It's been about a month since the last vr update, gonna give my thoughts on some of the noms
Reg ray unranked to D:
Really don’t care, personally i’d never use reg ray. I could see it being alright when paired with Mgar, but absolutely in no other situation would it work/fit on a team. I’d rather use Zygarde anyways, its speed tier is pretty bad and its attacks are too weak, choice specs is probably the best set but 289/317 speed hinders it, as well as dying in 1 to icebeam. There’s z fly as well but yea, no opinion on this
Slowbro-Mega Unranked to D/C: I support my mbro nom obv
Lunala B+ to A-: I definitely like Lunala a lot, I support this
It’s fantastic movepool and powerful stabs are very nice to have
You can’t really call Lunalas typing bad when there are very few ghost types in AG and while Necrozma variants have been so prevalent; psychic typing helps it resist the broken “LTBTS” and it can retaliate with a super effective stabbed Moongeist Beam
Shadow shield is also incredible because “Sunsteel Strike” and “SSS” which normally ignore ability, for some reason does not ignore shadow shield, so the damage is halved if lunala is at max hp.
All of the sets Lunala can run are extremely good, as Zenithial elaborated, there is Specs, Lunalium Z, Scarf, and lefties defensive. Both Specs and Z move can tear apart balance and defensive is very good at hard checking Necrozma and being a nice soft check to many things because of shadow shield. Scarf seems mediocre compared to the other sets imo but it can be handy
Necrozma-Ultra A to A+:
Yes, absolutely yes. Being able to run both physical and special, it’s extremely hard to decide how to deal with this offensive beast. There are very few things that check Necrozma-Ultra effectively and it has a huge presence in battle. Let me explain what I mean by “presence”. Another mon with huge presence in battle would be Xerneas. If you see a Xerneas in front of your darkceus (or groundceus, or fairyceus, or really any mon that can not do sufficient damage in order to deal with it), it’s almost completely necessary to bring in your Xerneas check in fear of a geomancy. With this in mind, it’s very easy for the Xerneas user to think “oh well, they’re obviously not about to stay in here and die to a moonblast or do whatever else that this darkceus can use while I geomancy, so they’re going to switch their poisonceus!” You are able to then switch into say, your Pdon to initiate more offensive pressure. With rocks up this type of strategy is very effective, it’s not just a 50/50 scenario, “presence” makes it hard for the person facing Xerneas to think “well they’re probably going to pdon because they think I should go to poisonceus in order to check the Xerneas, so now i’ll go to Mray in order to punish my opponent going to Pdon.” That may be the correct play in that situation, but there's also a possibility that the Xerneas stays in and moonblasts the Mray to hell. My point is, Necrozma has a ton of presence because it puts your opponent in a situation where they pretty much have to go to their Necrozma check. What makes a mon have a lot of presence is: the number of mons can consistently check said mon, what mons in no situation can stand in front of said mon (basically when there’s a mandatory switch or you’ll lose the game situation), and how costly it is to get your predicts wrong versus mons with presence. Looking at the current VR, it’s very clear that all of the top tier mons have the most presence. What makes some offensive mons better than others are the situations after a mon with presence kills something. An easy example of this would be…
“Pogres water spout 2hkos a Ferrothorn” “Now Banded Mray can come in and dragon ascent to ohkos or 2hko everything on the Pogres team”
For reference, I feel Mray is the best mon in the tier (by far) because it has the most offensive presence by a large margin
Mons with massive presence:
You could also replace presence with “offensive pressure”, in this situation offensive presence p much what i’m referring to
Zygarde-Complete S- to S:
Disagree, i’ve thought about this for a lot of time so i’m not just being closed minded here
In simple: Zygarde-Complete should not be on the same level with Mray because its offensive capabilities don’t stand up to Mrays, they both break but Mray has more opportunities to break, sub dddtail and toxic sub dd are both fantastic sets, it’s still too hard to justify them being as good as any of Mrays incredible offensive sets such as lo dd, lo draco, band, lo sd, sub dd, scarf, and so on. I also do not feel that Zygarde-Complete's defensive capabilities stand up to Mrays offensive presence.
