Resource SM OU Viability Ranking Thread

[mapplesauce]

I firmly believe Ditto should be a higher tier, at least B- tier. Sorry if this was posted before.

Ditto singlehandedly deters setup which is great in this current meta. You can support ditto with extremely bulky mons that forces setup, i.e chansey, and copy their shit and heavily dent the enemy's team. I realize it doesn't beat every setup mon, namely, Coil Zygarde, SD Lando-T, and Mimikyu with disguise still intact, but there are only a few exceptions. In addition, Ditto has a great matchup vs stall, with practically infinite PP after switches. Plus, you can copy stuff like Lando-T to intimidate it and maybe set rocks on your own (maybe a bad example since HP Ice is a thing, but you get the point. Also helps for shit like ferrothorn which lets you set spikes for free.) It's also useful to scout out opponent sets sometimes. You can't see their EV spread and their item, but knowing which moves they run lets you infer what they're running most of the time, unless they have some dumb meme set lol. Finally, sticky web does nothing to it since it steals stats after getting hit by sticky web, which is a sorta cool niche. It's not too amazing, as it does rely on its item and loses hard without proper team support (needs defoggers so it doesn't get fucked by tspikes/spikes), but I believe it’s at least better than mons in its tier such as M-Gardevoir (outclasssed by lele), M-Garchomp (self-explanatory I think), Alolan-Muk (no reliable recovery and is affected by spikes/rocks, which is bad as a special pivot, and CB ttar outclasses it as a pursuit trapper), Nidoking (Kyurem-B I think outclasses it but not too familiar with Nidoking tbh), etc.

P2 had a Ditto team a while ago and got #1 on ladder. I know this was like months ago but people still see success with it in today's meta. I don't have replays right now, which I know is pretty damn stupid when I'm making a proposal, but I honestly just want to hear discussion about this mon.

Edit: Found some saved replays that show ditto forcing switches (good w/tspikes) + being a useful wincon. Honestly not the best replays, tons of cringy misplays + not high elo, but I don't really have anything else because I never bothered to save them. These were in the mid 1600s.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-641254274
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-640886687

 

[power]

This has been a really fucking long time coming but...

A -> A-

Tangrowth simply doesn't exhibit the same consistency of the other Pokemon in A. It checks Ash Greninja, but it just gets spiked on and eventually loses. It's not even eventually if you guess the Greninja set wrong either - other Greninja checks like AV Magearna, Toxapex, Ferrothorn, or Mantine are usually less severely punished for a misprediction. Specs Koko eliminates all possible recovery with Volt + Rocks, and Spikes means you're not healing at all.

These are facts. What's the metagame trend?

Tangrowth is complete food for the entire new wave of wallbreakers over the last few months (Kyurem-Black, Charizard X, Specs Lele). You might think Tangrowth lets you scout against the last until you realize you take 60 + SR and if a spike goes up you're completely fucking useless because you're healing 8% every time you pivot in. Tangrowth gets completely shut down by Toxapex, which recently moved to S and has sky high usage atm, and many DD Zygarde variants just smash through this mon with either dragonium or simply tspike support. it may eat from Bulu with a pinch of PhysDef, but Bulu is not the A+ Titan it was and Bulu only needs a pinch of damage or some layers to actually smash Tangrowth.

Tangrowth basically forces Defog Support but none of the defoggers bar Mantine are stopping specs Ash Gren from Spiking (and none of them period are stopping taunt dual hazards gren, which also gets up tspikes too and absolutely screws Tangrowth).

Look at what else is in A. Kyurem-Black, Kartana, Diancie, Mew, Volcarona, BandTar. It's clear Tangrowth is not at the same level as these incredibly threatening mons because its simply no longer the first glue mon that comes to mind when building is going on.

Drop Tang.

 

[Potatauros]

Based on what you say, does tangrowth even deserve to still be A-? It would seem as though the new influx of wall breakers would put it in B+ with mantine, since the meta seems to have shifted away from it so heavily. Granted, I'm not experienced enough to make a definitive statement, but it seems like there are a LOT of reason for tangrowth to drop, so it only dropping onesub rank seems rather odd.

 

[jdcomix]

Based on what you say, does tangrowth even deserve to still be A-? It would seem as though the new influx of wall breakers would put it in B+ with mantine, since the meta seems to have shifted away from it so heavily. Granted, I'm not experienced enough to make a definitive statement, but it seems like there are a LOT of reason for tangrowth to drop, so it only dropping onesub rank seems rather odd.

Its defensive typing is still okay, but it's worse than before, especially with Pokemon like Heatran dominating at the moment. A drop to A- is probably warranted due to this, and with the typing still being somewhat viable, a harsh drop isn't really warranted, though current trends aren't favorable for the blue, grassy blob.

 

[KztxL7]

Dropping beyond 1 subrank is honestly very rare and is generally reserved for massive shifts such as pokemon being banned from the meta or lower ranked pokemon like in the C ranks which are easily overlooked. It's much easier to drop a Pokemon particularly that high up in the rankings by 1 subrank and then continue to observe it's effectiveness before deciding if it needs to rise, stay or lower.

 

[Potatauros]

Dropping beyond 1 subrank is honestly very rare and is generally reserved for massive shifts such as pokemon being banned from the meta or lower ranked pokemon like in the C ranks which are easily overlooked. It's much easier to drop a Pokemon particularly that high up in the rankings by 1 subrank and then continue to observe it's effectiveness before deciding if it needs to rise, stay or lower.

Oh, I knew it was rare, it just seemed like the dugtrio ban changed the meta so much that a huge drop would be warranted, but it seems like that's not the case, so thanks for the info :)

 

[Deleted User 400951]

I'll be the guy.

Volcarona back to A+

We're already seeing that it's making a return. SubSwarm is seeing strong success and actually makes it pretty versatile overall. When it dropped, it was losing that versatility as it's best partner leaving forced it to run hp ground. It's returned. Volcarona is doing well in Snake and Tours rn. Meta trends are favourable - scarf kartana is being pushed aside for slower sets that can't revenge, stall is falling out, scarf chomp is dead. Now that it has a way of circumventing it's checks reasonably again, Volcarona should go back up to A+.

