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Pet Mod SS OU Theorymon (Completed)

How to deal with Zarude

:swsh/zarude:

Dark Monke got a shiny new buff in the addition of tough claws, which unsurprisingly, makes it hit crazy hard.
People are struggling to find good Zarude checks, so here's a list of stuff that can deal ok defensively against it!

The current main sets I've seen have been Band, Scarf and some kind of bulk up variant that usually runs lefties or LO (I've used Weakness Policy to good success)

I would personally recommend to have some Band answers on every team, since it's most likely the strongest breaker in the tier.

Reliable:
:kommo-o: Kommo is pretty good at checking zarude, it tanks both stabs and can deal with band fairly reliably only really fearing CC, it also appreciates a lot of Zarude structures bringing Rillaboom, so it gets extra healing.

:mandibuzz: Mandibuzz also does a fairly good job, although it probably needs to run max defense to take the least amount possible from CC.

:togekiss: Togekiss is a mon that happens to have the lucky type combination that resists both stabs, it only really fears rock slide. A slight problem however is the fact that even with max defense it takes a crazy amount from band power whip.

:weezing-galar: The best Counter don't @ me

:buzzwole: Great defensive mon already doesn't take damage from any of its moves, only thing it needs to watch for is a surprise acrobatics set.

:tangrowth: usually better coupled with a dark resist, but it acts as a great scout to figure out what zarude is using, as well as inflincting helmet damage.

Shaky (Usually prediction reliant) :

:zapdos: needs to come in on a power whip, although it does have the nice bonus of having the static chance procing

:corviknight: / :skarmory: metal birbs take whips well, corv crumbles to lariat but skarm can uuuuuusually live two, but only if its at full
252 Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Zarude Darkest Lariat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 145-172 (43.4 - 51.4%) -- 9% chance to 2HKO

:tornadus-therian: same as above, however it does outspeed zarude and can threaten it with u-turn or hurricane

:toxapex: (Physdef): How the mighty have fallen, takes over 60% from band whip, and a roll to 2hko with lariat, should only be used to scout once or twice and switch into a resist.

:tapu-bulu: so while you do resist stabs + CC, you are also giving it the terrain boost, making whip do around 45-50%, which isnt great. Switch it in on a lariat or cc.


Hella Niche (You need to build around these)

:Arcanine: Bulky Arcanine is actually kind of cool, can work on BO's with teleport,


:azumarill: ok hear me out, perishtrap sap sipper azu on stall

:moltres: probably a worse zap, but hey, their zarude is out of commision if you get the burn!
 
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So, after a day of testing with the discord, Zarude is most definitely very good in this meta

Some replays of the champ in action:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen8outheorymon-288 (inaugural match)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen8outheorymon-294
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen8outheorymon-291

This obviously causes some changes when compared to regular OU, but I'd like to just take a moment to point out the things that people might not focus on at first.

1) Corv is no longer as good as it is in vanilla OU, and its honestly largely replaced by Mandibuzz in this meta, as physdef mandi is one of the few full counters to zarude and the trend of grass spam teams that popped up in its wake. Due to this, Zone feels worse in this meta (atleast to me), as theres less Corv, which ironically makes Ferro feel a little better.
2) Grass spam is GREAT. Zarude + Rilla is a great core, especially when you consider that Zarude can feasibly run Glide over Whip for priority in exchange for power. I tried taking it a step further and running Zarude + Bulu + Kart, but honestly it didnt work out well.
3) Starmie is good, its just a little overshadowed by the insane behemoth that is Zarude. On the whole, special breakers are thriving in this meta. Most things run phys def to deal with Zarude, sp.def lando is much rarer. Breakers like specs lele should have a field day if Zarude doesnt get a nerf.

Additionally, we are getting a lot of great subs and theorymonning discussions on the discord, so I would definitely go check that out if you havent already!

Lastly, the council just wanted to put out some feelers atm and get a sense of the consensus on Zarude, so I would definitely recommend hopping onto the discord, finding some people to play a couple games against and filling out the survey in the announcements tab!

Also, consider this a 24 hour warning for slate discussion, voting will be up early on friday
 
Alright, votings up!
Thundurus: 15
Ribombee: 3
Rotom: 3
Swampert: 0

With yet another overwhelming majority, Thundurus + Spikes gets added to the metagame!

Now, before I announce the next slate, we've decided to try something a little different this time. There will be 5 options, and the two subs with the most votes will both get added to the metagame. Give me your thoughts on this! Is this good? Should we continue to do this? Id love to hear your thoughts!

Anyways, the next slate is:
:ss/drapion: +20 Attack + Merciless
:ss/runerigus: +20 HP + Shadow Sneak
:ss/terrakion: +Diamond Storm
:ss/raikou: +Competitive
:ss/golisopod: +20 Sp.Def + Morning Sun

As always, around 5 days of discussion followed by the voting.
 
Thought I would drop my thoughts on this:

Love the double drop, think it shakes the meta a bit more substantially than the single ones, while not being too overbearing.

:drapion: : Loooove this, I'm a sucker for adding more offensive hazard setters, and this Drapion not only takes the cake for doing that, but also heavily abuses poisoned foes, I'm glad to see a pokemon that could viably run toxic spikes that isn't named pex.

:runerigus: : honestly, don't know how much this makes this mon better, feel like it won't really use shadow sneak? Feel like it's typing isn't too great defensively and that there are probably better ground types to run.

:terrakion: : this seems interesting, technically speaking this doesn't really boost it's offensive power, just makes it more reliable and gives it a chance to boost defense. I'm wondering if it would sometimes be worth to run Stone Edge over Storm in the rare case you want to try to get a crit tho. Definitely interesting.

:raikou: : This seems very cool, would be great on spike stack structures, feel like it could be an annoying volt-turn core with zarude, but we'll see.

:Golisopod: :This seems... interesting, I've heard a few times about using Emergency Exit with Recovery to allow it to become a bulky pivot of sorts with spikes to boot, personally I feel like pulling recovery off would be hard without getting a free switch, but I'm def interested in hearing more about this one. (Also would be like, the perfect zarude revenge killer, so I'm very interested)

My top 3 right now would probably be :drapion:, :raikou: and :golisopod:
 
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