Metagame np: Stage 4.5: Meditation (Medicham Suspect Test)

[gum]

~~~

Following our tiering survey, the PU Council has decided to hold a suspect test on Medicham!

Ever since day 1 of the post-tier shifts metagame, Medicham has been considered an amazing threat and broken by many; it narrowly avoided getting banned during the first council vote. It's really not hard to see why when taking a look at its toolkit. Pure Power boosts its Attack stat to unseen levels this generation, which is further complemented by its great STAB combination and access to a high power move in Close Combat. By simply taking this into account, the pool of defensive answers is already very scarce. Sableye is immune to both of its STABs and Houndstone doesn't take a lot from even Choice Band Zen Headbutt thanks to Fluffy. When adding Tera to the equation though, these answers suddenly aren't as reliable; Tera Blast Fairy OHKOes the former while the latter gets 2HKOed. Other options like Tera Dark and Tera Fire can similarly reverse the matchups, something that can be especially punishing when facing Bulk Up variants. It's very important to stress Medicham's set variety, as it goes beyond just Tera Types. When holding a Choice Band or a Life Orb, it becomes impossible to safely switch into when considering Tera, while teams without Sableye and Houndstone will simply be helpless against it, from a defensive standpoint. Choice Scarf instead trades the power for a better matchup against more offensively oriented teams, turning potential revenge killers such as Charizard and Mabostiff into clicking opportunities. Lastly, Bulk Up sets become incredibly scary when given a chance to setup. These sets are especially good at taking advantage of Tera to setup on Sableye and Houndstone, or prevent getting revenge killed by faster Pokemon like Choice Scarf Swanna and Haunter.

Despite all this, Medicham is far from being perfect; its middling Speed tier means that its scariest sets are slower many of the tier's most common Pokemon, like Alolan Raichu, Morpeko, Pyroar, Swanna, and Tauros, greatly limiting how many opportunities it gets to come in and wreak havoc. This also makes it easier to revenge kill than breakers with slightly lower ceilings, like the aforementioned Tauros and Charizard, while making it more prediction reliant. Its bulk also means it struggles to get in against even defensive Pokemon, as they can all heavily dent it. This is an issue further excaberbated as many of those defensive Pokemon can Tera against Medicham, rending it potentially useless. This means it's very reliant on aggressive play and support from teammates with pivoting moves to get into the field. While Choice Scarf struggles slightly less with this, as it can be used to revenge kill and create openings that way, that set is considerably weaker. Zen Headbutt in particular is rather weak even with Pure Power, meaning it'll struggle to force out a decent amount of slower Pokemon. Neutralizing Gas Weezing suddenly becomes a decent switchin, as Zen Headbutt fails to 2HKO while being a generally bad move to lock into. Moreover, that set is still not particuliarly fast; it's slower than Electrode and +1 Morpeko, for instance. As for Bulk Up variants, they don't get a lot of setup opportunities and need two turns to be able to sweep. It can be argued that Paldean Tauros does those sets better as well. Finally, no matter the set, Medicham can be incredibly reliant on Tera in certain matchups to be good at its job, taking away an important resource from another teammate.

~~~

Important: For this suspect, there will be two ways to qualify. The first is the typical laddering period, where players must reach the minimum GXE. The second is by winning a live suspect tournament, to be held in the Smogon PU Room on Pokemon Showdown!. You may compete in the suspect tournament on any account, and will need to post proof of you winning the suspect tournament on the voter ID thread.

There will be two live suspect tournaments:

Suspect Tournament Times
Saturday, October 21st at 9:00 AM Eastern Time (GMT-4), hosted by Melt Gibson
Sunday, October 22nd at 5:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4), hosted by asa

The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 78 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 78 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 82. As always, needing more than 50 games to 78 GXE is fine.

​

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
78	50
78.2	49
78.4	48
78.6	47
78.8	46
79	45
79.2	44
79.4	43
79.6	42
79.8	41
80	40
80.2	39
80.4	38
80.6	37
80.8	36
81	35
81.2	34
81.4	33
81.6	32
81.8	31
82	30

​

​

Suspect information:

• There will be no draws allowed for any potential qualifiers. If you qualify with draws, your suspect requirements will not count, and you will not be allowed to vote. There is no way to actively enforce ties to prevent abuse, so they will be disallowed. Use stall at your own risk.
• All games must be played on the Pokémon Showdown! PU ladder on a new alt with the following format: "PUMC (nickname)”. For example, PUMC gum or PUMC Shaneghoul.
• Do NOT impersonate other people in your ladder alt, do NOT use any usernames which are offensive, flame-baiting, or targeting specific users, and do NOT use usernames which could be interpreted as breaking any of the username rules on Pokémon Showdown! Failure to abide to this will result in you being barred from voting in this suspect, and potential infractions.
• The suspect test will last for 13 days, ending on Friday, October 27th 11:59pm -4.

/!\ NOTICE /!\ PU will not be tolerating any form of voting manipulation. Any attempt to manipulate votes can result in an infraction, loss of eligibility to vote in the current test, and loss of the Tiering Contributor badge. While we won't necessarily enforce super strict punishment, this won't be tolerated and will be handled accordingly. Voting manipulation can simply be described as attempting to get people to vote a way on the test in inappropriate manners. Bribing with teams to vote a certain way, directly messaging people to vote a certain way, publicly announcing "vote this way" all fall under voting manipulation. For more query, feel free to PM me or Shaneghoul.

 

[asa]

(it's late, pardon if this sounds a little rambly at times)

Honestly, I've gone back and forth on my stance on Medicham throughout the past two weeks. At first, I thought it was ridiculously broken and regretted not voting to quickban it the first time around. In fact, it was only two votes shy of being banned if I'm not mistaken, which is kind of funny and made me feel a little silly. It seemed like it just autowon versus teams lacking Sableye or Spiritomb, and I really didn't like its place in the tier. However, after building and playing more as well as talking with others about Medicham, I don't find it anywhere near as broken as I originally thought.

I've seen a few others say that Medicham forces teams to use NeutGas Weezing + Sableye/Spiritomb, which is similar to how I felt before, but that doesn't feel entirely true. Weezing is just an excellent Pokemon in its own right, naturally fits well on most teams at the moment, and (most importantly) doesn't only serve the purpose of checking/slowing down Medicham. As for the Sableye/Spiritomb part, while they are the best overall switch-ins to Medicham, you don't necessarily need one of them specifically to play around it. Any Dark- or Ghost-type can help you pivot around Medicham's STAB moves, and Pokemon of those types (especially Dark) aren't too hard to include on teams. Even the offensive ones can help you stave Medicham off, so it's not like only defensive ones help. Frailer Dark-/Ghost-types do require more prediction to safely get in against Medicham, but the prediction goes both ways and Medicham almost always has to predict to get anything done.

Having Tera Dark, Ghost, or Fairy on your team helps a lot too, and it's not even like Medicham is the only reason to run any of these options on Pokemon like Paldean Tauros, Probopass, and Rotom-F, respectively. The fact that Medicham is so frail also means that it will probably lose 1v1 to whatever you defensively Tera to deal with it, which is a huge plus for you and not the worst way to use Tera if Medicham is enough of a problem for your team. There's also the fact that the meta is fast enough that pressuring and revenge killing Medicham isn't too difficult and even balance teams can incorporate sufficient offensive counterplay to it. People do know to play around Medicham offensively, though, and it still does require careful prediction, so I only want to briefly reemphasize the point rather than go on too long about it.

