Big Winners and Old Legends: OU Best Rises and Worst Drops in Viability
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Art by Albatross.
Introduction
Since the start of this generation, OU has changed quite a lot; most importantly, the DLCs came and changed the meta completely. With some Pokémon banned and others coming down from Ubers, many Pokémon that were already in the metagame saw themselves affected, be it in a good or a bad way, and a choice few took the opportunity to establish themselves as new threats. From the dangerous Galarian Zapdos to the once-legendary Clefable, this article will cover the Pokémon that gained a solid niche or dropped the ball in the current SS metagame while also showcasing sets and explaining why. Are you ready? Let's go!
The Winners
Blacephalon
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Blacephalon @ Choice Specs
Blacephalon @ Choice ScarfBlacephalon hasn't always been in the spotlight. When it first got released in Generation 8, fellow Fire-type Cinderace and Ghost-type Dragapult overshadowed it, and overall, its Stealth Rock weakness—which Dragapult didn't face—led players to straight-up ignore this explosive clown. It was deemed a rather mediocre pick that couldn't fulfill its roles as a wallbreaker and Ghost-type until OLT came along. Blacephalon made a splash when it was brought in this tournament and started steamrolling through OU. It had insane tournament usage, and this later translated onto ladder.
Blacephalon's usage skyrocketed, causing it to rise to OU in October and cement itself as a threat by reaching A- in the Viability Ranking thread. Its excellent offensive stats, typing, and insane ability make it difficult to switch into in the current metagame, exploiting the lack of Ghost-resistant foes to spam Shadow Ball and gain momentum; the Pokémon that can switch in risk being nuked or crippled by Overheat or Trick, respectively! The cherry on top is Beast Boost, which allows it to easily snowball after picking up an easy KO, revenge killing a slower threat, or even taking out a weakened wall. All of this makes it a great fit for bulky offense and offense teams, where it's usually found alongside Dragapult and Defoggers like Tornadus-T. Those who underestimate Blacephalon will burn under its flames!
Galarian Zapdos
Zapdos-Galar @ Choice Band- Ability: Defiant
- EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
- Jolly Nature
- - Close Combat
- - Brave Bird
- - U-turn
- - Thunderous Kick / Stomping Tantrum
When Crown Tundra dropped, Galarian Zapdos was one of the biggest additions. It was an underrated wallbreaker at the time, but that meant people usually didn't bring checks to it, making it a fierce offensive choice. The problem? You can find the answer to its low usage in a single Pokémon: Zapdos. Kantonian Zapdos saw more usage than its Galarian version because it could check threats like Genesect and Pheromosa, and because of Species Clause, you had to pick between regular Zapdos's defensive abilities or Galarian Zapdos's wallbreaking prowess, to which most people usually said regular Zapdos. Furthermore, Galarian Zapdos had little chance to do anything in a match where Kantonian Zapdos was on the opposing team because of its typing and Static. One would think that after most of the new toys from Crown Tundra left the tier, Galarian Zapdos could have a chance to shine, but the answer was still no. This time, Urshifu-S was almost always the preferable option on a serious team and made Galarian Zapdos almost impossible to justify as an offensive Fighting-type.
However, a year past its release and after Urshifu-S's ban, Galarian Zapdos now has the chance to show what it's made of. This thunderous wallbreaker with a great Attack stat and a powerful STAB combination, alongside its high Base Power moves in Brave Bird and Close Combat, will make you think twice before making a move against it. Furthermore, in recent months, Galarian Zapdos has gained popularity because it can exploit most defensive cores and Pokémon in the current meta like Tapu Fini and Toxapex, which check fellow Fighting-type Urshifu-R, and double Steel cores. It also frightens solid defensive Pokémon like Landorus-T and Corviknight, deterring Defog from both and switch-ins from the former due to Defiant.
All in all, Galarian Zapdos is a very dangerous threat to account for and a force to be reckoned with, even if it's easily chipped down, exploiting its teammates' checks by punching holes alongside them.
Victini
Victini @ Heavy-Duty Boots- Ability: Victory Star
- EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
- Jolly Nature
- - V-create
- - Bolt Strike
- - Glaciate
- - U-turn
Victini was first released within the Crown Tundra DLC but didn't get the chance to stand out due to two reasons: Cinderace, which was an overall better Fire-type, and, well, Victini's unique attributes going undiscovered due to Cinderace overshadowing it, so basically just Cinderace. It was a Future Sight user that could retain momentum and hit hard, but this niche wasn't enough. This gave Victini a one-way ticket to the UU tier, where it was deemed too strong and got banned, making Victini stay in the limbo we know as UUBL, stuck in B rank for OU.
