Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v6 (Usage stats in post #408)

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1. What mons do you believe will see increased usage?
Aegislash, Conkeldurr, Weavile and Dragapult in my opinion. Probably even more.
Aegislash tended to get outclassed as a special steel type attacker by Magearna. Even tho Aegislash can do a lot more than that, it's hard to want to use it over Magearna considering how much better Mag is at breaking walls and setting up. Aegislash was still a good mon but, it's easy to see that a lot of players did not want use it because Magearna is just flat out better. Not only that but, when Magearna goes for an attack, it still keeps it's bulk.
Conkeldurr having less competition as a wallbreaker will help it shine even more. Not only that but, having less competition as a physical attacker from Cinderace helps too. Cinderace having access to STAB hjk and far better speed really hampered Conk's usage for sure. Especially with Magearna being around which had better bulk, speed and typing. Conkeldurr will definitely be better to use now with all the slower/bulky teams being so popular.
Weavile is an excellent knock off user that has ways of taking on some faster threats for big dmg with ice shard. Magearna resisting both it's STABs definitely did not help its viability. With that big threat gone, it can have an easier time spamming its amazing STABs against bulky cores like Hippowdon, Mandibuzz, Clefable, Corviknight, Tangrowth, Slowbro and Amoonguss.
Dragapult. I dunno. Just been seeing it being used more. Sure, Magearna being gone helps it breaks teams better but, for some reason DD sets are seeing more usage irregardless of the ban.

2. Which mons (if any) do you think will be overhyped and have their usage skyrocket initially before dying down after a few days/weeks?
Urshifu-Dark lol

3. Is there anything that may see less usage now that Magearna and Cinderace are banned?
Maybe Blissey and Hippowdon. For sure a few mons will see less usage tho.

4. How do you think the metagame will develop now that Magearna is banned?
5. How do you think the metagame will develop now that Cinderace is banned?
I think the metagame will get a lot healthier. Better ladder & tour matches for sure.

8. Is there anything that may become too problematic for OU now that Magearna and Cinderace are banned? Don't go overboard with this one.
Maybe Zeraora and Rillaboom. With less common resists for Rilla's Grassy Slide, it'll have an easier time sweeping late game or breaking mid-game. If the metagame shifts a lot in Urshifu-Dark's favor, that could be a mon to put spotlight on next.

10. Have a nice day and I hope you all enjoy the new metagame!
Thanks TPP. You're a good poster.
 
2. Which mons (if any) do you think will be overhyped and have their usage skyrocket initially before dying down after a few days/weeks?
I think this initially happened with Urshifu-S, but especially since the duo bans of Magearna/Cinderace, this will rise in usage.

4. How do you think the metagame will develop now that Magearna is banned?
So, I think the metagame will improve with the results of Magearna's ban, however my larger concern with multiple offensive threats banned will take a turn in mons like pex being much more potent, although I mentioned this in my previous comments on the banned thread of magearna.

6. What playstyle/type of teams (offensive, balance, stall, etc) benefitted the most from the bans.
I'd definitely say that Balance and Stall would benefit the most imo.

8. Is there anything that may become too problematic for OU now that Magearna and Cinderace are banned? Don't go overboard with this one.
Pex, although I think this is obvious for most players. If Pex gets suspect tested and banned however, people will also consider urshifu again as becoming a larger threat, since pex regenerator + mandibuzz/Komo wall banded urshifu. Idk, I just personally would rather see urshifu in the metagame, but I'm not that fond of pex xD. Then again, it will force people to acknowledge the potency of Galarian Weezing more hmmm....
 

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time to put my writing skills and 0 metagame experience to work 7w7
before starting, lets make a moment of silence for thicc bunny robot sempai wuaifu material....................................................................
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnndddd done, so yeah lets go

1. What mons do you believe will see increased usage?
Kommo-o is about to have a field day ma boys since with no fleur cannon spam nor Zen headbutt shenanigans, I can also see Azumaril take some spotlight as a offensive Fairy type (use Choice Band Azu if u feel like you are not good enough at prediction and timing) blue spaggetti mon (Tangrowth) can potentialy be more free since Mag + physical attacker is as easy as 1+1

2. Which mons (if any) do you think will be overhyped and have their usage skyrocket initially before dying down after a few days/weeks?
To be honest, I dont know... sorry :c

3. Is there anything that may see less usage now that Magearna and Cinderace are banned?
Clefable was a mon that really liked magearna, dont get me wrong, its still one of the faces of the meta, I just think that its going to be the same one trick pony. Rillaboom is going to take a hit since it was good at suporting these two, but I think i will stay at top 10 or higher

4. How do you think the metagame will develop now that Magearna is banned?
:Tangrowth: and :Amoonguss: are about to be on every team in order to combat the Urshifu wave that is probably coming right now, I can even see overcoat Komoo-o to take in the grass types, or even more Mandibuzz spam for that matter. another thing is that Toge, Azu and Clef are very different in her rols as pokemons and I think people will experiment with these 3 since Mag was a: "everything in one" kind of thing

5. How do you think the metagame will develop now that Cinderace is banned?
I think Slowbro will see some experimentation, same as some other mons that had the job of handling the Nesquick Greninja, the fire types (Volc, Heat and Maro) are going to see more usage depending of the role

6. What playstyle/type of teams (offensive, balance, stall, etc) benefitted the most from the bans.
Stall, now Toxapex is getting some attention,in my case, I have never lost to a pex, probably because im low ladder trash and low ladder is low ladder, but I usually try to kill pex teammate first so that pex has to come and try to wear off the assault, obviously thats way easier to say than actually make it happen, and overall, is going to be easier to make proggress with the usual stall tactics for these teams

7. What playstyle/type of teams lost the most from the bans?
Offensive and Balance, both took some big hits with this, but Offensive is taking more damage out of this than balance, Cinderace was a staple since the Court Change spam days

8. Is there anything that may become too problematic for OU now that Magearna and Cinderace are banned? Don't go overboard with this one.
Oh boy, Urshifu is about to go "crit crit crit coverage move haha i won again u damm losers xddd"

9. Feel free to let me know if there's anything I missed or incorrectly added above. Feedback is always welcome.
10. Have a nice day and I hope you all enjoy the new metagame!
Everything is nice, thanks for the good wishes, I hope you can enjoy it too :3
 
Alright I'd like to place my input on what's going on.

Many people have been calling for a ban or suspect of Toxapex. "Ban it!" they say. "Why should we hesitate to ban defensive pokemon!" they say. But the fact of the matter is Toxapex just isn't as limiting as other Pokemon. Here's why.

