very glad to have played a full season of adv uu this time around since i somehow haven't before. admittedly, the later half of the season i became a lot less interested in building and experimenting with new stuff, but overall i think fuckin around was a very fun experience. only real regret was not deadgaming my semis game, 5-3 is way uglier than 5-2...i'll start first by goin over my teams, then some fun stuff that were in them / unused things. gonna keep spreads where speed creep is a thing consistent for the most part because it'll be obnoxious to adjust next season and i also want those of u who want to use these and learn the tier from there to ev them yourself, because doing so is one of the most fun things about this tier. won't be for everything though.
went with one of the most consistent frameworks week 1. walrein is one of the, if not
the best lead in the tier rn, and in future weeks if i wasn't using it as a lead i was kind of trying not to. it's very hard to punish and the best leads against them are elecs and fightings theoretically....which are covered by the other mons on this team quite nicely. a lot of this team meshes nicely from a functional perspective. oma thieves stuff like tentacruel, meaning that long term it becomes a bit annoying to switch into it again. spikes + leech plume is godly for obvious reasons...and i was very confident in using the walrein + queen offensive core that i've been fawning over for the past year. god nidoqueen is so good. while i still technically wasn't great vs it, i wanted to cover myself a bit vs lunatone as raichy used it pretty much more than anyone i've ever seen, hence the 240 speed kanga and surf walrein. it can still be a bit scary other than that but i didn't want to sacrifice too much just in case he changed his style. you'll notice that this is one of those teams that doesn't have hp grass plume, forgoing it for aromatherapy. it's a bit awkward sometimes but early game you can bluff it quite well, and the rest of the team pressures it quite well. worst case scenario, you can fish for poisons on it, but this isn't really desirable cause once they see you're not hp grass they're just gonna either toss spikes at you or they're just gonna beam you. teams like this obviously require you to not fall very far behind in the spike war, meaning you'll have to be proactive. nothing new here with that though.
man....this. this is probably one of my favorite teams i've ever made in the tier. like i absolutely adore it. hyper offensive stuff has never been something that i've felt too comfortable with here, because there's always some stuff that can just flat out go wrong with one misstep, but working on this gradually has been something i've loved doing.
this technically isn't the first time this concept has been used - in uu snake bkc brought up the idea of having double spikes which is super cool. in simple terms, you're gonna para tenta as they spin - meaning you can go first in booming, potentially with a spike up. if they bait your boom, then it's not the end of the world cause there's still a para'd tenta, and ideally they're not gonna have a whole lot of room to get off a heal bell and what not without making concessions. afterwards there's still an oma in the back, meaning you can very obviously get up more. plus you have rain dance to really lay on the hurt, especially cause some tenta teams forgo another solid answer to it. even walrein doesn't have the best time here because it's gonna have to choose between stomaching things from oma or scyther in the long term. speaking truthfully though, i've used oma more in the end game than the early, and rd might be more valuable than getting up another value. it's still a great tool to have though. qwilfish isn't the only boomer here though. solrock is pretty firm and i think most hyper offenses should have it, even though it may seem like it could be a momentum suck sometimes; you can get a reflect up, you can boom, you can force out non iron tail gligar (something super valuable for these teams!!), meaning you have a solid offensive pivot to work with. cb scyther is self explanatory. i have counter here just for shits and giggles, i never have really clicked the last move on scyther and i'm not a big fan of the recently developed double edge, but you can probably use it cause again, you'll probably click it more than anything. i thought about rd too as a suicide thing, might be worth exploring.
