Lower Tiers BW PU Discussion and Development

[Akir]

Hello everyone, and welcome to Gen5 PU.

BW PU has had quite the history. PU was actually originally created during Gen5 but was a small enough footnote that many people don't remember this fact. Over the course of XY, however, BW PU took on the worst fate that any metagame can possibly have: it was forgotten. As early as the first PUPL there was confusion over what mons were even in the tier. By the second PUPL, not knowing what was in the tier had turned into a running joke. That was what BW PU was seen for years: a joke, a slot you threw an unlucky tour player into cuz the format was just using random broken mons and matchup fishing.

Nowadays, BW PU's future is a lot less bleak. The better player with the better team wins more often than not, and the development of an antimetagame has gotten to the point where some of the tier's biggest threats finally have decently reliable counters. Thanks to the hard work and insistence of its playerbase, BW PU is now in much better shape. BW PU is even a decently popular pick for the RoA rotational ladders. A lot of work has been done and has paid off, but a lot of work remains.

Recently there has been a lot of due concern for Gothorita. A ban would be simple, but I'm of the opinion that it would be treating the symptoms and not the cause. One of the primary reasons Gothorita is good is its ability to trap Throh in particular. Throh is, in my honest opinion, by far the best mon in the format. The mons that can hold a candle to it are Beheeyem, Gothorita, (sleep), and Simipour. These four mons are, in my honest opinion again, head and shoulders above the rest of the tier and centralize a huge chunk of the metagame around just them. Simply banning Goth would dodge this conversation: What do we, as a community, want out of the tier? Simply put, I think every single mon here and the potential ramifications of their bans is worth discussion.

Throh

What about Throh?

Throh is the best glue in the format, no real contest. Throh is also the most consistent setup mon, with again little contest. Throh can also run a good Choice Band set. And Substitute Bulk Up. The list goes on.

Throh is very noticeably stronger than the rest of the tier. In a good number of matches, people's answer to Throh is their own Throh with a faster Circle Throw. Throh is just also the absolute best glue the format has. Resisting rocks and having enough bulk to take on threats like Simipour and Torterra and Zebstrika and on and on and on while also providing phaze support and also being Sleep absorption WHILE ALSO being an excellent setup wincon. All of that is just the Cro set. Throwing on Throh (ha) is adding a level of role compression that a lot of teams simply can't reach otherwise. Throh is a centralizing force in the metagame, subdued only by the list of broken Psychics in the format and people's reliance on what it offers. Some teams simply lose to Throh due to their inability to stop it from MU alone. Having multiple slots dedicated to killing glue is a sign of a potentially too-strong mon.

However, banning Throh would obviously have considerable knockback. As I said, the format is strapped for glue. Throh, in that sense, is a blessing. It fills very-much-needed holes that teams would struggle to fill otherwise. Having so many checkmarks on the list from a single mon also lets more variance into teambuilding, as not having to worry about checking both Simipour and Zebstrika and having the option to phaze/set up means that usually one slot is then opened up due to the role compression. I do also blame Throh for a good chunk of Gothorita's success. The tier's overreliance on Throh leaves a weakness that Goth is uniquely suited for exploiting.

At the end of the day, Throh worries me. Banning more Throh counters obviously only makes this exceptionally strong mon stronger, but also banning Throh would be banning the counter of mons like Simipour that only need one more good push to go overboard. So what do people want? Is Throh our future, or our jailer?

Gothorita

What about Gothorita?

Shadow Tag.

But seriously, Gothorita's strength is that it can pick and choose what it wants to get rid of on the opponent's team. And since glue is such a premium, Gothorita getting rid of even just 1 mon on the opposing team can be compromising. This is only added to by the fact that the tier's best glue just so happens to also be Throh, a mon that is countered by Gothorita. Trapping is something that has been debated to death in other threads, so I won't beat a dead horse, but Gothorita's ability to trap alongside the fact that it is really well positioned to do so makes for a mon that many people are clamoring for a ban. Makes sense, but a question I have had is how much of Goth's success has been because it is just good at taking care of Throh? Replays that have no Throh can back up the idea, but a lot of Goth's success seems to run parallel with Throh's. Throh is so good that having a mon largely dedicated to beating it is extremely reasonable, and so Goth is good.

Obviously Gothorita is good on its own merits, and Shadow Tag is borderline uncompetitive, but the question of how much of this is due to Throh's centralization is an interesting one to bring up.

Beheeyem

What about Beheeyem?

Beheeyem is a monster with three heads. Trick Room, Bulky Setup, and Specs are all extremely viable sets on Beheeyem that do largely different things and require different ways to beat them. Beheeyem is no stranger to the chopping block.

Recently the metagame has adapted in ways that some people have calmed down about Beheeyem. Mons like Scraggy and Klang becoming more popular makes Beheeyem feel less scary while leaving off the fact that those two are most of the list of switchins Beheeyem has.The fact that Beheeyem can muscle through just about any team with the proper set should be concern enough. Audino is 2HKOd by Specs after rocks, Trick Room Beheeyem is one of those rare cases where it is its own wallbreaker in the midgame for a lategame sweep, and Bulky Setup can very easily win games with just its own surprising bulk and 1 Nasty Plot. While it is manageable enough now, Beheeyem is always on the cusp of going wild in the tier. Close enough that I don't think it should leave consideration anytime soon.

Simipour

What about Simipour?

In the last voting slate, I added Simipour just to get people to start thinking about it. Now that Vigoroth is gone, Simipour has seen a notable spike in both usage and success. Nasty Plot sets can muscle through most counters, bar specific things like Throh, and this is especially the case if Simipour is running HP Electric. Choice Scarf sets are also becoming increasingly notorious, as it is the fastest reasonable scarfer with considerable power to boot. Torrent Hydro Pump hurts. Simply put, the only thing keeping down Simipour is the fact that a lot of the metagame relies on specially defensive glue that is also arguably broken.

Simipour is an intense threat at the moment, but I also feel like a lot of its checks are also on this list. Banning Throh would immediately be a massive buff, and other checks like Beheeyem would be a welcome goodbye for Simipour. Simipour is poised to only get better, so unless there's a discovery like Scraggy around the corner I think Simipour should stay within consideration.

Sleep

What about Sleep?

Sleep in BW is a topic that has been talked to death in other threads, but the important part in regards to BW PU is the fact that Sleep in PU survived the recent OU ban of it (for those that aren't aware, BW Sleep resets its timer upon switchout, such as having to wait 2 turns for Rest to end even if you already burned 2 turns previously if you switched out). That was not because Sleep is balanced in the tier...not at all. In a metagame as fast as BW PU, a Sleep move landing is death. Unless the game is uncharacteristically slow, there is rarely time to wake a mon up after it is asleep. Mons such as Jumpluff regularly spam Sleep for free kills, and even mons like Simisage use Grasswhistle to fish for potential sleep. 55% accuracy sounds a lot better when framed as a 55% chance to KO anything.

Simply put, getting rid of Sleep would go a long way in making the tier more consistent. BW Sleep has its turns reset upon switch-out, so it is so much stronger in BW than ever before or again.

SLEEP
This list of 5 is my "kill list", the mons that I think are worth consideration moving into the future. I have created this thread to gauge community opinion. Many people have varying opinions on what direction the format should go, so here is the place to pool all of that together. I'll also use this thread as a hub for resources.

BW PU Resources can be found here!

When I make a Beginner's Guide, it will go here.

To-Do List for BW PU:

1. Decide what to ban/keep from the kill list
2. VR Update
3. Sample Teams
4. Update Speed Tiers
5. Smogdex Entries

All opinions are welcome, so long as they are reasonably informed!

 

[Chill Shadow]

hello, i never really got into the tier due to lack of interest in mons in general, but i got into it because i like abusing goth in bw ru and nu, so when i found out it was also allowed in pu i thought it was pretty much ridiculous given that this tier, more than the 2 higher tiers, has a very big usage of eviolite due to the nature of the mons that are present. Which leads me to believe that goth is particularly broken for the reasons below:

(PS: i will be talking about scarf goth, which i believe is the only viable set)

Gothorita @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 HP / 32 SpA / 224 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick
- Psychic
- Toxic
- Rest

This set does way too much work, and from my brief experience playing the tier, it can do the following:

- Trick the lead rocker as it sets up rocks, toxic and trick it back before it faints (this has worked a ridiculous number of times)
- Trick everything from klang, throh, ursaring, monferno, bronzor, audino, any eviolite mon that goth can steal its evio and trick back in the end, anything fat that sets up basically, including certain beheyeems. this doesnt mean gothorita OHKOs all of those or beats them 1v1, but it completely negates their presence and this is what goth is supposed to do, eliminate specific things and you overload your team with mons that abuse the absence of the things you tricked a scarf to
- This spread is what is required of goth to outspeed the simis, which you can eliminate after chip or if you change rest to eball/tbolt, after less chip
- Pick off any pokemon within range (monferno, throh, etc), potentially with different spreads

The above are only things that actually happened multiple times in my games, not theorymoning, this is only from Scarf Goth with this specific set (and one game with eball > rest)

There is a lot more potential that can be uncovered with goth that is still not being used due to people's reluctance or unwillingness to use this "controversial" mon, since you can mess around as much as you can with this pokemon to eliminate more fringe things and build your team around that, for example the ubers goth which just uses pp stall tactics with no attacks, or sets that allow other pokemon to set up ie Charm, twave, calm mind maybe, all of these sets and ideas i havent even had the time or energy (and wont, really) to try and abuse or make them work.