You can go through the OU list and tell me that the pokemon there fail to break through Pex. Exactly. Toxapex isn't broken in the sense that it walls too much. Here is a list of mons that can break through Pex in the OU tier:

:Alakazam: Alakazam
:Crawdaunt: Crawdaunt
:Dragapult: Dragapult
:Excadrill: Excadrill
:Hydreigon: Hydreigon
:Magnezone: Magnezone
:Marowak-Alola: Marowak-Alola
:Rillaboom: Rillaboom
:Rotom-Heat: Rotom-Heat
:Urshifu: Urshifu
:Venusaur: Venusaur
:Volcarona: Volcarona
:Zeraora: Zeraora

The reason why we haven't banned too many defensive Pokemon is not because we don't like to ban defensive pokemon. Its simply because a defensive Pokemon, by nature, is less restricting than an offensive one. Currently, Urshifu is considered a balanced part of the metagame. However, as I demonstrated before, there are only 25 pokemon who can switch into Urshifu's Stab attacks. Consider this with the amount of pokemon who can 2HKO toxapex. Of course, the list with Toxapex will be much bigger. A huge amount of mons with just Super Effective Stabs can break through Toxapex.

Many Keldeo lovers may bemoan over my words. "Keldeo was sent to UU just because of Toxapex!" they say. And that would be correct. But here's the thing: Keldeo isn't only walled by Toxapex. Can Keldeo break through Slowbro? Can it break through Mandibuzz? Can sets without Air slash break through Amoongus? The answer is no. The usage statistics state very simply that Keldeo isn't viable in OU. If it were just a question of getting walled by Toxapex, then Scizor, Azumarill, Kommo-o, and Kingdra wouldn't be OU. But over many, many months of usage they have consistently shown themselves to be more viable than Keldeo, despite the fact that they are walled by Toxapex.

What I'm trying to say with my examples is that metagames adapt around defensive pokemon. Many of the top offensive Pokemon right now are how good they are because they can break through Toxapex. That being said, Scald + Knock off is a ridiculous combination, and I can see it being worthy of a suspect if just for that.


Now to :Zarude: Zarude

Simply put I do not see Zarude staying OU. Rillaboom is just better in every way except speed. Higher attack stat? Check. Stronger STAB in wood hammer? Check. Swords Dance? Check. No quad weaknesses? Check. Hits stronger because of Grassy Terrain? Check. Priority in Grassy Glide? Check. Better Team support because of Grassy Terrain? Check.

Here's the niche I see for Zarude.

Zarude is incredibly bulky. In fact, it's defense and special defense are the exact same as Mandibuzz, and it's health is only 5 points lower. Seeing as crawdaunt is booming in usage, Zarude functions as a near perfect counter to Crawdaunt.

252+ Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Crabhammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zarude: 103-122 (24.8 - 29.4%) -- 100% chance to 4HKO

252+ Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zarude: 100-118 (24.1 - 28.5%) -- 97.7% chance to 4HKO

0 Atk Zarude Power Whip vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Crawdaunt: 344-408 (128.8 - 152.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Not only does Zarude wall Crawdaunt, it naturally outspeeds even jolly crawdaunt without any investment. Therefore, if crawdaunt sets up on the switch, it is forced out. If it attacks, it is still forced.

Zarude doesn't even need to run max defense to beat Crawdaunt. It still beats it with only max hp. Here's what it can do with max spdef:

:Excadrill:
252 Atk Excadrill Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Zarude: 129-153 (31.1 - 36.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

:Alakazam:
228 SpA Life Orb Alakazam Dazzling Gleam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Zarude: 172-203 (41.5 - 49%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

:Dragapult:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Hex (130 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Zarude: 108-128 (26 - 30.9%) -- 8.1% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

:Urshifu:
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Zarude on a critical hit: 141-166 (34 - 40%) -- 39.9% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

:Azumarill:
+6 252+ Atk Huge Power Azumarill Aqua Jet vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Zarude: 153-180 (36.9 - 43.4%) -- 99.6% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

:Kingdra:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Kingdra Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Zarude: 89-105 (21.4 - 25.3%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

:Magnezone
252+ SpA Choice Specs Analytic Magnezone Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Zarude: 117-138 (28.2 - 33.3%) -- 95.8% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

On spreads with max defense, Zeraora Close Combat does not 2HKO:

:Zeraora:
252 Atk Zeraora Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zarude: 166-196 (40 - 47.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Of course, the quad weakness to U-turn is terrible, but I can still see this pokemon have defensive utility, especially on sun teams where it can't be statused and has a boosted synthesis recovery.

Zarude @ Leftovers
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Power Whip
- Synthesis
- U-turn
- Taunt/Solar Blade

Edit: Apparently Zarude doesn't have a sprite yet on threads. Whoops!
 
Zarude has a very... unfortunate movepool. No Swords Dance, Knock Off, Stone Edge, Earthquake, Leech Seed, or Ice Punch. It's frustrating because it has good stats and offensive typing but such an abysmal offensive movepool. It's hard walled by a bunch of OU staples, though maybe things will end up better long term with the removal of Mag and Cinder.

Hopefully Isle of Ice of whatever the next expansion is will bring new move tutors to help it a little. But for right now this poor thing isn't going anywhere near OU.
 
Alright I'd like to place my input on what's going on.

Many people have been calling for a ban or suspect of Toxapex. "Ban it!" they say. "Why should we hesitate to ban defensive pokemon!" they say. But the fact of the matter is Toxapex just isn't as limiting as other Pokemon. Here's why.

You can go through the OU list and tell me that the pokemon there fail to break through Pex. Exactly. Toxapex isn't broken in the sense that it walls too much. Here is a list of mons that can break through Pex in the OU tier:

:Alakazam: Alakazam
:Crawdaunt: Crawdaunt
:Dragapult: Dragapult
:Excadrill: Excadrill
:Hydreigon: Hydreigon
:Magnezone: Magnezone
:Marowak-Alola: Marowak-Alola
:Rillaboom: Rillaboom
:Rotom-Heat: Rotom-Heat
:Urshifu: Urshifu
:Venusaur: Venusaur
:Volcarona: Volcarona
:Zeraora: Zeraora
While on paper, yes these mons do beat toxapex, however there are some factors to keep in mind when using these pokemon. For example, several of these pokemon cannot stand up to pex should they get burned. Excadrill, alolawak, urshifu, crawdaunt, and zeraora are all suddenly hindered should it land a scald burn (or with alolawak it just dies), making these ineffective. Also, several of these pokemon require boosts to beat pex, such as pokemon like rotom-heat, volcarona, and venusaur, but pex can just haze away their boosts and recover while they try to set up and whittle them down with status. That leaves Alakazam, Dragapult, hydreiogn, magnezone, and rillaboom. However, we also must notice that many of these pokemon's strong stabs have counterplay. Fairy types block hydriegon and pult's dracos while dark types can take on hex pult and alakazam. Pokemon like volcarona, mandibuzz, corv, and rotom heat are very common, meaning pex can just switch out to stop rillaboom. Finally, hippo can be used to stop magnezone's electric attacks from harming pex. So while yes, while all these pokemon are sufficient at dealing with pex, there are many counterplay pex can use in the form of scald burns, hazes, or just y'know, switch out.

