Metagame SV UU Metagame Discussion - The Indigo Disk

[seiuqq]

Sucker Punch would be nice if it weren't for the fact that Polteageist can just use Strength Sap (and Tera) to punish you for it:

252+ Atk Lokix Sucker Punch vs. 248 HP / 184+ Def Polteageist: 218-258 (67.4 - 79.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-1 252+ Atk Lokix Sucker Punch vs. 248 HP / 184+ Def Polteageist: 146-174 (45.2 - 53.8%) -- 34% chance to 2HKO
- - -
252+ Atk Lokix Sucker Punch vs. 248 HP / 184+ Def Tera Steel Polteageist: 109-129 (33.7 - 39.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
-1 252+ Atk Lokix Sucker Punch vs. 248 HP / 184+ Def Tera Steel Polteageist: 73-87 (22.6 - 26.9%) -- 30.2% chance to 4HKO
- - -
+2 0 SpA Polteageist Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Lokix: 177-209 (62.5 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 0 SpA Polteageist Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Lokix: 237-279 (83.7 - 98.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 0 SpA Tera Steel Polteageist Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Lokix: 355-418 (125.4 - 147.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

If the Lokix is not SD, it pretty much becomes fodder and can't RKO it like it does with other HO threats, which isn't fun (for the one running Lokix).

Best part, the man is immune to vacuum wave. Ghost type game enders are just like that sometimes

 

[Catcus]

Usage Stats for February(Forgot to do this last month :P)

- It's been pretty good as an HO mon for a while and was projected last month. Outspeeding Deo-S is pretty great for ho and it also does well into other mons like zarude. Overall just a good mon of a currently good playstyle.

- Was here before and was mid.

- This looks to be very similar to weavile except it can't really fit fighting coverage and it beats the waters. It could be broken but I have my doubts. It still would be fantastic however and easily a top tier, especially with Tink set to rise. What I'm curious to know is how this effects our current grasses (Zarude, Hydrapple, the Pons). Hydrapple dislikes a new Triple-Axeler but it's still apple so it'll be fine, as will Rockpon who still does it's one shenanigans. Zarude and Grasspon on the other hand both compete directly with meow as offensive pivots. This would def knock them down a peg, zarude especially, but I don't think either would truely be outclassed. Both are much more consistent vs tran and have advantages over meow like rude's bulk and pon's abuse of tera.

- The future of uu is looking grassier with these drops. Rilla's super interesting. This would obviously be a massive buff the Hawlucha, who gets an actually decent terrain setter for once. Outside of that though, rilla looks like it has a lot of potential. grassy terrain is pretty damn powerful in a tier dominated by Excadrill. It has a bit of 4MSS with Wood Hammer, Grassy Glide, knock, u-turn and high horsepower for tran. I could genuinely see some rilla sets dropping glide since it doesn't really hit much beside quaq (who might be banned). It's got a lot of potential and I'd be super exciting to see how it does.

- Honestly tink leaving is a pretty big buff to a couple mons. Nothing goes overboard or anything but it's sad to see it go.

- Weird to imagine the tier post-weavile at this point. It's been so long with it here. Maybe this could let mamo return somehow?

 

[Goro Yagami]

It's been pretty good as an HO mon for a while and was projected last month. Outspeeding Deo-S is pretty great for ho and it also does well into other mons like zarude. Overall just a good mon of a currently good playstyle.

Iron Jugulis @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Earth Power
- Work Up / Taunt
- Hurricane

It's definitely a mon that I feel has caught on more post-teapot ban. The UU sample set for it looks outdated, so this is basically what I've seen people run. It has the flexibility to run either Taunt or Work Up, depending on if you want it to have more utility, or you want the extra power.

 

[DartTamarin519]

I was looking through the usage stats of UUPL Week 1 and noticed Torn-T had 50% usage (tied first place), but an 18% win rate. I was curious how something like that would happen. I don't actively play UU, just check in every so often to see if it looks more fun than OU or OMs.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Weavile and tink are gone

 

[Catcus]

Happy April Shifts! We got some pretty big ones this time.