Sorry if this is worded poorly - hungry and tired rn.

 

[Flame from Heaven]

Just going to go through nominations people have made.
Thundurus T to c-: Strongly Agree.
This thing is just really bad in the meta, as it's really outclassed by zapdos as a cleaner and tapu koko as a wallbreaker. Unless you really need a electric cleaner and wallbreaker in one slot, I don't really see why anyone would use this in Ou. Even then, tapu koko can clean reasonably well once its checks are weakened thanks to its great speed, and requires way less team support.
Tangrowth to A-: Strongly agree
This thing is in a really bad spot right now. Volcarona is getting more usage, it invites way too much in for free, like kyurem b and charizard x, and it's not even a consistent ash greninja check.
Ditto to B-: Disagree
No metagame trends help this thing at all. Besides, stall teams have seen a noticeable drop in popularity. Being on a team that rose to number one on the ladder doesn't always mean it should rise. Scarf victini peaked the ladder once, yet scarf victini isn't viable at all

Edit: I nominate Keldeo to A rank from a- rank.
Keldeo has been benefitting quite a bit from metagame trends. Heatran and tyranitar are huge threats ATM, and Keldeo is one of the few mons who can switch into both, and obviously, ko them both back. Keldeo also appreciates tyranitar rising in more ways than one, as it is a great partner for Keldeo. Keldeo is in my opinion, one of the best scarfers in the tier, as it can revenge kill just about every relevant set up sweeper that are huge threats to offensive teams, which the meta is shifting towards to. Scarf Keldeo also handles rain and ash greninja very well, to their big threats to offensive teams.
Keldeos calm mind set has been rising in popularity as well, with it seeing sucess in tournaments with its ability to dismantle bulkier teams, and it can easily set up on many pokemon that are supposed to check Keldeo, the most comment being toxapex.
In conclusion, this is why I feel Keldeo should rise to A.

Anyways, Charizard y really needs to go down to B. The meta is shifting more towards offense, which charizard y really struggles with because of how easy it is to pressure with rocks and faster pokemon. Not to mention even when it does find a balance team, it can't even do anything because of toxapex. On stall there is also toxapex, but there is also chansey. Charizard y usage has really gone down like a rocket after the arena trap ban for a reason. I guess it's good against AV and Webs, but both have really fallen off thanks diancies influence in the tier. Speaking of that, diancie being the best mega in the tier also really hurts charizard, diancie can even switch in, though no more than once.
Charizard y is just really hard to justify using rn, and its ranking should reflect that.

Edit: After hearing some evidence from the other side I don't really have an opinion on ditto.

 

[mapplesauce]

No metagame trends help this thing at all. Besides, stall teams have seen a noticeable drop in popularity. Being on a team that rose to number one on the ladder doesn't always mean it should rise. Scarf victini peaked the ladder once, yet scarf victini isn't viable at all

-SD Kartana is insanely popular rn and ditto can abuse it like hell.
-Heatran's increase in usage helps too. It prevents them from blindly spamming magma storm, as ditto can copy it and absorb it with flash fire. Ditto can then outspeed it and use earthpower to potentially OHK after rocks (0 SpA Heatran Earth Power vs. 212 HP / 0 SpD Heatran: 312-368 (82.9 - 97.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock)
-Double dance mage has always been pretty popular, and Ditto heavily deters its setup.
-Recent popularity in ZardX helps. Ditto can copy it and use dragon claw to kill the opposing ZardX. Plus, with scarf, it works well as a sweeper
-M-Mawile is still popular, and it can't freely swords dance because of Ditto.
-Z-Celebrate Victini loses to ditto in a 1v1 because of Ditto's higher speed.
-SD Pinsir loses to ditto (depends on happiness tbh, but usually works)
-You can trap magnezone with ditto lol, and magnezone is pretty popular. (ignore this i was high)
-Nonscarf variants of Latios gets killed by ditto
-Bulu cant SD freely, and Ditto disguised as Bulu has more HP as well iirc
-Recent usage in gyarados helps cuz it cant dragon dance
-A bit useful against Kyurem-B because ice beam two hit kills after rocks albeit slightly situational

"Being on a team that rose to number one on the ladder doesn't always mean it should rise."

Yeah that was probably the least important of my arguments, especially considering the guy was #1 on ladder a couple of months ago. It was just an example proving that it had some success.

All in all, I'm not arguing it's a great mon or anything of the sort. In fact, I don't think it's that good. All I'm saying is to compare it to the mons in its own tier. Being able to almost singlehandedly deter setup, scout out opponent sets (pretty important against Lando, Koko, Greninja), not get affected by webs against HO teams, and heavily nerf stall is a niche that's much more valuable than the likes of M-Gardevoir (lele is just better), Alolan Muk (barely viable for the reasons I've said in my other post) and M-Garchomp (pretty much an inferior garchomp).

 

[Scarf Nihilego]

-SD Kartana is insanely popular rn and ditto can abuse it like hell.
-Heatran's increase in usage helps too. It prevents them from blindly spamming magma storm, as ditto can copy it and absorb it with flash fire. Ditto can then outspeed it and use earthpower to potentially OHK after rocks (0 SpA Heatran Earth Power vs. 212 HP / 0 SpD Heatran: 312-368 (82.9 - 97.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock)
-Double dance mage has always been pretty popular, and Ditto heavily deters its setup.
-Recent popularity in ZardX helps. Ditto can copy it and use dragon claw to kill the opposing ZardX. Plus, with scarf, it works well as a sweeper
-M-Mawile is still popular, and it can't freely swords dance because of Ditto.
-Z-Celebrate Victini loses to ditto in a 1v1 because of Ditto's higher speed.
-SD Pinsir loses to ditto (depends on happiness tbh, but usually works)
-You can trap magnezone with ditto lol, and magnezone is pretty popular.
-Nonscarf variants of Latios gets killed by ditto
-Bulu cant SD freely, and Ditto disguised as Bulu has more HP as well iirc
-Recent usage in gyarados helps cuz it cant dragon dance
-A bit useful against Kyurem-B because ice beam two hit kills after rocks albeit slightly situational

"Being on a team that rose to number one on the ladder doesn't always mean it should rise."