NU and RU are unwilling to ban this mon due to "not changing dead tiers", and goth is way more broken in this tier, and im glad you guys are open to do something about it, so i recommend an action be taken against it.

 

[Xephyrr]

As I played Gen 5 PU I slowly realized just how many Pokemon Gothorita's trapping abilities singlehandedly make viable. Because of the sheer trapping power of a pokemon that has great bulk for the tier with Eviolite, doesn't have problems with coverage (you actually have quite the choice... I've seen Trick Scarf, I've seen Signal Beam CM for Beheyeem weak teams, I've also seen the usual Eviolite/Rest with stat reduction moves and PP stalling), with the right set almost everything is trappable. In general, something I've toyed with in the time I've played Gen 5 PU is a budget dragmag with 4 dragons, Gothorita to trap annoying mons (anything really, ranging from Articuno to Glaceon to Steels, without much of a problem) and a steel type. Really, although this playstyle seems quite limited, it has what it needs: Gabite has a speed tier that's amazing for revenge killing in this tier, while Fraxure can act as a game ender with 117 Attack DD, being strong enough to viably run Eviolite and Outrage everything after DD. You can even play Dragonair as sleep absorber due to Shed Skin, its enormous bulk while not having to invest too much in Attack and not having to invest in Speed because everything you can't outspeed at +1 either can't kill you or drops to ESpeed with a little bit of chip, although this Pokemon is far too easy to wall for most defensive cores, reason why Gothorita is so good at disrupting what they can constantly do without trapping by simply switching in. As for the last dragon, I'm still quite unsure what it should be. Scarf Zweilous, despite being slow for a scarfer, does give immense cleaning power due to Hustle boosted Outrages being far too unwallable for non-resists, while Shelgon can act as a super solid physical wall outside of its usual DDing when you are forced out. Now, this playstyle of course does not have extreme consistency, due to the defensive core of Gothorita + a steel type cannot beat every offensive threat in the metagame and it's not hard to overrun stage two dragons which, even after a DD, can be outsped by common scarfers, but I am not praising this style as top tier, but just as another ramification of the enormous list of perks that having a Gothorita brings.

 

[Lily]

Hi I'm one of this tier's 5 players so I'd like to give my esteemed opinion on what's most broken.

The short answer: Everything on the list except Simipour.

The long answer: BW Sleep is BW sleep and I'm not going to explain why it's broken because every single person with an interest in BW tiers should already know. Throh is, as outlined in the thread's OP, absolutely positively ridiculous and any team not using it is one of the following:

a) using Scraggy
b) some form of cheesy hyper offense
c) unviable.

There is such a massive opportunity cost defensively when not using Throh. You're immediately making yourself a thousand times weaker to the Simis, Scraggy, Torterra, Shiftry, Zebstrika, Golduck, Purugly, Klang, Rapidash, Mawile, Victreebel, Duosion, Vileplume, Krokorok, Vanilluxe, Gabite, Stoutland, Machoke, Rampardos, Ursaring by choosing not to use it... and that's just the shit that's A- or higher on the VR. The only excuse to not use it is for a gimmick team, or because you want to use its one single competitor. It's kinda like GSC Snorlax except it's actually unbalanced.

Another problem with Throh's influence in the tier comes from hazards. I've been a proponent of the idea that Spikeless teams are shooting themselves in the foot because of how absolutely ridiculous Modest Maractus is when it comes to getting them up and this tier has a dearth of spinners so it's not like it has to stick around for too long. The potency of rocks + spikes makes stuff like Zebstrika go from an ever-looming threat game in game out to a pathetic excuse for a wallbreaker that gets to fire off 3 attacks per game before dying. Throh enables hazard based teams far too much with its powerful Circle Throw not only hurting most offensive Pokemon but also forcing an absolute ton of hazard chip on them and making them pretty much useless in their roles. Add on to this that Throh is pretty good at forcing Natu to take damage with either Payback or just Circle Throwing it around and forcing it to take SR chip and you've got a big ass problem on stacking teams. Most Pokemon can't beat it without boosting up so it doesn't even die either; you really need Gothorita or Beheeyem, otherwise it just phases you out as you boost up and you're screwed.

Beheeyem is perfectly outlined in the OP, it's just impossible to wall w/o one of two mons and that is turbo lame. It gets far too many opportunities to break and that isn't okay considering it has absolutely zero switch ins, and it's over for us the moment someone else discovers HP Fighting...

Gothortia is something I had a lot to say about but the two posts above me already did a good job of explaining it. I don't think they accurately covered how problematic Specs Goth can be though. Scarf is obviously ridiculous against the meta as a whole but Specs sets do one thing better than anything else in the tier: destroy Bulk Up Scraggy and Throh counterplay. And probably Machoke but I haven't seen that mon win a game. Those two mons are absolutely insane if the opponent's Throh, Mantine, Swanna, Pelipper, Torterra or whatever else gets trapped and you're left dead in the water praying your Simipour manages to crit it. I don't really wanna see Goth banned just yet if we end up banning Throh + the other goons bc I think it'll see significantly less usage and be mostly relegated to hyperspecific teams that really want Mantine etc. gone but idk, hard to predict.

This ended up getting a little rambly bc covid on the brain but hopefully it still makes some sense. Please ban Throh and save Simipour, it's important glue and it has plenty of defensive checks for every set. Maractus, Frillish, Mantine, Vileplume, Audino, Zweilous etc. it can prob power through most of them but I promise that dealing with it both offensively and defensively is perfectly doable and worth it considering how much Scarf Simipour brings to the tier. Ty for reading.

 

[SergioRules]

BW PU Enthusiast here to drop my two cents on this.
The Big Problems

Gothorita is obviously the bigger problem here, but I honestly think it might be worth looking at/banning Shadow Tag as a whole, which is not an idea I've talked about on Discord or on forums much at all. While yes Gothorita is obviously much better than its pre-evolved form, Gothita still can accomplish many of the same things when it comes to trapping defensive/passive and Psychic-weak mons.

Anyway, Gothorita has proven to be quite a force in BW PU as of late, appearing in several PUPL and PUWC games, being among the top 10 used Pokemon in the former. Cumulative stats for PUWC are not yet out but I counted Goth being on at least 15 teams which would put it at a higher number of uses than it had in PUPL. Scarf Goth has a good enough Speed tier to outspeed most of the unboosted meta, as some have already pointed out, and Lilburr did a great job of explaining why Specs is also so problematic. As stated above, I think the problem is Shadow Tag itself not just Gothorita, and I'd hate to have a rerun of the early SM OU Dugtrio suspect where people just started using Diglett and it did the same exact thing.
Edit: apparently Gothita doesn't have Shadow Tag because the event that released it was for a male
Gothorita but I still think it's the ability not the Pokemon.

Can't say too much more about Throh that hasn't already been said. Its insane amount of defensive utility and checking near half of the tier makes it incredibly unhealthy for the tier. The only reason that I think it hasn't been as much of an issue lately is because of the amount of pressure that Gothorita puts on the tier as well. Even then, it can get out since it lives a Modest Specs Psychic and can just Circle Throw to get un-trapped. Lilburr also brought up the importance of having a bulky phazer in a meta where Spikes are fantastic and nearly impossible to remove, which I agree just completely invalidates many offensive teams, having an overall negative effect on building. I think we would be much better off without Throh in the tier.

Finally, the a more general mechanic in BW Sleep. I think it's pretty common knowledge the brokenness of Sleep and I think it's only common sense to continue transitivity and ban it similarly to BW OU.

The Borderline

Beheeyem hasn't been on my hit list as much as of late, likely because of the recent use of Scraggy. Realistically, I do think Beheeyem is likely a problem and out of the mons on this list, it is the one I consider the most "borderline" as I would like to see how the tier adapts to the other bans first, should they actually come to pass. While it doesn't really have any switchins when it comes to the Specs set, defensive sets also act as one of the best Fighting-checks in the tier. Now this might not be needed if Throh ends up banned, but it could cause Pokemon like Monferno, or to a lesser extent, Machoke, to become extremely difficult to handle. Although those would be the only two viable Fighting-types with Throh gone, not including Scraggy which functions more as a Dark-type anyway. Beheeyem is kind of up in the air for me, I can see arguments for both sides and it gives me a little bit of SM Hariyama vibes. Defensive sets can be a great asset but offensive ones can be deadly in the right situation.

