Lower Tiers RBY Ubers Hub

[Oiseau Bleu]

 

[Sabelette]

Deadline to submit a VR is March 10!

With the in-progress tournaments ending, here are the new people with reqs:
Melbelle
Huntu
NotVeryCake

And people who have reqs but haven't submitted:
Blui
CollectorEly
Enigami
Evuelf
FriendOfMrGolem120
Frrf
Ice Yazu
Kaz
kjdaas
Leru
MTB
nicole7735
Peasounay
Sabelette
SaDiSTiCNarwhal
Sceptross
shiloh
Torchic
tylerfitz8
Unowndragon

Sorry if I tagged anyone who submitted, doing this right before bed so just poke me if I messed something up.

 

[Sabelette]

Might comment on placings later but quick notes:
1. Dropoffs between tiers are really really steep after A-, and everything after C is a niche gimmick that relies on opponents not being familiar with the gimmick, up until E/F which are just bad gimmicks and/or done better by something above it
2. Physical offense is cracked and I almost put Rhydon and Dnite higher than I did
3. Literally everything is droppable but the mews, if you want to drop them just use them as twavers/boom/etc instead, they're too versatile to ever drop when you could use them to do anything a lower ranked mon could do nearly as well and still have them do 2-3 other things on top
4. I'm theorymonning pretty hard bc a lot of these I've only played on ladder/had Ctown or whoever bring absurd heaters into me. Once you get past Fearow my experience is limited (barring Charizard, lol) but this VR doesn't affect tiering so I'm willing to shoot some shots in the dark, it's not like newbies should be playing anything below like Golem anyway

Edits:
1. Forgot Jolteon, putting it above Zam
2. Moving Arbok up to right above Fearow, Enigami convinced me

 

[FriendOfMrGolem120]

I haven't played this tier for a while so don't feel strongly about most placements but think Porygon should at least be ranked.
Starting with E my rankings become very arbitrary.

 

[Kaz]

 

[CollectorEly]

Here’s my relatively condensed ranking in order from tier, although the bottom tiers are kinda messy so don’t take too much from it:

*Edit: I forgot to add some lowtier trash, (I mean viable… mons” - If you’re wondering on the absence of trode, kingler and such.*

S tier: The GOATs. There are two and only two; anyone who says otherwise is likely drunk. At times it’s worth mentioning the Mew has consideration for the #1 spot (biased aside if you know me). Against very good players Mewtwo seems to act more defensively, almost like a chansey, albeit with the clear offensive threat - that is conveniently blocked by said chansey or an opposing mewtwo. This leads to M2 freeze/PP wars or boomtwo.

Mew on the other hand couldn’t care less. However it’s main drawback is it’s available movepool, sometimes getting (almost or entirely) walled by gengar, zapdos, or rhydon, depending if you’re running mono normal or only quake. For this reason it’s hard to put Mew at #1, although I like to consider both Mew and Mewtwo pretty close regardless, and essential to all good teams.

A - These are your core mons that help your progress, or in tauros’ spot, finish (side note, leading tauros is a niche play and it’s main job is to finish not lead). Lax is probably the most common mon outside of the mews for good reason - It does great damage, tanking ability, can para, can boom, has quake, and can scare your opponent with the threat of counter. Reflect rest sets work, albeit way less than in OU, but they’re also an option. Chansey sees a decrease in viability in this meta, I think people began to see this more sometime in late 2023. It’s hard to progress with it at times, although seismic toss for plain and guaranteed damage seems to be the best way most of the time. Having a backup sleeper with sing is always a plus. Eggy just works almost all the time; being solid typing, having stun and sleep, and ofc boom which is a forever staple of the tier. Notably, Egg is a solid Mew check, as well as the other more obvious mons on the list purely based on typing.

