to exploit hypno lead sounds frankly much more effective, use a faster sleeper. Although..who are those again? Available sleepers faster than hypno, (
) of these options I suggest you only seriously consider (
) and these 2 pokemon come with obvious and glaring issues in a lead against hypno. Their sleep moves miss frequently, especially that of haunter. And they are WEAK TO PSYCHIC, meaning if they do miss their sleep move and are paralyzed/slept by hypno, they are significantly threatened by its stab psychic.
Another issue with these 2 is they are just..not the most splashable or spammable leads, they have difficult lead matchups like issues with (
) and in venomoths case also (
)
It's for these reasons I believe lead hypno to be unhealthy and wildly overcentralizing for the meta.
However if this were the extent of its broken-ness I could understand people not wanting action on it, I do believe its not tho.
Hypno not only boasts this absurdly polarizing position in the lead metagame. But is one of the most dominant pokemon in the back slots, particularly dangerous in last mon/last 1-2 mons scenarios.
Hypnos complete control over this metagame is frankly impossible to ignore.
My next target of focus is wrap.
To understand why wrap is so ridiculous in UU you need to understand who its abusers are, and why these specific pokemon make the cheesiest aspects of this move shine here.
Firstly the abusers of the move, (
) primarily
These 2 pokemon sit at the forefront of this metagame in both usage and viability.
Using wrap as a get out of jail free card or a cheap, hard to counter way to deal free chip onto foes. I dont think you need me to explain why these incredibly common pokemon often paired alongside eachother exploiting this move repeatedly is problematic.
especially adds an extra layer of nonsense due to its impressive bulk, great defensive typing, and access to thunder wave.
I believe at this time that Wrap is unhealthy, however I'm not completely sold on that being the case for all partial trapping.
The "other thing" is Lapras Confuse ray and this metas reliance on crits in every game, moreso than other rby metas.
With section 1, "My general metagame thoughts" finished i can now continue onto my VR
Im sure certain things here stick out, rest assured I will explain them.
S1 TIER (
)
obviously I just went on an entire rant about how much I hate this pokemons presence here, I think it is also the objective best pokemon in the tier, it is my number one for a combination of its Utility, absurd usage, and ridiculous broken-ness.
the other old school UUBL giant, this pokemon is a ridiculous breaker with every option it could possibly need/want to tear through this tier, but it's believe it does so in a healthy and outright enjoyable way(although sing 50/50s are obnoxious.) I think lapras is a healthy pokemon although part of me somewhat fears hypno is part of what keeps her in check.
S2 TIER (
)
I think this pokemon is the next closest thing to busted behind hypno
Between Slash and a speed tier only outdone by dugtrio who loses 1v1 and electrode who's near nonexistent outside of lead, this pokemon boasts through targets despite its limited movepool and makes itself an amazing revenge killer/cleaner in this metagame
I think its an unpopular opinion but I think this is definitely the more powerful and more central wrapper, its access to twave and powerful coverage make it a significant threat into nearly the entire metagame.
The obvious king of the electrics, this pokemons tools are immensely threatening at all stages of the game, one of my personal favorite cleaners/sweepers available in the tier.
Impressive glow up frankly.
A1 TIER (
)
I hate this pokemon. This mons entire gimmick is being cheap and abusing wrap, along with great special for prime cleaning ability. I dont have much to say other than that this mon relies on wrap to get relevant which makes it toxic and annoying, but threatening nonetheless.
This is the tiers tauros, although its proportionately lower speed makes ot obviously not tauros level dominant, it has the same tools and plays pretty much the same. This is a nasty strong endgame mon.
The fastest mon you can expect to see within like 5 games of the tier, the fastest mon used outside of the lead slot besides the rare (
) this pokemons claim to fame are its absurd crit rate and its obviously very powerful mono-ground typing. I was told by those who helped me prep this tour that I kinda underrate dugtrio but I'm not sure i do? I think bottom of A1 is fitting.
A2 TIER (
)
Its a ghost type. That alone is very strong but haunter has a fair share of tools in its arsenal although at times a somewhat awkward speed tier, its still solidly fast and its ghost typing puts it in a position to stall out wrap strategies with little risk to itself. Haunter also hits quite hard with the obviously great psy/bolt coverage its line is famous for. Obviously on lead sets its claim to fame is hypnosis which is a useful tool for stopping other sleep leads, as it is the fastest one.
Phenomenal cleaner and breaker as well as imo the most annoying lead around.
Dodrio hits
hard like..snorlax hard.
And its crit rate is so high even haunter isn't a very real answer 1v1. I dont like dodrios presence here but it is definitely, very strong but not truly meta warping, which is why its in A2
B1 TIER (
)
105 speed, psychic types, inability to take a physical hit. What's not to love, kadabra is good but most of its roles feel..shaky
I dont like it much in the back as I feel it fails to accomplish that much in last mon scenarios, and in lead its matchups
seem positive but in a tier with rng this baked in it often ends up in shaky situations vs mons it should beat. Overall I recognize this mon is strong, but I don't like it much.
