It is kinda nice to see some discussion on SM, as the tier isn't that popular anymore, despite being great to play.
As for bans, there are only two Pokemon that could be considered for a ban: Combusken and Swanna. I've been vocal about it since 2018 and my opinion hasn't changed in the slightest regarding them.
Combusken brings nothing of value into the tier in my opinion. It is arguably quite mediocre even, as there are many match-ups where it is completely unable to do anything, which is against Altaria and Aqua Jet Swanna / Floatzel, and can really struggle to find a setup opportunity. However, Combusken is just way too hard to revenge kill if it gets a Swords Dance up. Fightinium-Z OHKOes most Fire-resists (Golem, Wishiwashi, Silvally-Water, etc), while Thunder Punch has been used more as a way to punish Mareanie spammers. I've always felt that the inability to reliable revenge kill Combusken with a Choice Scarf user unless you switch it outright onto Combusken and the reliance on Pokemon that take way too much from a +2 move and are supposed to answer many other threats, was very unhealthy. I do see losing Combusken as a net positive for the tier, as the Pokemon brings nothing of value.
Swanna is just ridiculous. It is kinda the same as Combusken in the sense that it brings nothing defensively (except for a Ground-immunity), but it is ridiculously broken, to the point where I'm still stun it didn't get banned 2 years ago. Back then people started using Wishiwashi and Furfrou more, which quite helps to check special Z-Rain Dance and physical sets, respectively, but since then Furfrou fell out of favor, and teams have adapted to Wishiwashi and can weaken it enough for Swanna to break through it. Swanna's winrates in ZUPL have been 65%, 44%, 83%, 40%, and 72%. (22% in Olympiad I and 67% in Olympiad II, but the SM playerbase is noticeably weaker in this tournament, so I'm not sure the numbers really speak, especially Olympiad I which had Type:Null); while I usually don't like to use winrates as metric for weighting whether something is broken or not, the numbers are really crazy some years (all with Swanna retaining high usage). There is no counter to Swanna, and checks don't cover well the 3 main sets (physical Rain Dance, special Rain Dance, and Mirror Move), and guessing wrong can quite often cost you the game. The closest things are Mareanie (very flawed Pokemon that also can't check Swanna anymore if you got the wrong EV spread and get Knocked Off) and bulky Sivally forms (no recovery at all).
Ultimately I don't think removing these two Pokemon would negatively impact the tier. I would open the teambuilder and I doubt it would push anything over the board given both Pokemon are terrible defensively and not fast enough to act as natural form of Speed control.
On Simisage, this Pokemon is a late adaptation in the tier. Basically if you are not running a non-Mareanie Poison-type, you open yourself to let Simisage pick KOes. In my opinion, Simisage is balanced by the fact its STAB moves are flawed; Giga Drain is not strong enough, limiting its ability to break early, while Leaf Storm's drop means Simisage can't really pick up many KOes and smart pivoting can put it in bad positions. In my experience, Simisage also struggles with picking its non STAB moves; between Hidden Power Ice, Knock Off, Nasty Plot, Focus Blast, and Synthesis. You definitely don't need all of them, but lacking any of them make some matchup far harder. Also Simisage brings nothing defensively, and while that's also true for Swanna and Combusken, Simisage is far easier to revenge kill, with no natural ways of boosting its speed and no priorities. I could see Simisage getting unhealthy as time progress though, as evidently it has excellent offensive traits for the tier that makes it hard to defensively handle, but the counterplay has felt sufficient.
tldr: not opposed to retest type:null, ban combusken and swanna, do not ban simisage
Speaking for myself, I don't think there is any tiering action that could be done for SM ZU. Olympiad I showed that the playerbase had no interest in revisiting the ZUBL, as Throh proved to be very unhealthy with its Flame Orb set, though the Bulk Up ones were quite manageable. Type:Null could theorically be revisited alone, as it saw minimal usage due to Throh invalidating most of its sets. The defensive set is most likely outclassed by Wishiwashi, though Type:Null's lack of Electric- and Grass- weakness for the less common Fighting-weakness means it gets a better matchup into Rotom, Electivire, and Simisage. While it is hard to stay whether the Swords Dance set would be as threatening as it seems on paper. Anyway, if there is support to retest Type:Null without Throh, so just on its own, I'd be glad to have a suspect slot for it in next Olympiad.
As for bans, there are only two Pokemon that could be considered for a ban: Combusken and Swanna. I've been vocal about it since 2018 and my opinion hasn't changed in the slightest regarding them.