- Juggy finally gets their long project rise. It'll be interesting to see how it performs with meow as the main dark/grass mon/

- unfortunate loss. Tink had a load of applications and prob still did good with the new drops. Its loss is sad but not game breaking though.

- probably good that it rose with tink. we basically got cat weav though so we got something similar at least.

- who cares it's prob going to RU next shifts anyways

- Grassy Terrain is here! is the obvious winner( and believe me, it won a lot here) but other sweepers like also get a lot of milage out of terrain. As for rilla by itself, I'm a little conflicted. It's offensive profile is similar to grasspon but it lacks the speed and anti-offense aspect. I'm not quite sure what's supposed to do by itself.

- The cat is back. I've seen the standard ou set as well as talk of dropping flower trick for low kick. I'm not 100% on it being either broken or fine yet, but I do feel it's worth giving time as there is possible counterplay to develop (I've been considering more physdef on fez and slither as options).

The Winners

- Hawlucha has been unleashed to it's fullest potential. Finally it's got an actually decent terrain setter, plus the terrain has more abusers. I expect this to be pretty controversal. I'm not 100% sold on it's brokenness, but I'd keep an eye on it.

- Another sweeper given new life by grassy terrain. It's a great seed abuser and getting a boost to giga drain to cool too.

- Low kick meow is annoying but otherwise, Cobal's felt a little bit better to me. Weav was an iffy matchup and in it's place you have two grass types. It lost major competiton for the steel slot in tink as well. It feels a good bit better imo.

- Waiter, Waiter, more grass types please!
Waiter, Waiter, more Fighting types please!
Waiter, Waiter, more offense please!

The Losers

Meow, lucha and grassy terrain as a whole is a major hit to all eq mons. Drill has high horsepower but the power loss and now making contact is a notable loss.

- Weavile was a fantastic match-up for keld and in it's place we got a grass type. Hawlucha also shrugs off vaccuum wave. Pretty unfortunate but ultimately not an unmanagable change for the pony.

- Meow's the new dark/grass on the block and hawlucha abuses the hell out of you. Very unfortunate.

 

[Bice]

Rillaboom and Grassy Terrain (or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Clicking Buttons)​

the arrival of a new terrain setter heralds a surge in mindless hyper offense. i've been using this team on ladder to great success, with hawlucha and comfey in particular receiving huge mileage out of the arrival of rillaboom. the archetype definitely isn't an instant win button, but any team that doesnt have skeledirge isn't gonna have a great time, and it's clear that some sort of action needs to be taken.

i've seen a number of people propose banning hawlucha, and for understandable reasons. it's able to cleave through teams with unburden + stabs, and can even neuter bulkier pokemon with your choice of encore or taunt. a lot of ladder games come down to hawlucha speed ties. however, i feel like banning hawlucha alone won't solve the problem as long as comfey is able to run amok freely. grassy terrain turned comfey from a cheesy annoyance to an actual menace, especially since it can now play the "last moveslot game". is your special wall gonna get shut down by taunt? will your fezandipiti or skarmory get smacked by stored power? or will comfey giga drain your av azumarill and stay healthy?

you definitely could just ban both and be done with it, but i've seen a lot of concerns over the already-lengthy uubl list. banning rillaboom is also an option, but without considering comfey and hawlucha i think it'd be an okay addition to the tier as a pivot for bulky offense. banning grassy seed is another option (and the best imo) as it heavily neuters the playstyle. either way, something definitely needs to be done about grassy terrain

 

[bungeegum_420]

Happy April Shifts! We got some pretty big ones this time.

- Juggy finally gets their long project rise. It'll be interesting to see how it performs with meow as the main dark/grass mon/

- unfortunate loss. Tink had a load of applications and prob still did good with the new drops. Its loss is sad but not game breaking though.

- probably good that it rose with tink. we basically got cat weav though so we got something similar at least.

