Resource ZU Old Gens Hub - ORAS Bans @ 379

[5gen]

ORAS ZU Viability Rankings Update (click to view voting sheet)

Hey all, ORAS ZU council recently voted on the entire VR. Congrats to estra for joining ORAS council, and thank you to each council member for voting. Credit to estra for creating the voting sheet, thanks a bunch. Here is the original voting sheet with some reasonings.

Rises

Bronzor A to A+
Swalot A to S

Furfrou A- to A
Gourgeist-Large A- to A
Meowstic A- to A
Persian A- to A

Marshtomp B+ to A-
Meganium B+ to A-
Wigglytuff B+ to A-

Seaking B to A-

Mienfoo B- to B+
Mightyena B- to B
Solrock B- to B

Corsola C+ to B-
Ditto C+ to B-
Heatmor C+ to B-
Kricketune C+ to B-
Luxray C+ to B-

Banette C to C+
Wormadam-Trash C to C+

Bibarel C- to B-
Dunsparce C- to C

Hypno UR to C
Noctowl UR to C
Phione UR to C+
Pikachu-Belle UR to C
Shedinja UR to C
Slowpoke UR to C-
Sudowoodo UR to C-
Tropius UR to C-
Unfezant UR to C

Drops

Electabuzz S- to A+

Dustox A+ to A
Lairon A+ to A-
Politoed A+ to A

Frogadier A to A-
Magmar A to A-
Vibrava A to A-

Sawsbuck A- to B+
Swoobat A- to B+

Hippopotas B+ to B-
Murkrow B+ to B
Trubbish B+ to B

Butterfree B to B-
Dragonair B to B-
Glaceon B to B-
Lunatone B to B-
Meowstic-F B to B-
Raticate B to C+
Zweilous B to B-

Chimecho B- to C+
Chinchou B- to C
Fearow B- to C+
Gastly B- to C+
Girafarig B- to C+
Lampent B- to C+
Magcargo B- to C+
Slaking B- to C+
Tentacool B- to C+

Emolga C+ to C
Illumise C+ to C
Meditite C+ to C
Munchlax C+ to C-
Palpitoad C+ to C-
Shelgon C+ to C

Ariados C to C-
Magnemite C to C-
Mothim C to C-
Octillery C to C-
Stunky C to C-

Frillish C- to UR
Grotle C- to UR

Notable Changes

• A to S: Swalot has proven to be a metagame staple due to how much offensive and defensive utility it offers. Similarly to Servine, Swalot is incredibly easy to fit and helps drive the metagame. Swalot is one of the main checks to Grass-types, which are everywhere, and can check a lot of key threats such as Scraggy, Pignite, and Electabuzz. Moreover, Swalot threatens a lot thanks to its stats and movepool, and has lots of opportunities to switch in thanks to its typing, bulk, and Sticky Hold. In a nutshell, Swalot can fit on any team.
• S- to A+: The ORAS ZU icon, Electabuzz, is no longer part of the S-ranks. Sad day. Seriously though, Electabuzz has taken a dip because of how popular bulky Grass-types, Dustox, and AV Swalot are. Also, trends like Seaking and Marshtomp give teams some more flexibility against it. The meta has adapted to Electabuzz in ways that made it less dominant. In addition, one can argue that Servine and Swalot are that much better as S-ranks.
• A+ to A: Defog users in ORAS ZU simply don't hold up as well against the metagame nowadays. Rockers like Gigalith and Bronzor have an easy time keeping Stealth Rock up against Dustox. Dustox is also easy to pressure, as even Grass-types like Simisage and Gogoat can tech Rock Slide, and Servine annoys it with its tools. However, Dustox is still a solid Defogger and special wall, and Double Dance sets are really nice at the moment.
• A+ to A-: A lot of the current trends hurt Lairon's viability. Examples include the following: Pignite, bulky SD Mienfoo, Bronzor, PuP Swalot, and Marshtomp. Compared to rockers like Gigalith and Bronzor, Lairon does not offer as good defensive utility and is worse off as a result.
• A+ to A: Politoed's viability has taken a steady dip since last ZUPL because of trends like Servine, Meganium, Seaking, and screens. Moreover, Politoed faces increased competition from Water-types like Huntail, Seaking, and Simipour, so it's slightly tougher to fit nowadays.
• A to A+: Bronzor trended up mainly because of how well it sets Stealth Rock and helps cover threats like Duosion, Gigalith, Klang, and so on incredibly well. Arguably, there's no other rocker that offers the kind of defensive utility Bronzor does.
• A- to A: Meowstic drives screens and screens are incredible. Screens as a style consistently does well in tours and has been a bit of a hot topic around the meta.
• A- to A: Furfrou is arguably the best Normal-type breaker in the tier, and being faster than Simisage and Simipour is crucial. It forces teams to pack Normal-type resists and even then, Furfrou has the tools to overcome many of them (i.e., Iron Tail for Carbink and Toxic for Gourgeist-L and Gigalith).
• A- to A: Gourgeist-Large is arguably better now as a physical wall thanks trends like Furfrou, Persian, and PuP Swalot. Aside from Duosion, nothing wants to switch into Leech Seed and Will-O-Wisp. While Gourgeist-L may seem passive on paper, it has the tools both wall threats and whittle teams down.
• A- to A: Since the Purugly ban, Persian has steadily risen in the metagame. Persian is one of the tier's best revenge killers, and NP sets are quite threatening as well.
• B to A-: Seaking trended up because of its ability to check Electabuzz, Pignite, Gigalith, and so on, and threaten much of the meta. The Protect 3 attacks set caught on and made Seaking shine. With Megahorn and Knock Off, Seaking is able to break down a lot of structures by flipping matchups against typical Water-type checks like Servine and Politoed
• In general, much of the B and C ranks were cleaned up. Feel free to check the original voting sheet for some reasoning.