I had at one point thought that this was the most broken Pokemon in the tier. Nowadays, I think it's just simply another fantastic sweeper/cleaner. Scarf Simipour is quite a dangerous threat but Lilburr already listed several of its checks that all work very well and are viable mons for reasons other than just checking Simipour. On the other hand, a set that has been gaining more popularity and the one that I think might actually become broken at some time is the Sub Nasty Plot set with Salac Berry. It's a set that can and will sweep unprepared teams, even sometimes those with good Water-type checks thanks to how good Ice Beam is as coverage. I do think that it will be better to wait though and see what happens to the tier as the rest of these mons get sorted through and hopefully this can get balanced out.

Speed Tiers
Oh boy Akir, do I have a present for you: Speed Tiers
I was originally working on this for both BW and DPP during PUPL since both of them were pretty out of date. I haven't completely finished updating BW yet, but I have most of the big names up through the A- rank. Not sure how you want to make the list in the resources, but I did some of the work already so I hope this can at least be a start!

 

[SBPC]

Hi I'm one of this tier's 5 players so I'd like to give my esteemed opinion on what's most broken.

hey look mom im on tv


Anyways, I've been nagging Akir ever since the start of PUWC to take a hammer to sleep several times over, and I'm going to touch on the massive effect sleep can have in this tier a bit further.
OP touches a bit on mons like Jumpluff and Simisage and how they fish for sleep to put out their normal offensive capabilities with more effectiveness, but what wasn't put on stage was the ability for sleep to complete lopside matchups with support mons behind the steering wheel. As a notable example, a team I created for world cup involving a sleep spamming screens meganium may have made its way around PS from me playing the living hell out of the ladder when it was up. Mind you, this pokemon is entirely unranked, and I'd put it at C- at best for screens and its speed tier if it wasn't for it's access to Grass Whistle, which combined with the aforementioned speed tier and surprising natural bulk, enables me to choke dicks several times and still win. Mind you, this is just a singular example of a pokemon that can press a sleep move several hundred times with absolutely no risk and the reward of a psuedo-fissure on whatever it eventually connects with. Purugly has access to Hypnosis and it can lure whatever it pleases to essentially remove a check from the game and have things that share it's checks be incredibly enabled just from one lucky button press, and if it misses, it just leaves and creates pressure with fake out later. Most grass types can just press sleep powder and give a free way for the team's choice of Throh, Beheeyem, or offensive water to go absolutely nuts. Tack actually at one point made a spreadsheet containing every random access to sleep that I would constantly check during my play because the fear of a weird mon having access to a 50/50 shot at removing my method of attacking the opposing team was not something I wanted to see flourish. (e: tack dm'd me) Sleep is entirely broken and ridiculously unhealthy for BW PU, and it's the one thing from this list I will physically fight for to have leave the tier.

As for the others... I can't help but say I've become extremely adapted to playing around broken nonsense from my shenanigans of Urshifu jousting back in gen 8, but I'll briefly comment my thoughts on them.

Gothorita has already been really well covered in the above posts, so I'll just drop my obligatory Shadow Tag Bad and leave it at that. I've used goth a few times in WC if i recall correctly and if not in that tour, I remember it doing a lot of work in test games with teammates just because my funny bad set would just win for clowning, or Scarf/Specs went brrr and killed Throh. I will say for the precedent as for what to ban, Gothita can and will cause problems with the ability so let's just ban STag instead of banning Gothorita alone and just hoping that it's frail and slow enough to not be a problem.

Throh was insanely well covered by Lilburr so I'm just going to tell you to read their post and quickly say I'm personally in favor of a Throh ban, but it needs to be stated that if Throh leaves, so many mons just become instantly more threatening, and you should fully expect defensive play to become a million times harder.

Beheeyem has two ways of properly checking it. Sleep, or using your own to kill it. Between the insanity that is its bulk with access to recover and it's atrocity of wallbreaking power even when you don't invest into it's special attack, it's just so ridiculously overwhelming. Signal Beam and HP Fighting are interchangable coverage options that perfectly patch the holes that would exist in their kit, Nasty Plot and Calm Mind make it even harder to live its already disgusting hits, and if your team is trying to offensively pressure it out, chances are it'll just trade you, then grab a recover later when your Throh has to come in to stop one of it's partners. This mon needs to go.

Simipour is fine leave my man alone, just a very good glue mon with a good speed tier and a strong special attack. There's plenty of ways to reliably put a stop to it's antics and half of what makes it feel broken is the atrocity that is NP + Salac after your water check/throh gets slept by funny button # whatever.

Anyways sorry if this post was ranty I just wrote this on mobile to put my two cents in the bank of thought, hope it isn't too incoherent.
TL;DR: read my fucking post lazy ass
(Sleep/Stag/Throh/Bem bad, free my man Simipour)

 

[EviGaro]

Honestly the only thing I think is stupid on that list is sleep, everything else can imo stay for the moment:

- Gothorita has Shadow Tag, yes, but at this point this is going way overboard with how broken the ability is typically to how it performs in the tier. Gothorita has two main purposes on a team: revenge some dangerous offensive stuff and prevent a slow setup from one of the numerous threats there to spiral out of control fast. Both these things are actually good for the tier, because 1- we don't have a lot of pivots into the dangerous offensive stuff and this slate has two of the best ones and 2 - because this tier while having dangerous offensive stuff doesn't have quite the raw power needed to bust through slow setup extremely well. Gothorita regulates the tier and actually gives you freedom in the builder. Like, what exactly stops Duosion, or Throh, or the monkeys, or SD Monferno, or SD Mawile, or SD Marowak, or CM Beheeyem, or BU Scraggy.... Anyway, my point is there's really not much that actually does without you having to run the same old same old because threats are everywhere. Goth gives insurance on a lot of things, and sure I bet it's frustrating to get trapped but... look at the tier. Not to mention, Goth's insurance also comes with dangerous problems. Max speed timid beats Simipour, but guess what it does not beat? Zebstrika, SD Sneasel, SD Jumpluff, + 1 Fraxure, and all these mons benefit from Scarf Gothorita being in. Anyway, I don't think it lacks drawbacks and I do think the tier will be ungodly worse without it, similarly to what LC without Diglett would look like.

- Throh is not in any way broken, in my opinion way less than Goth even is because hey at least you can say Shadow Tag for Goth and have somewhat of an argument. True, Throh benefits a lot from removal being a total meme, but lacks presence a lot and is hurt by how sleep mechanics work in this gen a lot since all the damage it takes before switching out is there to stay due to the rest counter resetting always. It also does not like that psychics are great, forcing early phasing to not get horrid matchups the moment it takes a 25 from a move it came in to tank, has some annoyances with the EVs it needs to have. Offensive has next to no counterplay, but it's extremely slow and has no way to compensate unlike Mawile or Torterra, while making it really difficult to use as a needed tank. Great mon, but honestly vastly overrated in its ability to flatout win games and is essential to the tier. This is where I agree with Lilburr but cannot understand her conclusion. If teams are shooting themselves in the foot not using Throh... then uh, what happens if that's banned? That's similar to my worry with Goth here, in that I think we are way too comfortable calling things that make teambuilding a lot easier in the tier broken with no idea with what happens next. We've made a lot of progress as a tier, and seem to be ready to throw a lot of it away.

- Don't see it with Beheeyem, I would have called it the best mon in the tier - and it's probably still top 5 or so - but it can struggle with a lot of the tier and has to gamble on being the right set a lot. Bulky sets being susceptible to toxic is really unfortunate, and it doesn't handle the main steels very well, weakness to all hazards is just not good, those kind of things. Specs is mega susceptible to being exploited due to everyone and their mother knowing your team cannot be Duosion weak, so psychic spam is a bit dangerous and its coverage is really not great in terms of actual moves. The trick room set is prolly the most dangerous and antimeta, but... when is the last time you've seen it?

- Simipour is prolly the one mon I am completely fine with banning, but I don't really know if it is worthy. I think Scarf is extremely stupid, NP Water Gem or Salac can win in a second, but it's so frail and weak to hazards that it really sometimes gives more headaches in the builder than in practice. I don't really have much here to defend the mon ROFL cause I don't think it serves a lot of purpose in the tier so it's whatever if it goes or not, but I'm still in the way and see approach. Naturally if we ban all the mons above for reasons then I guess this probably would have to go too though.

- Sleep on the other hand is an easy fix and one that everyone playing BW recognizes is just dumb. The mechanics are completely broken, work in a way that no other gen has because someone at GameFreak thought about this for a change and realized that it makes no sense at all I suppose, and just kill games. It's basically freeze, except it's hax when you don't get it. Some of the top mons get it and with only Zebstrika + Natu - like they really check any of the good sleep mons super well but - as viable counterplay to the move there's really no reason to believe this is fine.