Yeah that was probably the least important of my arguments, especially considering the guy was #1 on ladder a couple of months ago. It was just an example proving that it had some success.

All in all, I'm not arguing it's a great mon or anything of the sort. In fact, I don't think it's that good. All I'm saying is to compare it to the mons in its own tier. Being able to completely almost singlehandedly deter stall is a niche that's much more valuable than the likes of M-Gardevoir (lele is just better), Alolan Muk (barely viable for the reasons I've said in my other post) and M-Garchomp (pretty much an inferior garchomp)

Lol.

Kartana's SD set often carries Substitute which neuters Ditto entirely, and if it's Dark Z it can live even a +3 (SD + Beast Boost) Night Slash from itself and OHKO Ditto with the Z-move. Note that sets with Night Slash don't even run Sacred Sword if that was your thought. If this is your idea of a Kartana answer you may want to reconsider.

Ditto may stop Heatran from blindly spamming a Fire STAB, but you seem to be grasping at straws here considering you're not exactly preventing Heatran from...I don't know, setting up SR. Also the Heatran can just switch afterwards.

The Magnezone point is probably the worst one not only because of Volt Switch, but also because of how AV is the best Magnezone set (meaning its own HP Fire does approximately 0%).

Scarf is Latios's best set, and Ditto locked into any of Latios's typical moves (notably Draco Meteor, which is your only option to hit Latios) invites the vast majority of the tier in for free.

Bulu can SD freely if it's Grassium Z or Rockium Z since Ditto can't kill it with the unboosted move but Bulu can OHKO in return with the Z-move.

Kyurem-B takes a shit ton from its own Ice Beam, and Ditto can't even Roost off the damage because it's holding a Choice Scarf. Obviously you also fail to kill Kyurem-B in return.

Double Dance Magearna is not only declining, but it also beats Ditto because it can CM or Shift Gear after Ditto copies the stat boosts it already has. Locking yourself into Thunderbolt to revenge kill Magearna is also risky business when two notably pesky Ground-types are running the tier.

I have no opinion on Ditto but I feel like you could have expanded on the last section of your post instead of everything before it. It makes a better case for a rise.

Edit: also ZardX's only good set isn't even Dragon Dance??

 

[mapplesauce]

Lol.


Kartana's SD set often carries Substitute which neuters Ditto entirely, and if it's Dark Z it can live even a +3 (SD + Beast Boost) Night Slash from itself and OHKO Ditto with the Z-move. Note that sets with Night Slash don't even run Sacred Sword if that was your thought. If this is your idea of a Kartana answer you may want to reconsider.

Ditto may stop Heatran from blindly spamming a Fire STAB, but you seem to be grasping at straws here considering you're not exactly preventing Heatran from...I don't know, setting up SR. Also the Heatran can just switch afterwards.

The Magnezone point is probably the worst one not only because of Volt Switch, but also because of how AV is the best Magnezone set (meaning its own HP Fire does approximately 0%).

Scarf is Latios's best set, and Ditto locked into any of Latios's typical moves (notably Draco Meteor, which is your only option to hit Latios) invites the vast majority of the tier in for free.


Bulu can SD freely if it's Grassium Z or Rockium Z since Ditto can't kill it with the unboosted move but Bulu can OHKO in return with the Z-move.

Kyurem-B takes a shit ton from its own Ice Beam, and Ditto can't even Roost off the damage because it's holding a Choice Scarf. Obviously you also fail to kill Kyurem-B in return.


Double Dance Magearna is not only declining, but it also beats Ditto because it can CM or Shift Gear after Ditto copies the stat boosts it already has. Locking yourself into Thunderbolt to revenge kill Magearna is also risky business when two notably pesky Ground-types are running the tier.

I have no opinion on Ditto but I feel like you could have expanded on the last section of your post instead of everything before it.
Edit: also ZardX's only good set isn't even Dragon Dance??

First of all, thanks for replying to my post, I mostly brought up the proposal for discussion.

Anyway my post was mostly just expanding on the guy talking about the metagame shifts.

To answer each of your points:

To be honest, I didn't know Kartana carries Sub, thought it always needed 3 attacks, my bad. But anyway it’s not really a complete Kartana answer, didn’t mean to imply it. It has the potential to abuse Kartana though if it the secret sword set.

For the heatran, once you copy it, you can set rocks yourself if you think he will switch, or you can kill it with earth power if you think he’ll stay. Or, you can magma storm an incoming lando to chip it like hell, etc. It’s mostly 50/50s, true, but it has its use. Most of the time anyway, you're forcing heatran to switch which lets you chip another mon.


Scarf being Latios's best set is debatable (for reference, both offense and scarf have the same viability tier on the set viability page, but not sure how updated that is) but it is true that scarf is the most used. You might be right about that, its just a possibility. Also, you don’t exactly need to draco meteor, you can just switch right after. Ditto forces switches, which is good with hazards and eventually you can get a hard predict and double switch into a counter or safely bring something like SD Kartana to potentially sweep.


After an SD boost, wooden hammer one hit kills bulu as ditto usually, especially after rocks (+2 252 Atk Tapu Bulu Wood Hammer vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tapu Bulu in Grassy Terrain: 260-306 (92.5 - 108.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO). So, not true


Impostered-Kyurem-B 2 hit kills LO Kyurem-B after rocks, which forces it to switch. Yeah Kyurem-B does like 60% back, which is admittedly pretty terrible, but you can usually get recovery with softboiled/recover/roost later in the match by predicting a tox/chansey/mantine/whatever switchin, or have a healing wisher on the team. Though you are mostly right for this point. This is mostly a last resort answer to Kyurem-B lol.

I wasn’t aware DD mage was declining, last time I checked it was used pretty often. To be fair, last time I checked veil was pretty popular, and now veil is a lot less used with kartana’s recent usage, so you’re probably right. But anyway, you still heavily cripple mage and most of the time kill it assuming you didn’t blindly let it set up without doing any damage to it. This is going to be a wall of text of math, but TL;DR pretty sure ditto still wins even after cm boosts.

