Lower Tiers RBY UU Hub

[Gamer1234556]

Persian being walled by Haunter isn't the problem. Like Haunter being more relevant sucks but isn't too bad since most players are kind of Booming it midgame anyways.

It's the increase in Articuno usage. Slash is really weak against it and is reliant on TBolt crits to deal with it. Kang can Rock Slide it on the switch while Dodo threatens it with BSlam Paralysis. I suppose it's not a big deal if you pair Persian with something like Dewgong, but a Normal-type with a lousy MU against the most threatening setup sweeper in the tier isn't exactly a good look.

 

[Bedal Roscoe]

Persian being walled by Haunter isn't the problem. Like Haunter being more relevant sucks but isn't too bad since most players are kind of Booming it midgame anyways.

It's the increase in Articuno usage. Slash is really weak against it and is reliant on TBolt crits to deal with it. Kang can Rock Slide it on the switch while Dodo threatens it with BSlam Paralysis. I suppose it's not a big deal if you pair Persian with something like Dewgong, but a Normal-type with a lousy MU against the most threatening setup sweeper in the tier isn't exactly a good look.

Yeah all your points are valid, I didn't mean Haunter was the main reason it struggles in the tier.

 

[Shellnuts]

Posting my VR now that this week is done, will elaborate on placements later if I have time.
(edit: original post had some of B tier wrong, re-ordered to the placement I think is better)
(edit 2: thinking about it a bit more, I think I'd re-order kad and dug, as well as dodrio and cuno, they are very close but I think those might be a smidge better)

 

[Tree69420]

new VR (deleting old one)

Explanations:

S (best of the best, should be on most good teams):

I can admit that Dug should be #1, but the way Articuno guarantees sweeps through teams has to have me putting it at #1. Clearly, people are not playing optimally around it, but it has no true walls, and can be used in the early or midgame to open up other teammates. Lead Cuno is one of the sets that I think should be explored more, with all out offense backing it up.
The ultimate bullshit mon, can easily crit through whole teams especially how often teams stack mons that get crit OHKOd by this. Also the best revenge killer in the tier, can easily Sub up on sacs, etc etc. Has the strongest case for #1, but lately many players have been stacking Dugtrio checks, and while it can still get much work done, bringing multiple checks and not much Haunter really limits it.
One of the most splashable mons, to the point of being near undroppable IMO. Its switching into Tentacruel freely coupled with how it is one of the few mons that can switch into it's own Psychic. However, letting in physical attackers for free on its recovers, and Dug on its TWaves, really hurts it as a mon.

S-:

This is still clearly one of the best mons in the tier, being the only real defensive Cuno check who outspeeds, and being able to choke out half the tier is amazing. However, I often struggle to fit it on teams due to how it doesn't actually hard check anything. Dewgong is a better Cuno check, it struggles to check opposing waters due to their good physical bulk and resistance to Surf/Blizzard, and nearly every team is bringing many different ways to check it. At the end of the day though, the more dynamic lines and other upsides mean I can't rank this any lower than 4th.

A+ (Great mons, should be heavily used):

Great mon, can pull off reverse sweeps like nothing, and STAB normal moves off that attack sting af. Being the best Dug EQ switchin and the only one that's actually a good mon outside of the Dug matchup is massive, but being OHKOd by Cuno/Gong is also really bad for it, as well as the rise of Golem. At the end of the day, it's still a great mon as nothing can switch in apart from Cuno, Golem, and Omastar.
Honestly I debated putting this over Dodrio, as they're extremely close in my eyes, as Normal-type attackers that also serve as counterpunching Dugtrio checks. Flipped them this time, the bullshit level of Dodo is too good. Leading Kang is a nice new innovation and it's still the same mon as it's always been.