B - I’m going to run through this a bit faster. Gar being the faster sleeper, rhydon being the best ground/rock (tailwhip/sub is damn good when you throw it in on a paraed mon, especially to deal with the mews). Zap needs no explanation. Slowbro starts to be one of the less widely used (widely used mons, lol) although it has good defensive bulk spreading paras, and can quickly be an unlikely offensive powerhouse with amnesia if the opponent isn’t running chansey, doesn’t have electric moves, or is simply not paying attention to the threat. Jynx is a solid lead with a best *sleep odds to speed ratio* in the tier. Nothing more really. Zam just can’t do much in ubers like it does in OU; simply because of the presence of so many strong or recovery psychics in the case of the mews and slowbro. It can however be okay if you need a fast mon to deal with something like a player who spams the raging bull, but I wouldn’t place my bets on it much. Jolteon does what zapdos does, worse but also with more variability.

C - I won’t speak for all these. They are players but with a more specific team oriented play style. Hypno plays great against lead M2, cloy as it does in OU, golem as a budget rhydon with BOOM, etc. Starmie I want to note is arguably the most significant decreases in viability in terms of OU to ubers IMO. Its ability to really do good usually comes down to if it can get some helpful rng with paras or crits along the way. If the objective is spreading paras, there are simply better options, and damage just isn’t there. Its best option is to lead with it, or to outspeed tauros and negate any sweeping abilities it wants to have, otherwise it’s going to be that mon that has trouble with most of the available field. Dnite plays the wrap game, but also being a flying type can negate mono eq or eq/boom mew well.

Niche - Yeah we got the wrappers and what not. A few mons that have tried and sometimes succeeded, but if you’re really trying to win you won’t see these guys much, unless there is a *clear* reason to use them.

Arc - Fire Doggo with good stats ❤

 

[NotVeryCake]

I'm not going to bore anyone who may be reading this with the same filler fluff everyone else's tier list says, so I'll get right into hot takes.
Snorlax: Reflect Snorlax is, in my opinion, extremely underutilised, most Snorlax only end up clicking Body Slam and Self-Destruct, so giving up the other two slots for what ReflectLax does is worth it. Reflect Snorlax forces very uncomfortable situations for opposing PhysLax and Mew, forcing PhysLax to either switch out to something that can attempt to tank Snorlax's Body Slam or boom to trade unfavorably, and dishing out hard hits to Mew. It punishes the advent of physically offensive Boom heavy teams that are lacking in recovery. I have heard some just claim that once its resting it becomes a sitting duck for Mewtwo to farm, but partnered with TWave Mewtwo or Boom Mewtwo to incapacitate/KO opposing Mewtwo works well. I believe PhysLax's incredibly high usage is partly due to inertia from when Mewtwo freeze wars were the only thing that mattered and Snorlax couldn't afford to be passive, but the meta has changed, and Mewtwo isn't the unbeatable titan it once was as people have found ways to handle it (namely your own Mewtwo and Mew)
Chansey: Chansey is wierd, it's passive, slow, and can only soft check Psychic Mewtwo, but it works extremely well on more defensive teams as it sticks around for a really time, wastes PP, absorbs freeze, and spreads TWave incredibly well.
Starmie: Starmie is an extremely good lead, forcing out Tauros and Gengar and pairing nicely with Boom Mewtwo in the back to clear the way for Starmie later on. Chansey being dropped more and more frequently means quite a few teams haveno switchins to Starmie aside from Mewtwo, which lets Starmie paralyze it and help facilitate its teammates.

 

[Blui]

 

[Sabelette]

Hi all, life got away from me and I got a bit delayed, new VR soonTM.

 

[Enigami]

 

[Sabelette]

VR time! Cutoff for a Pokemon to be ranked was at least 4 votes. Thank you to: Torchic YBW Fc stunner047 Paulluxx Ctown Eledyr royzin King Billu Oiseau Bleu Sabelette FriendOfMrGolem120 Kaz CollectorEly NotVeryCake Blui Enigami for contributing to the first VR update in 3 whole years! Rank letters mean nothing, they're just used to denote significant separations in rankings. I'm hoping to run a sample teams update soon, so if anyone would like to contribute, please DM me!