None of this is to say that I'm 100% anti-ban. While I don't really believe much in Bulk Up + Trailblaze on something as defensively poor as Medicham, it is capable of doing some silly stuff if you expect it to be Choice locked. Choice Band/Life Orb also just delete Pokemon if they get the plays right, though this requires heavy positioning and prediction to actually have happen. And of course, losing a switch-in to Tera Blast Fairy/Dark regardless of the set isn't the best feeling. I'm on the fence about Medicham but slightly leaning no ban, so I'm looking forward to reading any discussion that goes on and seeing if it sways me one way or the other.

Good luck to everyone participating, and see you at next Sunday's suspect tour /o/

 

[gulch]

wooooo suspect time!!!!!

TL;DR

dnb, scarf is the only real set, you need the immediate speed to not get dunked on. setup jank makes your life really hard and other scarfers like haunter, peko, mabo, do super well into you. ghosts give you a bad time without tera usage and weezing also generally makes things suck for you. medi's stab combo doesn't do it a ton of favors and a few good predictions can reasonably stop it from doing much breaking. relying on ur ability in a meta where the best mon has neutralizing gas is rly shitty too.

I'm very staunchly DNB and think there are bigger issues to take care of at the moment, but I also do understand that this is happening due to the survey results and that's a very good thing! The meta is pretty stable at the moment, though, and I think Medicham is a good example of that. It's a solid breaker that can usually take a trade, and using Trick to cripple an opposing fatmon with Scarf is appropriately balanced as far as risk/reward goes, since you're sacrificing future chances to come in and click buttons. It's checked by mons that are common and already strong, such as Weezing, Sableye, and Spiritomb, as well as other Scarfers that are naturally faster such as Morpeko, Mabosstiff, and Haunter, also risking the speed tie with Braviary.

Scarf is the only real set, I am firmly of the opinion that setup variants are just poorly made for a meta where we have plentiful Haze and Clear Smog, coupled with Medicham's reliance on its ability giving it a poor Weezing matchup and also not affording it any desperately needed defensive utility like Poliwrath or Farigiraf. It's laughably frail without the speed to make up for it.: 60/75/75 simply can not afford to take hits and Trailblaze's speed boost not being immediate opens the door to a huge host of problems. In addition, running Trailblaze means giving up your coverage slot, which causes you the dilemma of either dropping a STAB to be able to hit Sableye and Spiritomb, as well as do meaningful damage to Houndstone, or forgoing those matchups to not flounder against the always-present Weezing. Not running Trailblaze, however, leaves setup sets open to being revenge killed, and the vast number of offensive threats naturally faster than Medicham make this a crucial issue.

All that said, Scarf is really good! It's decently fast compared to most unboosted threats, and its raw power gives it an edge over its contemporaries. It's not without issues, though. Houndstone will ruin your day if you don't Tera thanks to Fluffy, and you can't afford to just thud into it out of fear of Poltergeist. Furthermore, there are a lot of good resists or immunities to Medicham's STABs, and if your opponent's predictions are solid, breaking becomes a much harder job. Weezing is also STILL a massive nuisance, coming in, neutralizing Pure Power, and then burning you or doing considerable damage with Sludge Bomb. Tera Psychic even lets it shrug off Zen Headbutts if shit gets really dire. Also, Zen Headbutt sucks, and clicking it is really just a formality for when your opponent has a Ghost. 80 power 90 acc. as one of your main STAB options with no other benefit outside of a 20% flinch chance (when your optimal situation as a breaker is that the target does not survive you hitting them) is really rough. The other Scarf users in the tier are also generally at or above Medicham's base speed of 80, and the threat of being revenged against more offensive teams, which have been common throughout SVPU, is constant. It also doesn't consistently function as a revenge killer thanks to this quality, as well as general access to Defense or Speed boosting jank throughout the tier.

All of this said, I am open to being proven wrong, and if I do see Medicham do something outrageously silly then my opinion will probably adapt. But as of now? Just not seeing a world where this is broken.

Can't wait to see you all on Saturday, good luck and bring your A-game!

 

[Morge]

Medicham is kinda weird and I can definitely see the argument as to it being fine but overall I don't think medicham is a healthy presence in the tier and am leaning towards ban.

Tl;DR Fine enough to deal with offensively but too difficult to deal with defensively and too constraining on defensive teams for me to consider it healthy.

I feel like the main problem with medicham is how awkward and flimsy the defensive counterplay is. As far as I'm aware the defensive answers to medicham are and ( also probably works in theory but I'm yet to actually see rabsca post shifts so idk). In theory these are all solid checks to it but the issue is that tera dark + tera blast medicham just beats all of them except weezing. Weezing is a fantastic pokemon that you were probably gonna run anyway that's definitely the most reliable answer to medicham thanks to neut gas with even zen headbutt only 3hkoing 30% of the time, however since weezing lacks reliable recovery and is also probably your check to several other mons on the opposing team its somewhat vulnerable to getting overwhelmed and can quite easily be put in a position where it isn't healthy enough to check medicham. Now medicham's most common set is scarf which can be exploited with good prediction but I also believe that 3 attacks + trailblaze is also about as good and can't be exploited as easily. Its less immediately threatening than scarf but medicham can rather easily force a switch and get a trailblaze and now you have to deal with a +1 speed medicham who isn't choice locked. Its still outsped by most other scarfers and also electrode so its still somewhat easily revengeable but actually switching these mons into medicham is risky at best so medicham is usually securing at least one kill before this if not more.

Now I don't think medicham is the most problematic mon in the tier at the moment (looking at you charizard). There is mostly sufficient offensive counterplay to it because of its fairly poor bulk and awkward speed tier, and without tera we do have common walls that beat it. That being said I don't think that just because its not the most broken thing in the tier it should be allowed to stay, its very difficult to deal with for defensive cores and makes teambuilding overall feel much more difficult and limited.

 

[ishtar]

Let's talk about Medic Ham.

Medic Ham fits the archetype of sort of slow somewhat frail wallbreaker that tends to take advantage of overly passive teams, similarly to how people saw Centiskorch or the fraud Gallade in Gen 8. The issue with Medic Ham comes with its propensity to either rely too much on tera to break through defensive teams, find itself useless vs. more offense oriented teams or, imo, the most likely and common scenario, trade with a defensive mon. This is most seen in its interactions with Neutralizing Gas Weezing, a normally bad check to Medic Ham now is able to cut its attack in half and easily threaten with a Will-O.
People often mention Medic's ability to get past Sableye with Tera as a clear example of its power, but I feel like having to burn your Tera on a base 80 breaker such as it often ends up being commital enough to where that interaction is balanced. It is very unlikely for a Pokemon such as this to steal the game due to Teraing on Sableye, and if this is the criteria we're using, then I got awful news for Sableye users around the world.....