A:
Great mon, second best Cuno check while bringing great offensive potential with BSlam for Tent and Kad. Soft Dug check, and spamming it really deters opposing Cuno too. Not much to comment on honestly.
Best sleeper in the tier by a long shot, Explosion lets it serve as a solid Cuno check, but really feels like it's worse than the other top mons. Being OHKOd by Dug EQ is awful for it, but the Tent and Kadabra matchups are surprisingly playable (Explosion OHKOs Kad, mutual 3HKO with tent but Psychic special drop chance), and its mere existence in the tier forces Kangs to think twice before clicking Normal moves. Missing Hypnosis into getting crit combo is never nice tho
IMO the best and most solid (I guess least bad) all around lead in the tier, matches up fine vs pretty much every mon. Main issue is Golem who is a capital T Threat, but has all around solid matchups across the board vs other top mons

B+ (Have these mons in your usage stats):
Idg why everyone keeps underrating this mon. Pressure from Haunter/Golem forcing Kang to click EQ gets this mon free entry points, and it has the coverage and stats to farm the entire meta. Hydro Pump accuracy is the main issue for it, while you can use Surf it misses out on the Kang 2HKO. Fire Blast is also a new cook, leaving the best non-Haunter check in shambles and games Kang too. Great Dugtrio check, is fine switching into Kadabra, great.
The best Dodo answer, has no switchins (base 110 attack with STABs hits like a truck, who would've guessed). Most teams without Tangela have to resort to trading for it with Kangaskhan/Clefable or pivoting out of their mind, or just accept that it'll go 1.5-2 for 1. Rock Slide essentially has no switchins, apart from opposing Golem who gets cooked by EQ.
This mon feels like an alternate Gyarados, with Wrap and Twave instead of stab to threaten Kang/Haunter. Pivoting is always nice as is the Hyper Beam/PT bug, but Gyara feels like it has a better matchup spread. It in the lead slot, with or without Agility, is also pretty nice.
Great lead which nothing wants to switch in to, that special combined with STAB FBlast is great, Dodrio/Tent speed tie is also great, might honestly be the best lead. I doubt it'll be ranked UU on the final VR but it deserves it for sure.
Great mon. Feels like an alternative Dragonite, can tech many different moves, such as Tbolt for Dewgong, Counter for Kang, Sing for free sleep, etc etc. The 4MSS is there but it doesn't really NEED any of these moves, BSlam Blizz HBeam works fine, and its bulk lets it often 1v1 Tentacruel.

B

I know I was very low on this at the beginning of the meta, but it's really proven itself to me despite my 0 usages of it. Best Dug wall in the tier, eats hits from pretty much every mon without SE hits for it. After Sleep it's not threatening at all and most sets being "walled" by Golem is pretty funny, but you can't say no to a Dug wall packing an OHKO button.
Not a great mon and destroyed by Haunter, but it'll farm you if you take it for granted. Gyara > DNite is great for it, surprisingly not as awful as thought vs Cuno, revenges a lot of stuff.
Fastest mon in the tier, Explosion is nice utility, etc, but being hard walled by Golem is a huge negative. It's also the best non-Water type at being a Cuno check (Twave if they agilitied, otherwise just Boom if you're in Blizz range). I just feel like the other higher mons are better at their jobs/have better jobs to do.
Feels like a Golem/Dewgong role compressor, but deals with clear problems. EQ weakness leaves it far more susceptible while resting, but without Rest, after Dodrio comes through you just die to Cuno. Hydro Pump accuracy is also a big issue vs Kang (Hydro is needed to get the 2HKO vs Kang). Being a wall to Dnite and Surfless Gong is pretty nice.
Did you know that in terms of water pokemon, Vaporeon is the best Articuno wall? Acid Armor is a cool option to beat physical attackers and waste Tent's PP in endgames. The massive special bulk also lets it trade weirdly well with Electrics and Kad. However, it's pretty crit prone and in most cases you'd rather have one of the other waters.

[cutoff]

C (Mons that have merit, but are generally worse than other options):
Electric type, matches up very well into Gyara/Golem comps but is otherwise lackluster, being an electric type whos Tent MU is a coinflip is really ass, also unfavored flip vs Dodrio, has 4MSS issues (want Agility, want Surf to bully ground types, want normal type move to pressure Kad). The best set IMO is TBolt Surf HBeam Agil, as Tbolt -> Hbeam kills Kad.
Has solid traits like the second best speed tier outspeeding Dug, HBeam resist, revenging many common low HP mons. On the other hand, it's Aerodactyl.
Agility sweeper with strong attack and STAB Fire Blast, might have a niche over Ninetales as a lead but Ninetales is generally better.
Basically Tangela except with a speed tier, without being solid vs Dug, dying to Kad, but can output similar levels of offensive pressure as Haunter (minus the boom part)
Sleeper with tools like Amnesia, Earthquake, Blizzard and resists Cuno STAB, does stuff kinda.
Strong grass stab, Wrap, Double Powder, surely this does something right?

