Lower Tiers RBY UU Hub

[Sabelette]

Begging people to stop arguing “but it will make tiers below UU worse,” this is completely irrelevant and should not remotely be used as reasoning not to ban things. The point of my argument was that accuracy-lowering moves are only really viable as a cheese strategy when specifically used by Dugtrio and Diglett due to their speed tiers relative to the tier they’re in and the fact that they remove the most effective counterplay, Thunder Wave, due to their typing, allowing them to use Substitute to compensate for their lack of bulk. “It’s nice in PU so don’t ban it in UU” is a nonsense argument nobody should be making. Any tier lower than the one being discussed is irrelevant when considering tiering action.

I believe policy would require banning Smokescreen if we ban Sand Attack. Smokescreen is a direct buff from Sand Attack is it has more PP and is also 100% accurate. We cannot ban a move and not ban a move that is a direct upgrade of it. And at that point we might well just get all of the moves.

Ban accuracy lowering moves>Do nothing>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Ban Dugtrio

Not sure why you believe this is policy (you can just go look at the tiering policy at any time and it’s a short read), there’s no such rule in Smogon’s tiering policy and we don’t have a separate RBY one, I’m just willing to use some common sense. It’s just common sense that if you ban one move you should ban clones of it, due to:

II.) Universal Applicability Across Eligible Users

• The element is not just situationally powerful on one or two Pokemon; it is universally problematic across all or most potential users.
• Example: If a move is only broken due to unique synergy with one or two specific Pokemon, then we default to banning those Pokemon rather than the move itself.

It stands to reason that if accuracy-lowering moves themselves are broken/uncompetitive conceptually, there’s no reason to allow them on anything, so just banning Sand Attack would pretty clearly be a targeted nerf at Dugtrio. Arguing that other accuracy-reducing moves should stay, especially Smokescreen, would just be pedantic and biased.

It’s very clear that the tiering-policy-correct move here is ban Dugtrio or ban nothing, personally I’m on the side of ban nothing.

 

[PKMN Master™]

Keep all accuracy reducing moves.

We shouldn’t touch accuracy reducing moves such as Flash, Smokescreen, etc.
and I 100 percent disagree with this ban.

I agree with Chungler “ Sand attack has a way worse free turn conversion rate than confuse ray so I don’t think a suspect is necessary.”

And DEFINITELY DO NOT BAN DUGTRIO.

We have MANY CHECKS AND COUNTERS to this mon.

 

[ButtGallon]

I agree that as stupid as sand attack/substitute Dugtrio can be, neither it nor accuracy lowering moves should be banned— at least not yet. If the tier converges onto more accuracy-lowerers being prominent, it may be a different story, but for now Dugtrio is pretty inarguably a net good for the tier. Dugtrio is overall healthy for the tier -> because sand attack is only broken on Dugtrio, the mon would be banned before the move -> therefore we will not ban Dugtrio. Seems like a pretty open-and-shut case to me.

Begging people to stop arguing “but it will make tiers below UU worse,” this is completely irrelevant and should not remotely be used as reasoning not to ban things... “It’s nice in PU so don’t ban it in UU” is a nonsense argument nobody should be making. Any tier lower than the one being discussed is irrelevant when considering tiering action.

I do want to push back on the idea that the impact to lower-tiers like NU/PU/ZU is irrelevant in general, though. It may be because I'm inexperienced with standard tiering-policy, or because I'm more involved in PU/ZU than in UU, but downstream impact is not a bad concern on the face of it. For example, if banning sand attack were to make UU slightly better, but NU/PU/ZU a lot worse, it's not stupid for that to sway someone's opinion on ban/DNB— in fact I'd argue it should. Transitivity in RBY is a net good for the gen and I'm glad we have it. But whether tiering policy dictates it should matter or not, if the goal is for all RBY tiers to be the best they can be, a UU ban having transitivity into 3+ lower tiers forces one of two things to be true:

1) UU is inherently more important than all its lower tiers, and if a scenario presents itself where gutting them would make UU slightly better, doing so is worth the downstream cost.

2) The impact of ban decisions in RBY should be evaluated holistically, and if a ban would cause a positive change to UU, but be outweighed by negative changes to RBY as a whole, that should affect the voters' thought process.

On the face of it, #2 seems much more sensible than #1, at least in my eyes. I think the correct outlook is somewhere in the middle, where the primary focus should be on the tier in question, and the large majority of the decision should be made on that merit. But keeping the health of RBY as a whole in mind is not absurd. If any impact on lower tiers is irrelevant when considering tiering action, my question would be: is it irrelevant because that's the policy, or is it irrelevant because it's the correct mindset?

 

[Sabelette]

It’s irrelevant for both reasons. Lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, and they should have to work in that constraint. Using the logic of #2, you could argue a tier should rig its VRs to drop Pokemon into lower tiers to give them more options and flexibility for how the tier should work. Why shouldn’t Exeggutor be allowed in UU? It probably wouldn’t be broken and could be a net positive for the tier.

Tiering should never evaluate downstream effects. It defeats the entire purpose of tiering in the first place and unfortunately I think this is how many people are voting. We are not trying to create a bunch of curated metagames where we balance them against each other, we are working with what we have in more and more limited pools, and the priority is always on the tiers above. This is what you accept when you choose to play lower and lower tiers - they are a product of what is banned and used above them and you have to accept these influences.

 

[Shellnuts]

Banning an entire category of moves because of ONE problematic user is absurd for the reasons Sabelette has already mentioned. Adding this onto transitivity means we are killing a lot of niches in the lower tiers. If we ban sand attack this will be yet another example of "we follow tiering policy unless we dont follow it".

Lower tiers shouldn't at all be considered in justifying keeping it; higher tiers make tiering decisions that affect lower tiers, that's how it works.

Also, there's already is precedent for banning stuff that is only proven to be problematic on a single user. To give one example I can think of off the top of my head; DPP banned Arena Trap without banning Dugtrio first. So I don't see the argument for not banning something because only a single user was proven to be problematic with it since we already have other examples of tiers doing that.

"But it's RNG" so what??? We play RBY, this is a probability management game. We are complaining about one particular move on a mon that already has a 23.44% critical hit rate in a tier where the 2 best mons are clicking 60% and 55% accurate sleep moves. Why is Sand Attack exclusively being looked at as problematic here

I agree that Dugtrio's crit rate and the 2 best mons flipping coins to get off sleep are both stupid, however resolving those issues through tiering would have far more wide reaching effects; which significantly complicates trying to ban them, while removing nonsense like Sand Attack or Flash have very little collateral and just removes another form of uncompetitive cheese.

Keep all accuracy reducing moves.

We shouldn’t touch accuracy reducing moves such as Flash, Smokescreen, etc.
and I 100 percent disagree with this ban.

I agree with Chungler “ Sand attack has a way worse free turn conversion rate than confuse ray so I don’t think a suspect is necessary.”

And DEFINITELY DO NOT BAN DUGTRIO.

We have MANY CHECKS AND COUNTERS to this mon.

So what if Sand Attack is worse than Confusion at giving free turns? It still generates an excessive number of them and gives excessive odds to fish for RNG against your opponent with very little benefit outside of a handful of situations where you can deny setup sweepers, which isn't enough to justify it.

Also, your Dugtrio checks only work if they can actually hit it, which Sand Attack severely puts into question. Nearly all of those checks are only 1 or 2 misses or crits from losing to something they are supposed to beat. If we can't rely on Dragonite or Gyarados to consistently check Dugtrio because of Sand Attack bullshit, then that argument goes out the window.

For the record I'm in favour of banning Accuracy Lowering moves (and prefer that significantly over the two other options); they add very little to the tier while adding a ton of variance in a tier that really needs less and the tier would be significantly better without them.

 

[ButtGallon]

It’s irrelevant for both reasons. Lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, and they should have to work in that constraint. Using the logic of #2, you could argue a tier should rig its VRs to drop Pokemon into lower tiers to give them more options and flexibility for how the tier should work. Why shouldn’t Exeggutor be allowed in UU? It probably wouldn’t be broken and could be a net positive for the tier.

Tiering should never evaluate downstream effects. It defeats the entire purpose of tiering in the first place and unfortunately I think this is how many people are voting. We are not trying to create a bunch of curated metagames where we balance them against each other, we are working with what we have in more and more limited pools, and the priority is always on the tiers above. This is what you accept when you choose to play lower and lower tiers - they are a product of what is banned and used above them and you have to accept these influences.

The Exeggutor bit is a good analogy, and it does make sense, but I don't think it holds true for downstream effects as a whole. You say the conceit of tiers in the first place is is that the lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, but that conceit is only for Pokemon themselves. Notably, moves are not tiered in the same way, and have a much higher burden to clear to take action against them. If something like the UU sleep ban vote happened with transitivity in place, people would probably go "it's debatable whether sleep is uncompetitive in UU, but banning it instead of hypno would completely destroy a bunch of healthy tiers, this obviously isn't worth it" and they'd be right to approach it from that mindset. On principle, tiering decisions should happen in a vacuum, but in practice I don't think it's always the right frame of reference for things that aren't Pokemon themselves.

 

[Sabelette]

Lower tiers shouldn't at all be considered in justifying keeping it; higher tiers make tiering decisions that affect lower tiers, that's how it works.

Also, there's already is precedent for banning stuff that is only proven to be problematic on a single user; DPP banned Arena Trap without banning Dugtrio first, so I don't see the argument for not banning something because only a single user was proven to be problematic with it since we already have other examples of tiers doing that.


I agree that Dugtrio's crit rate and the 2 best mons flipping coins to get off sleep are both stupid, however resolving those issues through tiering would have far more wide reaching effects; which significantly complicates trying to ban them, while removing nonsense like Sand Attack or Flash have very little collateral and just removes another form of uncompetitive cheese.


So what if Sand Attack is worse than Confusion at giving free turns? It still generates an excessive number of them and gives excessive odds to fish for RNG against your opponent with very little benefit outside of a handful of situations where you can deny setup sweepers, which isn't enough to justify it.

Also, your Dugtrio checks only work if they can actually hit it, which Sand Attack severely puts into question. Nearly all of those checks are only 1 or 2 misses or crits from losing to something they are supposed to beat. If we can't rely on Dragonite or Gyarados to consistently check Dugtrio because of Sand Attack bullshit, then that argument goes out the window.

For the record I'm in favour of banning Accuracy Lowering moves (and prefer that significantly over the two other options); they add very little to the tier while adding a ton of variance in a tier that really needs less and the tier would be significantly better without them.

If you read the tiering policy, which I’m increasingly convinced very few people actually have:

While Pokemon bans are the default, there may be rare instances where a non-Pokemon element is deemed so inherently broken that banning specific Pokemon cannot solve the core problem. These are Exceptional Elements, and they must meet all the criteria below to warrant a ban at the element level.

I.) Inherently Broken Nature

• The element is so powerful or disruptive that it creates a significant imbalance in the metagame, regardless of which Pokemon employs it.
• There is no reasonable context or distribution that would render the element balanced by ordinary means.

II.) Universal Applicability Across Eligible Users

• The element is not just situationally powerful on one or two Pokemon; it is universally problematic across all or most potential users.
• Example: If a move is only broken due to unique synergy with one or two specific Pokemon, then we default to banning those Pokemon rather than the move itself.

