OU ADV OU Viability Ranking and Metagame Discussion

[asterat]

tw; ladder shitter opinions

I subscribe to Metagross, Zapdos, and Jirachi being the 3 mons that sit above the rest of the metagame, because I feel there is very limited teambuilding counterplay to what they do. Jirachi has so many sets that even if you know your opponent will bring Jirachi at some ludicrous frequency, there isn't that much you can do that won't be foiled by some of Jirachi's common teammates. Also, Jirachi stands alone as a mon that wins games out of thin air by either hax, getting up a substitute at the wrong time, or just having the perfect coverage. Even if you have whatever counter you can easily lose to your counter being worn down, trapped by Dug, or frozen or burned at the wrong time, which is something that sets Jirachi apart from a lot of other sweepers. Zapdos and Metagross don't completely win games in the same way, but there isn't much you can do to counter Zapdos' bp momentum and Metagross' explosion. Because Metagross can kill anything and Zapdos can bp out, they are also somewhat close to uncounterable in the same way Jirachi is.

The next tier is solid metagame staples that all have a massive impact on how the metagame works. Gengar and Skarmory were easily candidates for the tier above in my mind, but I put them here. Suicune > Swampert is probably a bit unusual, but I've really come around on offensive cune. Part of this is just how strong Zapdos + Dug + Jirachi is, and that offensive cune or even a cune with rest is a natural fourth mon. I am also kind of low on Milotic and think a lot of Milotics should just be Suicunes. On the other hand, pert is obviously always going to be good but is not as difficult to counter as Suicune, and I don't think offpert is really all that great. I think ddmence is still really good, people are just spamming mixmence more than I think they should, bulky dd mence is a real threat. Celebi is somewhat inconsistent, but always really bulky and offensive sets are sometimes an autowin.

I'm a little bit low on Blissey just because it is always planned for, Blissey is a known quantity that special offenses have dedicated plans to beat through boom, dug, focus punch, 404 hp subs, etc. It is still good, but that's why I have it here. Spinners are spinners, part of my high opinion on cune is going to be a high opinion on Claydol. Aerodactyl is the best cleaner (maybe belongs in tier above?) and Breloom is frustratingly consistent while providing some nice secondary defensive utility sometimes.

I think Moltres is really quite good, weather reset is quite good and even amongst standard offensive Moltres there is a lot of stuff you can do with it. Even its hardest counters aren't full stops, they can easily be harassed with status or roared out. Blissey or Milotic switching in on spikes and getting statused (with sand up) takes off quite a bit of health and forces them to recover. The bulk is nice too. The rest of this tier is consistentish mons that require support or have a large flaw, but potential big payoffs. Heracross can do nothing or win games against the right teams, Snorlax has huge stats but is worn down super easily, Magneton is the king of a mediocre archetype, etc. I think Hariyama is a bit overrated, knock is cool but if you aren't playing a long drawn out game it isn't necessarily that great, like knocking into a skarm switch turn 1 isn't necessarily great. It also gets worn down, and doesn't come in nearly as easily as the big HP would have you think. Charizard is a lot weaker and frailer than Moltres, but high ceiling. Gyarados is cool, innovations like sub and HP ghost are pretty neat, but he feels like he needs mag support or a lot of skarm lures. I like that he checks cune though.


From here, just a few thoughts on the mons I've experimented with more.

Flygon's stats always feel spread too thin, except with choice band which feels great when your opponent has no earthquake immunities I guess. Fat flygon feels like a matchup fish, although it can be really useful I guess.

inspired by BKC's regice video I made my own regice team: Zapdos (lead bp)/Dugtrio/Jirachi (subCM)/Regice (twave boom)/Suicune (rain dance cm)/Gengar (hypno, wisp, ice punch, boom). I feel that Regice is decent and it is truly bulky, but a mediocre substitution on an otherwise great team. I don't think it can fit on many structures either. I'd challenge someone to build a decent Regice team that isn't reusing like 3 of the pokemon from what I had.. It also struggles to split EVs, and honestly how often are you running into teams that don't have Jirachi, Metagross, Tyranitar. Usable, but not great..

I think this guy sucks. It's a really shitty metagross, so you use it alongside Metagross, but also you want Tyranitar, right? So Tyranitar/Regirock/Metagross you're just piling weaknesses and slow as all hell, I don't know. I couldn't make this guy work too well.

75% of the time it works every time. Absolutely sucks when it gets paralyzed, great if it has a favorable lead matchup and hits sleep powder. Hidden power and giga drain are also really annoyingly weak, which sucks.

flawed but pretty good at what it does, and has a pretty neat movepool with stuff I haven't really experimented with. Houndoom + Breloom is actually kinda nice, and can also work alongside stuff like Forretress, although I do think a lot of Houndoom's value comes from an opponent assuming special pursuit ttar, not that that is such a bad thing though. Really frail though and susceptible to doing nothing.

feels like a better Venusaur to be honest, Venusaur has the ability to switch out of the lead and come back in using its water resist or whatever, but its bulk is really limited in spikes and sand. Jynx + Dug works, and Jynx is really threatening off the rip if it hits lovely kiss.

really frail dude, just dies pretty quick. I think Breloom or Heracross is gonna be better in most teams, the rock resist is cute and all but this shit isn't saving you from an Aero lol. Also it's afraid of Gengar. I think Machamp might even be better lol.

similar to Medicham, the rock resist is cute but just isn't bulky enough with its awful speed tier. Speedpass works though, even if it is cheesy.

edit: venusaur and jynx should be swapped in my ranking.

 

[DancingAlong]

S++ Tyranitar

S+ Jirachi

S Celebi Suicune Skarmory [BL: Salamance]

S- Blissey

A++ Zapdos Metagross Swampert Gengar [BL: Snorlax]

A+ Claydol

A Aerodactyl Starmie Milotic

A- [BL: Dugtrio Jolteon Gyarados] Forretress Magneton Breloom Flygon

B++ Moltres Kingdra Heracross

B+ [BL: Charizard Cloyster] Porygon2 Haryama Houndoom Vaporeon

B [BL: Raikou Medicham] Slaking Steelix Umbreon Jynx Smeargle Venusaur Weezing Ludicolo Dragonite

B- [BL: Blaziken] Marowak Machamp Sceptile Regice Regirock Exeguttor Dusclops Miltank Alakazam Ninjask [BL: Scizor Tauros Jumpluff]

B- - Camerupt Domphan Lanturn Gardevoir Registeel Rhydorn [BL: Entei Arcanine Lapras]

C++ [BL: Cradily Swellow Tentacruel] Banette Ursaring Kangaskhan Dodrio Typhlosion Crobat Misdreavous Espeon Armaldo Nidoqueen [BL: Nidoking Articuno Pikachu]

C+ Hitmonlee Hitmontop Zangoose Raichu Walrein Slowbro Pelipper Kabutops Aggron Quagsire Shuckle Murkrow

C [BL: Primeape Vileplume Victreebell Mantine Blastoise] Meganium Clefable Hypno Poliwhirl Golduck Linoone Qwilfish Lunatone Grandbull Muk Schyther Altaria Mawile Persian Togetic Wigglytuff Rapidash Slowking Gorybass Electabuzz Xatu Glalie Ampharos Feraligatr Electrode Girafarig

C- [BL: Wailord Pinsir] Octillery Azumarill Shiftry Ninetales Parasect Omastar Politoad Golem Fearow Bellossom Grumpig Sableye Absol Roselia Stantler Solrock Butterfree Chimencho Delcatty Magcargo Kingler et al.


Description and analysis:

- Four tears (S, A , B , C)
- Metrics: .prowess (p), .splashability (sps), .enviromental fitness (ef).
[p= stats, typing, ability, movepool] [sps= prowess applicated to teambuilding/ versatility] [ef= fitness, perfomability within the characteristics of the metagame]

Tier S : the meta-defining pokemons
Tier A : staples
Tier B : situational mons
Tier C : viable mons

[note: BL stands for Border Line, not Banned List]

sub-tiers:
s++ overlord; s+ deity; s- meta-defining but exploitable;
a++ egregious staples/ godmons; a+ more than a staple; a- staples but exploitable/flawed in some ways
b++ egregious situational mons; b+ great situational mons; b- good at their job, but that's it; b-- nichemons
c++ weaker nichemons; c+ more than viable/hardtocomeby nichemons; c- barely viable.

Controversial picks:
Jirachi s+ [p 5/5, sps 5/5, ef 5/5]
Celebi s [p 5/5+, sps 5/5, ef 4/5]; Suicune s [p 5/5+, sps 5/5, ef 4/5]; Salamance s [p 5/5+, sps 4/5, ef 4/5]
Blissey s- [p 5/5+, sps 5/5, ef 3/5+]
Zapdos a++ [p 5/5, sps 4/5+, ef 3/5+]; Metagross a++ [p 5/5, sps 4/5, ef 4/5]; Snorlax a++ [p 5/5+, sps 3/5+, ef 3/5]
Claydol a+ [p 3/5+, sps 5/5, ef 5/5]
Dugtrio a- [p 3/5+, sps 4/5, ef 4/5]; Breloom a- [p 4/5, sps 3/5+, ef 3/5]; Flygon a- [p 3/5+, sps 3/5, ef 4/5+]
Kingdra b++ [p 4/5+, sps 2/5+, ef 3/5];
Porygon2 b+ [p 4/5, sps 3/5, ef 2/5+]

 

[McMeghan]

Bi-annual post about my VRs. A quick summary of my thoughts expressed during a stream that can be found on Youtube. You're gonna see a lot of "I like"/"I dislike", the statements represent my views of the tier and how I play it, not absolute truths.

The McRankings 2021 Pt.2​

I like DD the most, especially with DE as coverage, works the best consistently. DD FP is nice for early big punch and finishing. 4 Atk Ttar has the best defensive value + offensive process. Pursuit is lame on defensive teams that need it to remove Gengar to work, can go wrong too often. Twave on physttar is a good Skarm crippler.

Sub BP has finally been spammed again, absolute terror and create big offensive swings early. Return of RestalkRoar @ MaxSpdef is interesting and a good fit on fat TSS, especially Bliss-less. Peck's strong with Spikes, at the cost of defensive value.

CB still amazing, Mix good at picking its "do not fuck with me" coverage to land the boom you want. I've been liking PhysDef with Spikes for extra offensive oomph.

Skarmory makes every good 'mon better and makes some good 'mon incredible. Teams that use Skarm without relying on its spikes to work are some of my favorite (read: pairing with things like Mence or Metagross rather than Moltres or Flygon). Thief is great alongside DP if you want a strong tool in the TSS mirror as it's not hard to create a situation where you land it vs the opposite Skarm; also good vs other targets obviously. Phaze-less is worth alonsgside Roar Cune or Pert and a real bitch of a wall to deal with without Magneton.

As solid as ever. I like to use Surf pretty much always because it hits everything, although very often with Roar. Counter is a nice last slot to have a OHKO move vs Mence, DD TTar or Zapdos in a pinch.

Unique typing/movepool can fit into every teams and create unique structures. Physdef is insanely suffocating in the right conditions, much more than SpDef. On the offensive side, SubCM is a real terror and can win a lot of games it "shouldn't" win. I love WishCM on the right teams, advice to run alongside a cleric.

Insane defensive utility thanks to the typing + Intimidate, making it a great pivot on offense and defense alike alongside staples like Meta or Jirachi. Also great at inverting the momentum thanks to the speed and offensive process. Offensive sets often have a slot to tech very unique moves that can swing games like Roar, Wish or Refresh. DD has also proven to be strong on balance (and prob the best way to use it compared to MagOffense).

Avoid relying too much on her as the sole special check because it gets abused very badly. Not a big fan these days without a spinner either. Wish is still good, Sing + Dug is very strong at times. My favorite cleric and a recommendation alongside Stalk-less Rest Cune, Wish CM Rachi or Rest Snorlax.

Dugtrio offense is mid. Dugtrio + Spikes is very strong. Exposes poorly put together teams. Dugtrio + Spikes is insane on defensive structures to prevent some bad boys to get to your crucial defensive pieces (Meta before it booms, 4 Atk Ttar, Hera, etc). A great enabler of unique strategies and lower ranked Pokemons as well. Need a strong plan vs hazards because Skarmory vs Dug teams is really awful to deal with at times. Also watch out for DDMence/Gyara considering their current popularity. Oh, and Dugtrio + Spikes allow for funky coverage on some Pokemons by picking off all the Ground weak Pokemons (think EQ-less DDMence or Claydol)

Too good at what it does, instant momentum grabber and gives you offensive counterplay against everything thanks to sheer power and coverage. Never quite out of a game with it on your team.

Not really my cup of tea because it needs too clinical plays for my taste, and also a lot of teams that run it put too much marbles into keeping Spikes to work. As I've said for years, DBond is really good and can turn the tables vs Claydol (or a lot of things really). I've been liking the Calm spreads exploration to beat Pursuittar 1v1 as well. Possibly the best defensive Jirachi punish as a Body Slam pivot + threat of WoW. A staple of Special Offense in my opinion for its ability to lure special wall and semi-check a ton of things that would run through those teams otherwise (and take some weight off Zapdos shoulders defensively).

CroCune always kind of a threat. Roar CM really strong with Spikes and a Cleric (and Dug). OffCunes are back and dangerous as ever when you don't run into Bliss, great early pressure for Special Offenses. Sub sets can steal games out of nowhere. A good 'mon to put on some of your teams when you need that one extra push vs defensive teams, where a regular bulky Water wouldn't help.

Claydol has the perfect set of moves and stats to be useful every games. Defenses to avoid OHKOs almost always, best Spinner and Boom just completely change gamestates. Also a natural typing that makes it a good pivot/help vs all the popular Pokemons (Ttar, Zap, Jira, Aero, Gengar). It's never a perfect counter to anything, but always a good secondary check. I think Claydol teams are always very solid as a result.

Curse EQ Sball Boom is the most reliable offensive set imo. Snorlax outside of Sand is worth using/building around because it's that good. Curse is unironically very strong into Forret teams too.

Not nearly as much of a fan this time around, requires too precise plays to work in my opinion. Spinning with it is always a nightmare, I hate it. Often plays from behind and hard to get into the zone because of 4x Fire weak and can't really risk too much with it because it's too detrimential for the teams it finds itself on. My preferences at the end of the day: hate spinning with it, Spikes + 3 Atk is where its at, with side Claydol or Starmie (usually Claydol's better). Counter + HP Bug very consistent and useful in many situations. Zap Cannon worth using the Para vs Skarm and Gengar.

I don't like Offensive sets much, but Recover 3 Atk (with Surf) is my favorite. I've tried but dislike 2 Atk Offensive Spin Recover. TW+Recover bulky Mie is the most unique combination Starmie can do and is a good fit into many teams, although never quite the perfect Spinner, need to be paired with some strong anti-TSS combos to work in my opinion. Fast TWaves are really good to handle many offensive Pokemons, making it a bit more than a Spinner as a result.

Biggest downfall of the meta shifts in my opinion. Still think defensive sets are too easily pressured. BP sets have all become hit or miss in my opinion, most good builders/players prep for them and will cut the chain pretty easily (faster Pokemons that OHKO or Roar), and now your team falls apart. At least I've been liking Light Screen on those TSS where Celebi kinda takes Blissey spot because you're not as weak to Suicune/CM Jirachi now.

Spore + Fighting stabs = immediate pressure and progress, simplify gameplans. I'm not that much of a fan of sets hardwalled by Gengar nowadays, I like my Leech Looms or HP of choice over one of the 3 fighting slots.

Skarm's amazing -> Magneton's good. Enable a lot of cool offensive combos. I like to use MaxSpa so I can finish off Metagross from higher HPs, often pretty important for gameplanning to remove this bad boy. I don't like it on all-out Offenses tho, I prefer it more on Balance or alongside Spikes.

Milo hasn't changed too much in my opinion. I guess Suicune being more common makes is worse tho (not to mention CMRachi). Lot of Milo teams don't have very good SubIB Cune counterplay (or CroCune longterm). The key to Milo nowadays imo is Spikes + Dug. Need Spikes to make offensive progress while Milo's hardwalling stuff, and Dug will pick up some of the things Milo isn't good against, such as Meta and DDTtar. However, the need to Spin asap for Milo to work is a really taxing job.

Almost always worse than MixMence in my opinion (or Zapdos), but being able to immediately turn the tables vs Gross and more importantly pivot into WoW are two traits I've been appreciating a lot. I never use it without Spikes though.

Weaker DDMence with a unique and sick typing. HPGhost good coverage and OHKO on Gengar are neat.

Hera has the tools to immediately force your opponent into an awkward position, which is strong. However it doesn't often have many shots at breaking through so it's not really consistent. Best sleep absorber by the way. I think SD EQ has hidden potential.

Too reliant on Spikes to work for my tastes, but quite a sturdy spikes immune 'mon makes it the perfect fit for some teams that have a pretty good ceiling. I don't like offensive sets, EQ isn't a spammable enough stab.

JoltSpikes hasn't really changed in my opinion, but I appreciate Jolt in some offenses as a soft special check (to Zap/Gar/Mie). Sub Lum BP is neat to turn the tables early vs Zapdos while still being useful later. Fast Wish is cool.

One of the best offensive leads, Ice Stab + Sleep is very strong to create offensive advantage that will make up for the lackluster defensive balance of the team.

Heracross without the godly strong bug stab, and much worse defensively, but a guarantee at potentially making offensive progress if you click the good moves. Higher risk higher reward.

I feel like I could like Charizard move, but I've only started appreciating Moltres recently, and my attempts at using Zard havent paid out yet. Insanely good offensive movepool though but I've been liking Moltres bulk more.

I haven't really liked Cloyster much, I tend to prefer Skarmory even in super fast paced offense because it can come more freely on the field and doesnt risk dying as fast.

Great and sturdy vs spikeless, pretty bad into spikes. P2 + Mag is a good pairing but very hard to land a good 6 with that core I feel, or at least I haven't really tried in the past months.

Feel like I could use this Pokemon more but it's definitely a bad bulky water compared to the other options and Vap Offenses aren't really what I feel compelled to build/use, very unique and strong there though.

I always wanna use it with Spikes, Spin and Magneton, but hard to make a good team that fits all of them. Think the way to go is Spikes Spin + Skarm crippler. Beside that, if you have teams with Protect Gross and realize you could use extra help vs Electrics, Steelix might be your man.

I never like using it, too slow for offensive process, not bulky/resilient/flexible to passive damage enough for defensive duties.

See Hariyama, I'm more of a Hera/Medi kind of guy.

Roar on a Grass type is cool, very good vs MonoWaters, which can be a pain for some TSS, especially the Toxic kind.

I tend to prefer Jynx as a lead. However, I believe CM Jynx isn't as consistent, whereas CM Raikou (even as a lead) is consistent, so not awful. I've heard of back Roar Raikou with Spikes, might be worth exploring?

MeanTrap is lame and cancerous. However, SpDef with Pursuit isnt too terrible and being able to switch into WoW Gengar freely (and even defensive Jirachi and get a status back) is quite unique and happens regulary enough to the point where the Pokemon is worth using.

Stab Ice good, forces specific plays, not too awful on the good old Ttar/Dug/Gar teams. I've been liking lead Regice and will post more about it in the future.

See Steelix but not as bad vs Skarmory/Waters but worse vs Ttar/Jirachi/Twave.

Either a pain in the ass, or ass itself. I don't like Smeargle offense where it's the only spiker, too many bad lead matchups where you can't afford giving up the momentum early like that. 1 Spikes also not enough for "HO" to work. I think those teams need a second Spiker to work consistently.

Off Starmie on steroids but need a turn of setup.

See Steelix but Spin and worse vs Elecs. I only like this guy with Mag and Spikes now. Maybe worth exploring without Mag with a Cleric, a Skarm crippler and maybe a Wisher.

Nothing new to add honestly.

Explosion, Spikes, Taunt, Ice Stab and Zapdos pivot are actually all very good and consistent tools in ADV. I like it a lot on HO alongside another spikes (read: Smeargle). Pretty dogshit outside of all of that though.

Knock Off + Sand immunity = good, but fits very slow & stally teams, also weird typing making it hard to wall as much as you'd like with a defensive team.

See Medicham but even more weaknesses and less power physically. Good pressure early though, worth using.

Don't really rate outside of cheese, but very strong in those teams.

Good on ParaSpam, but ParaSpam aint that good to begin with.

Unique defensive utilities and has good offensive moves, but can't/won't use it myself. I trust Hclat/Altina (and dice) there.

Alright on Rock Spam (alongside Ttar and Aero) thanks to TWave and Toxic immunity.

Kind of a worse Jynx/Raikou overall but will outspeed everything at lead. I've tested bakc Zam with Encore but didn't like it, defensive utility is too awful.

A pretty extreme take on fighters.