D (Mons that have a niche but should be avoided)

The RBY mascot, Tentacruel speed tie and 2HKOs with EQ, SD Hbeam is pretty strong
Agility sweeper that can set up on Cuno
Mom: we have Dodrio at home, Dodrio at home:
Base 105 speed can only be so bad
Can trade with Kad to open up your own Kad, but slower than Tent/Kang is pretty bad.

E (Pretty much completely outclassed):

Pretty much all the other sleepers are better than it, can't touch haunter and is farmed by most good mons. Even in lead is generally worse than Venomoth or Victreebel as it has no Stun Spore.
I'm only ranking this becausee it outclasses Golduck, awful mon
Dugtrio and Kad "switchin" on more offensive teams and can stun -> boom to open up mons that need a turn of setup, but requires so many reads for a mediocre reward.

F (Please don't use these):

This mon is literally a worse Arcanine, only benefit over it is the Fire Blast guaranteed 2HKO on Kang/Persian after having set up. Literally just always replace this with Arcanine.
Water type but everything it does is done better by Poliwrath and Vaporeon, even Poliwhirl having sleep makes it better as an Amnesia sweeper without a Psychic weakness.
Worse Victreebel, I don't see anyone trying to use this but ranked it anyways.
Imagine being outclassed by Seaking LMAOOOOO, no attack stat means it can't break Tent
This might be the worst Pokemon with a "niche" in the tier as it just fails to do anything.

 

[Shellnuts]

Hello everyone,
I will try to keep this post brief since I do not have a ton of time to go into the data very much, however after two and a half years we finally have a new Viability Rankings. Thank you to the voters Ice Yazu MrSoup NotVeryCake royzin Sabelette Shellnuts Torchic Tree69420 Unowndragon Volk YBW for submitting your Viability Rankings. Also thank you to Sabelette juoean Tree69420 Torchic Unowndragon and Volk who helped decide where the cutoff should be in discord.

Without much delay, here is the new RBY UU Viability Rankings.
S1:
S2:
A1:
A2:
B1:
B2:
B3:
- - - - - - - - U U - N U - L I N E - - - - - - - -
C1:
C2:
D:

For those curious about what the average rankings were, here are all of the Pokemon which were ranked by more than 3 players with their average rankings listed as well.

Average Rankings

01 2.36
01 2.36
03 2.73
04 3.73
05 4.73
06 5.82
07 8.18
08 8.32
09 9.0
10 10.55
11 10.73
12 12.73
13 13.0
14 14.09
15 15.18
16 16.59
17 16.86
18 18.0
19 19.41
20 20.2
21 21.1
22 21.91
23 22.7
24 23.78
25 24.33
26 25.88
27 26.8
28 26.8
29 27.2
30 27.33
31 27.5
32 28.8
33 32.33
34 37.67

In addition, here are the plots of the dissimilarity matrices, dendrograms, and a zoomed in list of the mons which were analyzed by the VR, for people to analyze. I will attempt to make a full writeup of everything later when I have a bit more time.

Graphs of Data

Lastly, given that Hypno is currently banned and since a new change of style seems in order, we now have some new artwork for the UU Viability Rankings, also drawn by myself.

Thank you everyone for your patience.

 

[Shellnuts]

Tagging dhelmise and Marty to implement these changes on PS when they have time, thanks.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Also thank you to Sabelette juoean Tree69420 Torchic Unowndragon and Volk who helped decide where the cutoff should be in discord.

What does this mean?

Has the system for determining cutoffs been abandoned already?

 

[NotVeryCake]

Dugs a mon that most teams go out of their way to have 1, 2 or even more checks too, and when its not critting it feels like shit to use imo

 

[Bedal Roscoe]

For those not familiar with the history of the tier, what are the drops and rises due to this new VR?

 

[NotVeryCake]

For those not familiar with the history of the tier, what are the drops and rises due to this new VR?

 

[vapicuno]

Isn't the entire system subjective? Vapicuno's program (i dont think its a method) doesn't produce cutoffs, or tiers, it's subjective data analysis.
Although that said I think this VR and its tiers are pretty questionable

edit: added my double post to here for related topic
As a side note, I thought Vapicuno suggested breaking ties by giving the Pokemon with a higher standard deviation the edge. Meaning Tentacruel > Kadabra, is this incorrect?