III.) No Plausible Scenario for Balance

• There is no current situation in which the element would be balanced on Pokemon that currently have it.
• If giving the element to weaker or niche Pokemon that are still recognisably viable within the tier could be balanced, then the element is not considered universally broken.

Arena Trap fits these guidelines and Shadow Tag is even used as an example in the tiering policy framework at large. This is not comparable to Sand Attack in any way nor is it just “one broken user,” it’s an element that would be broken if given to any viable Pokemon.

 

[Shellnuts]

If you read the tiering policy, which I’m increasingly convinced very few people actually have:


Arena Trap fits these guidelines and Shadow Tag is even used as an example in the tiering policy framework at large. This is not comparable to Sand Attack in any way nor is it just “one broken user,” it’s an element that would be broken if given to any viable Pokemon.

The reasoning as per the thread on suspecting Arena Trap states (source):

Also, just to clarify again, this vote will be on Arena Trap rather than just Dugtrio. With only Dugtrio gone, people would almost certainly use Diglett and maybe even Trapinch to exploit Arena Trap. While these Pokemon are terrible, they can still find ways to cheese the opponent (Diglett can still consistently trap Heatran and there is potential for gimmicky Trapinch setups via Trick Room and paraspreading). We do not want to make the same mistake that was made in BW, where Arena Trap had to be banned after only Dugtrio was banned.

I have read the tiering policy guidelines, and I am making the point that we already have precedent for suspecting elements only proven to be problematic on a single user, which were was approved under the same tiering framework you are using in your argument, from which I can only conclude that you can suspect elements only proven to be problematic on a single user in some cases (if the argument is that it was proven stupid in BW which justifies banning it in DPP then that opens up a giant can of worms about justifying bans in one tier because something happens in another tier, which isn't good policy).

 

[Sabelette]

The reasoning as per the thread on suspecting Arena Trap states (source):


I have read the tiering policy guidelines, and I am making the point that we already have precedent for suspecting elements only proven to be problematic on a single user, which were was approved under the same tiering framework you are using in your argument,

There has been a tiering policy framework update since then if you missed it, last edited 2025 in fact

from which I can only conclude that you can suspect elements only proven to be problematic on a single user in some cases (if the argument is that it was proven stupid in BW which justifies banning it in DPP then that opens up a giant can of worms about justifying bans in one tier because something happens in another tier, which isn't good policy).

And yet you keep arguing “well another gen did this about Baton Pass/Arena Trap” which take away fundamental options from the game and force you to change your entire builder for a chance at stopping them. These things are far outside the norm and fundamentally shape the entire game, Sand Attack does not

 

[Wanted in 49 States]

I am rather undecided on Dugtrio and Sand Attack as a whole but I've noticed a large amount of players below UU, notably PU players, chiming in to give their thoughts. Banning Sand Attack would change the ruleset of their tiers, and is rather important to their tier's balance, yet they have no say over it.

UU should not be the sole decider on mechanic bans. People voting on whether an entire mechanic should be banned do not have to account for the ripple effects or greater consequences that such an action will have, and that is a flaw of the system that should be changed. I do not have a concrete solution or suggestion, but allowing people of other tiers to have some influence on whether or not a mechanic will be banned seems to be reasonable, or at least it seems reasonable to the NU/PU/ZU people who will be affected but have no say in the matter.

Lower tiers shouldn't at all be considered in justifying keeping it; higher tiers make tiering decisions that affect lower tiers, that's how it works.

People are complaining about the system itself. You can't justify the system's existence by using its own rules-- people want the system, and its current rules, to change. "It's just how the system works" doesn't mean anything.

It’s irrelevant for both reasons. Lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, and they should have to work in that constraint. Using the logic of #2, you could argue a tier should rig its VRs to drop Pokemon into lower tiers to give them more options and flexibility for how the tier should work. Why shouldn’t Exeggutor be allowed in UU? It probably wouldn’t be broken and could be a net positive for the tier.

I think it's important to note that entire mechanic bans are different than individual pokemon, and if they aren't different right now, they should be considered as different. Banning a mechanic changes the entire playing field, and people should have a say in whether or not the rules of the game they play change. Deleting a mon from a tier's ecosystem or dumping new mons to a tier are different, Pokemon bouncing between tiers and finding a home somewhere is necesary to what the current system's goal is.

Tiering should never evaluate downstream effects... This is what you accept when you choose to play lower and lower tiers - they are a product of what is banned and used above them and you have to accept these influences.

I disagree. It doesn't have to be this way. With tiering individual Pokemon, sure, the system is arranged to facilitate that and it's good at doing that. And sure, having a mechanic be banned should probably be applied downwards to prevent stuff like Wrap Tentacruel in NU and the like. But that doesn't mean the system can't be ammended to allow people who will be directed affected have at least some say in what goes on in the rulesets of their tier.

"But what about tiering policy or precedant set by other generations"
It doesn't matter. RBY lower tiers will never, ever be official tiers that are forced to follow tiering policy, and probably doesn't even want to because being an official tier introduces a ton of red tape. We can do something else. RBY lower tiers have only adapted the current tiering framework because parts of it are effective in creating playable metagames with a large suite of viable mons across the tiers, but we have the power to ammend the framework to better suit our needs.

"Wouldn't XYZ happen if we change the system"
You may be right. We can work on a solution to that, but the current system of a disinterested voting group affecting the ruleset without representation from the affected peoples below is not a good system. People who play the the tier below get screwed, and their concerns should be worth something.

Also I'm seeing a lot of pro-Sand Attack people posting and reacting but not filling out the survey. Please fill it out.

 

[Sabelette]

Banning Sand Attack would change the ruleset of their tiers, and is rather important to their tier's balance, yet they have no say over it.

UU should not be the sole decider on mechanic bans. People voting on whether an entire mechanic should be banned do not have to account for the ripple effects or greater consequences that such an action will have, and that is a flaw of the system that should be changed. I do not have a concrete solution or suggestion, but allowing people of other tiers to have some influence on whether or not a mechanic will be banned seems to be reasonable, or at least it seems reasonable to the NU/PU/ZU people who will be affected but have no say in the matter.

There is no reason someone playing NU/PU/ZU should be allowed to prevent UU from making a beneficial change because they don’t like it in their own tier.

People are complaining about the system itself. You can't justify the system's existence by using its own rules-- people want the system, and its current rules, to change. "It's just how the system works" doesn't mean anything.

I’m not justifying it with the system itself. We already had this discussion in the transitivity thread and people overwhelmingly supported transitivity because it is necessary for tiering to even be functional.

I think it's important to note that entire mechanic bans are different than individual pokemon, and if they aren't different right now, they should be considered as different.

Agree, there is a reason the default is banning mons and not mechanics except when egregious (such as Wrap)

Banning a mechanic changes the entire playing field, and people should have a say in whether or not the rules of the game they play change. Deleting a mon from a tier's ecosystem or dumping new mons to a tier are different, Pokemon bouncing between tiers and finding a home somewhere is necesary to what the current system's goal is.

Banning Wrap changes the entire playing field, sure. Much less convinced this is true of Sand Attack or Confuse Ray, to be honest. I still don't think lower tiers should have any say and I think it creates a perverse incentive.

I disagree. It doesn't have to be this way. With tiering individual Pokemon, sure, the system is arranged to facilitate that and it's good at doing that. And sure, having a mechanic be banned should probably be applied downwards to prevent stuff like Wrap Tentacruel in NU and the like. But that doesn't mean the system can't be ammended to allow people who will be directed affected have at least some say in what goes on in the rulesets of their tier.

They can play the tier in question then. If OU voted tomorrow to ban Body Slam, lower tiers have to cope, but thankfully people don’t usually ban moves or mechanics lightly. Banning Sand Attack would be way too liberal with ban criteria.

"But what about tiering policy or precedant set by other generations"
It doesn't matter. RBY lower tiers will never, ever be official tiers that are forced to follow tiering policy, and probably doesn't even want to because being an official tier introduces a ton of red tape. We can do something else. RBY lower tiers have only adapted the current tiering framework because parts of it are effective in creating playable metagames with a large suite of viable mons across the tiers, but we have the power to ammend the framework to better suit our needs.

Correct, sure, but we are already following all the useful parts of the framework. “Let’s make an arbitrary system where people who play lower tiers get an arbitrary degree of representation in another tier’s votes” is complete nonsense. What portion of the vote should lower tiers get? Does NU get more say than ZU? What proportion does ZU get in a PU vote? Do we give tiers less representation right after they have shifts? Do we have to up the representation if a tier is more established? Do UU players’ votes even matter if three entire other tiers’ playerbases also get a say in UU tiering? Is it fair if UU players vote 90% to ban something but 100% of NU and below players vote against it, and the UU players get vetoed by people not even playing the tier?

If you want something different, you want something fundamentally incompatible with the idea of tiering. That’s fine, but go make that thing instead of trying to bend this tier system into it, because it *cannot be that*. It is fundamentally incompatible with what arguments like this are asking for, which is essentially a series of curated metagames at different power levels that somewhat resemble tiers but make decisions in completely different ways that may as well not be linked - you may as well just pick a core set of pokemon to balance around and then select whatever moves and pokemon you want to legalize within it. If that’s what you want, fine, but it simply cannot coexist with tiering as a system. You’d have better luck making something like 35 Pokes but you choose the Pokemon in question.

 

[virae]

I fundamentally disagree with transitivity of move bans, but since we're there I hope we're careful with move bans. To prevent damaging other tiers, moves only should be banned, if they really have close to no competitive value, or are really problematic and there's no other way. Move bans to maybe marginally improve a metagame are bad in this system.

This also seems to line up with the tiering policy bit sabelette has cited and within this framework I truly see no justification to ban sand attack. I'm not that involved with UU, so I have less of a strong opinion about dugtrio, but in my experience it improves the tier and is neither oppressive nor overly uncompetitive. There's also a lot of value in letting a tier breathe and develop. Especially in UU which had so many drastic changes recently idt we are even on a level of play and tier development to assess dugs metagame impact on a level warranting a ban.

 

[hammer798]

Outside of any concerns about tiering policy or even the banworthiness of Sand Attack and/or Dugtrio, I agree with virae on his last point - give the tier some time to breathe. We have already had three significant tiering changes this year, and have barely given the tier any time to develop and change between them. April 1st - UUBLs freed. This meta saw a single serious tour (UU Open), and then went away forever when we banned Wrap on July 14. That meta saw only two tours, UU Cup and UUCL. On September 23rd, Confuse Ray got banned, and we have seen a grand total of 5 serious tournament sets since, and people are already seriously discussing more bans. If Dugtrio, or Sand Attack, is broken, we'll see it as we get more data, but right now, it feels like people are overreacting to a few silly games.

 

[WildCard782]

I'd argue keep it, all of it, for similar reasons to the ones mentioned above. We're just jumping the gun atp.

 

[Wanted in 49 States]

Survey Results:
How competitive do you think RBY UU is right now?
Average Response: 3.33

What do you think of accuracy-lowering moves? (Sand Attack, Smokescreen, Flash, Kinesis)
Average Response: 2.27

What do you think of Dugtrio?
Average Response: 3.87

8 responses expressed desire to keep accuracy dropping moves, 7 wanted to ban them. Among qualified voters, it was an even split of six in favor and against. Only three people expressed a desire for tiering action on Dugtrio, so no tiering action will happen on it due to low support.
The results don't show a clear consensus, so the UU Council will take the brave decision to do nothing at this moment.