However, in June 2021, OU players realized how good of a wallbreaker and pivot it is. It had the right tools to take OU by storm with its good coverage options, a powerful V-create, and its all-around good stats. On top of that, Victini is quite durable with Heavy-Duty Boots and offers defensive utility as a check to Tapu Lele, most Scizor variants, and notably Volcarona, all while gaining momentum for its teammates or nuking defensive Pokémon like Slowking or Landorus-T on the switch. This makes it a great fit for bulky offense and VoltTurn teams and caused it to rise to OU in October 2021, where it now it finds itself in the A- rank.
Slowbro
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Slowbro @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Colbur Berry - Ability: Regenerator
- EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpA
- IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Relaxed Nature
- - Future Sight
- - Scald / Body Press
- - Slack Off
- - Teleport
Slowbro has had a turbulent history throughout SS OU. It first got released in the Isle Of Armor DLC and performed a great role as a physical pivot using its new tool this generation: Teleport. With it, Slowbro could easily set up Future Sight, pivot out, and give a dangerous attacker like Cinderace or Urshifu-S a strong option to force switches and punch holes while also recovering health via Regenerator. All of this, coupled with it being a great addition to any team thanks to checking dangerous threats like Rhyperior and Cinderace, established Slowbro in the A rank. However, things weren't always good for it. After the Cinderace ban and the rise of attackers like Aegislash, Rillaboom, and Magnezone, on top of the dominance Urshifu-S had in this meta, Slowbro started struggling to find a niche other than Future Sight + Teleport, ultimately landing it in the B+ tier thanks to it facing competition from Toxapex.
However, we are showcasing Slowbro as a rise, so you might be wondering "if it did that bad in DLC 1, how did it turn out to be A material in DLC 2?" Well, let's look through its adventure after Crown Tundra dropped. As you've probably seen through this article, a lot of new threats came with DLC 2, and Slowbro saw a huge boost in viability thanks to this; it was able to check Zygarde, Cinderace, Pheromosa, and Kyurem, keep momentum, and stay healthy thanks to its great stats, Teleport, and Regenerator. However, with the departure of most of these threats, Slowbro started seeing stiff competition for its roles from Toxapex, Slowking, and Galarian Slowking, and even its Future Sight + Teleport niche got snatched by Slowking, which also did better against prevalent special attackers like Heatran, Nidoking, and Tapu Lele. Once again, Slowbro was left with nothing, this time thanks to Slowking ultimately taking its place, making it drop a whole rank from A+ to B.
About four months later, Slowbro started gaining traction thanks to the rise in usage of dangerous physical attackers like Weavile, Melmetal, and Urshifu-R, giving it the opportunity to use creative sets like Colbur Berry + Body Press— which keeps Future Sight and checks Weavile. Slowking's usage also dropped, with it struggling to handle these physical threats. All in all, Slowbro got the opportunity to establish itself in SS OU thanks to rising stars like Galarian Zapdos and Victini and the dominance of Ground-types, once again making it an effective defensive pivot that's also able to support its teammates.
Dropped the ball
Rillaboom
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Rillaboom @ Life OrbRillaboom rose to OU in July 2020 when its hidden ability, Grassy Surge, was freed. Some months later, Rillaboom gained access to a new move named Grassy Glide, a powerful STAB option with priority. Both ability and move established it as a threat to account for in OU for months, as its spammable Grassy Glide, when boosted by a Choice Band, made several teams quiver in fear. This was also true for the start of the Crown Tundra DLC; after dangerous threats like Pheromosa and Kyurem-B left, its wallbreaking and revenge killing started being appreciated in hyper offense and bulky offense teams once again. Everything was perfect for it, sitting in the A rank, so when did stuff start going wrong for this drummer monkey?
As Rillaboom's usage kept rising and rising, defensive answers like Tornadus-T and Corviknight started rising too, and, as these two also filled other roles like Defogging, they were easier to fit on teams. Meanwhile, other checks like Zapdos and Mandibuzz had a niche too, so Rillaboom found less opportunities to use its STAB attacks and was forced to spam Knock Off or U-turn instead until these threats were taken out, which was rather hard to accomplish unless it had a powerful teammate like Kartana or Magnezone. Even then, Rillaboom could be easily punished for clicking one of these moves, as they make contact and can cripple it with status or chip damage. Furthermore, in recent months, the metagame has changed enough where one can easily stack multiple Rillaboom checks without even trying; they could be the aforementioned omnipresent Tornadus-T and Corviknight, Buzzwole to check the likes of Weavile and Kartana, Dragonite on bulky teams with its amazing typing and ability, Fire-types like Volcarona and Heatran that can deter its STABs moves, or Scizor, Melmetal, and Ferrothorn for their amazing typings and different utility options. Finally, it was also relatively easy to revenge kill, with options that could tank or negate its Grassy Glide like Kyurem, Tapu Lele, and Kartana on the rise, even though the former has left the tier.
