Metagame np: PU Stage 4 - And Justice For All (Virizion stays PU)

[gum]

gm

The problem is with its heavily limited counterplay, which leads to Virizion limiting teambuilding and being overcentralising. zS said it himself. You can't build a team so focused on countering Virizion and making Virizion have the worst matchup in the world, prove that it beats Virizion and say Virizion isn't broken.

virizion answers don't just check virizion though, they still check other very relevant threats. you don't have to go out of your way to find virizion answers; they're all extremely solid and great options and we'll still be seeing tons of them even in the event that virizion gets banned

Take for example that Virizion comes in on a Claydol, and you have a Talonflame/Aromatisse in the back. You can't switch in Talonflame because if Viri clicks Stone Edge you die, if you go Aromatisse, you can't OHKO Virizion and if it SDs you die. If you stay in you die if he clicks Leaf Blade and all you can do is guess your opponent's move, and your opponent has the advantage because not only does he know the Virizion set

other than the fact that virizion is not a claydol switchin, games often don't happen in such a linear manner; if we assume it's swords dance + stone edge or calm mind + stone edge, it still has to be wary of talonflame in the back - the opponent could go aromatisse first to scout the set and from that point you can't just freely click leaf blade. in this scenario, not only does virizion need the right set, it also has to predict correctly, twice. also, if the opponent already knows the virizion set isn't mixed & they don't need claydol anymore, they can afford to stay in with it to trade

And then what if you don't have a Talonflame/Weezing/Aromatisse in the back?

this is more of a teambuilding issue. saying "i don't have a virizion answer and it's 6-0ing me!" is not a valid argument, especially when not running a flying / poison / fairy means you'll usually struggle immensely against other fighting-types as well

First off, this wallbreaker isn't Perrserker from July - it's fast and his limited mons that outspeed it, and it can set up on unexpecting opponents that lose the 50/50

perrserker and virizion are different threats though? band perrserker had a stab band 120bp move coming from 110 attack in a considerably weaker metagame. they're not comparable simply because you didn't even have to predict with perrserker most of the time because you also had a pivoting move. anyway, yes virizion is fast but when looking at the current tier it's actually not that fast; we have plenty of faster & potent threats that can at the very least pressure it

And? What is this trying to say? That you're able to force Virizion out? Every mon has stuff that forces it out!

yes, they do, but the argument is that you can limit just how much it gets to do with offensive checks. again, i don't think it's comparable to roserade; roserade could take advantage of more stuff due to its immunity to toxic & natural cure. it could also cripple & weaken down its answers with sleep powder and spikes respectively, with spikes providing its team extremely solid support, which makes it vastly different from virizion. also 125 spa leaf storm does considerably more than 90 spa leaf storm

Prove that Virizion isn't centralising and then we'll talk.

this really irks me because the pro-ban side is the one that's supposed to actually give proof of virizion being broken. this is a suspect to revaluate virizion's place in the tier, not one to consider freeing it and you're taking it for granted that virizion is broken

On that note: saying this means not very much whatsoever if you don't provide 'in practice material' yourself. Saying 'in practice, in practice' and having people agree with you also means nothing because you have no proof whatsoever and its totally subjective to who you are talking to and who is agreeing with you.

again, this is something the pro-ban side has to demonstrate, but even then it vastly differs from each person. some people haven't struggled with it, while some have. getting some replays proving that virizion is broken would greatly help support your points, so if you have any please share them. i personally haven't struggled with virizion, and even if i said i'm gonna be voting dnb, any proof that virizion is broken could make me revaluate my stance

Because I would like to see whether or not my Virizion can switch into a Toxicroak matters right? And similarly, Archeops doesn't want to switch into Heliolisk... right?

this argument is extemely weird and simply doesn't make sense. when people say that, they mean defensive utility. no one cares if your offensive pokémon can't wall other threats, certainly not ones that have a super effective stab. having some defensive utility helps immensely, which is something virizion kinda lacks due to points i've already brought up in another post. this gives it a limited amount of opportunities to switch into various defensive staples. no one is using archeops as their heliolisk switchin and you know it. however, archeops can still switch into threats like charizard in a pinch, just like virizion can switch into heliolisk if needed

 

[MZ]