Imo, Medic Ham simply pales in comparison to other physical breakers such as Samurott and Tauros-Paldea-Combat in its ability to be useful in both balance matchups as well as offense. Honestly to me the best Medic set is Scarf, but I did not include this in my previous paragraphs since I believe people do not find this set to be problematic, or at least that's the impression I've gotten so far. All of this is to say that the slow teams insanely threatened by Medic Ham would probably get similarly owned and pressured by other breakers of a similar nature that are often better and stronger equipped against it and other matchups than the PhD pig.

To me this is an easy DNB. The defensive answers are enough or force committal choices, while the offense mu tends to be pretty easy vs. non Scarf sets. I do not believe balance is threatened by its presence in the slightest either! As a side note I believe more people should explore other really threatening breakers such as BU Tauros-Paldea-Combat and Charizard, which I believe to be closer to problematic than this lil fella who worked really hard for his PhD for ya'll to just wanna boot him out.

 

[Bella]

I will first like to say i have not gotten reqs yet but i am planning too and also you should probably take my opinions with a grain of salt.

TLDR; Its fine due to having a weak matchup into offensive teams, more defensive teams having reliable options to beat it that they were probably going to use anyways, and being overly reliant on Choice Scarf.

So lets talk about Medicham. My main gripe with Medicham is that it feels like it relies too much on Choice Scarf to get going. CB and LO sets can work but only under specfic circumstances and you much would rather need the speed. Needing Tera to effectively beat out Sableye and Weezing (Top 5 mons in the tier imo) aswell as Spirtomb and Houndstone (Less amazing, but still incredible mons in their own right) is not really great for it. Even if you somehow arent using any of these 4 pokemon (which i swear 85% of teams will run one of these 4). It also feels like it has the issue of like... if it does not get the kill its going to be crippled via will o wisp or twave or knock or whatever, or itll just get killed since its defensive typing does 0 favors for it.

This is not to even get on its issues with offensive teams. Its incredibly hard to get in safely and most offensive teams can take a hit from it or outspeed it with whatever they like to run (examples can include shit like Zard / Basculin / Haunter / etc.). Defensive teams more than likely are running a check to Medicham already that doesnt just fuctions as a Medicham check, but also as a solid mon in its own right.

All in all im likely voting DO NOT BAN. I simply do not see the reason to ban it as i feel like the tier is extremely balanced atm and it is not hard to counterplay at all in the slighest. Sure, you will have to prep for it but you have to prep for every top tier mon in the metagame. Its fine and its not problematic in the slighest.

 

[DripLegend]

this mon is a great breaker thats been made apparent due to the oversaturation of bulky rocks like nacl and probopass since flying is an insanely strong offensive typing atm. it's a tera sponge with two stabs that are both pretty easy to switch into with walls like weezing and houndstone and it's extremely useless while statused, which it often trades a burn with the aforementioned two walls. the biggest problem outside of this is the mediocre speed tier it hits.


like the only viable medi set since you somewhat compensate for it's speed stat and revenge kill a lot of random mons. However, the huge amount of mons that viably run scarf while still outspeeding medi are huge like morpeko, haunter, and pauros to name a few. even then medi's damage isn't as amazing as you want it to be even while holding a scarf, since weezing can comfortable tank a zen and wisp for free while not even being 2hkoed.

overall i find medi's niche of a revengekiller to be something that warrants attention in the builder absolutely, but it definitely doesn't have the unhealthy presence that i've found a lot of other pokemon to occupy. it has constant checks in both playing and the builder and it rarely finds itself in amazing positions without one of 1) getting every turn right or 2) using tera and applying pressure and realistically filling both of these are difficult in a spread of games. i think medi is fine and should not be banned, as well as other problematic pokemon on the survey being looked at closer. even though medi had the most amount of votes against it in the tiering survey i think mons like swanna, zard, and pyroar all impact the tier in much more of an unhealthy way (heavier on first 2 but still).

 

[gulch]

hey all! the first suspect tour will be starting in 20 minutes in the PU room on showdown! winner is eligible to vote! come on down!

 

[gulch]

A big congratulations to MegaUltra for winning the first suspect tour! They will be eligible to vote in the suspect test! You can see the semifinals and finals games below. Tune in tomorrow, Sunday, October 22 at 5PM (GMT -4) for the second one, hosted by asa!

Semifinals 1 - my name is goburin vs banwobDPP
Semifinals 2 - ZMorge vs megaultra
Finals - banwobDPP vs megaultra

bracket

 

[asa]

Congratulations to A Musician Chatot for winning our second suspect tour and gaining the right to vote in the suspect test! Same as yesterday's tour, the semifinals and finals games as well as the bracket are below.

Semifinals, match #1: asa vs monkeyzooland
Semifinals, match #2: AMusicianChatot vs ethereal
Finals: AMusicianChatot vs monkeyzooland

beeg, poorly cropped bracket

 

[Hera]

at the beginning of the month i posted my thought on medi in the personal vr thread (reposting for posterity)

medicham is definetely busted, only way to be safe vs it is by using bulky ghost + tera psychic ngas weezing and even that can lose over time or to the wrong tera. imo bu lum berry is the best set rn since you set up on all of your "counters" and then click the funny tera button and win. i thought trailblaze would break it and tb is good, it just really wants the ability to setup AND a way to tech past counters. aoa is probably good too, just replace bu with trailblaze and you have the best cleaner in the meta.

i think everything i said here is more or less still true. defensively your only surefire bet is something like resttalk houndstone + tera psychic weezing and running those on fatter teams to not lose to medi is constraining in a tier where zard + grasses + electrics don't really have overlapping checks bar chansey (which loses to dd zard or lurantis anyway) or tera dragon cuno. bu sets are still really good and i constantly see people underrating them in favor of choiced sets, which are better than i thought i would be, but i think for medi to be really busted it wants to switch moves and set up without caring about weezing burns/weezing at all if you run tera dark ability shield. but at the same time i really overrated the power of aoa sets, this thing never wants trailblaze so it ends up being offensively checked by like everything in the tier, and bullet punch being its only priority doesn't really help it. peko, zard, swan, pyroar, mabo, both tauroses, etc...pretty much every team should have at least 2 offensive checks to it naturally, and its horrible bulk means that it can't even trade vs them like braviary can. and in a tier where offense is strong, it sucks to be a fatkiller with no defensive utility, few slow pivots, and hazards everywhere.

for me banning a mon like medi comes down to convenience more than anything. i thimk medi is still kinda busted although people in this thread have certainly made good cases, but i feel that this tier feels constrained rn. all the offensive checks i listed above are also all very good mons in their own right, and none of them have checks that overlap. i'm finding it difficult to prep for even a majority of them without taking into account nicher shit like arbok and gabite. we have too many good offensive tools but not enough quality defensive tools to check all of them, so games can end up coming down to the zards hitting their canes or if that's tera type a or tera type b. i do not dislike offensive metas but i find it hard to build a consistent team the more offensive the meta gets since there are just so many things to take into account. if banning medi alievates this even a little, then i'l; vote ban.

despite that i'm not really convinced what to vote here. i feel like voting ban on a mon with debatable brokeness for an impact i'm not even sure of is rather selfish of me, although i find it hard to deal with defensively and easy to deal with offensively, idk if it's a healthy presence or an unhealthly one. will probably decide later on but i'm too on the fence rn. this was a good suspect though, clearly a contentious mon and even if it's looking dnb i'm glad to see that we were able to get our thoughts in order.