I feel the main reason pex is being held off on is that people are afraid what will happen to the tier should pex get banned. My view is that broken shouldn't check broken, if certain pokemon will become problematic after pex's departure then they should be looked at too, as we shouldn't force ourselves to keep unhealthy mons in the tier. We should normalize the idea of defensive bans as while they are uncommon, we should still be open to the idea of it and not hide behind the fear that certain mons will become too strong should pex leave.

As for Zarude , it definitely struggles to be an offensive mon. It's main coverage looks to be grass, dark, and fighting coverage with the last move being a booster or something like u turn or rock slide. It'll struggle beating stuff like corv, mandibuzz, tangrowth, amoongus, and pex. Moreover, Zarude doesn't get sucker punch or knock off, meaning it cant revenge kill faster threats like hawlucha, weavile, zeraora, dragapult, gengar, and terrakion without a scarf. It has a pretty shitty defensive typing, being quad weak to u turn and weak against fighting fire, fairy, ice, and poison. It;s gonna be hard to justify itself over something offensively like rillaboom or defensively with something like tangrowth or amoongus. If i were to fit it on the viability rankings, I would maybe put it in the C+ or C rank. OU just isn't cut out for this monkey, and imagine it being here when cinderace and magearna were still around.
 
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While on paper, yes these mons do beat toxapex, however there are some factors to keep in mind when using these pokemon. For example, several of these pokemon cannot stand up to pex should they get burned. Excadrill, alolawak, urshifu, crawdaunt, and zeraora are all suddenly hindered should it land a scald burn (or with alolawak it just dies), making these ineffective. Also, several of these pokemon require boosts to beat pex, such as pokemon like rotom-heat, volcarona, and venusaur, but pex can just haze away their boosts and recover while they try to set up and whittle them down with status. That leaves Alakazam, Dragapult, hydreiogn, magnezone, and rillaboom. However, we also must notice that many of these pokemon's strong stabs have counterplay. Fairy types block hydriegon and pult's dracos while dark types can take on hex pult and alakazam. Pokemon like volcarona, mandibuzz, corv, and rotom heat are very common, meaning pex can just switch out to stop rillaboom. Finally, hippo can be used to stop magnezone's electric attacks from harming pex. So while yes, while all these pokemon are sufficient at dealing with pex, there are many counterplay pex can use in the form of scald burns, hazes, or just y'know, switch out.

I feel the main reason pex is being held off on is that people are afraid what will happen to the tier should pex get banned. My view is that broken shouldn't check broken, if certain pokemon will become problematic after pex's departure then they should be looked at too, as we shouldn't force ourselves to keep unhealthy mons in the tier. We should normalize the idea of defensive bans as while they are uncommon, we should still be open to the idea of it and not hide behind the fear that certain mons will become too strong should pex leave.

As for Zarude , it definitely struggles to be an offensive mon. It's main coverage looks to be grass, dark, and fighting coverage with the last move being a booster or something like u turn or rock slide. It'll struggle beating stuff like corv, mandibuzz, tangrowth, amoongus, and pex. Moreover, Zarude doesn't get sucker punch or knock off, meaning it cant revenge kill faster threats like hawlucha, weavile, zeraora, dragapult, gengar, and terrakion without a scarf. It has a pretty shitty defensive typing, being quad weak to u turn and weak against fighting fire, fairy, ice, and poison. It;s gonna be hard to justify itself over something offensively like rillaboom or defensively with something like tangrowth or amoongus. If i were to fit it on the viability rankings, I would maybe put it in the C+ or C rank. OU just isn't cut out for this monkey, and imagine it being here when cinderace and magearna were still around.

I definitely agree. We should not hold off on banning something if we are only afraid of what will happen after it goes. Pex is no exception.

However, I think the main reason why people are calling for it's ban is not because of its defensive power. If you take just its defensive ability, Toxapex is a perfectly balanced portion of the metagame. The aforementioned pokemon are great ways to deal with Toxapex in a vacuum, and they aren't useless in a non-pex matchup. Remember what the criterion were? If a pokemon's counters are not as useful versus the metagame at large, then it is broken. However, Toxapex's counters are very useful, and so useful I won't even list them here. However, most of the reasons I see that Pex should be banned is the combination of Scald + Knock off. First off, not even every Pex runs scald + knock. Pex also really wants/needs to run Haze, Recover, Toxic, Toxic Spikes, and Baneful Bunker. Hardly a perfect moveset. Second of all, Scald only has a 30% chance to burn. Now, i'm not saying this in the way that it balances out pex, but many people are writing off many effective counters to pex because they have a relatively slim chance to be scald burned. If you keep relying on Pex to deal with its own counters, it will soon be overwhelmed. There's a 70% chance for it to outright lose to these pokemon.

Now we're seeing enough support for a Pex ban to at least warrant a suspect, if it continues to be a problem as the metagame restablizes. I'm sure whatever conclusion is reached at the end of the suspect will be the correct one.
 
I definitely agree. We should not hold off on banning something if we are only afraid of what will happen after it goes. Pex is no exception.

However, I think the main reason why people are calling for it's ban is not because of its defensive power. If you take just its defensive ability, Toxapex is a perfectly balanced portion of the metagame. The aforementioned pokemon are great ways to deal with Toxapex in a vacuum, and they aren't useless in a non-pex matchup. Remember what the criterion were? If a pokemon's counters are not as useful versus the metagame at large, then it is broken. However, Toxapex's counters are very useful, and so useful I won't even list them here. However, most of the reasons I see that Pex should be banned is the combination of Scald + Knock off. First off, not even every Pex runs scald + knock. Pex also really wants/needs to run Haze, Recover, Toxic, Toxic Spikes, and Baneful Bunker. Hardly a perfect moveset. Second of all, Scald only has a 30% chance to burn. Now, i'm not saying this in the way that it balances out pex, but many people are writing off many effective counters to pex because they have a relatively slim chance to be scald burned. If you keep relying on Pex to deal with its own counters, it will soon be overwhelmed. There's a 70% chance for it to outright lose to these pokemon.