So I sort of went into this in the first 5-10 minutes of this recent untier talk but I'd like to put the point in writing somewhere and see how people feel. For the record I was anti-ban at the start of the suspect and now I'm not entirely sure how I'll vote. My issue isn't the quality of Virizion checks, they're generally good Pokemon that do a lot of other things. Nor is it how easy they are to fit onto teams or Virizion's relatively unprecedented coverage or anything else. It's that so often interactions with Virizion tend to be the most important thing in the game. Virizion really is just a sick breaker that comes in early to try to grab 1-2 kills and we've got a bunch of checks that make it need to predict right. But that turn 3 interaction where their Virizion is in on your Gigalith and you've got a Talonflame in the back sorta feels like it decides whole games with alarming frequency. I need that Gigalith but if Talonflame gets Stone Edged I'm also screwed. Very few of Virizion's potential switch-ins aren't frequently outsped and 2HKOd, Whimsicott takes a hit once and Weezing is more likely to get away without getting bonked by coverage but everything else is very very conditional (even if there are more random things I haven't mentioned which I'm sure there are look at the average game and tell me Virizion isn't just grabbing a kill if it predicts right). This is a meta where it's very hard to be consistent and you often need all of your team members and just losing Talonflame or Gigalith to Virizion that early is pretty much game over. And there are other comparably strong things, don't get me wrong, but none have the combined specific factors of Virizion's speed, bulk, etc. to be close to the same thing, I'm not going we need to ban Specs Alolan Exeggutor now. We could get away with something that can kill with the right prediction and comes in as easily as Virizion in a more balanced metagame, especially with the amount of offensive checks it has, but right now I'm not sure if Virizion is healthy even if it is almost certainly balanced.
e: Still not entirely happy with how I phrased the idea that Viriz seems to always be threatening the most important KO of the match, idk

 

[MZ]

PS has been quite weird and laggy from yesterday into today and we don't know when this issue will be fixed. I will be extending the suspect deadline by 24 hours and if PS continues to have issues we will extend it as much as necessary.

 

[Hera]

Hala Ladder Scrubs!

Ladder is arguably super underrated within community for whatever excuse. All alone during this suspect test we have seen lot of common faces struggling to get what? 35 games together with 80% gxe? Instead of complaining how irrelevant ladder is to play, how about take a look on your own team and plays. Is your team actually that good as you're trying to say? Are you actually playing it optimally out or did your opponent hard predict you to do X move and you felt for it? Ladder is more casual place for sure than tournaments, but theres still good bunch of good players around. Not to mention Ktutverde for example messing with mono-psychic and beating people. Laddering with friends is actually good way to spend time and play casually

As someone who was a low ladder player for a long time, and as someone who recently spent a stint in low ladder trying to understand it, allow me to comment on why I think ladder is really hated.

My discontent towards ladder stems from a few things. Firstly, the sort of laddering mentality one must have when playing it. It's not uncommon to find a bunch of random stuff that shouldn't work suddenly work because you didn't except it, or gimmicks so to speak. Of course there's a difference between viable alternatives that can catch people off guard (Boots Virizion) and flat-out gimmicks (Shell Smash Eject Pack Shuckle into Pokemon with Copycat), but often ladder tends to steer towards the latter. This is especially frustrating because many people, like me, use ladder for practice, so it can be really demoralising to be solidly winning against a ladder player before the tables are completely turned on you by some random gimmick. Adding onto to that, since ladder is supposed to be a strong indicator of the meta, newer players are often believed into building against certain mons or playstyles that may be viable on ladder, but in more competitive settings are not exactly viable.

Secondly, there tends to be very little coherent building, especially in low ladder. Often, I tend to ask people why they put [insert unviable mon or move] on their team, and the answer I get is usually "Because it works". This ends up worsening when you lose to them, because the mind tries to connect the dots. If you're a better player, why did you lose? For many people, this is hard to understand, and can lead to making excuses about ladder, correct or not. It's also an environment prone to overpredicting, which basically means "any competent person would've made that move, but because ladder they didn't". This worsens their mentality because of how stupid the ladder player is perceived to be compared to you.

Thirdly, much of it stems from standard stuff that happens in Pokemon due to chance: misses, stat drops, crits, etc. One could say that during a tourney, these are worse because of the higher stakes involved, and to an extent, it is worse in a tournament. However, the higher volume of games played on ladder compared to in a tournament means that it's possible for these chances to become overinflated. One game in a tournament compared to a few games on ladder has a much lower chance to have as many crits and misses. But why are these worse on ladder? I think it's because of the aforementioned perception of the average ladder player: not smart, worse than you, and doing stuff simply because it works. I already stated the fact that perceiving yourself as a better player but then losing is hard to grasp for many people, but adding luck-based stuff onto that worsens it because "I did everything right but lost because of a crucial crit/miss/drop". Would you be a bit upset if that happened? I know I would.

Finally, there's a sort of feedback loop when it comes to ladder. This is due to things such as ELO and forfeiting at team preview makes you lose ELO. Gaining ELO gives you an incentive to climb ladder, and theoretically the gain and loss of ELO per match should be equal. However, it's often skewed towards the player with lower ELO gaining more and losing less compared to the player with higher ELO. This should be fine, but because of the aforementioned gimmicks and such, it's not uncommon to lose to a player with lower ELO. This puts people into a lame mentality where they lost even though they perceived themselves as the better player, making them upset and play worse the following match. From there, a pattern emerges: face a ladder player, lose, get upset, play worse, etc. This kinda sucks and makes it demoralizing to play ladder.

I think I tried to explain why ladder is disliked from a non-me perspective but ended up putting some of my own experiences in there. Regardless, I think people dislike ladder due to how incoherent it can be at times, the flaws of ELO and how it creates a negative (or positive) feedback loop, and general mentality issues possibly stemming from a mini-god complex. And of course I do agree with tlenit's point that there are a bunch of good players on ladder that are undiscovered and how it's a good place for more causal play, but for me, it's hard enjoying ladder without completely emptying my brain beforehand.