 

[DnB]

after getting into the tier again in the past few months, i think i can write down some things.
i am totally down on banning throh, goth and sleep, not sure about simi & beheeyem.

simipour:
every team needs a check for rain, and the things that check rain, also check simi (except golduck). Frillish, Chinchou and Purugly come to mind. Scarf and Sub NP are easily the best sets and the biggest problem is oftentimes that you dont really know, which of the 2 sets it will use, so you can never be sure if you can revenge it with your zebstrika or not. i can see it becoming a problem without throh tho

goth:
its not about goth, its about shadow tag. the ability is just stupid and i wished we could all just go along with OU and ban shadow tag and sleep, same in the other lower tiers...
shadow tag makes stall almost unplayable, my boy Fantos13 came up with an awesome stallteam in PUWC and we both never lost a single game with it yet, but thats mostly because we didnt run into many goths (i ran into it this one time, thankfully articuno can still beat it without rocks, also this replay works on showing how stupid broken throh is). it restricts teambuilding and makes you always afraid to run some more defensive builds. people caught up to it and use stuff like scraggy, but a well played goth always gets 1 kill, many times even 2 if you use the trick set, or you just win against unprepared teams with CM + rest or these cool torment + protect/sub sets. i think that shadow tag is just a bad ability for any meta in BW and should just be banned. this might make throh too strong (but im also down to banning that...), but there are some other great mons that can do similar stuff (worry seed vileplume f.e. completely stops rest + stalk fighting types).

sleep:
shoutout to Tack for always abusing this broken mechanic. sleep is just broken in BW and way too many games are decided on your jumpluff (which is a top 5 mon imo) hitting sleep powder or not. ive also seen these grass whistle simisages coming up and relying on this 55% acc move as a last way out is also just stupid. same goes for sleep powder victrybell or hypnosis purugly. most of these mons rely on hitting low acc moves to gain a huge benefit out of it and it makes some games just luck based. sleep just has to go...

throh:
ah yea, i remember the times every team used throh because its just that good. resttalk bulk up is probably the best set, but i also like bulk up + 3 attacks to hit dark/psychics with payback and torterra with ice punch. throh is kinda needed in the tier because it checks a lot of stuff, but everyone overprepares for it which makes it worse, but it still wins games. i think a throh ban would free up so many more mons in the tier, beheeyem would become less popular because klang and scraggy would be way better. i really like the idea of banning it, it would really change up the meta in a good way imo.

beheeyem:
this thing is so scary. specs, trick room, nasty plot and a super underrated set: phys def nasty plot. but it can be hard stopped by klang, scraggy or bronzor. i think it can stay with simi, but it would still be a top 10 mon for sure



thinking about it, i really like the idea of banning all/most of the mons listed here. after playing the tier a lot in the past year, it becomes kinda stale, and the one thing that keeps niche tiers like BW PU alive is some change up in the meta, to motivate players to teambuild again. after seeing how crazy the ZU oldgen tiers changed over the past 2 years, BW PU felt the same, not that much new stuff came up during PUPL/PUWC, and even tho the meta is still fun, it feels like some players just try to force "new and innovative" sets & mons, when tbh, using something "old" like throh would have just been better.
in my opinion theres no question about sleep and shadow tag, throh comes in as a very close 3rd, simi/beheeyem seem manageable for now

 

[Xephyrr]

BW PU Enthusiast here to drop my two cents on this.
The Big Problems

Gothorita is obviously the bigger problem here, but I honestly think it might be worth looking at/banning Shadow Tag as a whole, which is not an idea I've talked about on Discord or on forums much at all. While yes Gothorita is obviously much better than its pre-evolved form, Gothita still can accomplish many of the same things when it comes to trapping defensive/passive and Psychic-weak mons.

Anyway, Gothorita has proven to be quite a force in BW PU as of late, appearing in several PUPL and PUWC games, being among the top 10 used Pokemon in the former. Cumulative stats for PUWC are not yet out but I counted Goth being on at least 15 teams which would put it at a higher number of uses than it had in PUPL. Scarf Goth has a good enough Speed tier to outspeed most of the unboosted meta, as some have already pointed out, and Lilburr did a great job of explaining why Specs is also so problematic. As stated above, I think the problem is Shadow Tag itself not just Gothorita, and I'd hate to have a rerun of the early SM OU Dugtrio suspect where people just started using Diglett and it did the same exact thing.

Can't say too much more about Throh that hasn't already been said. Its insane amount of defensive utility and checking near half of the tier makes it incredibly unhealthy for the tier. The only reason that I think it hasn't been as much of an issue lately is because of the amount of pressure that Gothorita puts on the tier as well. Even then, it can get out since it lives a Modest Specs Psychic and can just Circle Throw to get un-trapped. Lilburr also brought up the importance of having a bulky phazer in a meta where Spikes are fantastic and nearly impossible to remove, which I agree just completely invalidates many offensive teams, having an overall negative effect on building. I think we would be much better off without Throh in the tier.

Finally, the a more general mechanic in BW Sleep. I think it's pretty common knowledge the brokenness of Sleep and I think it's only common sense to continue transitivity and ban it similarly to BW OU.

The Borderline

Beheeyem hasn't been on my hit list as much as of late, likely because of the recent use of Scraggy. Realistically, I do think Beheeyem is likely a problem and out of the mons on this list, it is the one I consider the most "borderline" as I would like to see how the tier adapts to the other bans first, should they actually come to pass. While it doesn't really have any switchins when it comes to the Specs set, defensive sets also act as one of the best Fighting-checks in the tier. Now this might not be needed if Throh ends up banned, but it could cause Pokemon like Monferno, or to a lesser extent, Machoke, to become extremely difficult to handle. Although those would be the only two viable Fighting-types with Throh gone, not including Scraggy which functions more as a Dark-type anyway. Beheeyem is kind of up in the air for me, I can see arguments for both sides and it gives me a little bit of SM Hariyama vibes. Defensive sets can be a great asset but offensive ones can be deadly in the right situation.

I had at one point thought that this was the most broken Pokemon in the tier. Nowadays, I think it's just simply another fantastic sweeper/cleaner. Scarf Simipour is quite a dangerous threat but Lilburr already listed several of its checks that all work very well and are viable mons for reasons other than just checking Simipour. On the other hand, a set that has been gaining more popularity and the one that I think might actually become broken at some time is the Sub Nasty Plot set with Salac Berry. It's a set that can and will sweep unprepared teams, even sometimes those with good Water-type checks thanks to how good Ice Beam is as coverage. I do think that it will be better to wait though and see what happens to the tier as the rest of these mons get sorted through and hopefully this can get balanced out.

Speed Tiers
Oh boy Akir, do I have a present for you: Speed Tiers
I was originally working on this for both BW and DPP during PUPL since both of them were pretty out of date. I haven't completely finished updating BW yet, but I have most of the big names up through the A- rank. Not sure how you want to make the list in the resources, but I did some of the work already so I hope this can at least be a start!

There's no need to ban Shadow Tag as a whole, Gothita can't have the ability in gen 5.
(as to why, I think it wasn't released? I don't quite remember honestly. Although, you can check on your own on the Teambuilder)

 

[Chill Shadow]

- Gothorita has Shadow Tag, yes, but at this point this is going way overboard with how broken the ability is typically to how it performs in the tier. Gothorita has two main purposes on a team: revenge some dangerous offensive stuff and prevent a slow setup from one of the numerous threats there to spiral out of control fast. Both these things are actually good for the tier, because 1- we don't have a lot of pivots into the dangerous offensive stuff and this slate has two of the best ones and 2 - because this tier while having dangerous offensive stuff doesn't have quite the raw power needed to bust through slow setup extremely well. Gothorita regulates the tier and actually gives you freedom in the builder. Like, what exactly stops Duosion, or Throh, or the monkeys, or SD Monferno, or SD Mawile, or SD Marowak, or CM Beheeyem, or BU Scraggy.... Anyway, my point is there's really not much that actually does without you having to run the same old same old because threats are everywhere. Goth gives insurance on a lot of things, and sure I bet it's frustrating to get trapped but... look at the tier. Not to mention, Goth's insurance also comes with dangerous problems. Max speed timid beats Simipour, but guess what it does not beat? Zebstrika, SD Sneasel, SD Jumpluff, + 1 Fraxure, and all these mons benefit from Scarf Gothorita being in. Anyway, I don't think it lacks drawbacks and I do think the tier will be ungodly worse without it, similarly to what LC without Diglett would look like.

i dont know enough about what people are and arent using and the reasoning behind it, since i dont know how many people actually build and how many just take teams from others, but just because trapping beats things that are problematic, doesnt mean that's how we're supposed to deal with them. There are many many games played without goth, and these things are handled in one way or another.
if goth was gone, many other pokemon will have some kind of breathing room to deal with the other "broken problematic" mons that goth deals with. if the best "insurance" for things is trapping them, then maybe we should add those things to the list, not keep a very broken element to keep other broken in check.

ironically in your point you mention " what stops a, b, c, d, e, f, etc.." but they stop each other, each one of them stops something on that same list.
im a strong believer that the reason goth is being debated at all in this tier instead of being already banned, is because not many people are using it considering what it can do and are opting to use less "cheese" teams since i have noticed in bw lower tiers only specific people even consider using goth at all, while the majority doesnt (in team tours) for one reason or another.

if this tier was being developed on a faster pace (but it's not due to it being an old gen, naturally), we would reach the point where goth is in more teams, the more people play it and realize its potential, and many mons on the initial list will become completely unviable, not just " insured against"
Remember this pokemon doesnt work as a standalone pokemon, it's not supposed to simply trade itself for another mon. in almost every game if the team is built with a set purpose, it's supposed to eliminate 1 mon and ruin another at the very least. And this tier offers a lot of ways to do so with the presence of a lot of pokemon that can lure in key ACTUAL glues to the tier that give insurance to many mons, for example:

- Baton pass sr mawile that lures throh, klang, etc
- Uturn xatu/pluff that lure in steels, rocks etc
- uturn birds, monferno, batonpass dodrio, eeveelutions etc
- eject button audino

you can lure almost any pokemon and eliminate it accordingly and then the thing that lured will have free reign with its counter/check gone to do what it needs to do.