No frills rank order

01 Mewtwo
02 Mew
03 Snorlax
04 Exeggutor
05 Tauros
06 Chansey
07 Gengar
08 Rhydon
09 Slowbro
10 Zapdos
11 Jynx
12 Alakazam
13 Starmie
14 Hypno
15 Golem
16 Jolteon
17 Dragonite
18 Cloyster
19 Sandslash
20 Aerodactyl
21 Lapras
22 Victreebel
23 Articuno
24 Persian
25 Dodrio
26 Moltres
27 Dugtrio
28 Electrode
29 Porygon
30 Poliwrath
31 Arbok
32 Charizard
33 Ditto

Changes from last VR

01 Mewtwo: +0
02 Mew: +0
03 Snorlax: +1
04 Exeggutor: +2
05 Tauros: +0
06 Chansey: -3
07 Gengar: +1
08 Rhydon: +3
09 Slowbro: +0
10 Zapdos: -3
11 Jynx: -1
12 Alakazam: +2
13 Starmie: +0
14 Hypno: +7
15 Golem: +1
16 Jolteon: -4
17 Dragonite: +0
18 Cloyster: -3
19 Sandslash: Newly Ranked
20 Aerodactyl: Newly Ranked
21 Lapras: -4
22 Victreebel: -2
23 Articuno: -4
24 Persian: -3
25 Dodrio: Newly Ranked
26 Moltres: Newly Ranked
27 Dugtrio: Newly Ranked
28 Electrode: -5
29 Porygon: Newly Ranked
30 Poliwrath: Newly Ranked
31 Arbok: Newly Ranked
32 Charizard: Newly Ranked
33 Ditto: Newly Ranked

Mean Median Mode etc

​

	Rankers	Average	Max	Min	Median	Mode
Mewtwo	17	1.00	1	1	1	1
Mew	17	2.00	2	2	2	2
Snorlax	17	3.65	3	5	3	3
Exeggutor	17	4.88	3	7	5	4
Tauros	17	5.47	3	9	5	4
Chansey	17	5.71	3	8	6	4
Gengar	17	7.53	5	12	7	7
Rhydon	17	8.41	3	10	9	9
Slowbro	17	8.76	5	16	9	9
Zapdos	17	8.94	6	13	9	10
Jynx	17	11.94	6	21	11	11
Alakazam	17	13.59	11	20	13	12
Starmie	17	15.41	7	25	16	17
Dragonite	17	16.82	11	22	17.5	14
Golem	16	16.44	12	24	16	12
Cloyster	16	17.63	13	26	16	13
Aerodactyl	16	19.44	11	26	19	16
Victreebel	16	21.56	12	29	22	19
Hypno	15	15.67	14	24	15	14
Jolteon	15	16.53	11	23	17.5	18
Lapras	15	21.20	13	29	22	21
Sandslash	14	18.93	11	27	19	15
Articuno	14	22.00	17	27	23	23
Persian	14	22.14	12	32	22	23
Moltres	13	23.69	17	31	24	25
Electrode	13	25.31	19	30	25.5	28
Porygon	13	25.85	12	41	27	20
Dodrio	11	22.45	16	27	22	22
Poliwrath	9	27.33	25	30	27	26
Arbok	6	27.67	26	34	26.5	26
Ditto	5	31.20	25	36	30	36
Dugtrio	4	24.75	18	31	25	#N/A
Charizard	4	28.50	20	33	30.5	#N/A
Raticate	2	24.50	24	25	24.5	#N/A
Clefable	2	25.50	25	26	25.5	#N/A
Fearow	2	27.00	26	28	27	#N/A
Lickitung	2	27.50	23	32	27.5	#N/A
Kingler	2	32.50	31	34	32.5	#N/A
Haunter	2	33.00	32	34	33	#N/A
Dragonair	2	33.50	28	39	33.5	#N/A
Golbat	2	35.00	33	37	35	#N/A
Butterfree	2	37.50	35	40	37.5	#N/A
Tentacruel	2	38.00	33	43	38	#N/A
Nidoking	1	14.00	14	14	14	#N/A
Golduck	1	30.00	30	30	30	#N/A
Arcanine	1	30.00	30	30	30	#N/A
Kabutops	1	33.00	33	33	33	#N/A
Onix	1	35.00	35	35	35	#N/A
Pinsir	1	35.00	35	35	35	#N/A
Pidgeot	1	38.00	38	38	38	#N/A
Gyarados	1	42.00	42	42	42	#N/A