- who cares it's prob going to RU next shifts anyways

- Grassy Terrain is here! is the obvious winner( and believe me, it won a lot here) but other sweepers like also get a lot of milage out of terrain. As for rilla by itself, I'm a little conflicted. It's offensive profile is similar to grasspon but it lacks the speed and anti-offense aspect. I'm not quite sure what's supposed to do by itself.

- The cat is back. I've seen the standard ou set as well as talk of dropping flower trick for low kick. I'm not 100% on it being either broken or fine yet, but I do feel it's worth giving time as there is possible counterplay to develop (I've been considering more physdef on fez and slither as options).

The Winners

- Hawlucha has been unleashed to it's fullest potential. Finally it's got an actually decent terrain setter, plus the terrain has more abusers. I expect this to be pretty controversal. I'm not 100% sold on it's brokenness, but I'd keep an eye on it.

- Another sweeper given new life by grassy terrain. It's a great seed abuser and getting a boost to giga drain to cool too.

- Low kick meow is annoying but otherwise, Cobal's felt a little bit better to me. Weav was an iffy matchup and in it's place you have two grass types. It lost major competiton for the steel slot in tink as well. It feels a good bit better imo.

- Waiter, Waiter, more grass types please!
Waiter, Waiter, more Fighting types please!
Waiter, Waiter, more offense please!

The Losers

Meow, lucha and grassy terrain as a whole is a major hit to all eq mons. Drill has high horsepower but the power loss and now making contact is a notable loss.

- Weavile was a fantastic match-up for keld and in it's place we got a grass type. Hawlucha also shrugs off vaccuum wave. Pretty unfortunate but ultimately not an unmanagable change for the pony.

- Meow's the new dark/grass on the block and hawlucha abuses the hell out of you. Very unfortunate.

I'd add heatran as a winner of the boom drop too

 

[Kapperajah]

I'd add heatran as a winner of the boom drop too

TBH I'd add lokix and skarmory to the list of winners as well

 

[Yech]

banning grassy seed is another option (and the best imo) as it heavily neuters the playstyle. either way, something definitely needs to be done about grassy terrain​

Do keep in mind that a grassy seed ban will impact lower tiers heavily unlike a ban of Rillaboom, Comfey, or Hawlucha. ZU already banned unburden but NU and PU use grassy seed on a decent amount of thwackey terrain HO teams so a seed ban here will affect these metas noticeably. Banning items and abilities in higher tiers have butterfly effects on the tiers below.

 

[Bice]

Do keep in mind that a grassy seed ban will impact lower tiers heavily unlike a ban of Rillaboom, Comfey, or Hawlucha. ZU already banned unburden but NU and PU use grassy seed on a decent amount of thwackey terrain HO teams so a seed ban here will affect these metas noticeably. Banning items and abilities in higher tiers have butterfly effects on the tiers below.

My bad, I didn't realize that, I thought it was just cheese in the lower tiers. Banning mons would be the better route then

 

[Goro Yagami]

A few thoughts on the drops after a few days:

Solid as expected. Boots is probably its best set, allowing it to take advantage of its great movepool, but Band and Scarf will probably see some experimentation as more time passes.

Grassy Terrain offense is back \o/ . I feel that bulkier versions of these teams are better compared to going all out with set up sweepers like Comfey, etc. Their presence has been felt immediately though, forcing many Exca/Donphan to run High Horsepower instead of EQ. Hawlucha is proving to be pretty solid, now that it's splashability issue has been solved.

My personal thoughts on some other stuff too:

Flame Body Heatran has one more mon to punish in Meowscarada. It's as good as always.

State of HO: It's just my feeling atm, but I think HO got slightly worse post-shifts? It certainly doesn't appreciate the horde of Hawlucha's swarming the tier (which run Encore thanks to the sample set). I'm going to have to try it out for myself one of these days to see if I'm right or wrong.

Pain in the ass, good mon I think

A mon I heard mentioned, seems interesting to try out
---



And lastly, a team I've been using the last couple of days. It's okay enough, although I never really got to test the HO MU because fsr I barely ran into it on ladder.