Also just because some things can set up on goth after it traps something, doesnt mean they actually can do it realistically and abuse its presence, and they all can be revenged quite easily
i would argue that the real problem comes when actual threats of the tier (ursaring, throh, beheeyem, simis, etc) are paired with goth and THEIR counters are eliminated with goth, because it works both ways, you can say goth insures against the threats, but on the other side of that coin, it can also support them being even more threatening and broken

 

[Hera]

Hi there! Lower tiers in old generations have always fascinated me due to their rich history, ease to pick up (at least to me), and a small but dedicated playbase. When Gen 5 PU was given a ladder, I was super excited to play a new tier, especially since I had recently gotten into PU. Unsure of my exact peak but think it was around Top 10ish, which means I think I have enough experience to weigh in on these possible(?) bans. Obviously not to extent of those such as EviGaro or Lilburr, but I do think I have unique thoughts on each of them.



I would like to preface this by stating that I generally do not care for a mon's defensive value to a tier when it comes to banning things. I feel that if one mon is such good of a glue, that may be signs that the metagame as a whole is bordering on unhealthy territory due to how it reduces the amount of defensive options available to a tier. For example, why run [insert solid defensive glue here] when you could run [insert much better defensive glue here]? It's a different kind of restricting where not using the super good glue is effectively limiting your team as a whole, thereby limiting your options when building. Even if this wasn't the case, often I see the defensive glue argument used as "well if we ban this then we have to ban other stuff", but if that mon was almost single-handily holding back a few other mons from being broken, then I still think that's a sign of a unhealthy metagame brewing.

With that being said, I believe Throh is unhealthy and overcentralizing in the tier. It doesn't completely wipe out teams; it's not made to do that, although SubBU is still great at demolishing unprepared teams. Instead, what Throh does is mandate the usage of one or more of its checks, or even Throh itself, to be able to deal with Throh, which is inherently constraining, especially in a tier with so many impactful offensive mons whose checks rarely overlap (your Throh check is not beating, say, Jumpluff or Simipour). In a standard tier, one could argue this is fine and dandy. After all, centralization is not bad by itself, as decentralization is even worse, making it near-impossible to build consistent teams. However, I think what pushes Throh over the edge is how it enables hazards-stacking teams so much by phazing its checks. Hazards removal is already hard to find due to only a few viable mons having Rapid Spin, which means teams are almost mandated to use Natu and predict correctly everytime hazards are going up (which is completely thrown out the window by Rampardos btw). Throh's ability to constantly force out its checks while forcing them to accumulate hazards damage is simply too much for me. To put it in lesser words, not using Throh is almost like shooting yourself in the foot most of the time. I can understand where the anti-ban Throh camp comes from, but I do think the tier would be healthier if it were gone.



Let's play Devil's Advocate here and say we're back in the year 2012, since it's really easy to say "lol STAG is dumb" and not think twice about it. This was a year where trapping was at least tolerated (from what I was able to read), to the point where it wasn't banned. From this perspective, would Gothorita be broken? Maybe not, but it would definitely be constraining in how it almost forces your "trappable" mons such as Vileplume and Mawile to run Shed Shell/Baton Pass so they aren't disposed of by Gothorita. So what does that say for the current metagame? Even worse considering how trapping has been viewed as an uncompetitive mechanic for longer than I've been on the site. Admittedly, Throh's viability does impact Gothorita quite a bit: being able to cleanly remove the #1 Pokemon in a tier is surely going to be a major reason as to why it's viable. However, even without Throh, Gothorita still has a massive list of unwilling victims. Vileplume and Mawile I already mentioned, but also Dweeble, Auduno, Mantine, basically any defensive mon not named Scraggy and even a few offensive ones are trapped by Gothorita. This turns Gothorita into an enabler of sorts, disposing of mons otherwise problematic to a team without any real drawback. This is especially troublesome due to how it can pick and choose what it can trap, making it impossible to figure out what member of your team it's built to trap. Goth is just dumb and broken no matter how you look at it, because even if trapping wasn't uncompetitive, it would still manhandle the tier and enable many otherwise fine threats.



Honestly, Beheeyem is the Pokemon I used the least when playing Gen 5 PU. I really don't like the archetype of "bulky special mon with a slow boosting move", especially one that felt so lacking in the physical bulk department. This lack of usage may explain why I'm more on the fence about Beheeyem than the others, as I wasn't able to use it enough to have a solid opinion on it. On one hand, it has a bunch of sets that are almost impossible to tell from team preview and hit extremely hard. Specs is great at forcing switches, TR preys on those said switchins to always move first for a few turns, and NP/CM removes the drawback of Specs in exchange for more power or bulk. The fact that Beheeyem forces so many of these switches due to its sheer power + Analytic + set diversity means it most likely is taking something down with it, and its bulk is just good enough to survive most unboosted neutral hits. On the other hand, I feel its speed and bulk is a direct detriment to it. Offensively, while it can sorta survive most neutral hits, it's still easy to pressure since it can't really fit Recover, and constant U-Turn chip, hazards, and other damage eventually wears you down. Idk if this is a flimsy anti-ban argument, but I do want to play more with Beheeyem before saying it's broken.



I'm quite surprised how okay for the tier it's been seen as, because in my experience it's the most broken thing in the tier (Throh is more unhealthy and Goth is more uncompetitive imo). Water is an extremely good offensive typing because of rain, and while every team should be prepared for it, Simipour just has the coverage to ultimately deny any defensive counterplay. Mantine/Chinchou looks like a good switch-in but gets blasted by HP Elec/Grass and and can't consistently check it, especially if Rocks are up, which they will be. Siminpour obviously can't run both, but this forces a guessing game as to what it's HP is, which puts these 50/50s in Simipour's favor since it can abuse the opponent's lack of knowledge. Being a naturally fast mon means both Specs and Scarf are strong sets capable of getting past counterplay, both offensive and defensive. And that's just Choice sets. SubNP pretty much has its way with the tier when its checks are slightly weakened, even being able to set up on some of them such as Mantine. This gives Simipour an amount of set diversity that makes it very hard to prep for, let alone properly predict which set it is. I think this is what pushes Simipour over the edge for me and why I consider it broken.

(just imagine this is sleep)

This may be because I'm newer to competitive Pokemon than most people here, but I really don't think sleep as a mechanic is the problem here. While sleep mechanics are different in BW than any other game, I believe sleep as a whole to be an inconsistent mechanic and hard to properly and consistently abuse. To prove this point, I decided to watch all 31 PUWC games of BW PU, and here are my results concerning sleep.

Replays where sleep user hit a sleep move and won:
SergioRules vs Decem
Mionda vs. SBPC !
ggggd vs. vivalospride
Fantos13 vs. SBPC !
tsukasa yuzaki vs. Eereshkigal
EviGaro vs. atomicllamas

Replays where sleep user hit a sleep move and lost:
Ereshkigal vs. SBPC !
SergioRules vs. Averardo

Replays where sleep user missed a sleep move:
EviGaro vs. SergioRules (This one was weird. Loser hit a sleep move that was ultimately pointless because they missed next two Sleep Powders to lose the game. Starts at turn 15 if you're wondering,)
tsukasa yuzaki vs. chilly lily (sleep user missed sleep move, didn't matter because they still won)
tsukasa yuzaki vs. Fantos13 (same thing that happened above happened here)

In a total of 31 games, 11 of them (35.48%) had sleep users, and of these 11, sleep was impactful in 7 of them (6 games won + the EviGaro vs. SergioRules one) (63.63%), winning 6 total games in which sleep was present. Admittedly, this does change my opinion a bit and I can see sleep being broken, but I feel that there's a common denominator when it comes to sleep: Jumpluff. It's the only one consistently abusing Sleep Powder to either force switches or setup SD and demolish non-Zebstrika teams. It sets up on Throh, Scraggy, and a few other tier staples even without Sleep Powder, and is very good at forcing a sac or just cleaning up a weakened team. Of course PUWC is not the only example of high-level BW PU games, but my data says that sleep, while good, isn't broken enough to be worthy of a ban, and only Jumpluff is consistently using and abusing it. If you wanna cut out the middle man and ban sleep, I'm fine with that, but I really don't believe it's broken.

tl;dr
-Throh is super constraining, unhealthy, and should be banned
-Even if STAG wasn't busted, Gothorita acts as a problematic enabler for a bunch of unproblematic threats and should be banned because of that
-On the fence with Beheeyem, not sure what to think
-Simipour is dumb and really lacks any consistent counterplay due to set diversity
-Sleep is fine and probably not broken with only Jumpluff abusing it, but if it's banned then I wouldn't really care
===============================================================================================

So originally, this was just a post talking about bans, but I remembered that the BW PU spotlight tour recently ended, so i wanted to do a quick analysis of that.