Pokemons I didn't bother ranking but think are worth using-exploring more-too inconsistent for my tastes: Houndoom / Dragonite / Dusclops / Exeggutor / Gardevoir / Jumpluff / Ninjask / Regirock / Sceptile / Scizor / Weezing / Cradily / Golduck / Hypno / Lanturn / Mantine / Nidoking / Nidoqueen / Politoed / Solrock / Lunatone

 

[SEA]

Offense Spammer VRs V2, try not to flame me too hard :P
(don't put too much stock into the letter rankings, they don't mean too much)

S Rank

Nothing represents ADV quite like Tyranitar. Whether it's Pursuit sets failing to reliably trap Gengar, Dragon Dance sets flinching through Milotic, Special sets missing Fire Blast vs CM Jirachi, or Guacamole Mixtar Penis, Tyranitar truly has it all. DD Focus Punch is sick.


CB Meta's ability to win a game singlehandedly and open up massive holes is worth being almost this high alone, but then you throw in all of its other amazing sets. Mash/Grass/EQ/Boom is soooo good.

A+ Rank

If you don't want to get overloaded by physicals, this is your guy. Curse Pert is pretty cool. Mono Surf Pert without Roar is still god awful, just to a greater extent now than ever. Try HP Electric for good mon Gyarados.


Superbi. Modest Superbi is cocaine. DefBi needs (or very badly wants) a spinner. CM Pass is pretty alright, although I loathe the coinflip that comes with CM Pass mirrors.


There is no better spiker than this dude. If you aren't using a Skarmory spiker, there should be a good reason. No, Forretress is not a good reason.

A Rank

Explosion is really great. Pursuit Tyranitar teams get obliterated by Gengar due to an overreliance on it. Gengar + Spikes + Roar Molt/Zap is a fantastic way to slaughter those Forretress builds. Perish Trap Gengar should be used a bit more.


RealJester

Singlehandedly raising Theasiancp3 stocks tenfold.


No don't use your Dugtrio to trap my Jirachi haha that'd be so bad for me


Blissey with no spinner feels so gross at times. CM Blissey is legitimately not bad. If you use Sing, you should feel bad about yourself.


Pretty overhyped. Mixed is the best set IMO. Sp. Def is pretty annoying to take down for a decent amount of teams. Sub Pass is so telegraphed at this point that I feel like it's my own fault if I get ZapDugged (and it probably is!).

A- Rank

The great gatekeeper of ADV.


The other great gatekeeper of ADV, 80% of the time.


Offcune is pretty good, I don't really get the hate. Excellent at trading or chipping Zapdos early game, and of course Suicune as a wincon is reliant on its hidden ability, Shell Armor. Dug + Cune builds are really easy to overload with physical sweeper + Explosion guy.

B+ Rank

Super exploitable. All of the offenses that maul Dugtrio teams just don't get used in tours. But, it does its job pretty well (sometimes).


He's still good, but I'm finding it harder to justify. HP Bug and Rock Breloom are still sets worth using.


Perhaps a bit too high. Amazing breaker, hampered by a lack of long game defensive utility and reliance on teammates to remove waters and Sp. Def Zapdos.


Snorlax will never be bad, no matter how much people attempt to slander it. Very much an "in practice" rather than an "on paper" sort of Pokemon.


I think Moltres is a great mon at hazard control, but I can't quite put why I feel that is the case into words. The team I built to use against Finch is one of my favorite ADV teams I've ever built.


Hey guys, did you know that in terms of murdering fat and enabling offense, Vaporeon is the most compatible Pokemon for your team?


A Pokemon I've really begun to come around on. DDers are good!


I have been hanging around Altina too much to consider this thing remotely good. I click Spin, and I try to Explode on the water. Nothing more to it.

B Rank

Have you ever taken a second to really consider Smeargle's design? It's supposed to be a dog or something, but I don't see that relation very much. It's also sticking out its tongue, making it a certifiable asshole. It's pretty good at clicking Spikes though.


Everybody loves to hate on Heracross, myself included. But it's not as bad as people like me make it out to be. 15% is a bitch.


Everybody likes to say "this mon sucks" "this mon is so good". Not necessarily about Venu, just in general. Venusaur for me is solid. Not great, not bad, just solid.


It's really enabling of some cool stuff. I've been experimenting with some stuff like Curse Pert balances with a Mag on them, pretty neat. Same old same old Magneton though.


cringe


Overrated this guy a lot. Still good though.


Bite Jolteon is good. Jolteon as a whole is pretty good. A+ mon in Kerts's hands.


The real target of the "flygon sucks" and "flygon is sooo good" stuff I was talking about. I think Flygon is simply O.K. Well, it's kinda meh. But that's fine by me.

B- Rank

All I did was load up Jynx, Gengar, Zapdos and fish fish fish.


It's pretty decent. I'm a Kingdra spammer, according to Jabba, aka I load it once every 20 games.


It's another mon that's just OK. Potentially very threatening, potentially just there.


Hax magnet. Every mon gets Super Luck and Serene Grace vs this thing. Only turbo walls the entire game in an RNG-less world.


It clicks Spike, it clicks moderately strong boom, it Surfs into Gengar, it sometimes click spin. Good mon.


I don't see the duck anymore. It makes me sad, he's pretty cool.


Likely forever underrated as a fighter. It's hard to really justify it on paper or in words, but it always performs quite well.


Good Gengar Pursuiter. Very good matchups into some people and teamstyles, terrible into others.

C Rank

I can't really describe why I put maldo this high other than losing to Hclat in test games using this damn thing. Great when there are a lot of relevant meta threats that can't run SE coverage for it.


I've never valued Magma Armor so much in my life. A great enabler of a ton of really good offensive Pokemon, i.e. fighters or Charizard, defensively it's kinda whelming.


Not something I have been able to really "solve" yet. Medicham always seems to fall flat in my hands.


Yeah, it's still here. It still answers waters.


Hilarious Pokemon. Eggy's power is seriously overlooked, and Sleep + Boom is still fantastic.


Building with this guy gives me a headache, but Scizor is pretty decent nonetheless. Reversal stuff being so telegraphed makes you mindgame yourself out of wins, which sucks.


I have not found a reason to use Weezing much recently. Just not really my cup of tea at the moment.


Same story as above. Hate Magless Lix still.


Annoying as all hell still. But, as a Celebi spammer, I don't mind a whole lot.


cringe


This guy is pretty cool. Simple mon, does its job well.


One of my most successful ladder runs was with offensive Mantine. Defensive I am not entirely sold on yet, but I see the merit.


It exists? It's not as questionable as some of the stuff to follow it, but it's not good.

D Rank

Super sick mon. Should be used at least once in CI.

pain.


Pretty obnoxious on occasion. Pretty terrible on occasion.


Pretty viable Pokemon. Sand immune, takes every physical hit in existence, great at clicking Counter, can't be intimidated, AND it has boom!


I don't know how to talk about this mon without sounding like an ignoramus. It does some stuff, and it's worth trying for yourself. Spikes/RD/Hydro/Ice feels pretty good.


I think I said last time that I'd be trying this mon out, and I have since then. It's definitely worth at least experimenting with. Has some pretty cool traits and with stats like those, it's hard for it to truly be deadweight in a game. Have not solved the art of building with it yet.


CM Pass + Hypnosis + fantastic Salamence answer, a very unique set of characteristics. Ungodly weak to Metagross and reliant on hitting Hypnosis vs Suicune/Milotic, but it's a pretty cool Pokemon.


Feels kinda awkward to build with. Intuitive to use, kinda fishy.


I might actually be underrating this thing, it's quite obnoxious with Spikes support. Not a bad fit on some more offensive builds, tried it on a rock spam and it performed pretty decently.


Pain in the ass.


Not bad characteristics at all, just something isn't quite right with this guy.


Swaggron is sick. Don't sleep.


Too reliant on stuff that isn't super reliable, too revealing of the entire team.


Hits like a freight train, has some respectable bulk. Not something I would envision myself using, though.


This mon is probably way too low based on what is coming after it, but Slaking has never appealed to me.


An actual, viable, fieldable Pokemon. Love ADV for this type of stuff.


Much bulkier on the physical side than you might imagine, hits like an SUV.


Not a bad Pokemon, but it's hard to really make a team that utilizes it well.


Feels super fishy. Seems a lot more threatening than it ends up being in the game.


Pretty funny Pokemon, but I cannot make a team with it to save my life.

 

[CALLOUS]

S- Tyranitar only. The single Pokemon, and its unique ability, that the entire tier revolves around.

A++ - The Pokemon not named Tyranitar that the metagame revolves around.

A+ - The powerful, above the point of balance standard mons that are central to the tier and just win games. The key threats of the tier.

A - The solid, balanced, completely viable but not busted mons in standard.

B - Entirely viable mons with an undeniable flaw or two that hold them back from being better than what they are.

C - Useable, non gimmick mons with clear flaws that only belong on specific teams or thrive in specific situations.

------------

After C I got a little less picky about the order within the tiers themselves as I'm just not inclined to argue about whether Regirock or Lapras is better. I put them in the order that I believe to be right but in the lower tiers it's so close and so subjective that you can make some swaps and it's still fine...

D - Fringe. Useable, but nothing more than that. Needs specific support and specific matchups to shine and even then are still merely solid/decent as opposed to great.

E - Usable in the loosest sense of the word. Ultra fringe, gimmicky, not suited for serious play in the vast majority of situations, a baby step above outright not usable in serious games.

 

[watermess]

Skipping through some talking points now

Gar and Rachi at 2 & 3
Gengar has new sets, recent wider recognition of focus punch as a highly viable option elevates its matchup vs teams relying on bliss or tar to beat it. Some gar sets are also now able to win games just off being so bulky that suittar can never trap them fully without making doubles. Dbond techs magdol matchup like no other pokemon in adv can bar your own trapper for their mag, and even then, dbond gar is less volatile and more consistent at its job. A good Gengar always puts in work.
Jirachi, like Gengar, almost always puts in work. It's arguably the most threatening sweeper and potent sweeper in the current metagame, and it has serene grace to boot. If you think, in each game that Jirachi shouldn't win, it has a huge chance just to freeze its way out. if Jirachi simply subs on the switch and ice punches twice this is what? A 36% chance to just rob the game lol and this is assuming a relatively minimal amount of freeze fishes.

skarm at 4
Because skarm is the best spiker, and its an ideal gengar partner as well which only elevates its status

A- tier
A lot of things in the other 2 tiers have sets for suicune but most of them are poor at beating it consistently, broken mon.
Aero is the best revenge killer, dug is second
dol is the best spinner
forre the second best spiker
mence is cool but gengar is right there, gar is often better than mixmence because its gars matchups are less polarising. so essentially I'm ranking a mon that other people use, and dd/cb/wish mence here, which are all good but not top 10 level for me.

B+ tier
offmie good, def mie not so good.
Defensive cele very mediocre but offensive good.
moltres broken and also the only pokemon so far that can ohko metagross, don't underrate this, many say would metagross is a top 5 mon.
lax I find more and more inconsistent these days, sometimes it does alot sometimes not nothing. focus punch variants deserve a revival, but people should be sure to run adamant max atk with it so skarm cant tect out of the 3hko.

B tier
basically the mag off tier. Funny but as a whole, I would rate phys offense higher than B, probably more like A- or A as a style, but part of that is because much of the lower tiers hold pokemon that fulfill a special niche on these styles, but few other places which naturally makes them lower on the VR ranking. an example would be vaporeon, the subs set is particularly good on mag offenses and massively assists the fat matchups.
Jolt, again joltspikes is much higher than B tier more of an A-/A again especially as mag offense gets bigger jolt teams really don't mind facing those. Jolt itself isn't an incredible pokemon so I have rated it thusly but that's not reflective of the teams it enables as a high momentum special defensive wall.
loom, splashable and strong when it works but easy to prepare for, people say it has a higher floor than hera but I disagree, if I'm playing a loom spammer ill just bring sleep talk moltres or mixmence and loom will have done nothing that game. for me this is something more and more apparent as the sleep move hypetrain reaches its peak.

C tier
duck > watersnek :)
metalsnek 6-0s zapdug

D tier
Donphan is heavily underrated, never lose to ddtar again :) also surprisingly good spinner even without mag.
Armaldo also underrated, really good at stopping cmers, good lax countermeasure, best knock distributor in the tier thanks to its more colourful and strong coverage than yama.
Fighting types fell off for me in a big way I've ranked them in order of effectiveness in my personal opinion.
offensive articuno with heal bell is worth a try. its very difficult to switch into and its much more spikes compatible than other ice types thanks to its own spikes immunity.

E tier
I see alot of people ranking glalie higher than this but here's the scoop. I've seen one team that I thought was really good with glalie, but none since that one that weren't just another rehash of the same team, for that reason it goes in the tier below the one I've seen a few decent teams built with. that said vapicunos glalie team is so good it easily heads up the E tier as the strongest mon.

LOL tier
LOOOOOOOL

 

[Abyssal Ruins]

Qualifications:

Confirming as 1nightinTHEASIANCY (cant find any screenshot with higher ELO but Trust me on this one??)

let's begin!

a strong nine to a ten sets new boundaries and redefines the genre. Redeifines THE GAME. tyranitar carries the entire adv OU population and should be benchmarked as such.

a nine contends for picks of the YEAR! the comfortness when using these mons cannot be rivaled... love using the nines in every Bo3. new ideas emerge when using these mons; consider these mons as Brain Food.

an eight symbolizes the
"pick of the month" contenders. Excellent options to ruminate when building with these eights mons. fits as top picks for my favorite archetypes and styles. get used to these mons--> EXPAND your building creativity?

a seven marks the solidarity of pokemon. I consider ideas based around these mons as sound . Also can provide above average results. the sevens dont feel the most consistent-- and feel hampered by shortcomings; Be AWARE of them.

e:
- 394 speeders work extremely well with roar skarm/pert/tar to distract DDers from +2. only realized these lines after thorough laddering + analyses of dizno and kerts spikes teams.
- flexibility matters huge!! Dynamic punch offpert 1v1d suicune. DDTar rock slide flinched defnsive cune from 100%->0% in recent tour game.
- holy sh!t p2 should drop to BL soon. (wait until 2022/2023?)

Biased Viability Rankings:

Strong 9 to a 10
Decent to Strong 9
Light to Decent 9
Strong 8 to a Light 9
Decent to Strong 8
Light to Decent 8
Strong 7 to a Light 8
Decent to Strong 7
Light to Decent 7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Ranch Dressing

pat your self on the back if you read tiL the end. I appreciate you for reading my first VR!

 

[Hclat]

Another VR update. I still don't really believe in these things, but I figured I'd farm 15 likes before quitting this thing til I'm bored enough to play again.

CW: @ ppl expecting these to adhere to the opinions of whatev "great""player" you're idolizing these days

S:

Sand is coarse, rough, irritating, and it gets everywhere

A+:

This dude's pretty good. DefCelebi and jolteon are extinct. rest and agilipass and everything in-between are all good.

idk, its good.

Sub cm bolt beam is stupid and cringe, but everyone respects it so much that rachi's actual sets are OP. If anyone starts using twave again this'll change.

Shadow-buffed by people opting for teams that don't require swampert and celebi/modest zapdos going to shadow realm. Suicune beats other bulky waters, so its use suicune or lose to suicune these days.

spikes r good

A:

Nerfed since last patch bc everyone spams so much wish bs that it can't chip through stuff.

It struggles vs peckzap, gar+dug, and offcune, which are a lot more common these days. Other people rate it low these days because they're scared of sub rachi. @ those people, L2P.

I've completely bought into both the Roro school of forre+claydol spin spam, as well as the Dice approach of playing forre like a smeargle. And once these approaches become adequately respected, "traditional" forre will get stronger as well. Overall, forre's better and easier to use than it was a year or two ago.

It's in a decent spot, but these dbond sets are waaaay oversaturated. It's the epitome of a "threat of the move > the move itself" option. Load a real move instead and bluff it.

Gets owned by special attackers less than the other special walls

A-:

Swampert is defensive king of the hit-and-run game, and that game is not popular.

Offstar is pretty good rn.

ADV's swiss army knife. super-soft-checks anything u want it to. Refresh (or rest even) aren't that bad.

play this dude as an earlygame special pivot; pump up that bulk. Sub3atk is pretty low-variance. ~Nobody is good enough at this game to rationally complain about megahorn acc

people are better prepped for it, but it's still pretty good

B:

There's a lot of dol+rachi going around that struggles big time vs molt. Idk why people don't think it's good. Think protox molt might be its best set now.

its pretty good vs moltres and kingdra I suppose. Everyone running aroma/wish on this thing is a testament to how worthless it is at hindering opposing mons. IK some people win with blissey a lot. But my blissey userate is low and winrate lower. Maybe someday I'll understand why ppl use it.

Lots of teams are underprepped. Sand+spike immunity opens it up for creative move/item options.

Offensive king of hit-and-run is down bad these days dropping lefties and running hpfight n whatnot. Just gets ppstalled or loses to rachi etc w standard set.

spdef mag is a hilariously effective wall. Normal mag is pretty lame still.

It's pretty good vs suicune+dol and modern special offense
C:

lots of good options on BP set. Defensive is underrated. Meadpass is OP af.

Wouldn't give these 3 weirdos the time of day. Earlygame you just get spiked on. Lategame you just get swept. Not sure if I've used a dugtrio since the rona hit.

It's just a version of hariyama with passive HPsustain, ability to check crucial mons, and great dual-stabs. Surprise rapid spin isn't even bad either.

Shes FFFF tier if using without , but it's strong with it

higher variance mon than hypnogar

D:
"Low Viability" mons I know can be very effective when played/placed well:


Spike Balance Allstars

Stall Mons
[swift swim mons] [random fighters]
Offense Mons

Anything that learns boom

Anything with a 75+ Sleep move

Cheese mons (except not mead pass; that's at the top of A- tier)
E:

quack

 

[ABR]

S
Tar is self explanatory, sand is good. I will say I use more sandless teams than I used to but not without careful consideration of how to construct the rest.

A+
Gengar is a staple on stally teams, offensive teams, and most things inbetween. It is incredible with either spikes or dugtrio, which should be a ton of the teams used anyway. Explosion-less is kind of bad and offensively limiting. To be more precise, being a spike and toxic immune with high speed gives it many switchin opportunities. Moveset versatility makes it unpredictable. Wisp misses suck so treat it as a luxury not a necessity.

Spikes are a fundamental component of the tier and skarm is the best spiker. Phazeless is just asking to lose to meta so I don’t really fuck with that trend. Protectless is valid but please pair it with gar to make the spikes stick more.

Zap, much like gar, fits on many types of teams and has many different sets. It’s good both offensively and defensively. Blissey is the only real answer and can obviously get bypassed by spikes / dug / boom / hpfight.

Speaking of, bliss is the only real answer to lots of things defensively (molt, offmie). Wish / aroma are fantastic support moves. Twave / toxic are great offensive moves. Any heavily bulky team needs to justify not using bliss. Skarmory is #3 and like 90% of skarm teams should also have bliss.

A
Swampert is the best physical wall in the tier. It’s sand immune, resists rock, resists steel, and isn’t weak to any physical typing. It can also be an offensive threat with focus / endeavor sets.

Meta is worse than pert defensively but better offensively, thanks to boom. Impish is good but mandates spin or mag to not give skarm too much room. Meta’s boom is absurdly strong and it pretty much at least trades every game. Mix sets are solid. Pursuit is cool. CB instaboom is fun and effective.

Rachi is good at both walling and sweeping. Wishtect is hard to kill and it matches up nicely vs things like meta and aero for a “special” wall, which really makes it more of a mixed wall. Still, fire + slam or tox is very annoying. Sub CM is solid with spikes but requires some specific teams. Super with psy fire grass is extremely good offensively. Rachi also offers invaluable resists for some teams like zapdug.

Mence is versatile and very useful defensively for an offensive mon. Mix is the most consistent but fillers can range from wish to roar to whatever else. Dance is a solid offensive tool but obviously needs to be set up properly. Band feels pretty terrible lately but maybe it can work sometimes idk. Anyway intimidate is amazing insurance vs other dancers and makes it an overall nice pivot. Again, fits on fat and offense alike.

A-
Dug gets so much hate lately!!! Letting stuff DD isn’t a huge deal. Letting skarm spike early game is annoying but either use spin or the right offensive teammates and it should be fine. It can trap tar, bliss, meta, rachi... and many other viable pokemon with minimal chip. That will always be viable.

Aero has the holy sand + spike immune combo while also being faster than pretty much everything else. Hindered by wishtect rachi but still the bane of zapdug’s existence and nearly always useful. Awesome check to cm’ers and ddtar alike. HP fight is valid for sure.

Starmie has rapid spin. Bulky twave is solid support vs pert / meta / mence types and is more directly threatening to skarm than dol is. It can be pursuited sometimes but still a solid poke. Offensive is good but please stop using pump. More specialdug teams should use offmie.

Dol is the king of passive healing. While everything else is getting chipped down it just ignores spikes and heals in sand. It doesn’t directly beat skarm but the very fact that it sticks around makes it good. Refresh, rest, and boom are all viable. Not amazing at walling anything but decent vs a whole lot.

Suicune is mad overrated. Like it’s still A- and demands certain checks but like. Sleep talk is shit in adv. Lone rest is so passive and mandates a cleric. It also takes sand. Offensive is still solid but bulky sets are extremely unreliable vs spikes.

