LC UU Teams + Tournament Recap + VR + Metagame Takes (WARNING: CONTAINS OPINIONS)
With the recent victory of my team in LCBC by the literal skin of our teeth and my 8-1 run that paved the way for us to get there, also making me the MVP of the entire tournament thanks to the assistance of my LC UU Pit Crew
DC Nanchlax and especially
Hys, I thought it would be productive and fun to write a big recap post, teamdump, metagame thoughts, VR, the whole shebang, rather than some shoutouts post where I jerk myself and my teammates off for 1000 words, though just know that I'm very happy with what we've achieved, especially for a tour I ended up playing in after I signed up for LC UU half as a joke and forgot to delete my sign up (and ended up accidentally having one of my most fun LC tournaments ever in the process). Idk how useful this'll be considering the shifting nature of a usage-based tier but I assume even as some things come and go a lot will fundamentally stay the same, so I hope it's still useful when things inevitably change again. Also, thanks to Albi for his weekly recap posts in this thread, I enjoyed reading them a lot and it provided a lot for what is definitely a smaller tier with less hype/discussion around it. With that being said:
Week 1: Drifting vs Logice
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Team by
JuanSG
This game was still in my "I'm not sure if I'm gonna cancer yet phase" so I kinda just nabbed whatever paste. I don't really like teams with baked in gimmicks like weather or screens or whatever (which is a common theme you'll see throughout this recap) so I basically just loaded what you'd expect, all the broken Pokemon at the top of the VR and a Chespin, who seemed fun to use a spikestacker and sun counter with Bulletproof. Tbh I don't really feel the need to elaborate much more on this meta, as it was only a very small portion of the tournament and I kinda don't remember much about it, other than Magby being absolutely ludicrous. As for the game itself it wasn't anything spectacular. I kinda got overwhelmed early probably due to inexperience but then I locked in and started pulling it back, especially since I had a broken ass Magby and he didn't. Getting a really bad sleep roll could have made things a lot more complicated but I didn't get punished too hard thankfully. Again, this meta is very outdated and full of weird broken mons that I want to be a bit brief with this and the next week.
Week 2: Drifting vs Stories
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Team by
Drifting
After winning in Week 1 I felt a bit energized and actually wanted to build something by myself this week. I had developed an understanding that having scarfers and speed in general was very powerful in this tier where some of the defensive choices are less powerful, especially with a lack of Steel-types that resist rock (aka not Alolashrew). This gave me the idea to use tera rock Cranidos and go crazy, so I just slapped on the broken core of Shrew/Magby/Grimer/Chinchou and then finished with a Larvesta to provide a stronger Snow counter as well as being a slow pivot that could give more opportunities to Cranidos. I think the idea was pretty good, but it didn't really work out in game. Not only had I scheduled poorly and ended up playing the game tired, but even coping aside I just didn't account for what I assume was double scarf. I had been mentally conditioned to expect one scarfer a team, and for Snover to be the scarfer, that I didn't even think for a second that Zorua was anything but Evio Wisp/Plot/Knock etc. My biggest mistake was popping tera on Cranidos for minimal concrete upside. I didn't think it'd have any downside and I was paranoid about some weirdo Evio or Tera-Steel Snover surprise, but in hindsight it was very unnecessary and presumptuous. No shame in losing to Stories, a very strong opponent and underrated LC player, but it did suck a little to not go undefeated. GG. I also wanted to shoutout Clear Smog Grimer which I came up with as an anti-Numel tech. Grimer is so fucking cool.
Week 3: Drifting vs Camden
deadgame lol
Our scheduling was ass and the week had already ended so we deadgamed. I was happy to do so since it let me do some research, spectating and thinking about the new meta that had started this week.