Now we're seeing enough support for a Pex ban to at least warrant a suspect, if it continues to be a problem as the metagame restablizes. I'm sure whatever conclusion is reached at the end of the suspect will be the correct one.
The problem, I think, with the physical counters to Pex is more than just a 30% burn chance. Pex can eat any physical attack and try for a scald burn, sure. But if it doesn't burn, then it can just switch out and recover a big chunk of the lost HP with regenerator. Nothing other than a banded physical SE attack will deal much more than 50% damage. Most of the physical counters to Pex are easily walled by something else (Hippo for electrics, Corvi for non-electrics). And then it also has Baneful Bunker to deal with the contact hitters, so you are sometimes left guessing on whether or not you should even try to hit it. That's why Urshifu is one of the better physical counters for it (if Urshifu gets banned before Pex then we're really looking at a pure cancerous meta).

Out of all the pokemon that were mentioned earlier as "counters" to it, the only ones that I think are reliable consistent counters are Zam and Magnezone. And even those will slowly wittle away in a stall war with switching out, since you're obviously not keeping Pex in against them. It's just not a healthy mon to keep in the meta until we get Zapdos/Thundurus/Tapus back. There shouldn't be any delay on suspecting it unless there's no plans to suspect it at all - if we wait a month or two to suspect it then there's no point since new DLC will drop soon after and more counters will appear.
 
The problem, I think, with the physical counters to Pex is more than just a 30% burn chance. Pex can eat any physical attack and try for a scald burn, sure. But if it doesn't burn, then it can just switch out and recover a big chunk of the lost HP with regenerator. Nothing other than a banded physical SE attack will deal much more than 50% damage. Most of the physical counters to Pex are easily walled by something else (Hippo for electrics, Corvi for non-electrics). And then it also has Baneful Bunker to deal with the contact hitters, so you are sometimes left guessing on whether or not you should even try to hit it. That's why Urshifu is one of the better physical counters for it (if Urshifu gets banned before Pex then we're really looking at a pure cancerous meta).

Out of all the pokemon that were mentioned earlier as "counters" to it, the only ones that I think are reliable consistent counters are Zam and Magnezone. And even those will slowly wittle away in a stall war with switching out, since you're obviously not keeping Pex in against them. It's just not a healthy mon to keep in the meta until we get Zapdos/Thundurus/Tapus back. There shouldn't be any delay on suspecting it unless there's no plans to suspect it at all - if we wait a month or two to suspect it then there's no point since new DLC will drop soon after and more counters will appear.
The main problem of toxapex are its weakness: ground, electric, psychic. This weakness all have an immunities. So if a toxapex check is on the field, it can easily switch and recover 25% of its ps.
 
Many Keldeo lovers may bemoan over my words. "Keldeo was sent to UU just because of Toxapex!" they say. And that would be correct. But here's the thing: Keldeo isn't only walled by Toxapex. Can Keldeo break through Slowbro? Can it break through Mandibuzz? Can sets without Air slash break through Amoongus? The answer is no. The usage statistics state very simply that Keldeo isn't viable in OU. If it were just a question of getting walled by Toxapex, then Scizor, Azumarill, Kommo-o, and Kingdra wouldn't be OU. But over many, many months of usage they have consistently shown themselves to be more viable than Keldeo, despite the fact that they are walled by Toxapex.
Just wanted to clarify some things about this:
  1. Yes, Keldeo also struggles against Slowbro and Amoonguss. Here’s the thing, though: it also struggled against these two in BW and ORAS, and yet those two weren’t enough to prevent it from OU stardom. The only way Kel had to deal with either was HP, and choosing SE HP for one left you walled by the other. But Keldeo was still viable, even as Gen 6 gave us a wave of OP Megas. Therefore, I’d argue those two are not enough to keep Keldeo unviable in OU. Buzz is also a good check, but it isn’t exactly insurmountable for Keldeo. Plus, pretty much every offensive mon has one or two mons they can’t really break without some really stupid plays, and yet that usually isn’t enough to spell death.
  2. A lot of the mons you list as being walled by Pex are new mons, and so their usage may be inflated a bit compared to how good they actually are. And while Scizor, Kingdra and Azumarill struggle against Pex, they are still used because they just might be overall good in OU. Kingdra can hit hard against everything else, and outspeeds the whole tier with Pelipper‘s Rain; Azumarill is a strong Belly Drum user or Bander that can easily clean weakened teams; and Scizor has good matchups against other meta stars like Clefable, Zam and Bliss/Chans.
  3. For Kommo-o, Kom is mainly OU for its defensive attributes (see its one set on SU), so it doesn’t care that much about being walled by Pex. Breaking fat mons is not really what Kom is meant to do.

    I hope that explained why these points against a Pex suspect are a bit flawed. I know that most of the community seems okay with at least testing Pex, and personally I think this could at least be an important juncture for how we choose to deal with problematic defensive mons.
 
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TPP

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Just a head's up, but Zarude and shiny Celebi are finally available! I'll list everything we know about Zarude and then post my thoughts on it.



Signature move:







The stat distribution looks pretty nice. Zarude is bulky, especially on the physical side, and has a solid speed stat of 105. This means it can outspeed common offensive mons like Urshifu and Hydreigon, while only being outsped by Terrakion, Gengar, Alakazam, Weavile, Dragapult and Zeraora. However, it's unfortunate that the move pool lacks some strong tools like Swords Dance and Knock Off, as well as Leaf Guard being a mostly useless ability. The physical movepool does have some good stuff including Power Whip, Close Combat, High Horsepower, Rock Slide, U-turn and Darkest Lariat. Non attacking moves you're mostly limited to Bulk Up, Encore, Substitute, Synthesis and Taunt.

While the lack of Knock Off and Swords Dance is an issue, I think the biggest problem Zarude has is its competition with Rillaboom. Rillaboom has pretty much everything Zarude would ever want in Grassy Surge, Knock Off, and Swords Dance. Grassy Surge means Rillaboom hits harder naturally and can make use of Grassy Glide. Knock Off is crucial when wanting to chip away at switch ins, especially Mandibuzz, as removing its Heavy-Duty Boots can help weaken Mandibuzz until it is in KO range. Swords Dance in general is a helpful move to have if a mon lacks enough immediate power in order to achieve 1HKO's, sometimes with a little bit of chip damage. The other thing to note is that while Zarude can outspeed a few more offensive mons in order to come in, it can't replicate Rillaboom's ability to switch in and force a mon out through its wallbreaking power. By this I mean Rillaboom can force out mons like Clefable and Toxapex solely due to Choice Band Wood Hammer hitting so hard. In addition to this raw power, Grassy Glide can somewhat mitigate the speed difference between Zarude and Rillaboom, as Rillaboom can threaten faster mons like Zeraora while Zarude cannot.