Overall, with newer team structures, Rillaboom found less opportunities to wallbreak than ever. However, this doesn't mean that Rillaboom is completely unviable; Choice Band sets can still thrive with specific teammates, being a great pivot that can gain momentum easily for teammates like Heatran. Swords Dance sets—which are considered to be the most viable—can work on more offensive teams, as a Swords Dance boost with a Life Orb is enough to break through slower defensive answers like Corviknight, or at least weaken them enough with Knock Off to pave the way for teammates like Kartana and Hawlucha.
Excadrill
Excadrill @ Leftovers- Ability: Sand Rush
- EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
- Jolly Nature
- - Swords Dance
- - Earthquake
- - Iron Head
- - Rapid Spin / Rock Slide
Excadrill has been known for its sweeping abilities since it was released in BW, and this remained true the minute Sword and Shield were released. Even though it was hard-walled by Corviknight, Excadrill was a force to be reckoned with, thanks to its Sand Rush + Swords Dance set. With boosted Speed and Attack, Excadrill's Earthquakes were no joke, being able to punch holes early-game or clean dangerously well. Furthermore, its great typing and utility options like Rapid Spin allowed Excadrill to function in other roles like suicide lead or entry hazard remover. All of this cemented Excadrill as an excellent Pokémon, being placed in the A+ rank and forcing metagame adaptations like Close Combat Zeraora. All of this can be said for DLC 1 too, as it remained strong even with the addition of other threats like Volcarona, to the point where it caused Pokémon like Corviknight (which went from A- to A+) to get better.
However, Excadrill started going downhill when DLC 2 was released. For starters, weather didn't see much play at this point. You're probably bored of reading this, but the broken options that came with Crown Tundra eclipsed every existing option, Excadrill being a perfect example of this, though it was still very threatening. Even though sand established itself as a solid archetype some months later, two huge roadblocks had seen an amazing rise in viability: Corviknight and Landorus-T. These two made Excadrill's job impossible because, thanks to their typings and abilities, they are capable of tanking any attack Excadrill can throw at them before firing back with super effective attacks. Even besides them, if sand went down, Excadrill was easily checked by airborne, faster Pokémon like Tornadus-T and Hydreigon. Today, Excadrill still struggles to stand out, as both its offensive and defensive sets, the second of which falling flat in practice against most Defoggers, are outclassed by most Steel-types. Its inability to beat entry hazard setters like Ferrothorn, the drop in viability of sand setters, the uptick in usage of rain and hail, and the rise of other natural checks like Buzzwole, Slowbro, and Ferrothorn, which are commonly seen on most bulky offense teams, also helped send it to the UnderUsed tier.
Clefable
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Clefable was a metagame staple upon the release of SWSH, with the most common sets being Life Orb Calm Mind and Defensive Utility with Wish. In this early life of the OU metagame, Clefable did not have access to Soft-Boiled, so Sylveon played the role of defensive Fairy-type with its better Special Defense and immediate power at the cost of not having Magic Guard. While defensive sets weren't as common, Calm Mind made up for it as an offensive option that could take advantage of the majority of the metagame given how passive it was back then, eventually leading to adaptation picks such as Flareon and Rotom-H. Eventually, a Wish set was used occasionally, and Calm Mind sets were still ever-so-common until the release of Home. At that point, Clefable got access to Soft-Boiled once more, meaning defensive utility sets were better again, but the real blessing came from Teleport. Generation 8 gave the move negative priority, ensuring Clefable switches out last, which was helpful for switching out of unfavorable matchups, scouting, and pivoting in a teammate. This allowed Clefable to bring in wallbreakers like Kyurem and Terrakion safely, and, when using Teleport with Wish, give free recovery to almost all of its teammates, benefitting many team archetypes. This Teleport set made it mandatory on almost every team, as you would be at a disadvantage for not using it, pushing Clefable to S+ during this time.