Not super sure about S2 being a tier, these mons seems like A tier worthy rather than S tier worthy and lines up better with most of the VRs posted here tbh. But it doesn't really matter I suppose.

Not entirely sure what this post means but I merely suggested that if tiers are made by the method, then cutoffs should be cleanly separating tiers, not something within a tier. The choice of tier for the cutoff is subjective; the tiers are made quite objectively by the program (difficult to explain "quite", ask me questions on discord if you'd like).

 

[vapicuno]

i believe you misread what i said, the cutoff is still C and below, although now that I re-read hipmonlee's post it seems odd to discuss where the cutoff should be rather than discuss where B tier ends and C tier starts (which isn't the same thing)

Unfortunately I still don't really understand what you're saying. As far as I understand, the way RBY lower tiers does the cutoff is that there is no a priori tier label like C by which the cutoff is drawn, which is consistent with my method, which does not label tiers by viability but rather by separability. Where B ends and where C starts, which is a different matter, is mostly determined by the dendrogram produced by my program. A full tier like ABC is a split high up in the dendrogram while a subtier like B1B2B3 is a split low in the dendrogram. One could technically cut off at the subtier level though almost by definition there would be more disputes since in my formalism a tier is defined by disputed rankings.

Edit: there are a lot of words here but this would help explain my methodology https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...etagame-changes-and-camps-of-thought.3649801/

 

[vapicuno]

i dont think i said anything about any of this

Responding to "Vapicuno's program (i dont think its a method) doesn't produce cutoffs, or tiers, it's subjective data analysis." and "it seems odd to discuss where the cutoff should be rather than discuss where B tier ends and C tier starts (which isn't the same thing)"

 

[BigFatMantis]

Is there any interest here in unofficially testing anything anytime soon, or is the general consensus to leave it as is for now and let it develop, specifically for RBY UU. I ask because UUFPL is coming up and I am hearing mixed things about the state of the tier and if potential changes should be looked into, and that would be an opportunity to try something out and see how it goes.

 

[NotVeryCake]

Is there any interest here in unofficially testing anything anytime soon, or is the general consensus to leave it as is for now and let it develop, specifically for RBY UU. I ask because UUFPL is coming up and I am hearing mixed things about the state of the tier and if potential changes should be looked into, and that would be an opportunity to try something out and see how it goes.

Just going to lay my 2 cents down on the matter; this meta is still underdeveloped and the last think I think it needs right now is more suspects making the tier unstable again right after we settled it, I think it should just be standard UU for UUFPL, more meta development is always nice and less people are complaining about the state of the tier than they have in a very long time.

 

[Tree69420]

i miss lapras

same

 

[Soda_Eesti]

i miss lapras

Tell it to be less good smh. Maybe it will listen

 

[Bedal Roscoe]

Well no plz, I find Lapras even viable and annoying in OU, imo it deserves its ban from UU

 

[Gamer1234556]

>lapras
>viable in OU

lol

 

[Sabelette]

With another tournament starting in less than a week, I would like to collect sample teams. Please DM me here or on Discord (same @) if you have samples to share, ideally ASAP.

 

[gastlies]