EDIT: Would like to add I'm sorry to anyone I've been salty at before on ladder. Sometimes it gets to me.

 

[Specs]

Just some mons that I've found to be rlly good atm, this has come from ladder experience so some might not be as effective at top level play but should still work fine on the appropriate team

(Ghost)
Silvally-Ghost shreds. With how offensive the tier is, SD Multi attack Flame charge and Boom can claim as many lives as it feels like. Looking at the VR, ghost resists are kinda tough to come by, or at least ones that actually beat Silvally. Helio doesn't like Flame charge or SD into Flame charge (assuming non scarf), Guzzlord does eat Charge + Multi but Boom does enough and you can Multi attack throughout the game to chunk it down until its in +2 range.

There are some things that annoy it such as Regirock and Weezing (sort of, helmet is annoying), but Silvally-Ghost is a very potent breaker rn. Highly recommend you to try it out!

this one is better than the sword shield one dont @ me
Physical Charizard was something I used mid way through my reqs, and it did a lot of work. MZ put me on DD, and I've also seen some Belly Drum with either boots or salac. Overall just a really scary mon that can turn the tides of a mu very quickly. You can play the whole game thinking you have to watch out for Hurricane Focus Flame/Fire blast, switch expecting one of those, and be face to face with +1 +1 Zard. You must weaken/cripple Vaporeon if you're running DD but that isn't too much of a challenge.

Zard probably isn't A+ rank worthy, but that doesn't stop it from having some pretty scary set variety. Try em out :)


Specifically offensive spin sets are pretty good atm. Jellicent isn't used that much so you can swap Knock off for say Rock slide to catch Talon's trying to Flame body you. Toxic in the last slot can also help you vs Vaporeons that are lacking Heal bell, and even ones that are can be stalled out of said Heal bells in the long run.

I really don't have much to say about snowslash, its just sorta tough to switch into at times and has a solid reason to be ran at the moment. Most ghosts are scared of whatever you throw at it so it can get some good value even if it can't always click spin. (just make sure to hit Triple axels kek)

About the suspect, think I'll be voting ban. Me MZ and Hjad discussed it a bit in the newest untier talk which you can catch here (the Virizion talk is at the very beginning) Tl:dr though, it gets in too much and creates enough situations that come down to either move set or clicking the right move. Its risk reward is too skewed in its favor, and I also experienced this while laddering. The amount of discussion I've seen on here and on discord from both the ban and no ban side has been great, so thanks to everyone for speaking out about what you think (and continuing to do so)!

ty for reading

 

[PlusC]

I've been running Aslash with Spikes/Spin/Axel/Rock Slide and it's a really nice offensive spiker than can clean up quite often. Outspeeds Vish as well and can comfortably 2H KO with Rock Slide (one hit + Stealth Rock means it can't switch into Rocks a second time as well). It's just shame every other Pokemon is a fighting type in this tier!

 

[blinkboy]

Cant remember if i posted reqs or not. Where is the forum/is it up yet for posting that?

 

[turtledoggo1]

Cant remember if i posted reqs or not. Where is the forum/is it up yet for posting that?

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...tification-thread.3676946/page-2#post-8738408 Here it is

 

[MZ]

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...-2021-february-58.3675567/page-3#post-8738846
PU got Torkoal in the quick shift. Remember Drought is banned so you might want to temper your expectations.

 

[MZ]

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ss-stage-4-voting.3677493/page-2#post-8739768
Virizion will remain PU!

What comes next- We don't have a major tier shift until April 1st which suggests this is still a decent time to get another suspect in /if/ that is what people want. Council generally feels there isn't another big threat in the tier that warrants a suspect test, but perhaps people disagree. Let us know! We could also attempt to re-suspect something like Sceptile or Alolan Raichu or Tauros, although there remain the questions of which one and has the tier changed enough to warrant a retest. Again, would like to get thoughts. Otherwise we can keep moving on as normal, expect a Viability Rankings update hopefully not too far in the future and we'll be opening up Sample Team submissions like, now.

e: Alright this post is practically council minutes already with me talking about what we'd like to suspect and opening up samples and whatnot so I'm just going to summarize some forum and Discord announcements here and act like this was planned.

• tlenit is a forum moderator now!
• We want more PU QC members
• BW cup, DPP cup, SM cup, and ORAS cup all keep going, SM has mandatory replays too if you want to watch some games
• LTPL Week 7 too, the final week before playoffs
• And if you look at the post right above this one, we got Torkoal. Droughtless Torkoal. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

Also a neat fact for those of you not on Discord:
AkirToday at 11:49 AM
Fun historical fact: Virizion is the first official suspect that didn't result in the mon getting/staying banned in PU.

 

[PlusC]

Is an Arctovish suspect out of the question? It's by far the most oppressive Mon in the tier in terms of team building, even if it's not quite "broken".