 

[pac]

Numerical Format

1. Hypno
2. Kangaskhan
3. Lapras
4. Dragonite
5. Dodrio
6. Gyarados
7. Haunter
8. Dugtrio
9. Articuno
10. Persian
11. Clefable
12. Raichu
13. Electabuzz
14. Moltres
15. Rapidash
16. Golem
17. Slowbro
18. Ninetales
19. Nidoking
20. Victreebel
21. Tangela
22. Omastar
23. Kadabra
24. Venomoth
25. Electrode
26. Charizard
27. Tentacruel
28. Aerodactyl
29. Poliwrath
30. Arcanine
31. Vaporeon

I have finished playing RBY UU for RBYPL VI, at a record of 4-4. Go Wartortles! Have loved every moment on this team, let's close out the season strong.

After all this time, this was indeed my final RBY UU Tour! You will see me enter RBY OU exclusively henceforth.

Below I have my thoughts on each Pokemon I ranked on the VR, I go very in-depth for some and it contains a lot of my general thoughts on the metagame. Kind of a glimpse into how I look at things on a more macro level, though as the mons get worse I kinda dont care as much to elaborate on them lol they speak for themselves a lot of the time.

Attached to this post I also have a full team dump featuring what I am pretty sure is every team I either used, considered using, or simply built for discussion. Should be 48 total, might be some accidental repeats my apologies if so. All of them should be labeled. Note some of them were meant for specific scouts, early in the tour, or are just bad so look through at your own desire.

VR/UU Metagame Thoughts

1. Hypno
Hypno is the clear #1, anyone who's played or spectated the tier already understands why. It's very problematic but I'll let someone more invested start argument for its removal. It single handedly warps the early game in a certain direction thanks to its bulk and dual status, with Hypno dittos being high-variance game deciders. Also, one of the best answers to Lapras. I have been dropping SToss more as the tour has gone on, in favor of Hypnosis Psy TWave Rest, and if I don't need Hypnosis or Rest I'd rather use Counter. SToss doesn't accomplish much besides being consistent dmg in the ditto, but simply clicking Psychic in the mirror is more than fine and doesn't allow Kang entries on SToss.

2. Kangaskhan; 3. Lapras
Big contention points on the list, many (possibly most?) will rank Lap 2 followed by Kang 3 or 4. In my opinion, Hypno Lap Kang teams are about mandatory and there's typically few reasons to deviate. Between Lapras and Kang, I think Lapras provides more opportunities to play around its threats while Kangaskhan is absolutely going to force the progress. With Lapras, once sleep clause is up especially its options to click are typically between Blizzard or TBolt which allows the opponent to make plays with their Hypno, Lapras, or Electrics to stop Lapras from progressing the game-state much and forcing the Lapras to retreat or trade. On the other hand, very few things can answer a Kangaskhan Body Slam turn without risking the game or a mon on the spot. Once a Kangaskhan is in the position to press the button it is instantly accelerating the match from the early-mid game and sometimes this first slam can win the match if its a crit as its often a death sentence or whatever mon is on the receiving end. Hail Mary Hyper Beams are also annoyingly difficult to answer. Kangaskhan also has higher peaks with its moveset variance. Lapras does have some moveset variety, the current popular set is Blizz TBolt Sing Rest but moves like Body Slam and Reflect do have their place. Body Slam does allow Lapras to have a stronger midground option to mediate the problem I mentioned earlier, but can risk wasting a turn on a non-para and gives up something valuable. However, I think you don't gain as much of an insane advantage from a successful application of one of these less common moves as you do with Kangaskhan's coverage moves. Body Slam and Hyper Beam of course being mandatory, Kangaskhan has the options of Earthquake Counter Blizzard and Rock Slide. Lots of variance and each of these can swing games or secure otherwise unfavored endgames on the spot, and they all demand respect.

Lapras is still obviously very good, and is generally used on every single team as well. It has only gotten better as the tour has gone on, as players have gotten generally better at preserving it for the later parts of the match to ensure that you aren't open wide for Articuno and it's a very hard mon to sweep through. Sing is also just an incredibly dumb button. I think the main reason why Lapras is so mandatory is just that having it single handedly glues every team together, dropping it causes a ton of holes that you have to work around and while it can work I have yet to see a Lapless team that I am genuinely interested in using.


4. Dragonite
This is a Pokemon that I think actually has potential to be lower than this, but for now I would leave it here as my lowering opinions on it are quite recent. Dragonite has fantastic defensive role compression, shoreing you up into Dugtrio Persian Electrics and Fires. The issue I have with Dragonite, and why I would absolutely not have it over Kangaskhan like some people have it, is that can often finds games where it is a liability. The first 3 mons are applicable in about every single game, while Dragonite has a case of 4MSS that causes problems. Without Agility, you're slow and similar to Lapras the button you select can often be punished and in Dragonite's case you're often threatened with an immediate OHKO or similar. Dragonite simply cedes momentum to the opponent constantly, and its dmg output isnt quite strong enough to make up for this. Its defensive prowess and ability to succeed in certain states is definitely great, but I do think there are mons that more actively push you towards a win than Dragonite. Lately I've really been thinking about this mon in the context of when I need a Dug check rather than the all-encompassing threat I used to view it as. Lead Dragonite is also fraudulent to me atm I think, for most of this tour it was one of the most popular leads and it was both finalists most used lead going into it. It has a good on paper MU spread, but very quickly puts you in a scenario where a well-positioned Lapras sits infront of you and either Blizzards for the OHKO or Sings, which either sleeps the Dragonite OR sleeps a key piece for free and now you still have to deal with that Lapras while having your Dragonite as one of your remaining mons. More mons force better positions from the lead than Dragonite does.

5. Dodrio
Genuinely don't know what all to say about this Pokemon, as its very cut and dry why this thing is so good. It will always be good for similar reasons to why it has always been good. Similar strengths to Kangaskhan, advantage of Speed and Agility but downside of more polarizing matchups. Good lead, good midgame breaker, good endgame threat.

6. Gyarados
Oh Gyarados. This guy has some of the highest highs of the tier. The biggest thing I'd like to focus on is its unique ability to force a trade with a Lapras that intends to stay in the back. Gyarados' moves are very hard to answer outside of Lapras so its pretty easy to either trade tbolts it, which is a absolutely fantastic trade value-wise. They can try to come in on tbolt with an elec if they have it, but in that scenario you can threaten slam and on para you can essentially count their electric as dead.

7. Haunter
One of the swingiest mons, forces dmg incredibly well especially if they're Dugless. Off lead or after a Lead 1v1, it comes in and 60% of the time its getting Sleep then flinging off Night Shades into the incoming mons and forcing a Boom. Hypno is often forced to come in and booming on Hypno and forcing it to Rest early after having already securing a Sleep is just so insanely strong. 40% of the time this thing is just fucking dead though so... Yk. Also ofc has the Persian MU but Im not as high on Persian as others.

8. Dugtrio
Big Dug is the only remaining survivor of the previous big 3 in Kad Tent Dug, and it generally does the same things and has the same strong matchups as before just with the general increased bulk being obviously unfavorable for it. Dugtrio has decided to counter cringe with cringe with the popular EQ RS SandAttack Sub set. The advantage of this is less the games where it just sets up sub and sweeps through the would-be Dug check with sand attack gng, which does happen on occasion and caused some outrage. The big thing is that instead you can apply it to the dug check to safely work something in like a Lap or a Kang and put yourself in an advantageous scenario. This is unreliable though obv as this can sometimes just not work due to the nature of an acc dropping move.

9. Articuno
Another high variance mon. Its hard to build a team that is specifically strong into Cuno outside of Rest Lapras, though a well-played Lapras is generally good enough to secure versus it. However, if something unfortunate happens to the Lapras or it is forced to show itself early and make plays that result in it taking enough dmg, Articuno can just outright win once revealed. It not being in the match still forces plays thanks to lack of team preview, which to me is enough to place it up here. It does have the most games where its deadweight compared to everything about it, but if you can successfully execute the Articuno gameplan its incredibly strong. RS Kang exists basically just for this thing.

10. Persian
Only so many ways you can talk about a fast strong Normal-type being good, so I'll focus on the negatives and why Persian #3. Biggest issue is its dmg output being reliant on Slash, so unlike Kang or Dodo its dmg is too consistent in a sense. You lack the advantage of throwing out your easy to click progress maker and randomly just winning an entire piece. In addition, the poor Haunter MU is generally more relevant than Dodrio's poor Golem MU, though you could also argue Persian can at least break through Haunter if chipped or slept while Dodrio cant do much to Golem unless its like slept and at 20. However, the Speed tier is incredibly significant, being so fast you can revenge kill unpara'd Electric types. This alone will always give it a place, and ofc some scouts will let it be stronger than the aforementioned Dodrio.

11. Clefable
Mostly focusing on Lead Clefable, as Back Clefable is strong on paper but hasnt seen much use this tour so can't speak on it. In the lead, has generally good MUs and is similar to Lead Haunter in practice. Somehow has a less consistent sleep game than fucking Haunter, being slow and having Sing, but you get the advantage of increased dmg/coverage around the board, paralysis, and a wide movepool variety. Good at guaranteeing a trade even if the sleep click doesnt go well unlike Haunter. Both it and Haunter have the potential to either just fucking die or go 1 for 2 with the lead and a key piece.

12. Raichu; 13. Electabuzz
Electric-types are useful for obvious reasons and find their way onto a LOT of teams. Being able to pivot on Lapras or Gyara TBolts and threaten paralysis or dmg is very useful. Hypno is also kind of a fake check to these things with crits and the like involved. However, I have them down here as everything above this is filled with mons that are significantly more cringe and can gain more value from RNG and the like especially. An Electric-type is respectfully performing its duties and dipping, while everything else is just randomly winning games. Raichu>Electabuzz for stronger MUs and access to Agility simply, the speed difference isnt too important. Both are good.

14. Moltres; 15. Rapidash

Moltres could be higher I think but would need to see it be abused to its absolute potential. Both Fires are good for consistent dmg and have good endgames and lead scenarios where it just cranks out dmg (assuming the fblasts fucking land lol) and get extra credit on the next mon thanks to Agility. Big diff between these and the elecs is that Fires extra credit is just dmg while Elecs get to guarantee status. Other than that just typical good MUs you would expect from a fire-type mon, eat shit Kangaskhan. Moltres is kind of Articuno pilled and like 3HKOs Lapras which is cool but Fire Blast is just ultimate a worse button than Blizzard about that simple.

16. Golem

This is a very hard mon to place. I think I have it on the low side for sure, it could be as high as like top 10 depending on your perspective of the game. Its very much carried by its two most polarizing MUs, Electrics and Dodrio, and is generally a good idea to present this mon in your scout as a question to the opponent to deter certain reprehensible actions in the builder but it can also find games where its slow specially weak ass never comes in and just kinda shifts around till it fucking dies either by getting a boom off or getting sacked somewhere. High highs and demands respect and usage but low lows where you cant spam it.

17. Slowbro

Weird this thing is so low. I think it could rise with time but it does demand a bit of a different teambuilding style, I think this often lands itself on those Lapless or Kangless teams which Im not a fan of which could be why I view this thing the way I do. Having it on your team is a great asset as you instantly increase the bulk of your team significantly and shore up against RNG, and it is one of the very very few semi-reliable answers to a Kangaskhan Body Slam. However, it also opens the door to a lot of cringe MUs and setting up Amnesia endgames is a hit or miss. I think it could be worth experimenting with some Fc-pilled Bros that are more midgame centered and feature Counter or SToss and the like. Definitely much to be developed with this mon.