B+
Celebi is a solid water answer. Leech seed is a good move, as is bp. Offensive sets are solid but hate Aero. It’s not a super reliable special wall given stuff like zap pecking, mie ice fishing, or molt just owning. Dug also kills cele at a much higher hp than it kills say bliss.

Flygon is a champ. Fast, spike immune rock resist. The greatest tar/aero answer if you can’t spin. Embrace giving skarm turns and abuse with gar / zap / molt. This thing gets way too much hate.

Magneton is viable because skarm is so good. Just remember mag beats skarm the wall not skarm the spiker. It’s a spinner’s job to actually remove the spikes. However, this is already 2 slots dedicated to something you might not even face so use magdol with caution. Do good magdol 6’s even exist?

Moltres abuses any team that drops blissey. Being a more direct threat to meta / rachi with a more spammable stab is great.

Lax’s main issue is 4mss. Curse slam eq sball boom are all desired. Focus and counter are also great options. You need to figure out which of tar meta gar skarm you’re okay giving more room to. Still, it’s a non-passive special wall that can get some crucial booms off.

B
Milo is technically an amazing wall but anything setup oriented kinda fucks with it. Cm mons especially. Great vs mixmence, pert, etc.

Loom is still a threat but people aren’t 6-0d by it anymore.

Forry is grounded and has to respect fire moves. It is worse than Skarm. Spin is tempting but pulling it off alongside spike is very difficult vs gar.

B-
These are okay pokemon that can fit on some specific teams but need a noticeable amount of support to work. I’m tempted to make cloy and jolt even lower.

C
These pokemon are viable on pretty specific teams but can definitely work.

D
These pokemon are a bit less viable but can still work.

E
I’ve heard about or seen things here winning but idk how or when. Also probably haven’t used myself.

Thanks to everyone who posted and contributed to the discussion

 

[Jhonx~]

S+ Rank
(The best of the best, Pokemon here centralize the metagame and can nuke everything since these have big movepools and enough stats to pressure everything)

Tyranitar is the best pokemon in ADV Metagame, it setup Sand in field, it have nice defensive stats and nice offensive stats, its movepool is one of the biggest since it can run lot of different sets, it can be used Choice Band, Dragon Dancer with or without bulk, it can be used Mixed, Special Attacker, and lot of niche options as well, this Pokemon forces you to scout its sets on a game and can always be a threat well played since it can sweep or just tank and kill back, Metagame is played and centralized on this Pokemon.

S Rank
(Pokemon in this rank can pressure everything, they are just too good due their high movepool but not that broken like Tyranitar, Pokemon here have the capability to break everything but lack the balance Tyranitar have on stats)

I consider Metagross a centralizing Pokemon in ADV Metagame and one of the best Pokemon in defensive and offensive capability, having such a big natural bulk and steel typing makes it solid enough to start, the atk base it have is really strong, this Pokemon can run CB sets to break defensive teams, can run Mixed sets to hit everything, can be used with Agility as sweeper or Trapper with Pursuit, the most notable thing is it can always do Explosion vs something you need to remove so it can create offensive holes that can be exploited or just remove something that threat your team, Metagross is oftenly used as a rock switch-in, mostly Aerodactyl and with the natural bulk this Pokemon have it can survive strong hits and hit back taking a kill.

Gengar is another Pokemon that forces you to scout its sets, it have a huge variety of moveset having access to Hypnosis to force switchs, it can be fully offensive with Explosion to take a kill or Fire Punch/HP Grass or another coverage move, it can be used with PerishTrap, Destiny Bond to take down something, Defensive with Will-O-Wisp and being Ghost helps a lot to keep hazzards agaisnt Forretress / Claydol / Cloyster, since it can force switches this Pokemon can take advantage of that and hit Focus Punch to take down Tyranitar in the switch or hit another coverage with predicts, another thing that makes this pokemon really dangerous is the accuracy of Hypnosis, because lot of teams in actual metagame have to sack a Pokemon agaisnt sleep and if sleep fails you have a free turn to hit damaging moves.

Jirachi is another good Steel and probably the best with Metagross, it have a nice natural bulk and decent offensive stats, have access to a big movepool which forces opponent to scout sets, it can run SubCM sets to sweep, it can be Wish with CM or Protect, Full Offensive and even Choice Band set, Mixed is another option but its not very common, this pokemon can force switchs as well and SubCM set can win most of the times agaisnt Blissey, also with the natural bulk this pokemon have it can survive stuff like Dugtrio and Body Slam back or kill if you are at +1, take Rock Slides from Aerodactyl or wall something you need giving specific EV spreads.

A+ Rank
(Pokemon that are really good at breaking or tanking, but they are not too threatening as the above rank Pokemon).

Zapdos is really nice, this Pokemon have ground inmunity which is amazing, it have good offensive capabilities to break since it can run Mixed sets to threat Celebi Blissey and other walls, it can be Sub Pass to enable offense, it can be 3Atk with BPass to bring into game something that gives you momentum and can be used as SpDef wall too, being able to fill these roles is always nice, sadly this Pokemon can be walled by Blissey, Snorlax, and other stuff, I put it in A+ because even when its walled it can always break and if it can´t you just Baton Pass into a predict or in a turn you need to get advantage in the game

Swampert is very centralizing, having a Water/Ground type gives it a lot of defensive utility and having Torrent with its decent offensive stats makes it a worth Pokemon to be used, this Pokemon have lot of sets, being mostly used as a defensive answer to rock types and Metagross / Jirachi walling them with Protect, also this mon can phaze out setup users with Roar, can take down DD users with it own bulk or it can aim to break teams using offensive sets like Mixed or Sub Endeavor which end taking a kill most of the times.

Suicune is a Pokemon that can be played Offensive and Defensively as well, it can be even used in both forms using 1 set, this Pokemon natural bulk is high enough and can use Calm Mind to break defensive teams or just sweep, this one dont have many sets but can avoid explosion users using Substitute, it can threat non CM Celebi with Substitute and Calm Mind, it can setup vs Statused Blissey and take down DD Users, talking defensively this Pokemon can tank almost everything and with CM Rest it can sweep in late game since nothing will bring it down, Suicune once CM Celebi is removed of the game can autowin lot of games alone.

A Rank
(Pokemon that are very good offensively or defensively, but cant break / wall enough).

Salamence works amazing because it have Intimidate as trait, it have nice offensive stats and good movesets as well, this Pokemon can be used Mixed, CB, DD, Wish, and other niche moves which forces your opponent to scout the set it have, this pokemon can always come into game and put pressure, it can tank offensive fighting type Pokemon without need of bulk and it can always come into game to keep in control threats.

Blissey for me is something really hard to face, most people use it as cleric or support with Thunder Wave and Aromatheraphy, it usually struggles vs CM Suicune and CM Jirachi, but people never use CM on Blissey, in my experience using it with Calm Mind you can threat lot of stuff and defeat the CM'ers that defeat Blissey, this pokemon already have a really big HP stat and high spdef stat so it can solve lot of flaws in teams, this Pokemon have access to sleep too, definitely worth of this place and probably a higher rank.

Self-Explanatory, it setup Spikes, can recover with Protect, it can wall lot of stuff and Roar/Whirlwind them and it have access to Drill Peck so it avoids getting focus punched, this Pokemon have niche sets as well but these are cteam oriented, its the best spiker in the game.

Self-Explanatory as well, it just comes in and trap something you need to remove, amazing to kill Blissey Metagross Tyranitar Jirachi Celebi, the list is big.

A- Rank
(Pokemon in this rank focus only in a role, they are good because pressure a lot in good spots).

Aerodactyl is the best offensive Pokemon for me, if its alive it can always win since Rock type is the best offensive type in ADV Metagame, having a powerful STAB Rock Slide with % of flinch makes it always a threat, also its one of the fastest Pokemon in ADV Metagame, only Jolteon tie in speed with this pokemon.

Celebi is amazing defensively since it can tank almost everything and recover with leech seed / recover, also its typing let you wall water pokemon and electric types too which is very important, it have access to Baton Pass so it can escape from Dugtrio or enable offensive / defensive turns to keep you in a good position during the game, offensively its not too good but this Pokemon can always enable offense passing CM or SD Boosts or just doing BP after do a leech seed.

This pokemon its important in ADV Metagame because it can always boom into something to take a kill and it have nice buk overall, it have lot of sets being most used CurseLax, Rest Curse, 4 ATK and Mixed sometimes, CB exists but its not used very often, this can sponge hits during the game and take kills to create holes on opposing team, sometimes you will require predict in order to get maximum use of this one and sadly you will have to choose a coverage move to be removed, so you get walled by a steel, or tyranitar or gengar, you have to pick well looking at your team weaknesses.

----------------------
from this rank I will just explain the rankings and not analysis of every mon.

B+ Rank
Pokemon in this rank can threaten ADV OU metagame with correct support, being most notable Jolteon and Starmie in Spikes offenses, these pokemon are fast but dont have enough power to kill thats why they require support to chip teams and keep into KO range them, Heracross is a powerful threat with CB / SubSalac set and can be used Restalk w Guts to wall Gengar or sweep stall teams once flying types are gone, Gyarados can always come in on late game and setup to end sweeping.

B Rank
Pokemon here are mostly support Pokemon that do important roles to create holes into opposing teams, Magneton for example removes Skarmory and Forretress keeping the field with only 1 Spike, it can trap and revenge kill weakened metagross too, Milotic is an amazing wall with access to Marvel Scale which increases its bulk, while Breloom have access to Spore and forces switchs while you load a powerful Focus Punch or predict Gengar and hit HP Ghost, Moltres is decent but it must be paired with Spikes to work, without Spikes it just dont work.

B- Rank
BL Pokemon that have a good niche in the metagame, Jynx have access to sleep and can threat some leads like MixMence, Zapdos, Skarmory. Vaporeon is nice because as lead can win vs the most common leads, it can setup Substitute and activate Salac Berry passing it into an offensive threat while Hariyama is bulk af and can absorb Gengar burns to increase its attack.

C Rank
Pokemon here can wall specific stuff or they just do a specific role, for example Flygon can wall DD Tyranitar but u have to scout Tyranitar set first, it can be CB but requires flying types and Celebi/Gengar gone to be very effective, Cloy and Forre setup Spikes but cant defeat Gengar, still they can Explode and take a kill which is good, Regice Camerupt have cool defensive usages but they shine since they hit hard enough and have access to explosion removing fat walls to support your offensive mons while Charizard can always break if it comes into game on a good turn.

C- Rank
Pokemon here have niches, they can win games but requires lot of support to work, those are the "decent" niche mons ADV have but I wouldn't take them too seriously because as I said, they need lot of support to do something.

D Rank
Pokemon that have a small niche, these are mostly bad but actually have an usage, I just include those because they have been used with an specific niche but still can only get past through limited Pokemon in the above ranks, Pokemon here just sucks lol...
---------------------------------

Thats my VR, hope you enjoy it and sorry my broken english lol

 

[Kerts]

 

[UD]

I am going to do something a little bit different this time where I make my viability rankings an exact 1:1 correlation between my usage stats from the past year-ish. The "tournament-ready" teams from that time period I will be using for this analysis are shown below:

Teams are in here

20 teams to choose from for this exercise makes it nice and easy if the viewers at home want to calculate the usage rate. In parentheses under each Mon are that particular Mon's raw usage count. In the case of ties, I did put the Mons in order of which I feel are better. Meaning this list is completely ordered. I will also add Pokemon that I haven't used at all; they will be denoted by the lack of numbers in parentheses next to their name. Everything that I did not use once in the past year by default was placed in "Tier C" or below. And finally, I was forced to "disobey" my raw data on one occasion that will be glaringly obvious to anyone who knows me. In that situation, I simply couldn't bring myself to rank the Mons where they should be according to my stats.


S

(13/20)

Still the best, it will always be the best. Nothing will ever even come close. There is only one flaw with Tyranitar and it's that Pursuit is a necessary evil in ADV, but it's also Tar's worst set by far. So it's kind of a crappy compromise that needs to be made unless you're brave enough to be 6-0'd by Gengar.


A+

(9/20)

Gar is the only Mon who comes close to matching Tyranitar in terms of versatility. It's not as good as Tar of course, but it's far better than everything else in the tier. WoW has zero switch ins, in fact Gengar has no switch ins that aren't completely boned by something it can do, period. If you don't agree with me, then I don't agree with you disagreeing with me.

(10/20)

Apparently I don't know myself as well as I thought I did. I hate Snorlax, but actually I love it considering I use it on 50% of my teams. Snorlax is a pretty good all around check to the tier, has a strong Boom, and fits well on Sand-less offenses, which was a style I used a lot of in the past year. It's still absolutely horrible against Skarm/Gar/Tar though.


A

(8/20)

Suicune is amazing. Offensive Cune is a bit of a matchup fish but it applies absurd pressure (pun intended) after just one boost against teams that don't have a Blissey or Toxic Milotic. At least Milo shits its pants clicking Toxic into an unrevealed Cune set. Rest is scary too but a little more predictable and easy to play around. RD is the best weather clearer in the tier, bar none, and even sweeps on its own pretty nicely.

(8/20)

I was also surprised by how much Salamence I've been using. But I do love the defensive sets, and basically every Mence is pretty good defensively anyway just by nature. Good versatility + good offensive sets + good natural bulk makes an A+ Mon.

(7/20)

All sets are pretty good but I hate BP / HP Fire / Giga Drain. Leech Seed is an OP move; defensive sets can be absolutely impossible to kill for some teams. Sub + BP is slept on too. Celebi is just a good overall half check to just about everything while having decent offensive presence to boot.


A-

(5/20)

Best Bulky Water in ADV, really good all around. Can go fully offensive with Leftovers, fully offensive with Salac, mix and match with offensive spreads with max HP, or just fully max Defense. Mono Surf is still good too and Pert has the ever useful Roar, something Milotic and Blissey would kill for (purely defensive Mons want Phazing moves).

(5/20)

On the scale from Cringe to Based, Jirachi is most certainly cringe. But it has a good typing and access to quite a few good moves. CM with only two attacks is a really overhyped set. I'm not a big fan of sacrificing an extra attacking move for a move that is essentially a fish that aims for certain counters. Thunder remains bad.

(5/20)

Fits my playstyle and team building really nicely. Amazing typing, perfect support movepool, can surprise with an offensive spread and hit pretty hard, etc. Great Mon, really should be used more by all players.

(5/20)

Zapdos is fine. It's like the McDonald's of Pokemon. Consistently good quality and will never let you down, yet it's always outclassed by other choices.


B+

(4/20)

I prefer mixed Metagross sets that can hit Skarmory hard since the combination of Mash + EQ + Boom + last move filler is not actually very good coverage in ADV. In fact, Steel coverage (much like Psychic) has a habit of making your moveset less optimal than it otherwise could be. Meteor Mash is still a great move but it doesn't make any progress without attack boosts against Pert or Skarmory, and that is just annoying.

(4/20)

Spikes + Spin = good combination. What's Counter all about? I'm not convinced yet but my attention is piqued. Toxic is nice, Boom is nice, EQ is obviously nice. If Forry got a Phazing move then it could be top 5 in ADV probably. (Remember, purely defensive Mons are 100x better if they can Phaze.)


B

(3/20)

Skarm should obviously be higher than this. It's a casualty of the stats but it's not so egregious that I feel like I need to intervene. Obviously best Spiker in the tier and weirdly hits kinda hard with Drill Peck lol. Amazing Mon.

(3/20)

Awesome package all-in-one. Great STAB, super fast, good coverage in general. Can hit everything hard and be fast while doing it (giggity?). Can also be fully defensive (try special defensive! It's actually legit) and be incredible against Skarm + Tar + Aero teams. Also it is a pain in the ass for HP Grass offenses, i.e. the ones that were ubiquitous a few years ago (HP Grass Zap + Meta + Offensive Pert etc.).

(3/20)

Pretty stupid but also really effective. Lamest and most boring Mon in ADV? Yes.

(3/20)

I actually rate Vaporeon lol. It has a sick movepool, incredible ability (Suicune Gamers Everywhere HATE This One Trick! Click To Read More), and reasonably good stats. Though unfortunately you can never be fast, strong, and bulky at once. You must sacrifice one of the three. For a pro-tip, I strongly suggest a moveset of Wish / Baton Pass / (Roar or Protect) / Hydro Pump with tons of SpA and a decent Speed stat, rest EVs in Defense. Sick Mon.

(3/20)

Heracross is not very good but I will continue using it just for the 1/50 chance I play one of those horrible Mag Dol teams that loses 6-0 to it.

(3/20)

Still not that good but not that bad either. Removing Skarm is pivotal for so many teams. Lowkey great defensive typing. Honestly, if Magneton had Levitate, I think the majority of Mags would be using Levitate over Magnet Pull and it would be the absolute greatest physical wall ADV has ever seen. Or maybe none of that would happen and I'm just rambling. It's fun to speculate though.


B-

(2/20)

Awesome destroyer of cheese and low ladder Mons in general. Can be played really aggressively too, with switches on Celebi and even Jirachi clicking Calm Mind (this is also why I don't like dropping Psychic on them just btw). Insanely fast Rock Slide is the best get out of jail free card in ADV.

(2/20)

I love Regice. Incredibly strong Ice Beam, probably the best switch in against the three best special attackers in ADV (Gar/Zapdos/Starmie), and even has decent physical bulk, only truly fearing Tar, Meta, and the Fighting Mons. My pro-tip for using Regice is to ditch Explosion. It's too slow to effectively use Explosion game to game - I think as a rule of thumb, most/all Explosion Mons should aim to click it every game - and frankly it's just too weak lol. You actually NEED Dugtrio 10000% if you ever plan on killing anything fat with Regice Boom. But most importantly, I think Regice can just get more value out of another move in that slot, so I would rather use the move I might use in 50% of battles instead of the one I might click 5% of the time. Sleep Talk is great filler btw.

(2/20)

Nice Mon. Good bulk, pump its Att if you want to be threatening but be careful because Zapdos does 40%+ now and you need to Boom to touch it. I like Relaxed with max Defense and Ice Beam to actually check Salamence and Aero, not to mention the aforementioned Zapdos. Also it is the best Spinner for sure but it's still not that easy to successfully Spin into Gar.

(2/20)

Not my cup of tea. It is undoubtedly great though. Wish feels kinda played out. Although I definitely appreciate not being scared of my opponent's Blissey being capable of, you know, doing anything at all to me. Remember when T-Wave or Toxic actually threatened loads of Mons? Why did either of those moves fall out of favor?

(2/20)

Super strong, but super squishy. Average Speed tier too although it can get >394 with a Salac boost. Just you can't use Adamant nature so that sucks.

(2/20)

Very slow paced and boring to use. Hax magnet, weak, no versatility, yawn, boring, maybe Hypnosis sometimes, oh but you miss 85% of the time, hmm what about Refresh? Yawnnnnn.

C+

(1/20)

Excellent defensive typing coupled with the best defensive Ability is a great place to start! Can be super strong with Taunt or just DD + three attacks, Sub last works too to block Booms. Asta's HP Ghost set feels like the smartest thing I saw in ADV the past calendar year. Amazing Mon, actually should be way higher than this. Of course its problem is being way weaker than Mence (susceptible to Bulky Waters with Toxic which it's supposed to be good against) and no access to Rock Slide. Still good Mon though.

(1/20)

It's not bad. The coverage is atrocious though like come on. Mono Fighting is just not good at all. It's also nowhere near as broken as people say it is by virtue of its poor defensive typing and bad coverage, meaning it can be forced back out quite easily (I like Leech Seed for exactly this reason, to at least gain a bit of momentum back when you switch out). Oh and you sort of have to pretend Dugtrio doesn't exist when using it. Sub can mitigate Dug but in reality that won't always do the trick. And Breloom + P2 = Unviable Cringe. Mach Punch + Pursuit Tar is fine I guess but again that is Unviable Cringe and also you're probably 6-0'd to Offensive Starmie and Offensive Cune when using those two together even if you don't want to admit it.

(1/20)

Very good at what it does, just its role is becoming increasingly narrow in today's metagame. But I will keep repeating this: there is no counter to a perfectly played Roar + Baton Pass Jolteon with Spikes down, except for Claydol. I like pairing it with an Offensive Water type for exactly that reason.

(1/20)

It's like if Gengar had stronger moves but was slower. Or if Gengar didn't fear Pursuit Tar as much and could serve as a dedicated WoW spreader / mixed wall Boomer. With HP Fight and WoW, you can all but guarantee a Boom on the opposing Milo/Bulky Starmie/Blissey/Celebi (hit it on the switch in cuz Psychic threat), and you can force WoW on Skarmory because Skarm usually will take that trade once it realizes it walls your other moves. That is super valuable with the right teammates (Curselax without Magneton says hi!).

(1/20)

Actually it's pretty good. I like Raikou, just not very splashable and suffers from 4MSS since Crunch last with HP Grass would really be great but no Sub = yuck.

(1/20)

I used a lot of Jynx finally and now I feel like the Jynx truthers have just been pulling the wool over our eyes lol. It's truly not very good at all. Out of at least 50 games on ladder with it, I don't think I once scored the lead 6-0 like they all claim to be so ever-possible. Fact of the matter is you do the following 99.9% of the time: 1. die on T1 after missing, 2. hit Lovely Kiss T1 and force out Tar/Mence/Zap whatever, 3. start boosting up against incoming Blissey/Meta/Jirachi/Suicune, 4. lose the 1v1 against them unless you Freeze and they stay Frozen forever. At least it put something to Sleep in that scenario but yeah it's not that good.