Frankly, I can't show the graphs as intended because a few extreme outliers/mons ranked by just 1 person made a mess of it. Here's the dissimilarity matrix but you have to ignore weird ones like Nidoking to make it work:

Graph

And a few more graphs:

Graphs pt 2

Raw vote data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BAS08E7yLWFPJaw4M7SCCzxPAAkTLdrN3TeNcvMl4Bk/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Sabelette]

Hello Ubers players,

I would like to update the RBY Ubers sample teams as the last update was quite a few years ago. Please DM me here or on Discord if you'd like to contribute to a new sample teams list.

 

[Sevi 7]

RBY Ubers tour and ladder is coming up, and I don’t think I can participate in the tour, but I’m excited for the ladder again. I’ve been doing some team building and playtesting (thank you everyone who’s played with me), and getting my creative juices flowing. I’m hoping to get others thinking about this tier as well, and thought about some sets I’ve played with/against but I haven’t seen talked about much on site or shown in tour replays.


Mewtwo’s Best Set
Mewtwo
- Amnesia
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Recover

I’ve been preaching the value of BoltBlizz M2 for years, but somehow never got it used much against me. Over the last year that’s changed though, and now that I’ve seen its power from both sides, I really think it’s Mewtwo’s best set. Blizzard’s additional power doesn’t seem like a huge deal at first glance, but it makes a big difference. Being able to do things like OHKO Egg from +2 (or from a crit) makes sweeping a lot easier. And the 8 PP isn’t relevant most of the time in my experience (maybe in like 5% of games). Thunderbolt’s coverage is also important so that Bro doesn’t punish you, but also because other mons, like Starmie, are also seeing more play. And the less opportunities you give your opponent to do something against you the better. Psychic’s damage is great for attacking Normal-types, and the spec drop can be really nice. But Blizzard has very comparable power and isn’t resisted by most of M2’s usual checks. BlizzBolt just makes M2 more reliable, and able to wallbreak its own checks. And for a set-up power hitter, that’s really important.
(That said, I think PsyBolt is the 2nd best set)

Wall-Breaker
Mewtwo
- Amnesia
- Blizzard/Ice Beam/Psychic
- Self-Destruct
- Recover

For some reason this set is kinda hard for me to explain, but at the same time, I feel it’s self-explanatory. Mono Attacking M2, in general, is something I’ve played around with a lot. Having coverage is obviously important, but even with one attack M2 is still really threatening and can deal a lot of damage. This set isn’t for every team and I’ve had the most success when I’m looking to sweep with something like Mew or Slowbro.
You can really put whatever special attack you want on here, but I think an Ice-type attack is the best for its decent coverage and 10% freeze chance. Despite just talking about PP not mattering on my last M2 set, this set actually can run out of PP about 1/6 of the time, and so Ice Beam does actually make sense on a set like this (I still run Blizz though. The power is still worth it imo). Psychic can also work, but you end up struggling against opposing M2 and Mew and I really just prefer something that can hit those.


Rock Slide
Mew
- Thunder Wave
- Swords Dance
- Rock Slide
- Explosion

After using this set over the years, and never seeing anyone else use it. I feel like this is my signature Mew set at this point, but it really shouldn’t be. This set has consistently worked for me. Rock Slide is the best neutral coverage move in the gen, and hitting Zap super effectively can really help teams that are vulnerable to it. (Especially since people are so used to Mono EQ Mew that people switch in flying types without scouting the set). Having a little less power than Body Slam doesn’t come into play too often, especially since this Mew is often exploding relatively quickly, and just making sure you aren’t walled is better in the long run.