not sure if anyone did uufpl usage stats, so here they are

Usage

UUsage

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Kadabra            |  127 |  86.99% |  50.39% |
| 2    | Dugtrio            |  103 |  70.55% |  44.66% |
| 3    | Tentacruel         |  100 |  68.49% |  49.00% |
| 4    | Kangaskhan         |   78 |  53.42% |  55.13% |
| 5    | Articuno           |   64 |  43.84% |  51.56% |
| 6    | Dodrio             |   50 |  34.25% |  48.00% |
| 7    | Haunter            |   46 |  31.51% |  45.65% |
| 8    | Dragonite          |   40 |  27.40% |  55.00% |
| 9    | Gyarados           |   34 |  23.29% |  41.18% |
| 10   | Dewgong            |   30 |  20.55% |  46.67% |
| 11   | Electabuzz         |   29 |  19.86% |  58.62% |
| 12   | Golem              |   25 |  17.12% |  36.00% |
| 13   | Clefable           |   23 |  15.75% |  47.83% |
| 14   | Ninetales          |   20 |  13.70% |  40.00% |
| 15   | Persian            |   19 |  13.01% |  31.58% |
| 16   | Tangela            |   15 |  10.27% |  40.00% |
| 17   | Electrode          |   10 |   6.85% |  60.00% |
| 18   | Vaporeon           |    8 |   5.48% |  25.00% |
| 19   | Omastar            |    7 |   4.79% |  71.43% |
| 20   | Raichu             |    3 |   2.05% | 100.00% |
| 20   | Arcanine           |    3 |   2.05% |  66.67% |
| 22   | Venusaur           |    2 |   1.37% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Kabutops           |    2 |   1.37% |  50.00% |
| 22   | Moltres            |    2 |   1.37% |   0.00% |
| 25   | Aerodactyl         |    1 |   0.68% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Seadra             |    1 |   0.68% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Victreebel         |    1 |   0.68% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Exeggcute          |    1 |   0.68% | 100.00% |
| 25   | Poliwrath          |    1 |   0.68% |   0.00% |
| 25   | Nidoking           |    1 |   0.68% |   0.00% |
| 25   | Poliwhirl          |    1 |   0.68% |   0.00% |

Leads

Leads

+ ---- + ----------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Leads                   | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ----------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Electabuzz              |   23 |  15.75% |  60.87% |
| 2    | Kadabra                 |   21 |  14.38% |  47.62% |
| 3    | Ninetales               |   20 |  13.70% |  40.00% |
| 4    | Clefable                |   17 |  11.64% |  52.94% |
| 4    | Dodrio                  |   17 |  11.64% |  29.41% |
| 6    | Dragonite               |   12 |   8.22% |  50.00% |
| 7    | Haunter                 |   11 |   7.53% |  54.55% |
| 8    | Kangaskhan              |   10 |   6.85% |  60.00% |
| 9    | Golem                   |    4 |   2.74% |  25.00% |
| 10   | Arcanine                |    3 |   2.05% |  66.67% |
| 10   | Tentacruel              |    3 |   2.05% |  66.67% |
| 12   | Dewgong                 |    2 |   1.37% | 100.00% |
| 12   | Dugtrio                 |    2 |   1.37% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Tangela                 |    1 |   0.68% | 100.00% |

Moves and Teammates
Combos

 

[Bedal Roscoe]

Voted on the UU survey

 

[Sabelette]

Survey results time!

We had 18 responses, of which I've designated 13 as qualified based on current or historical performances that earned reqs for a suspect test. Let's go through the questions and the overall/qualified responses.

First up, the overall metagame opinions - 5 is the positive answer, 1 is the negative answer:

Opinions on the skill level of the metagame were negative overall, with an average rating of 2.83 for all respondents and 2.84 for qualified respondents, suggesting that people do not think RBY UU is particularly skillful.

Despite this, people generally find RBY UU enjoyable, with an average of 3.5 for all responses and 3.54 for qualified responses. This is a good sign for the metagame, unlike the prior question.

We also asked how constricted the teambuilder is, with 1 meaning "extremely constricted" and 5 meaning the opposite. Among all respondents the average was 2.13 and for qualified responses it was 2.08, meaning that players find the metagame quite restrictive in the builder.

A supermajority of respondents believe the metagame could be improved by tiering action; notably, not a single respondent responded "no," suggesting that all respondents are at least open to tiering action.

We also asked "In a few words, what do you believe is the current biggest issue facing RBY UU?"

Responses

"High variance caused by constricted builder = reliance on paralysis luck, crits, and speed ties to win"

"Dugtrio please god Dugtrio"

"The combination of duggy + cuno. Checking one is manageable but having to check both on the same team is what constricts teambuilding for me."

"The Kadabra, Tentacruel, Dugtrio trifecta which can be fixed if you bring back Hypno but nobody wants that except me perhaps."

"threat oversaturation, specifically @ cuno"

"some of the staple threats of the tier such as Tentacruel sit at such an oppressive speed tier that they end up controlling overwhelming parts of the match. everything revolves around getting these specific threats to a certain percentage so that your myriad of offensive threats can reliably sweep the entire game from there, and the defensive threats available arent adept at slowing said progress. However, a lot of the Pokemon in contention for removal could cause a myriad of further unseen issues. I think Tentacruel would perhaps be the healthiest change but also the most tier-shifting."

"Articuno is the easiest mon to cut."