 

[righteous light]

got reqs last week, so ig it's time to talk about medicham. i want to preface this by saying that while i'm (spoiler alert) pretty firmly dnb, i appreciate that the community's feedback was taken into account for the suspect test.

for all the understandable hype around medicham's wallbreaking prowess, i found it rather underwhelming. most offensive pokemon can benefit from tera offensively or defensively, however medicham practically mandates that you commit your tera for it to have any hope of bypassing its checks, which presents a lot of opportunity cost in of itself. scarf can somewhat mitigate this via trick, but it's still very slow for what's supposed to function as speed control and strongly dislikes ditching the thing that actually lets it stand a chance against a majority of the metagame's faster threats. arguably has the best hope of cracking fatter/stally teams which lack ways to revenge kill, so it has that going for it ig.

all of this is to say that medi isn't quite as threatening on paper as it is in practice. offense doesn't really care much about anything other than scarf b/c of the paper-thin bulk + lack of any really useful resistances (you won't really be getting a chance to click trailblaze on the off chance you're running that), and balance is going to be carrying checks like weezing and sableye 99% of the time anyhow. it's not unviable or useless by any stretch of the imagination, but it can be hard to justify when there are so many viable options that can do a better job. tauros-p outclasses medi in terms of bulk up/trailblaze shenanigans due to its better bulk, speed, and intimidate, morpeko and mabosstif outdo it as general physical attackers, you get the idea. medicham doesn't exert nearly as much pressure in the builder when compared to other relevant choices; again, very much an on-paper threat in my opinion.

overall, midicham just really isn't all that dangerous of a threat. i've had some success with eject pack on voltturn, and otr sets may be worth exploring, but realistically i don't see a timeline where this is ever a banworthy mon. it's just too awkward to play with and lacks the reward to justify that risk.

 

[S1nn0hC0nfirm3d]

Medicham isn’t that great and not worth banning. I don’t fault council on creating a suspect for it, given how chaotic the meta was earlier this month; Medicham seemed like an obvious choice. Now, the worst thing it does is somewhat centralize the need of a Ghost-type or Fighting-type counter, and maybe centralize speed tiers for revenge killers / Choice Scarfers too. Not that bad all things considered. Voted DNB.

If next month’s shifts are not dramatic and things settle down to become a meta much like today’s, then I would consider tiering action on Charizard and / or Abomasnow. Charizard's special coverage is too good for virtually any special wall to deal with in the early-game. Then, in the late-game, teams are threatened with Flame Charge + Blaze. Charizard's wallbreaking coverage mean's that it is its own offensive support till it can get away with cleaning. Abomasnow's Choice Specs set simply has no switch-ins with Tera Blast Rock. I don't fancy the Aurora Veil set but it also just influences a cheesy metagame. Really neither of these two are outright broken, but they lead to very a centralized metagame where Pokemon like max Special Defense Articuno is basically the only special wall you can rely on for most builds (which of course is also a shoddy answer itself). If one (or both) of these would be removed, there's a good chance we'd see healthy developments and more room for new cores and special wallbreakers to grow.

 

[gum]

medicham stays!!
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-pu-stage-5-voting-medicham.3730376/#post-9839085

 

[asa]

Glastrier moved from PUBL to NU
Toxicroak moved from PUBL to NU
Sandslash moved from PU to NU

Magneton moved from NU to PUBL
Sneasel-Hisui moved from NU to PUBL
Vivillon moved from NU to PUBL

Arboliva moved from NU to PU
Bombirdier moved from NU to PU
Clawitzer moved from NU to PU
Golem moved from NU to PU
Golem-Alola moved from NU to PU
Hattrem moved from NU to PU
Leavanny moved from NU to PU
Ludicolo moved from NU to PU
Muk moved from NU to PU
Orthworm moved from NU to PU
Passimian moved from NU to PU
Rotom moved from NU to PU
Sneasel moved from NU to PU
Victreebel moved from NU to PU

All PU-relevant tier shifts for this month. Losing Sandslash is noteworthy, though it's not a change on the level of, say, losing something like Weezing. What's also noteworthy is the fact that, for now, Glastrier and Toxicroak cannot be revoted on. I doubt Glastrier would make it, but Toxicroak was one of the two main things people wanted to see back or at least suspected, so it is a little unfortunate that that's no longer on the table.

Stay tuned for possible thoughts on the drops/anything else :joobieat:

 

[skierdude101]

Just going to write some comments on the changes; generally I think alot of things should be unbanned today, and then if they are egregious ban them again before the next week of SCL goes up. It feels like too many things are banned on pre-text of previous meta's and theory-moning to me.

PUBL
Unban; Whiscash is a good mon anyways, this is just another reason to use it. Might be a bit too strong, but its speed tier is a bit slow.
Unban; this things SD sets are nasty and I'm not sure if the tier can handle it. It helps to have the bulky ghosts around though.
Unban, I personally dislike the nature of QD, so would be fine if this was kept banned.
Unban, we all have PTSD of this thing from when it had Expanding Force, its not that good.
Unban, I personally dislike the nature of QD, so would be fine if this was kept banned.
Ban; i think this may still be a bit too much for the tier. Taunt really takes this far
Ban; too fast as a bulky setup mon
Unban; Guts set is a crazy wall breaker, but i think the BU sets are probably what's really dangerous

New Drops
Probably stat checks the tier and sits in front of most things. I think this will be very good.
Great pokemon that will add alot to the tier.
Nuclear breaker held back by a slow speed tier. I think there will be a knee jerk ban reaction to this like Medicham.
A ground-type, i guess? Suicide leads are cool
Niche, trapping set, maybe Banded Galavanize since the grounds are limited?
I think this came too late, would have been better in previous meta's but is probably just not able to keep up anymore, especially with the increased knock distribution
another webs setter, its faster than the others, but idt this really adds much to the style.
Potent addition to rain teams, I could also see it as a self-setter late game cleaner.
this will be really good i think; Curse sets will be hard to take down; knock+jab is a great progress maker, and there isnt a sandaconda in the tier to invalidate you :)
Good physical blanket check; should be good, will make teambuilding require special attackers.
Finally good scarf options
Going to set the standard for what's fast on teams. Again, amazing scarfer.
This should be fun
New Sun mon, should help sun be a bit better. I think it probably has some utility outside of sun with a SSNU vileplume set.

 

[gulch]

there's old friends and new friends and... wait, no bear this time? man.

Statchecks shit and just sits there and never dies, Strength Sap makes this super obnoxious as well. Has good coverage and hits pretty hard, overall just a really solid mon on all fronts that I am not looking forward to facing.

An exoskeleton made of... SHINY METAL! Or, uh, dragon scales. Tera Dragon Dragon Pulse with Mega Launcher is pretty much just Draco Meteor without the stat drop in a tier with no Fairies. Take that as you will. Specs is probably the best set on this? Although I'd imagine Assault Vest or Boots or even Scarf could work out as well. Flip Turn is essentially just U-Turn but with STAB, although it could honestly be better to run U-Turn over Flip so you don't get blocked from pivoting by Poliwrath. Has a wealth of coverage options too, just seems like it'll be a solid breaker, although I am a little worried about it distinguishing itself from our other great offensive Water-types when its only real niche is "unga bunga hit hard".