Isle of Armor dropped, and Clefable remained S Rank due to two reasons. First and foremost, the presence of Urshifu-S in the tier made Clefable even more important if you wanted to stand up to it, creating the very well-known Clefable + Mandibuzz core. Second, new Clefable sets kept developing, and now it had ways to handle its own checks with options like Trick + Sticky Barb. However, with the introduction of new, dangerous threats, Clefable had fewer opportunities to pass Wishes, making it drop a subrank from S+ to S. All in all, Clefable was still an excellent Pokémon.
When DLC 2 began, Clefable was still being used to check Urshifu-S, but it now faced trouble in handling multiple newly released Pokémon such as Melmetal, Spectrier, and Heatran. Clefable was more used to patch up any holes for the team it was placed in, and it was easy to take advantage of even with the variety of sets it enabled. This led to Clefable dropping to A+, and while it was still a great pick, many prominent threats roaming around at the time could take advantage of it. Currently, Clefable is placed in A-, as it struggles with popular Pokémon like Urshifu-R, Weavile, and Victini, faces competition from Tapu Fini, and dislikes recent metagame trends like double Steel cores. However, it still sees occasional usage as a special wall capable of checking the likes of Dragapult while also having options to support its team like Stealth Rock and Thunder Wave, bringing the edges of reliable recovery and Magic Guard over Tapu Fini.
Mandibuzz
- Mandibuzz @ Heavy-Duty Boots
- Ability: Overcoat
- EVs: 248 HP / 92 Def / 152 SpD / 16 Spe
- Impish Nature
- - Foul Play
- - Roost
- - Defog
- - U-turn / Knock Off
Mandibuzz was one of the premier Defoggers in the early metagames, one of the few Ghost-resistant Pokémon in the tier and also good at checking Excadrill. However, Mandibuzz was super passive and eventually faced competition with Corviknight as a Defogger, and it was hard to fit into teams that already had Hydreigon. Mandibuzz also struggled in making any progress against popular picks like Clefable, Hydreigon, and Kommo-o. Despite dropping in the viability rankings, Mandibuzz was still useful in checking the threats it could handle like Dragapult and Aegislash, which kept rising in usage. The release of the Isle of Armor made Mandibuzz important again, as it was able to check new threats like Urshifu-S and the newly-buffed Rillaboom and Cinderace, which both got access to their hidden abilities. Despite Cinderace getting banned and Clefable being the premier Stealth Rock setter, Mandibuzz was still useful for certain teams that needed a Defogger and its defensive capabilities.
On the release of DLC 2, Mandibuzz's utility was useful once more with the release of prominent threats like Spectrier ad Kartana. This, alongside the plenty of other threats Mandibuzz checked like Urshifu-S, Excadrill, and Cinderace—which got unbanned, made it an important asset for many teams. Eventually, Spectrier got banned, which was the main reason for using Mandibuzz, causing it to drop to A-. However, it was still useful, as it was able to check Dragapult, which Corviknight and Tornadus-T could not do too well. Eventually, Mandibuzz's usage plummeted even more, as it faced competition as a Defogger from Corviknight and Tornadus-T, and it also disliked how easy it was for entry hazard setters like Landorus-T and Heatran to cripple it with Knock Off and Toxic. Mandibuzz was also still passive, and the presence of Knock Off users like Kartana, Rillaboom, and Weavile hurt it even more, making it severely difficult to handle threats like Dragapult.
Mandibuzz currently sees itself in B- in the viability rankings, and it has plummeted drastically to UU. What was once a premier defensive pick for many teams is now overshadowed to the point of irrelevance.
Honorable Mention: Kyurem
Kyurem was a long-time staple in SS OU before getting banned on December 13th, 2021. Its sheer versatility, great STAB combination, excellent stats, and new access to Freeze-Dry—among other bonuses like Dragon Dance and Heavy-Duty Boots—pushed it to the A+ rank and made a big part of the player base deem it as broken. Sets like Never-Melt Ice and Dragon Dance gave Kyurem the ability to defeat its common checks, while others like Choice Specs offered overwhelming amounts of raw power. And even though it struggled a bit with its Stealth Rock weakness and slow Speed tier, its great qualities still overrode any problem it could possibly have.
Get Out There!
If one of the Pokémon featured on this article or our rises got your attention, you should try to build a team around them! Even the dropped Pokémon have a chance to rise and show what they're made of! It's never too late for exploration, which Clefable has shown us perfectly these last weeks in SPL. We encourage you to give all of them a spin on ladder, and remember, have fun!
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