a few versions of the team were made but the
first time it was used, electabuzz was here over electrode. not too much to say about it, fast thing that can pressure waters and kanga / plume with spikes up. pre season (i think?) for here i got the idea to replace it with the pokeball. it has a few things that honestly make it more or less outclass manec and electabuzz here. the most glaring thing is obviously the boom. forcing booms on things like kanga, ampharos, plume, and lanturn is super essential for these kinds of teams. silk scarf here, alongside qwil, makes this all the more threatening, but we'll get to that later. the main thing though, is the fact that, barring omas with insane amounts of speed, makes it so that you don't just get plowed by oma and gorebyss on the spot if rain goes up. like anything else in this slot cannot function the same way and if your omastar is slower, which isn't really unlikely (meaning you can 100% add more speed here), you are just FUCKED. even with spikes up, there'll probably be a scenario where these things can get rain up, so having something that makes you very weak to it as opposed to just having your face put into concrete is a godsend, as dire as it sounds. when the season started one of the first things i said off the bat is that i wanted to use this framework, and it was only a question of when rather than if.
there were a few "neat!" ideas i wanted to pack in here. it was a gradual sort of process though. originally it was just sunny day plume, then i made it hp ground tentacruel, then counter kanga was added, and then hp grass solrock was a thing. but the vileplume had been something that i wanted to experiment with since uuwc. it's been an old set that everyone's Known about, but it very obviously has fallen out of favor because the now standard set is so ridiculously good. that being said, in the same way that rd oma is great, it was worth figuring out how to properly make use of sunny day plume because there like, isn't really anything that's totally wrong about it. it's just more of a "is this a waste of a plume" thing. i really liked the idea of using it here so over the course of the week after a lot of testing the aforementioned tweaks were made.
counter kanga is a neat thing as shiba mentioned. it's definitely awkward and you probably don't need to run it, but it can be fun. i thought about it with the mindset of just throwing out the mental warfare that was kanga creep wars, mostly because me and gc know each other's creep well enoughand it would be more of an effort to try to figure out who would win it than just accepting the loss, stomaching the hit and clapping it with counter. i think the 8 defense evs actually has a purpose but i cant remember what it is, it either has something to do with kanga or gligar. not going to go too in depth about solrock since im saving that for later, but it fit nicely on here because i did wanna overload oma given that technically tenta and vileplume here arent the Best at pressuring it. granted i have walrein, but again, the sequencing that i'll go into later is what made it appealing to me. reflect is viable here though, helps plume / tenta obviously. everything functions here as somewhat of a standard team on paper i guess. hp ground tentacruel seems weird, but muk is essentially one of the, if not the best answer to sunny day plume, and as it also is a good sponge to the standard sd tentacruel, baiting it is super good for a gameplan here. in theory, some of the sets here seem redundant in their coverage, but the purpose is to ensure that i can beat things down as much as possible for vileplume late on.
prepping this week was weird, partly cause this was around the time my motivation started to go down a bit. i knew off the bat i wanted to punish the slow paced fat shit, but that was about it. cm xatu was one of the first things that came to mind, alongside cm slowking. i used xatu here because its faster and is good at dealing with spdef kanga.....usually. in the game i do think i wouldve won if i didn't get crit but it's also my fault for jumping the gun, just wanted to take what was right in front of me. anyway, this is definitely one of the slower teams used here. no priority either but the chances of it mattering here were a bit low in theory. what this game taught me more than anything is that i am probably never fucking using this kanga set again. if i had eq it would've been way more easier, but wish sounded fun and would fit nicely with this team. technically, it does have merit, because you don't want to rely on rest too much with some of these and stoise can get worn fast. on that note, blastoise might be an odd choice here but its kinda neat in that you spin while sponging both gligar and tenta. rest of the team doesn't really need elaboration, the ampharos set was something i debated on a lot here, figured rest would be nice particularly because you can sit on electrics after being poisoned, and it's especially nice vs lanturn, who is a major asshole to this team otherwise.
it's worth noting this is the only game blastoise was used the whole season. really don't get why either because it's like, obviously a weird pick, but it's still good enough to be used more than shit like primeape.