18. Ninetales

This thing is perfectly fine but the lack of Agility makes it hard to justify compared to the other two Fires. It does its job perfectly fine though. Not much to say here. Back Ninetales is fine.

19. Nidoking

I am incredibly Nidoking pilled, it was my most used lead this tour and I think Back Nidoking also should have usage. Its biggest advantage over the other ground is that its MU spread is just so even across the board. Its great at forcing a trade with SOMETHING, its not going 2 for 1 or applying some meaningful status which keeps it all the way down here but the lack of polarizing MUs is very strong. Hypno, Dragonite, Gyarados, Lapras, are all being outsped and Nidoking is tanking at least 1 hit and throwing super effective dmg/crits into it. It has solid MUs in the lead, doing fine into Rapidash, Electrics, Dragonite, Gyarados, Haunter, etc. Clefable and Kang leads sucks but hey everything has bad MUs. It tanks 1 Lapras Blizz from full compared to Dug which is act pretty huge. Kangaskhan is a problematic MU though as it outspeeds Nido and doesnt take too much dmg from Nido which is bad since Kangaskhan is well... Kangaskhan. Thought about using Fire Blast for the first Kang switch in? Nido's 4th is pretty flexible could be neat. This is just a very solid mon at taking advantage of the TWave Immunity and going ham with it. Does not shore up any MUs as strong as a Dug or a Golem though.

20. Victreebel; 21. Tangela

Good brings into certain scouts/matchups but hard to justify compared to other threats and can both flop for different reasons. Victreebel is good when it works but is just a MU check ultimately. Gives too much to Nite and is slow as fuck. My issue with Tangela is that while when it works its a consistent Sleep in a tier with no good consistent Sleepers, if it doesnt land the Dugtrio MU it can struggle to do much thats beneficial beyond that and you're not exactly clamoring for Dugtrio checks in this tier. However I can see an approach to the tier where you value this highly and don't use much Dragonite. Both are about as good just depends on the MU you get, I rank Vic higher as I think checking Elec-Bro teams might be a more often beneficial asset than what Tangela brings.

22. Omastar

I almost ranked Gomastar in UU below around the Grasses, it is incredibly underrated. The absolute worst case scenario it gets is trading STosses into Lap, which is nice compared to a Vap or Gong which has shit all to do in that MU and would both otherwise see more use, but in the best case scenario it has a ton of strong matchups. Checking Art Molt and Dodo one mon is a huge asset. And even into MUs where its not checking persay it has huge DMG output and a normal resist that gives it opportunities to come in and trade with mons like Kang, Persian, Nite, etc. It also ofc has the god MU into double Birds teams which do exist. However the Lapras MU is just so incredibly unfortunate and centralizing and holds this thing back. I could reasonably rank this around as high as 18 though.

23. Kadabra
Oh how the mighty have fallen. The biggest asset of this mon is constantly trading with opposing Hypno or Buzz to open your own Hypno to pretend its an actual mon with strengths and desires. This is a useful trait so it goes here, but I also think you can just never run this and be perfectly okay and not lose too much. Everything above this I think should at least be proposed on your scout.

I do not care enough about the rest of these Pokemon. They're usually pretty obvious in why they would be good, note Aero might be better and some players are pushing its usage on certified Defensive Play teams but I haven't seen it too much and on paper I am not a fan of the vision. Another quirky Dug check I guess? Simply doesn't fit as well into the modern metagame as it did in times of old.

RBYPL VI Self-Scout

Personal/Team Thoughts

I greatly enjoyed my time on the Washed Wartortles. Everyone on that team is lovely and very supportive of everyone, and we had a great time both helping prep in the other slots and just shooting the shit about life and other games and I found myself just simply excited to talk in the teamcord. Scep and Nicole are great managers, I love that they picked up a lot of the Magmar homies from last year and I would love to team for them again next RBYPL (though hopefully in OU).

I am done with RBY UU. Forever. This tier is unforgiveable RNG slop that rewards bad plays, bad strategies, genuinely unforgiveable crits and is an absolute hell to play if you care at all about your competitive performance. The Hypno/Lap sleep dynamics is some of the most frustrating gameplay I've experienced in any video game ever. One mistake or an unfortunate 50/50 or someone does the JensenDale (land sing thru para for those unaware) and it is just GG go next. I have spent 5 years playing this tier and I wish never to return. We've tried several times to fix it and I dont feel like relearning a tier every 6 months when the tier does not help to progress my skill as a player. The pool was also very weak this tour which I think is due to a lack of dedicated UU players the same way the other tiers have those. It should be removed from future team tournaments, and I think we would actively gain more as a community from this than being forced to play this godawful tier.

 

[phoopes]

View attachment 790921

Gather 'round kids! Let grandpa tell you a tale of how Tentacruel used to be #1 in UU

 

[ThatOneApple]

Alrighty, first RBYPL and its a win with me having a 6-2 record (top of the pool baybeee). Gotta give out a big thanks to Amaranth and Fragments for drafting me, as well as thanks to ButtGallon Wanted in 49 States pac gastlies and yimb for helping me build and test throughout the season. Couldnt have gotten the win without yall . Now for my thoughts on the VR as the time for that is coming up, so without further ado.

S Rank

Hypno Rant

This thing is the "best" thing in the tier, but thats mainly just because its absolutely required to not just lose out on the ridiculous progress it makes. I kinda despise its presence because unlike stuff like Golduck in PU or Mr Mime in NU, its a trade bot with access to sleep AND thunder wave. Duck and Mime can at least somewhat reliably trade for one another without needing to sack something else, but Hypno can very realistically just go 2 for 1 depending on who needs to be sleep sacked or if it just kills the mon that you try to sleep sack. It also feels like it kinda separates the lead from the rest of the team as it makes it hard to differentiate from the gameplan of Play Lead MU -> Go Hypno and do as much damage as possible -> Play the remaining 4 mons like a normal person. Of course, you CAN deviate from this, but the teams that can afford to or even want to are pretty few and far between. Not to mention how flowcharty the method of checking it is even if it doesnt end up getting a sleep. Most of the time you just have the hypnos trade tosses and then do whatever to get Kang in because this is the safest way to check it. Just for the sake of getting to the other mons, ill summarize this rq.
TLDR: Hypno feels like the primary reason for the tier being kinda dull rn, as the gameplay it forces is pretty samey while Hypno itself doesnt really do much beyond be a PU Golduck that can sleep stuff so you cant safely trade it for itself.

This on the other hand is a really cool guy, its kinda broken in the usual definition of the term but the amount of nice things it adds to the tier means idt we could ever consider banning it. Quick PSA, body slam sucks. There are about 1.2 situations where its actually worth clicking but not having Sing or Rest in favor of it is stupid. Surf is a passable option if the scout shows a lot of fires but the only time thats rlly relevant is with Back Tales which saw like no usage in this tour. I suppose it also helps w dugs trying to pp stall Blizz tho so thats nice. Another set i've enjoyed is Reflect Rest. Amaranth mentioned it to me while i was making one of my teams and I couldnt help but notice how much it dunks on a lot of the physical offense in the tier. Persion is mildly annoying but thats nothing major and if it gets parad then u just eat it. As a whole, Lap Good, Lap Fun, We Love Lap.

A1 Rank

This thing is definitely #3, but i dont think its near the same level as Lap like some others think. Thanks to Wanted and Gastlies for shaking me out of that thought process bc holy hell was i weak to special attackers. Anyways, despite its flaws its still a nice mon to have with its blend of offense and defense letting it check a lot of the physical offense in the tier. Slam Beam Quake Blizz is easily the best set but dropping one of quake or blizz for counter is a good mix up if you need to punish a Hyper Beam aimed at your Hypno. Overall a scary mon that u gotta watch out for but the near omnipresence of Lap combined with a rise of Special offense kinda hamper it.


Some people call this bad when dug isnt present but I think that is very untrue and if anything is nice because it makes Dnite much more flexible. Its damage is pretty similar to Kangs with the main drawback being its speed and Ice weakness. Both of these hurt but Kang isnt exactly the Ice eater of the tier either. Regardless, the big boon it has is its Fire Resistance and access to thunder wave, as well as a beefier overall bulk that makes it quite annoying for a good bit of the offense mons in the tier. Its my go to mon to slot on Kangless structures that kinda just seem better and better as time goes on. Overall, rlly proud of this guy for going to rehab for his wrap addiction, he came out a good and honest man.

For the sake of reducing clutter (and because most of the remaining mons arent nearly as majoy as these 4 imo), the rest of the ranks will be condensed.

A2

Fastest mon in the whole tier and immune to para, cant possibly go wrong with that. Provides great insurance against elecs and Haunter while being nice for picking off a low Normal. Its not a big fan of how prevalent Dnite is but the structures I toss it on can afford to fit stuff that bully its checks pretty well. Plus, at the end of the day, forcing Buzz to click slam is a pain for the Buzz.


Speaking of Buzz, this guy is also rlly nice. 105 speed tier is rlly nice to have, especially on a Twaver. Its access to psychic is nice for the Poison guys that people sometimes use for the elecs (Vic and Nidoking), while its ability for fitting slam is nice for punishing Dugtrios coming in over and over. Nice guy for pressuring Lap too, so all around some nice traits for this guy.


Scary clicker machine with scary endgame potential. Lead isnt bad but people really gotta get this thing in the back more often. When its facing down a chipped team, it could easily be game over with a well timed Agility. Not much else to say rlly this guys just scary.


Evil ass ghost that kills you. If youve been dodging your Dugtrio taxes, this man will kick your door down to collect. Simple set of Night Shade Tbolt Hypnosis and Explosion can take names. Fastest Sleeper in the tier is nothing to sleep on, and people who pretend Hypno is a switch in are in for a rude awakening as Shade Shade puts it in beam range, or just range of its own boom. Dont sleep on the Haunt, or he'll put you to sleep.

B1

This thing has some notable ups and downs over Buzz, but overall I felt its speed tier is just a little bit more annoying to use even if it is a smidge stronger. Namely, speed tying dodo instead of beating it is rather annoying. It does have some cool uses tho. Its much more able to take Twave given its access to Agility, and Surf means that it can more immediately threaten Dugtrio. Overall Id just say this is a Buzz thats a little more polarized in its mu spread, but man if it hits, it hits goooood.


This guys a bit clunky to use but some people barely used it at all (myself included) and im not sure why. This guy completely shits on Cuno/Molt stuff if its alive. The main issue it has is that slotting it w Hypno and Lap is bound to go poorly so I guess its weird to fit. But if the elecs on the scout are looking slim and you feel the need to pay the taxes to avoid getting Birded, Slowbro is your man.


Provides a nice source of speed for revenging Elecs while not being as easy to stopgap as dug due to a nice STAB slash. The problem is that the mon itself is not immune to para and thus has to avoid users of it like the plague. This is a major issue when Dragonite is one of the best mons around. It also has issues with Dugtrio revenging it if its chipped, or Haunter just existing. These factors make it a bit weird to use even if it has some cool ups.


Simple and easy lead. It clicks buttons, it gets damage, it dies and you get the game going. Not much else to say just nice for setting the pace of the game and being easy to use.