 

[termi]

Is an Arctovish suspect out of the question? It's by far the most oppressive Mon in the tier in terms of team building, even if it's not quite "broken".

We are currently not looking to suspect test Arctovish. While it is true that it looks very scary on paper with Fishious Rend + Hail support, in practice it is not as big of a constraint on the tier as it is made out to be. The biggest flaw of Arctovish is that in order to make it function, you need to pair it with a Snow Warning mon with Icy Rock. This means that right off the bat you're running two Pokemon with very little defensive utility and an SR weakness. As a consequence, it is extremely difficult to build a consistently successful team around Arctovish, relegating it to what we might consider a "cheese" playstyle - a playstyle that aims to get "easy wins" through heavily favored matchups, at the cost of it having much worse matchups than usual in other cases. While this makes it annoying to be sure, it is not necessarily more problematic than similar hyperoffensive "cheese" playstyles like Full Trick Room or Dual Screens. The only thing that really seems to set Arctovish Hail apart is that it is currently very common on ladder and is very obviously only viable to begin with because of Arctovish. This means that in the builder, you might often be saying to yourself "ah shit, I need an Arctovish check" which makes it feel like a centralizing threat moreso than any other kind of "cheese" offensive mons, but it really is not anywhere near problematic enough to make it worth banning. It does have several viable checks - Vaporeon, Heliolisk, and Toxicroak being the most obvious ones since they have Water immunities - and beyond that is not too difficult to kill due to a combination of SR weakness, potential Life Orb recoil, and a mediocre speed stat that leaves it outsped by base 80 Scarfers and faster if Vish is not running a positive nature. Meanwhile, the poor defensive synergy on Hail teams leave them much more vulnerable to your own offensive threats, meaning that even without a reliable switchin there are often still ways to beat Hail teams.

Pivoting to something else: if you think running Water immunities would be unnecessary if not for Arctovish, I have two Water-type threats I'd like to mention that underperformed in last month's usage stats. It's unfortunate to see how some people on ladder will use Arctovish outside of Hail before running one of these, since both of them are a lot better than Arctovish as standalone Pokemon.


Kingler @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant/Jolly Nature
- Liquidation
- Body Slam
- Knock Off
- Agility/Swords Dance

Kingler is ridiculously strong. I'm not gonna post a wall of calcs but to give you an idea: Adamant Liquidation has a chance to OHKO Passimian and uninvested Silvally after Stealth Rock. Body Slam is excellent neutral coverage that gets Sheer Force boosted, allowing it to hit Grass types and all Water immunities hard (Heliolisk is always OHKO'd, Toxicroak takes like 80% minimum from Adamant, Vaporeon is 2HKO'd after an SD). I run Knock Off because it has great utility and particularly smacks Jellicent, which otherwise walls this set, but other coverage moves can be used as it has a colorful movepool. Swords Dance allows it to break past Vaporeon in particular, while Agility allows it to go for a lategame sweep (try pairing this with Scarf Healing Wish Mesprit, using Kingler as a breaker early game and healing it to full so it can clean lategame). It was used by TJ in LTPL in combination with a Tailwind Whimsicott and almost cleaned. Use this more!


Basculin @ Choice Band
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Liquidation
- Psychic Fangs
- Crunch
- Flip Turn

Basculin is another dangerous Water type thanks to Adaptability, giving it a lot of punch with its STAB while sporting much greater Speed than the somewhat sluggish Arctovish (outside of Hail) and Kingler. What makes this thing particularly effective is Flip Turn, which hits very hard thanks to Adaptability and softens many of Basculin's checks up pretty risk-free. Psychic Fangs and Crunch allow it to deal with most Water immunities, although having one on your team is nice anyway since it forces the Basculin user to think twice before clicking Flip Turn. Vaporeon remains a thorn in its side no matter what coverage it runs, though, so pair it up with something like Heliolisk or Toxicroak to take advantage of it.

While neither of these hit quite as hard as CB Arctovish's boosted Fishious Rend, their other qualities make them a lot easier to fit on more consistently solid teams and more rewarding in general if you know to play to their strengths.

 

[Skankovich]

hiii here for my annual pu post

Gourgeist-Small @ Choice Band
Ability: Frisk
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Power Whip
- Poltergeist
- Destiny Bond
- Trick​

Ghosts have been mentioned a bit recently but I think people have kinda forgot this thing exists, and idk why because it's insane lol. Half of teams don't really have a band poltergeist switch, and end up bringing in a 'fat' Talonflame/Charizard that take >80 or a Weezing that takes 40. The few mons getting usage that gobble a poltergeist don't want a Choice Band tricked on to them. Good typing gives it relatively plentiful switches, it has a great speed tier and crucially it has a really diverse movepool; this is legitimately one of several really great sets this mon can run. I've tried and had success with all of Sub/Disable (lol nice try specs drampa/guzz), LO SubSplit, SubSeed, WilloSynth. I will say that band is the best simply due to the lack of poltergeist switchins currently and the ability to cripple checks with Trick, but there's so much mileage in this thing that it's crazy to me that it's N/A.