Combusken brings nothing of value into the tier in my opinion. It is arguably quite mediocre even, as there are many match-ups where it is completely unable to do anything, which is against Altaria and Aqua Jet Swanna / Floatzel, and can really struggle to find a setup opportunity. However, Combusken is just way too hard to revenge kill if it gets a Swords Dance up. Fightinium-Z OHKOes most Fire-resists (Golem, Wishiwashi, Silvally-Water, etc), while Thunder Punch has been used more as a way to punish Mareanie spammers. I've always felt that the inability to reliable revenge kill Combusken with a Choice Scarf user unless you switch it outright onto Combusken and the reliance on Pokemon that take way too much from a +2 move and are supposed to answer many other threats, was very unhealthy. I do see losing Combusken as a net positive for the tier, as the Pokemon brings nothing of value.
Swanna is just ridiculous. It is kinda the same as Combusken in the sense that it brings nothing defensively (except for a Ground-immunity), but it is ridiculously broken, to the point where I'm still stun it didn't get banned 2 years ago. Back then people started using Wishiwashi and Furfrou more, which quite helps to check special Z-Rain Dance and physical sets, respectively, but since then Furfrou fell out of favor, and teams have adapted to Wishiwashi and can weaken it enough for Swanna to break through it. Swanna's winrates in ZUPL have been 65%, 44%, 83%, 40%, and 72%. (22% in Olympiad I and 67% in Olympiad II, but the SM playerbase is noticeably weaker in this tournament, so I'm not sure the numbers really speak, especially Olympiad I which had Type:Null); while I usually don't like to use winrates as metric for weighting whether something is broken or not, the numbers are really crazy some years (all with Swanna retaining high usage). There is no counter to Swanna, and checks don't cover well the 3 main sets (physical Rain Dance, special Rain Dance, and Mirror Move), and guessing wrong can quite often cost you the game. The closest things are Mareanie (very flawed Pokemon that also can't check Swanna anymore if you got the wrong EV spread and get Knocked Off) and bulky Sivally forms (no recovery at all).
Ultimately I don't think removing these two Pokemon would negatively impact the tier. I would open the teambuilder and I doubt it would push anything over the board given both Pokemon are terrible defensively and not fast enough to act as natural form of Speed control.
On Simisage, this Pokemon is a late adaptation in the tier. Basically if you are not running a non-Mareanie Poison-type, you open yourself to let Simisage pick KOes. In my opinion, Simisage is balanced by the fact its STAB moves are flawed; Giga Drain is not strong enough, limiting its ability to break early, while Leaf Storm's drop means Simisage can't really pick up many KOes and smart pivoting can put it in bad positions. In my experience, Simisage also struggles with picking its non STAB moves; between Hidden Power Ice, Knock Off, Nasty Plot, Focus Blast, and Synthesis. You definitely don't need all of them, but lacking any of them make some matchup far harder. Also Simisage brings nothing defensively, and while that's also true for Swanna and Combusken, Simisage is far easier to revenge kill, with no natural ways of boosting its speed and no priorities. I could see Simisage getting unhealthy as time progress though, as evidently it has excellent offensive traits for the tier that makes it hard to defensively handle, but the counterplay has felt sufficient.
tldr: not opposed to retest type:null, ban combusken and swanna, do not ban simisage
High A --> S
Low A --> High A
High B --> Low A
Low B --> Low A
Low B --> High B
UR --> Low B
High C --> Low B
High C --> Low B
High C --> Low B
High C --> Low B
Low C --> High C
Low C --> High C
High A --> Low A
High A --> Low A
Low A --> High B
Low A --> High B
Low A --> High B
Low A --> High B
Low B --> High C
High C --> Low C
High C --> Low C
High C --> Low C
High C --> Low C
High C --> Low C
Low C --> UR
second best cleric, fairy typing is huge defensively
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if you can pair them with a different defogger/spinner they do a good job (don’t use both defog and heal bell on the same set, mons become passive af)
underrated, wish + knock + heal bell is a very cool combo, tho it’s kinda passive
cleric that can win games on its own against more passive defensive teams
a weird mixture between cow and alc, would much rather do spikes duty
alc sidegrade with cool options like knock and teleport, wants too many moves to fit aroma
very fat but mono-psychic type is mid defensively and has limited recovery pp
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(resttalkers) can tank both attacks pretty comfortably, don't really mind knock, don't care about sleep thanks to resttalk
will go more in depth about this mon later in the post but it resists both attacks and can run neutralizing gas to deny tang's regen (more often than not its only form of recovery)
(the
cuno 2
resists both attacks, can't get knocked, sleep is annoying but manageable, but most importantly has longevity issues
grass resist, hates knock
can somewhat handle tang defensively but often can't hurt it back
thanks to its good bulk and wide selection of utility moves (ranging from the standard sr/knock/uturn/filler set with moves like twave/encore/yawn/future sight/psychic in the last slot to fitting archetype specific moves like sunny day or trick room) it can be a cool physically defensive pivot on more offensive teams that don't mind its low longevity or on balance teams with wish support. it can be a surprise defensive scarfer à la alolan persian, with trick to cripple defensive mons. and the coolest set to me, it can be a good bulky setup sweeper, with either elecseed/kee berry + calm mind + rest or lefties + np + dkiss to make up for its otherwise kinda low longevity; the latter can even be run without dkiss, just abusing its fatness to dish out huge damage and dig holes in defensive cores for other teammates, like our good friend bossaru (rest in peace) used to do.