Week 4: Drifting vs WestSasori
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Team by
Hys
This week I ended up loading a variation of what Hys had been working on for Camden, with some minor changes based on what we had seen in Week 3. We had a sort of understanding that stuff like Voltorb Sand or Imp Screens might be strong but I don't believe in that woke nonsense so I asked my Sous Chef Hys to cook up something with 6 solid Pokemon and outplay potential. And thus was born the Wattrel-Tenta-Geowth VoltTurn core that would define a lot of our teams, and the tier as a whole. The whole team was fast and could abuse paralysis and momentum to facilitate outplaying, and Snubbull was a cool anti-cheese tech with Intimidate and Psyfangs to break screens. The game itself went pretty smoothly, I was kinda in my element at this point so I was able to take momentum with some double switching and then keep it by doing some finnicky positioning to take kills with whatever Pokemon was hardest for Sasori to exploit. It's funny how bad the wattrel sets were in these early days, with Hurricane and Volt Switch, two moves that would very quickly fall out of favour. I think a lot of this match just came to us having a stronger grasp on the metagame in this early stage. Ideas like Slowpoke and Pinch and Scarf Gunk were cool but they didn't really match up to the power and versatility of the 5 Brokens + Snub core.
Week 5: Drifting vs Albi
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Team by
Hys
Bit of a last second prep situation here, so Hys ended up building and giving me some very straight-forward and aggressive set-up spam spikestack. It was a bit unexpected for Albi to pull up with something even more aggressive and hyper-offensive though, the dreaded screens set-up spam with an awesome Slugma set. Luckily though this was a pretty good matchup thanks to Meowth, which kind of shut down a lot of Albi's options, though really my main takeaway was how much trouble I'd be in if on a whim his Crab was a Normal resistant/immune tera type. It made me wonder why this style of team didn't really get used for the remainder of the tournament, as it seemed very simple and strong. Maybe other players were just like me and disliked this sort of "gimmicky" playstyle though. I did risk a lot in-game bringing in Meowth on a Crab bulk up to avoid having to sack an additional Pokemon, but I think it was a reasonable risk to take based on the circumstances. My favourite part of the game was easily the Larvitar sequence, but sadly it just barely wasn't strong enough. I do wonder how this team would go against a more typical squad, since even with the priority stuff like Scarfers seem scary for a Dragon Dance reliant team like this, but I did play one vs Corckscrew and won that too, so I think it's fine. These games without removal just feel so refreshing and straightforward to play, setting and forgetting hazards for permanent progress. Side note: We had figured out Volt Switch Wattrel was trolling at this point, but there was still quite a way to go for figuring out how to optimise this Pokemon.
Week 6: Drifting vs tko
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Team by
Hys
Finally it was time for tko, the player who I was half looking forward to and half dreading, since I considered him the other elite (SCL-caliber) player in the pool (not to disparage anyone else of course, the pool had a lot of unexpectedly strong opponents). I knew that my prep this week would have to be fire, so I got to work early reviewing and refining masterpieces by Hys. We leaned heavily on the Watt/Tenta core, but due to tko's omnipresent Voltorb, we elected to go with Numel as our rocker, who's basically the only real hard-counter in the tier. When choosing our Fighting-type (which we had decided was mandatory... for some reason) we decided to go with Gunk over Crabrawler. Normally we had only built with Gunk as a part of what I call the "Sandfrog" core (Hippo/Shrew/Gunk) but it was becoming more clear that strategies like sand were falling out of favour in the meta in favour of consistency, knocking and pivoting, which we hoped Gunk would be able to sabotage. This meant our team needed speed though so we decided to go with Deerling over Bramblin. Finally, Axew was used because we noticed tko didn't use Dragon-resists other than tera fairy Bramblin, and with Numel being a rocker our team lacked a sort of X-factor win-condition. Thankfully in the game itself, the prep paid off hard, and with an early Tera on Numel, I was able to kill Tentacool and force his Tera. From there it was all over in a relatively straightforward manner. The Crab could have been a little dodgy at the end if some certain plays were made, but with the resources I had to throw at it the odds were pretty heavily in my favour. This isn't the last we'll be seeing of tko though, and the other games are anything but straightforward. I don't think Nymble is very good but maybe this was just a bad matchup. Albi also stole this team later, though some of his sets were wrong, so here you go :p
Week 7: Drifting vs MOHAMEDALL
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Team by
Hys
Our prep this week was kinda weird. For a long time our plan was to use some funky Sandfrog team with Larvesta that me and Hys were building together, but as it became obvious how important this game would be for us making playoffs I pussied out and went with a no gimmicks core of six that Hys had posted earlier, unless you count not using any of the three best Pokemon in the tier a gimmick, which is what we were doing... for some reason. At least this let me beat the Wattrel merchant allegations. Mohamed's team was pretty psychotic, and there's not a lot to talk about in the game other than Bramblin proving why I think pretty lowly of Sandshrew and I suppose Drilbur too, rating them a lot worse than many others. Sandshrew just got completely shut out by Bramblin letting me trap Mohamed in infinite Stealth Rock Hell, albeit with a pretty sheist double switch thrown in there. Once the magnemite got forced to Tera it was completely over, especially with Croagunk shutting down Dewpider, a completely unintended side effect of its job stopping Tentacool. Dewpider is cool, being the only true Numel counter in the tier but it really needs opportunities created for it and Tera to shine, and it just didn't have that here. Voltorb is super strong but I didn't get to use it any more this tournament sadly. True Drifting fans will also recognise this as the start of the Kratos larp, one of my worst ever.