Flapple @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Hustle
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Grav Apple
- U-turn
- Outrage
- Draco Meteor / Dual Wingbeat​

Step 1: Get rid of opposing fairy
Step 2: Click Outrage
Step 3: Pray you hit

I know we're all aware that Flapple hits hard, but I think it's worth reminding ourselves that this is literally the hardest hitting outrage in the game. Kyu-B and Regidraco want what Flapple has;

252 Atk Hustle Flapple Outrage vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Steel: 136-161 (41 - 48.6%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes

That's a resistant Silvally! Every uninvested mon with equal to or less physical bulk than Silvally is dying after rocks to scarf Outrage. Ye olde fat Talonflames and Charizards will be dropping in one hit. Weezing is 2hko'd. It's just immense cleaning power to the point that it's breaking power too. Given that it's pretty slow for a scarfer I wouldn't treat it so much as a speed control mon though.

Oh, and fun bonus: this has the (joint) hardest hitting U-Turn in the tier too. Uninvested whimsicott takes 50 lol.

 

[PlusC]

I saw a Gravity-Teleport Claydol with a CB Flapple once on ladder, absolutely ridiculous damage output actually.

He if course also loves Grassy Terrain for those 136 BP priority Grassy Glides. Could easily run both on one team, but you'd struggle to have both effects up at once. If I cared less about my blood pressure I'd use it more.

 

[Leni]

Council Minutes


Meta Discussion and Votes:​

• Middle of the last week we announced that we are updating VR. This was done till end of the week. You can see updated VR here. One hot pick from updated VR would be going from UR straight up to A-. Current meta game is strongly around - - and with speed tier and coverage, it can pressure all three of them. Feel free to keep up the discussion on VR update and if there is anything you would like to see moved.
• Due to VR update, this lead us to have good amount of discussion about our fighting types again and how to rank them. We are once again having lot of viable fighting types outside of & and all of them has something little compared to others. being able to spin + boost itself with technician, to break through with HDB+Sturdy while offers SD+Priority move with extra typing, having another extra typing + shed skin for set ups and additional dragon dance set and being cheese proofed cleaner. Probably one of the topics we keep echoing in future - at least it looks like it for now.
• Not only fighting types shared some thoughts, but also our hail core of , and . Hail became very viable play style after DLC2 and it keeps sharing strong opinions from community as well. While some people thinks might be too much, we have decided to drop it from A- to B+ on VR. While hail teams requires lot of support and goes more or less under "cheese" section, the real headache comes from all fighting types we have and bulky waters. Hail as play style tends to go for match up more than going to outplay the neutral match ups.

Forum Happenings:​

• Chloe is back as driver (imagine bad pun here), welcome back on board!
• We are still looking for new sample teams. Feel free to give your suggestions.
• Smog Awards is up on voting round. If you feel so, you can vote Chloe as nicest person on this site.
• Archeops is looking for partner in crime. Go drop your vote on which fits the best for Archeops.
• We are not looking for best, but very next best thing for Scrafty to roll with this week.

Tournaments:​

• LTPL has reached playoffs. Both series includes set of PU and this time we have Chloe against Punny and Termi against Ren-Chon.
• DPP Round 2
• BW Round 3 with replays mandatory. Personal picks to follow: MZ-Heysup, Decem-Ktutverde and ggggd-Drud
• ORAS Round 4 with replays mandatory. Good matchups all over the places. To pick one pairing that is not played yet, can our latest voice Heracross 2.0 come over the top on Ktutverde?
• SM PU Quarterfinals with replays as well. Only good pairings left, but as a hot pick I would pick Xiri-Skipkan. Skipkan showed some super spicy teams last round and looking forward what he can come up with this round.

Discussion pointer:​

• PU is on it's peak right now what comes to amount of pokemons available to use. Often things gets shadowed by overall better pokemon. What is your personal favorite and arguably underrated pokemon/set on it and why?​

 

[PlusC]

Under rated pivot (not even on the rankings!) is G Linoone.

<- but emo
Toxic Orb
Quick Feet
Jolly
252 Atk/252 Spd/4 HP
Knock Off/ Switcheroo
Facade
Parting Shot
Thunder Wave/ Retalliate/ Protect

Outspeeds the entire tier after Quick Feet boost, does decent damage with Facade and Knock Off (or Retalliate for the memes) and spreads status with Thunder Wave. Pivot around with Parting Shot to create set up opportunities for your team. Switcheroo ing your Toxic Orb for an opponents Boots/ Leftovers/ Eviolite is one of life's great pleasures.

A more durable but less powerful option is to swap the Toxic Orb for Flame Orb, but then your Attack stat is halved.

 

[Ktütverde]

Council Minutes​

Meta Discussion

While going over the sample teams submissions, we ended up discussing about the Pokémons featured in the teams. Since we talked a lot this week, my post may look longer than it should.