This is why i spam Rest Lap. Articuno is a demon if your lap is dead or super low so people should be paying their Slowbro taxes a little more generously. If you dont expect this mon in the back it will get you.

B2

This mon is weird because its a dragonite that functions like Kang while being pretty decent at trading with Lap. I dont know what else to say other than its profile is similar to that of Dnite while also trolling Dnite with 1 extra base speed. Lower attack means it doesnt have as easy of a time clicking and no twave rlly stings.


This guys an asshole. Who thought giving a Normal sleep and para was a good idea? AND it has Blizz? evil evil evil. People mainly used this as a lead bc its pretty annoying into all of the common leads, but I think a back set could also be quite annoying. Its low speed kinda hurts it a lot as even Hypno is faster than it, but dont underestimate it, a Normal with dual status is a normal with Dual Status.


Ngl I kinda flipped my script on this and cuno, now this is the one with higher highs and lower lows. Firespam as a style has always seemed clunky to me but this things raw bulk and power make it quite demonic in the right MU. Main draw it has over Cuno is that Lap doesnt sit on it so it can theoretically farm teams a little more often. Problem is fire resists are more common these days which stinks.


I dont got a lot to say here other than I feel people have been looking at this mon the wrong way. A lot of the time its seemed like a Rapidash that speed ties dodo, but Id like to view it as a Moltres that doesnt speed tie Kang and can come in on Lap in a pinch. That is to say its typically better in the back. Lead is ofc fine as the higher power over Dash isn useful in mu's like Haunter or the occaisional Nidoking or Venomoth, but I think back is where its at.


Passive as fuck but its defensive profile mixed with its dual status makes it a big piece of garbage to dance around, while also letting it enable some goofy ass structures in a similar manner to slowbro. Only that it fucks up elecs and Dug instead of the birds.


This guy kinda blows but we all gotta pay our dodo tax sometimes. Also kinda annoying w some paras spread but meh.

UU/NU Cutoff

C1

Kinda been down on this mon bc of how weird it is. Faster sleeper than hypno that checks elecs will always be a nice blend of traits but the issue is it gets parad by the elecs and now everything youre supposed to dumpster dumpsters you.


This guy is a menace into people who love Dnite but has a real awkward time if it cant get itself in front of one. It was better in the middle of the tour when people actually used lead Dnite but now that thats over its rather weird to get Nidoking to do much beyond maybe trading.


This thing isnt unusable or anything bc the speed tier + stab psychic and twave is still cool. Its just weird to use bc it explodes to any physical hit and its hard to avoid para. Still a nice alternative to dug for paying the haunt tax tho.


For those who dodge their taxes when it comes to dugtrio (or yknow, people who pay the dug tax every game and now want to try smth cheesy to catch people off guard). Pretty weird mon but that speed w twave and boom is funny.


This guy can sometimes pull some strings and force a Lap trade depending on the scout, otherwise it can probably just beat up something and trade with that. Not something I personally considered at all but i respect its niche enough to toss it here.


Decently fast lead w sleep and para that u can just sack to sleep after it gets the status's. Kind of a silly goofy option, but how can ya hate 75% Accurate sleep?

C2

All of these mons have small niches in the meta but they are all incredibly scout reliant so its hard to find a time to actually bring them. Regardless, they do have some interesting possible use cases so maybe someone can explore them more in the future.

For the sake of the VR update, here's my VR with numbers instead of ranks

Numbered VR.

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
11)
12)
13)
14)
15)
16)
17)
18)
19)
UU/NU Cutoff
20)
21)
22)
23)
24)
25)
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29)
30)

 

[Maris Bonibell]

Hiya rby lowtier fans, we're gathering viability rankings once more. UU will update its VR. Like last time, the data will be interpreted with the Vapicuno method.
Requisites to vote were awarded for meeting at least one of the following criteria:

UUCL won 1 game, played 3
Maris Bonibell
magialice
Wanted in 49 States
Teh
Sabelette
THE_CHUNGLER
Melbelle

UU Cup Semifinals
Wanted in 49 States
ThatOneApple
PKMN Master™
ButtGallon

RoA Spotlight Finalists
GirlsSeeGhosts
Wanted in 49 States
WildCard782

Won 1 game RBYPL, played 3
Fc
pac
ThatOneApple
JensenDale
Shellnuts
Mrbanana45
yimb
dunoks
Melbelle​

To submit a VR, post your VR in this thread, or privately message me here or on discord (@marisbonibelle). For the sake of the method used to create VRs, only your numerical rankings count, so your choices for individual ranks (S, A+, B3, etc.) are irrelevant, but you may include them if you wish. Data on submissions will be released to the public after the VR is released. The Tiermaker can be seen here, but an ordered list is also acceptable. Cutoffs will be decided by the council by looking at voter's submissions, and unless another tier cutoff is specified, C will be interpreted as the start of Pokemon not ranked in UU. If you think you should be getting reqs but I forgot, please tell me as soon as possible!

The deadline will be two weeks from now on December 21th, 11:59 UTC-7.

Thanks to Volk because I stole his template from Wanted in 49 States(again).

 

[Sabelette]

pings in case you didnt get one:
Maris Bonibell
magialice
Wanted in 49 States
Teh
Sabelette
THE_CHUNGLER
Melbelle
ThatOneApple
PKMN Master™
ButtGallon
GirlsSeeGhosts
WildCard782
Fc
pac
JensenDale
Shellnuts
Mrbanana45
yimb
dunoks

 

[magialice]

my rby uu vr + reasons

Hypno - hypno is #1. i'm liking rest hypno a lot more recently think it is much better than sleepless lap if you have something like haunter or a grass that can do second sleep(ty river). he's #1 not much else to say. i'll be skipping over things if there isn't anything to say about them.
Lapras - i don't think lapless is particularly good. lapras does so much damage to everything, beats pretty much everything bar hypno one-on-one, and you kinda also hate to swap out of it because the thing coming in is probably taking a lot of damage. the only real flaws is it slow and does lose to hypno but that is a very small thing compared to the benefit imo. it does just end up trading into the opposing lap half the time though(which is kinda also a good reason to use it).
Kangaskhan - solid into everything. incredibly solid pokemon. she's mrs solid. she midgrounds literally everything. wanted's made some cool kangless teams that i like more than pretty much every lapless team ive seen, and dodo can do like most of a kang bar rock mu and being blown to smithereens by lapras, and is faster which can help, so it's more droppable than lapras.

Dragonite + Gyarados - these are the best dug switchins in the tier making them good. they're both big bulky guys who do damage. they're kinda similar. gyara feels like the better pokemon whenever there isn't an elec on the opponent's team, it does the dug stuff dnite does, it actually lives a hit from lap(not well though), it's nicer into blizz kang, and beats dragonite one-on-one. the loss of twave does suck quite a bit though. i've been using quite a bit of waterless gyara, and im coming to the conclusion waterless gyara is mostly worse dnite. why'd everyone figure this out without me. gyara's main benefit is being much better into fires because of its water stab. you are gonna need a swap to elecs anyway with gyara unfortunately though, so dnite is still probably better.
Dugtrio - the elec swap in question. it's the best fastmon, the best ground, and probably the 4th best pokemon. between its critrate and sub spamming on inaccurate moves, dug is also probably the #1 rng fisher in the tier, this is good because if you have more hax opportunities than your opponent, you will probably hax more(good). im putting this above gyara and dnite because you're using them in large part because you accept that dugtrio is incredibly strong, and will probably rock you if you don't have them or something like it.
Dodrio - while on the topic of getting rocked, this is the #2 rng fisher in the tier. that's mainly why he's above persian, because persian cannot rng fish very well due to slash. the speed stat compared to persian isn't too important i don't think. in uucl i used a dug or persian on every team and that was definitely super overkill, dodrio does most of the fastmon stuff anyway because the faster stuff is usually relegated to lead. better in the back due to that. persian losing to haunter feels worse than dodo losing to rocks also.

Haunter - use this in the back. good pokemon in the back though.
Clefable - moderately bulky gal who does a moderate amount of damage. good lead i have admittedly not tried out backclef yet though. light screen clef is really funny.
Rapidash - this is an excellent lead, but there are so many usable leads(dnite dodo clef this buzz nido tent kang if you're desperate) that i don't wanna put a dedicated lead too high. sure it loses to dnite but if it gets burnt you're gonna mostly kill it. otherwise it does pretty well into everyone at lead bar tent especially with burn/crit luck. good on firespam with molt.
Moltres - good on firespam with dash.
Slowbro - i feel like slowbro is very underexplored, this guy cannot be bad. he kinda beats hypno anyway with psychic, and is the bastion of Defensive UU Play due to it stopping rest mons from walling you forever. i don't think you're thatt weak to elecs if you just throw a dnite or a dugtrio, maybe a grass on your team. he also owns birds which is huge.

Raichu - kinda hard to fit, probably will not end up sweeping. im not a big fan.
Victreebel - i guess it isn't that great..
Electabuzz - this was the most used lead in rbypl but i think it's really not that great. lead dodo which is the good matchup for it has fallen off a lot since it started being a thing, lead nido is now kinda a thing, and clef and dnite will para it. it's okay into dash and good into tent too but like tent isn't that important, and it also suffers from only really being a lead like dash does.
Tangela - the second bastion of Defensive UU Play. i will solve lap/hyp/tang/slowbro/rock +1. she sure can free a moveslot for rest hypno and check dug and elecs at the cost of doing zero damage. im rooting for her.
Tentacruel - he went from the top of uu to the bottom of uu. this is my cutoff for uu/nu.

Omastar - sure can check normals okay with reflect.
Kadabra - reflect kad is the best sleepsack in the tier because it gets recover(good move). if you specifically want someone to get slept reflect kad is your guy. if you do want him to get slept though he can do literally nothing else. hyper beaming a kad t1 with dodo is so much fun.

also wanna add im loving rby uu and am very excited to play in altpl.

 

[yimb]

Hello. I was not going into RBYPL VI expecting to play UU, but I'm glad I did and am thankful for the opportunity. Special thanks to boomp, Maris Bonibell, Melbelle, pac, ThatOneApple, and Wanted in 49 States for the practice.

I'm going to try and give my thoughts on these Pokémon because this is something I am allowed to do. Generally, the better the Pokémon, the less I feel I need to say about it. Not much to say about Lapras, you and I both know it's pretty good.

S

Hypno is the best Pokémon in the format and all teams should have one. Access to double status, being reasonably bulky, and STAB Psychic are its best traits. I do not think you need me to tell you this. Some people think it should be banned, but I am neutral about these things. It could probably have its own tier, but I'm not doing that twice.

Lapras is also very good, but I will say not as much so as Hypno since there are actually teams that are OK with not running it.

A1

Kangaskhan gets a tier all to herself. I had wavered either on putting it in S or both it and Dragonite in A1, I think I've settled on the right choice, not that it actually matters since only numerical rankings count.

A2

While not loving its matchups against the top three, Dragonite is absolutely stellar against most of the rest of the format.

Electabuzz is the best electric type simply because there are more ways in which you can use it. It doesn't do as much damage as Raichu, but is a good lead and has better matchups.

The fastest sleeper, although unfortunately reliant on Hypnosis. It doesn't take hits all too well either, so it loses a lot more from missing than Hypno does, and most teams already cover sleep with Hypno and Lapras. Its normal immunity is also only so valuable when Kangaskhan can 2HKO with Earthquake and Dodrio nearly always does with Drill Peck, and is faster. I know that I haven't had a lot of good to say about Haunter, but that's just because its bad traits stick out more to me and doesn't mesh well with how I personally like to play (skill issue). It's still very good, and can make a lot of progress when used correctly.

