★ UU Suspect Process Round 16 - Brass Monkey

[vivalospride]

hello all, after cornerstone got banned not long ago, the next on the chopping block is Zarude after it received a similarly high 3.1 and 3.5 scores respectively on the recent UU survey, with it surging exponentially in scores towards the end of the survey’s time open.

Zarude has existed as a setup wincon within the tier for a long time now, with the “broken” aspect of the mon only coming to light in recent times, with Tornadus-Therian and Heatran rising. These pokemon weren’t the most solid Zarude checks ever, with Torn often being unable to pressure Zarude enough and taking too much damage from a boosted Knock Off, and Heatran being relatively easy to wear down into a boosted Knock Off’s range for a KO. However these pokemon made Swords Dance Zarude sets much higher floor than alternatively using Bulk Up as the setup move of choice. Due to the boost in power helping KO Tornadus/Heatran with less necessary chip, and Bulk Up’s pay off being significantly lower into these two high usage mons being special attackers with super effective STAB.

Now without these mons present, defensive counterplay to Zarude still exists without question, with Tinkaton, Mandibuzz, Hydrapple, Skarmory, and others existing to help keep even a boosted Zarude at bay. However, with Bulk Up in unison with Jungle Healing and/or a defensive Tera, most of these defensive pivots into Zarude become setup fodder quickly, and while SD + Trailblaze sets were always strong and irritating to revenge kill due to Zarude’s natural bulk…. Bulk Up sets are inherently more difficult to revenge due to common physical priority like First Impression being significantly nerfed due to defensive boosts from Bulk Up, which was not commonplace before.

Zarude’s objective and consistent counterplay is primarily phasing, due to it often being too bulky to simply never give a setup opportunity to in unison with a defensive tera. Jungle Healing and Trailblaze also prevent other common setup counterplay such as status and revenge killing with fast mons much more difficult to achieve. The primary splashable Unaware pokemon available in the tier is also weak to Zarude’s STAB Knock Off, and while Skeledirge still stops Zarude from winning outright due to Unaware, it doesn’t do so comfortably, often having to sacrifice its boots, a big chunk of HP, or tera at the bare minimum.

Another potentially suffocating aspect of Zarude is that it fits on multiple archetypes, HO, Sun, Terrain(s), BO, Balance, etc. There is no shortage of opportunities to splash this guy onto your team and make use of how consistent of a wincon it can be. While some of these archetypes are very niche, stuff like Seed items + Terrain effects and abusing Leaf Guard + Synthesis on Sun adds new layers to answering this already difficult pokemon offensively and defensively.

There is no debate this pokemon is a strong wincon, especially with cases of it outright winning being well documented via SCL, ladder, etc. Whether it’s truly “broken” or not is something you all will have to decide with this suspect.

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NOTE: THIS TEST WILL BE USING THE NEW SUSPECT PROCESS!

The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:

• Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in UU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played UU before the test, full stop.)
• At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
• Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact myself, Lyssa , or a member of staff.
• If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me/Lyssa or post here!

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2900. The deadline for getting requirements will be Sunday, November 23rd at 11:59pm GMT-4. GLHF chaps

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

it is a cosmic injustice that zarude has been suspected two separate times now with neither song being by darude

 

[ETJX]

second UU suspect, this one went a lot better than the Cornerstone suspect (is it character arc time?)

funny enough i saw at max 2 Zarudes on ladder for this suspect. However for cornerstone suspect, i faced quite a lot of it on ladder for me to confidently say ban. I'm going to run through the different sets i've seen zarude run from least to most problematic (in my opinion)

Choice Scarf Zarude: TBH, not a very problematic mon for me, though it is a very good. This allows it to outrun stuff like latios, weavile and greninja (battle bond not activated). This set i feel is very good, proving good speed control. However, i would never call this set broken because if zarude is walled, its walled. Skarmory/hydrapple/mandibuzz can easily switch into it, taking hit after hit and healing off the damage, making it so it can never really get through. Teras on this are usually dark or grass for insane burst damage, or a defensive tera for lokix (we will get into defensive teras later).