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 248 HP / 244+ Def Arceus-Fairy: 341-403 (76.9 - 90.9%)
+1 252+ Atk Zygarde-Complete Thousand Arrows vs. 248 HP / 244+ Def Arceus-Fairy: 129-153 (29.1 - 34.5%)
I’d also like to say that Scarf Mray is absolutely incredible right now, it’s a safety net against some mons with huge offensive presence such as Steelceus, Necrozma-Ultra, adamant rock polish Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, bu Marshadow, dd Zygarde, Mgar, other Mray, and others.
It can 2hko a wide variety of things with dragon ascent
Toxic allows Scarf Mray to cripple anything that can live 2 Ascents (Any defensive arc, lugia, etc),
Draco is great at sniping defensive Zygarde which is a very common switch in to most Mray sets, as well as doing big damage on Ttar
There’s also waterfall/surf which can be handy for 2hkoing Rockceus/Ttar and typically ohkoing Pdon
I’ve gotten a bit off topic but I had to explain why I didn’t think Zygarde-Complete was on Mrays level, even with the Power Construct ability
Side note: Zyg-C > Mgar. Still not by that much imo, I was thinking Mgar should be A+ but it’s very good at revenging UNecro which adds even more value to Mgar due to the very little things that can check it. Therefore I think S- is a good spot for both of these mons
Arceus Steel B+ to A-:
Truly no opinion, cm set is so annoying to face for some teams that rely on Pdon to check it, other teams have no problem with it if they have something like Marsh + perish/roar user + Scarf ray or Ho-oh. Rocks + Perish is an alright set as well but that wouldn’t be why I’d vote for moving steelceus up. Anyways better move Poisonceus up before this thing or I want names
Arceus-Poison - B+ to A-:
Do I actually need to say anything
sry arushi stealing ur pic n set
mr magnezone ^_^ (Magnezone) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Charge Beam
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Double Team
Magnezone Unranked to: D/C
Hmmmmm yeah I can’t say this is that useful, unlike in ou
Skarm and Celes are extraordinarily rare and both have moves that can kinda stop this from sweeping (whirlwind, shed shell, flamethrower, flame charge, leech), Ferrothorn is definitely used but really, what else does magnezone trap? It can sweep if it traps ferro, otherwise isnt this mon completely useless? (no disrespect, I think zone is cool) Gotta say n to this one though
Deoxys-Attack B- to B+:
Nah man, not at all. I don’t mean to sound like a broken record when people talk about Deo-A but there are too many things that obviously stop this. B- doesn’t mean this mon is bad, it obviously can be very threatening to some teams with psychic terrain to boost its psychic stab and deter priority while setting up with sashed nasty plot. There are still many scarfers being used like Mray, Xern, Yve, ogre, as well as some more funky ones like Marsh, Ho-oh, Lunala, and i’m sure others that I can’t think of atm. Even without scarfers there are other checks like Necrozma-Dusk-Mane specifically, Lugia, Tyranitars sand, Yveltal if no ice beam, and Darkceus/Ferrothorn forcing the deo to hit a focus miss (GL with that one).