Mixed SD
Mew
- Swords Dance
- Body Slam
- Blizzard/Psychic
- Explosion/Soft-Boiled

This is a cool set that replaces EQ with a special attack for better coverage or immediate damage. I’ve mostly seen other people use Blizzard, and that’s the one I’ve had more success with as well. Blizz hits Egg (the most common check in the current meta), and Zap (another common check). They’re both 3HKOed, so if you get the crit on the switch-in, you can then KO next turn.
Psychic works well against other checks, such as Cloyster, Rhydon and Lax, and can do better than SD + EQ with crits and/or Spec drops. However, those mons aren’t coming in on Mew as often as the checks that Blizzard hits super effectively.


Gengar’s Coverage Options
Gengar
- Hypnosis
- Mega Drain/Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Explosion

This set isn’t anything original. (Shoutout to the people who remember when Gar’s SmogDex said Mega Drain was better than Night Shade until like 8 years ago). Gar’s Special is good enough to where it can rely on Thunderbolt for damage against most things. Therefore, you can afford to run a coverage option instead of Night Shade. I’ve run Mega Drain to help mitigate Gar + Zap’s weakness to GolDon with enough success to where I think it is an OO.
I haven’t ran much Psychic on Gar myself, but I’ve seen enough people use it to where I think it’s noteworthy as an OO . Psychic really helps in the mirror and the Spec drops can also be really helpful with wall breaking an incoming threat or help setting something up for another mon.

Keep in mind that you need Night Shade to hit Egg and this set is pretty much countered by standard Egg if Sleep Clause is already active.


Physical Egg
Exeggutor
- Sleep Powder
- Stun Spore
- Double-Edge
- Explosion

This is a set I’ve seen used in tournaments, but I think it’s good to mention anyways. There are times when Egg really wants to spread double status as well as focus on hitting its checks to help chip them down or straight up KO them. Since its checks are often Psychic-types, going for Double-Edge gives you a chance at immediately damaging them without having to rely on RNG Spec drops. But obviously mono-Normal is walled by Gar and Rock-types and Egg’s Attack stat isn’t anything to get excited about.


Sub Wall-Breaker Dodrio
Dodrio
- Drill Peck
- Hyper Beam
- Body Slam
- Substitute

Dodrio in general should probably see more play. I’ve been using it more seriously this year, and it’s really threatening on the right team. Everyone knows it as an Agility Sweeper, but it can function without Agility as well. Substitute can be used against a paralyzed mon to fish for a full para or it can be used when you suspect your opponent will switch. Dodrio behind a Sub can be extremely scary against a paralyzed team and/or against a check that doesn’t have a status move. Dodrio also doesn’t need to sweep to be helpful to a team. It has the power to wall break and enough speed to outspeed a lot of bulky mons without a boost. It’s not an everyday meta mon, but probably a solid D mon that can be used in serious games.


Counter Zam
Alakazam
-Thunder Wave
- Counter
- Psychic
- Recover

I don’t really think this needs an explanation. In general, I feel like Toss is better. However, when Counter works, it can be devastating and even flip games.


Rest Jolteon
Jolteon
- Thunder Wace
- Thunderbolt
- Double Kick/Rest
- Pin Missile/Rest

First, I’ve seen a lot more Jolteon over the last couple of months, and I’m really happy, because I felt like it was forgotten by the meta for a little while there. Now I’m not only seeing it, but people experimenting with it too. I’m seeing more Rest Jolt where people are dropping Kick or Pin to recover against Chansey, Zap, etc. It’s the same idea behind the OU set. Everyone who’s played OU understands why Pin can be dropped, but Kick is more interesting. Chansey isn’t on every team, and some teams struggle with Egg more and would prefer coverage against it instead. If going up against Chansey in the 1v1, you’d just have to PP stall it. Obviously this set is even harder to pull off in Ubers, where the Mews love an opportunity to set-up. So, you have to really support and work around having such a passive play on the team, but I’ve seen some people make it work and some people are happier with Rest on their Jolt.