Dodrio is kind of like a Dugtrio that's immune to Earthquake instead of Thunderbolt. They're both fast, frail, have three heads, and finish off weakened opponents. Unfortunately, 100 speed is rather slow for a fastmon, and unlike Dugtrio is not immune to Thunder Wave. Other pluses are Agility and STAB Hyper Beam and Drill Peck. Also, you can lead with it. You cannot lead with Dugtrio.

Like Dodrio, it is fast but too often not fast enough. Surf isn't as valuable as it seems; Dugtrio is the most prominent ground type, but it still comes out on top against Raichu since it's faster and 2HKOS, and Electabuzz can potentially paralyze Dugtrio with Body Slam on an expected switch-in, which is much more damaging to it in the long term than 2/3 of its HP. I suppose that the OHKO on Golem is nice, if you're expecting your opponent to run Golem. Agility is its best 4th. Seismic Toss does marginally more damage compared to Surf in most cases, and Surf can crit.

B1

Fast, does damage, gets the game going.

By far the weakest of the three normals. While Slash does good damage, the damage taken by Persian itself outweighs it heavily. Dugtrio and Dodrio also have these problems, but the former is faster and immune to Thunder Wave, and the latter can paralyze with Body Slam, can hit Haunter and grass types, and take advantage of its high crit-rate. The Haunter matchup is especially awkward, as neither do great damage to the other, but Haunter still usually comes out on top.

Slowbro's problems in UU are much the same as they are in the other tiers it's in. Takes a while to get it going, and at any point can be absolutely ruined by a critical hit. Still, Amnesia is obviously good, and it takes physical hits nicely.

It doesn't like the prevalence of Lapras, but that's just one Pokémon. Articuno does really good special damage.

Ninetales is slower than Rapidash, but it does more damage. Much like with Electabuzz and Raichu, the former is more important. Unlike Rapidash though, it can be used in the back.

B2

I'm not completely sold on Gyarados. Usually, I just wish I were using Dragonite instead.

Another lead, but better at spreading status than doing damage.

Here's the last fire type, following the pattern of the last two, more power but less speed.

I have not been impressed by Tangela since it does approximately zero damage. I do think it is useful to remember, though, that putting something to sleep is sort of like an OHKO, and golly, Tangela sure can put something to sleep. Tangela would be ranked a lot higher if there weren't four better Pokémon that can also induce sleep, with most teams running more than one.

C1

I ended up using Venomoth a lot more than Tangela, but I still think it's worse. Unlike Tangela, it can function as a lead, but really, really does not like missing Sleep Powder.

Absolutely great into Dodrio, but unfortunately there are other Pokémon in the format as well. Golem does not enjoy being both the slowest Pokémon in the format and taking severe (a lot of) damage from almost every decently powerful special attack. And to top it all off, unlike his uncle in OU, this tier has an electric type that can actually hit him.

In spite of its performance the two games it was run against me, Electrode not great, not too good. You're getting the most out of it when you're blowing it up with its base 50 attack.

You can lead Nidoking when you think you're opponent is going to lead Dragonite or Electabuzz. Your opponent can also switch out or just lead something else.

C2

Like Slowbro, in a way; same problems here as in OU, except even worse here since no Wrap and most of UU outspeeds it.

Kadabra does not like all the strong physical attackers, and as a Pokémon that wants to stay around for a long time, does not like that it's possible for its speed stat to magically disappear when its opponent uses a move called Thunder Wave or Body Slam.

Worse Dodrio. So far apart that the comparison doesn't feel right. Faster, but no STAB. The normal resist means very little when Body Slam can paralyze it on the switch, and anything that runs a normal type move also runs a move that Aerodactyl does not like, which is nearly every other move.

Poliwrath is the flaws of every other Pokémon I've ranked as C bundled in a nice little package. Slow, needs to get sleep off (with an even less accurate move), ruined by crits, does no damage, takes all the damage. Amnesia cannot save this poor thing.

There are definitely worse Pokémon that people have used, but I've decided not to rank anything that I have not fought against or used myself.

 

[THE_CHUNGLER]

I enjoyed playing UU in UUCL and played a lot in rbypl with my teammates, even if there are some things that frustrate me about the tier like the low accuracy sleep moves on slow pokemon, it’s still a blast to play. I’ll just talk about some mons i might have a different view on than the rest of the community


I’ve kind of fallen in love with this mon, specifically amnesia but the set should always be tailored to your team. This is great as slowbro has a bunch of options: blizzard, seismic toss, amnesia, rest, and counter are all good. I understand why amnesia isn’t used much right now, but holy shit it can be an absolute game stealer when your opponent misplays around it (getting something they need to break the restloop paralyzed) or just lead the game down very forced paths that can be exploited (opponent tries to switch on the obvious rest turn and gets their kang paralyzed/hit with a boosted attack).

Even when you don’t factor in amnesia sets, if you don’t use this Mon, you are very liable to getting spammed with fires and articuno that shred through teams without a solid resist (or when Lapras is dead in cuno’s case). Dnite can only do so much vs fires when you need to preserve at least some health for Dugtrio/haunter, and slowbro is massively able to reverse the momentum on these fires. Even if bro gives a hypno entry early game, hypno is often forced to try and hit hypnosis through paralysis while slowbro either boosts with amnesia or goes for safe seismic tosses to open your own hypno.


I think people are underrating these guys a bit, they don’t need to be in lead to be effective. Both of these guys are very effective cleaners or can punish early lapras usage, and Dugtrio is often playing a dangerous game trying to come in on the electrics early. Even when dug does come in, it’s not the hardest to switch into. If you do face a team without Dugtrio, they become that much scarier. People should try body slam or hyper beam on raichu, agility really isn’t that important and raichu has higher attack than electabuzz making it a perfectly good midground. Slam into surf can actually kill dugtrio some % of the time too!


I am a BST truthur in all lower tiers pretty much, and moltres is the fattest stat stick with a nigh unpunishable button to click. You can throw moltres in lead, in back, doesn’t really matter it does the same thing. Moltres fire blast does damage on par (or maybe a bit higher) than rapidash’s body slam to dnite, and molt’s attack stat is still great at finishing off hypno. Speed tying with kang is unfortunate but molt is so bulky and strong that it absolutely washes kang regardless aside from some major hax.

 

[Fc]

Dropping hypno lapras is a meme.

kanga dug dnite dodrio electabuzz are all powerful ahh, buzz is maybe better than dodrio but have different strengths and clicking normal moves is good af. back buzz is also really strong covers a lot of stuff since the only sure switchin is golem with slam beating dug 30% of the time.

haunter is the lead meta you either don't use it and lose to sleep or gamble on smth faster. just hit moves. gyara is him winrate was surprisingly garbage in pl but it's strong, competes with dnite but has very good role. Persian is nice victreebel is really good imo and gives slowbro insurance which can also sometimes just 6-0 or sometimes do nothing, clef is a solid lead.

golem is way better vs normal spam than dug but just kinda shit at everything else, buzz has more aura than raichu so it's low tier, articuno is fine if you can bait lapras ninetales is fine as a lead and just a bit better than rapidash, tangela is worse than vic but better phys.def which can be very valuable. I used lead tenta once and it was funny but it's bad, mainly can just click sd on bad leads vs it and hope to chip lapras into range for articuno or other stuff. Moltres is maybe higher but it requires more setup and then just thuds into some mons. kad fell off but it's still a decent lead and is a fast hypno check which doesn't really exist otherwise. electrode is only not in the shitmon tier because it can kill itself and try to do damage.

sandslash is the funny mon I used and it won he's lowkey him. omastar is probably still fine since it's a normal resist and is really hard to kill sometimes, the last 4 I only put on the list because I saw they got used in pl a bit. nidoking is probably okay and venomoth can click sleep moves, last 2 gotta be trolling tho.

 

[Mrbanana45]

Hi this my VRs, my criteria on every placement was based on “how useful/flexible is this?”, “how easy is to pilot?” and “how rewarding is this?” Hope yall enjoy. I’m focusing on gameplay, building and actual value obtained during battle, I sharing replays that complements my arguments.

I’ll try to write something that isn’t already explained above, excuse typos and messy sentences, English is not my primary language.

S+ Tier

Sets

S+ Standard sleeper
- Psychic
- Thunder Wave
- Seismic Toss
- Hypnosis

S- Rest
- Psychic
- Thunder Wave
- Seismic Toss
- Rest

Hypno

Everybody already know what Hypno does, it’s THE progress maker on the tier. My fellow UUrbyers already made his point on why this good but I wanna talk about his hidden ability.

Hypno is a Hyper Beam magnet, it’s like his second aura. A good player will understand of what I’m talking about, it’s a really common scenario on UU and I don’t see people talking about it, this psychic type has this ability on forcing the rival to click HB against him.
This on tactical gameplay is amazing cuz u can trap the HB attacker with a full HP counter user switching in, you can bring a ghost Type (Haunter) to pivot into it, or you can just sack the Hypno, then bring a counter user that scares the HB user out.

Id say, Hypno it’s the only Mon that have this unique trait, and makes more tactical not only on gameplay, but also solves a lots of building issues on the current UU.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-890794 Rest Hypno doin some extra hours

S Tier

Sets

S+ Rest Sing
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Rest
- Sing

S- Sing Attacker
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Surf/Body Slam
- Sing

A+ Non Sing Attacker
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Surf
- Rest

Lapras

A wise person once said: “Lap Good, Lap Fun, We Love Lap.“. There’s limited switch ins vs Lap Blizz + Sing, that’s how the Lap piloting works, quite simple and complex at the same time, easy to use and easy to get punish about it, if u land the Sing, the Lap has worked perfectly and any other move landed is pure profit.

Lap is amazing in UU cuz there’s a limited amount of mons that can Take a Blizz, a lot of them being KOd by it (Dnite, Dodrio, Dugtrio and couple few), so you are kinda forced to trade vs this if you don’t want anything else to take this freezing nuke weapon.

In my opinion, the main role of Lap is the “revenge killer” comes into the 50% Hp Kang, Dnite, non sub Dugtrio and Dodrio and clicks Blizzard to a clean KO (cuz any of them can KO a lap from full even if crit). This Revenge Killer Lap role it’s a “problem solver”, even if you don’t get the Blizz KO range against whatever is threatening ur team, you can bring full Hp Lap and start spaming Sing until the “Problem is solved”. This niche force the rival into trading whatever is on the field vs ur Lap, you are picking a KO in exchange of chip on ur Lap (which is not the end of the world if you are running rest), an real chances of Lap having enough Hp left to to the “Revenge Killer” role one more time before fainting.

Lap is also the best switch in vs opposite Blizz, which can be useful to pivot safely if used correctly (specially vs Dnite’s Blizz or Cuno as a whole). Rest Lap it’s the best forth move, Surf is nice into preventing the opp into pivoting around ur bolteam combo.