Regirock Unranked to D
I have nothing to say, not even a sprite
Nihilego Unranked to D
I could get behind this one, big fan of T-Spike and having both hazards on one mon is definitely unique
Serperior Unranked to D:
I usually disagree with lavaclaws noms but I’d definitely support this one, Serperior is very dangerous and there are few stops to this mon besides rng when something gets parad. I don’t think i’ll elaborate on this one but I do think Serp is a headache for many ag teams
Mewtwo-Mega-X B- to B:
I agree that this has a similar property to Necrozma where you have no idea what the hell it’s going to use, therefore uncertainty can lead you to making the wrong play. It’s a pretty powerful type of bluff that has some potential. I already know what MMX does and I can see it moving up but.. being honest I’m not sure about this. I’d lean towards MMX being B than B- but yeah, gonna go with uncertain
TLDR:
Reg ray unranked to D: Uncertain but honestly N
Slowbro-Mega Unranked to D/C: Y
Lunala B+ to A-: Y
Necrozma-Ultra A to A+: Y
Zygarde-Complete S- to S: N
Arceus Steel B+ to A-: Uncertain
Arceus-Poison - B+ to A-: Y
Magnezone Unranked to D/C: N
Deoxys-Attack B- to B+: N
Serperior Unranked to D: Y
Mewtwo-Mega-X B- to B: Uncertain Word Count: 1562 Lol
Reg ray unranked to D:
Really don’t care, personally i’d never use reg ray. I could see it being alright when paired with Mgar, but absolutely in no other situation would it work/fit on a team. I’d rather use Zygarde anyways, its speed tier is pretty bad and its attacks are too weak, choice specs is probably the best set but 289/317 speed hinders it, as well as dying in 1 to icebeam. There’s z fly as well but yea, no opinion on this
It’s fantastic movepool and powerful stabs are very nice to have
You can’t really call Lunalas typing bad when there are very few ghost types in AG and while Necrozma variants have been so prevalent; psychic typing helps it resist the broken “LTBTS” and it can retaliate with a super effective stabbed Moongeist Beam
Shadow shield is also incredible because “Sunsteel Strike” and “SSS” which normally ignore ability, for some reason does not ignore shadow shield, so the damage is halved if lunala is at max hp.
All of the sets Lunala can run are extremely good, as Zenithial elaborated, there is Specs, Lunalium Z, Scarf, and lefties defensive. Both Specs and Z move can tear apart balance and defensive is very good at hard checking Necrozma and being a nice soft check to many things because of shadow shield. Scarf seems mediocre compared to the other sets imo but it can be handy
Yes, absolutely yes. Being able to run both physical and special, it’s extremely hard to decide how to deal with this offensive beast. There are very few things that check Necrozma-Ultra effectively and it has a huge presence in battle. Let me explain what I mean by “presence”. Another mon with huge presence in battle would be Xerneas. If you see a Xerneas in front of your darkceus (or groundceus, or fairyceus, or really any mon that can not do sufficient damage in order to deal with it), it’s almost completely necessary to bring in your Xerneas check in fear of a geomancy. With this in mind, it’s very easy for the Xerneas user to think “oh well, they’re obviously not about to stay in here and die to a moonblast or do whatever else that this darkceus can use while I geomancy, so they’re going to switch their poisonceus!” You are able to then switch into say, your Pdon to initiate more offensive pressure. With rocks up this type of strategy is very effective, it’s not just a 50/50 scenario, “presence” makes it hard for the person facing Xerneas to think “well they’re probably going to pdon because they think I should go to poisonceus in order to check the Xerneas, so now i’ll go to Mray in order to punish my opponent going to Pdon.” That may be the correct play in that situation, but there's also a possibility that the Xerneas stays in and moonblasts the Mray to hell. My point is, Necrozma has a ton of presence because it puts your opponent in a situation where they pretty much have to go to their Necrozma check. What makes a mon have a lot of presence is: the number of mons can consistently check said mon, what mons in no situation can stand in front of said mon (basically when there’s a mandatory switch or you’ll lose the game situation), and how costly it is to get your predicts wrong versus mons with presence. Looking at the current VR, it’s very clear that all of the top tier mons have the most presence. What makes some offensive mons better than others are the situations after a mon with presence kills something. An easy example of this would be…
“Pogres water spout 2hkos a Ferrothorn” “Now Banded Mray can come in and dragon ascent to ohkos or 2hko everything on the Pogres team”
For reference, I feel Mray is the best mon in the tier (by far) because it has the most offensive presence by a large margin
Mons with massive presence:
You could also replace presence with “offensive pressure”, in this situation offensive presence p much what i’m referring to
Disagree, i’ve thought about this for a lot of time so i’m not just being closed minded here
In simple: Zygarde-Complete should not be on the same level with Mray because its offensive capabilities don’t stand up to Mrays, they both break but Mray has more opportunities to break, sub dddtail and toxic sub dd are both fantastic sets, it’s still too hard to justify them being as good as any of Mrays incredible offensive sets such as lo dd, lo draco, band, lo sd, sub dd, scarf, and so on. I also do not feel that Zygarde-Complete's defensive capabilities stand up to Mrays offensive presence.