While its certainly not the defining threat it once was, electabuzz carves out a solid niche for itself do to its workable attack and high speed, this gives it favorable lead MUs vs (
) and with good rng a mostly neutral one into (
). And its not like there's no room for it in the back, although mostly outclassed by raichu in this role the additional speed can be a useful safeguard vs tent for slower teams, a concept i built around a fair amount.
In the first week or 2 I sorta doubted this mon, but when I started building with it, its strengths became clear. It's particularly convenient base 81 speed is just enough to fuck over dragonite, its able to put good pressure on lapras and it checks dugtrio great. Frailer mons hoping to paralyze it often meet and early grave due to its immense attack stat.
This pokemon is stupid, its a matchup fish frankly but its an extremely effective one. Frankly put it can sit on anything its not weak to and pump out sleep/stun for basically free, its one downfall is it struggles to do any actual damage for itself and its speed renders it tie-ing with
rather than outspeeding it. It's the most solid
check in the game aswell.
B2 TIER (
)
It clicks sleep powder. Venomoths speed tier is good but not great, what's really impressive is it's ability to eat hits, this thing kinda infamously never goes down in one. Another annoying habit of this mon is unless you have it trade down vs the lead it slept, it will probably come back in to stun spore.
Moltres over articuno?? In UU??
Yes. Moltres was a mon I picked up using in the late weeks because I felt my teams needed more fire power and...wow! To me this mon is inarguably the best fire type mon in the tier and its really just, very solid. I realize that this tierlist implies I believe moltres should be a UU mon, and I stand by it.
Initially I wrote this mon off because it seemed like just, a bad hypno who was also slower. But i believe i was wrong, its bulk is nice and its immunity to slam para and access to blizzard make it more threatening in lead MUs vs (
) I believe this mon is solid enough fundamentally to stay UU.
C1 TIER (
)
Gonna start lumping stuff together
What happened to electrode that makes it so far and away worse than it was before? It's fellow electrics either got better or got pushed into a position to further push trode out of its niche. Electrodes movepool is well..its terrible
Its main tools are twave and boom alongside its incredible speed, the issue is boom isn't even a guaranteed ohko on the frailest of the mons switch ins and beyond these moves its left with a mid power tbolt and non-stab hyper beam off very poor attack. Electrode is not non-existent by any means but reasons to bring it are very scarce.
When a wall you do a max of like 24% to is on every single team, cuno kinda sucks.
I think there's room for it to be a scary last mon but its literally just a deadslot until lapras goes down, and many pokemon are pretty hostile to it anyway with all the strong normal moves, and tbolts flying around.
This mon is mid at best and definitely NU caliber in current UU.
These 2 are pretty similar, with key differences. Rapidash is faster, securing the speed tie vs (
) and outpacing other common leads like (
) when ninetales doesn't. These differences often make it a better leads, but worse in back due to its lower power and less tools.
Why mr.mime? Well its access to tbolt, steller special bulk and ability to work as a sort of poor man's kada who threatens the waters heavily, this mon feels particularly good into gyarados structures which i appreciate.
I used this because it seemed like a funny matchup fish vs dnite teams. And frankly it certainly is good at that but to my surprise it ended up feeling pretty solid in general? A ground with decent speed AND bulk was refreshing. I like nidoking in rby uu
these next pokemon are frankly way less serious brings, but things i definitely consider usable.
C2 TIER (
)
DD Joe is gonna kill me for including this mon. I truly think magneton is viable, I built a team with it w1 but unfortunately didn't get to bring it, but I never stopped innovating this mon, looking for reasons to use it and truly. It's pretty fuckin fine.
I will get a chance to show her off eventually.
All the rocks aim to do kinda the same thing, deal with normal type attacks and in omas case take blizzards.
I think they're all roughly equal in their effectiveness at this although my favorite is definitely omastar.
Mid ass sleepers with secondary typing that ruin them.
These mons are like passable and I tested them both out.
D TIER (
)
Stupid unserious pokemon.
The typing+EQ is just kinda cool.
Has the ability to do swords dance or fire spin shenanigans
I think Maris read my mind because I built w this mon and then the next day they brought it.
I view these as the "retired" waters of rby uu, completely outcompeted for a slot by lapras and the other waters, even as a niche water ill always choose omastar over these 2.
Are you sick of seeing these 2 yet? Because I'm sick of having to slot them into the bottom tiers of rby VRs
Arbok owned me on ladder which got me really thinking about wrap spam in this tier(you aren't slick melbelle.) And yeah not only does arbokd combo of tools still work here, dragonairs pure dragon typing allows it to work aswell.
Disappointing mon with a terrible movepool and pretty mid stats tbh.
It works just enough to get on here but, probably dont use this.
To clarify, I am aware this meta is very temporary and OU will be dropping new mons soon, regardless I wanted to make this anyway both for history and to just get my voice out there.
If you made it down here i hope you enjoyed reading this post, I dont often do posts this big on here.
Thank you to my managers in uufpl and everyone else who helped me prep.