BW PU Spotlight Tour Usage Stats!

by ReeceHughes

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Throh              |  103 |  35.52% |  50.49% |
| 2    | Zebstrika          |  102 |  35.17% |  53.92% |
| 3    | Simipour           |   97 |  33.45% |  56.70% |
| 4    | Jumpluff           |   69 |  23.79% |  50.72% |
| 5    | Beheeyem           |   68 |  23.45% |  52.94% |
| 6    | Torterra           |   60 |  20.69% |  63.33% |
| 7    | Klang              |   58 |  20.00% |  55.17% |
| 8    | Stunfisk           |   57 |  19.66% |  49.12% |
| 9    | Natu               |   55 |  18.97% |  50.91% |
| 10   | Monferno           |   49 |  16.90% |  55.10% |
| 11   | Scraggy            |   47 |  16.21% |  55.32% |
| 12   | Mawile             |   45 |  15.52% |  44.44% |
| 13   | Gabite             |   44 |  15.17% |  52.27% |
| 14   | Gothorita          |   36 |  12.41% |  52.78% |
| 14   | Fraxure            |   36 |  12.41% |  44.44% |
| 16   | Golduck            |   32 |  11.03% |  50.00% |
| 17   | Dodrio             |   31 |  10.69% |  54.84% |
| 17   | Rapidash           |   31 |  10.69% |  32.26% |
| 19   | Dwebble            |   30 |  10.34% |  46.67% |
| 19   | Maractus           |   30 |  10.34% |  43.33% |
| 21   | Purugly            |   29 |  10.00% |  48.28% |
| 21   | Rampardos          |   29 |  10.00% |  48.28% |
| 21   | Simisear           |   29 |  10.00% |  34.48% |
| 24   | Stoutland          |   24 |   8.28% |  58.33% |
| 24   | Relicanth          |   24 |   8.28% |  45.83% |
| 24   | Vileplume          |   24 |   8.28% |  33.33% |
| 27   | Tentacool          |   22 |   7.59% |  68.18% |
| 27   | Swanna             |   22 |   7.59% |  50.00% |
| 29   | Shiftry            |   20 |   6.90% |  35.00% |
| 30   | Swoobat            |   19 |   6.55% |  52.63% |
| 31   | Simisage           |   18 |   6.21% |  55.56% |
| 31   | Mantine            |   18 |   6.21% |  44.44% |
| 31   | Victreebel         |   18 |   6.21% |  27.78% |
| 31   | Banette            |   18 |   6.21% |  22.22% |
| 35   | Vanilluxe          |   17 |   5.86% |  58.82% |
| 35   | Zweilous           |   17 |   5.86% |  35.29% |
| 37   | Krokorok           |   16 |   5.52% |  62.50% |
| 37   | Volbeat            |   16 |   5.52% |  50.00% |
| 39   | Pelipper           |   14 |   4.83% |  57.14% |
| 39   | Muk                |   14 |   4.83% |  42.86% |
| 41   | Ursaring           |   13 |   4.48% |  53.85% |
| 41   | Glalie             |   13 |   4.48% |  53.85% |
| 43   | Bronzor            |   12 |   4.14% |  58.33% |
| 44   | Audino             |   11 |   3.79% |  36.36% |
| 45   | Huntail            |    9 |   3.10% |  55.56% |
| 45   | Meganium           |    9 |   3.10% |  44.44% |
| 45   | Onix               |    9 |   3.10% |  33.33% |
| 48   | Chinchou           |    8 |   2.76% |  62.50% |
| 48   | Regigigas          |    8 |   2.76% |  50.00% |
| 48   | Mr. Mime           |    8 |   2.76% |  37.50% |
| 51   | Abra               |    7 |   2.41% |  42.86% |
| 51   | Lampent            |    7 |   2.41% |  28.57% |
| 53   | Graveler           |    6 |   2.07% |  83.33% |
| 53   | Frillish           |    6 |   2.07% |  66.67% |
| 53   | Kingler            |    6 |   2.07% |  50.00% |
| 53   | Duosion            |    6 |   2.07% |  16.67% |
| 53   | Marowak            |    6 |   2.07% |  16.67% |
| 58   | Ledian             |    5 |   1.72% |  60.00% |
| 58   | Lopunny            |    5 |   1.72% |  20.00% |
| 60   | Articuno           |    4 |   1.38% | 100.00% |
| 60   | Persian            |    4 |   1.38% |  75.00% |
| 60   | Illumise           |    4 |   1.38% |  50.00% |
| 60   | Wormadam-Trash     |    4 |   1.38% |  50.00% |
| 60   | Murkrow            |    4 |   1.38% |  50.00% |
| 60   | Gastly             |    4 |   1.38% |  50.00% |
| 60   | Diglett            |    4 |   1.38% |   0.00% |
| 67   | Togetic            |    3 |   1.03% |  66.67% |
| 67   | Lumineon           |    3 |   1.03% |  66.67% |
| 67   | Octillery          |    3 |   1.03% |  66.67% |
| 67   | Raticate           |    3 |   1.03% |  66.67% |
| 67   | Vullaby            |    3 |   1.03% |  66.67% |
| 67   | Baltoy             |    3 |   1.03% |  66.67% |
| 67   | Shelgon            |    3 |   1.03% |  66.67% |
| 67   | Dragonair          |    3 |   1.03% |  66.67% |
| 67   | Granbull           |    3 |   1.03% |  66.67% |
| 67   | Leafeon            |    3 |   1.03% |  33.33% |
| 67   | Chatot             |    3 |   1.03% |  33.33% |
| 67   | Seaking            |    3 |   1.03% |  33.33% |
| 67   | Kecleon            |    3 |   1.03% |  33.33% |
| 67   | Solrock            |    3 |   1.03% |   0.00% |
| 81   | Machoke            |    2 |   0.69% | 100.00% |
| 81   | Grumpig            |    2 |   0.69% | 100.00% |
| 81   | Beartic            |    2 |   0.69% |  50.00% |
| 81   | Glaceon            |    2 |   0.69% |  50.00% |
| 81   | Weepinbell         |    2 |   0.69% |  50.00% |
| 81   | Bellossom          |    2 |   0.69% |  50.00% |
| 81   | Munchlax           |    2 |   0.69% |  50.00% |
| 81   | Arbok              |    2 |   0.69% |   0.00% |
| 81   | Exploud            |    2 |   0.69% |   0.00% |
| 90   | Raichu             |    1 |   0.34% | 100.00% |
| 90   | Sneasel            |    1 |   0.34% | 100.00% |
| 90   | Fearow             |    1 |   0.34% | 100.00% |
| 90   | Slaking            |    1 |   0.34% |   0.00% |
| 90   | Marshtomp          |    1 |   0.34% |   0.00% |
| 90   | Pikachu            |    1 |   0.34% |   0.00% |
| 90   | Pawniard           |    1 |   0.34% |   0.00% |
| 90   | Sandshrew          |    1 |   0.34% |   0.00% |
| 90   | Boldore            |    1 |   0.34% |   0.00% |
| 90   | Staryu             |    1 |   0.34% |   0.00% |

The top 10 was filled with common metagame staples such as Throh, Simipour, and Klang, but the highest win rate out of these mons belonged to Torterra, with a 63% winrate while sitting at #6 in usage, and it's not hard to see why. Thanks to its bulk, reliable recovery in Synthesis, role compression, and ability to go offensive, it's able to meaningfully provide for a team in every matcha and has solidified itself as one of the best SR setters. It kinda struggles against Simipour, but otherwise is a very versatile threat.