(1/20)

Horrible lol like I'd say anything else about it


C (I did not build a new team using any of these Mons in the past 12+ months!)

Starmie is by far the most obvious omission. Amazing Mon, the destroyer of offenses everywhere. It's just the worst defensive Mon in ADV and thus hard to fit on any team.

Not a fan of Moltres. 9/10 times is just straight up outclassed by Zapdos.

I may come back later and fill out the rest of the niche Mon tiers, but for now this captures the big picture of ADV for me.

 

[RealJester]

Preamble:
This is a reflection on my overall beliefs with regards to each mon's usefulness on a game-to-game basis, overall metagame impact, and my preferences. Apologies in advance if my thoughts are disorganized (I'm way too lazy to punctuate properly) or rehash what others have said. I'll try to address any questions or clarify further on discord if it's needed (Jester#9532). TL;DR tier list is at the bottom if you don't care about the explanations and just want to see the rankings.

Ban Sleep.


S




obviously. every set's good; I really enjoy pursuit tars that are speed crept to outspeed uninvested base 70s. fast pursuit tars are really good in general, and its last two slots are hella flexible (taunt's a personal fav for stopping recovery. tox, focus, brick break all good). subpunch is surprisingly strong for how little use it sees, especially paired with cmpass bi. roar can honestly feel like kind of a wasted slot, but it's obviously good for facing setup and as a general catch-all while still benefitting from spikes. endure sets have promise, even without dd. standard jolly bug dd always feels good on teams that properly work towards it. liechi dedge and salac are also great for turning the tide on teams that have linear counterplay versus it.


A+




gar's Pretty Good, Fortunately. wisp + taunt and wisp + boom are the defaults for the reason. i think that dropping below 330 speed is a waste of a gar; you gain too much value from owning fast zaps, gons, and especially superbis. mosts sets pair perfectly with dug. pretty much essential on a lot of special offenses. dbond's a great way to both ensure spikes stay up, and also aids teams that're weak vs offensive cmers. 3 utility + tbolt is great, but should only be used if dropping ice punch can really be justified. night shade's really interesting, but i can't say that I've used it enough to give a proper opinion. i'll never rely on hypnosis, but good lord is it ridiculous to deal with.



tied with gengar for number two. goes on every team. everyone knows why it's good. never drop boom, it's a waste of a metagross. dont let your set get magged for free. pursuit mixed is extremely nice on offenses that are stretched thin; pair with rs dol. cbgross + skarm manipulates overambitious mags.



can't drop ice beam anymore, but it's still ridiculously good. defbi/astarachi are great in their own right, but they can't hope to compare. any mindless move will get punished in pokemon; going hard bliss as zap bps to fighter/dug/meta turn 1 is no different. 2 flexible slots on a mon like bliss is more than enough flexibility. wish is like my second favorite move in the game. spikes offenses with bliss rock. snatch, tbolt, toxic, all great as well. sing is disgusting.



little things with skarm are what matters. speed creep + taunt is so rewarding in the ditto. classic toxtect still great, even if it's less easy to just throw on than dpeck. phaseless skarm's mostly nonsense. still better than yolo, though. skarmdug's great but it needs a spinner.



oftentimes, offpert can feel better than offcune on special offenses. better defense + preventing blissey from healing is ridic, although quiet should usually be run over rash. monopert's pretty slept on, and surf + focus punch is also good. every single pert ever should run some sort of spatk investment. not only for skarm, but also:


0 SpA Swampert Hydro Pump vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Aerodactyl: 290-342 (96.3 - 113.6%) -- 75% chance to OHKO.


before hydro accuracy.




you can't just forgo a plan vs it. thoughtful play goes along way, but it's still a zapdos. bulky restless zaps with twave/tox/roar will always be vital in keeping offenses glued together. ice + tox is great for catching people off guard. modest/dpeck cleave through everything, but i don't care for dropping grass for fight at all. zapdug continues to be good (duh).

Jirachi Tier:



it's obviously very strong, but i don't subscribe to the idea that it's "top 5" or whatever. subcm really isn't THAT insane, and it sucks when the game rewards clicking ice punch once from an unfavorable position when it should lose. that being said, being able to replicate that with any sort of consistency is part of what makes it good. asta is also in a weird spot when it half-checks everything, but is a crit away from a super-effective attack making it explode. zap twaving it is nightmarish, and gengar +bkctar really exploit the teams it finds itself on. super is the most outright terrifying to see setup, but it obviously needs support to get going. +defense should be used more often, both on wishtect and bulky cm sets. band/mix are sick as hell and underrated.

give freeze clause.


A




i'm one of maybe two cbmence lovers on the planet. it's an excellent set, but you still need mag. yama + dol is a cool idea, but it still moves way too slowly in practice for your mence to get anything substantial done before dying to sand. ddmence has really seen a resurgence in the last few months, although it's really silly to claim that it was ever bad. running 3 atks is vital (although which 3 is variable by team), and so is being able to outspeed jolt/aero at +1. mixmence is the most reliable set. the defense it gives to any team it's on is just as irreplaceable as its offense. wish and roar is mostly a balance thing; switching around pert is too hard for most offenses to warrant dropping grass. defensive should see more experimentation (the physical variant with hp fly and bb/eq, specifically), but dropping below 270 speed is asking to lose. +atk mixmence is great for making teams less reliant on things going their way vs bliss. adamant bandmence is the only one.




not banworthy or unviable garbage, just good. facilitates offense while preventing opposing offense from snowballing. obviously have to build around the things that set up on it; pert is probably the best defensive partner, despite the seeming redundancy with jolly. adamant's way more useful the majority of the time, anyway; if you're relying on jolly for ddtar, you deserve to lose. teams that are exceptionally weak to endpert and offmie should still consider it.




it's as good as it always has been. offensive sets rule the most, but defensive leech is still great when you're not spamming recover, waiting to be crit (although it still usually needs a spinner). recently my teams have tended towards superbi > cmpass, but obviously both are great as ever. leech 2atk (usually giga + fire) bp is absolutely amazing on offense to help keep momentum while also providing a little bit of sustainability. dropping fire without mag requires getting too many reads right for my liking. defensive, like mence, should always hit at least 270. need ways to check/pivot around dpeck zap and can't switch it hard into mixed attackers, but you have 5 other mons for a reason.


A-



kind of a flying dugtrio. hp bug/fight should be something that's really considered before they're thrown on. liechi's neat on offenses that facilitate it. as much as I love +atk, the speed's way too important on all besides two teams.




offcune's the most immediately (and overall) terrifying set. all cunes have a million roadblocks to be able to get going, mostly because sand turns it from a defensive juggernaut into wet paper. defensive is basically useless without a spinner, but it's still the most ridiculous setup mon in the game when it's properly gameplanned around. I tend to agree with the idea that asta's modest crocune is way better than running bold and still not switching into anything. roar's really strong with spikes and way more reliable with a cleric.




offmie is basically special aero. defensive is good too. running slow mie is basically a death wish, though. modest is talked about a lot, but nabbing endpert and gengar's usually way too valuable to pass up.


B+



the threat of wisp can often be just as scary as actually clicking it. lots of flexibility with its last two slots. pairs well with just about every fast cleaner. if you're not using it with spikes, you're usually better off with any of zap/gar/zard, but there's instances where it can work (metagross switchin with wisp can bring a lot to offense, while stacking defensive redundancy with cune on fatter structures can prevent dreadful boom mindgames). sunny day pairs especially well with cune, but fat weather reset can feel unreliable in general. the aforementioned up-tempo offenses are probably the only times where fire blast can be justified over flamethrower. always modest.



annoying to have to put on any team, but the best spinner in the game for a reason. all of those previously mentioned defensive mons that need spikes off the field basically treat this as a backpack. having a t1 pivot vs tar is so nice, although fat subzaps will still kind of own it unless you have rock slide (pursuit). boom is still required.



offenses with it suck, but it's really annoying for a lot of teams, even after the skarm is dead. zapmag is a deadly surprise for greedy skarm, and even forre. really bulky lefties can go a long way when it comes to halfchecking things like zap/jolt, boltbeam gar and rachi, and even aero and bandmence. skarmmag is awesome. most magdols blow. i haven't run grass mag in a long time, and i can't imagine a balance/fat team that wants to trap skarm and not forre.



too many ways to exploit this, but it does pair very well with skarmdug. defensive redundancy remains important. offensive is surprisingly powerful, and obviously hypnosis is busted. offensive milobi is really cool on both sdpass (helps with the inherent molt weakness) and cmpass.

B



flygod. sub 3atk adamant with a little bit of bulk investment is my favorite set. obviously needs pursuit and loves mag, but it's a monster on a team that properly facilitates it. 4atk w/ fireblast is nice too. kind of like a more flexible aero in the sense that it's also great vs offense. superman's cool, but i prefer it on skarmmag/skarmspin stuff (pairs nicely with spin recover mie).



still the best mon for learning adv. pairing it with cele can kinda help to alleviate the pain that every water move makes it feel, although these builds tend to be awkward for other reasons (lots of tar entry points). while spikes teams with it absolutely need to keep them up (dbond gar), it's actually not bad without them. twave 3atk with bite is unironically pretty good; it midgrounds cele and dol. paraflinching down bi will never get old. unlike zap, ice isn't really something it can afford.



still the best fighter. it's just strong, not much else to say. sub punch / sd focus are both great for deleting something off of the planet. lefties >>> cb, salac. kinda awkward to just switch in, so especially great on zapvap subpass offenses. balances with it feel awkward, while offenses usually get kinda cleaved through by fast attackers. hard to fit brick break, but being able to actually hit the magneton in front of you might have a little bit of value. sub liechi is something to think about. jolly's fake, you know the drill.



criminally underrated. holds a lot of mixed offenses together. good for some of the same reasons that molt is, but ultimately a pretty different mon. really hard to switch into without a milo/cune. 4 atk with dclaw is preferable to sub. easing prediction is great and all, but going toe to toe with mixmence is huge, especially when it tears apart the types of teams zard finds itself on. toxic can fit in the last slot to deter molt. +spatk preferable on spikes teams, but +speed definitely has its uses on offenses.



100% sleep. mach 3atk is great, subleech is decently good too (although it has the same magneton problem as hera). ghost seems cool for ensuring that your pursuit will kill, but you should really just be using blackglasses at that point. still interesting with pursuit metagross. bug and stun spore are both cool, too.



vap pass rocks, defensive vap sucks. especially fast-paced teams should considering running salac.



I really wanted to put this down in B- below Gyara, but unfortunately rational thought won out. feels like such a reactive mon; even when super risky plays end up working out, they don't really make progress outside of resetting the situation. i also find forredol insufferable, think it makes you even more swingy vs skarm. eq + boom should still be the standard, in my opinion, but people who are more experienced with using The Ball definitely know better than i do.

B-



spikes on waters except when it doesn't, gets 3hkod by everything in the tier and also ohko'd by toxic. it's still not bad. emergency spin's really nice. while usually the speed is vital so that you get a spike and a boom, balances can consider running -speed and a ton of bulk as a forre-esque mon that cushions vs offpert.



the most overrated mon of the past year. horrible matchup into offensive teams requires that it really leans on its teammates. really bad at switching into even unresisted hits from tar, but focus punch offensive sets >>>>> whirlwind rest do-nothing stuff. knock still destroys slow-paced structures, of course.



probably the most difficult mon for me to conceptualize in the builder, which has kinda resulted in low usage. 3 atk dd is definitely worse than utility sets, of which there are lot of options (twave, taunt, toxic, rest). some sets may choose to even forgo dd entirely; i've recently been testing taunt + toxic.

C+



if you took jolteon's "get every turn right and you win immediately" mantra and turned it up to 11, you'd get medi. ive used band the most out of all of its sets but i actually think it's the worst of the options. it will basically never switch into anything, so you basically need bp to get it in. bulk up worth exploring, but recover 3atk is probably its most "reliable" set.






really strong mon, but neutered by 4mss harder than maybe anything else (wisp is the only must-have, but you definitely need a good reason not to run boom). singlehandedly salvages a lot of mixed offenses. difficult to ev precisely.



sleep + spikes good, who knew. lots of fun (annoying) options in the free slots. i don't tend to gravitate towards teams that it appears on, but they're definitely viable.


C



laughably mediocre. it was briefly fine again when curseboom was a surprise to see instead of expected. using it as a second houdini is probably the only way to salvage it. it's a necessity on certain brands of offense, where i wouldn't say it excels, but performs up to middling expectations. best paired with bliss.



lead lum ice tox is probably the best set. one of a very select few mons that actually warrants being paired with p2. sub cm absolutely annihilates opposing special offense.




aero's worst nightmare. has exacerbated flygon syndrome in the sense that it needs even more support, but is literally impenetrable on the physical end. basically lives exclusively on fat balance. kind of let down by its movepool.



good on spikes offense for a lot of the same reasons that celebi/jolt are. have to play extremely up-tempo to make it even remotely worth it over its peers.



shane.



speed is everything, so paralyzing it kills it. SD sludge bomb sets (+mag, of course) are interesting and have the niche of actually being able to make progress vs celebi teams.



not the biggest phan of this, but fits really beautifully on a few skarmmag. another one of those flygon/steelix-esque mons. always run some spdef so that it can afford to switch into unrevealed tar. toxic's the best, but counter's strong too.



HP fighting and sing are stuff to consider. can be ev'd to live ada bandmence brick break.



Falls in line with lix and phan as an aero killer. seismic/twave/protect/counter is the set that i've seen be the most successful, but boom is boom.



beam turn 1 into unfavorable lead matchups is the more risk-averse play, but if you're using jynx, you aren't risk averse anyway.





the good: 248 Atk Choice Band Regice Superpower vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 404-476 (100 - 117.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

the bad: 248 Atk Choice Band Regice Superpower vs. 252 HP / 80 Def Metagross: 81-96 (22.2 - 26.3%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

the ugly: 252 SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Regice: 82-97 (22.5 - 26.6%) -- 23.6% chance to 3HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and sandstorm damage

the uglier: people know that this is the only viable regice set now.



hardest gar counter in the game has to count for something. fits on very few teams. gimmicks have seen a non-zero amount of success, but they're still gimmicks. terrible at switching into things; wish can mitigate the damage until spikes go up, at which point it's doomed.

C-



sleep + watermove + knock off (kinda) are all good. fringe viability because of how hard its stats let it down.



surprisingly great utility moveset. like a weird hybrid of p2 and zam.



walls too many good mons for it to not be usable. mixmence, meta, molt, zard and loom all live in agony. rest talk worth considering (surf/tox/rest all vital).



interesting typing. knock + spin is a really neat move combination; gengar is too scared to ever be sure that i can switch in. SD works, but there are mons who do that better.



worst fighter, by far. seems like an offensive god until you run into a bulky water. built defensively like a paper bag. wins vs every lead not named cune or mence, though.


something to consider:

252+ Atk Choice Band Blaziken Focus Punch vs. 240 HP / 252+ Def Suicune: 249-294 (62 - 73.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery


252+ Atk Choice Band Blaziken Sky Uppercut vs. 240 HP / 252+ Def Suicune: 142-168 (35.4 - 41.8%) -- 84.1% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery


252+ Atk Choice Band Blaziken Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Milotic: 319-376 (80.9 - 95.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery


252+ Atk Choice Band Blaziken Sky Uppercut vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Milotic: 181-214 (45.9 - 54.3%) -- 5.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery



-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Blaziken Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Salamence: 205-242 (61.9 - 73.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery



ranking this mon only to talk about how terrible it is. haven't seen a team with the 4atk set where i haven't thought "bkctar would be better here". its best use is unironically as a recipient of statpass.



low, if any, incentive to ever use this. extremely annoying to face on the few teams it fits on. terrorizes mence like nothing else. perishes to spikes/tar/meta. toxic is usually better than twave; cover meta elsewhere.



like its icy bretheren, cb may be the best set. functions more like a second metagross than tyranitar, despite the typing.



destroyer of worlds when it gets going. unfortunately, this isn't very often (thanks, celebi).sleep/leech/sub/encore's the only set worth running. absolutely NEEDS spikes up. if there was ever a mon to pair dusclops with...




this mon seemed a lot cooler when i didn't know that cbmash 2hkos it. too weak to be worth using as a rain dance mon, focus on leech sets instead (pair with own metagross/jirachi).




when i first started i made a crappy cmpass team with this as the endgame receiver. i think i'm still chasing the high of +4 hydro ohkoing defensive cune in rain. never switch it in, and pair with kingdra to make it even a little bit worth the slot. offensive spiking is really neat in adv.



fire move/toxic/eq/boom is what i've found "success" with. can maybe slot in overheat or hp ice. don't even bother trying to outspeed things.



basically a boom, but every other turn. the culmination of the "mag+pursuit can make anything viable" ideology. pair with camerupt to circumvent gar?



ninjask users are the only people on the planet who are allowed to call dug bad. haven't used enough to determine whether or not an attacking move is worth it.



maybe if we don't acknowledge that it exists, it will go away.

Worth Exploring:
These are mons that I haven't used enough to give input on, but that I feel may have potential.
















Just Suck:
I've seen these used way too much for how bad they are.










TL;DR

 

[McMeghan]

Update time.

This took a while to finalize, both Vapi and I were busier in recent weeks or had other priorities. Thanks to everyone who submitted their rankings to get this end result.

NEW VR

S:
1. = Tyranitar

A1:
2. +1 Metagross
3. -1 Zapdos
4. +2 Jirachi
5. -1 Gengar
6. +1 Skarmory
7. -2 Swampert

A2:
8. +2 Salamence:
9. = Blissey
10. +1 Suicune
11. -3 Celebi
12. = Dugtrio
13. = Aerodactyl

B1:
14. = Snorlax
15. +2 Claydol
16. -1 Starmie

B2:
17. -1 Forretress
18. = Breloom
19. +4 Magneton

C1:
20. = Moltres
21. = Heracross
22. -3 Milotic
23 +4 Gyarados
24. -2 Flygon

C2:
25. +1 Jolteon
26. -1 Cloyster
27. +1 Charizard
28. +1 Vaporeon
29. -5 Hariyama

D1:
30. = Porygon2
31. +2 Jynx
32. -1 Venusaur
33. +1 Kingdra
34 +5 Steelix
35. -4 Medicham
36. = Smeargle
37. -1 Raikou
38. = Regice

D2:
39. +1 Machamp
40. -3 Weezing
41. +3 Ludicolo
42. = Marowak
43. +2 Houndoom
44. +2 Umbreon
45. +6 Camerupt
46. -3 Blaziken
47. -6 Donphan
48. +6 Armaldo

You can consult all the datas by clicking HERE.

explanations, informations

• The first post has been updated with the above ranking. Every Pokemon name redirect to its Smogon Analysis.
• Some Pokemons that got nommed were removed from the rankings for not receiving enough nominations. Vapicuno and I decided that a Pokemon needed to be ranked 5 times at least to be featured.
• If there is some difference between the spreadsheet and vapicuno's rankings (which we use for the thread), it's because his program takes better care of the outliers and the number of nominations.
• The spreadsheet now includes the difference in ranking and average for every Pokemon compared to their previous VR result. Those can be seen on right of the document.

Trivia

• This time around, many people had the final Top 10 as theirs: Altina, CALLOUS, Jhonx and Gacu.
• The biggest outliers are as follow:
  
  • Top10: UD's Blissey (22<>9, 13 spot difference)
  • Top20: Jester's Snorlax (14<>33, 19 spot difference),
  • Top48: Jester's Houndoom (43<>70, 27 spot difference)
• Make sure to check the difference in average score from last year to see see more behind some spot difference. For example Aerodactyl didn't change a spot but almost have a +1 for its average score, showing that it is on an upward trend.