"Articuno in combination with other breakers completely disables any capacity for defensive play. It really needs to go"

"Tentacruel is boring to face but otherwise not sure if something truly deserves a ban in UU."

"Lack of defensive stability or counterplay, No Hypno"

"Defensive counterplay is extremely hard to build. The joint pressures of the 6 pokemon at the top of the VR make it hard to build appropiately for all of them without making the team significantly worse at trading or at the mercy of a stray crit or other rng such as a miss of freeze spiralling out of control."

"kang/cuno are absurd (former near impossible to check). tent is dumb"

"there are still too many different threats, particularly for endgames, you dont know whats coming bc no team preview and there is too much randomness in whether or not u have the right endgame mon(s) or if you sacd the piece that you end up rly needing."

"Ideally, I think RBY UU wants more mons who can take hits long-term across a game. Or in other words, stuff that makes quick work of 3-4 mons in any given game, on a whim with no real setup, needs to be "silenced" so to speak, lead among them being Dodrio."

"Right now I think the main issue is the disparity between offensive and defensive Pokémon in the tier, mainly I feel as though the combined pressure of Normal-types, Articuno, and Dugtrio, is a bit restricting in the builder and hard to play around well. From past experience in UU I'd probably put the most blame on the Normal-types but all three are contributing factors."

"The big 3 of Tentacruel, Dugtrio, Kadabra centralizing the meta; an Articuno ban would likely make this worse"

"Cuno and Dugtrio combined are very difficult to deal with, even before considering crits and freezes, and all the defensive slow stuff / bulky waters that are good into both them are farmed by Tent's Wrap."

"Tentacruel"

"Offense is a little too strong. Returning Hypno may improve things, but I'm not sure."

There is a clear theme among most responses that offense is oversaturated and hard to disrupt and that the six highest-ranked Pokemon on the VR - Tentacruel, Kadabra, Dugtrio, Kangaskhan, Articuno, and Dodrio - are too much to handle all at once, though responsed tended to identify different culprits. There are also some players noting that Tentacruel's influence on the tier is warping, that Dugtrio + Articuno combined are very hard to check, and that they believe Hypno should be unbanned or at least considered.

Next we move to individual Pokemon. Each was rated on a scale of 1-5 for how much removing them independently would benefit the tier, with 1 meaning it would be detrimental and 5 meaning it would be beneficial.

Tentacruel had extremely varied responses, with an average score of 3.33 among all respondents and a significantly lower 3.0 among qualified respondents, indicating there is some controversy about Tentacruel. However, Tentacruel was rated lower than a number of other Pokemon. Tentacruel has been the subject of discussion for a long time due to uncertainty about whether its defining presence in the tier shuts out too many slow Pokemon or creates a healthy central metagame.

Kadabra was the Pokemon respondents least desired a ban on, with reasons cited in discussions including its role in checking Tentacruel and its extreme weakness to physical attackers. Kadabra was rated 2.44 on average by all respondents and 2.38 by qualified respondents.

Dugtrio was one of the more controversial Pokemon. It rated an average of 3.22 among all respondents and 3.15 among qualified respondents, with very few respondents having a neutral opinion of it.

Kangaskhan rated a 2.94 among all respondents and a 3.15 among qualified respondents, a significant discrepancy likely caused by the fact that Kangaskhan lacks some of the tools that other top Pokemon have, like a base >100 Speed, Agility, or Wrap.

Articuno was by far the most supported target for a ban, with a supermajority of respondents rating it a 4 or 5. This translates to an average of 3.72 among all respondents and a staggering 4.15 among qualified respondents, indicating an extremely high level of support for a test.

Dodrio was the second most popular target, averaging 3.44 among all respondents and 3.61 among qualified respondents.

We asked for opinions on Dragonite, Haunter, Electabuzz, and Persian to get a sense of how other Pokemon in the tier with some controversial elements are perceived and confirm that the above 6 Pokemon are the ones generally seen as problematic. Dragonite and Persian each received a single 4 vote and all other votes for all Pokemon were 3 or lower. All Pokemon's results are in a table below; as you can see, none of these 4 Pokemon came remotely close to the 6 Pokemon listed above.