Although already discussed last week, Lycanroc is an interesting Pokémon we talked about more. LO or CB stood out as the best sets, and the comparison with Archeops arose: unlike Archeops, Lycanroc is able to punch through Palossand thanks to Crunch and to seriously damage Regirock with CloseCombat. It also discourages Talonflame from switching in which is not the case for Archeops who has to be very careful when clicking Dualwingbeat or Uturn not to be burned by Flamebody. Lycanroc also doesn't suffer from 4MSS (4 moveslot syndrom) which affects Archeops (Stone Edge or Earthquake?). The downside is that Lycanroc needs to predict quite a lot to make progress and relies on Stone Edge's accuracy.

Defog talonflame was deemed a decent choice but not an optimal one. Indeed, it is pretty bad at scaring away StealthRock setters, and on top of that it is forced to give up a precious move, WilloWisp/Toxic or Uturn that are quite essential to its effectiveness. Charizard on the other hand is great at defogging against everything that isn't a Rock type -notably Palossand, Sandaconda and Toxicspikes weezing- but its mediocre speed doesn't let it check Virizion and lets it be overpowered or haxxed by Specs Whimsicott or Ribombee. Speed is key in this meta, so that plus an access to Flamebody and Uturn make Talonflame the best bird by far.

We agreed that Hazard removal sucks in the current meta. Using defog on talonflame isn't optimal but often better than using other removers. Tsareena is good at spinning, although not reliable in the long term. Claydol is an interesting niche mon that can spin easily on Regirock, Sandaconda and Weezing. But that's about all it can do. And against a Ghost like Cofagrigus it is helpless. We're not sure what is the best set on Claydol. Should it even run Rapidspin? What about StealthRock+Teleport? It probably should be explored more.

Braviary also happens to be a threat, with either a Choice Scarf, a Choice Band or Bulkup. We felt it is very awkward to fit in a team, but that could change if it is actually effective and rewarding.

Hail teams is a topic we've dropped and we're probably not going to talk about it again. Possibly we could still discuss Sandslash-Alola in hail, but everything has been said about Arctovish: bulky Waters are everywhere, as well as DrySkin, Weezing, and FlameBody talonflame. But most notably, Scarf Togedemaru is now an established threat. We dont recommend using Arctovish at all unless you wish to try to catch an unlikely lucky matchup with it.

What Suicune set is the best? The obvious answer is WishTect+Scald+Healbell, but it can actually toy with different combos using 2 of the following moves: Scald, Flipturn, Toxic, Icebeam and Healbell. Do you have one original favorite set?


Forum Happenings

• Signups for the PU Hidden Ability Tournament are live! Come play an alternative version of PU where Charizard has Desolate Land, Passimian has Gorilla Tactics, and Archeops has... Klutz! Yes!!! Join: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pu-super-hidden-ability-tournament.3678231/
• As you probably know, we are discussing which Sample teams submissions represent the metagame the best and are easy to use. More submissions are welcome, so feel free to post your teams: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...sample-submissions-open.3662279/#post-8751530
• Virizion is looking for a partner for PU's Matchmaking: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...submission-period.3675684/page-2#post-8751296
• The Next Best Thing is Aromatisse: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...tisse-submissions.3669868/page-4#post-8748794
• The PU good cores thread is feeling a bit lonely and forgotten, what am I saying, it is dying!!! Why not share some of your favorite cores for our current meta? https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-pu-good-cores.3664886/#post-8733953

Tournaments

• DPP PU cup has reached Round3: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dpp-pu-cup-round-3.3678303/
• BW PU cup has reached Round4: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/bw-pu-cup-round-4.3678311/#post-8754304
• ORAS PU cup has reached Round5: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/oras-pu-cup-round-5.3678297/
• SM PU cup Round6 (Semifinals): https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-sm-pu-cup-semifinals.3678356/#post-8755271
• LTPL finals have started: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/lower-tier-premier-league-iii-finals.3678347/

Have a good week!!

 

[PlusC]

You called Vaporeon Suicune there, Suicune would be a very interesting addition to the meta but isn't quite PU yet!

On the topic of Rapid Spinners I've been using this;

Sandslash-Alola @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Triple Axel
- Spikes
- Rock Slide / Iron Head

Needs Wish support but does a great job if you avoid the billion fighting types.

Creates opportunities to Spin or Spike through sheer offensive pressure. A lot of rival hazard setters and especially Spin Blockers can't take a Triple Axel and almost everything is outsped after Spin (very fun to Spin a Virizion on the switch and Triple Axel it's head off).

Rock Slide lets you beat Arctovish quite nicely (you outspeed) and avoid Flame Body from Talonflame (who honestly don't run fire moves often!) But there's a lot of flexibility in the last slot there.

 

[Pabloaram]

What Suicune set is the best? The obvious answer is WishTect+Scald+Healbell, but it can actually toy with different combos using 2 of the following moves: Scald, Flipturn, Toxic, Icebeam and Healbell. Do you have one original favorite set?