If u are using Lap as a defensive switch in instead of the Revenge Killer role, not only you are about to get haxed for it, but also you are not using the full potential of the second best Mon on the RBY UU metagame. The only real defensive usage of Lap is vs Cuno.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-884483 AM using Lap as Revenge Killer and getting amazing advantage against me
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-887635 Lap Rest Pivoting into dnite vs Apple

Sets

S- Counter Wallbreaker
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- Hyper Beam
- Counter

A+ Regular Kang
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- Hyper Beam
- Blizzard

Kangaskhan

Kang has already some well knowed statements that explain her greatness. She THE wall breaker inside UU, is not really a Mon that you try to counter. When the universe was created, “slam slam beam” was the words heard before the “everything”. Easy to use, easy to click, Kang gettin rewarded for just playing recklessly, the literal definition of wall breaking.

I wanna bring again the “trap the HB attacker and counter it” as one of the secondary rols about Kang. Kang could be the best life savior if piloted by a really good player. U can get away with wall breaking couple mons, paraslaming at least one of them, and get enough HP back to counter Hbeams (or any other normal move).

I’m a strong supporter of Counter as the 4th move on Kang, cuz Blizzard is nice into Dnite and Kang mirrors, but Lap is already oppressing Dnite by just existing on the back and Kang mirrors are not as scary as people may think. I find Counter a real solver on builder and actual gameplay during a battle. If you are bold, you can get away with running Blizz counter slam beam but u getting walled by Haunter which sucks.

She the wallbreaker, she a clicker, she amazing anti lead, she the life savior on emergency, she the normal spammer’s nightmare, she a solid dug switch in, she also kinda bad tho.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-886059 Kang wallbreaking vs pac
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-886043?p2 Counter Kang lead rewarded by just clicking

A Tier

Sets

A+ Tank
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt
- Blizzard
- Hyper Beam/Body Slam

B- Agility Sweeper
- Agility
- Thunderbolt
- Blizzard
- Hyper Beam

Dragonite

The Tanking capacity on Dnite is really overwhelming. Opposing Fire and Electric types getting a rough time using stabs against this. Twave is mandatory in order to not get walled by Haunter, it’s also a nice move into Kang trying to get a Blizz of, Lap switching against Dnite, Twave is the best midground any Tank can wish off.

Dnite’s main job is having excellent presence against some attackers on the tier such as Dug, Persian, Fire Leads, Moltres, can pivot vs Electric types and scare them out, stone walls grass types and hit quite strong with his 134 Atk and 100 Spc.

It’s a simple mon really, tank some hits, wins some 1v1s and sometimes get an early para on something. That role is enough to put him into the top rank A Mon on the format.

Now we start seeing some important interactions inside the metagame. Dnite is KOd by Lap, so Dnite isn’t the stoppable Tank that last forever, this funny x4 Ice weakness creates mind games while using/facing Dnite, you can tell what type of team the opponent is running by just analyzing how the Dnite is piloted. A Dnite that is scared easily gives info about the priorities on each player, Dnite it’s an honest Mon, super tanky with a remarkable x4 weakness.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-887630 Apple’s Dnite stone walls my whole Lapless

Sets

A+ LeDug James
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Sand Attack
- Substitute

Dugtrio

I don’t see dug as a “Hax tool”, it’s a fast frail revenge killer inmune to twave, fast mons in RBY crit a lot, that’s how it works. Dug is gonna crit eventually and u gotta play around that. His primary checks are Dnite and Gyarados, both good and common mons. Dug works when it’s behind a sub, and that is only happening if opp gets full parad, if they switch out or if his attack is missing. Slash is not the 4th move tho, never was and never will be, Sand Attack is already excellent midground, gives you the chances on pivoting something without taking damage or to force something out.

Dug it’s a flipcoin if it’s used as “Hax tool”, “if u get the hax it then ur god, if u don’t get anything then ur bad”. Not consistent enough and I haven’t been using Dug as so. It’s an electric switch in, his primary role. But I’ve been experimenting with it and I think Ive found another rol for it.

Dugtrio as sleep sack. Sounds like bs on theory but during gameplay makes so much sense…

Sleep moves on UU be missing a lot and Dug can abuse this… On hyper offense teams, Dugtrio can be used as sleep sack and makes so much sense! Every piece on HO it’s valuable enough to be preserved healthy, but twave and sleep neutralize lots of tools on HO. So Dug can have this role a primary sleep sack against mons like Hypno and Haunter (problematic to deal while using HO). U bring straight up Dug vs Hypno/Haunter, if they miss, now u can eq/sub for free, if they land the sleep, now u don’t gotta worry about the sleep sack for later on the sweep. It’s a win win situation when executed correctly, a tactical tool that rewards you for doing this kinda chooses (specially while bringing Offense). Bringing dug careless into the sleeper it’s a rolling dice that benefits the Dug user.

Dug can also implement this role into “must chip” situations. When u bring Dug into an incoming attack carelessly just to get a little bit of chip in order to win. Dug by it self need free turns to do his magic, sometimes the Dug MU isn’t as free cuz of his heavy counters, either way a good played dug can be used to do damage and being completely sacked in exchange for a little bit of chip. As long as there’s a Dug in the back, all the mons that can actually setup to win don’t need to be worried about receiving chip/status, cuz Dug will be the status absorber.

Dug as a Kamikaze tool it’s way more rewarding than a “Hax Tool”, it’s an unorthodox path that guides to a winning battle if the situation requires it. Dug could be more that just “Acc drop sub spam” tool, finding new niches on specific styles it’s what gives Dug a flexible environment on UU, and the reason on his 5th place on the VRs.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-890788 Dug as sleep sack on double bird vs Pac
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-884490 AM’s Dug bringed carelessly into my sleeper as sack while using offense, ended up giving him value
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-886046?p2 Dug bringed carelessly used to chip Dnite to put on Raichu’s range

Sets

Standard Twave
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt
- Body Slam/Hyper Beam
- Psychic/Hyper Beam

Electabuzz

Electrics in general are good to have, not that deep. Strong flexible lead, twave user, Hbeam can lure Hypno, fast as hell.

Ebuzz it’s an amazing endgame tool, this thing can twave and beat 1v1 most endgame mons (such as birds), does a crazy amount of damage vs Kang, Lap and can crit the ocasional Slowbro after two calm minds. People should consider bringing at least one electric, provides so much at may may scenarios, for some reason people are afraid to run non lead electrics on a tier full of birds and Lapras.

I love Ebuzz, honest Mon. Psy can hit Haunter, a skill that no other electrics have on this format. Hbeam it’s nice when Hypno needs to be taken down in a pinch.

B Tier

Sets

B+ THE KING
- Earthquake
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Counter

Nidoking

I need to propose King as the savior we were waiting for. It’s a Mon that has proven to have much potencial, super super versatile lead, with terrific offensive and defensive calcs vs the whole meta.
3HKOs Hypno, can KO electabuzz/raichu from a rol, KOs Haunter, out speeds and 2HKOs Dnite/Gyara.
Can hold from full slam+beam from Kang/Dodrio and counter back (If Kang gets a high rol vs Nido coming in, counter could KO back) (Dodrio always dies if gets countered by his own beam), can hold a Blizzard from Lap, countering Persians slash does 90ish, can hold a pump from Gyarados, this guy is a beast.

Lead counter gives u an easy and tactical gameplay on, forcing whatever u wanna lure in, trade the nido, then ur unrevealed attacker has an easier path on winning, all of that just from lead! Counter was the missing tool people weren’t expecting to make Nidoking a staple on the metagame. Back Nido has also some potencial on the same logic, but depends a lot on how good ur lead has against opp’s.

I ran this set in some of my g5 teams but unfortunately I win on g4 so never had the chance to use it.

I wanna talk about the “trapping Hbeam” strategy and how nido was made to solve this. Can be a lead, tank a midground attack form the opposing Mon and still have enough HP to be preserved in the back to wait on countering the incoming HBeam, counter it’s an amazing move in UU, people should start considering it as a solution for most of the meta’s problems.

Even if you didn’t manage to counter a normal move, nido still has great speed tier and wide coverage, Nido is gonna ended up trading against something and it’s gonna be a huge trade on ur favor, give this set a shot.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-887635 Nido lead allowing momentum vs Apple

Sets

B+ Status Blob
- Sing
- Body Slam
- Blizzard
- Hyper Beam/Thunder Wave

Clefable

Normal stab with sing twave, imo the most consistent lead on the tier, (and the safest one). Hits decent enough and tanks quite good, capable of missing couple sings and still have HP left to miss a third time!

Clefable suffers a bit for the 4move syndrome, you want twave when ur slams aren’t paralyzing or when the sing is missing, if u run twave sing then you are lacking the power on Hbeam before fainting…

I personally like Twave + Sing in order to guarantee some status and chip a for later (cuz Sing is dog water), sometimes I get a lucky fullpara so it’s worthy. I’m searching for a bit of robbery from lead and that’s a tasty upper hand. Haven’t tried back Clef but I think could be interesting as Hbeam counter, maybe a non sing set. I still think that back clef lacks the flexibility of other status inducers.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-887639 The power of sing twave clef

Sets

B- Fast Twave
- Thunderbolt
- Surf
- Thunder Wave
- Agility/Hyper Beam

Raichu

Even tho it’s a bit slower than Ebuzz, Raichu finds usage on having the amazing coverage on Tbol + Surt, it’s the closest that we can get from a pseudo STAB “Boltbeam”, cuz Surf is enough to KO the occasional Golem and damange 85ish vs Dug. It’s 3HKOd by Lap Blizz so can come in safely if needed.

It’s an Electric with pseudo Boltbeam, that’s it. Quite fast so crit chance + full para odds make this a good progress maker. The 4th move it’s prob never clicked unless you planing since lead to use Raichu as Agility sweeper (which is mediocre). You rather use this as Revenge Killer or progress maker, Hbeam is nice when you need to neutralize opposing Hypno.

Struggles vs Haunter, Dnite, Hypno, Electrics.

Back electrics are damn good. Lapras it’s everywhere. Raichu it’s a solid option.

Sets

B- Tank utility
- Psychic
- Thunder Wave
- Seismic Toss/Rest
- Counter

C- Demon Bro
Ability: No Ability
- Amnesia
- Psychic
- Thunder Wave/Reflect
- Rest

Slowbro

Electric coverage has a presence on every team, Slowbro suffers much about it. Bro has the nice on resist Fire, Psy and Blizz at the same time, also being bulky enough to hold Hbeam crits from Dodrio/Kang and counter it back, two Eq crits from Dug, and gets 4HKOd by Persian’s Slash. You can get a way with an amnesia sweep if rival is not prepared enough.

Amnesia Set is not that good, I think the real potencial is on the Tank counter set (THE_CHUNGLER introduced me to the Tank bro and I fell in love with it). Psy it’s a super spameable move with snowball potencial, paired well with other special attackers. Twave + Rest puts the rival into an awkward position, Slowbro it’s also an amazing Hypno switch in, can win the 1v1 with a well timed counter or full paras into rest. Slowbro NEEDS to switch out if cured his para with rest, the speed reset is mandatory to maximize the walling capabilities on bro (which sucks cuz Slowbro it’s forced to switch to reset speed and that means opponent can take advantage of that free turn).

Resisting Fire and not caring at all about paralisis, makes Slowbro into one of the best answers vs Fire Leads. Also walls both Moltres and Cuni which is always useful into brained players like me. The main issue on Slowbro is that it is hard to “fit” on a team. I tried bro Lapless which causes an awful gameplay with lots of uncontrollable variables, Lap+Bro+Hypno lacks speed already so you are kinda forced into put frail and fast mons (which will need to put a lot of work in order to break through).