 

[ThatOneApple]

One week of shifts have gone by so I figured I'd give some thoughts on them.

Losses
- This kinda stinks to lose because pickpocket provided a great contact punish, while its typing provided a great check to the Dragons. Also provided nice utility and whatnot, not sure what else to say besides it stinks that its gone. Dragons generally feel easier to click with if you can get them in and Knock Off has become more safe to click. Weavile in particular seems-

- -oh nevermind. Well this honestly would stink to lose as it was a great torn punish but:
A) Without Tink here I think it might have been a little broken
B) We got meow which punishes torn anyways so its not a big deal in the grand scheme.

Speaking of which...

Gains
- I initially thought it was broken but I don't feel as strongly after playing more, still keeping an eye on it though because we don't exactly have great answers to it. In any case its nice to have as it outspeeds everything and threatens torn as previously mentioned. Provides a knockturn pivot as well and can slot Low Kick to smack Steels.

- This definitely has some fun positive applications but I worry it may end up being used purely for grassy seed shenanigans, which is a shame because having a Heatran that can actually kinda take knock is rlly nice to me. In any case I'll be keepin an eye on what it gets up to because the seed guys could maybe end up being a problem in the long run.

- I guess stall is usable again so thats something, idk its just kinda there.

 

[mintwinter]

252+ Atk Choice Band Rillaboom Wood Hammer vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Skeledirge in Grassy Terrain: 202-238 (49.1 - 57.9%) -- 59% chance to 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
i rest my case.
On a more serious note, i feel like this guy should get banned. With the exception of just hitting harder and grassy glide, it doesnt rlly bring anything new to the table; we alr have strong grass nukes like specs apple and oger, so we wouldnt be losing out by removing it. Priority glide is nice vs ho, yes, but it also becomes setup fodder for stuff like lucha, plus we also have other prio like keld and kix, which are less clunky into ho imo. While i did lean towards banning lucha in the beginning, i feel like getting rid of rilla not only solves the issue, but also alleviates more pressure from defensive mons which rilla can muscle past sometimes.

This feels and possibly worse for the meta? It utilizes band way way way more effectively than weav ever could bc of the lack of a hazard weakness plus stab uturn etc, and can snipe core defensive mons w/o any setup or tera. Like, look at the calcs vs coba, tran and skarm

252 Atk Choice Band Protean Meowscarada Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Cobalion: 344-408 (106.5 - 126.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Protean Meowscarada Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 96+ Def Heatran: 414-488 (107.2 - 126.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Protean Meowscarada Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 208+ Def Skarmory: 152-183 (45.5 - 54.7%) -- 59.8% chance to 2HKO (while this may not seem as impressive, it still 2hkos skarm after rocks, which means skarm is scared of switching in after its helmet is knocked)

While it might sound crazy, i feel you can drop flower trick for a knock/taxel/uturn/lowkick set. You do pressure pex a lot less but idt thats a v big issue when pex is so rare, plus knock pivot spam+hazards alr makes life hard for pex. Not as clear-cut a ban as rilla imo, bc it feels more versatile and malleable, and could possibly be ok for the meta, but rn im not too fond of it

 

[BolTingBlazie]

This feels and possibly worse for the meta? It utilizes band way way way more effectively than weav ever could bc of the lack of a hazard weakness plus stab uturn etc, and can snipe core defensive mons w/o any setup or tera. Like, look at the calcs vs coba, tran and skarm

252 Atk Choice Band Protean Meowscarada Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Cobalion: 344-408 (106.5 - 126.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Protean Meowscarada Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 96+ Def Heatran: 414-488 (107.2 - 126.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Protean Meowscarada Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 208+ Def Skarmory: 152-183 (45.5 - 54.7%) -- 59.8% chance to 2HKO (while this may not seem as impressive, it still 2hkos skarm after rocks, which means skarm is scared of switching in after its helmet is knocked)

While it might sound crazy, i feel you can drop flower trick for a knock/taxel/uturn/lowkick set. You do pressure pex a lot less but idt thats a v big issue when pex is so rare, plus knock pivot spam+hazards alr makes life hard for pex. Not as clear-cut a ban as rilla imo, bc it feels more versatile and malleable, and could possibly be ok for the meta, but rn im not too fond of it

I think when comparing meow to weavile, it really does lack the power that weavile has and it being a victim to the regular Torn-T and Lokix spam isn't doing it any favors. Still a good mon but like you do sometimes notice its lack of initial power occasionally, which was a way bigger problem for it up in OU.