 

[McMeghan]

Comments on the update

Jirachi (+2) / Swampert (-2)

Moving 2 spots in A1 is worth a mention. Jirachi uprise has mainly to do with its SubCM set being a solid wincon in pretty much every game while offering invalubale resistances to many offenses, especially special based. Many people have also been relying on it as their Rock resist and "cheat" around the DDTar problem with Dugtrio, Breloom or HP Fight Aero. Swampert offensive sets on the other hand have lost pace and it is also more abusable by Spikers than Jirachi's defensive sets thanks to the latter's threat of Fire Punch ('s burn).​

Salamence (+2)

MixMence was already well liked, but this raise mainly has to do with uptick in DDMence I'd say. Many builders have figured out that the best way to use it is in balance rather than all-out offense. While DDMence can miss KOs at +1, using a balanced team that can spread chips around will make excellent use of Mence typing to sweep later. It is also particulary threatening to the many form of special based offenses we've seen in tournaments in the last months.​

Celebi (-3)

I've talked about this one in VR Post and I think it summed up a lot of reasons why most people have been down on Celebi. BP sets are more prepared for and can be a liability if they don't work; offensive sets suffer in this meta with more Aerodactyl/Dugtrios.​

Claydol (+2)

Claydol has ranked above two Pokemons playing in the same field: Starmie and Forretress. I think people have just been a bit down on Forry recently, and Claydol is just a very flexible fit on all kind of builds.​

Magneton (+4)

Still don't know why people were so down on it last time, but yeah Magneton killing Skarmory enables just too many offensive options for it to not be a consistently solid option.​

Milotic (-3)

Milotic has a hard time progressing the game-state ever, as it's busy clicking Refresh and Recover every turn. It also requires specific support to not be overloaded by chip damage. As a result, people have been favoring other options.​

Gyarados (+4)

Surprising uptick in Gyarados usage, but to be honest it pairs well with Magneton which was mentionned a few lines above. Gyarados typing is quite excellent to deal with some situations where Mence would falter, such as Suicune, Swampert or Metagross. While DDMence found its spot on balanced teams, Gyarados keeps its spot mainly on all-out offenses, where its water typing is very much welcomed.​

Hariyama(-5) / Medicham (-4)

The hype these two fighters got last time didn't last it seems. The metagame being more offensive and the popularity of Mence played against their case.​

Steelix (+5) / Camerupt (+6) / Armaldo (+6)

Many people have been experimenting with these sand immune Pokemons for various reasons. I honestly think Steelix isn't particulary better than before, but it gets hyped by some people in particular, contributing to its raise. Camerupt ability to fend off Jirachi is certainly interesting right now, on top of what it could always offer. Armaldo has been explored as a very good Knock Off user for stall, allowing very defensive teams to play a war of attrition where the lack of Leftovers speed up the process enough to be viable.​

If anyone here has further comments, I encourage you to post them!

 

[vapicuno]

IMPORTANT: Please use the Smogon classic theme instead of Smogon Dark to view this post (link to profile settings here for convenience). This provides a white background necessary to view the graphs in this post because of the png transparency.

Hi guys,

I'm sorry that I haven't really had the time to work on the VRs. Hence, I will just provide some key graphs - please the previous post here on what the following graphs mean.

S:
A1:
A2:
B1:
B2:
C1:
C2:
D1:
D2:
E:

 

[Theasiancp3]

I come back to this thread nearly a year since I stopped playing ADV OU and I see that while it's still in D tier, Camerupt is now finally back ahead of Blaziken in the viability rankings. And all this without ANY input from me over the past year.

Imagine if I had a say, how much higher it would be ranked.

Baby steps I guess.

EDIT:

Idk how I posted somebody elses rankings here earlier but here are my actual ones.

My Rankings


same shit as usual


Should be called Slapdos because you can put it on any team. Perfect on offence for getting phys mons in on blissey and such. Outspeeds and 2hkos mixmence, which is insane. I think it's best used with spikes + roar. I remember thinking other players were crazy for putting it in #2 but ive come around. Run it with Timid 120SpD 148spd 240spA and reap the rewards on TSS.


I should really have put this guy at no.2 considering its average damage output per game and how every team that doesn't have magneton needs a complex strategy just to stop it from staying alive forever. Maybe next VR if it remains as potent.


All of its sets are good. Hard not to get return value out of it. CB is a bit of a personal fav to just slap on some offences in the lead slot and immediately reduce the opponent to a 5 mon battle. Lead zap is its worst nightmare though. Protect is a great set as it seems to reliably get itself out of range of important attacks that kill it; like duggy eq after a few spikes or a zapdos tbolt from around half. Mixed is still good with max HP. Albeit, I dont really use that set as much as I used to.


Still the wall it always was. The weird, offensive pert meta is over and we are back to the set that walls like 95% of physical threats. Incredible measures have to be taken to ensure oneself vs DD Tar if this guy is not present on the team. Unfortunately, bulky sets are pure spike bait so I often find myself pumping huge investment into the SpA stat unless I have a spinner.


I think its still boring and good. Not gonna spend too much time explaining what its good and bad for. Counter has gotten kinda shit in the age of beat up dugtrio. I have been slowly edging it out of my TSS over the last year or so.


Much fonder of this mon than ever. It really just cuts out a lot of the RNG. CM Sub is still an amazing set that just beats every archetype when done right. Beats stall t1 and punishes any of the myriad poorly-built TSS teams out there that dont use phys mons. Astarachi has always been the best wish passer in the tier. You can switch it in on mixtar/mixmence and just wish stall their fireblasts and force them to switch. Insane walling ability. It might be the ultimate noobstomp mon. Superachi has made a grand return in my builder. Stick it on special offence and it has like a 1.5 mon killrate minimum. If you run it with psychic you 1v1 blissey after enough boosts.


I think many people know that I have always had a fondness for Mence. People are finally coming around. Mixmence is so slappable. Outspeeds so much, has great coverage, and defensive ability vs fighters. If you ev it to outspeed heracross, you are left with the exact amount of hp you need to always live opposing mixmence dclaw. Roar mixmence + spikes is the most metagame-covering set has ever been conceived.
I don't agree that CB is its best set. It's really coinflippy and I have always found that set susceptible to pursuit trapping and general chip. DD Mence is actually decent. I think, with the the right team environment, it can wreak havoc. There is a reason every team has multiple measures for it.


Ive been using a lot of the cheshire cat. I'm not onboard the hate train. The best sets completely depend on the team you are using it on. Pursuit tar being really common isn't as inhibiting as people are making it out to be. Even if you do encounter a forre team, every playing onus is on the forre wielder to get their tar in on your gar. You can switch in on forre and switch out again as tar comes in. you can also run bulky and pair it with dugtrio. In the many scenarios where your opponent doesnt have ttar, gengar is still good as ever. i really like pairing it with zapdos on TSS for a toxic immune that still pressures skarmory. Fast explosion is still rly important because the types of teams gengar is on are often lacking in explosion users. I have also been using hypno gar on special offence. hypno is so good if you get in on skarm because you get 2 turns to use it even if your opponent has a suit tar. You can sleep tar and switch to dugtrio.


So high on this guy. I've always really liked aero. It cuts through cm bullshit, outspeed and ohkoes zap, mence and some gengars. I think one of its best attributes is just checkmating ttar in the endgame. I think it does a much better job eliminating chance than most would give it credit for. It's so good that even when you are doing all the right things to win the game, multiple mons up, your opponent may be one aero speed tie from an advantageous position.


A really nice glue that force-removes threats that would run rings around you otherwise. I think <328 speed sets are really bad. Is it really worth ensuring that you always live modest ice beam after a spike for the small price of getting outsped by Raikou, Starmie, Celebi, Jirachi, +1 DD Tar, Zapdos, Salamence etc. I really don't think so. Adamant in general is pretty shit but it's just not worth it for that.


I am not on the onion train the same way 75% of the community suddenly decided to be. Offensive is obviously its best set but its mad flawed. If you are running both CM and Pass, you forgo important coverage. Its biggest problem is just being useless in the aero/duggy matchup. Duggy outspeeds and KOs you, as does aero. If you think your opponent has cmPass, you can literally switch your dug into it raw and kill it from full, especiall with >328 adamant. Not to mention aero lives 2 psychics. Its super weak to status and has a boatload of common move weakness. PLS DONT CRIT ME sets are actually good glue, despite their hax-prone nature. leech doesnt let skarm gain health, and if you pair it with starmie, you actually advance quite nicely.


So many good sets on one very dangerous pokemon. Surf Roar Rest just shuts down so many dreams. It's such a bulky set that it really seems to just wall everything. It functions as a pp-staller, a wall and an endgame sweeper, which is just insane. I think its main problem is that it can only really win the long game, which makes it susceptible to spontaneous offence and booms. Crocune is just nightmare material that causes me to pray on that sleep-talk->boom turn.


I never find myself using super slow starmie because it's speed is definitely important. Recover sets are definitely really good if done well. I think Watermess' starmie-molt-celebi team was excellent. I had real trouble trying to get past it on ladder with multiple different teams. This guys really fits in well when you need a spinner that doesn't get negative progress vs skarm. I really like offensive, I think it has always been good. Pair it with celebi double rocks and you just wreck.


Dol is so much better than I let on. It is by far the best spike remover in the tier. Not only that but it has an incredible moveset and a nice base speed. I think bulky sets that drop speed are gonna be the future. I have started using dol on my offence teams and dropping snorlax. Of course you have to make certain changes to facilitate this replacement, but the yield value is insane.


I think the whole "Forre replacing skarm" skit is really weird. Skarm is better in every way. Forre is certainly really good again, and it has a much wider and more fruitful list of viable TSS compositions. However, I think its super easy to chip and break down. It's so different to skarm in that sense. I think forre's main utility is conjoining roles so that you can run another good mon instead of starmie/claydol. It is also way better in the magdol matchup than skarmory. I really wanna make hp bug work to hammer down doll and starmie, but I cannot see anything making more sense than eq boom.


I think milo is pretty formidable despite my taunting of people who use it a lot. It walls all the mixed shit in the tier. I see a lot of people sticking a dugtrio alongside it, thinking that they are sound vs heracross and special offence. which is silly. This guy can really solo TSS though so long as you don't get crit. If you have the time on your hands, and the lack of human attributes, you can be really successful winning games with this guy, stalling your opponent out of their desire to play the game, like Cockuru.
View attachment 332353



A fantastic addition to offence that can actually pick up multiple kills in an ideal matchup. Sleep is rly broken in end games and a really good momentum setter in the early game. It does suffer pretty bad from 4MSS. I have used hp bug myself, but I think its typically just better to run fight moves. Ghost is rly good if your trapping slot is a metagross or if you do not have one at all. Loom is just an excellent dd tar counter too and it has checkmate ability because of mach.


Super punishing with spikes + roar. I still think that big 5 + moltres is an all-time S-tier team. I personally do not use it that much any more though.


One of the most sturdy and consistent mons for me. Use bulky sets on superman teams and you should enjoy it's walling ability.
Golden Sun uses it really well. Flygoons who hate just misuse it. There is so much confusion and hysteria about how to use/EV flygon. Once you start using it as a phys resist that walls electrics, you really begin to appreciate what it can do. It's so nice not having to click some bullshit recovery move after coming on zapdos and losing all the momentum again.


Just not using this guy at all. I have completely replaced it with Claydol. Zapdos + Spikes just destroys it. Offensive sets are rly bad because they roll the dice vs Skarm, Tar, Meta, Gar switching in and out of them. I do like the Noitu set that Roro has been banging on about. Curselax is actually okay on Ojama-style weather reset teams.


I really like vaporeon. It has a fantastic pairing with rock spam and phys offence in general. If you can land a sub on the switch, you can just about kill anything with well-made offence. I'll either opt for bulky modest or timid. bulky modest is really good on hyperoffence.


I really dont like passive, no attack move sets. I actually don't think they're viable. Or if they are, they are just really inconsistent. Max attack, max defence knock off 3 attacks is rly good on stall, and i like 4 attacks on offence.


Lower than hariyama because Ive been using more Hari than hera. It sucks vs too many things; Mence, zap, molt, zard. Not to mention that the worst possible MU for it is Tar-Skarm-Gar TSS. I still think that sub-salac is one of the premier offensive threats in the game. Definitely my favourite stallbreaker in the game. It's a great choice vs a stall-fond opponent.


Really down on mag of late. I think the tier is just evolving and realising that this guy is just a waste of a slot a lot of the time. Id much rather deal with skarm using CB boom/special attackers. It is obviously still needed on a lot of stall teams though. Pairs particularly well with claydol if you want to remain a virgin throughout adulthood.


I really like Venu. I know that sleep powder is high blood pressure simulator and that status ruins this guy, but its glue potential is amazing. really sticks TSS together like no other. I think its best paired with anti special offence mons like aero.


Really like the damage output from this guy. I don't think you need to use CB at all, but I do like that set. sub-bb-fp-shadow ball is an excellent breaker set everybody should try. I havent used recover as much as I should have.


Kinda down on this guy recently. Feels too easy to deal with when im playing against it, and it just suffocates too much in the TSS matchup. All the things that are said about DD Mence are more true for this guy. It doesnt really set up on waters like its supposed to. Pert chips the shit out of it and doesnt take that much from its attacks. Cune has roar and milo has toxic. If you choose to run sub/taunt then you miss out on valuable coverage that lets certain airborne threats bully you. I think my fav set is DD-HP Fly-EQ-Double Edge. I also think taunt-hp rock has utility.


LK + sub is really good. sleep something and get something into duggy range hopefully. people have a tendency to use shit sets though.


Ive recently been using it as better jolteon on spike stack teams. Modest is really nice as it ohkoes duggy. CM-Tbolt-HP-Roar is a set I think people should try out. I also think this guy is rly good on special offence.


I am actually much fonder of P2 than most. Its damage output is shocking, but it stays alive forever with its lax of weaknesses, and it forces booms quite often.


Upon further testing I confirmed that it is in fact, really bad. needs double hidden power coverage and it gets fucked by twave. Dont run it w/out roar either.


Way better than clitster. hard to tech it to beat starmie, but it still wrecks. Spore, spikes, twave boom is good. I like wisp on it too. I find it quite difficult to tech this mon so that it doesnt hit a dead-end when a spinner switches into it turn 2. Still havent quite worked out how.


I still use it a bit for fast paced games on ladder. People seem to think that it eats water attacks better than skarm. I see them sticking cloy on really water weak teams thinking that it covers something, but it doesn't. Fun mon, but it's always gonna lose the TSS/SO matchup.


Gets walled by a ridiculous amount of shit, but absolutely wrecks offence. This mon is certainly match up dependent. I think it has great return if you dug the opposing bliss. I think a really nice way of using it is to pair it with rock spam.


Most reliable suit trapper in the tier. It's also an excellent special wall and wish passer. It does however suffer from blissey syndrome, as it gives phys mons and skarmory free turns to switch in.


Never use this guy. That to me, tells me that it is overshadowed by other things.


I don't get the ludi hate. I think it's a really good rain sweeper. I have made rain teams in the past where I used this guy and no kingdra. stab hp grass is so noticeable vs cune and milo.


AgiliZap + this is something I use a little bit. Can sweep games earlier than p much any other mon.


Been using a lot of this dude recently. Absolute beast. very hard to set up as it gets whomped by status and fire moves, but its sweeping potential is off the rails. There are some major drawbacks. Jolly only hits 376 speed, so you get outsped by base 130s, and of course, you are required to run jolly. SD-Endure-HP Steel- Reversal can really do damage. Here's one of my fav replays of all time https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-915390506


Not amazing but it's a nice surefire gengar-trap option and it messes up the onion too.


Annihilates TSS. little slow and frail though.


Great dug punisher. I like to use it on that Hclat team. way better than 1100 ladder lords would make it seem. I get genuine return value consistently from this guy.


Has good walling ability some of the time. Teams with poor mix coverage get hard walled by it.


Hypno hydro ib thief is an amazing set of moves. It is frail asf though.


Very over-hyped by the adv community. All it does it wisp shit and hazard a lucky boom. Don't get me wrong, wisp is good but the notion that sticking this mon on an offence team suddenly beats milotic is a farce. Takes way too much from surf, and the only way it beats milotic is by killing itself??


God forbid you bring a PLS DONT CRIT ME team vs this guy. good mon. Too hard to fit it on a team though ):


Can really mess stall up. RS just doesnt do enough damage though

Rubbish Bin


I don't actually think it rly has a niche but I've left it here just so that TheAsianC3PO Camerupt69 can see that I think it's bad. Also its not like blaziken at all. Use this drugged out, desert cow against me and I'll give it a third hump.

This aged well.

 

[giraffefromholland]

I come back to this thread nearly a year since I stopped playing ADV OU and I see that while it's still in D tier, Camerupt is now finally back ahead of Blaziken in the viability rankings. And all this without ANY input from me over the past year.

Imagine if I had a say, how much higher it would be ranked.

Baby steps I guess.

EDIT:


This aged well.

Yeah C*merupt is cool and all, but have you heard about Wooper?

 

[658Greninja]

I’m a Gen 8 player and I don’t play a whole lotta ADV so don’t @ me.

Ttar Tier

(Self-Explanatory.)

S Tier

(So incredibly splashable on teams between its spikes immunity, solid bulk, and dmg output. It p much can fit on every style. Be it BO/Balance/Stall or BP. Speaking of which, the fact that it can pivot and/or pass Subs is incredibly valuable in a gen where pivot moves aren’t commonplace. It phazes, it pivots, it hits hard.)

(Immune to Sand/Spikes/Toxic, sets Spikes itself, the reason Magneton is OU in the first place, and the iconic check to DD sweepers not named Gyara.)

(Great offensive and defensive utility, scary wincon, and appreciates Zapdos running more SpD. Not to mention the rise of fightings brings its already huge importance to the meta to slightly greater heights.)

(Gross is always making progress everytime it hits the field. Its gonna smack something with Mash, Boom, and luring Pert or Skarm with HP Grass/Fire.)

(Checks most of the big names of ADV. Defensive sets are still its BnB as offensive sets have gotten easier to exploit. Hates spikes but immune to sand.)

(One of the scariest mons in the tier. Whether its offensive cm, defensive cm, or wish. Fire Punch burns are nasty. Especially to its would be checks such as Pert, Claydol, and friends. Also too bulky and too fast to be reliably trapped by Magneton.)

(Gengar is still Gengar. Can break walls, spread status, and lure. Its mu vs Ttar, SpD Zap, and certain variants of Pert put it a peg down.

A Tier

(Nature Cure and Tbolt/Hydro Pump means it can consistently spin vs Skarm and threaten back. Fantastic speed tier as it gets the jump on Mence, Gar, Moltres, Zapdos, and certain Dug variants.)

(One of the best Mence and Gar checks in the tier. Immune to both spikes and sand. Surprisingly good speed tier for a defensive mon lets it get the jump on certain mons.)

(Was once top 3 but its status turned against it. Still great in this metagame. CM BP is hit or miss with it being halted by Mence, Roar Zapdos, and Metagross, however BP is amazing for pivoting as it forces out bulky waters, Claydol, and lure something so that it brings in dangerous shit like Zap or Moltres.)

(CM is the best set rn. Beating opposing CM sweepers while doing better vs Gar, Molt, and Mixmence. Boah sets are annoying for it but its not too hard to see them coming.)

(Gen 4-8 player sees Arena Trap and goes unga bunga. Traps key threats but giving free switches to Gar, Skarm or Mence can be annoying.)

(One of the best Mixmence, Ttar, and Pert checks in the tier whie also being a spooky wincon. Roar lets it clap phazers while being one itself. If Celebi doesn’t carry HP Grass, Suicune is mowing past it.)

(Solid breaker that spreads burns and checks Metagross and Rachi. 2HKOs everything that isn’t Lax or Blissey in sun.)

(Hates Mence and is trapped by Dug but 2HKOs/OHKOs most of the tier. Can run HP Ghost for Gar while being a midground vs Celebi and Mie. Might be overrating it with its placement tho.)

(Underrated wincon. Taunt shuts down usual checks to DD Mence or Ttar while not having to slot in Lum Berry. Can check CM Cune as well. Also better vs CM Rachi assuming it lacks Thunder Punch which isn’t common.)

B Tier

(Traps Skarm, somewhat traps Meta, and traps the less common Forretress. Deadweight otherwise and more counterplay has been made to avoid it from doing its job like having secondary DD sweeper checks like Pert or Claydol.)

(Like someone said, its need to recover or refresh everytime means it misses out on making progress.)

(Still immune to the classic spikes/sand combo. Can play with sets like Sub-Tox, Band, or Mixed. Fantastic check to DD Ttar. Makes Zapdos choose between HP Grass or HP Ice.)

(Has priority which is incredibly rare and highly valuable in ADV. Spore opens the door for it and its teammates to wreck havoc. Very annoying for bulkier teams.)

(No Stealth Rock means it can actually do things. 1v1s most CM sweepers, threatens the tier with boltbeam + boom, and checks Gar. Can also use Focus Punch to lure Ttar and special walls.)

(2nd fastest mon in OU next to Jolteon. Solid lategame cleaner, immune to spikes and sand. Bulkier sets can be used but CB is valuable as speed control.)

(Being a spiker that scares Claydol and booms on Mie is valuable. Has decent defensive utility in checking Mence, Flygon and Gyara. Skarm is far more splashable but Cloyster is great on offensive teams.)

(A Blissey with its own spice. 32 pp Recover over Blissey’s 16 pp Soft-Boiled. Stronger Ice Beams. Trace to let it get the jump on Mence, Duggy, and Flygon better than Bliss.)

(Knock Off is incredibly rare in Gen 3. It is so incredibly valuable in a meta where half of the tier relies on lefties for recovery and a meta centered around sand n’ spikes. Luckily Hariyama does more than remove items. Checks Ttar, can deal decent dmg with STAB Cross Chop, and can phaze. Not the most splashable mon in ADV but a worthwhile addition to Balance and Stall.)

(Once ppl realized it didn’t need to be CM, it become a good offensive lead with a fantastic speed tier. CM is still an option but lead sets have become its BnB.)

(Hates spikes, burns, and relies on rest for recovery. Definitely not as splashable as some other special walls and needs more support than usual. A special wall that can threaten an OHKO on Gar is nice.)