Choice band Zarude: this mon sacrifices speed for power, but its not a bad trade, ur still the 8th fastest mon in the tier so as long as you play and click the correct moves you should be fine. oh yeah this guy gets uturn so if u think ur opponent is switching you can click that, this guy notably also runs tera fighting so it can hit cobalion and tinkaton for a lot of damage with close combat. Just insane power to trade and maybe close out games, all though thats still not the set that i feel is the reason for its ban.

Leftovers bulk up tera poison zarude: now this is the set i think we all feel pushes zarude over the edge. with a moveset of bulk up, knock off, trailblaze and jungle healing, and a VERY CUSTOMIZABLE TERA, this mon patches up a lot of its weaknesses, making it so theres no clear answer. lets start with the tera: Poison, fairy, water, fire, yeah this mon has a lot of viable teras it can run. The most common is poison- this gives it a neutrality to lokix's priority (tinted lens) which is still better than a 4x weakness, resistance to conkeldurr drain punch and mach punch, secret sword from keldeo resistance, etc etc. Also, the best ways to deal with a poison type are ground and psychic types. However, these two types are weak to either grass or dark attacks, making them less reliable. next, the moveset. Bulk up helps it to boost its offense and defenses, making it an all round good move. trailblaze helps it to boost its speed so stuff like latios cant drop a draco on it, knock works us a utility and offensive move, and jungle healing deals with another issue it has: status. you can burn it, paralyze it, poison it all you like. it clicks jungle healing, healing 25% of its HP (which is more than you think it needs, considering it has likely boosted its defense) and more importantly, cleared its status. this set allows it to get past mandibuzz, hydrapple, skarmory, and if it swaps out jungle healing for taunt, it can 1v1 pex (to an extent). This mon can also come in on a lot of the mons in the tier. Excadrill, sinistcha, rotom-wash, etc etc

This mon thrives off of set variety, there is no clear way to beat zarude- if you guess wrong you lose a lot of ground. so yeah ban this guy i dont think its healthy for the tier

https://pokepast.es/45c1c10ece339af0 team i used

can we suspect weavile next not that i think its broken (i have seen people say its broken but i disagree), i have done 4 suspect tests now (including this one) and ive voted/will be voting yes to ban for all of them. I lowkey look like i just like to vote ban on everything at this point :sob:

 

[starbitstorm]

What no passion, Monday or Tuesday, does to the content produced by UU.

Couldn't get a sample team, so I found something else to sample.

Probably going to vote ban this time, actually ngl.

 

[ThatOneApple]

Was the first person to get reqs i just needed to figure out how to put my thoughts together. Im gonna be honest, I really dont feel like Zarude is broken. Feels like it kinda just goes through phases where it beats the snot out of turbo status reliant stuff that doesnt have countermeasures to the things that do what it does (which there are a pretty decent amount of). Zarude was never really a mon you answered in one team slot so just tossing Fez or tink on a team and calling it a day being punished is to be expected. The only real difference between Zarude and the other mons that do this is that Zarude is more easily slotted on a variety of teams, which is like... fine? If anything I kinda like that teams can beat the snot out of passive sit around teams without much effort. Even then, its not even like slower paced teams lack options as mons like Hydrapple and sorta Skeledirge and Enamorus are alright at fending it off from experience. Theres also Encore Tealpon which can dissuade it from setting up early on, Fez isnt a great answer but can pivot something in that scares it, Lokix isnt good into Bulk Up but scares SD from a good range even after tera, etc etc. Overall I dont really feel like Zarude lacks answers and its pressence in the tier feels good if anything.

I tried looking at the SCL games to see if i was missing something and... all I only found 2 replays of it pulling the bullshit ive seen people say is rampant. Which... by looking at them.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-879055
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-881083
Kinda feel like they just slapped resists on a team and expected it to work? But I dont rlly think thats Zarude's fault (especially in that second game). It kinda just seems like rude punished teams that tried to play passive around it without the tools to properly do so (Skeledirge, Hydrapple, whatever). I guess you could look at Franco vs Etern from week 8 but Franco loaded a crack set that specifically bullied fez stuff (that still lost somehow).