Assuming Mage gets boosted +2 in special attack and +1 in special defense (lets say it calm minded and killed something), Ditto copies it and does a minimum of 40 first turn with this boost. After each cm boost, this number then decreases to 29~, and then 23~. Keep in mind, it always outspeeds unless the Mage decides to shift gear, which is pretty stupid because then it takes more hits and gets killed a turn faster. Since these are the absolute minimums, considering roll chance / chance of paralyzing, you are in favor of doing a fuckton to mage. The relative maximum damage rolls after each boost adds up to around 110, whereas the relative minimum damage rolls after each boost adds to around 93. Keep in mind, it’s pretty rare for a mage to have set up without taking any damage whatsoever. The reason why ditto doesn't completely beat it is because leftovers, yeah, but after lefties the minimum damage rolls adds up to 82ish and maximum damage rolls adds up to 97. Again, I doubt you could ever blindly let a mage set up without doing any damage to it, so ditto is actually in favor of killing it. If it doesn't kill, then I’m pretty sure you can just revenge kill the mage with any priority move since it will have like 5 health. Tell me if I missed anything in my calculations. Though, it is true that it's pretty terrible locking yourself into tbolt if the opponent still has ground types. I think you can go for 3 ice beams and go for a freeze, which is about a .27 chance to happen, but yeah that's just haxing.


Yeah the magnezone point was stupid as hell and idk how I forgot about volt switch. Honestly I was pretty high when I made that post so ignore that rofl, I was just thinking theoretical stuff. To be fair, HP Fire does around 30 which is a lot more than you would expect, but yeah nothing stops it from just taking the 30 and volt switching.


Also yeah I never implied ditto needed to copy dragon dance in order to beat zardx. Dragon claw kills anyway without the boost, and dragon claw + scarf is pretty cool lategame once you clear the fairies and steel types. Anyway it forces a switch essentially, which is useful, as you can normally just double switch the ditto.


As for the last section of my post, I figured it was kind of self-explanatory imo. You deter 90% of setup mons, you can look at copied opponent sets which lets you establish a wincon easier (for example, checking if mawile has tpunch /firefang /knock off to see if toxapex can be used as a counter), smeargle webs offense gets shit on as ditto is practically unaffected by webs, and you kill stall as ditto has infinite pp as long as you have a good enough team which can support it switching in constantly.

Ditto has a pretty damn good matchup against SD mawile by the way. If mawile ever SDs, and ditto steals the boost, it forces the mawile to switch pretty much. Fire fang and play rough at +2 both one hit kill Mawile, and not a lot of stuff in the meta can reliably tank +2 play rough mawile.

So yeah, Ditto has a LOT of shortcomings and again I don't think its very good. But its niches are more useful than other mons in its own tier. Alolan Muk, whose literal sole job is to trap tapu lele otherwise it's practical deadweight since it sucks so much as a special pivot. M-Garde doesn't even have a niche, and I can't see why M-Garchomp is better than regular chomp with an item. I’m not the biggest ditto fan, I’m just curious as to what its viability rank really should be. I think its very powerful with certain stall variants, and relying on its team to support it doesn't make it a worse mon. Otherwise, Zygarde subtect w/tspikes support sucks.

Edit: Found some saved replays that show ditto forcing switches (good w/tspikes) + being a useful wincon. Honestly not the best replays, tons of cringy misplays + not high elo, but I don't really have anything else because I never bothered to save them. These were in the mid 1600s.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-641254274
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-640886687

 

[Scarf Nihilego]

First of all, thanks for replying to my post, I mostly brought up the proposal for discussion.

Anyway my post was mostly just expanding on the guy talking about the metagame shifts.

To answer each of your points:

To be honest, I didn't know Kartana carries Sub, thought it always needed 3 attacks, my bad. But anyway it’s not really a complete Kartana answer, didn’t mean to imply it. It has the potential to abuse Kartana though if it the secret sword set.

For the heatran, once you copy it, you can set rocks yourself if you think he will switch, or you can kill it with earth power if you think he’ll stay. Or, you can magma storm an incoming lando to chip it like hell, etc. It’s mostly 50/50s, true, but it has its use. Most of the time anyway, you're forcing heatran to switch which lets you chip another mon.


Scarf being Latios's best set is debatable (for reference, both offense and scarf have the same viability tier on the set viability page, but not sure how updated that is) but it is true that scarf is the most used. You might be right about that, its just a possibility. Also, you don’t exactly need to draco meteor, you can just switch right after. Ditto forces switches, which is good with hazards and eventually you can get a hard predict and double switch into a counter or safely bring something like SD Kartana to potentially sweep.


After an SD boost, wooden hammer one hit kills bulu as ditto usually, especially after rocks (+2 252 Atk Tapu Bulu Wood Hammer vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tapu Bulu in Grassy Terrain: 260-306 (92.5 - 108.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO). So, not true


Impostered-Kyurem-B 2 hit kills LO Kyurem-B after rocks, which forces it to switch. Yeah Kyurem-B does like 60% back, which is admittedly pretty terrible, but you can usually get recovery with softboiled/recover/roost later in the match by predicting a tox/chansey/mantine/whatever switchin, or have a healing wisher on the team. Though you are mostly right for this point. This is mostly a last resort answer to Kyurem-B lol.

I wasn’t aware DD mage was declining, last time I checked it was used pretty often. To be fair, last time I checked veil was pretty popular, and now veil is a lot less used with kartana’s recent usage, so you’re probably right. But anyway, you still heavily cripple mage and most of the time kill it assuming you didn’t blindly let it set up without doing any damage to it. This is going to be a wall of text of math, but TL;DR pretty sure ditto still wins even after cm boosts.