(When I messed around with it on ladder with Duggy, I told myself that this thing was dumb. STAB Ice Beams and Lovely Kiss cripple even things it would fall to on paper. Lovely Kiss means it has a 75% chance of setting the tide of the game. Great lead on offensive teams that appreciate its ability to cripple Ttar and steels. Its middling bulk and awkward speed tier makes it difficult to use.)

C Tier

(It has seen a bit of use in SPL. It has a few advantages over fellow Fire/Flying type Moltres. Access to Focus Punch means Zard can lure usual Moltres answers like Bliss, Lax, and Ttar while ripping through defensive cores. Having 10 more speed than Molt lets it speed tie with Zapdos and Mence. Blaze also lets it boost its Fire STABs to levels higher than even Molt.)

(Can reliably pass subs due to its high hp and solid bulk.)

(Jynx but with defensive utility for the cost of speed and offensive presence.)

(A couple of reasons to use it over Skarm. Can threaten Mag on the switch with EQ. Can hit Gar and Claydol with HP Ghost. Also has the option to spin or boom.)

(Checks offensive Zapdos, Gross, and DD sweepers without having to fear getting trapped by Mag.)

(Has seen better days but its still an annoying fuck. 2nd fastest mon and also 2nd fastest mon with baton pass. HP Ice/Grass, Roar to phaze, and Twave to cripple things. It even has a small bit of defensive utility in switching into Zapdos. It is essentially the ADV equivalent to Koko, if only it was as good.)

(Not being quad weak to flying means Duggy doesn’t immediately trap it. Stronger fighting STAB and slightly better bulk and horsepower makes it a nice alt to Herra.)

(Lackluster stats but its typing is perfect for Zapdos, Rachi, and Moltres. Its also an ok breaker but the mind games with its stabs, hp, and boom are easier to play around these days.)

(Good vs Offensive teams but doesn’t do much vs Balance or Stall. Has seen better days but it still checks the many physical threats of ADV while avoiding spikes.)

(Here cuz rain has somewhat of a place in ADV. Ludicolo is slightly higher for also doubling as a switch in to Mie and Pert.)

D Tier

(Mediocre Speed tier and bad bulk means it lacks consistency. It can go off with the right leads and cripple something with Spore while passing boosts.)

(High Risk High Reward mon on Baton Pass.)

(Hits harder than its fighting type amigos but something sneezes at it and it just dies. Use cautiously.)

(Pursuit Doom isn’t needed that much anymore and Pursuit Tar is almost always preferred. Pursuit trapping Gar, Skarm, and Rachi is still fine.)

(Baton Pass.)

(Can be used with Sunny Day Molt but its a risk to have one team slot dedicated to bad Celebi.)

E Tier (not ordered)

(Considering it not only has to compete with Ttar but also the rare Steelix, its small niche isn’t that valuable.)

(Can f up teams in rain but Ludicolo and Kingdra are preferred choices that don’t die to a sneeze.)

(Has trouble breaking past certain defensive cores that aren’t SkarmBliss. If it drops HP Ice, Mence walls it, if it drops HP Grass, Pert chucks it. Also SpD Zapdos being as good as it is doesn’t help either.)

 

[johnnyg2]

(i finally finished this...) I won't go through every mon, but thought i'd show my post SPL Tier list and explain some of my opinions: (note: everything is ordered before the usable tier, usable is in alphabetical order and is stuff I've used in the past and think can work)

Here is my spl teamdump: https://pokepast.es/c7a818d62ee86835 -- Shoutout to everyone who helped! my classiest teammates London Beats, snøfall, SoulWind, erz, 64 Squares, Siglut (the goat), Endill (goat #2), eden (goat #3), Ophion, Hclat, zf, z0mOG, CALLOUS, McMeghan, mikmer, Altina, vapicuno, ABR, Christos, SuperEpicAmpharos, RealJester Excal. Ty to all of my opponents for being great match ups! Can't thank you guys enough for being amazing and giving me insight into my teams!

I'm gonna pull a UD and base my rankings off of my own spl usage and then fudge it a bit until it seems "right"

TTar: 6
Zap: 6
Meta: 5
Jirachi: 3
Suicune: 3
Blissey: 3
Starmie: 3
Claydol: 2
Salamence: 2
Gengar: 2
Aero: 2
Dug: 2
Skarm: 2
Cloy: 1
Celebi: 1
Smear: 1
Steelix: 1
P2: 1
Mag: 1
Hera: 1
Machamp: 1
Gon: 1
Forre: 1
Gyara: 1

The "fudging" I did: I moved skarm up bc i had been spamming it prespl and in some side tours, but was super paranoid of counterstyling and generally wanted to explore some other archetypes. I swapped pert/gar into the 3 three tier over cune and star simply bc of trying to diversify a bit led to higher usage. I think Celebi has fallen a bit, but I wished i was able to use more cm celebis in my usage so I moved it into the 2 tier. The rest either I had one off usage or stuff I didnt use I generally ordered how I saw it being viable. Just an FYI -- I'd say the BL cutoff is right around milo/p2. Most useful BLs in B tier imo, rest of the good ones in b-

Metagame thoughts:

From the last big ADV tour (Callous Invite 5) to SPL, there's some big meta shifts I'll detail:

• Tarless TSS. These have been around a while (a big prominent example was one I remember Gacu using a lot in the sand veil test, skarm meta star cm bliss gar dug, but there are others), but the first big one in this tour was ABR's team in w2 v M drag. ABR has been innovating these styles a lot through CI, so have others.
• Return of DD Mence. I think fat DD Mence was on the rise in CI, but it really came alive in SPL, especially from altina, but also others. I know we all used to meme it for being too weak, but every check is just a rock slide flinch away if everything is weakened.
• Falling raw special offense. I commented last time that I thought most top players had a pocket special offense to throw out. I think that trend of classic special offense dies down a bit in the bo1 format, especially in the later weeks. Jirachi, Celebi, Dugtrio, Zapdos all took a hit. Especially dug as giving dd mence set up against special offense is such a pain
• That's not to say special offense didnt rear its head. I think people really innovated the style to include spinners (people have increasingly innovated dol/star teams over the years), such as Ojama's team against ABR, my team against Hclat, pheo's team against sadly. I also think people have soured a bit on zap + dug, but I think the new direction is to not lead zapdos. Gone are the days where people let you get a free sub in the lead spot imo -- skarm leads are fairly rare as are cune leads. I think my teams this season against teclis and team against hclat are the way to go -- a different lead (hp fight rachi/status gar) that can fight/status tar so you don't take that huge hit on your water/meta. My favorite team I used this season might be the one I brought against teclis
• Skarm retaking the throne as the great spikes user. I think forre usage really starting dropping post linear retirement, but forre has reallly dropped to me, to the point my only forre use this year (after spamming the crap out of it early last year) was as an offensive spiker (where I think its main viability is).
• Alongside that, proliferation of Skarm/meta/dol core and top ten dol usage. I don't know if pasy, who invented offensive claydol, ever would have foreseen dol being a top ten mon in adv. It's really good check to just about everything, especially as adv has moved to where offensive teams really appreciate no spikes. The core gives you good answers to rocks, good emergency answers as all three live just about everything and can either status or phase in skarm's case or explode. You can fit almost anything in the last three slots.
• I like where the meta is at although id consider an accuracy/swagger/mime + bp ban (maybe we should have just taken the 2 + bp + taunt ban .... ) -- so many different styles, so many ways to experiment.

My VR: (I'll go through the top 15 or so mons and then do a summary of the rest

I think tar should always be the no 1 mon in adv simply bc of how good sand is. I think people have been innovating tar less spikes builds, but handling cune/lax effectively can be tricky and that extra damage really helps damage stick long term. We saw the pitfalls of sandless in altina v ojama where subcune kinda just runs over fatter stuff. DD of all types prob remains my favorite way to equalize between players of different skill levels, as it forces you opponent to respond and fatter ones are nice glue for more offensive teams, as it lives just about everything. i also really like lum bkc tar, any tar set that can stay in t1 on tar (mix, fast cb, sub). Don't always have to go to skarm!

I feel like people have been souring on zap, but I'm not among them. I feel like zap can really run many many different ev spreads and still be effective. I really strayed away from classic zapdug (as have others) as I feel leading zap isn't as effective as it was earlier last year/throughout 2020 as it leads to bad early games against ttar unless you sack zap. Sub zap is still quite effective outside the lead slot (and is a lot more surprising), i love resttalk zap ability to shore you up against gar, meta, and status on offensive teams while still proving momentum (dol sucks though), but I think Zap's most underrated sets are offensive agility sets. Few things reverse momentum better w 3 layers down than agility mixdos (special focused or physical, both work depending on team), as well as gives you an out against waters, fighters, a lot of things that those aggressive teams can struggle with. Recommend y'all try it out, I used it a ton for a reason.

I think in my vrs, i really like mons that can fill a bunch of different role with a wide variety of ev spreads while maintaining usefulness. every mon in my top ten (other than skarm, which facilitates this style) have many different ways to be used and remain useful in many situations. Meta is just about the epitome of this -- defensive, sweeping, wallbreaking, meta really can fit on anything and is used on teams ranging from ho to fat. I think a really cool new development is spdef meta, not necessarily full spdef (although full spdef meta can do some crazy things like not get 3hkoed by spdef zapdos), but like ~80 evs or so and rock slide to help deal w zapdos on teams that struggle with it. I think in the coming year, we'll see a lot more innovation w meta builds, more than we already have

Like zapdos, i don't agree with the broad field souring on jirachi. I think the subcm craze we saw during ci has died down once people realize relying on thunder sucks and tbolt/ip is too weak once bliss doesnt twave into your sub, but my favorite two sets are full phys def w protox (fearrachi) and fat superrachi as a substitute for a special wall on aggressive spikes teams. Phys def is insane, wish stalling meta, bkc tar, pert and the like is crazy. need good team support to fit it, but i think you can get away w a more aggressive tar sets if you have a good back up like resttalk zap to get around the gar weakness. Fat superrachi i feel like can give momentum to more offensive spikes teams while still being a decent water check itself -- you beat starmie 1v1 as you live two pumps and 2hko w hp grass. Something ive been experimenting is throwing lax or counter pert on those teams to give me a better zap answer. I put rachi this high bc it really is super versatile, even if some other sets like subcm or mixed are not as viable as they were. Putting something that gives you as much building versatility as jirachi low seems crazy to me.

I love skarm -- I don't have it as high as someone like abr, but skarm's ability to make good mons great and survive just about anything is second to only ttar. ADV is really a flat circle -- we havent seen people putting skarm this high (i was on some bs when i put it 10th next to forre lol last year) since the protox era in like 2017. I like the jolly skarm roro (from mana) posted for taunting things, but the classic is great. I think skarm's low winrate (insane usage, one behind meta) is an aberration, looking forward to the skarm teams we see in the future!

I think bliss has become underrated once people realized you can't make it your only special wall any more, or have contingencies for dug. Bliss allows you to use things normally used for handling like zap or waters, like lax or rachi or celebi, more offensively, simply bc it handles them so well. I don't agree it outclasses jirachi, bc having that rock resist for aero is great, but having something that can put in work against mixed attackers and blanket wall a lot of special threats is fantastic. Tox bliss is great you guys

I feel like I've been fluctuating gar here over the last two years I've joined in more deeply in the adv community. Gar is amazing, especially as people have begone using suit tar a bit less as forre usage has died down. I love the super fat spdef gar that abr posted (i know it goes back before him, but i stole his ev spread), as kind of blanket check for just about anything, but gar is great. shores up against a lot of random threats like hera. Idk if my usages in spl (weird zapdug lead and on smear) is the best usage for it, but gar can really fit anywhere in a wide variety of spreads, kind of a trend of my top ten

This is probably the lowest ive ever rated pert (i only used it once which was crazy, prob more of a function of how good the rest of these mons are) but i think pert, especially max hp +spa pert, is really primed to take advantage of this meta, especially all of these meta/dol/skarm balances. I've been loving focus punch pert, but something ive been trying is to fit refresh on them to get around tox skarm like ninjask used to do. Pert being prob the best ddmence counter in the game is def worth something, and counter for fitting weird mons like houndoom is really cool to me rn.

I am very surprised i didnt use dd mence this season, a mon i like rn (did build w it a lot). I used a lot of mixmence (that last slot can truly be anything, even refresh :) and it, along w gar, is the best way to shore yourself up against fighters. Another mon i had ready but didnt use agaisnt mess was the wish + 3 physical attacks roro innovated, as it gives fantastic utility when you don't need to sweep (unfortunately learned dd + wish is illegal :(. I think we might see dd die down a bit later this year, but the builds like the ones altina used throughout i dont think will. I don't think cb is as bad as everyone else does, but I can't remember the last one i used damn

Claydol in the top ten! I think this is a function of how much the community has turned to spinners instead of outplaying spikes with superman, taunt skarm, or wish passing. Claydol is another mon that can kinda do it all; it lives almost everything and can run a wide variety of spreads. An idea I've been trying is to use the fast jolly dol, but use salac on it. Salac outspeed everything and you can actually beat ddtar 1v1 as you now outspeed it. Cool way to use a rock resist + spin (almost brought it vs pheo). I think dol is here to stay in the top ten as a replacement for celebi's long time slot.

Another spinner right outside the top ten, to me, star's best sets are the fast fat rapid spin ones. I don't quite agree w offstar being so low, due to the teams it just lays waste to, but its best used imo on very aggressive spikes teams, like abr's one here and here and my team here. I don't love classic beerlover in tours as much as i used to. Like for dol, I think the community has really evolved to including spinners on more offensive teams than they used to, as the dol/star have evolved to give more utility than they used to bring in the older days of adv

Still really love aero, nothing slices through offensive/poorly built teams better than aero does. I don't quite agree w the maxim that ddmence > aero on a lot of team (even if i used to ascribe to that in like 2019) but I feel like i wanted to bring aero more than i did i actually did this year. I feel like aero being more used is another reason why celebi began to drop, as the passing sets just aren't as effective if aero comes in an immediately threatens an ohko or come close to it/skarm can phaze. I think phys def rachi + aero is a fantastic combo and im excited for more aero builds from the community in the future

Maybe I'm more on the offensive suicune hype train than most, but I feel like offcune's best last move is rest, with or without sleep talk (ice beam + rest in particular shores you up against dd mence and mence in general on those frailer special offenses). I feel a lot of people are building teams weak to it, the main answer in celebi is less common now than perhaps ever, and cune shores you up against fires and pert better than most. Being back here is still a far drop than what cune is used to, i dont like those fatter ultimate bold roar cune support teams as much as during ci, but offensive cunes are still quite effective.

How the mighty have fallen to see me, a huge cm celebi lover, put it all the way back here. I think this is primarily bc of how metagame factors just do not favor celebi as much as they used to. a grounded special wall that just barely recover loops offensive ice moves, is duggable, and wants to fit a million utility options just can be painful to use. CM celebi, on the other hand, is a great partner to bliss to help w waters and electrics. I feel like my "style" is to throw on fat super cm mons to up the pace of my teams (here, here, here, here, and here) and i feel celebi does a great job with that. I don't really like cm pass, as it just seems like trying to get celebi to do too much on the teams it is on, but maybe someone will innovate so they don't feel so all or nothing. I can't see celebi falling much further than this imo, at least to me.

Again, I feel like adv is a flat circle, as i either see dug going back to the max speed spread again, or using extremely fat ones (but not quite the bkc special of no speed dug) that drop attack to still outspeed jolly ddtar. Dug is great, although I think it has fallen through spl bc of how common dug punishes (dd mence, skarm setting up a spike, people making their mons more dug proof, less common dug set ups like hard bliss on zap t1, stuff like that). Spikes + dug i think is still quite strong, even if i think dug offense is kinda mid unless you spice it up. I think the future of dug offense is more on the physical side -- not depending on the bliss trap, but nice if you get it. More for getting rid of meta/tar that can live a hit and respond to your dd mence as an example.

General comments: People need to use mag more with this explosion of skarm. I love gyara in this meta, a mon i wished i used a lot more. Lax is another big one -- fire blast lax is a really cool set in this meta imo. I'm on the zard train, but I don't love people throwing it way ahead of molt. Molt is cool. Vap for OU! Had a bunch of teams I had ready but ultimately didnt bring. Don't use def vap it sucks, subwish or just subpass is where it is at. Forre is best imo as an offensive spiker that lives almost every non fire hit and booms. Spinning w it is really hard against a good player. Jolt is good! kerts original best jolt player. Also smear for ou! It's so good if you don't lead w it. P2, venu, jynx, machamp (linear was onto something, this thing is amazing), steelix, and armaldo are the most viable bls in my opinion, shortly followed by weezing and kou (after smear and vap, soured on yama after found out maldo better knock mon). I have joined the ludi hype train.

Thank you so much for reading!

 

[ABR]

Let's get right into it

S
I am putting skarm at 1. It defines the tier and dictates the way teams are built. Spikes are huge and skarm is by far the best spiker. It also takes a hit from literally everything and can protect roar your whole team for days. Toxic + peck is genuinely hard to switch into for some teams. Every team needs to think about its anti-skarm plan above all else. Magneton matchups are totally fine, and even with a spinner it can be played around (gar really helps here). Classic skarmbliss is good but people like Altina have also used skarm alongside offensive mons like blaziken zard venu to great success.

Tar is still amazing… and so is sand. I just think it’s SLIGHTLY less amazing than spikes. I, and many others, used to put tar on every team and never look back. These days, you can carefully choose to forego sand if you need a mon with more defined roles either offensively or defensively. Tar is great on both ends but sometimes it just doesn’t fit your team. Lax and cune can be beaten in other ways, and I think gar or meta in particular are very good at helping vs those. I mean yea this mons still great and maybe I’ll change my mind by next update but for now it’s getting a 2.

A+
Metagross fits on every type of team and always does something due to boom. All of impish ada mix cb are good depending on partners. Meta also compresses roles in a way sometimes even tar can’t (can check physical threats while also helping vs lax cune).

As usual, when skarm is good so is bliss. It will always be the most consistent skarm partner, checking every special mon and even dd’ers with the right sets. Status / CM are directly threatening and wish / aroma offer fantastic support.

Pert is the only real physical wall in the tier, checking stuff like meta ddmence ddtar way better than anything else. On top of that it’s a progress maker with focus / endeavor / roar and fits on most teams.

A
Mence’s most consistent set will always be mix imo but I’m definitely higher on dd than I used to be. CB is pretty bad and almost always inferior to aero. Anyway, being offensively threatening with high speed and intimidate pivoting all simultaneously is amazing.

Zap is great at both gaining momentum with bp as well as walling stuff with spdef sets. Like other top mons, it fits on almost any team. I like either modest bulky or max spdef resttalk but its evs and moves are fairly customizable.

I used to have gar #2 because it pairs so well with both skarm and dug but now I’m lower on dug offense so… yea. Still, gar is the main reason skarm teams are so hard to beat consistently because it makes spinning a pain even if you kill skarm. As always, boom is best.

Dol has the biggest (high rank) rise of 2022 by far. It is good both with skarm and against skarm. It doesn’t 1v1 (though picking off chipped skarm with boom is nice) but skarm has to deal with things like metagross in the short term so that makes for an excellent partnership too. If you para skarm then you can also eventually get the full para post spin. Also dol emergency checks literally everything (gar zap mence and even stuff like mie in a pinch).

A-
I really only like superrachi and wish tect. I think wish cm and wish 3atk are just too easy to abuse. Sub CM has super limited coverage and time to fish. It also competes with the meta slot frequently and direct type overlap is eh. Still it’s both bulky and threatening and set unpredictability goes a long way. I know that all sounded negative but wish tect is like impossible to ohko and it’s more reliable than the mons below.

Mie is the best at directly spinning vs skarm and bulky also checks meta pert mence well. Offensive (surf) also has a great speed tier and threatens a lot. Like gar, I only really use it with spikes or dug.

For reference, I used 9/15 dug in callous invitational and 1/9 dug in SPL. It’s still good and traps a lot of top tier mons but dug structures are very limiting. Skarm dug teams usually need spin to compete with superman or dol style teams which leaves few viable 6’s. Dug offenses find it very hard to come back from the momentum loss vs sub zap / ddmence / zard.

B+
Curse rest lax is still unreliable but curse boom and focus sets are a key component of many spikeless teams. With curse slam you can just repeatedly chip down skarm too, instantly booming is less needed. It 1v1s / soft checks most mons when needed.

Celebi is pretty mediocre defensively but a nice offense enabler sometimes. Super, cm bp, sub leech, leech bp are all viable and can mess with the other team’s defensive plan. The prevalence of ddmence and zard definitely hurts it.

Flygon is the only spike immune physical wall. On spinless teams that is an incredibly valuable asset. Impish toxic with slide is great and you can also put flame to beat non-tox skarm. CB can be threatening with the right support. Sub 3atk + magneton (s/o Jirachee) is also a great combo.

Mag has the valuable niche of trapping skarm BUT mag teams need to be built very carefully. It’s a pretty meh mon defensively so you need to make sure you either pair it with a spinner or have enough tools to beat pert gar bliss with them having a spike up. I think skarm mag spin trios are underrated but they kind of need to drop tar which comes with a degree of risk.