Luckily Zarude does have one thing going for it that Rillaboom does not, and that is Rock Slide. Rillaboom surprisingly gets zero Rock-type attacks, meaning that it has to rely on Knock Off and raw power to KO Flying-types like Mandibuzz and Togekiss. Zarude having Rock Slide means it can immediately threaten Mandibuzz, and avoid being setup fodder for Volcarona. While the coverage from Rock Slide is great and helpful, it is unfortunately not that strong. It's weak enough to where physically defensive Mandibuzz with 200 defense takes 40.1-47.2% from a Jolly Choice Band Zarude's Rock Slide. Rock Slide could very well beat Mandibuzz due to its 30% flinch chance, but you're at the mercy of RNG in order to KO a very common switch in. On the bright side, you could always get chip on Mandibuzz with U-turn and then proceed to Rock Slide it, but it's also very possible for the opponent to send in Toxapex to scout your move and then have you be forced out.

I'll go ahead and list some potential switch ins for Zarude:

and then some mons Zarude can force out and/or switch into:


Finally, I'll leave some sets below I tried to come up with that might be okay or at least decent in a lower tier if Zarude doesn't make the cut for OU. I'll also throw in some calcs for both sets at the bottom against common defense and offensive mons to help illustrate how strong Zarude can hit with certain moves.

Zarude @ Choice Band
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Power Whip
- Rock Slide
- Close Combat
- U-turn

Power Whip is Zarude's strongest move, Rock Slide is a helpful coverage move to hit mons like Mandibuzz and Volcarona. Close Combat was added to avoid being walled by Ferrothorn while simultaneously being helpful to KO offensive mons like Urshifu, Hydreigon and Kyurem. U-turn because it lets Zarude get some chip on a switch in, or at least grab momentum as a defensive wall like Tangrowth switches in.

Zarude @ Life Orb
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bulk Up
- Power Whip
- Rock Slide
- Close Combat

Adamant nature with a Life Orb helps provide a lot of extra power that Zarude lacks. When you combine that with Bulk Up (the only setup move Zarude has), you can achieve a few KO's such as having a roll to 1HKO physically defensive Clefable with Power Whip and 1HKO'ing Rotom-Heat with Rock Slide. The loss of speed is pretty noticeable though, as you no longer outspeed base 95 speed mons or higher, which includes big names such as Urshifu and Hydreigon.

252 Atk Choice Band Zarude Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 244-288 (61.9 - 73%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Zarude Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 348-411 (88.3 - 104.3%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO

252 Atk Choice Band Zarude Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 148-175 (48.6 - 57.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Black Sludge recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Zarude Rock Slide vs. 248 HP / 200+ Def Mandibuzz: 170-200 (40.1 - 47.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Zarude Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 420-495 (99 - 116.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Zarude Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Urshifu: 370-436 (108.5 - 127.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Zarude Power Whip vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Urshifu: 277-327 (81.2 - 95.8%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Zarude Rock Slide vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Rotom-Heat: 220-260 (72.6 - 85.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Zarude Rock Slide vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Rotom-Heat: 312-369 (102.9 - 121.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

I'm starting to question why I wrote this giant post, so I think it's time to end it. Overall my expectations aren't too high for Zarude, especially with Rillaboom in the picture, but I'm only one person and I'm sure I'll learn more about it after hearing what you all think about it. As always, you're more than welcome to provide feedback and I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys have to post. Have a good Friday and a wonderful weekend!
 
Zarude has a tragically shallow movepool, dud of an ability and too many weaknesses to count -- the lack of knockoff really hurts. That's said, it has a very nice stat spread and a few notable high power moves that make me excited to try a few sets:

Scarf
Zarude @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Power Whip

Great scarf speed. KO volcarona. Powerwhip is generally threatening. Still has the bulk to act as niche defensive stop to otherwise hard to stop check like crawdaunt.

Sun Breaker
Zarude @ Life Orb
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Growth
- Solar Blade
- Close Combat
- Stomping Tantrum /Dark pulse (yes dark pulse lol)

Seriously strong at +2. Doesn't even care for lack of dark STAB on this set TBH. 2HKOs the tier's walls that aren't tangrowth. Under sun, you can't status it to wear it down through toxic/burn.

AV also something I want to explore. Mostly sad that jungle healing doesn't heal the bench too; hopes for fat fast cleric are dead.

Caionamax you could use grassy seed, but then you'd be using this on the same team with rillaboom, which it already directly competes for spot with.
 
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Zarude has a tragically shallow movepool, dud of an ability and too many weaknesses to count -- the lack of knockoff really hurts. That's said, it has a very nice stat spread and a few notable high power moves that make me excited to try a few sets:

Scarf
Zarude @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Power Whip

Great scarf speed. KO volcarona. Powerwhip is generally threatening. Still has the bulk to act as niche defensive stop to otherwise hard to stop check like crawdaunt.

Sun Breaker
Zarude @ Life Orb
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Growth
- Solar Blade
- Close Combat
- Stomping Tantrum /Dark pulse (yes dark pulse lol)

Seriously strong at +2. Doesn't even care for lack of dark STAB on this set TBH. 2HKOs the tier's walls that aren't tangrowth. Under sun, you can't status it to wear it down through toxic/burn.

AV also something I want to explore. Mostly sad that jungle healing doesn't heal the bench too; hopes for fat fast cleric are dead.
I don't test this set yet, but does grassy seed zarude would work? You can use stronger acrobatics for fat grass types, with the right spread you can resist at mandibuzz's u-turn but idk if it work:mehowth:.
 
I definitely agree. We should not hold off on banning something if we are only afraid of what will happen after it goes. Pex is no exception.

However, I think the main reason why people are calling for it's ban is not because of its defensive power. If you take just its defensive ability, Toxapex is a perfectly balanced portion of the metagame. The aforementioned pokemon are great ways to deal with Toxapex in a vacuum, and they aren't useless in a non-pex matchup.
Except they're not guaranteed answers to pex because they either can't switch into pex, don't OHKO it before risking a scald burn, or get gimped by knock off/lured with a double switch. They're checks not counters. It'd be like saying shaymin-S is perfectly managable because we have not totally worthless revenge killers like pult, weavile, mamoswine, seedlucha, blissey, chansey, corviknight, heattom, and A-ninetales, but reality is none of these are going to stop it from doing its job in the long run and get wore down too much.