Anyways, hopefully I inspired something for some new teambuilding and I look forward to playing with you when we get Ubers ladder again.

 

[Sabelette]

We're not VRing again for a while but I wanna drop my rough thoughts and some stuff I built in RBYPL, very uncommitted to anything rn till I actively play the tier for a whole tour again and not just build, but it was cool seeing new stuff get used and some old stuff reexplored. Tiers aren't really ordered.

I don't have much to explain here, I think physical offense/boomspam and a fuckload of Twave has been the most consistent style with the most answers to the most situations and most techs people do are aimed at neutering it, I think the fast psychics have proven they still have value and moves to make, anything with boom is nice, Cloyster is sick as hell and I underrated it last time, Chansey is being dropped too much but is very droppable, wrap is still dumb. Blizzard is a genuinely good option on Mewtwo, and fighting Mewtwo wars is often really stupid and greedy. Good teams should have better ways to engage, if you really cannot find a better way to play than this then you should probably consider putting a Chansey or Twave Mewtwo on your team to not get instantly goobed if you ever give Mewtwo a free turn.

I think VRing in Ubers is very much like Sevi 7 said, more a product of playstyle than anything, we all mostly agree on what mons are consistent parts of the tier and what niche mons are threats here, so lemme share some stuff I built:

First off a few teams I built Ctown, stuff that was meant to cater to how he plays but also is kinda my own style too
https://pokepast.es/9117c7a902a2357d

Basic idea is simple, paraspam facilitates both Cloy and Slash, lots of boom users, Lead2 is mostly meant to scare out lead Gengar since this team kinda gets fucked by it. Sub Cloy was meant to be a silly tech for people who like to slam with Lax vs Cloy to fish for Clamp miss, but I think it's a little tricky to get the right situation for that unless you play vs people who trade lots of Twaves early so that the fish can pay off. Still, the Cloy isn't meant to stick around, so I think it's fine to try the tech. Slowbro's probably completely replaceable with a Zapdos, Victreebel, Dragonite, in fact those probably make the team better lol

https://pokepast.es/f6d8d829232ebf59

You may be noticing a team naming theme, anyway, aggressive team with lots of para and boom aimed at facilitating a Mew or Wrap endgame as needed - Mew can also just set up and break. Probably can run Boom > Hbeam but I wanted the combination of unwallable coverage (bar Aero) + repeatability. Pretty much none of the teams I built this tour feel like final products, they're like a combination of scouting + experimentation with a lot of room to grow.

https://pokepast.es/f835520596e1c2b4

This was very much for Ctown, lol. Aim to get ahead early with fast sleep, Counter Lax, Twave mews, Mie/Molt in back should beat phys offense and Moltres can cheese a little extra damage out on both mews to put them in range of Blast/Beam as needed if your Twave-Boom doesn't quite land. Ideally you're not playing spin games with Molt at all and it's just beating a Bull/Egg/weakened and paralyzed stuff/etc endgame but you don't get to pick your matchups or RNG, so yeah. In retrospect wondering if maybe SurfBolt makes more sense for this team for the higher damage output + Slowbro endgame insurance, but I'm sure I had a reason for PsyBlizz at the time, maybe scout related.