Semifinals: Drifting vs WestSasori 2
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Team by
Drifting and
DC
Finally we were in playoffs, and my first rematch was against Sasori. I had received some Brazillian insider knowledge about his love for random scarfers and patient plays, but also that he was "afraid of my double switches" and got tilted easily when someone "jogada sem sentido". So of course, the first thing I do in game is try to double switch and get punished hard for it. I don't know what I expected. The team is literally as simple as it gets, just a standard Fire-Water-Grass core with a Wattrel (functional Ground, who by the way we had FINALLY realised was way better with Air Slash for Bramblin), a Steel-type and a Fighting-type. This stuff works in every metagame ever so i just wanted to do something that I could outplay with. At this point I was pretty sick of running Stealth Rock on stuff like Numel because it was obvious how much more effective the Pokemon could be as a late-game sweeper, as was proven in this game with the unconventional Tera Ghost sealing it for me. I was pretty confident on Geowth at this point to be the rocker instead, as not only did it provide me with the rocker I needed, but also completed the VoltTurn core with Wattrel/Tenta and served as a solid flying resist, which can be hard to come by with powerhouses like Doduo in the tier. This is the team that Albi decided to make a sample, which makes sense because it's as basic as it gets. I like pairing Bramblin with Tentacool, since it lets you run dual-STABs with Bramblin which I think it really needs, and without needing Spin it can stay in against Deerling, sap it, and set up layers. Ducklett was a really creative bring by Sasori and it was honestly pretty good in how it stopped my Crab and especially Numel, though he ended up sacking most of its HP to remove the layers I had accumulated, which ended up costing him the game when Numel got going. DC was pretty eager to use Stockpress Numel, but I thought the set was really gimmicky, and I'm glad I ended up going with my gut because Ghost Growth was clutch here, though I did have to dodge some Deerling hax. Great performance by Sasori, but unfortunately he ended up with another reason to live in fear of O Pesadelo (/s).
Finals: Drifting vs tko 2
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Team by
Drifting and
DC
Unfortunately (or fortunately if you were a spectator), I ended up against tko again in the finals, which meant I'd need to do some more tryhard bullshit. The Wattrel/Tenta/Geowth core speaks for itself at this point, and we liked the FWG core idea from Semifinals, so we went with a Larvesta to get some bulk, threaten Deerling with Flame Body (a pokemon we were obviously terrified of), and of course contribute to the VoltTurn core. The star of the show here is Rhyhorn, the pokemon that I wanted to use before we had even decided on anything else since I believed in it a lot, with its Rock/Ground/Flying coverage hitting the entire tier. My team insisted I use the same set with DD Larvitar instead, but I insisted repeatedly on Rhyhorn because of it's advantage of beating Scarfers with Rock Polish, a trait Larvitar doesn't have. Of course, just my luck, Rhyhorn doesn't really do anything this game, especially with a Koffing. Tko's bring was pretty smart and safe, with Dewpider to stop my Numel usage and Croagunk for my Tenta usage, his Drilbur which owned my Wattrel turn 1, and of course old reliable Voltorb. My early game was pretty bad, but I managed to claw my way back thankfully. I think people were pretty sick of this Deerling Paraspam meta at this point, because there were some luck allegations thrown around but I don't really see it, at one point I'm stuck in a loop of pivoting around waiting for Geowth to get full para'd, which happens on the second rep, I go for a single 60% headbutt flinch to chip Koffing for Rhyhorn before switching out, and I get another full para on the Geowth at the end, but I still had outs to play for if some of that stuff didn't happen, especially with the Rhino being unused, and tko also benefitted from RNG throughout the game (such as Turn 1 and the crucial Air Slash miss on Voltorb). That being said, tko played a really strong game and it took some really precise mid-game play by me (and yes, a little luck) to pull it back in the end, so I was just glad it was over and I wouldn't have to play him again for the rest of the tournament.