Assuming Mage gets boosted +2 in special attack and +1 in special defense (lets say it calm minded and killed something), Ditto copies it and does a minimum of 40 first turn with this boost. After each cm boost, this number then decreases to 29~, and then 23~. Keep in mind, it always outspeeds unless the Mage decides to shift gear, which is pretty stupid because then it takes more hits and gets killed a turn faster. Since these are the absolute minimums, considering roll chance / chance of paralyzing, you are in favor of doing a fuckton to mage. The relative maximum damage rolls after each boost adds up to around 110, whereas the relative minimum damage rolls after each boost adds to around 93. Keep in mind, it’s pretty rare for a mage to have set up without taking any damage whatsoever. The reason why ditto doesn't completely beat it is because leftovers, yeah, but after lefties the minimum damage rolls adds up to 82ish and maximum damage rolls adds up to 97. Again, I doubt you could ever blindly let a mage set up without doing any damage to it, so ditto is actually in favor of killing it. If it doesn't kill, then I’m pretty sure you can just revenge kill the mage with any priority move since it will have like 5 health. Tell me if I missed anything in my calculations. Though, it is true that it's pretty terrible locking yourself into tbolt if the opponent still has ground types. I think you can go for 3 ice beams and go for a freeze, which is about a .27 chance to happen, but yeah that's just haxing.


Yeah the magnezone point was stupid as hell and idk how I forgot about volt switch. Honestly I was pretty high when I made that post so ignore that rofl, I was just thinking theoretical stuff. To be fair, HP Fire does around 30 which is a lot more than you would expect, but yeah nothing stops it from just taking the 30 and volt switching.


Also yeah I never implied ditto needed to copy dragon dance in order to beat zardx. Dragon claw kills anyway without the boost, and dragon claw + scarf is pretty cool lategame once you clear the fairies and steel types. Anyway it forces a switch essentially, which is useful, as you can normally just double switch the ditto.


As for the last section of my post, I figured it was kind of self-explanatory imo. You deter 90% of setup mons, you can look at copied opponent sets which lets you establish a wincon easier (for example, checking if mawile has tpunch /firefang /knock off to see if toxapex can be used as a counter), smeargle webs offense gets shit on as ditto is practically unaffected by webs, and you kill stall as ditto has infinite pp as long as you have a good enough team which can support it switching in constantly.

Ditto has a pretty damn good matchup against SD mawile by the way. If mawile ever SDs, and ditto steals the boost, it forces the mawile to switch pretty much. Fire fang and play rough at +2 both one hit kill Mawile, and not a lot of stuff in the meta can reliably tank +2 play rough mawile.

So yeah, Ditto has a LOT of shortcomings and again I don't think its very good. But its niches are more useful than other mons in its own tier. Alolan Muk, whose literal sole job is to trap tapu lele otherwise it's practical deadweight since it sucks so much as a special pivot. M-Garde doesn't even have a niche, and I can't see why M-Garchomp is better than regular chomp with an item. I’m not the biggest ditto fan, I’m just curious as to what its viability rank really should be. I think its very powerful with certain stall variants, and relying on its team to support it doesn't make it a worse mon. Otherwise, Zygarde subtect w/tspikes support sucks.

Edit: Found some saved replays that show ditto forcing switches (good w/tspikes) + being a useful wincon. Honestly not the best replays, tons of cringy misplays + not high elo, but I don't really have anything else because I never bothered to save them. These were in the mid 1600s.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-641254274
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-640886687

You're right about Grassium Z Tapu Bulu and Mega Charizard X, but I think Tapu Bulu still wins if it's Rockium Z.
It is true that Ditto can also get SR up by copying Heatran, but ideally you would already have another SR user on your team so chances are you would have just set hazards up at another point. On the other hand the benefit to the Heatran user seems relatively greater imo.
Kyurem-B actually does 66-78 with LO Ice Beam while Ditto's Ice Beam has a 12.5% chance to deal more damage than Roost heals. In this situation the Kyurem-B could scout your move choice with Roost and simply switch.
I'm not really sure about your point on Latios. Ditto forcing switches is not a trait particularly unique to Ditto.
The Magearna point makes sense in a 1v1, but in your scenario Magearna has already killed something and you are forced to lock yourself into Thunderbolt. I can trade Thunderbolts to scout your move and then switch out. In the late game Ditto does heavily deter Magearna from setting up though, so against teams with that set as the primary wincon Ditto could definitely be very useful.
But anyway I looked back at the VR and noticed this thing was in the same rank as Mega Gardevoir so yeah I can support a rise. My only reservation is that stall in general seems to have quite a few good answers now with the Dugtrio ban so in that sense Ditto's niche seems to be less significant than before. I think the other niches you bring up seem valuable enough for a small bump in viability but I'm no expert on this mon.

 

[Saurav the great]

I propose to send mega-alakazam to A-

Its special attack can be underwhelming at times but with stall nearly gone, mega alakazam likes the less use of mega sab etc.

It along with tapu lele can dismantle HO teams bar scarfers above base 80 speed.
The resurgence of mega venusaur has also been kind to mega-alakazam
It also sits on a really nice speed tier and it also gets calm mind to destroy even more threats along with its ability to live some special hits really make it a very nice mon
This is my first post on ou so pls don't hate on me and also I have no replays currently but will edit my post with repays when I get some.

Edit:Increase in use of magnezone also helps Zam deal with mons such as celesteela and maybe AV Magearna

Here is the post

 

[PK Bash]

Here is the post

So it sounds like you're proposing to move MegaZam up to A- by virtue of it's ability as a Cleaner and/or Revenge Killer, am I correct?

So in B+ where it is currently, it shares a rank with Pokemon who are scary as hell but require some specific team support to really shine. Take, for example, Suicune and the Rain Sweepers. Now bear with me here, this will be relevant I promise.
Suicune is a bulky wincon who can, in theory, beat any reasonable team providing you remove it's checks and counters first. Up until that point it's not massively useful to you in the game. Now pretty much every team will have multiple ways to pressure Suicune and any good team will just inherently pack a counter without even thinking about Suicune - usually a bulky Grass Type. So until you can mitigate the counter Suicune is not really that good. And once you do get around the counter, you have then got to find ways to appropriately play around the opponent's Anti-Suicune pressure. But if you can do this successfully, Suicune will win the game.
The Rain Sweepers require a specific teammate to even function, and as is the nature of Rain teams the rest of the team is pretty much locked in as well since you need to fill some specific niches. But give Kingdra or Swampert the right conditions to wreck all hell and it's basically unstoppable.