Bro has much potencial and the gameplay it’s usually super easy and odd favoured on ur side, but Bro on building it’s hard to justify. I thinks there’s still a lot of experimentation left to do on Bro. I never felt cornered while using Bro on tour matcheds.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-884490 Slowbro countering Hbeam vs AM
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-884483 Amnesia slowbro to put in range of Molt sweep

C Tier

Sets

C+ Agility Sweeper
- Fire Blast
- Hyper Beam
- Agility
- Double-Edge

Moltres

Doesn’t need more explanation, everybody knows already what molt does. I’d like to say that Fire Blast 2HKOing Kang it’s remarkable. It’s super easy to pull up a Molt sweep when rival is not expecting it (and when Dnite is not around).

Back Molt has amazing sinergy with Fire leads but I experimented a bit paring Molt + Cuno, double bird seems really strong against solid builds. Usually people doesn’t pilot thinking about facing double bird and it’s cool to abuse midgrounds while using Molt. Molt Lead it’s not that bad on some builds, it’s worth to explore.

Having a Molt on ur back, rewards brainless plays and hard stays. You can trade everything until it’s molt time and people are usually not prepared enough to counter react that.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-890793 Molt lead vs Pac

Sets

C+ Agility Sweeper
- Blizzard
- Agility
- Ice Beam
- Hyper Beam

Articuno

Articuno is tragic. Gets stone walled by one of the most important mons inside the metagame. It’s really hard to make it work, not that hard to build with it, need perfectly setting in order to do something… but once you manage to master it, feels like Crack. Specially because I trained a lot of Cuno gaming during play offs, it’s a really good Mon.

Cuno’s blizzard while calc it’s terrifying, a crit/freeze it’s even worse. I’m putting Cuno this high because it’s really hard to make it work, but on practice while the gameplay is happening, doing a Cuno set up with no team preview, gives you a mental advantage over your rival. You are fine into sacrificing everything if that means the opponent team is in range of agility Cuno. You are willing to sack everything if that means Cuno is gonna sweep guaranteed, so the opponent now it’s on a more conservative gameplay, with midgrounds and a bit more passive set up, so you getting rewarded by just trading whatever it’s in front of you (specifically Lap).

Gameplay it’s hard, building its fun, when it works feels deserved, when you master it feels like a S+++ mon.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-890790 “You doin a good work when people think you are not doin nothing at all”
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1uu-2489681967-ju7r8ts8tajksyacdg42dq01liheoqbpw Me vs Chungler on a test, one of my fav tests on this tour

Sets

C- Fire Lead
- Fire Blast
- Hyper Beam
- Body Slam
- Agility

Rapidash

Fire lead Fire lead Fire lead Fire lead

Fire blast Fire blast Fire blast Fire blast Fire blast Fire blast Fire blast

Now talking more serious. Fire lead is a trend that people don’t understand enough, it’s something that I’ve seen on some replays. Fire lead premise tells about Fire Blasting since lead and trading to get momentum. I think there’s a lot of counter play around this, Dnite has raised up as lead, building has always a response vs fire leads, Fire Blast been missing a lot so is not even consistent, and even if u land the Fire Blast, burning something could be traduced as a “bad outcome” (like Hypno getting burned, can’t be put asleep or parad, so now the opp’s Hypno walls urs). A fire lead is super inconsistent during gameplay, high risk and mid reward.

But Fire Leads are insanely good, cuz makes building so much active, a fire lead while building something gives you the complete freedom on making any type of structure, paring any type of mons, creating synergies out of nowhere that u cannot achieve with any other lead. You can get away with running unconventional mons, unconventional sets (like Agility Dnite, Victribeel, etc), you can stack super fast frail mons and can be an objectively consistent team, u can run double bird, stack more fire types, Lapless, and even more!

Fire leads are meant for creative building to work, and it’s refreshing. The more creative the idea, the more gets benefit from a Fire lead.

Sets

C- Fast Cleaner
- Body Slam
- Drill Peck
- Hyper Beam
- Agility

Dodrio

I really think Dodrio is overhyped. KOd by Blizz Lap, super fragile, a bit hard to justify.

People claim Dodrio it’s problematic because can’t be walled. But you don’t need to wall this, that’s the wrong approach. You need to out-offense this guy in order to deal with it, u can’t just “wall it”. Crits a lot and it’s fast, but suffers heavily on 1v1 situations, can really stay if you get ur check in safely. Also suffers from the “Hbeam counter trap” syndrome, unlike Kang, Dodrio doesn’t have enough HP to survive counters clicked against him.

If electrics, full hp Lap, Blizz Kang, Twave Dnite, even Slowbro come safely against a Dodrio, now it’s forced to be sacrificed right there or switch. People claim Dodrio can 2v1 but I don’t think teams on the current meta are gonna allow that, Dodrio is not a good Mon to trade cuz Dodrio can’t really choose what he want to be traded for. Dodrio is a Mon that is always gonna be traded against the same mons because gets out-offense’d by the same mons, this could be useful on “luring” situations but players had just evolved to a more aggressive piloting when facing Dodrio.

Dodrio works well as a Cleaner, it’s a nice cleaner. Even tho gets punished heavily to whatever is gonna come after, this bird crits a lot and can Agi Sweep on some endgames. A well played Dodrio can stole on some games with lucky slam paras or well timed crits. It’s the only Normal Type that outspeeds and 2HKOs Haunter which it’s huge tho, Dodrio it’s great against Haunter lovers.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-887645 Dodrio never really achieving anything once its revealed, easy to Out-offense.

D Tier

Sets

D+ Fast Sleeper
- Hypnosis
- Night Shade
- Thunderbolt
- Explosion

Haunter

Another controversial take, Haunter feels like gambling, when u running it, it’s easy to pivot around, super frail, doesn’t even hit hard enough, and be missing every Hypnosis possible. It’s a fine switch in vs Blizzard I guess, boom doesn’t hurts, it’s 40-50ish against most mons on the meta, is not that fast either and super receptive and weak to Twave, 7/14 mons ranked higher have a guaranteed 2HKO and that sucks.

Haunter on paper seems good, putting something asleep then boom, a 1v2 trade! Then reality hits and hypnosis it’s the worst move of all time, night shade really sucks, Haunter wants to boom against Hypno or land a boom crit, but once sleep is burned it’s never gonna get the Hypno boom cuz there’s other mons that answers better afterwords, like Dug coming on tbolt, Dnite (which be running Twave always nowadays), Eq Kang, Fire Leads are really fine trading vs this, Ebuzz, Nidoking, and so on.

Haunter isn’t threatening enough to be a progress maker, just make the gameplay more awkward for both players, adds lots of 50/50s on the gameplay that may not ended up guaranteeing the win but making the winning path more unclear for both players. Haunter it’s amazing against ocasional Gyarados, Persian, Grass types, could Wall Dnite but is getting Twaved in the process, can pivot against Hbeams which it’s really useful.

I think the most strong aspect on Haunter is the Ghost type, hardwalling couple mons and stoping some powerful attacks to chip another partner, still very very weak and vulnerable. As lead is disappointing, back Haunt as defensive tool has a better gameplay.

Haunter is useful as long as hit Hypnosis and crit one of his attacks. That’s it, not much consistent imo.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-887646 Hypnosis not being consistent enough, Haunter not doing nothing even with positive matchup.

Sets

C- Bulky Attacker
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Hyper Beam
- Surf/Hydro Pump

Gyarados

Gyarados needs 5 move slots in order to feel special, has amazing stats, a blessed speed tier (one point faster than Dnite). It’s a great great check to Dug, having Surf into de -1 Acc drop it’s easy to land attacks against Dug (unlike Dnite that relies on-1 Acc Blizzard landing as damage move Against Dug).

Gyarados also stomps against all those pesky Fires, has tbolt to trade vs Lap, Hbeam to do enormous chips vs Hypno. You can run Pump to a Clean 2HKO von Kang, but I think Surf as guaranteed 3HKO it’s better. Gyarados (unlike Dnite) was water STAB, hitting quite decent vs wide portion of the metagame, water move can punish Haunter and Electrics trying to come in. Gyarados it’s super good partner for Dug for that particular reason, Gyarados can KO opp Dnite with one Blizzard, while Dug pivoting protects Gyarados on the electric attacks.

Gyarados is not that bad, just have an awkward time on the current meta, is not fast enough and not bulky enough, Hits really well but lacks opportunities to come on the field, can only make an appearance against Fire Types and Dug, which is not bad but there’s still a lot of things that Gyara doesn’t want to pivot in.

Body Slam it’s a really passive move for Gyarados (and not even guaranteed progress), Gyarados be doing the job done by just Boltbeaming + Surfing on everything.

Sets

C- Fast Sleeper
- Sleep Powder
- Psychic
- Stun Spore
- Double-Edge

Venomoth

This shit is damn fast for a Sleep Powder user, really hard to pull off, needs a team designed to make Moth work.

If you want to try Moth, it’s a really decent BoltBeam answer on early game, great Sleep Sack, ties with Kang that sucks, but you can get away with Sleeping something + Stun something on the same game, then spam Psy/DEdge for chip to get pure profit out of it. Is a terrible endgame Mon. Can do some robbery on full paras, It’s a high risk-high reward tool that can actually land his status! Gambling on 75%s still sucks tho, but has enough Bulk to afford a miss and try another one, how kind Moth!
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-886046?p2 Moth doin LeBron performance against Pac

Persian

C- Fast Cleaner
- Slash
- Hyper Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Bubble Beam

Persian

I’m a strong believer on Counter as a great move on UU, that’s why I think Persian it’s a bit overrated.

Really fragile, hates Paralisis, loves crits. Doesn’t even a clean 3HKO vs Lap or Dnite, slower than Dug, it’s an endgame tool that can be pulled of is the rival wasn’t prepared for it, can clean whole teams with a bit of luck. Persian is punishment against reckless players, punish aggressive trades on endgame, punish early mistakes (like revealing an important Mon too early or sacking something for no reason), Persian is the noob killer that UU needs, still really fishy to be consistent.

Funny Persian gameplays I wanna share
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-890793
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-887646

E Tier
Not feeling like going deep on these guys so just quick thoughts

E

You can justify running this if you already have Rapidash on the same team, Fire Spam a bit unexplored I think could have potencial.


The “Dodrio counter”, isn’t doing much on a regular game anyways. It’s weak, Eq not even 2HKOs Hypno, Explosion has depressing calcs, gets 2HKOd by every other normal on the tier, really really really hates getting Crited specially against Fires.


I need to see someone getting away with running this, I was planning on try it against Shell but never happened.

:victribeel:
Can stun behind Dug subs, that’s really cool. Getting walled by Fires, Flyings, Haunter, it’s Hypno Weak. I don’t think this can be justified, Grass Stab is not good, as Electric resist it’s lovely.


People worries too much about Dug, this is super passive, doesn’t have tools to do something rather than tank couple normal moves, wall Dug and spread status.


Normal + Blizzard resist looks amazing, I was about to explore with this guy but it’s not really doing nothing at all on practice, relies on Toss to deal damage vs common targets. Also walls Cuno Molt, that’s something ig.

Huge thanks to LHF THE_CHUNGLER Goombatower69 for helping me on understanding UU, for the test and thanks to all the pampus for trusting me after my terrible w2 game. I’m glad on the performance on my first ever rbypl even tho I consider my OU and Rands way stronger than my UU, hopefully is the beginning of many more tournaments.