Really excited for this, adds a ton to the tier. Rocks, cool offensive sets with Rocky Payload, Knock, pivoting, a good Flying-type... Just a lot of really cool qualities here that congeal into one pretty great package. Scarf sets to get the jump on Charizard seem very cool, and the Speed isn't terrible against fatter structures either. Glad to have it here.

I feel like people are really pigeonholing this when they call it just another web setter. SD Trailblaze sets feel like they have the potential to really take off, maybe with Tera Electric? Still fine on offensive structures either way though, that extra speed over Masquerain could be important on some builds and I think it'll have a niche of some sort.

Ooooh, this is gonna be good. Rain teams are gonna appreciate this a lot, but I also think 3a Rain Dance sets are going to be very capable of doing some silly shit. Water/Grass is just a very good typing for this meta, and I can honestly see people running Ludicolo specifically as anti-Rain tech due to being able to smack common abusers. STABs + Ice Beam or some stupid utility move is really all you need, and the bulk isn't bad either. Definitely see this being solid.

CurseBot, but really good at it. If you have a good way to kill Weezing then this should really just auto-win games LOL

Grouping these together because they're both good scarfers that are going to set the standard for what's "fast" in this meta. Having a fast, reliable Fighting with Knock Off is awesome too! I'm sure Rotom will be good at just pivoting around, doing damage, and being annoying as well.

Don't see this thriving in a meta with so many strong Special attackers and so much Fighting and Fire coverage flying around, sadly :( Earth Eater is cool, but that's about it? It's a blanket physdef check, sure, but I don't think it's going to be all that reliable at that. Might pair well with Weezing since Earth Eater makes the lack of Levitate less of an issue?

Has Knock now, probably good.

These should be cool, the tropical variety should have a niche of some sort even if said niche is just blowing up. Golem could function as some kind of a Sandslash replacement? Maybe? Zard check? Perhaps?

New toy for sun, maybe good outside of it? Trailblaze is very cool for this and as far as I'm aware it didn't lose much else, soooo...

 

[skierdude101]

I feel like people are really pigeonholing this when they call it just another web setter. SD Trailblaze sets feel like they have the potential to really take off, maybe with Tera Electric? Still fine on offensive structures either way though, that extra speed over Masquerain could be important on some builds and I think it'll have a niche of some sort.

Don't see this thriving in a meta with so many strong Special attackers and so much Fighting and Fire coverage flying around, sadly :( Earth Eater is cool, but that's about it? It's a blanket physdef check, sure, but I don't think it's going to be all that reliable at that. Might pair well with Weezing since Earth Eater makes the lack of Levitate less of an issue?

it doesn’t really bring much to the table that Leafeon doesn’t with SD; pretty much the same movepool, but weaker and slower. Stab bug is maybe useful but that comes with a lot of weaknesses.

this thing eats up physical super effective moves; coil or ID once and it’s snacks. Special attacks are always going to annoy it, as will all the ghost types that are currently so good. Probably will struggle because of that, but i think it’ll be worth it on some teams.

 

[LettuceLeaf07]

Wanted to express some opinions that I am definitely able to have. My source is I was here for Pass last gen and only played rain in October.

At first, I thought that Passimian would completely outclass Bombirdier. When running the exact same scarf set (knock, turn, STAB, rock slide), Pass is slightly slower and doesn't get STAB on knock (or rock slide ig), but it has CC, isn't sr weak, has more HP, and more attack, and seems overall better in every way. Then I realized that Bombirdier has a pretty good utility movepool, with knock, pivoting moves, rocks, taunt, recovery, and sucker punch. Being dark means it's immune to prankster wisps too. I don't think Bird should run scarf for anything other than surprise factor because Passimian exists, but at least Bird has another niche than Passimian's shadow.

I don't see how this is better than Golduck in rain. It's weaker, slower, less bulky, and walled harder by Articuno due to being weak to 100% accurate hurricane and 4x weak to freeze dry. The grass typing also makes Ludi a water type that can't check fire types (even more so for Charizard). Offensively, while I have considered (and used iirc) grass knot and tera grass on Golduck for the coverage, I found that a +2 Mystic Water Surf in rain just 2hkos resists anyways, and rock coverage in power gem for Articuno is overall a little more useful and leaves my tera for rock/water or a defensive type like dragon.

 

[plznostep]

Hello everyone! Had to try out SV PU with these new shifts and I must say its been a lovely experience thus far and I would like to express my opinions on drops :)

Drops​

Strong, but balanced. Can be difficult to switch into and has amazing bulk but its quite slow and has a typing with plenty of weaknesses to abuse and its not exactly difficult to pivot into either.

Good, STAB Knock Off is always amazing. Scarf doesn't seem too bad, and i anticipate defensive sets might pop up due to Bombirdiers wonderful defensive typing and utility options like Rocks.

Also strong, but you can still switch into this mon fine enough most times with like Articuno. It's got only average bulk and low Speed so it can struggle to actually get in to break though.

Pretty nice, happy to have some kind of ground to try and take up where Sandslash left off but Rock-typing gives it a nasty Fighting-type weakness, but teams should always have answers for those kinds of mons anyway. HO lead is okay as well.

Not as good as regular golem, not very good at trapping when compared to Magneton but Galvanize might be okay because Ground-types are on the rarer side and Golem is hit by Earthquake.

Not that good at all really. power crept and crippled by Knock Off which is on everything it would hope to answer.

Webs. thats it. not even good at it. not good in general.

Manual rain gets better, Water/Grass STAB combo is very strong. A fine sidegrade to Golduck on rain and can pair well alongside it I assume.

Very good. its special bulk is quite impressive and can even check mons like Charizard okay. Curse sets are also very strong, they can run away with games if not dealt with appropriately, as Muk finds plenty of setup opportunities due to it's great bulk.

Really good. Pair with a Fighting-type counter like Spiritomb and a Special Wall like Chansey and you have yourself a very difficult core to break. It can provide Spikes support and Coil allows it to be offensively threatening at the same time. Absolutely amazing.

Great mon, U-turn is amazing as it's the only Fighting-type able to pivot around which can be nice in VoltTurn cores with Pokemon like Rotom or Magneton. Choice Scarf is able to clean quite well once Pokemon like Spiritomb or Weezing are removed as well.

Decent, Good STAB's, Levitate allows it to pivot into Ground-types, Nasty Plot is a good setup move. Choiced sets are also fine enough.

Excellent, Knock Off as usual is amazing and it's STAB combo is nice for the tier, just have to worry about Poliwrath really and that's it.

Manual Sun got better but also good as a defensive Pokemon due to its amazing movepool and nice defensive typing particularly for Fighting-types like Passimian.

Unbanned People
​

Broken. Sleep Powder + Compound Eyes and a good Speed tier means that Vivillon can find opportunities to setup quite easily and then when it has setup, it can be difficult to answer defensively since it's got a powerful STAB Hurricane and Terastallization can give it some crucial coverage to hit Flying-resists like Magneton. It also gives it some extra defensive utility such as Tera Ground into Electric-types.