What sets pex apart is how much offensive pressure it gives, as a fucking tank. Sure it kills slowly, but you're always being incredibly cautious switching answers in because pex can outright cripple them with burn/toxic/hazard chip for the entire game, weakening everything for dangerous sweepers to clean up later. Compare this to clefable or chansey, they have their limits (chansey loses to more if not all physical attackers, and clefable has less bulk+worse typing making it managable.). At least ferrothorn is running the moment anything fire related comes in.

The fact that you absolutely have to have an answer for pex leads to situations where you're forced to take unecessary chip/item loss/burn chance with no counter play. You have to muscle through pex (which can adapt to physical or special metas) in order to play the fucking game, while the pex just has to exist long enough to wear down the enemy team for offensive threats like volc, draga, zera, etc to clean up.

Complete this with regenerator, and you're looking at something you can't reliably check defensively (cant even poison it bar salazzle which is super niche for pex alone and if you use it in debate, just gives a point towards centralizing.), can't switch in to offensively check, can't wear down because its ability probably triples it health bar when added up throughout the game..

just suspect test this bullshit. If there's a redeemable quality to keeping this thing around, then people will see it and have a reason to vote to keep it. I know we don't mention DLC but it would be nice if we looked at pex before then so the meta can develop beyond what can muscle pex, feels like the power creep standards have being too high lately just because pex mandates that powercreep inorder to bring it down to earth.
 
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1.There's too many to name but I hydreigon,slowbro,corviknight and togekiss will rise. Hydreigon can't switch into magearna and cinderace could outspeed and OHKO it.Slowbro appreaciates volt-turn taking a big hit(especially considering it was coming from choice specs volt switch).Corviknight instead of having to play mind games is much more happier with theese two gone since both could hit corviknight for good amounts of damage and togekiss has one less thing that could outspeed and OHKO it to worry about after all flinching things to death speed is the name of the game for togekiss.

2.Ah hell yeah!Cinderace and magearna got banned that means gengar has two less things to worry about when it comes to being Outsped and OHKOed by cinderace's pyro ball/sucker punch or destroyed by magearna's flash cannon.Gengar will definetly be a top tier pick in OU again cause nothing can stomach gengar's coverage right guys?....guys?I also think urshifu will rise in popularity before falling back again just like when it was first released since two of it's "checks" are now gone.

3. I think hippowdon and rotom heat while both will still be definitely good will drop a bit,hippowdon especially.It straight up didn't gave a damn about cinderace with cinderace realisticly being forced to u-turn out thus giving hippodown a free turn to set up stealth rocks or even cripple with toxic.And while it does get bodied by specs fleur cannon if it uses volt switch or is simply running another set the same could be applied here.

4 and 5.While not the same i still think it's simillar enough to warrant one response.The metagame will be less focused around volt turn teams i feel.So teams centered around constantly pivoting take for example a team of cinderace(U-turn),Mag(Volt Switch),Zeraora(Volt Switch) and Blissey(Teleport) will take a hit in popularity.

6.Stall and Bulky Offense

7.Pivot teams(As discussed in the response to questions 4 and 5)

8.I'm genuinely concerned toxapex will become even more restricting to teambuilding than it already was.While magearna and cinderace weren't checks to toxapex by any means toxapex had too watch out for volt switch and zen headbutt respectively which did a respectable amount to toxapex considering how insanely bulky it is.Furthermore cinderace and magearna were great pivoters that annoyed toxapex. You could either A:U-turn after they switched in their toxapex(and you could even punish it switching in by clicking zen headbutt) or B:Switch straight into magearna and click volt switch 99% of the time.

9.I don't think excadrill and ferrothorn deserve to be in the Mons that could switch into Magearna category as excadrill is OHKOed by specs aura sphere and ferrothorn is 2 hit KOed by specs aura sphere

10.Have a great day as well
 
I really don't think that Zarude will have any offensive niche in OU's current metagame. Growth in sun is ideally good, but Rillaboom gets swords dance which is the exact same thing just without needing sun. Sure, I guess it could beat Mandibuzz after a growth but without Chlorophyll it's just going to get U-turned on and revenge killed. I think as a counter to Crawdaunt it is unmatched, but aside from that it really can't do anything notable. I might try it on my stall teams just because Crawdaunt is a huge issue, but it'll definitely be a lower tier mon bar crazy new discoveries.
 
Zarude generally looks mediocre, especially when compared to Rillaboom, which has Grassy Surge, but I think it will have some niches.

As Veez mentioned above, Choice Scarf is intriguing. I personally believe it will be Zarude’s best set since it takes advantage of a big difference between Zarude and Rillaboom; namely, the speed tier. Scarf Zarude can revenge kill everything in OU, including Volcarona.

Zarude @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Close Combat / Darkest Lariat
- Rock Slide
- Power Whip

This is the same set as listed above, but with Darkest Lariat slashed on. The neutral coverage from its Dark-type STAB could prove useful, especially against Dragapult. The other moves are non-negotiable imo.

I’m also interested in Zarude’s capability as a defensive pivot for stall teams. The set would look something like this:

Zarude @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 248 HP / 144 Def / 120 Spe
Bold Nature
- Jungle Healing
- U-Turn
- Taunt
- Power Whip

Physdef with enough speed to outrun adamant Excadrill outside of sand. It hits 246 speed without any investment. When compared other fat grasses like Tangrowth, Amoonguss, and Ferrothorn, one could argue that Zarude is underwhelming. And one is probably right. Zarude sets itself apart, however, by being way faster and having access to Taunt. It has more all-around bulk (105/105/95) than the rest as well. Jungle Healing has a ton of PP, isn’t screwed up by weather like Synthesis, and cures the user’s status. Its typing also allows it to solidly check Crawdaunt, which breezes through stall otherwise. Maybe it’s usable?

The last set I’ve theorized is a standard Sub Bulk Up variant.

Zarude @ Leftovers
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Bulk Up
- Power Whip
- Darkest Lariat / Drain Punch / Close Combat

Zarude’s great base 105 HP and good defenses make it a viable candidate for a SubBU set. Max speed is probably the way to go but depending on team support it can afford to run more bulk. It can set up on a lot of passive mons and, on paper, just looks like a pain in the ass to deal with. Dual STABs is probably the best bet for attacks just to avoid being free food for Volcarona and Dragapult, but Fighting-type coverage is good too. Having Subs that survive Seismic Toss is beautiful.