The fact you have to run band to pull this off when weavile did not even have to is definitely noticable

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

I think rillaboom shouldnt be banned. hawlucha is sweeping people left and right and we have seen it take games from preview, the result is that lucha is just kinda bonkers, comfey is only just fitting on that g terrain style and piggy backing off of it.

Rillaboom doesnt do much for hawlucha in terms of support outside of terrain, the likelyhood that people replace lucha with thwakey is likely and we have seen this work with iron crown + thwakey and it going away as soon as iron crown went. The thing is that thwakey can just set terrrain up and allow lucha to run circles around teams

Its not like rilla sets screens or does smth exclusive to itself, it gives it the grassy seed and that is it, most teams just got ran over by hawlucha. Unfortunately i also posted this in the wrong thread before

 

[mintwinter]

I think when comparing meow to weavile, it really does lack the power that weavile has and it being a victim to the regular Torn-T and Lokix spam isn't doing it any favors. Still a good mon but like you do sometimes notice its lack of initial power occasionally, which was a way bigger problem for it up in OU.

The fact you have to run band to pull this off when weavile did not even have to is definitely noticableeavile didn't have to run band, yes, but it had to sd to pull off stuff like ohkoing coba, which

Weavile didn't have to run band, yes, but it had to sd quite a lot. This is way way bigger a commitment, as, like some people mentioned in the weav suspect, the opposing slowking/apple or whatever might just tera+stay, and severely damage weav/para it. Not to mention, weav also couldn't achieve the skarm 2hko w. taxel; it needs to sd safely+tera, just to have a chance killing skarm (still need to land some taxel hits). Meow, on the other hand, can safely poke at skarm w/ band taxel. You could honestly even run boots+tpunch and dance around skarm thanks to uturn until its in range of tpunch 2hkoing bc of rocks. It's a v versatile pokemon which i currently lean ban on, but i believe rilla is a bigger issue for the time being

 

[Welcome to mars]

Rillaboom’s powerful priority and wallbreaking potential that would already guarantee it a valid place in the tier combined with its impeccable grassy surge support makes far too overwhelming for the tier, too many pokemon can take advantage of the terrain that this already viable pokemon sets to run away with the game due to grassy seed, this is especially the case for unburden sweepers like hawlucha, since they get a defense boost and the ability to outspeed the entire tier on the spot and can often forces switches to gain setup.

Meowscarada doesn’t seem as broken to me due to its low defenses but its ability to get a boosted flower trick from grassy terrain could easily prove troublesome in the future if rillaboom happens to stay. It also has an effective choice band set that wrecks steel types

 

[udongirl]

This may not be the case if you are using hyper offense all the time, but if you are running at least a general balance team or a bulky offense team, there are countless wall breakers that are stronger than this mon. Pure grass is not good at all offensively or defensively.
If it were to be banned, it would be by grassy seed sweeper, but the only decent abuser is Hawlucha, and if you lose to it, it means that you have not laid any countermeasures against Hawlucha at all. The grassy terrain is much less useful as support than the psychic terrain, and is just a seed trigger. it is annoying that the stab is aggressive and no one can outrun it, but no more so than that.
The other sweeper candidate is comfey, but it is so weak that life orb may be more powerful because it has no boost in power.