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 248 HP / 244+ Def Arceus-Fairy: 341-403 (76.9 - 90.9%)
+1 252+ Atk Zygarde-Complete Thousand Arrows vs. 248 HP / 244+ Def Arceus-Fairy: 129-153 (29.1 - 34.5%)
I’d also like to say that Scarf Mray is absolutely incredible right now, it’s a safety net against some mons with huge offensive presence such as Steelceus, Necrozma-Ultra, adamant rock polish Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, bu Marshadow, dd Zygarde, Mgar, other Mray, and others.
It can 2hko a wide variety of things with dragon ascent
Toxic allows Scarf Mray to cripple anything that can live 2 Ascents (Any defensive arc, lugia, etc),
Draco is great at sniping defensive Zygarde which is a very common switch in to most Mray sets, as well as doing big damage on Ttar
There’s also waterfall/surf which can be handy for 2hkoing Rockceus/Ttar and typically ohkoing Pdon
I’ve gotten a bit off topic but I had to explain why I didn’t think Zygarde-Complete was on Mrays level, even with the Power Construct ability
Side note: Zyg-C > Mgar. Still not by that much imo, I was thinking Mgar should be A+ but it’s very good at revenging UNecro which adds even more value to Mgar due to the very little things that can check it. Therefore I think S- is a good spot for both of these mons
Truly no opinion, cm set is so annoying to face for some teams that rely on Pdon to check it, other teams have no problem with it if they have something like Marsh + perish/roar user + Scarf ray or Ho-oh. Rocks + Perish is an alright set as well but that wouldn’t be why I’d vote for moving steelceus up. Anyways better move Poisonceus up before this thing or I want names
Do I actually need to say anything
mr magnezone ^_^ (Magnezone) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Charge Beam
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Double Team
Magnezone Unranked to: D/C
Hmmmmm yeah I can’t say this is that useful, unlike in ou
Skarm and Celes are extraordinarily rare and both have moves that can kinda stop this from sweeping (whirlwind, shed shell, flamethrower, flame charge, leech), Ferrothorn is definitely used but really, what else does magnezone trap? It can sweep if it traps ferro, otherwise isnt this mon completely useless? (no disrespect, I think zone is cool) Gotta say n to this one though
Nah man, not at all. I don’t mean to sound like a broken record when people talk about Deo-A but there are too many things that obviously stop this. B- doesn’t mean this mon is bad, it obviously can be very threatening to some teams with psychic terrain to boost its psychic stab and deter priority while setting up with sashed nasty plot. There are still many scarfers being used like Mray, Xern, Yve, ogre, as well as some more funky ones like Marsh, Ho-oh, Lunala, and i’m sure others that I can’t think of atm. Even without scarfers there are other checks like Necrozma-Dusk-Mane specifically, Lugia, Tyranitars sand, Yveltal if no ice beam, and Darkceus/Ferrothorn forcing the deo to hit a focus miss (GL with that one).
Regirock Unranked to D
I have nothing to say, not even a sprite
Nihilego Unranked to D
I could get behind this one, big fan of T-Spike and having both hazards on one mon is definitely unique
Serperior Unranked to D:
I usually disagree with lavaclaws noms but I’d definitely support this one, Serperior is very dangerous and there are few stops to this mon besides rng when something gets parad. I don’t think i’ll elaborate on this one but I do think Serp is a headache for many ag teams
I agree that this has a similar property to Necrozma where you have no idea what the hell it’s going to use, therefore uncertainty can lead you to making the wrong play. It’s a pretty powerful type of bluff that has some potential. I already know what MMX does and I can see it moving up but.. being honest I’m not sure about this. I’d lean towards MMX being B than B- but yeah, gonna go with uncertain
TLDR:
Reg ray unranked to D: Uncertain but honestly N
Magnezone Unranked to D/C: N
Serperior Unranked to D: Y