Using Heal Bell in the last slot, normally make you lost to water absorber. I like Toxic last to be a stall machine and let punish water absorver like opposing Vapo (you win against opposing Heal Bell Vapo bc of bigger pp) and Heliolisk for instance.
For a WishPasser + Cleric combo Aromatisse is better bc of Moonblast doesn't having the pletora of inmunity in the tier. Also Fairy typing is better i think rn bc Fighting Spam being so prevalent in the tier with mons like Scarf Passimian and Virizion

 

[gum]

gm here are some mons i've been enjoying using recently

set

Klinklang @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 156 HP / 252 Atk / 100 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Shift Gear
- Gear Grind
- Wild Charge

this pokémon is great and really doesn't struggle to find setup opportunities because its typing + alright bulk give it plenty of opportunities against stuff like ribombee and vanilluxe. lanturn and togedemaru getting more common is admittedly pretty annoying, but the former is rather easy to chip while the latter loses unless it has zing zap. other than that, all other steel-type answers fail to reliably wall u; talonflame, vaporeon, and jellicent all heavily dislike taking a boosted wild charge. garbodor is a really solid partner, as its spikes make it much easier for stuff like passimian and sandaconda to end up in +1 gear grind range. obviously wallbreakers in general pair well with it, with grass-types especially being great partners

set

Rotom-Frost @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt / Volt Switch
- Volt Switch / Defog / Pain Split / Protect

this pokémon is really swag btw. it's super annoying to switch into after a boost and the speed tier is quite decent too, as u outspeed annoying stuff like toxicroak and magmortar. togedemaru kinda sucks for it? but also not really because at +2 you 2hko it unless it's spdef and u beat that set anyway with pain split lol! not the easiest mon to slap on teams, but if ever anyone wants to try using it - cofag is a stellar partner as it's super annoying for the random passimians that try to revenge kill rotom-frost if u're not protect, and toxic spikes are cool when you force so many switches. unsurprisingly flare blitz talonflame is also a great partner lol, as it can toxic stuff like gigalith

set

Gourgeist-Small @ Life Orb
Ability: Frisk
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Synthesis
- Power Whip
- Poltergeist
- Shadow Sneak

our ghost resists aren't very good, and our grass resists (like talonflame and weezing) dislike taking a poltergeist which makes this mon pretty decent at breaking down common cores. being an offensive switchin to virizion is nice too, as long as u scout for air slash. a solid speed tier + shadow sneak give it a decent matchup against more offensive teams, and u can even revenge kill stuff like ribombee. stuff like togedemaru and lycanroc work well with it as they often end up inviting in fat grounds such as sandaconda and palossand. lastly, sd vallies appreciate it weakening annoying mons like weezing and garbodor for them

ty for reading!!

 

[MZ]

Council Minutes​

Meta Discussion and Tiering:

• Meta discussion was mostly just around which teams we wanted to sample. The only meta anecdote I have is literally everyone agreeing that Choice Scarf Lanturn is niche, mediocre, and overhyped. So uh yeah, owned I suppose.
• Tiering's been awfully quiet for Gen 8 PU huh. Council is pretty happy with where we're at, PU over the last few weeks of LTPL has made a pretty good and healthy showing and since we missed out on banning Virizion there's not much else we'd like to tackle. The question of if we should suspect test Toxicroak comes back with a resounding "meh not really no".
• This buddy though is hard to gauge opinion on. I asked about resuspecting Sceptile on Discord and after one night of some strong opinions on both sides nobody brought it back up or seemed to care much. Council is similarly ambivalent, Sceptile could very reasonably be fine but it's not the sure thing some people have made it out to be and we're in a fairly odd place to try to bring it back. The April tier shift is poised to take Talonflame and Guzzlord and possibly a few other Grass checks like Drampa (something about Decidueye I don't really know). Just Talonflame leaving seems like it may very well break Virizion, add in everything else and Sceptile coming back now doesn't feel quite right.
• So is Sceptile going to be a good candidate for a resuspect in a month and change after the shift? Very likely. Do we want to try it now given how many Grass checks seem poised to leave the tier very shortly? Not unless people show support for trying to bring Sceptile back right now. If you want to see it happen, posting is the way, since we don't have much of a gauge for this issue right now.

Forum Happenings:

• New sample teams! Use them now because they've all got Talonflame
• The Super Hidden Ability Tournament has started but there's still time to sub into round 1! This is a forum happening and not a tournament trust me.

Tournaments:

• LTPL finals already had 2 games of PU but we're sneaking one more PU match into the finals tiebreaker: termi vs Punny
• SM PU Cup Finals: Ktütverde vs Skipkan
• Also ORAS PU Cup Finals: zS vs Sensei Axew vs Ktütverde
• BW Round 4 although the pairings for r5 have been made and posted in Discord and should be up later today, and DPP Round 4.