Aero is great at revenge killing pretty much anything offensive. The rise of dol meta cores makes clicking moves harder and less dugoff means there are less totally free matchups. More ddmence than ddtar also hurts it. Nonetheless, it dictates the way teams are built and can bring back otherwise lost games with either flinches or great predictions.

Cune is one of the most historically overrated pokemon in ADV. Defensive roar is just forced to rest and then is a sitting duck that gets phazed out. Crocune (modest) is good with the right rolls only (getting surf on roars). I won't use it much because of the rng component but I still try to prepare for it because it can be threatening. Still, a terrible answer to every dragon dancer and hates both sand and spikes. Offensive sets are solid but the dugoff styles frequently using said sets are out of flavor.

B
Milo remains the best wall to mixed attackers. Refresh and 32pp recover makes it hard to kill without boom or setup, but it still pretty much mandates claydol (and skarm) which is limiting.

Gyara has a very unique set of traits for a dragon dancer. It has limited power / coverage compared to mence but it’s better vs pert, zard, mixmence, and many bliss sets. Always run DE, but legit all of fly ghost rock are good. Like ddmence, it does not require magneton, but it is a great mag partner because those teams can usually use pert help.

Molt is extremely strong. A lot of people hype zard but I find molt to be more consistent with the better bulk and power. Modest overheat is my go to. It can still beat bliss, but needs spikes + roar or a gar boom to do so.

Loom is a big threat under the right circumstances / with good sleep rolls. Honestly playing around gar is a huge pain even with suit tar. Nonetheless 100% accurate sleep + focus punch is a clean combo. Timed right, it can be devastating.

Zard is better than it used to be. Ice and grass both work on different teams, and beatup kills bliss so much more reliably than focus ever did. Focus is still valid to dissuade tar. I hate fireblast so pairing overheat and flame is how I work around that, but that leaves coverage issues...

Hera is solid if it predicts right and hits megahorn. It’s a paper threat so I’ll keep it this high but the variance isn’t for me.

B-
Forry can be good if you run zap cannon or pair with dol (or do both). It very often is stretched too thin trying to spike and spin simultaneously vs skarm + gar or dol.

Jolt either needs to be on super aggressive spike teams (meta, gar, etc) or act as a subpasser for momentum heavy hit and run offenses. The latter is admittedly an under-explored category. This thing is NOT blissey.

Cloyster can be used well, but I try to fit it with either gar or dol to ease skarm matchups. You need to use it aggressively, not as a skarm replacement.

Smeargle is a cool lead spiker that can also surprise with mid-game baton pass sets. I've had some success with ddpass to medi and the like.

When jynx hits, it hits hard. Mean look + perish + sub dug remains a favorite but thief and cm etc are also valid. Again I'm lower on dugoff than I used to be but jynx can really snowball fast.

I don't like lead venu but the sleep leech combo is super annoying to deal with. Ice and fire both work on different teams.

C
Mons that can work pretty well on several teams.

D
Mons that can work on a few teams.

E
Mons that can work on very few teams, under specific circumstances.

~

ADV

 

[McMeghan]

Hello everyone. It has been 6 months since the last update, so let's get the new one rolling. You know the drill by now but I will repeat it just in case...

I will just quote myself from the previous update regarding how this thing works:

I want every established ADV players to PM me their own ranking. By established, I mean good Tour results or very high ladder peaks. I will then make an average of everyone's ranking to reach the final result (similary to the SPL pre-season power rankings). I plan to disclose the full results and show who voted what exactly.

I want you guys to give this post a quick read, and if you care about this thing, to send me YOUR own viability ranking by PM. Also, if you know anyone you'd consider as qualified enough to send their take on the matter, let them know and tell them to PM me with their ranking too.

The only thing I'll do is probably decide myself whose vote gets to be taken into account for the averaged result at the end. Feel free to ask me in PM if you'd make the cut so you dont waste time sending a ranking for no reason.

NEW CHANGE: You cannot post your VRs until the final result is calculated. This is to avoid players influencing each other as we want to try a more organic and individualistic approach. If you post, I will delete the post and then undelete it once the VRs are done.

Please feel free to send me your rankings, especially if you're an active ADVer. Share this with your friends who play the tier. The more the better.
HLing a bunch of people:
dice Fear Hclat Ibidemsa Jirachee johnnyg2 Kerts M Dragon CALLOUS Star Triangles z0mOG thelinearcurve ABR Altina bruno Cowboy Dan Dizno Endill watermess RealJester Mana Mead Siglut vapicuno Teclis UD undisputed Gilbert arenas Astamatitos mikmer SuperEpicAmpharos

 

[vapicuno]

Time to make your long VR posts!

Hi everyone,

I have worked with McMeghan on this year's VR update as per last year. Thanks to McMeghan johnnyg2 Siglut CALLOUS watermess Jirachee ABR z0mOG Gacu M Dragon Hclat Triangles SuperEpicAmpharos Caloom Altina Fear Voyager Sadlysius Mead RealJester Century Express Endill mikmer Kerts for your rankings. And thank you McMeghan for providing this data to work with.

Okay, TLDR stuff first:
The average outlier-compensated ranks from everyone are

Aggregate Rankings

01 Tyranitar
02 Metagross
03 Skarmory
04 Zapdos
05 Swampert
06 Gengar
07 Blissey
08 Jirachi
09 Salamence
10 Celebi
11 Claydol
12 Suicune
13 Dugtrio
14 Aerodactyl
15 Starmie
16 Snorlax
17 Magneton
18 Breloom
19 Flygon
20 Forretress
21 Gyarados
22 Charizard
23 Moltres
24 Heracross
25 Jolteon
26 Milotic
27 Cloyster
28 Smeargle
29 Hariyama
30 Venusaur
31 Jynx
32 Vaporeon
33 Porygon2
34 Regice
35 Kingdra
36 Raikou
37 Medicham
38 Blaziken
39 Ludicolo
40 Steelix
41 Machamp
42 Armaldo
43 Camerupt
44 Weezing
45 Glalie
46 Marowak
47 Umbreon
48 Dusclops
49 Jumpluff
50 Donphan
51 Articuno
52 Politoed
53 Houndoom
54 Dragonite
55 Registeel
56 Ninjask
57 Rhydon
58 Regirock
59 Slaking
60 Scizor
61 Misdreavus
62 Mantine
63 Miltank
64 Aggron
65 Lanturn
66 Roselia
67 Alakazam
68 Espeon
69 Lapras
70 Gardevoir
71 Lunatone
72 Entei
73 Solrock
74 Golduck
75 Wailord
76 Exeggutor
77 Omastar
78 Swellow
79 Ursaring
80 Sceptile
81 Gligar
82 Kabutops
83 Arcanine
84 Flareon
85 Tauros
86 Ninetales
87 Dodrio
88 Ampharos
89 Sableye
90 Quagsire
91 Linoone
92 Nidoking
93 Gorebyss
94 Muk
95 Hitmontop
96 Azumarill
97 Blastoise
98 Chansey
99 Electrode

and considering only pokemon that were ranked by 7 or more players, we get the reduced list that will be updated into the OP,

Reduced Aggregate Rankings

01 Tyranitar
02 Metagross
03 Skarmory
04 Zapdos
05 Swampert
06 Gengar
07 Blissey
08 Jirachi
09 Salamence
10 Celebi
11 Claydol
12 Suicune
13 Dugtrio
14 Aerodactyl
15 Starmie
16 Snorlax
17 Magneton
18 Breloom
19 Flygon
20 Forretress
21 Gyarados
22 Charizard
23 Moltres
24 Heracross
25 Jolteon
26 Milotic
27 Cloyster
28 Smeargle
29 Hariyama
30 Venusaur
31 Jynx
32 Vaporeon
33 Porygon2
34 Regice
35 Kingdra
36 Raikou
37 Medicham
38 Blaziken
39 Ludicolo
40 Steelix
41 Machamp
42 Armaldo
43 Camerupt
44 Weezing
45 Glalie
46 Marowak
47 Umbreon
48 Dusclops
49 Jumpluff
50 Donphan
51 Articuno
52 Houndoom
53 Dragonite
54 Registeel
55 Ninjask
56 Rhydon
57 Regirock
58 Slaking
59 Scizor
60 Misdreavus
61 Mantine
62 Lanturn
63 Roselia
64 Alakazam
65 Solrock
66 Wailord
67 Sceptile
68 Arcanine

There is essentially no difference in these lists for the purposes of this VR, as we are analyzing just the top few tiers. The aggregate VR tiers obtained are

Final VR Tiers

S:
A1:
A2:
B1:
B2:
C:
D1:
D2:
E:

Let's go through the whole process.

First the data is cleaned by compensating outliers 1 standard deviation away from the edge of the percentiles expected to contain +/- 1 standard deviation of a normal distribution. This is a modification of the conventional interquartile range (IQR), which I have not chosen to use because 50% of the sample doesn't capture the full variation from what I've seen. The compensation is done by bringing these points to the edge of this extended range. This results in mostly zero, but sometimes one or two outlier corrections. We then plot the outlier-removed data as a function of the integer rank to obtain this graph.

VR Tiering Decisions

Full VR Ranking Plot

and we can zoom in to the top 50 mons where tiering decisions are expected to make more sense,

Up to Snorlax the tiers are pretty well defined, but tiering seems really difficult after that; there are lots of overlaps between tiers and looking for jumps in the mean ranking is possible but not easy, We turn to hierarchical clustering to help obtain the tiers. We form a dissimilarity matrix where the distances between Pokemon X and Y are given by the following: Take the rate at which voters ranked Pokemon X over Pokemon Y, take the logit transform as is done in logistic regression of a Bernoulli-distributed variable, and take the absolute value. Performing what we call a Ward linkage, this yields a dendrogram of the following sort, where the clusters (what we are going to call tiers) formed by setting a reasonable threshold are represented by different colors, and the dissimilarity between each cluster can be thought of as the vertical height of the nearest branch that connects the two clusters.

In other words, the Porygon2-Raikou tier is a lot closer to the Medicham-Weezing tier (connecting height 7, note the log scale) than the Smeargle-Vaporeon tier (connecting height 15). Ignore Tyranitar, since it is unanimously ranked ahead of any other tier and so is in effect as distant to any other tier. Note that the order is not preserved by the algorithm, and hierarchical clustering throws away information, so this is just a rough guide to defining the tiers.

Dendrogram across Tyranitar to Weezing

This year, I needed to change the ceiling to the distance from 4 to 3.5 for the tiering results to be consistent with the standard deviation shown in the line plot. The ceiling distance of 4 used to be arbitrarily chosen - it represents an agreement in relative ranking of 55/56 participants. Lowering this ceiling to 3.5 changes the agreement to 33/34 participants. Since such fine differences are beyond the resolution that can be determined by our population size of 24, I deem such a change to be reasonable.

We want to verify the validity of the clusters obtained from the dendrogram, so we next plot the dissimilarity matrix and draw out the tiers specified.

To read the dissimilarity matrix, note that zero (the darkest value) corresponds to equal number of people voting in favor and against the Pokemon on the Y axis > X axis, and the higher the value, the more one-sided the voting becomes. In other words, the darker, the more indistinguishable the Pokemon on the X and Y axis become, and a well-defined tier would be a fully dark square (read my methodology thread for explanations).

This yields the following subdivision which McMeghan and I have decided on

S:
A1:
A2:
B1:
B2:
C:
D1:
D2:
E:

Numerical ranks represent partial tiers, whereas letter ranks represent a more complete separation. I choose to adopt numerical subranks because there is no reason a priori to believe that Pokemon are grouped in viability by a tripartite scheme of +/-.

Metagame Shifts

This chart shows the difference between this and last year's VRs, together with the uncertainties in the means (not the standard deviation, but the standard deviations divided by sqrt(N-1)). (Note in previous renditions I might have missed this out), but it is immaterial to the ordering.

Rank Improvements from 2021 to 2022

A better way to understand how significant these changes are so as not to mistake changes occuring as due to pure chance is to plot the z-score,

where the Y axis means number of standard deviations away from zero. To recap, 0.5, 1 and 2 standard deviations are about 69%, 84%, and 98% significant (one-sided), meaning roughly that for a z-score of 1, we expect that this change to have occurred due to chance 100%-84% = 16% of the time. Therefore, trust the data on the left than on the right.

To me this is where the fun starts. I'll focus on the Pokemon that have experienced a significant shift >2 standard deviations. Maybe this can be my VR post as well.

OU Pokemon - My Commentary

(+)
Skarmory is not new to the concept of breaking the mold of traditional Skarmory + Spikes support (Gengar, Magneton, Spinner) + fast sweepers (Aerodactyl, Starmie). Not only have we seen continued fresh applications of offense to Skarmory teams such as Skarmory + DDMence, we have also seen the emergence of new sandless Skarmory team ideas beyond the Skarmory + Suicune archetype. The key issue with sandless teams is addressing Rest Suicune, Snorlax, and offensive CM users, so we have seen mitigating innovations (or, if you'd like, backward time travel) in defensive options like RestTalk Zapdos, Calm Mind Blissey, and Perish Song Celebi, as well as offensive options like Venusaur. Thief has also become popular as an effective disruptive tool, mitigating Knock Off (before mechanics changed) which has also become popular last year, but even ignoring that, permanently chipping opposing Skarmory is really useful. Who knows whether the mechanic change will spell doom for its use though.
(+)
Beat Up is what's good about modern Charizard, essentially incapacitating Blissey without resorting to any Focus Punch mindgames. This adds value as a hit-and-run attacker both on Spikes (because it has the coverage and speed) and Spikeless (because you can still hit hard without Spikes). The Fire-type coverage is also extremely good in the current climate of using Metagross + Claydol for physical walling instead of a traditional bulky water. I'd also like to point out that with HP Ice, Charizard does not give the three Wishers (Blissey, Jirachi, Salamence) any room to breathe. P.S. taking credit for this ;)
(-)
Jirachi made way for Skarmory, Gengar, Swampert and Blissey. Its drop needs to be partially seen in the context of its elevated prominence last year. The ZapDugRachi trend has been put to a halt with DDMence's ascent, and I'm guessing that the greater awareness of Fire-types makes people think twice about using Jirachi as a special wall. It also doesn't help that Aerodactyl's speed is less necessary in the context of the ban of CM+Agility chains, diminishing the need for Protect Jirachi.
(+)
Starmie's final rank only improved by 1 position, but its averaged rank has shot up, reflecting that people think it is in the same class as Celebi, Suicune, Dugtrio, and Aerodactyl. To me, this means people now see it as a comparable bulky / offensive water to Suicune, and a comparable revenge sweeper / revenge killer to Aerodactyl. Defensive Starmie benefits from the nerf to CM+Agility chains, and Starmie in general is great in a Fire-type meta, but I suspect that is not all. Offensive Starmie also coincides with Aerodactyl's decline and DDMence's rise, and we have seen some novel uses of Starmie with Smeargle and with offensive Celebi. P.S. Aerodactyl is slow.
(+)
Every year, Claydol gains new offensive dimensions. It is riding the wave of Metagross + Claydol backbones that simultaneously provide physical defense, offense enabling in double boom, and spin, but we knew that already. However, this year, we see a huge number of teams that use Claydol on relatively offensive teams for the dual role pivoting into electrics and booming, making it easier to slot Skarmory into offensive teams, use Charizard, ease pivoting with special offense, or even boom Regice without fear of getting swept by Zapdos.
(+)
Blissey's rise likely coincides with ZapDug's fall, since it rises above Jirachi. While we may not return to the times where offensive special pivot options in Claydol, SpDef Zapdos, and Tyranitar barely existed, Blissey has at least overcome its fear of SpDef Dugtrio to regain its status as the trusty special wall. I feel that we have also started to see Blissey's potential in sandless teams with Calm Mind sets, and Heal Bell has once again opened up some interesting possibilities (such as in conjunction with RestTalk Zapdos)
(-)
This year, Suicune fell into the league of Claydol, Snorlax, and Starmie. I've already mentioned about Starmie above so I won't go into great detail about that. In addition, the prevalence of DDMence and the renewed interest in CBMence hurts the sets without Ice Beam -- defensive teams with Claydol + Suicune tend to be of that sort, while the offensive ones are likely to prefer Claydol + Metagross instead of Suicune, and fitting all three is hard. Looking from the other side, the boomspam potential of the now common Claydol + Metagross + Snorlax teams makes it difficult to keep Suicune healthy too. We even now have RestTalk Zapdos making life difficult for the occasional Suicune that runs into a passive special wall.
(-)
Forretress' issues of being hard to create the conditions for it to shine have always been there, nothing's changed about that. However, the other spinners are now have good reasons to be elevated, and even Skarmory's newfound Thief might make it an even better tool for pressuring opposing Skarmory than Forretress' continuous spins. And as Forretress teams tend to be on the slow side, being pressured by Fire-types doesn't help its popularity either.
(+)
See Claydol. Materially, it stays at #2, but has more support this year. One interesting thing to note is that all roads lead to rome in the exploration of sandless offense teams.
(+)
Superman is good again, c.f. RestTalk Zap and Misdreavus (lol) to alleviate Gengar pressure and provide novel solutions vs setup sweepers.
(++)
Gets Spikes, sits on mono waters, has Stun Spore to cripple Salamence/Gengar/Zapdos/Skarmory - four A tier Pokemon, gets Aromatherapy to give your mons both pivoting and sweeping abilities, what's not to like?

Some other thoughts


The dissimilarity plot clearly shows that most people think it's at the bottom of the B2 pack, because it's a black dot that forms a light border with the square. I wonder if people are ranking it over say, Hariyama just because of legacy reasons of being OU. Just as how Porygon2 dropped several places after it was declared a BL, I wonder how Cloyster would be ranked it were relegated as well.

Magnaton's sitting on the fence, standing out from B2 but not quite B1 level. It's experienced its ups and downs in the past few VRs, with innovations in Spinner balance coming first and then Magnaton offense/balance innovations helping it to claw its way back. What's ahead for Magnaton?

Snorlax is also sitting on the border of B1. People have been building offenses with soft special checks like SpDef Zapdos, Claydol, Celebi, Tyranitar, Gyarados, Venusaur (and Roselia), providing heavy competition to Snorlax, but it at least has the triple boom archetypes going for it, so it would be interesting to see how Snorlax performs going ahead.

Analysis of Camps

As per last year, I tried to look out for divided opinions. The most significant split I found was in opinions of what I consider strategic vs hit-and-run Pokemon in the S-to-B1 tiers.

S to B1: Calm Mind vs Spikes Balance Split
In this analysis, I simply clustered voters based on their rankings of the first 16 Pokemon. Then, I extrapolate to find patterns in the rest of the OU Pokemon. The results are surprisingly polarizing.

From the Dendrogram, we identify a camp from Triangles-Sadlysius and from Kerts-Jester. We then plot their mean rankings of each Pokemon for the two camps,

Relative Ranks of camps formed from S1/S2/A/B1 split

Note again the error bars are uncertainties in means, not the actual deviations (ie divided by sqrt(N-1)). Using the z-score to see the most significant changes, we get

Barring Tyranitar where the standard deviation doesn't make a lot of sense given most people just rank it #1, the preferences for the top 12 Pokemon are

These clearly demonstrate each group's preferred styles -- Calm Mind offense or at least a Dugtrio trap balance on the former, and modern Spikes hit-and-run balance on the latter. Modern, because traditional preferences of Gengar on Spikes teams are superseded by Salamence (especially DDMence of late), and the traditional use of Swampert as the single physical wall has been replaced by the Metagross + Claydol combo. It's also interesting that the Spikes camp has a massive preference for Charizard. I guess the recent discovery of 4-attacks sets that include Beat Up to immediately threaten Blissey and a large portion of the metagame with its coverage have favored a hit-and-run style of using Charizard, as opposed to the trading style when paired with Dugtrio, that favors sets that use Focus Punch / Petaya boosted attacks to force a trade. I'm not sure why the Calm Mind group has a particular respect for Forretress though.

The dissimilarity matrix below shows just how extreme the differences in opinion are -- for example, the Spikes group heavily favors Salamence over Zapdos, even though Zapdos is ranked 5 places higher in the end.

Dissimilarity Matrix of S1/S2/A/B1 Camps

To read it, note that when you see a strongly red square, then the camp being analyzed frequently ranks the corresponding Pokemon on the Y axis more favorably than that on the X axis. Another way to see this is by looking across the diagonal line. A strongly red square should be accompanied by a strongly blue square reflected across the line, and we can say the camp prefers the Pokemon on the Y axis of the red square more than that of the blue square. For example, in the data below, the Triangles camp prefers Zapdos to Metagross.

Individual Analyses

For those who are interested to see whose S to B1 rankings are closest to theirs, you can refer to the chart below. The numbers inside the box go from -100% (full anticorrelation) to 100% (full correlation). They are sorted by the S to B1 dendrogram order (and the light squares represent the camps).

And finally, these are the relative ranks of everyone. Blue = disfavor, Red = favor. Cyan lines demarcate tier cutoffs.