on paper the most broken mon in ss, but it being hard to fit and inconsistent makes it so that we don't see it to often. anyway, specs does stupidly high amounts of damage even to resists (which are very little to its ice+psychic stab combo, even less if you factor in focus blast), scarf is great speed control since it outspeeds most relevant scarfers while still maintaining good damage output, and boots with either np+3atks/kiss+3atks/np+kiss+stabs is again hard to play around while still keeping some form of longevity by avoiding rocks damage. massively slept on, i hope we can see more of it in the future.
probably the coolest psychic type in the tier. it can be a bulky pivot with future sight/teleport/recover/filler, supporting physical breakers by bringing them in safely and by giving them a way to get around common physical walls like tang; it can be a bulky setup sweeper with np/psychic/recover/filler, which despite being really hard to build around, has both good defensive and offensive utility, and can win games on its own in certain mu's; and it can work as an otr sweeper, with meteor beam to snipe cuno and to boost its already high spatk stat.
probably the most straightforward of all the psychic types, having basically one viable set (rocks 3atks is bad don't use that). still, rp/meteorbeam/ep/psychic (dont use psyshock for the love of god) is a great antimeta pick, and can clean up weakened teams. its defensive typing + ability is, against all odds, somewhat useful, letting it switchin on mons like dash or alt.
i have a weird relationship with this mon. the specs set hits insanely hard and can dig holes in defensive cores like very few other things, thanks to its massive spatk stat and high bp moves; however, its speed tier leaves a lot to be desired, especially in a tier where many defensive mons actually have decent/good speed stats. the pivot future sight set (similar to the one we talked about for beheeyem) has cool applications in supporting physical breakers while having cool defensive utility thanks to a ground resist and harvest colbur/sitrus; but despite these nice traits, its defensive typing is genuinely absolute garbage, and it isn't bulky enough to compensate for it.
this mon is somehow massively overrated and underrated at the same time. it's a good mon for sure, reliably running both physical and special setup sets, and it's still a somewhat rare sight in the tier which can undoubtedly hold its own against common defensive cores; but i've seen many people treat it like it's an unstoppable threat without considering its shortcomings, like for instance its below average bulk (you can invest in it, but then you're lacking in power which is more often than not not ideal).
uhhh this is a weird mon. being a physically oriented psychic type which actually has a good psychic stab move (unlike gdash) means that it can abuse those builds with fat fighters such as poliwrath or gurdurr as their main physical wall. however, it struggles to break other common physical walls like tangela; it has almost no defensive utility compared to other silvally forms like poison or dark; and most importantly of all, it suffers from massive opportunity cost over the aforementioned silvally forms and other physical setup sweepers, tho it can definitely shine in the right matchup.
this mon needs 2 turns and it’s potentially gg. only works on eterrain, which already has a wide array of options to choose from, and can feel kinda useless if it can’t get its cm(s) off, but oh my god is it good if it can get them. stored power reaches absurd bp really fast, and its mediocre bulk and spatk are made up by the speed with which can get off simple-boosted cm’s. roost even allows it to setup on many non-toxic walls, which can’t hurt it hard enough before it can get out of hand. massively underrated imo, slept on broken.
UR -> C-
C- -> B- 
UR -> C-
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Very brief announcement following the drops from PU's latest VR shift: Shelgon has been quick banned 