​

Pokemon​	Rating (All responses)​	Rating (Qualified Responses)​
Tentacruel​	3.33​	3​
Kadabra​	2.44​	2.38​
Dugtrio​	3.22​	3.15​
Kangaskhan​	2.94​	3.15​
Articuno​	3.72​	4.15​
Dodrio​	3.44​	3.61​
Dragonite​	2.06​	2.08​
Haunter​	1.56​	1.69​
Electabuzz​	1.56​	1.77​
Persian​	1.94​	2.15​

​

In response to "Are there any other Pokemon you would want to ban to improve the metagame and how problematic do you find them (1-5 where 5 is extremely problematic)?" We had only 4 responses, with 3 noting that we could consider instead unbanning Hypno or allowing more Pokemon to drop from OU, such as C-rank Pokemon.

We then asked some miscellaneous questions:

The majority of respondents favored banning something, even if it was not their preferred option. Notably, no respondents were fully against taking a different course of action from their preference.

The next question was "Do you support having multiple bans or suspects, based on the current UU tier? If so, why?" To summarize, responses were mixed. A number of respondents felt a single ban was sufficient, and a number were in favor of suspecting one Pokemon at a time but banning several Pokemon total. Most responses that named specific targets suggested banning either Articuno or Dugtrio and testing the metagame then following with further bans as needed.

Two thirds of respondents found the metagame too offensive, with a third finding it just right. No respondents felt that the metagame lacked offensive presence.

In response to "How do you feel about the current Viability Rankings cutoff?" two thirds of respondents indicated support for raising the cutoff, meaning that more Pokemon would drop into NU. Some responses including favorable ones noted that they believed Pokemon like Ninetales are clearly UU but would be dropped as a result, suggesting that support for this is contingent on a new Viability Rankings.

Most respondents favor raising the cutoff for drops in VRs. I will be codifying tiering further in a tiering post and for future VRs we will have more defined cutoff methodology to hopefully get rankers on the same page.

Half of respondents do not favor bans without suspect tests being conducted by the council and lower tiers leader and a supermajority do not favor bans without suspect tests. As a result, any quickbans will be temporary and followed by an unban and test, similar to what happened when Lapras dropped from OU; this was already the existing policy, but we've clarified that people do want to see all Pokemon get a chance in the tier before writing them off.

A supermajority of respondents favor using both individual and team tournaments as tests of different metagames. As a result, we will look into testing different potential bans in future tournaments as grounds for future suspects.

Notably, I will be drafting a Policy Review post about banning Articuno from UU immediately. 7 out of 8 starters in UUBD were in favor of voting mid-tournament, so this should be minimally disruptive.

 

[Sevi 7]

The Kadabra, Tentacruel, Dugtrio trifecta which can be fixed if you bring back Hypno but nobody wants that except me perhaps

This tier has become so frustrating to play and even watch because of this in my opinion. Every game feels like

After Hypno left, the game feels so much worse. It's a catch all defensive pivot and that makes it overcentralizing, but like GSC Lax, it's needed. I know some people told me it enabled offense and was too good as a lead, but offense is more enabled than ever and sleep helps keep lead Hypno in check. I don't get why some people are so allergic to the idea of Hypno coming back, but I think people should be open to the idea.

Articuno could probably get banned either way though. It never really did anything productive in the tier that other mons can't do in a more healthy way.

Just my two cents. I keep hoping it at least gets suspect tested so I can try to play this tier again.

 

[Tree69420]

This tier has become so frustrating to play and even watch because of this in my opinion. Every game feels like

View attachment 649555

After Hypno left, the game feels so much worse. It's a catch all defensive pivot and that makes it overcentralizing, but like GSC Lax, it's needed. I know some people told me it enabled offense and was too good as a lead, but offense is more enabled than ever and sleep helps keep lead Hypno in check. I don't get why some people are so allergic to the idea of Hypno coming back, but I think people should be open to the idea.

Articuno could probably get banned either way though. It never really did anything productive in the tier that other mons can't do in a more healthy way.

Just my two cents. I keep hoping it at least gets suspect tested so I can try to play this tier again.

the tier has too many hard hitters so rest hypno is super exploitable, and if rest hypno isnt usable then it doesnt serve the defensive purposes you claim and instead just trades for itself every single game leaving you with 5 mons to cover all the same offensive threats
lapras could be nicer as a fat mon with real weaknesses so you can actually beat it without expending your own lapras but who knows because back elecs kinda suck and theyre the best mons for pressuring lap