Ideally, there should be explanations for each change made. I'm too tired to write up explanations for each change, so feel free to ping me or other council members in the ZU Discord with any questions. If we made any errors counting votes or compiling changes, please let us know. Thanks for reading!

 

[5gen]

The ORAS ZU council has decided to set up a vote on Meowstic and Huntail. With the upcoming ORAS Underground tournament, now is an ideal time to vote.

Screens as a playstyle has been at the forefront of ORAS ZU for years now, and Meowstic is the best screen setter by far. In this meta, screens are consistent and highly potent. As seen in official tours like ZUPL, Olympiad, and ORAS Cup, screens are one of easiest styles to use and toughest to prepare for. The central argument against screens is that the ability to stack so many sweepers restricts teams and leads to too many threats to cover.

Huntail is arguably the deadliest setup sweeper in the tier. Huntail's ability to run physical, special, or mixed sets make it highly difficult to answer defensively. Sucker Punch allows Huntail to pick off revenge killers, which makes it difficult to revenge kill. Much of the time, it feels like Huntail can position itself to overcome typical checks (especially on screens).

However, there are arguments to keep Meowstic and/or Huntail in the tier. One may argue that the meta has enough outs vs screens, or that looking at Light Clay may be preferred. Meanwhile, Huntail's low Speed and poor special bulk limit its ability to set up. Another issue Huntail faces is that it often has one chance to sweep in a game, which forces players to position it well. In some games that's easy, but in others Huntail is just another sweeper.

These two Pokemon are the most controversial elements in ORAS ZU. We'd love to hear people's thoughts here or in the ZU Discord.

 

[BaitWiz]

Thoughts on Screens and Huntail in ORAS

I think screens as a whole is overbearing as hell, having to account for every single sweeper is just a nightmare while still keeping every other potential playstyle in mind. Screens doesn't really 'have' to use specific mons, it can pick or choose its sweepers accordingly, which makes it all the more difficult to account for in the builder and dangerous in battle - if it was just having to prepare for Scraggy, Huntail (more on that in a second), Klang, and Swoobat then I think it wouldn't be too bad, but the fact that there's a lot of more niche options screens can use as well really pushes it over the line - simi's slotting in alright, Electabuzz being an ever reliable pivot, Swalot as a bulky setup sweeper, hell I've even seen the likes of Magcargo, Ditto, and Beedrill do well on screens. Having almost a dozen different potential setup sweepers in screens is extremely difficult to account for when they last for a full seven turns, and it gives the screens user a lot more room to maneuver their win conditions around compared to other generations of ZU where Light Clay isn't legal. I could see an argument for both Meowstic and Light Clay being the problem; my preference is towards Meowstic, as the next best setter after Meowstic is probably either the ridiculously frail Swoobat (who is crucially outsped by Persian and gets hit with Knock Off from Choice Scarf users) or mons like Solrock who have their own host of issues. I think a Light Clay ban would be totally valid as well though, and would probably remove screens altogether.