I looked at other SCL replays with Zarude and it didnt really seem like it pulled any shenanigans out of the ordinary. If anything, it just seemed like people adapted to it in a pretty reasonable manner. Namely, the uptick in Hydrapple usage, which is a good mon people should use more given how it bullies a lot of those skarm balances, but also stuff like the previously mentioned enam and dirge as well as stuff like Taunt Mandibuzz. As a whole, it just feels like Zarude had a phase where it seemed broken, but that kinda passed by. Kinda reminds me of 2023 UUPL where a few people were saying Hydrapple was broken for a bit, but people just stopped running stuff that it easily steamrolled and it settled down. So im probably voting DNB on Zarude.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

honestly, i didn't see zarude as much as i expected during my reqs run, but i saw a bunch of it during cornerstone and i thought it was even more annoying to face than cornerstone was. it's just got an unholy combination of really good bulk for its speed, really good speed for its bulk, pivoting capability, multiple setup options, recovery that also heals from status, stab knock, the whole package. there really isn't much zarude can't do

i think the most problematic set by far is bulk up jungle healing. you can't really out-defense it because almost nothing defensive likes taking a knock, it can set up an arbitrary amount of times in front of basically any defensive mon, it can heal from status, and none of the unaware users can face it safely unless they burn tera (and if it decides to knock them anyway and then switch, good luck). you can use idef skarm and set up alongside it, but if zarude goes tera poison it ends up outdamaging you once it's set up and you lose to constant knock pressure. you can use whirlwind skarm or haze pex but that just kicks the can down the road; eventually you're gonna have to deal with the monkey and no one likes dealing with the monkey

it's also very difficult to out-offense. its natural bulk plus bulk up gives it protection against a lot of revenge killers and priority, a trailblaze or two lets it outspeed and kill most of the revenge killers that bulk up doesn't protect against, and for the remainder (mostly lokix) it can just click the tera button and tank their one opportunity they get to kill the beast

and you have to remember, this is one zarude set. it could end up being scarf and immediately eating the revenge killer that outspeeds the bulk up set, or sd and it shatters your defensive answer, or a boots pivot that doesn't even bother contending with you directly and just goes in and out knocking everything and doing way too much damage with those knocks. and good luck trying to guess which one it is on preview, because you can slot multiple zarude sets with basically any teammates

so, based on how unreasonably hard zarude is to predict and to consistently answer, i am going to vote ban

 

[bungeegum_420]

I'd say that i have kinda complicated(and conflicting) thoughts on this one, I'm leaning towards BAN but my reason may feel insufficient and I'm open to changing my decision.

Just like many people here and on the discord, I've not faced zarude a lot during my suspect run, faced it 3 times and never lost(i have a skarm set that's overprepped for it)
It definitely feels a lot less broken than it did during the meta, because of the extra threat proliferation, and currently I'd consider a lower priority for a ban compared to other mons that I have issues with ( latios, manaphy, greninja , thundurus , weavile, hydrapple ).

The main reasons i feel that it's less broken are the fact that it's not hard to scout it's set (scarf sets don't deal enough damage), BU sets need multiple turns to be scary, and can handled by roar/haze, SD sets can be handled by skarm and mandi without much trouble, and most sets can be handled by sufficient planning(forcing in then phazing, racking hazard chip, etc.).
Due to most of this, I've felt that it's not a builder or gameplay constraint that's too difficult to manage in the manner that former pokemon were.

All that being said, i don't think the metagame is in a healthy place at the moment, aand zarude's presence could be a reason, it's a very good enabler that can force mistakes even without coming out(the opponent sacrificing the wrong pokemon to preserve something for zarude, only to lose the defensive core that checked zarude's teammates).
Zarude, while not too broken, does feel like an unhealthy presence in the metagame, and thus I'd vote BAN