Shiftry is ranked A+ on the (possibly outdated) viability rankings, yet did not see much usage compared to others in the same rank like Natu (#9), or Zebstrika (#2), sitting all the way down at #29. I personally never even touched Shiftry so I'm not sure why, but it had an awful winrate of only 35%. I'm not sure if it's simply bad, or people are using it wrong, but the usage + winrate is not painting a pretty picture for it.


| 1 | Throh | 103 | 35.52% | 50.49% |
| 3 | Simipour | 97 | 33.45% | 56.70% |
| 5 | Beheeyem | 68 | 23.45% | 52.94% |
| 14 | Gothorita | 36 | 12.41% | 52.78% |

As for the big four, looking at their numbers paints an interesting picture for the metagame. 3 out of the 4 are comfortably sitting in the top 5 in terms of usage, with Goth as the only outlier but still having double digit usage percents. They all won more than they lost, with Simipour having the highest win rate out of them and Throh having the lowest. This shows that, despite similar usage numbers, Simipour is the most effective out of the 3, Throh was the most common, Goth was seen as a more niche, but still threatening, pick, and Beheeyem was just solid in this tourney. I hope this helps forms opinions on whether or not these mons are ban-worthy.


And now for some Regi propaganda. Putting Regi on a bunch of my teams started as a meme because "lol funny Regi banned from ZU", but as I began to play with it, Regigigas surprised me and I think it has a legitimate place in the metagame thanks to a bunch of unique qualities. Slow Start + Normal-typing looks like easy Throh bait, but Substitute lets it avoid that. Confuse Ray (and sometimes Thunder Wave) creates so many free turns for it to shrug off Slow Start, and when it gets done, it hits like a truck. The fact that it's a great Throh lure, can status it without activating Guts (which is very important as a Guts-boosted Payback breaks Substitute), cleanly remove Throh with super powerful Returns, and can quickly snowball into a near unstoppable threat give it a unique niche on teams. In fact, usage stats indicate that it would even be PU by usage if this was still a usage-based tier. It can be inconsistent at times due to the 50% confusion chance and really slow speed, but I believe its unique qualities outweigh that enough to have a solid niche.

Here are some replays demonstrating its ability to get through teams with a bit of luck:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1237902522-kjzk5pzwyrkakdzoz43d9e0nglmt0xzpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1238321893
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1238414000

Thank you for reading!

 

[Akir]

Gen5 Voting Slate results:

Throh, Gothorita, and Sleep Moves are banned!

The results are in! I sent out surveys to the people who are heavily invested in the format, and I got 9 responses. I sent this out because action was obviously being demanded, so action was done. Thanks to ggggd DnB EviGaro MZ HJAD SergioRules Lilburr and SBPC for voting!

A supermajority was needed to ban, which would be 6/9 votes.

Votes

Throh: 6 PUBL / 3 PU
Gothorita: 8 PUBL / 1 PU
Beheeyem: 5 PUBL / 4 PU
Simipour: 5 PUBL / 4 PU
Sleep: 8 PUBL / 1 PU

Voting Justifications

Lilburr:
already did on this thread - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/bw-pu-discussion-and-development.3675651/post-8703583

MZ:
I think throh is too devastating of a breaker and bulkmon compared to what we have to deal with it. This is especially true if/when we can nuke shadow tag, which is just "you can't play around this so just pray their trapping isnt devastating enough". BEM I've gone back and forth on but I don't think we lack the tools to offensively pressure or defensively stall it out it's just kinda problem on the set guessing and managing to get ur checks in on offense to TR. Simipour is great but not rly running things, clear flaws to it idk. Sleep just removes a mon and I don't really see a downside to deleting it, Jumpluff is silly enough but random mons like Simisage and Purugly can run sleep and just tank your odds instantly if they hit a 55% move because the status is so broken which is Extremely Cool™.

SergioRules:
BW Sleep is BW Sleep and doesn't need much explanation. Forcing Pokemon out and having them continue to be crippled when they come back in or alternatively forcing them to stay in on bad matchups just so they can wake up. Gothorita's ability to basically guarantee at least one kill per game by trapping something is just so hard to deal with and limits building way too much for the tier. When thinking of the future of the BW tier, I'd rather have one without Gothorita in it, opening us up to much more innovation in the tier. Throh's defensive and offensive capabilities make it super hard for the tier. Banning it would open up so many new Pokemon to fully shine in the tier. Lilburr's post in the discussion thread listed over 20 Pokemon that are limited just by Throh's presence in the tier and also described how Throh makes Spikes so necessary. Neither Beheeyem or Simipour have been too over centralizing and once the tier is free from Gothorita and Throh, many other checks and counters to these will likely be opened up for more viability.

HJAD:</p><p>Throh: bulky mon, can be abused via offensive pressure and hazards, good glue for balance so needs to exist. Goth: shadow tag stupid Beheeyem: best mon in the tier by far and neccesary in order for endgames to be clean. Simipour: best breaker in the tier, made of paper but inability to pressure it effectively and with perfect coverage tips it Sleep: nah i havent seen a reasonable argument to ban this yet? Would prefer to ban the sleep mon itself

ggggd:
BW sleep is dumb and just makes every non Zebstrika (trash mon btw) team have to sack a mon to jumpluff, no reason to keep it Simipour is insane, Specs is uncheckable bar shit like kecleon and Scarf is the best cleaner in the tier, water resists are all terrible or die to ice beam, ive found the best counter to be throh but it dies to 3 hydro pumps and cant really check it after it rested once No reason to keep goth, it makes a lot of things almost unviable or enables some mons to be too good. I.e it can trap a lot of potential Throh checks (Swanna, Vileplume, Duosion, non-Specs Beheeyem, Band Dodrio), which make it seem more broken than what I believe it would be otherwise. Uncompetitive etc etc Id like to see both Throh and Beheeyem in the meta without Gothorita. Ive never rly been too annoyed by beheeyem, and I believe its because people mostly use the specs set. Specs is mostly an one time nuke because it wont come in on anything and its too slow to fire more than 1 hit most of the time, and even then its manageable (Scraggy, Klang, Krookorok are some decent checks). If people used more of the defensive NP set Id potentially see it being broken, specially without Gothorita to trick it. Throh is a lot more bothersome because it abuses the lack of hazard removal really well, but ive found it to be manageable with the psychic types, Jumpluff, Banette etc. I think Gothorita being gone is essential to make some the aforementioned Throh checks viable as well.

EviGaro:
I posted about it, but changed my mind a bit about Simipour ROFL would just rather it be gone because like I alluded to it has zero utility beyond being the dumbest breaker in a tier full of good enough breakers anyway

SBPC:
I made a post in the dev thread, thoughts haven't changed since then

dnb:
Voting ban on everything to really change up the meta. shadow tag & sleep have to go for sure, no question about that. shadow tag is just a broken & bad mechanic and sleep is simply OP in BW. throh fits on every teamstyle, can use multiple sets that beat all its checks and is in my opinion unhealthy for the meta. beheeyem also has no real checks except klang & scraggy, banning it would also make klang & scraggy weaker, both would become insanely good after throh is gone. simipour makes the game into a guessing game, is it scarf? or will it sub down and nasty plot? to me its the least broken one of the 3 mons we're voting on, but it still creates a lot of stupid interactions

Akir:
I stand by my opinion that Throh is the best mon in the format to an incredible degree. The sheer amount that Throh checks in a singular slot is incredible, to the point where Throh can tank physical attackers without any EV investment into defense. Combine that with the stupid good phazing in a format with plenty of spikes but little spin, and you have a mon that is an overbearing backbone of the format. Throh does have drawbacks of course - reliance on Rest for recovery is a severe smirch - but even then, the amount that Throh can do is starting to weigh down the format. As Lilburr put it, you are either running Throh, running Scraggy as a Throh alternative, running HO that doesn't need Throh as much, or you aren't building. I do worry about the lack of glue moving forward however, but we can always unban Throh if things are for the worse. STAG and Sleep are...well, STAG and Sleep. I am banning them largely to add more consistency to the tier. If Sleep is banned then checking certain threats will be easier, and with the Throh ban that is very important. Evi made the point that Gothorita actually adds a lot to the format and that is an interesting and informed take, however I think it is a problematic patch to a bigger issue of the format being sometimes shaky. It is my hope that banning Goth and Throh and everything else will go a long way to ensuring that the format becomes easier to play. Beheeyem and Simipour are here because they have always been on the fence. Always on the verge of going over. But my stance on it is pretty simple: I think the easiest fix to having too many borderline-broken threats to check is to decide that they are unhealthy for the format. Getting rid of these two would go a long way in lowering the overall power level of the format, and with Throh gone and with us having to rely on less efficient glue, I think that this is an issue that we have to go all in for.

Kris please implement this on to the server!

So Beheeyem and Simipour survived the bans, but I fully expect them to be back soon. But for now, these bans open up a lot of opportunities in the format. Hopefully this is brand new, fresh start for the format. Additionally, sample teams are being updated. If you have one worth consideration, please send it my way!

 

[Akir]

Tier Update:

Simipour is Quickbanned from BW PU!

Simipour has been on the watchlist for years at this point, but didn't enjoy true success until the Throh ban. From there, Simipour has been a terror to BW PU. A Choice Scarf made Simipour both one of the best revenge killers (if not the best period) and a SubNP set allowed Simipour to take 1 singular turn to completely flip matches on their heads. Simipour has quickly solidified itself as the threat to beat in BW PU.