In both of these cases, the Pokemon in question is a serious threat but needs some specific support and the player has to play them quite conservatively for much of the game and can't expect the Mon to "carry" them through a number of situations. Moreso in the case of Rain Sweepers but the same is also true of Suicune to a lesser extent, and really it's something that applies to the whole of B+.

Now in A-, you have stuff like Keldeo, Mega Venusaur, Zapdos, etc. Now these Pokemon all have some pretty glaring flaws but such is the power of their niche that they can slot into a large variety of teams without the team having to make any major concessions to accomodate them. Yes they need support but they can afford to be a little more flexible with it due to the inherent qualities they bring to the team. Keldeo is a fast cleaner with some considerable power behind it, an amazing typing and generally pretty good versatility that makes it a solid pick for it's role on most teams that aren't highly specified like Stall or Trick Room. Zapdos brings a hell of a lot as a way to relieve pressure against some of the most common Pokemon in the game and bring some solid utility to boot. The same can be said for MVenu, although perhaps to a lesser degree imo. This is something of a running theme of A-. Nothing too amazing but definitely good and brings extremely valuable qualities to the table for many teams.

So what we need to ask is, how much does Mega Alakazam rely on it's team?
Well, you mentioned it's at it's best when it has tailored Tapu Lele and Magnezone support.
You also want to get rid of any Dark Types as although it can, in theory, beat them, you do not want to engage in 1v1s with them if possible.
Pokemon like Chansey need to be significantly weakened or just outright removed.
In addition to all of this, you need to find a good moment to get base Zam in and Mega Evolve it, which isn't exactly easy.
Now what does Zam bring to the team in return?
Well it pressures Mega Venusaur as you said, and also Toxapex. So that's def a mark in it's favour.
What else? It's hard to switch into, but then so is anything doing this job.
It struggles with Scarfers above base 80 speed? There's quite a few of them floating around though.
It can be a powerful cleaner or revenge killer when there are no Celesteela or anything in play, but in my opinion, it's easier to play around than a Pokemon like Keldeo who does a similar job. Whilst admittedly Keldeo is locked into a move whilst Zam is not, I feel Keldeo is still more of a threat because of Scald. Maybe that's just me.

So if you were to ask me, I'd say Mega Zam is a better fit in B+. Now admittedly I haven't seen or used a lot of it, so if you were able to find any replays that show that Alakazam brings some seriously noteworthy qualities to a team without the team having to make concessions for it to function as it needs to, I'd definitely change my mind.
But based on what I know, I don't see it in A-. Not yet anyway.

 

[Gary]

Guys just a heads up, there is going to be a huge update hopefully coming tomorrow, that will most likely fix a lot of the issues the VR currently is having atm with like certain gaps in viability in each ranks (like B+ and A- for example, or many of the C ranks). I think a lot of the Pokemon that have been recently brought up to drop/rise you will most likely see that happening within the next 24 hours.

 

[Gary]

RANKING UPDATE

This update is massive so I gotta put everything in hide tags. We all decided to sit down and really take a hard look over the entire ranking thread, which ended up in a lot of lower ranking clean up and a few shifts in the upper ranks as well. We are trying to be a bit more strict on the lower ranks too, just because we felt like there were a lot of Pokemon that were ranked way too highly. Well, here goes.