Edit: Vivillon might be fine actually because even tho it does hit hard at +1 the tiers defensive walls like Articuno (i swear this mon checks everything lol) can somewhat handle it.

Also Broken. Specs Analytic whittles down its answers very quickly and it has a good defensive typing and bulk to find opportunites to come in and break. Even Pokemon like Chansey cannot repeatedly take it's Volt Switches as they add up overtime. Out of Vivillon and Magneton, I would say Magneton is the more broken Pokemon just because its much easier to get Magneton in to break stuff.

I have not seen this much but when I have its been very underwhelming. Good for now, Flame Orb Guts just seems outright bad nowadays since it's not that hard to hit Ursaring hard especially with how slow it is and only average bulk without Eviolite, so Eviolite sets with Bulk Up seem to be the way to go with Mono Play Rough/Crunch, which leaves it exploitable to walls like Weezing or Fighting-types.

Pretty good. Fighting/Poison is a nice defensive typing and Sneasel-Hisui has some bulk to it thanks to Eviolite and a good boosting move in Swords Dance. It doesn't seem broken at all so far due to being walled by Weezing and Spiritomb.

Feels like it should be scarier then it actually is. Our special walls take its hits relatively well in my experiences anyway so it seems to be doing fine enough.

 

[Bella]

Its like 10pm when im writing this but lets talk about the rise of Sandslash and all the drops!!

Rise:

Losing Sandslash makes this tier interesting. Immediately when i saw it i was like "oh god Morpeko and Charizard are gonna be gods now arent they" and it seems like i was right. Losing the tiers most consistent spinner and its clear best ground type also hurts. Hopefully it'll come back sooner than later.


Ok now on to the matter at hand, the drops!!
Drops:

Ill start off with the BL unbans because why not. This thing is strong, but not broken. Very bulky thanks to evo but cant run guts effectively methinks. Bulk Up sets and RestTalk sets look interesting though and its coverage is not terrible. Probably will have a more larger opinion on this bear later.


Remember in pre-dlc era when this was in PU for like 2 weeks and the only check was Misdreavus? Good times. Anyways, the meta is no longer as dominating and a metagame warp to the tier as it used to be. With Muk, Weezing, Sableye, Cramorant, Houndstone, and others trying to ruin its fun its just not the same as it was. SD sets still look great though, although im not sure how choice band sets will do.


I was not happy to see this thing back. I personally still feel like its broken, not sure whats taking its stab combo and analytic anything hits like a truck. I can see Specs, Scarf, and Evio all functioning. Realistically the best check is Whiscash rn, but i have a feeling itll adapt to that mon too. Just have to wait and see i guess.


Im conflicted on how to feel about this mon. She's still QDing her way to fill and getting that annoying as hell Compound Eyes Sleep Powder to hit every time. Tera Blast Ground sets are still amazing, as are Sub sets. I can see an agrument for it not to be broken but personally i think its too much atm.


I still have no idea why they named this mon after a nation Anyways, Arbolivia is one of the most interesting mons to use in PU atm imo. It just sits there, Strength Saps you, Subs and Leech seeds you, and can even hit like a truck and get more constant healing thanks to its ability. It seems very very good.


Finally the butler is back to terrorize the tier! In all reality it think Indeedee M is going to be just fine. Choice sets seem very managable and idt Calm Mind is that good. Very solid mon overall and im happy its back.


The Stork mon seems decent. I've been experimenting with Sccarf to good effect and ive also seen the HDB pivot set. Very good and very solid, having 3 stabs is awesome as hell.


aka the TONE mon. Slow, but hits like a fucking truck with speccs and has coverage for everything. Tera Dragon or Fighting this thing you now basically have a spammable Draco / CC that has 0 drawbacks. Having U-Turn is great ass always too. I love this mon, really hope it stays.


Sandslash gone left a void in the Ground-type spot for many teams, and Golem has been doing just that. Its reliving its ORAS PU glory days and sits on many physical attackers and imo is one of the single best checks to Charizard. Rock Type is nice in a tier with so many Flyers and Ice types too.


Honestly i have no idea what this thing is trying to do. Seems very very mediocre tbh. I guess galvanize offensive sets can be cool but idk, maybe Scarf Magnet Pull sets for Magneton.


Shes finally home! Probably garbo though, stats dont cut it anymore methinks. Knock being much much more common now too is going to be difficult for her. Maybe she can find a niche on extremely specific structures, but i doubt.


Its... bad. Having knock its cute but its defensive typing is a not good, offensively it loses to alot of common mons in the tier atm like Weezing Zard Pyroar Perrserker and others, and it overall doesnt seem great. I would rather use Masq as a Webs lead.


Seems like a worse Golduck for rain teams. Maybe it can pair up with it? Just does not seem that great at all, likely outclassed by the other waters and grass types in the tier.


This pile of sludge. Curse 3A sets seem incredible, sticky hold is actually one of the best abilities for this metagame atm, and Poison type allows it to check Passimian, Poli, and others which is MASSIVE. Such an incredible Pokemon in this tier. AND DID I MENTION IT HAS KNOCK AND TOXIC TOO???


Im not sure how to feel about this thing. Coil sets seem strong as do IronPress sets, and having both Spikes and Rocks is nice aswell. Being a Steel with no ground weakness is massive imo, and it is a new steel which is always nice. Feels pretty easy to slap on too. Its just a flat out good mon. Not much to say!


Yeah imo this is the best (not broken) drop in the tier. Choice Scarf can be such a devastating revenge killer in the endgame while Choice Band is a insanely powerful wallbreaker. I havent tested out Bulk Up sets yet, but they seem to have potential. Being a fighting type with pivoting is great aswell just to add on. Very happy its here!


Its quite a strong scarfer but it really does nothing else outside of that. Thats not to say its bad though! Its still a great mon in the tier with its STAB combo making alot of Pokemon like Viv, Zard, Claw, and others fearful of it. Trick also allows it to cripple switches like Golem and Chansey and whatever else too! Perhaps NP sets can work? Same with specs?


Brrrrr Knock Off go brrrrrrrrrr. SD Sets seem like they are potent, Knock Off being back for it makes it very threatening aswell as beating the entire unboosted metagame bar Duggy-K. My main gripe with it is that Poliwrath Passimian and Gurdurr completely ruin it and all 3 are fairly common atm. Even still, this thing is still great.


I think being a grass that threatens the other grasses are big. Strength Sap is also great for it and I think this makes Manual Sun alot more viable again. I think the main issue for it is that the meta is not that kind to it atm and its a bit on the slow side. Still, i think its a pretty decent mon in the tier and def has its purpose.