prepping for jabba i wanted to make sure i wasn't going to get owned by any ho shit. up to this point he had been using qwilfish lead literally every single game with few variations here and there. figured he would prob change it up this week, which is what happened, but it wasn't really enough for me to change my mind on it. thief electabuzz is a neat lead for these sorts of situations, because in a favorable lead mu you are essentially guaranteed to force out something like qwilfish or walrein and nab a thief on whatever, and in the same way that thief's been used on earlier teams, nabbing leftovers is important. less so for electabuzz, granted, but still. psychic might be better here over qa but again given the ho potential i didn't really care to be THAT complacent. aside from that though building this was kind of weird, to the point where i honestly wasn't sure on my process lol. i had quite a few variations, all essentially trying to figure out what the best "third" water would be - chose lanturn cause its a decent check to scyther and is obviously great at being annoying to elecs and rd oma, and just being strong-ish in general. a lot of games with spikes up it gets really annoying for kangaskhan to switch into lanturn given that a fair amount of bulky offenses designate it as the elec answer, so there's that. rest is just the usual mons that are super easy to slap on and call it a day. gligar is just like, probably one of the most splashable mons rn so i always find it super valuable.
i kind of dont remember my inspiration for prep here ngl, at least not the starting point. i know that at some point i realized that on a spikeless team like this, cb gligar might actually be really good for progression that you can't really get with regular sd until the late game. gligar forces in walrein more than most mons, and in doing so here, it'll make it a lot easier for tenta to do work. the only other standout thing here is slowking. it's a mon that is deceptively annoying for almost every team - there aren't any great answers to it defensively once it gets going. problem is getting to get going in the first place, but it's not hard enough for it to be a total deterrent, especially given the utility it has. really this team is just a conglomeration of Annoying Shit piled on together that covers most of the metagame.
this was the hardest week to build for by a significant margin, simply because i didn't really come up with anything i liked up until the last minute. hell, this is probably my least favorite team of the season because it plays super clunky, but it does have a few neat things that make it worthwhile. first is the counter grumpig, which isn't really a new development given it was used in uu snake, but it's just a nice counter lead to a lot of stuff, both metaphorically and literally. other thing here is the kanga. i felt like fishing for paras would be fun, and body slam isn't really passive either so you're not a sitting duck either. i'd rather use it than return on spdef kanga probably lol. probably my biggest regret here was the muk - it didn't really fulfill much, but it gave me an elec answer, a tenta answer, and boom in one, so i figured why the hell not.
now that we were in poffs where shit mattered the most i was really revived after a few weeks of slump prep wise. for like 3 hours i was like I Must Use Magmar HO but then i was like fuck it, time for sd gatr. gatr is honestly a fantastic mon even if it's hard to fit just cause it's strong as shit and its other stats are just good enough to work out. sd was the move here as opposed to sub punch and such just cause breaking through vileplume cores is very obviously something you want to have. beyond that it's not really too crazy of a team, but man do i fucking wish i had hp grass solrock here. kind of just slowly got cocked in the end game in probably the worst case scenario.
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a lot of these will be the fun things this season, as well as some stuff that was shelved either cause it wasn't working right, was too dumb, or was just a fun idea i had.
Qwilfish @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Poison Point
EVs: 104 Atk / 52 Def / 100 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Spikes
- Self-Destruct
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Thunder Wave
i already went into detail somewhat about the sequences with this thing, so i'll go over the spread first. this does the following
- ohkos the calc kanga with boom (they don't really run 212 hp that much, but that's because they'll probably have less)
- ohkos max hp / 0 def muk
- ohkos no bulk walrein. if they're fatter variants, it's obviously a bit more dicey, but they'll be low enough that, ideally with a spike up, they're never really switching in to eat anything again
- always lives max atk kanga eq
- no specific benchmark with the spa, but it's dumped into here because of the speed. it's really, really good to have this much though, because of how much you do to oma. obviously, you don't ohko it, but you get 57-67 off, which is a LOT early game, especially since they may try to trade spikes with you
soooo this is pretty much centered around silk scarf simply because of how much difference the boom damage gives. ideally, this'll give you a spike and something dead or weakened to the point where it'll be useless long term. it is weird at a first glance, but the other moves aren't really that good or applicable, so this is how you'd get the most out of qwil.