Rises

A- ---> A

B+ ---> A-

C+ ---> B-

C- ---> C+

C- ---> C

Drops

S ---> A+

A+ ---> A

A+ ---> A

A ---> A-

A ---> A-

A ---> A-

A- ---> B+

A- ---> B+

B+ ---> B

B+ ---> B

B+ ---> B

B+ ---> B

B+ ---> B

B+ ---> B-

B ---> B-

B ---> B-

B ---> C+

B ---> B-

B ---> B-

B ---> B-

B ---> C+

B- ---> C+

B- ---> C+

B- ---> C+

B- ---> C+

C+ ---> C

C+ ---> C

C+ ---> C

C+ ---> C

C+ ---> C

C+ ---> C

C+ ---> C

C+ ---> C

C+ ---> C

C+ ---> C

C+ ---> C-

C+ ---> C-

C+ ---> C-

C+ ---> C

C ---> C-

C ---> UR

C ---> UR

C- ---> UR

C- ---> UR

C- ---> UR

Reasonings

• Magearna's placement recently has been a hot topic of debate, in the thread and in the VR council channel. We ultimately decided that when Magearna was originally placed in S rank, it was easily one of the most dominating Pokemon in the metagame, almost as much as Landorus-T at one point. Since WCOP, its dominance has become less and less, with the popularity of some of its more common sets such as Double Dance and Shift Gear Z Fight, almost falling out entirely in the tour scene. Nowadays, Shift Gear Farium Z or Assault Vest are the only sets you really see anymore outside of OTR on Trick Room teams. It still sweeps teams, but not nearly as frequently. Team building doesn't feel nearly as strapped with the prominence of Mega Scizor, Mega Venu, Toxapex, and many other fat cores running around giving it a hard time. AV is still very splashable though, and Shift Gear despite its inconsistency, is still very good. We just didn't feel like it fit alongside Pex and Lando-T anymore, who are both completely running the meta in their own way.
• Greninja to A has also been another controversial issue. While its Dual hazard set is still very popular, a lot of its other sets have fallen off quite a bit. The only sets you really see anymore on dual hazards, Scarf, and occasionally offensive Spikes. The balance state of the meta has got Greninja in a very tough situation when it comes to what coverage moves to run, and most of its overall usefulness is coming from its utility sets. We just felt like its hazard and Scarf sets, were not prominent or defining enough to be compared to Ash Greninja, which not only sets Spikes, but is also an extremely dangerous offensive Pokemon.
• Zygarde has been in a tough spot as of late. Band sets have almost fallen entirely out of favor for more sweeping sets because of how prevalent CB switch-ins are these days. But in general, the rise in fat Lando-T, Kartana, Ferrothorn, Clefable, Mega Scizor, Lele, and Kyurem-B are big issues for it, and it's no longer as dominant as it once was.
• Mew dropped off quite a bit recently as well. The prevalence of Ash Greninja and Heatran are very troublesome for it, T-Spikes are super common which limits its ability to wall things, and Volcarona can use it as setup fodder, which is beginning to rise again.
• Mega Pinsir has issues in the metagame with the massive influx in Tapu Koko and Tapu Lele usage, both of which heavily cripple it with their typing and abilities respectively. Physically defensive variants of Celesteela are standard now, which also puts a huge damper in its success.
• Tangrowth is in a similar situation as Mew, where current meta trends are not so much in its favor. Kyurem-B is an extremely powerful balance breaker that practically comes in for free on Tang, Kartana can potentially setup on it, and T-Spikes are super common.
• Mega Scizor has immense utility in the current metagame. Its ability to keep major metagame threats in check such as Mega Diancie, Magearna, Zygarde, Tapu Bulu, Tapu Lele, SD Mega Mawile, Tyranitar, and Kyurem-B is very important. It's also still a fantastic Defogger.
• Mega Medi has a lot of issues finding usage on teams, with so many other good megas and wallbreakers being prevalent atm.
• Mega Tyranitar is still seeing great success despite Mega Lopunny rising in usage. Not only are DD sets still very dangerous, but offensive SR sets are a great check to many prevalent Pokemon because of its massive bulk and Pursuit trapping abilities.
• Garchomp finds very little success in the current metagame. Its SD rocks sets are walled by Pokemon such as Bulu and Celesteela, while Scarf is complete deadweight against any team that doesn't carry a Volcarona, and even some that do. There's just little reason to use Garchomp in the current meta.
• As for the rest of the drops, most of them were all dropped just to level out the viability in the lower ranks, and not all of them necessarily dropped because they got worse. I will touch on some more specific ones though.
• Tornadus-T dropped two subranks because it has very little breathing room in the current meta. All Pex these days are running massive SpD investment, CB Tyranitar is extremely popular which gives any non Superpower sets a ton of issues, Tapu Koko is very common, Mega Diancie doesn't give a fuck about it, Zapdos is still pretty common etc. Its niche as a balance/stallbreaker just isn't applicable in the current meta.
• Marowak dropped two subranks because it has basically zero use outside of dedicated TR teams, because otherwise it is extremely difficult to fit on any team due to its terrible Speed and massive hazard weakness.
• Thundurus dropped two subranks because it finds very minimal usage when Tapu Koko is just so much better in almost every way. Thundurus-T is also a better breaker despite its lower Speed, so in a way, it also faces some competition from that too.
• Togekiss can't break stall, and it can't really break balance. It's just really annoying to balance teams that don't carry something like Zapdos or Tapu Koko, but other than that, it's still pretty bad.
• Cofagrigus has an extreme difficult sweeping in a meta dominated by Greninja and CB T-tar.
• Mega Aero is a niche breaker that can annoy offense but just cant run all the coverage it wants to run without being hopelessly walled by something.
• Shucke is better than Smeargle as a webber, thus they switched places.
• Primarina, Starmie, Breloom, Empoleon, and Omastar all face massive competition for a team slot, and just aren't worth using much in general.

Council Slate

Keep in mind most of the drops from C+ were mutually agreed on and not voted on specifically.

Magearna S to A+: most agreed except two
Greninja A+ to A: all agreed
Mega Mawile A to A+: 50/50
Zygarde A+ to A: most agreed
Mew A to A-: most agreed
Mega Pinsir A to A-: all agreed
Tangrowth A to A-: most agreed
Mega Scizor A- to A: most agreed
Mega Medi A- to B+: all agreed except me lmao
Mega T-tar B+ to A-: most agreed
Hoopa U B+ to A-: not enough agreed
Zone A- to B+: most disagreed
Garchomp A- to B+: all agreed
Excadrill B+ to B: all agreed
Gengar B+ to B: most disagreed
Zard-Y B+ to B: all agreed
Gyarados B+ to B: all agreed
Kingdra B+ to B: all agreed
Tornadus-T: B+ to B-: all agreed
Mola B to B-: 50/50
Jirachi B to B-: most agreed
Mamoswine B to B-: all agreed
Marowak B to B-/C+: all said B- or C+ except one
Mimikyu B to B-: everyone agreed except one obvious person
Quagsire B to B-: all agreed
Serperior b to B-: all agreed
Thundurus B to C+: most agreed
Azumaril B- to C+: all agreed
Mega Camel B- to C+: all agreed
Hippo B- to C+: most agreed
Mega Manectric B- to C+: all agreed
Togekiss C+ to C-: all agreed
Cofagrigus C+ to C-: all agreed
Aerodactly C+ to C-: all agreed
Porygon Z C to C-: all agreed
Primarina C to UR: all agreed
Starmie C to UR: all agreed
Breloom C- to UR: all agreed
Empoleon C- to UR: only two disagreed
Shuckle C- to C+: most agreed
Chandelure C- to C: most agreed or didn't care

If you have individual questions on certain rank changes, please feel free to PM me or a council member. However please keep in mind, like I said above, most of these changes aren't due to actual drops in viability, and are more just rank adjustments. I tried to cover pretty much everything that wasn't dropped specifically because of adjustments, and were actual drops in viability. Also because there were so many changes, there are still some other changes that could be made in the future that we might have missed. Now I'm going to take a break because this took too long holy fuck.

 

[BaSr]

You also have a typo in Magearnas reasoning. You wrote Farium Z

 

[Gary]

Why did M-Camerupt drop? Like I have a vague Idea, but specific reason would be cool. You also have a typo in Magearnas reasoning. You wrote Farium Z

If you have individual questions on certain rank changes, please feel free to PM me or a council member. However please keep in mind, like I said above, most of these changes aren't due to actual drops in viability, and are more just rank adjustments. I tried to cover pretty much everything that wasn't dropped specifically because of adjustments, and were actual drops in viability.

Thanks for the GP check btw.