Finals Tiebreaker: Drifting vs tko 3
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Team by
Drifting
If I had to pick some words to describe my build in tiebreakers I might go with "safe" if I was being charitable, or "paranoid" if i was being cynical. Really our goal here was to pick Pokemon that are impossible to switch into and will always make progress (Grimer-A and Geowth), and shut down any "checkmate" option tko could bring, meaning we ended up with Dewpider (the only Numel counter) and Numel (the only Voltorb counter). The irony is not lost on me that tko brought neither of those things. You probably won't believe me at this point but when I was closing out the FWG core I really didn't wanna use Deerling, since I honestly prefer Bramblin, but since I don't really like Voltorb, Doduo or Scarfers, I always ended up needing the Speed on my teams. This left us in an awkward spot where for our last I could choose Wattrel, old reliable pokemon and Electric-answer, but have no Spinner, or use Tentacool and risk a terrible Croagunk matchup. I ended up going with Wattrel, making it 16 speed to slow U-Turn on other Wattrel, but tko had the same idea so that didn't end up working out. in hindsight, I probably should have tried Voltorb over Wattrel and Bramblin over Deerling, but having no Volt Switch immunity to at least force a Voltorb Tera sucks, and Wattrel's ability to Roost is a gamechanger. Tko's team is really insane and creative, and I don't really know how to describe it, other than it made all my prep look like a joke lol. Fortunately, in a meta where paralysis and Deerling are so dominant, eventually shenanigans are gonna happen and after three games vs tko it was time, with some clutch paralysis letting me keep Wattrel healthy and un-knocked. As reggg and Quinn pointed out on Discord, I still had other outs with good odds, so I wouldn't call it a robbery by any means, but it definitely turned what would have likely been a meticulous, challenging game into a somewhat simple, advantaged one, which is a shame. That being said, even though it was in good faith, it was pretty cringe of me to message tko after the game asking if he was upset so if ur reading this I apologise for that.
Anyway, that concludes the recap (don't think ur off the hook
Albi I still expect the finals double feature soon
) so it's time for my wack ass VR
The pokemon are ordered within the tiers (except requires testing), and my opinion changes a LOT (I could see mons like Shroodle increasing massively for example and I'm not quite sure if Crabrawler is that low) but this is a general idea of my thoughts. To summarise each tier:
S: The VoltTurn Holy Trinity, I've written extensively on them
A+: Gunk, amazing Fighter/Tspikes Absorber/Water counter/Wincon/Priority and the other components of the traditional FWG core
A: Voltorb, the best mon with tera and Crabrawler, the other choice for Fighter.
A-: The final pokemon that I would describe as "fundamental" to LC UU
B+ the strongest Ground-types all fit here, as well as the pokemon with high strengths but also high flaws (Meowth's fragility and coverage, Dewpider's reliance on tera and chip, Larvesta and hazards)
B: Gimmicky pokemon like Nymble and Imp, Sand, and the Dragon Dancers fit here, along with Buizel who is a good but flawed Speedster.
B-: The start of "niche" pokemon. Litleo is a high-demand fire type and unconventional sweeper with Moxie and Trailblaze, you should try it. The other pokemon all should speak for themselves, being useful but quite specific and finnicky in how they can make a big impact on a game.