To summarize, I don’t expect Zarude to be anything great, but its unique capabilities as a Scarfer, defensive pivot, and Bulk Up user might give it a reason to be used. At worst, it’s a bulkier and faster Rillaboom with less offensive capability.
 
Zaruda is likely going to be going straight to UUBL hell with Rillaboom outclassing it, but I think it will be a fine addition to OU.
It has a bad ability in Leaf Guard, but Zarude has one of the best stat distributions available in OU.
It’s essentially a Mienshao if Mienshao doubled its bulk.
252 Atk Technician Scyther Dual Wingbeat (2 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zarude: 336-400 (95.7 - 113.9%) -- approx. 87.5% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Technician Scyther Dual Wingbeat (2 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mienshao: 532-628 (196.3 - 231.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Togekiss Air Slash vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Zarude: 198-234 (56.4 - 66.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Togekiss Air Slash vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mienshao: 284-336 (104.7 - 123.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
It’s bulk, speed, and coverage allow Zarude to do some incredible things that Rillaboom couldn’t.
Hydreigon?
Not only does Zarude outspeed and OHKO Hydreigon, but Zarude can also tank a Life Orb Draco Meteor.
252 SpA Life Orb Hydreigon Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zarude: 281-331 (80 - 94.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Rillaboom isn’t capable of outspeeding Hydreigon without a scarf or support, it can only OHKO Hydreigon with Superpower, and Rillaboom is OHKO’d back by Hydreigon.

Zarude can deal with many of the threats Rillaboom normally can’t handle.
In fact, Zarude and Rillaboom could potentially work as a team together.
Zarude picking off Volcarona, Hydreigon, Dragapult, Rotom-Heat, Amoonguss, Ferrothorn, ect. and Rillaboom providing both Grassy Terrain, priority, and nuking most of the tier.
 
I really dont like Zarude. It has good stats but its offensive movepool is lacking with no knock, good and reliable grass stab, and no immediate breaking power. Yeah it has power whip, lariat, close combat, u-turn which i consider to be the best set which is scarf in my opinion to give it the revenge sweeping capabilities, but even then it has a shit quad weakness to bug, and the most common of them is u turn, it just loses you so much momentum knowing u have to switch out in order not to get killed. It may end up like a low B, high C tier mon in OU, but I generally feel like everything it does is outclassed by rillaboom outside of its bulk and that it may limbo around 5% usage or drop to UU.

"my personal opinion dont judge to hard"
 

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I've been toying with Zarude in Draft prior to its release, so I've managed to see it some in action. While obviously the Draft playstyle is beyond different than our standard format, Zarude has shown itself to be an interestingly versatile Pokemon to me in the time that I've used it, and while it has some glaringly bad qualities, has a couple of interesting toys that really help it stand out. Most prominently, I feel people are underselling the utility of Jungle Healing and its stallbreaking potential.

1: Choiced Zarude

I'll first start here, since this is what most people seem to be talking about.

Zarude @ Choice Band / Choice Scarf
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Power Whip
- Darkest Lariat / Rock Slide
- Close Combat / Rock Slide
- U-turn

Its Choiced sets are likely its most consistent sets. It has fairly promising attack and speed, which, in addition to coverage options like Rock Slide and Close Combat and access to momentum, give it the ability to either wallbreak with a Banded set, or act as solid speed control, with U-Turn to bat as well. Though, I feel Choiced Zarude is blatantly outclassed by both Band and Scarf Single Strike Urshifu, which not only fill the role better as a choiced Dark attacker, but does it in a much more polarizing fashion with more menacing dual STABs, better offenses, Wicked Blow being an obscene move, and a smaller need for coverage options. If you want to run Choiced Zarude, its main draws are its better speed that lets it 1v1 opposing Urshifu, better bulk that lets it get in easier, as well as being able to smack Hippo more effectively with STAB Power Whip, but, honestly, they're just not worth running when Urshifu (and even Hydreigon) is sitting right there, which does its job much more effectively.

2: Defensive Pivot

Zarude @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Jungle Healing
- U-turn
- Encore / Taunt / Darkest Lariat
- Power Whip / Darkest Lariat

This set is more oriented as a balance pick, and while it's not the best, has some interesting qualities that let it do some work. Most prominently--checking the currently infamous sand core of the tier. I think it's worth mentioning since it has some use, but its weakness to U-Turn is beyond terrible for being a balance pivot, relegating its utility to checking Sand cores and soft checking Dragapult/Crawdaunt. It can certainly work, but it needs a lot of team support given Zarude's natural weaknesses.

2: Stallbreaking/Set-up Zarude

This is where things get a lot more interesting, and it's all thanks to Zarude's access to Jungle Healing.

Zarude has two variants regarding Stallbreaking that give it a viable niche in the OU tier: Stallbreaking itself, and Setup. Stallbreaking allows for it to completely shut down Stall, but Setup enables it to take advantage of Jungle Healing's attributes and 6-0 most stall cores. I group these together namely because they both are optimally pit against more passive teams.

Stallbreaking:

Zarude @ Leftovers
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Jungle Healing
- U-turn
- Taunt / Encore
- Power Whip

This set dumpsters on most stall cores, not only with Taunt to incapacitate Hazard stacking/removal, or any other passive options, but Encore to cripple the foe over the course of the next few turns. This set also capitalizes on U-Turn and Jungle Healing both for momentum against forced switches, but also Jungle Healing's ability to clear status and heal simultaneously. Power Whip is preferable over Seed Bomb, mainly for its ability to OHKO Quagsire, which is a huge attribute in Zarude's favor as a stallbreaker. It's pretty self explanatory as to how this set works, but the big issue is that it struggles more with U-Turn users, and is much more oriented toward countering passive teams. It's a good set for what it does, but it's too matchup specific to get too much mileage out of.

Set-up:

Zarude @ Leftovers
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Jungle Healing
- Bulk Up
- Power Whip
- Darkest Lariat

This set, however, is much more powerful.

This is the set that I have been running in Draft, and I believe it may have similar application to the tier, albeit to a less consistent extent due to the wider range of matchups. Jungle Healing seems, on paper, to be a really underwhelming move, but despite its small recovery threshold, its secondary quality is what most allows for it to stand out. Being able to heal some, while clearing status, is a surprisingly huge quality that lets it muscle through Toxic and stray burns, and Bulk Up in the face of the passive nature of Stall, which seems to be on the rise due to Magearna/Cinderace's bans. This set also appreciates Zarude's insane natural bulk, too.