Huntail can seem honest at face value; it has one shot to get off a Shell Smash, and when it does it's going to try to sweep you with Water STABs. Problem is, Huntail's not all that honest in practice. It can run a bevy of different items, from standard stuff like White Herb and Lum Berry to more oddball items like Life Orb and even weird berries like Ganlon or Lansat for one time Natural Gift coverage; furthermore, while you can sometimes judge whether it's physical or special based on its teammates, you never truly know until you're already facing it down fully boosted most of the time. It also really doesn't help that Huntail can often mix its two sets together, opting for mixed variants with Ice Beam splashed into physical sets or Sucker Punch splashed into special ones. I think Huntail is screens' strongest abuser, and without the support of screens it often both has to find the correct time to setup and have the correct set in order to finish the game; a combination of factors that's difficult to find in practice and is reflected accordingly in the usage stats of both of the most recent team tournaments featuring ORAS ZU, ZUPL VI and ZU Olympiad III; Huntail finds itself below a 50% winrate in both of these tournaments. I'd personally be in favor of action on screens over action on Huntail at this time.

 

[sleid]

Results from the recent ORAS ZU ban slate are in! Light Clay is banned with a whopping 80% majority vote, while Huntail just barely reached the threshold to be banned with a 60% majority vote. Tagging Marty and dhelmise to implement this! Thank you!

Here's to ushering a new and healthier era of ORAS ZU. I am excited to build for this new meta and know others are too!

 

[Theycallmephil]

Hello ZU old gens thread.
I hope this is the right thread for this post.

I won gsc slam league alongside the hitmonlees while playing GSC ZU.
As this tier has an obvious issue to address id like to share my thoughts on it.

But before all that im doing a teamdump lol

WEEK ONE vs Missangelic(win),
(Charm lead nidorina)

https://pokepast.es/46bf4b0acbaa9342
To be very clear, this was my first team ever in this tier. It was only made possible due to my extremely helpful team during prep. As it was my first shot its fairly standard. I came up with a checklist of ideas, I needed something that could tank opposing mantine. So I used nidorina who packed a solid combination of instant recovery, decent spatk, thunder, ice beam to ensure my tine check wasn't bullied by onix as seen in the game. I saw most people had chosen their charms to be physical lately, so to be slightly different i opted for a special resttalk set to better handle enemy sleepers. From there I used a 3 attacks mantine and a resttalk aipom, this would be the last time I bring an aipom walled by onix. When presented with the newly dropped ariados I looked immediately at its bulk, opting to create the ideal resttalk set. The attacks I chose were psychic to hit the numerous poisons and to take advantage of its unresisted nature. And sludge bomb to abuse ariados's absurd attack. The last add to the team like usual was my favorite croconaw set, its simple and effective.

WEEK 2 vs Magalice(Loss)
(Grimer lead-Attract mantine)

https://pokepast.es/c645417c6a31c46b
I wanted to take an approach closer to what Maris did week one, opting for a curse grimer lead idea. So the team is built around that. But while just chatting about the tier a sick and twisted idea came to me, mantine can probably afford attract. This mon already has no switch ins and now I can abuse those aswell?
Sign me up. This set performed as cheesy as planned both in game and in tests, im satisfied with it. And as mentioned i was pretty disappointed with aipom being helpless versus onix, so I chose to give my aipom hp water and infact even used thief to hopefully cripple another mon.
I also tried onix for the first time this week although it ended up fairly disappointing.
Other 2 were just resttalk charm again and boring croconaw.

FINALS vs Zause(win)

https://pokepast.es/cdce6cdb55feab5b
I was subbed in mid-way through the week but I locked in immediately. I had my mission and I needed my teams help to build up a squad to win this. Immediately I knew i wanted to use lead aipom and wanted to go back to a less unique mantine. From here we added croconaw as is standard. I finally decided to grow a pair and use a new charmeleon set, using belly drum at bees recommendation. From there we wanted a way around opposing weepinbell, a few ideas were suggested. But ponyta and ariados were my favorites. I went with ariados. And finally bee pointed out this team had some issues with opposing croc, I built 2 versions of the team as a result, this version with weepinbell that I used to great success and another version with koffing
https://pokepast.es/09c67e520f96039b
Seen here.

Now I want to address the obvious issue mentioned at the start of this post.

I think most will agree with me when I say this pokemon desperately needs to be banned, it trades 2 for 1 every game, can abuse cheesy strats, has 0 real switch ins.
This mon absolutely cannot be dropped and centralizes everything around it.

Ultimately I enjoyed this tier but it has its problems.
Just my 2 cents on the tier