Recent tournament usage is an excellent example of how dominant Simipour has become. Several weeks of recent PLs, such as Week 2 of BWPL, has Simipour with an effective 100% winrate. One can even look at other usage rates to see Simipour's obvious effect. The best example of this would be Tentacool, who is a fairly passive spinner with no recovery in an offensive metagame but does wall Scarf Simipour and with that was able to achieve #1 usage in BWPL.

To build upon the Tentacool usage, Simipour enjoys very limited counterplay. Near-perfect coverage from Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, and HP Electric means that few walls can properly stand up to the monkey. Bulky Grasses such as Vileplume are pushed aside by a consistent 2HKO from Ice Beam, bulky Waters such as Mantine are usually blown to pieces by HP Electric, and generally bulky walls such as Audino or Klang struggle to consistently take repeated Hydro Pumps even before factoring in Torrent. Combine that with its base 101 Speed confidently putting Simipour faster than most of the metagame and every single wall, and you have a Pokemon that can prove difficult to properly counter. All of this goes without mentioning that Choice Scarf and SubNP Simipour require largely different checks but look the exact same until they are revealed. Because of this, an unusually large amount of matches have been decided by a player having to guess which Simipour it is and losing.

At the end of the day, the overpowering offensive presence of Simipour overloads the format. Combined with the fact that Simipour adds basically nothing to the cohesion to tier, the idea that the tier's #1 problem is too many overpowering threats, and the community's unusually singular stance on Simipour, Simipour is quickbanned from BW PU effective immediately.

As for the future of the tier, I am excited to see what will happen now that Simipour is out of the runnings. Even so, after PUWC I am wanting to hold a proper community vote for Simipour and a few other points of interest so that the tier can move even stronger into PU Classic. I have ever-growing confidence in the format, and this change is one I have been wanting for a very good while now. So good luck to everyone, and rip sample teams.

Kris please update the BW PU format to not include Simipour when you have a chance. As always, I really appreciate your help in keeping these tiers running.

 

[Akir]

New BW PU Polling

So as promised, I have a voting sheet for both Simipour and weather. However, I want to do something a bit more direct with this decision. In my opinion, the BW PU community is at such a size that I can poll the entire community. So with that:

Click here to give your opinion on Simipour, Weather, and the metagame as a whole!

Keep in mind that I am vetting these, so please keep jokes elsewhere. But I don't plan to vet many, if any. So please, give your input as clearly as possible! Note for clarity: no this is not the banning voting slate, I just want to have an effective gauge of opinion.

 

[Lily]

I'm not normally one to complain about stuff like this, and originally I was going to keep my mouth shut, but at this point I really feel the need to question what the heck is going on here.

For starters I'm quite frankly baffled at the Simipour ban process. It is so, so unfair to players of a niche oldgen tier to completely uproot it, without warning, days before a major tournament. Yes, I'm aware that I was randomly pinged in the main PU discord at three in the morning (by someone not really all that involved,at that) and no I don't consider that to be enough notice. I won't speak for the rest of the playerbase but it completely killed my motivation for PUWC and honestly has ruined a lot of my love for the tier as a whole. Also had to scrap an entirely finished article because this came out of nowhere.

And now we're here, seemingly still not getting a qualified vote? I'm not here to be an elitist bitch and say that less experienced players don't matter or anything of the sort, but this is so out of place. Open forms are not the correct way to go about this. I don't even think trolling is the issue here; you're just opening things up to people who don't have a clue what they're talking about, without telling anyone this is how the process would change.

To be blunt this tier has gone to shit. Banning the best form of speed control has left the weathers to just do whatever the hell they want and stall's increased dominance isn't exactly a coincidence. It wasn't in a great state before now but at this point it's pretty much unplayable. I say this as someone looking at it with rose-tinted glasses - BW PU is my favourite tier ever, or at the very least it was.

I dislike seeming like I'm whining, I have a lot of respect and love for this playerbase and metagame. It hurts me to see it go down the drain like this, though; it was not unbalanced before Simipour's ban, and all these changes without community input (like seriously, an Articuno van?) are just sucking whatever life force remains out of the tier. Please reconsider what's happening here. And please start giving us some notice.

 

[Akir]

After reading the above post, I edited the original post to be more clear, but for the sake of thoroughness I'll say it here too: no, that form is not the actual banning slate. No action will come of it immediately. BW PU has a dispersed community with sometimes largely varying opinions as seen above, so I wanted a way to gauge people's opinions for moving forward. On top of that, the additional "future action" part tries to take all of those varying opinions into consideration based on what I've seen, so I'm not expecting or even wanting people to agree with all of them. In fact, confusion is fine. Frankly I'm personally opposed to all of them.

That being said, I apologize for the confusion. I really have enough experience to not be making rookie mistakes like that.

 

[Thatwhiteninja]

with the recent ban of throh i believe that scraggy my favorite Pokémon will become more used in the current metagame.
Scraggy @ Eviolite
Ability: Shed Skin
EVs: 124 HP / 120 Atk / 80 Def / 184 SpD
Careful Nature
- Bulk Up
- Crunch
- Drain Punch
- Rest
with this set i believe that scraggy will be used more because it`s ability to absorb status. most mons are weak to teams that have heavy status use. scraggy looks really good because of the large amounts of psychic type. he can set up on them and break through most teams. i don`t think that scraggy is broken but it should be looked at in the future.
thanks for your time and keep vibing with scraggy

 

[Akir]

So with the BW PU Classic right around the corner, I figured it was time to report on how the survey went. I won't be posting the raw survey results because I am hoping for some potentially late entries to be submitted, but this is what I have now (16 entries):

So from this, we can see that 68.8% of people who responded feel in some form or another positively about the metagame. This number is obviously lower than I was hoping or is the ideal, but is still technically a majority. About 1/5 of respondents feel slightly negatively about the meta however, with 1 person voting a genuine negative for a total of a little over 25%. I am hoping that, with time and more surveys to properly reach out to this group, this group will shrink over time. After all, this meta will be considered "good" when the community itself deems it.

This one is more interesting to me though. I am not so crazy as to expect the Yes to ever reach 100%, but even so a solid 62.5% of people giving a firm Yes is good with a notable lack of any definitive No votes. As for the people who voted to be in the middle, let's not waste time and just jump into the clues for how they are feeling with the next few charts.

I find this one to be extremely disappointing to be honest. I know that there are many more pro-Simipour people out there than the 2 shown here. However, until they vote (which I absolutely encourage btw, I made this survey for the purpose of incorporating as many varied voices as possible) I have to roll with what I have and that is that a solid 3/4 of the reporting playerbase is in favor of the Simipour quickban staying as is (until the vote to actually decide it that is). Even so, this is a smaller percentage than I originally thought, so even with the current blessing given from the reporting playerbase I think that the survey's existence is entirely justified and necessary to give as much perspective as possible for future bans. Speaking of,

This is a mess. What I can discern from this one is that the playerbase largely wants some kind of action done but is somewhat split on what is to be done. But as stated above, this is not the voting slate so here is what I can discern from this:

1. There is a strong minority of people that do not want anything done to weather presently.
2. Sun is not seen as a primary issue, with half of respondents voting as such.
3. If any action were to be done, it would be about Damp Rock.

So with all of that in mind, I have to apologize to the people who were begging me to ban rain and say that I will not be doing so during the classic. Instead, I can supply teams with a decent anti-rain matchup to help out. Just ask! I'll even take reasonable requests, but understand that I might not get back to you same day. As for why I'm not banning rain right now the answer is simple: Classic is too close and if there are this many holdouts then there just needs to be more time to settle the metagame and let people decide. There was a notable downturn for rain in PUWC as well, so I am interested to see if this trend continues.

This here is the last one and I think the most notable part of this is the sheer lack of responses. This is a pretty clear indicator that as of right now, the community really is only thinking about Simipour and rain. So those two will be the first 2 on the voting sheet with Beheeyem once again finding itself on the fence for a voting slate to be decided over the course of the Classic. I am also happy to report that no one chose Articuno, and this is great because I honestly thought that discussion was...well it existed I guess so I threw it up here.

I will not be posting the last feedback portion for anonymity's sake, but I can still give a few highlights based on people's overlapping responses:

• The people demand a vote on Damp Rock.
• A good portion of people believe that the metagame, as it currently stands, does not really need any more bans. Maybe 1 or 2 if needed, but it appears that the days of BW trimming down threats is coming to a close.
• Gothorita needs another look, so says the people, so it might find itself on the next slate if more people ask about it.
• Multiple people reported feeling that at the moment the metagame just needs time to settle more than anything. I agree, so nothing will be done before Classic.

And with that, I would like to remind people that the survey is still open if you have not taken the time to fill it out yet. Thank you to everyone who has already filled it out! If you need teams for the BW Classic, just send me a pm and I'll slide some over. I wish I had time to compete but it comes at a bad time for me, so please take my teams and win for me kthx