 

[BaSr]

Thanks for the GP check btw.

yh saw that later on mb, thanks for the response tho :)

 

[Latioswars]

Mega Mawile should rise to A+ rank, it doesn't need that much support and its the best wallbreaker in the tier and stall can't really adapt to it even quagsire dies to 2 Play rough, its slow and sucker punch got nerfed but this fairy/steel with 200 base attack will always get 1 or 2 kills per match or even sweep weakened teams that lack psyquic terrain, it beats most offensive mons 1 on 1 bar Koko and Ash ninja but greninja needs to evolve first to kill mawile with hydro otherwise mega mawile tanks the hydro, fire types and ground types beat mawile if they are healthy but sucker punch at +2 beats those after prior damage, also if mega mawile is facing zygarde it can beat it running a bulky spread and/or intimidate because it tanks thousand arrows and kills back with play rough, obviously you shouldnt stay on a zygarde but its always good to know mawile doesn't straight up die to neutral thousand arrows.

252+ Atk Zygarde Thousand Arrows vs. 164 HP / 0 Def Mawile-Mega: 222-264 (78.7 - 93.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Point is mawile should rise cause its the best ou wallbreaker that has the match up vs stall and balance (you could even run iron head to lure venu balance) and still doing a decent job vs offensive teams like checking lati@s, scizor, cm boltbeam magearna, mimikyu if you run intimidate, etc. Its also a great partner for offensive mons like ash ninja and Koko.

Also mawile was A rank on dugtrios meta but now arena trap is gone ergo Mawile is A+ rank worthy.

 

[PBUH]

Point is mawile should rise cause its the best ou wallbreaker that has the match up vs stall and balance (you could even run iron head to lure venu balance) and still doing a decent job vs offensive teams like checking lati@s, scizor, cm boltbeam magearna, mimikyu if you run intimidate, etc. Its also a great partner for offensive mons like ash ninja and Koko.
Also mawile was A rank on dugtrios meta but now arena trap is gone ergo Mawile is A+ rank worthy.

You give a lot of reasons for why mawile is a great mon, but the only argument you make for its rise is that it can't be trapped by dugtrio anymore. The arena trap ban was a huge boon for mawile, however I think that mawile would be out of place in A+ and is fine sitting in A.
Mawile's biggest weakness and the reason it isn't A+ material is its terrible speed stat. It is forced to run sucker punch in order to not be dead weight against offense. Given sucker's nerf to 70bp, without stab this move has become a lot less threatening to face.
Coming off mawile's gigantic attack, it is still capable of securing kills which is part of the reason mawile is as high in rankings as it is, however mawile won't ever rightfully be A+ so long as it has to rely on sucker punch to make up for its low speed.

 

[AM]

So like.... the Sucker punch nerf is 10 BP......10.... Can we stop using that as a reasoning to justify points? People used that as one of the reasons to unban M-Kanga and it seems like an insignificant point every single time its brought up in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Flame from Heaven]

You give a lot of reasons for why mawile is a great mon, but the only argument you make for its rise is that it can't be trapped by dugtrio anymore. The arena trap ban was a huge boon for mawile, however I think that mawile would be out of place in A+ and is fine sitting in A.
Mawile's biggest weakness and the reason it isn't A+ material is its terrible speed stat. It is forced to run sucker punch in order to not be dead weight against offense. Given sucker's nerf to 70bp, without stab this move has become a lot less threatening to face.
Coming off mawile's gigantic attack, it is still capable of securing kills which is part of the reason mawile is as high in rankings as it is, however mawile won't ever rightfully be A+ so long as it has to rely on sucker punch to make up for its low speed.

I do agree with you that mawile should stay in A, but you have rather poor reasoning why it shouldn't rise. First of all, like AM kindly said, the sucker punch nerf is a terrible reason why mawile shouldn't rise. Plus, the slight power nerf is easily migitated by spikes anyway. Finally, you also are just pointing out mawile a obvious flaws like you are calling out latioswars for.
That being said, Mawile shouldn't rise right now. While the Arena trap ban was a huge boon to mega mawile, letting it singlehandedly defeat stall, it also led to the rise of its best counter in heatran, and the rise of its best revenge killer in tapu lele. Finally, mawile does not like the meta shifting more towards offense. I say mawile should stay in A.

 

[wisdom dog]

You give a lot of reasons for why mawile is a great mon, but the only argument you make for its rise is that it can't be trapped by dugtrio anymore. The arena trap ban was a huge boon for mawile, however I think that mawile would be out of place in A+ and is fine sitting in A.
Mawile's biggest weakness and the reason it isn't A+ material is its terrible speed stat. It is forced to run sucker punch in order to not be dead weight against offense. Given sucker's nerf to 70bp, without stab this move has become a lot less threatening to face.
Coming off mawile's gigantic attack, it is still capable of securing kills which is part of the reason mawile is as high in rankings as it is, however mawile won't ever rightfully be A+ so long as it has to rely on sucker punch to make up for its low speed.

You act like the 10 base power drop is a significant change, but completely brush off the dugtrio ban as being nothing more than of slight benefit. The dugtrio ban was a huge change for the meta, and dugtrio was a massive deterence to stop mega maw from ripping through stall and balance. IMO, Mega Maw is easily on the level of ferrothorn and celesteela, if not a better pokemon than celes in the current metagame.

Edit: I agree with the points shadowtex made before me.
Honestly if anything, I think it may be time for celes to derank. Heatran and Koko (mostly specs) are the best they've ever been, and celes usage in tournaments is on the decline.

 

[Flame from Heaven]

You act like the 10 base power drop is a significant change, but completely brush off the dugtrio ban as being nothing more than of slight benefit. The dugtrio ban was a huge change for the meta, and dugtrio was a massive deterence to stop mega maw from ripping through stall and balance. IMO, Mega Maw is easily on the level of ferrothorn and celesteela,

I personally disagree with celesteela to A. While some meta trends you mentioned do hurt it, good teams featuring celesteela have solid counter play to these threats. Imagine me saying that magearna should go to a becuase it's setup fodder for volcarona and invites heatran in for free. While this is true, teams with magearna should have counterplay to these threats unless if they are trying to lose. You are also really underselling celesteelas influence in the metagame. The amount of Pokémon that would be more viable if celesteela didn't exist. Pinsir, alakazam, latios, heck even garchomp would be more viable.
Finally, celesteela has a huge over other bulky steels like ferro in the form of dodging the omnipresent spikes.
Celesteela ignoring spikes that invalidate a lot of walls, god tier typing, and influence in the metagame make it easily deserving of A+ rank.