C+: Can be strong but are fishy
C: Usable but not really recommended
Requires Testing: These pokemon seem good but I need to see them in action more. Golett might also go here but wasn't on the tier list, though from the Scarf Golett testing I did I'd either put it top of C+ or bottom of B-
Metagame Discussion + Deerling Talk:
I kinda lied about the metagame takes lol, stuff that's good is always good. Use FWG cores, use a ground-type or a Wattrel, a grounded Poison is good in case of Tspikes, mix in as much speed, paralysis and knock off as possible, and sweepers that boost their speed or have priority are crazy, especially with tera. If you can fit a Fighting-type and removal use them on most teams, and stacking offensive types like Flying is good. Pretty standard stuff. Meta is a lot of fun, I believe a lot of LC metas, especially in SV, started out fun and then get fucking unplayable over time when the meta becomes homogenous and people start doing mirror match RNG tightrope walks with no room for error and where getting the right lead matchup is an insane advantage. Adding a usage element helps keep stuff fresh and prevents dogshit like Vullaby from ruining my games.
The real question though is whether I think Deerling should be banned, and I'm gonna take the cop-out answer and say no, but I'm not sure. I don't think the Pokemon is that overwhelming, and a lot of the stuff it wants to flinch down can be pretty lethal to it if they break through even a single time. Additionally, an 18 speeder with some bulk/sustain helps keep a lot of stuff in the tier more honest in my opinion, and without it I'd expect to see a Bramblin on basically every single team. That being said the Pokemon is super annoying if it gets lucky, so I get why people hate it, and it would certainly make some games appear less degenerate on the surface if it was gone, but I just think the counterplay is sufficient enough and its impact on the metagame benevolent enough to let it stick around. I'd be open to changing my mind but that's where I stand on it currently.
Anyway, I'm finally done with this massive post. Thanks again to Hys DC Nanchlax, Albi for his hard work, JuanSG for the Week 1 team and to my believers Coconut and Éric. Also shoutouts Actuarily and tazz for being clutch in tiebreakers as well, u guys rule.
Yap session over. God of War OUT!
The balloon leaves us after 3 months where it saw a good deal of usage and was very well regarded as an answer to ground and fighting types. Not a particularly meta-shaking change, but one less good option in the builder.
After Juan terrorized the LCRU tier with it, ladder apparently took notes and stole it from here as well. Another underexplored option, tho imo harder to make work than Drilbur
a Voltorb with somewhat better coverage, which might be more relevant now. I haven't tried it or seen it at all this gen, I'm curious to see how it will develop.
I'm sure skill link tail slap + tidy up won't be an issue when the tier has lost its most valuable ghost type, right?....
doduo is REALLY good in this tier and every time i talk about it with the people who play this i get told im crazy. if you look at my vr for reference it 2hkos literally everything on it besides snowshrew and rhyhorn/nosepass. its not really hard to get in stuff that it does well vs too like horua and hell even opposing chinchou with your own chou to support it.
i think the vr undersells just a little bit how impactful as a playstyle snow is in this tier. very clearly deserving mon of being a+ because it matches up really well into the majority of teams people load and snow is the best speed control and enables the best sweeper.
elekid really should be really good in this tier but in game i feel like it constantly underperforms. its walled by the best mon in the tier, isn't great speed control with snow up, and blanks into a few other mons that i consider are really good. its not bad but i think its more middling than the vr suggests
the above also applies to crabrawler to me except it should be even better than elekid when you look at this tier. i use a lot of tera ghost on my teams because of doduo and its really punishing for him. alongside that, theres a good amount of fast special attackers that can always pick it off and it can't really setup without punishment from anything really. again, still decent but overrated
sun is kinda whatever. it matches up poorly into hail and it does pretty bad into it. not an impossible matchup for sun but its just making the game too hard for you. decent fish if opp doesn't like hail though fsr
anyone can testify how much i obsess with this mon whenever it comes up in conversation. it has a very legitimate and good use here though seeing as its one of the few mons that doesn't get smoked by doduo when you swap in. it has an actual offensive existence too which is cool compared to something like nosepass which is in the tier below. good mon!
this mon actually just stinks and i hate it despite it being on the sample i made. it matches up quite well offensively into hail, but having to keep rocks off just isn't really worth the tradeoff you get with this mon. if you want an anti hail mon just drop chou and run shellos.
a staple of the sun archetype leaves, we'll see if the weather strategy sticks around with the other abusers (Oddish?)
surprised by this one, we were just starting to see its potential and now it leaves due to magby taking over the LC ladder
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