 

[gum]

hi, day 2 meta thoughts!! not really convinced anything is broken in this metagame, it feels weirdly balanced and i think we have the tools to tackle pretty much everything as of now. overall happy with these shifts, even if they were more impactful than i expected. i kinda expected the tier to start settling down until we got to the dlc drops but this meta feels so different than last month's, maybe for the better. will be seperating drops into tiers of broken-ness for the sake of clearness. also slate will be posted sometime tomorrow (friday), with votes taking place on sunday, so if you think anything should get voted on now's the time to post!!

possibly broken


i love arboliva, every set ranging from defensive leechtect to specs is a headache to take on. the former has the bulk to kinda just sit there in front of things that should be good answers, like articuno, and leech seed whatever's in front of it while never dying. choice specs on the other hand can click its way through the entire tier; with tera normal, not even cuno is safe from getting 2hkoed, while tera grass leaf storm under terrain is unholy. it also helps that it has just enough speed to outspeed most of our defensive options, though it's worth noting that some of these can (and most likely will) invest to outspeed it. it's definitely held back by that same speed tier and awkward typing though; it feels kinda easy to limit how much it gets to do due to this as we have plenty of pokemon that are able to offensively pressure it, like passimian, charizard, victreebel, bombirdier, both sneasels, and swanna. this all makes it pretty tera reliant at times, which is never a great trait to have as a slow pokemon. i just don't like how scary it is when it does get in, which it can do without too much difficulty considering all of our voltturners, and it reminds me of a slighly less dangerous specs alolan eggy from swsh, just with more set versatility


so tbh we still don't have switchins to this..? unless you want to count whiscash! specs in this meta feels better than it did when we first had this in the tier, as our grounds are not very good. it gets to click scary moves vs most of the tier, and those moves will pick if you don't have 1 of whiscash or chansey. similarly to arboliva, it pairs well with all of our u-turn / flip turn bots, even forming a voltturn core with them. not completely stupid obviously, it's frail and difficult to build with, and sometimes runs in matchups where it just does nothing. wouldn't be too annoyed by this going though, spdef sets are fake and don't count as far as our steels go, so i don't really care about giving this a shot when we have tours happening. most likely the only pokemon i'm voting ban on, i think it's the closest thing we have to being broken

worth keeping an eye on


this thing hits really really hard, thankfully it's not that difficult to switch into if it can't click a psychic move. still though, at times it feels a prediction or two away from always claiming. scarf is also pretty good vs offense, blocks prio and it's a nightmare to switch into for those teams. it doesn't have the easiest of time picking a tera type, and it is very frail, but i think it's one of our better breakers. calm mind sets look potentially silly, and are the only reason i'm including this thing here; it's still pretty underexplored, but all of this is theory anyway, and as of now i'm not convinced this is on the level of our more concerning threats


this is a breaker and a scarfer in one, with pretty solid offensive utility to boot. knockturn is amazing, especially when you scare out so many things with stab close combat and coverage options like eq / rock slide / gunk shot. i think voltturn might end up being an issue down the road, but as of right now passimian feels much more like a top 3 s-rank mon than some unfair option. it's held back by the speed tier not being that good, but considering everything it has it's still amazing


victreebel on sun is honestly pretty annoying to deal with. grass poison fire coverage is resisted by nothing, and after a growth you pretty much need dragon articuno or it's kinda dire for you. thankfully held back by how sun as a playstyle is just not great, meaning it often has to carry its team to a win. it's not concerning at all outside of sun, and i'd consider it a great addition to the tier. hoping sun kinda just dies out instead of becoming increasingly annoying so we get to keep this x

not worried about these, but they're very good


it kinda has everything it needs to succeed; good typing, recovery, great utility movepool (including rocks!), and even a third stab if it wants to. pretty similar to swanna, just less annoying. it can run bulky sets well to act as an okay-ish answer to some special attackers like charizard, and more offensive sets are scary to face due to how hard switching into brave bird + knock off can be at times, and it can always keep the momentum with u-turn! think this'll settle pretty nicely into the metagame, very happy we finally got it


soo glad this dropped yippie.!! it's such a good catch-all answer to special attackers that, unlike chansey, isn't a passive blob. poison touch knock off is pretty evil, and sticky hold makes it an okay knock / trick sponge. i mostly have experience with pjab knock 2 fillers, and that set has been working wonders so far. genuinely annoying to switch into as well, you don't really realize it until you run into it. curse sets can also be very threatening and can get out of hand rather fast if you let it get too many boosts, but i've found that it generally prefers having other moves instead anyway


this thing has surprised me, at first i thought it was going to be pretty mid as it doesn't check most of our physical attackers very well and its poor spdef bulk makes it very hard to justify using spdef to deal with abomasnow, arboliva, indeedee, etc. turns out it still checks a decent amount of threats, and is a potent tera user. it doesn't really appreciate taking a knock off though, but it's still often bulky enough to do its job during a game. was a bit worried about how passive it'd be, but body press makes it a semi-real offensive threat. ground immunity is also great, even if less relevant now


we had this before, but it feels like it's better in this metagame than it was in the short-lived gurdurr gligar etc september metagame. the speed tier is obviously great, as most of our threats sit below the 115 mark and don't appreciate a knock off or an icicle crash, meaning it can come in a lot of times per game to just click its way through. counters to this don't really exist, but orthworm and weezing do an alright job, while our scarfers prevent it from doing too much


also great, the stab combination isn't the best but the speed tier means it can just run over teams. it also has tools to get past weezing, while most muk sets are setup fodder, making it pretty scary to face despite the coverage lacking. i enjoy cb sets too, gunk shot and cc are stupidly strong and start killing a lot of things from full which is fun, and switcheroo / toxic can cripple something

---

kinda all i had to say, we obviously had more drops but i just wanted to mention the ones i think look maybe concerning, as well as the ones i've enjoyed using the most. also, i didn't include it here as i wanted to focus on the drops, but i think charizard might still be a bit much, though i'm less worried about it now than i was last month. thank u for reading!

 

[Perla]

Even though I don't see enthusiastic comments about it, I think that the Sub/NP Rotom set is really good, especially because it's generally free if the opponent has a Chansey or Orthworm.

Sub/Nasty Plot

Rotom @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Nasty Plot
- Thunderbolt/Volt Switch
- Shadow Ball

I don't like the WoW/Hex version because this tier has Pyroar or other normal types in general.
In fact Volt Switch is a possibility over Thunderbolt, for example when Pyroar breaks your sub and you want to deal damage and pivot.
Arboliva is a counter, so you need something for it.
I put Tera Fairy because it could be useful for a Passimian or Bombirdier that tries to kill you with Knock Off

 

[gulch]

alright, here are my post-48-hrs thoughts!! might be a little long-winded! things in tiers are listed in order of how problematic i think they are from top to bottom.

Banworthy (or close):


LOL we still have absolutely zero switchins to this, both Eviolite and Specs are quite frankly ridiculous and take advantage of the current meta frighteningly well. Whiscash and Arboliva are the only real checks to it, and both can be circumvented rather easily through stuff like Tera Grass or Magnet Rise. TB Grass in particular makes the magnets pretty stupid, but Water is also super valid to take advantage of Fire-types while still managing to beat off our non-existent Grounds. I do think that the Electric weakness does make it strictly worse, though. Very silly and I just don't think we're prepared for it right now.


We were very much correct to say that this is what's going to define "fast" in PU. Notably, faster than every relevant Scarfer! I'm really not a fan of this existing right now and I don't know how it's not on a lot of other people's radars at the moment. Nigh unblockable Volts, a secondary STAB that's also the best offensive typing in the game, Levitate allowing it to come in on the few Grounds we do have, and Trick to cripple fatmons that would try to wall it like Arboliva, Appletun, and Chansey. This is just the Scarf set too, not even touching on the other options like SubHex or Nasty Plot. I don't think this will be healthy until we get a good, genuine Electric immunity that doesn't crumple to special hits.