While Quagsire could, in theory, sit on Bulk Up due to Unaware, Zarude's STAB Power Whip completely shatters it due to its quad weakness. This means that Physically Defensive Unaware Clefable is its only true counter, as while Mandibuzz and Skarmory can check it in theory, they ultimately have a hard time taking it on once it accumulates enough boosts, even with U-Turn to try and run it down.

Offensive Calcs:

+6 0 Atk Zarude Power Whip vs. 248 HP / 200+ Def Mandibuzz: 219-258 (51.7 - 60.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+6 0 Atk Zarude Darkest Lariat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 243-286 (72.7 - 85.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+1 0 Atk Zarude Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Clefable: 294-346 (74.6 - 87.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+1 0 Atk Zarude Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 199-235 (50.5 - 59.6%) -- 84.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Defensive Calcs:

0 Atk Mandibuzz U-turn vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Zarude: 136-164 (32.8 - 39.6%) -- 99.8% chance to 3HKO

0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Zarude: 146-174 (35.2 - 42%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

The cool thing about this set is that it has utility on balance teams as a whole as a way to combat more passive teams, while serving as an adequate wincon with Leftovers recovery to help augment the otherwise lackluster healing of Jungle Healing. Although, it is held back by an immensely problematic U-Turn weakness, making it dead weight against more offensive teams that aren't Hyper Offense. Though, it has its place, and I think this set is what allows Zarude stand out against Urshifu, despite Zarude's more glaring weaknesses.

--

All in all, despite how I've been gaslighting Zarude, it's not really that great in the tier, and it's hugely because it is outclassed offensively, and is plagued with a crippling U-Turn weakness in a metagame where momentum is mandatory on every team. I think Zarude, due to its unique attributes, how it has a pretty solid offensive typing, and how obscenely good its matchup against Stall and passiveness are, does have a niche in the tier, but it is hugely outclassed by Urshifu and has a hard time in such an offensive climate with its type defensively. Though, with both Magearna and Cinderace now smitten, it's possible that its niche could be much more necessary and effective than I'm giving it credit for.
 
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Given that Mage was one of the few mons in the tier who could live a hit from +2 Hawlucha and isn't OHKO'd by Magnezone, don't be surprised by that little fella rubbin his hands together in the corner like Birdman

I feel like complaints about stall are going to go through the roof with 2 of the tiers main attackers gone. Wonder if we'll see a rise in Trick Clefable to catch things like Blissey in place of Mage
 
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I dont know why but all the f***ing smogon council ban offensive things but not defensive mons. Always has the fucking excuse in "they contrain teambuilder", "they dont have counter", "they are fun to play", "presure stall cores" but shit like Toxapex and Clef doesnt get a suspect test ever.
Pre DLC meta was Teleport Clef everywhere fucking >50% usage rate, but council was "we can't ban clef, he is finch favorite mon", "he help the meta to be more stall oriented", "we have to wait a fucking meta to be playable again bc we dont ban the pinky thing" or something like "PUPL>ladder" in the case of arena trap ban.
I like to play with rules but the council doesnt give a shit about making the meta fun to play, the want match of 100 turn at minimun to be "competitive"
The only reason i always play in lower tier instead of OU is bc the 50% of the team are always the same shit: stall, sand balance, some form of hyperoffence and this was the same from the start of SSOU
Edit: this is going to be banned soon bc mod dont like to talk about how crappy the council banning system is.. =(
 
I dont know why but all the f***ing smogon council ban offensive things but not defensive mons. Always has the fucking excuse in "they contrain teambuilder", "they dont have counter", "they are fun to play", "presure stall cores" but shit like Toxapex and Clef doesnt get a suspect test ever.
Pre DLC meta was Teleport Clef everywhere fucking >50% usage rate, but council was "we can't ban clef, he is finch favorite mon", "he help the meta to be more stall oriented", "we have to wait a fucking meta to be playable again bc we dont ban the pinky thing" or something like "PUPL>ladder" in the case of arena trap ban.
I like to play with rules but the council doesnt give a shit about making the meta fun to play, the want match of 100 turn at minimun to be "competitive"
The only reason i always play in lower tier instead of OU is bc the 50% of the team are always the same shit: stall, sand balance, some form of hyperoffence and this was the same from the start of SSOU
Edit: this is going to be banned soon bc mod dont like to talk about how crappy the council banning system is.. =(
I can confidently tell you that what you're using for your argumentation is very literally not the case. Toxapex is in fact on the radar of the council, as you can tell from it being included in this survey here and a council member publicly acknowleding Toxapex as a potential issue here. Clefable wasn't not suspect tested simply because it's Finchinator's favorite Pokemon or whatever, the reason it wasn't suspect tested was covered in great detail here.

I can understand frustrations with the current state of the tier, but what you're using as "proof" is 100% untrue and I don't want to see any more posts of this nature in this thread going forward. This is a complete waste of time because you haven't even done any proper research. If you do your research and there's actually an issue, I'm sure the council would gladly listen to your feedback in a PM.
 
I dont know why but all the f***ing smogon council ban offensive things but not defensive mons. Always has the fucking excuse in "they contrain teambuilder", "they dont have counter", "they are fun to play", "presure stall cores" but shit like Toxapex and Clef doesnt get a suspect test ever.
Pre DLC meta was Teleport Clef everywhere fucking >50% usage rate, but council was "we can't ban clef, he is finch favorite mon", "he help the meta to be more stall oriented", "we have to wait a fucking meta to be playable again bc we dont ban the pinky thing" or something like "PUPL>ladder" in the case of arena trap ban.
I like to play with rules but the council doesnt give a shit about making the meta fun to play, the want match of 100 turn at minimun to be "competitive"
The only reason i always play in lower tier instead of OU is bc the 50% of the team are always the same shit: stall, sand balance, some form of hyperoffence and this was the same from the start of SSOU
Edit: this is going to be banned soon bc mod dont like to talk about how crappy the council banning system is.. =(
The reason why more offensive Pokemon are suspected and banned more often is because offense generally has the edge in Pokemon.
Offensive Pokemon are the controllers of matches and typically lead to winning a game because they eventually can't be stopped, whether it's due to their bulk or speed.
Defensive Pokemon, well are always on the defense.
It should stay that way because the only stop to offensive Pokemon would just be a faster offensive Pokemon, centralizing the meta into extreme speed creeping and games being determined by speed ties.

This isn't to say some defensive Pokemon aren't too much of a stop against offensive Pokemon. If Lugia comes back, I certainly don't want it in OU to effortlessly stop everything with it's titanic bulk.

If you want Smogon to start banning defensive Pokemon, ask GameFreak to make Pokemon that are harder to KO.
 
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