It can consider the possibility of banning more than rilla. It has less maximum power than rilla, but still has very rich coverage and less stable checks. If you can sweep consistently with hawlucha, landing meow is much easier than that. it is still too early for a ban due to its difficulty with priority and some unstable checks, but I would not be surprised if it was suspected.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

I feel removing rilla over lucha who has been shown to sweep 6-0 teams after a terrain boost shows that lucha doesnt need much from rilla outside of terrain support, rilla is often a u-turn bot and this is kinda repeating the iron crown incident where even a lvl 3 thwakey just kinda set it up nd iron crown went ham despite playing 5v6. Hawlucha sweeping teams left and right on some games and kinda forcing a lot of resources out is kinda the problem.

I feel lucha is a much bigger problem than rilla and would be a much bigger hit to terrain teams than the lack of rillaboom

 

[sparrow]

on the current thread announcing the ban. having no insight as to why the council have concluded with their votes is disheartening to say the least. three short sentences, isn't enough, it indicates a low care sentiment - i'd be keen to see more insight from active council members in this thread.

I feel lack of community engagement is part of the reason why UU community participation has significantly dropped.

perhaps a 1 week poll asking the community whether lucha, meow or rilla were most problematic might have been a more engaging and insightful undertaking. If there were polls and high level discussion on discord, then I apologise. I definitely was of the opinion that meow was more problematic and lucha has proven that it doesn't need terrain to be successful. If ultimately, it does go to a council vote it is nice to see community input play a part in decision making, lack of community input disincentivises community participation.

 

[Lily]

on the current thread announcing the ban. having no insight as to why the council have concluded with their votes is disheartening to say the least. three short sentences, isn't enough, it indicates a low care sentiment - i'd be keen to see more insight from active council members in this thread.

I feel lack of community engagement is part of the reason why UU community participation has significantly dropped.

perhaps a 1 week poll asking the community whether lucha, meow or rilla were most problematic might have been a more engaging and insightful undertaking. If there were polls and high level discussion on discord, then I apologise. I definitely was of the opinion that meow was more problematic and lucha has proven that it doesn't need terrain to be successful. If ultimately, it does go to a council vote it is nice to see community input play a part in decision making, lack of community input disincentivises community participation.

there was a survey here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/uu-updates.3713990/post-10524552 which was also announced on discord

Normally, council members are required to explain their votes - you can see this in the older ban threads from this gen. This time around they were not, primarily because a lot of us were celebrating Easter and were trying to get this done on short notice (uupl playoffs and uu open both start tomorrow, which we wanted to prep for).

High level sentiment and general community sentiment were both gauged and were both massively in favour of action - it was certainly split between rillaboom and hawlucha, but it was very clear that something needed to be done.

I personally would have preferred a lucha ban but regardless, in both my ladder and tournament experiences lately it's been very clear we had a huge problem on our hand. Tackling the most recent drop as a first step is the most reasonable part forward and most of the playerbase seemed to agree as there was overall high preference for a rillaboom ban and very few players calling for no action. Surveys can fall victim to selection bias of course but we aren't working with the luxury of time here unfortunately.

I hope this helps to clear at least some of your concerns up? Feel free to let me know if not and I'll try to respond to more specific questions. Frustration is totally valid! But it's difficult to respond to.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body / Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Def / 160 Spe
IVs: 0 Atk
Tera Type: Fairy
Bold Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Protect

2 THings i wanted to mention

Protect heatran is quite an interesting pokemon, with a lot of pokemon that can abuse slowking getting it chipped down isnt always so hard but even then, heatran dueling slowking is often it losing a lot of its health while you can use protect to safeguard yourself against stuff like banded meow, scout the low kick, and get extra hp. Getting the extra hp is quite huge as often times you are switching in on rocks and you may just eat chip, with this you can just heal up instead. In addition you get more chip on a lot of pokemon such as assault vest tornadus, rotom-wash, keldeo, etc. Its quite a good move and i feel its overlooked often times for taunt which i feel isnt that good, taunt into stuff like tornadus, gastrodon, slowking, and into teams that may not even have it is just... not interesting.

Flash fire is also something, with dirge becoming more popular and low kick meow kicking its jaw its sometimes just better off to rely on other methods than go for the dice roll (also its a nice way to bluff flame body). Skeledirge torch song into it and a powered up magma storm is gonna be hell for the opponent