 

[zS]

gm, i'm here to give my 2 cents on the current metagame and to present a few sets / mons i've been rly enjoying as of late

Honestly, I find this metagame really enjoyable on both the building and playing side, since it has a lot to offer, though i still need to improve my building since i appear to be redundant on what i use, i really like all the diversity and the unexplored pokemon. It really allows creativity which is great for the metagame to keep improving. However, if there's one thing I can blame for this metagame, it's how polarized it is around pokémon that we're going to lose in less than a month. For example, talonflame or vaporeon are likely to rise and they check a big amount of the current metagame's threats, although not so reliably. This might be a problem in the near future since the metagame strongly relies on the former to beat or at least revenge kill some of the strongest threats right now such as toxicroak and virizion. but let's stop here for the prediction part and dive onto my favorite mons to use rn in PU.

set

Piloswine @ Eviolite
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 72 HP / 252 Atk / 184 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Icicle Crash
- Ice Shard
- Stealth Rock

Piloswine is a great niche pick rn, dealing a decent amount of damage with maximum investment in attack and the adamant nature. Having unresisted stabs within the tier really helps it dealing a strong amount of damage, while also providing a nice priority and some cool utility stuff thanks to its unique typing and decent bulk thanks to eviolite. It gets free switch in on gigalith and palossand, while also taking advantage of talonflame on a double switch since it doe almost Nothing to it if it doesn't back wow. Definitely a good pokemon to try out, i highly recommand it.

set

Cofagrigus
Ability: Mummy
EVs: 248 HP / 144 Def / 116 Spe
Bold Nature
- Iron Defense
- Shadow Ball
- Body Press
- Rest

Cofagrigus is a pokemon that is a lot more used than piloswine for sure, being a good slow win-condition in a metagame that is rounded around fast mons like talonflame and virizion, but i'd like to present a set that is a lot faster, and that has the same goal but has some more opportunities to set-up on slower mons such as guzzlord and gigalith for example. Its speed, as mentionned earlier, allows it to outspeed guzzlord with 4 speed EVs, which is admittedly fairly uncommon but it worked out very well for me. As for the set, i go itemless as an obivous pick for poltergeisters, since ghosts resists are sort of hard to fit, but chesto is also an option, depending on how strong your ghost resist is.

sets

Poliwrath @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 160 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Scald
- Circle Throw
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Poliwrath @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 44 Atk / 216 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Bulk Up
- Drain Punch
- Waterfall

Poliwrath @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Liquidation / Waterfall
- Ice Punch / Poison Jab
- Earthquake

Poliwrath has never been as good as it is now since the metagame where it first dropped, but i think it's for another reason than before. In rough competition with all other fighting type (and they are many) and just giving some free Momentum to grass ghost breakers ( that are becoming really threatening right now), poliwrath should be struggling to find a place in this metagame. However, it has plenty of really good and splashable sets. But you gotta be asking how this is even possible given how it should be struggling in theory. The answer lies under the name of 2 pokémon, especially one in reality: Omastar and Arctovish. Obviously, it does not check only these 2 pokémon otherwise it would not be viable, but just the fact that it resists all omastar's moves, which is arguarbly the biggest offensive threat of the current metagame (I'll come back a little later in the post) makes it very interesting and rather strong.

As a conclusion of this post, i'll just make a short paragraph about omastar, since i find it broken. Omastar is a pokémon that also polarizes the team building or risk getting just 6-0 in preview by god helix in preview. Access to meteor beam allows him to beat all his supposed checks and to pass ko without necessarily needing to use shell smash. After a shell smash, which is not so hard to get since talonflame, the pokémon most played by the tier, does not touch it if it does not use toxic, it is simple: if you lose the 50 50 on the turn where it uses meteor beam in front of your supposed check (which must be able to ohko if the 50 50 is actually won because otherwise it will take one more kill and you just lose). There's nothing you can do. These 50-50 forces teams to use protect, faster scarfs (from rotom) and core composed of water + meteor beam resist, which are still not reliable enough to defeat this thing.

tl;dr if Something has to be suspected soon, i think omastar makes for a good candidate.

ty for reading

 

[Specs]

With the shifts coming quite soon, felt like this needed to be addressed. Given the usage stats we've seen for awhile, there's a huge chance Talonflame is leaving the PU tier. Talking with most of the council members, Talonflame being on every other team is a big reason why Virizion was kept in the tier. With PU Open coming up, and us wanting the tier to be the best it can be, we're going to have to figure out what to do about Virizion.

We have a couple options:
1) Immediately quickban Virizion
2) Wait a bit to see if Virizion is as ridiculous as it seems, and then Suspect or hold a Council vote (depending on how people feel)
3) Something else, what? (if anyone has a better option)

We'd love feedback on this topic, what do you think should happen with Virizion? Thanks for reading!

 

[TailGlowVM]

Just in case it's useful to anyone reading the above comment's views, Vaporeon, Braviary, Aurorus, Vanilluxe, Sandslash-Alola, and Arctovish are all predicted to rise as well next month based on February's usage statistics, and nothing is expected to drop.

 

[Just_Aaron]

nothing is expected to drop.

What's the percentage require to stay on a tier? I thought it was 4.625%, and Araquanid, Goodra and Inteleon have usages below 4%