Individual Ranking Graphic

Glory to those who praise Roselia

Closing Remarks

The large number of graphs may seem daunting, and to people who aren't quantitatively trained, this may be really confusing. I recommend just glancing over the spoilers on the first read, only thoroughly analyzing them after you've gone through the more important graphs that have been left unhidden. I'm interested to know what you can infer from these trends, and I hope this can generate some discussion.

Finally, I have attached the Jupyter notebook for this in a zip file. You'll need python and the associated packages to open and run it, and the easiest way to do that is to install the anaconda library here.

Finally, remember to make your long VR posts!

 

[Siglut]

Only gonna rank mons I have tried to use since the last VR update. I think that might cause some issues with the lower ranks, as my lower mons might be higher than they should be due to a low total quantity of mons, but I suppose that's only the low ranks so it's not a huge deal. Also, this is based on a subjective combo of how many teams I have with them and how much I like those teams, which becomes more clear towards the lower ranks.

I put this together a little while ago, should be about the same as the list I sent to roro.

I gotta say, I think my camp is wrong about celebi, zapdos, and gengar, but we're surely correct about suicune and dugtrio so you win some you lose some.

S

Mostly I think people are dunguses if they want to take ttar out of the top spot, but at least this time around it's for skarm. Suit is still mediocre and physical sets are incredible. Mix is pretty good too.

S-

Wisp boom 2 atks works on just about every team. I don't think anything else in the tier gives you so many options in-game, just with one set, and it's also insanely customizable in the builder as well. Gengar is a breaker, a cleaner, and an emergency check to almost every mon in the tier.

A+
Really good, every game in every matchup


Same thing it's always done, click meteor mash and resist rock slide. Agility and hp grass are awesome on the physspam teams that are going around, and protect is pretty cool too. Mash damage adds up on skarm, even if not banded, and can really help getting skarm into range of lax boom or if they get greedy something like +1 mence rock slide.


Spikes are the best type of team and skarm's the best spiker. I think sandless spikes are pretty bad and the increased usage of those teams during SPL was not very good, but classic midrange skarm+bliss+spin etc stuff has just never been better.


Not quite so versatile as Metagross or Gengar, but it is the best rock resist at resisting rock by far, being electric immune and living hidden power grasses from full is extremely nice, and offensive sets are pretty good too, although they're not great into the volume of defensive starmie that are running around.


Very slightly worse than the three preceding it, but considerably better than the tier below. Resttalk zap is OK, but where this thing shines is the fairly bulky sets without rest. Pretty good at passing subs/agilities if that's something you want to do as well, and max special attack modest/timid sets are really good as well. Toxic is absolutely an insane move on basically any Zapdos set and should see more usage. Drypass is really overrated, high opportunity cost and honestly just switch properly.

A
Pretty much the rest of the universally good mons


Like last time, defensive celebi is just alright, but offensive celebi is absolutely nuts into any team that doesn't have aerodactyl and sometimes ddmence and it can still do a lot of work into those. Some people still think that wish blissey is a good check to offensive celebi and they'll learn sooner or later that it's not. Insanely good into skarm+bliss+spin stuff if their aero/physmence goes down and it's hard to find a team that this doesn't sweep with just a little bit of setup and a free turn.


Zapdug is a bit less popular, which makes Blissey a little worse in my opinion because people normally think a little bit harder now when trying to deal with it, and the occasional bp to dug is more likely to catch you off guard. Still, this thing is just about everything you might want out of a special wall.


Subcm rachi is still good, even if people are running teams that get 6-0d by it less. Superrachi is really good, mostly alongside superbi because that's a bit better. Defensive sets are pretty good, I like physdef a lot really. 20% freeze.


Ddmence is very very good, mixmence is quite good and I'm glad people have stopped getting this thing mixed up with Gengar for the most part. CBmence is just ok, has some great matchups, but just doesn't feel that strong really. DDmence is really similar to subcm rachi a few months back, where people ran a single trappable/easily chippable check to it per team and getting around that basically won the game, but like subcm rachi it'll probably continue to be pretty good once the meta swings out of its favor.

B+
Spinners, and the two that are about as good as the spinners


Really good at slamming into stuff and getting out of there. Also basically the only way to make sure your team is good vs superbi. Subliechi aero is also quite good, but has less utility as a check to specials and pretty much only fits on extremely offensive teams where I'd personally rather put a ddmence.


Offensive and defensive are both quite good, defensive should be fast and have a bit of special attack investment and that goes a long way. Offensive really, really likes having surf as well as hydro pump.


Spins pretty decently, but suffers from being freer entry for Skarm than Mie is. Explosion is really, really good. I'm not a huge fan of the more defensive sets with refresh or rest and cleric support. Turbodol is good.


Pretty good at generating offensive pressure. I'm not a huge fan of crocune, but with a lot of spatk investment it's good. Defensive roar cune needs a lot of speed investment which makes it a little bit less bulky physically than you'd like, although it still is a Suicune.

B
I've got 2+ teams I like with these, but they're not as splashable/high-impact as the tier above.


Better than ever! Not seeing too much milo recently really helps him out. Beatup and fpunch are both great. (Since writing this, ABR has been labbing milo+cune, so I imagine a lot of people are gonna be using that sometime soon. Seems pretty bad for zard, but that's only one matchup)


Pretty good on offenses that like a big body that can explode. Really good at taking one hit, even if it's been chipped pretty heavily.


Spore is nuts. DDpass is a nice little buff for smeargle, and helps punish people who try to burn sleep turns against it, as long as you get lucky enough.


Very quick and generally strong enough. Sometimes fits in weird spots where no other mon would.


Good speed, great physical bulk, spikes and explosion. Takes one special hit just fine, as long as it's not from an electric type or an invested gengar.


Gives up free spikes and setup, but it's still a trapper so there's some benefit.


Just fine, works on offensive teams way better than balance. Magspin is really mediocre.


Supports another dder or functions on its own on bulkier teams. Rest gyara is a great fire resist, but pretty vulnerable while asleep.

C+
I've only got one team I like with these


Huge defense stat and an electric immune that's not threatened by any of zap's coverage moves, except roar with spikes. Toxic is great.


Terrible at spinning, but can sometimes use the threat of spin to get free spikes. Classic tss with forre over skarm is still garbage.


Taunt is underrated I think. Ice beam is nice stab, and sleeping one mon per game is alright.


MOPcross is nice. Leftovers stuff is ok too, and less reliant on hitting all of your megahorns.


Strong ice beams and great bulk, but an unfortunate typing. Can really put a dent in a lot of teams though.

C
I tried, and couldn't make a good team with these


I still believe in my boy, but I'm not interested in playing really slow structures with him and have failed to make him work on offense. Some day though.


Realistically is better than this, but doesn't fit on offense. Not my style of mon defensively either. Ice zap does exist and you're ohko'd by toxic.


Really all-or-nothing, either has a fantastic matchup or makes 0 progress.


Much better to try and take advantage of a dug lock offensively than to go to this massive momentum sink. OK as a stall matchup fish if you're running at least 2 mons that blow up stall, probably celebi+heracross.

 

[Century Express]

Rank & Visual Sub-Rank

Tyranitar: Tyranitar is an awesome Pokémon in the RSE landscape. Its Physical movesets are flexible enablers, and I enjoy a lot how they're so reliable at keeping your attack ratio higher than your switch-in ratio, mainly because its main obstacles (Swampert, Metagross, Flygon and whatnot) find themselves in an unfortable dillema (they can check Tyranitar, but at the same time, they gotta respect the threat of a mixed / special set, they got to be careful to not forfeit too much momentum against Spikes users), and every non-Sandstorm immune check (Suicune, Milotic, and Fight-types) can be worn down / outplayed by Sandstorm + offensive presence. I'm a big fan of how a patiently played PursuitTtar opens a room to a lot of Pokémon and strategies alike - despite it being certainly useful at trapping Gengar (and Dusclops to a lesser extent), it's perfectly possible to find a viable route to end Starmie / Claydol's spinning cycles. I can't stress how this role is valuable for Spikers and Rapid Spin users alike. I've been mostly enjoying using Bulky spreads (even on Mixed / DD movesets), because unlike the 252 Atk or SpA / 252 Spe+ variants, you can always adjust your EVs to revenge kill / survive hits of some very gamebreaking threats (e: opposing Tyranitar's EQ, Salamence's EQ, non-CB Metagross's MMash, Dugtrio's EQ, offensive Starmie and Suicune's HPump...). Overall, Tyranitar it's an excellent enabler, individual threat and supporter.

Jirachi: I like to call Jirachi affectionately the antichrist of Generation 3. Sometimes, I genuinely feel like Jirachi can be /lowkey/ broken. A lot of players have their own personal checkboxes, such as fitting a certain number of Rock-resistances, Ground-immunities, plans against Spikes, plans against Special threats, plans against Baton Pass users, and many others. However, there's a particular checkbox that I've been feeling very paranoid lately, and it's about status absorption. I feel like it's so, so, so difficult to absorb status & pressure at the same time Wish Jirachi variants (unless you use trap it with a correct Dugtrio read), and at the same time, you gotta to play proactively as possible against CM variants. This tier doesn't have reliable too many freeze "absorbers", this tier doesn't have so many reliable burn pivots, Body Slam can cripple some of its potential revenge killers, and so and on. A lot Jirachi's Physical answers are kinda afraid of being punished by status, while most of Jirachi's defensive answers are potential hostages of a snowball effect against the correct CM variants, or they do have little to zero avenues to prevent a sucessful streak of Wish passings. IMO, Jirachi is the only defensive & offensive threat of the whole metagame that requires an absolute proactive plan to address it, otherwise you might find yourself losing a huge amount of momentum (or getting potentially 6-0'd against the correct CM variant). However, it certainly suffers against STAB super-effective moves - I don't mind to play around Blissey, EQ Swampert, Tyranitar or Metagross, BUT when I see a successful Dugtrio switch-in, or Charizard / Moltres opening, that's when things start to get really complicated...

Metagross: It's very interesting to see how most of Metagross's checks are in some way, afraid of being Metagross switch-ins in the first place. Skarmory doesn't want to get trapped by Magneton so early (and Mixed sets can make a very respectable progress against it), and walls such as Swampert, Suicune and Milotic, in the same vein, suffer a dillema of 1) being KO'ed by Explosion, thus opening more room for Metagross' teammates in the absence of a Bulky-water 2) overpredicting Metagross's Explosion and switching out, thus leading to a sequence of a very suffocating plays, especially if Metagross catches a well-timed Meteor Mash boost. I'm a big enthusiast of Rock Slide on CB / bulky variants alike. In the lead slot, they can punish Zapdos without exposing yourself too much against Dugtrio, and at the same time, you have a very good midground tool against Fire-types, Aerodactyl, Zapdos and Gyarados. All of these traits make Metagross a valuable offense enabler, proactive attacker, supporter and even a respectable revenge killer, especially because its Explosion is an excellent tool to dissuade, or remove a Suicune / CurseLax / CMer / BPer set-up.

Zapdos: Zapdos's SpD sets are so awesome! It's one of the few Special pivot / walls who ain't necessarily disrupted by Dugtrio, meaning that you can use it as a very good backup plan against opposing Zapdos, CMers, without losing its general utility. It also does a fine job vs. certain Physical and Mixed attackers (i'm mainly thinking about targets like Gyarados, Breloom, MixMence, Metagross, etc). Pressure + solid bulk makes Zapdos so resillient, to the point you can technically manuever yourself against Blissey and Celebi if you're patient enough, which is incredible. Roar is awesome on Zapdos, regardless of your spread of choice. Offensive sets are very scary as well - nothing makes me more paranoid about letting a favourable early Zapdos => Dugtrio switch-in forcing me to play an uphill battle after getting my Zapdos check trapped. These are some great traits of a very consistent and powerful Pokémon.

Gengar: Gengar is an fantastic teamplayer. As an owner of a quirky palette of movesets / spreads, it often provides a lot of value to offensive and defensive teams alike. Like I said before, sometimes I feel like this tier doesn't have so many reliable burn / sleep pivots, and the few Pokémon capable of checking Gengar without being crippled by status (i'm thinking about Blissey, PursuitTtar and Celebi) gotta respect the possibility of being punished by Dugtrio, or being punished by Spikes. These aspects makes Gengar really straightforward and useful to: disrupt its main obstacles, or open diverse pathways to victory for many other threats. A successful Explosion bait-kill in the opponent's Special wall it's always useful for Zapdos / Starmie / Jirachi / Moltres and many other Special attackers. In a similiar vein, Explosion, Destiny Bond and its offensive coverage are perfectly capable of forcing Claydol and Starmie to "outplay themselves", thus making tier staples such as Tyranitar and Skarmory way better than they already are, as long as you manage to break their Rapid Spin cycles. Gengar's natural offensive presence, coupled with its immunities / resistances against several important moves (especially Explosion and Spikes), and its sheer importance against anti-Spikes measures, makes Gengar a top-tier threat in my eyes.

Skarmory: I'm a big Skarmory enthusiast, and with the exception of a few obstacles here and there, I believe that Spikes teams with a cohesive gameplan & sinergy are one of the best (if not the best) approaches to achieve good results in RSE OU. With the aid of Sandstorm, anti-Spin measures, and many other applications (Gengar, Dugtrio, Pursuit users, backup phazers), Skarmory's Spikes give a lot of room to customize your methodology of using Spikes, allowing you to use them both offensively and defensively - hence why threats like Suicune and Snorlax can't sweep so easily. However, I feel like Skarmory can be a "hostage" of anti-metagame teams and strategies. Some teams (certain Magneton teams deserves an emphasis...) can force Skarmory teams to play uphill battles, especially if they have a backup Rapid Spin user / anti-Spinblocker measure. In a similiar vein, sets without Drill Peck forfeits a lot their momentum against classic & modern threats (i don't like how non-DP is hardwalled by Gengar, Refresh Claydol, Forretress... losing momentum against the uprising trend of Fighting-types, especially if you face Focus Punch variants, can be gamebreaking sometimes).

Blissey: With a massive combination of HP and Special Defense, Blissey is an integral backbone of many teams - without it, a lot of squads would just crumble to status abusers, since Blissey it's one of the few Pokémon capable of walling and absorbing Wisp Gengar, Toxic Zapdos, opposing Toxic / TWave Blissey, Wisp Moltres, and Toxic Bulky waters without losing too much momentum in the process. Wish sets are fantastic supporters, providing an extra amount of resillience to other tanks & walls, or giving more opportunity to your offensive core to make progress. But, it's important to not play too much predictably with it, because it can be significantly outplayed by anti-Blissey measures (Gengar bait-killing it, Zapdos BP'ing to Dugtrio or strong Physical attackers, significant weakness against Spikes).

Swampert: The raw definition of a Physical tank / wall, Swampert is a very reliable 'mon in this metagame. Thanks to its immunity to Sandstorm, and the access to many other extra key moves (Torrent-boosted Surf / Hydro Pump, Surf + Toxic combo, Toxic + Roar combo), it can be a very reliable obstacle to several Physical attackers, and it's not even necessarily terrible against Mixed variants of Tyranitar / Metagross / Salamence, depending of how you "dance" around them. I used to like offensive variants for a while, until I realized there are a lot of gamestates where it just dies against invested HP Grass users (Zapdos, Moltres, offensive Jirachi), which is kinda inconvenient. But overall, I'm an enthusiast of Swampert teams with good plans against Mixed and Special attackers.

Salamence: Thanks to the combination of a respectable Speed tier, Intimidate, and key resistances / immunities, Salamence estabilishes itself as a natural threat, and a reliable check against several threats. I mean, it's so, so goddamn useful to have a true check against CMers (in the case of DD / CB Salamence) and Fight-types in a single moveslot, and its mixed sets have some very nice applications with Spikes (MixMence threathens a huge part of the metagame for example, with SpD Zapdos or bulky Gengar being one of the few exceptions), and hell, it can even afford to run Roar or Sleep Talk, to improve its match-up against Breloom, Smeargle and Venusaur, or to shuffle Spikes more effectively. A few months ago, I used to think that DD Mence was really flawed, but I've been genuinely pleased with Salamence's bulky spreads - having enough bulk to survive Jolly Tyranitar's Rock Slide, and uninvested Ice Beam / Ice Punches are two of my favourite benchmarks. I do still enjoy CB variants, with a slight emphasis to Sleep Talk in the last moveslot to play around Sleep users more comfortably, especially against Smeargle, or the sporadic Breloom / Jynx leads.

Suicune: Suicune has a very unique case in the landscape of this metagame. If played patiently, Suicune can be a wonderful threat, especially after burning the PPs of their main answers. But, if played too much passively, it just asks to your opponent to outplay the shit out of you. I don't know if it's an unpopular take, but I'm not a big fan of offensive variants of Suicune (although I must admit they can be very dangerous on teams without a Blissey / opposing Suicune), but on the flipside, I do enjoy a lot defensive variants of Suicune. Yes, they can be significantly passive, but at the same time, they are one of the few reliable status absorbers in this metagame (it doesn't lose too much momentum as long as you run RestTalk), and having a pure Water-type (unlike Swampert) provides an unique utility not only against opposing Suicune, but against Rain Dance users, some Mixed Attackers and Fire-types as well. I think Suicune is worthy of A- because it preys in some team structures, especially as a last 'mon, but it's not completely self-sufficient... i'd say Suicune is a "gamesense"-oriented Pokémon, mostly because it takes some notion of risk-reward, when you're about to pull the trigger or click Rest, or when you acknowledge the correct time to try to pull a CM set-up.

Dugtrio: It forces a massive paranoia in the teambuilder and in-game as well. For example, I believe it's very important to have plans against Lead Zapdos / Jynx, at least to force a neutral match-up, because switching out to Blissey, just to get removed so early isn't worth at all. Dugtrio also is a big reason why I value bulky Tyranitar / Metagross / Jirachi spreads so much, at least they have some room to play around it, and they don't feel completely helpless against a telegraphed double switch-in. I think Dugtrio teams are quite alright vs. set-up (I don't think DD Mence and DD Gyara are /that/ dangerous against an EQ-locked Dugtrio), but being slightly vulnerable against Spikes (post-trap) and opposing Dugtrio sometimes leads to some awkward situations, making it a slightly risky pick, in some match-ups.

Celebi: I still respect Celebi's main attributes, such as: absorbing status (sort of, via Natural Cure of course), Water-resistance (which can be handy vs. offensive Swampert and offensive Rain Dance users), and the Fight-resistance as well, which gives it a near-complete safety against against non-Heracross Fight-types. However, it unfortunately suffers from momentum issues, due to its signifcant passivity vs. Spikes users, and Dugtrio, to a lesser extent. I think it's a bit important to avoid being too much trigger-happy with Leech Seed, and instead, make the best value of a well timed Psychic / HP Grass chip (in this route, it won't need to click Recover so many time per game, which is very welcome). Baton Pass-oriented sets are still fine in my eyes, but they are gamestate dependent - many top-tier Pokémon, such as Tyranitar, Skarmory, Metagross and Zapdos and Salamence have good bulk and resistances to handle most of CM / SD pass variants, and it becomes even harder to pull successful set-ups when Celebi faces Roar / Whirlwind variants of these Pokémon.

Aerodactyl: With the exception of Dragon Dance Tyranitar, Aerodactyl is arguably the main reason why Rock-resistant Pokémon are so valuable in this metagame. When you switch your 80%~75% Suicune / Milotic against it, and you suddenly feel a blood pressure rising in your body, that's when you got to respect Aerodactyl's impact in this metagame - it looks very RBY Tauros-esque if you manage to take care of its main obstacles, after all. I like how Aerodactyl's massive speed tier provides an excellent emmergency button against a wide variety of "panic mode" threats, like some CMers, DD Tyranitar, DD Gyarados, Fire-types, Fight-types and a few niche threats as well. However, I think Aerodactyl kinda suffers against teams wielding too many Protect users, it's so hard for Aerodactyl to make progress in these match-ups...

B+ / B / B- Ranked Pokémon: These Pokémon are not self-sufficient, but all of them perform vital roles to certain plastyles (and all of these roles are very hard to replicate), and / or they can pose a big threat to a lot of common team structures, with a generous amount of support. I'd like to give an emphasis to: Rapid Spin users / Magneton / Forretress / (sort of) Cloyster - all of these have tried-and-true roles in the teambuilder, and it's very important to have a plan to address them (they're clearly less dangerous than, let's say, Heracross, Breloom or Moltres, but you don't want to play a stalemate where Forretress or Refresh Claydol keep removing your Spikes every turn).

C Ranked Pokémon: There's a small amount of risk / reward into using these Pokémon (or, in this case, it's kinda difficult to justify a moveslot for them IMO), but most of them are super dangerous, and it's highly recommended to have a plan against these Pokémon in the teambuilder. Some of these Pokémon are brutal threats but they instinct-oriented, some of them appreciate different support avenues, and some of them are notable fits on "restricted / linear" team structures.

D Ranked Pokémon: Honestly, I don't have too much experience with some of these Pokémon, but I ranked them, because they are perfectly justifiable under some circumstances. These picks can fulfill a very specific niche, if you're confident about punishing your opponent's trends / moveset / spread preferences. Actually, there a lot of E-Rank Pokémon that I wanted to rank as well, but I ignored them because i don't have enough knowledge about their potential... so yeah.