Medicham but with Knock Off, real coverage, no Ghost weakness, and the ability to U-Turn out of bad matchups. Oh, and you also don't get completely blanked by Weezing! CC/EQ/Knock/U-Turn is all you could ever ask for from an offensive pivot in this meta, not a lot is able to outspeed base 80 Scarf unboosted and unlike Medicham, most of the other scarfers don't outright beat Passimian. You just come in, do a decent chunk of damage, and leave with little to no consequences since hazards are in a bad spot right now and you resist Rocks anyway. Oh, and Strength Sap/Webs make the problem worse thanks to Defiant! It's ridiculously easy to pilot and support, and I'm not quite sure it makes the meta a better place. I am definitely willing to give this one a little more leeway though, as I agree it feels more like a top tier/S-Rank option than some absurd wincon.

Worth keeping an eye on as things develop:


Just statchecks the entire tier. 78/90/109 bulk in a tier where breaking 90 is considered high in a stat is absurd, not to mention 125 SpA allowing you to hit back hard even without investment. Being one of our few reliable Volt Switch resists also means that it's not super hard to get in, and while they're all generally riffs on the same idea, Arboliva has a lot of sets to choose from. Strength Sap, Harvest shenanigans, LeechTect, SubSeed, Specs, etc. are all very strong. I think it's super easy to pilot and just overall kinda braindead, but what keeps me from ranking it with the three above is the amount of positives it brings to the tier. A way to check offensive Waters is like, exactly what we needed from these shifts, and this is the perfect mon for the job. Wouldn't be shocked or upset at a ban though, that is not the statline of a PU mon.


Big beefy fuck that dishes out big beefy hits. Guts is good, Quick Feet is something you have to account for, and STAB Facade that's usually status boosted is nasty. We do have a lot of good FIghting-types and Fighting coverage though, and even with a Quick Feet boost the bear is slooooow. I do think it's pretty underexplored though, and could be worth looking at if the meta ends up slowing down later.

Not broken, but good!


Absurdly fat on both ends, Curse 3A dunks on a lot of teams if you give it any room. Getting an opening to set up can be a pain, especially since EQ from Passimian and random Psychic moves from stuff like Indeedee or Medicham hurt a lot, but once you do the game is pretty much won and it feels like you genuinely have to work for it instead of it being a cheap trick. Good addition to the tier!


Fitting moves on this is a little awkward, but that's partly because it has so, so many good ones. Like, literally everything it could ever ask for bar Defog. Rocks, Roost, Knock Off, Brave Bird, Stone Edge, U-Turn, Parting Shot, Sucker Punch, and even niche options like Foul Play, Memento, and Drill Run. Scarf is the best set IMO, that extra two points over Passimian and Medicham is clutch, but utility sets and HO suicide leads are also super valid if not a little harder to squeeze moves into. Again, good addition to the tier, and really glad we finally got it.


Interchangeable with Bombirdier, again just feels really smooth. I think the concerns about this in Sun are somewhat valid? But Sun is such a fake playstyle and Victreebel carries it so hard that I think just letting Sun die out is a pretty reasonable expectation. It's got moves for days and genuinely has a kit for every situation, it's just a Swiss army knife that fits on almost any team you want it to. Offensive sets are good, fat sets are good, utility sets somewhere in between are good, Victreebel is just good. Probably ends up taking the role of main check to offensive Waters if Arboliva gets the axe.


After playing with this for most of my time in the new meta, I'm... definitely underwhelmed with it. It's still solid, don't get me wrong, it's just that the Crawdaunt curse runs heavy with Clawitzer. Slow and not super fat Water with 0 defensive utility in a meta dominated by voltturn is going to be hard to pull off. That said, when you do actually manage to get this in, it hits like a fucking truck. Essentially getting to launch off Draco Meteors with no drawbacks thanks to Mega Launcher Dragon Pulse while also genuinely having coverage for every situation bar Articuno and Chansey are big points in Claw's favor, it just sucks when the things that check you are on nearly every single team. Still solid though and I can very easily see the meta shifting in its favor.

 

[Morge]

Uhh, meta talk, yeah!
The brokens

Actually its just the broken singular since magneton is the only mon I think is broken at the moment (Well except zard but thats not new so). Our switchins to magneton are.... whiscash. Everything else either gets blasted by flash cannon or isn't volt immune and just gets volt switched on (or sucks!). Specs analytic is the set everyones gonna go to immediately because big numbers but honestly I think eviolite is better at the moment, its frail without eviolite and slow, and gets threatened by a lot of top threats, and eviolite still hits more than hard enough in most situations. Specs is still good but generally harder to build with I think. Also scarf doesn't exist anymore, 70 is just too slow for a scarfer at the moment. Its not as bad as when we had it before but until we get more real grounds with actual special bulk I just don't think we're prepared for this.

The potentially brokens

Knock turn + fantastic base 120 attack make this the best scarfer in the metagame and a really annoying mon to deal with, but base 80 speed definitely holds it back, as well as the fact that fighting just generally isn't actually that good of an offensive type in the meta at the moment despite how many amazing fighting types we have, so it doesn't actually get that many opportunities to click its stab. Could definitely be a problem and I do think volturn is kinda nuts at the moment which passimian contributes to a lot but once magneton leaves I would imagine that it becomes easier to deal with.


Quiver dance is a really fun move as well all know especially with tera to get around vivillons shitty coverage options. It does struggle with special walls like cuno (but like what doesn't lol) and cryogonal, but sleep powder can give it a tool to brute force these matchups if nothing else is slept (and also once mag gets banned maybe it could start running tera rock?). I don't think its that broken at the moment but once things settle I could see it becoming a problem with how volatile it is (Its also just really annoying).

The really good but not brokens

I don't really agree with the sentiment of this being broken. Its bulky and powerful yes but its super slow and has a pretty awful defensive typing all things considered, the resistances are nice but fighting/flying/poison/fire is like the worst set of weaknesses you could have in the current meta without also being weak to like electric. Its very good for sure, its can be really annoying to take down and hits really hard but it feels manageable.


Just kinda does everything, and it does it well at that. Its our best rocks user, a great pivot either offensive or defensive, pretty good scarfer, probably a bunch of other stuff. Just generally incredible.


Really dislikes all the bulky ghosts and poisons in the tier at the moment but it has the tools to get around muk/weezing usually and the fantastic speed tier can potentially let it just run over teams. Surprising decent defensively with eviolite as well although still pretty frail, the typing does a lot of heavy lifting there.


Also really hates all the bulky poisons around but still a really good wallbreaker, grass/poison is a pretty cool defensive typing and strength sap can make it surprisingly annoying defensively despite its poor bulk, and being able to go physical or special is nice for being able to say break orthworm with special sets which otherwise kinda hard walls physical sets. I can see it being kinda dumb on sun but the rest of sun still isn't particularly great so it has to do a lot of heavy lifting and I think sun is overall fine.