Electrode @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Static
EVs: 168 Atk / 124 SpA / 216 Spe
Naive Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Explosion
- Thunder Wave
similarly to qwil i decided to slap a scarf on this guy. the applications are a lot less defined here though - the main thing is that you ohko calc kanga after a layer of spikes. again, that basically means you ohko kanga since no one is running that much hp anymore. speed outruns modest gorebyss because a slight fighting chance is better than nothing. twave is there just because i don't reaaaaally value anything else here, and paraing something on the off chance it'll help out is nice. i guess you can do it to "punish" awkward play from the opponent trying to get some damage control from boom. realistically, the silk scarf wll help out more and more as the game progresses cause ideally you obviously get chip on other things.
Solrock @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 24 Atk / 232 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Hidden Power [Grass]
there isn't anything that's like actually creative orspecial about this. hp grass is valuable in the early game where oma will switch in on solrock, and then you hp grass their ass as they spike. at least, they should spike because most people won't ever surf a solrock early game when there are 5 different mons, 4 of which are unrevealed, that would probably sponge a surf and then force oma out anyway with no reward on their end. you get enough damage to scare them out and mae it more annoying to come in on things later on. i used it cus on this particular team neither reflect or toxic were really helping me. i didn't actually get to show it off in game but i do think it's something fun
Vileplume @ Leftovers
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 112 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 140 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Sunny Day
- Solar Beam
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Synthesis
as mentioned before sunny day plume was more or less a long gone thing, and especially with the advent of demonplume this hasn't really seen the light of day, pun definitely intended. the main draw of this for me, however, was synthesis. 75% is a LOT of recovery and somewhat compensates for the lack of bulk regular plume has. i value this a lot more than sleep powder - i'd say it's completely useless, but advpl games have convinced me otherwise LOL so there's that. synthesis saved my ass in my game and sleep powder would definitely have not. the staying power plume has is wayyyy too good. speed evs outrun scyther and the elecs in sun, unfortunately idr what the hp + 4spdef is, but i know it was for something that was somewhat important.
now for the random shit that won't get too much input but i did think about
Meganium @ Leftovers
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 HP / 224 Atk / 8 Def / 8 SpD / 16 Spe
Impish Nature
- Swords Dance
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Earthquake
- Synthesis
probably one of the most insane things i've ever thought about, that i also probably won't use. outruns aggron, 2hkos standard plume, and usually never gets 2hkoed by the same plume. of course theres the poison though. i love meganium but this set is like incredibly on paper. then again a lot of these things are so w/e
Magmar @ Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 Def
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Thunder Punch
- Toxic or idk who cares
i swear to god he will work one day. he does an assload to kanga and has a neat speed tier!!!
Ampharos @ Leftovers
Ability: Static
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Focus Punch
- Heal Bell
i dont actually have a spread because this was just a thought, and one i didn't explore too much at that, but i did consider this in semis for obvious reasons. punishing kanga during the rest turn is never a bad thing.
Cradily @ Leftovers
Ability: Suction Cups
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Recover
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
i want this to work, so so bad. cradily has fallen off the map completely, only getting one use this season (alongside hypno who was also a big thing in the old days ofc) but its so awkward. its a good sponge to things, but unlike plume it gets dicked by poison and it's way more passive. if it got curse i'd seriously use it on a lot of teams but unfortunately it doesn't.
thanks to everyone who helped me test and build this season. every game was a lot of fun and this tier is the best for a reason. also thanks to
Chill Shadow for picking me up and my team for being awesome, much love. also hypno will make a comeback sooner or later.
so i present neutralizing gas weezing!
is also crazy with it ofc
etc) that I didn’t get to bring that are pretty neat and hope to use in the future. In hindsight I’m pleased I got to play this tier bc it has been very refreshing after shifts. Much love to everyone that helped me along the way again & until next UUPL 
(maybe)