And then a few other things:
https://pokepast.es/3810971047d73ac5

Took a page from Sceptross's OU, Zap Egg Cuno type stuff with the idea being to boom/wave down to a brutal Cuno endgame vs stuff like Rhydon, Tauros, paralyzed mews.

https://pokepast.es/fb356d41d6732052
Anti sleep-lead spammer type idea, Tauros is fairly favorable into Gengar lead and has decent odds vs Jynx, once Tauros goes your opponent is way less worried about physical offense endgames but you still have a Persian waiting behind, Mewtwo set can be lots of things but this was very scout-dependent, same for the Persian, which I think could go for Body Slam > Tbolt. This one definitely needs more time to cook but there's an idea in here.

https://pokepast.es/cc6232c1ec94e5ce

Twave, Wrap, no Twave on Mewtwo so it can instead run a high-damage set that can sweep given a single free turn later in the game, which Cloy/Chansey can help to facilitate depending on gamestate (boom or lategame sleep or sacking Chansey at the right time).

Also, when RBYPL ends I want to update samples, thanks to anyone who can send me some stuff so we can modernize the sample teams. Eledyr and I also have a Flying Press article coming about RBY Ubers soon hopefully!

 

[Ineros]

Sharing the stuff I used / built / was built in altpl because I feel like it, joint effort between me and shellnuts (but mostly shellnuts because I am bad). Some sets may be in prototype mode because my builder is full of ND teams and I don’t have the patience to show and sort through the updated stuff, but they should be some pretty easy fixes.

RBY is a guilty pleasure of mine because even though it’s really jank I still have a ton of fun playing it and that’s all you really need with mons. Ubers in particular is cool because of the presence of broken setup wincons you got to play with / around which creates an interesting dynamic.

Spoiler

- broken Sabel team





- bad

 

[NotVeryCake]

Post UWT VR: I only played 2 RBY sets but I also gave some support to my goat RBY teammate YBW. I also want to give a shoutout to my man keys for being such a goat in the last week, even though I lost it was so fun learning ORAS!

Now, I think to myself; what is Chansey's state in this meta? To me it feels like it tries to stick around to be able to spread status consistently over the course of a game, but the meta is just too fast paced for it to keep up, it becomes naught but a boom sack that might land Sing if it doesn't get immediatly boomed on and not much else. Light Screen is a complete hot bag of shit as it has nothing much to actually wall anymore and will just get switched into and scared out by strong physical attackers with ease. Sing is frankly subpar to other sleepers as it lacks any offensive pressure that the likes of Jynx and Exeggutor offer. It has recovery and can maybe switch into Mewtwo but it's recovery is useless with as I mentioned before, how fast paced this current meta is. By switching into Mewtwo to try and land Sing it's also gambling with its life trying due to how inconsistent Sing is, especially if it gets paralyzed with all the Mewtwo running Thunder Wave nowadays, and how it can just be immediatly exploded on anyways. And even if it lands Sleep it offers 0 value outside of being a death sack after it does, thanks to its aformentioned negative offensive pressure.

 

[gastlies]

I have really gotten into RBY Ubers recently. I wanted to play Ubers in RBYPL but did not have the opportunity to do so. Thankfully, I was able to play RBY Ubers in ALTPL and UWL, and I enjoyed every second of both these tours!

First I have a lot of thank yous, first and foremost the ubers GOAT Ctown6 for getting me into this tier in the first place and essentially setting up the foundation for how I look at this tier. I would also like to thank Maris Bonibell Sabelette YBW PKMN Master™ BeeOrSomething teamo and SaDiSTiCNarwhal for helping me prep and shutting down my craziest ideas that had zero merit whatsoever (s/o Tentacruel).

Also special thanks to Amity for agreeing to co-manage in ALTPL and trusting me enough to self-buy into RBY Ubers, skimmythegod Taka and Ainzcrad for giving me a shot in UWL and drafting me, and shiloh for trusting me enough to use the crack i built throughout UWL.

I've been working on this post for over a month now (first draft was on Jan. 25) so some of the stuff (especially the earlier weeks) are my takes from a month ago. Since this post is extremely long I divided it into sections.

Also for the record whenever I use the plural "Mews" i am referring to both

Teamdump

Section 1

ALTPL Week 1 vs. Cao Jie
G1:
G2:
So going into this tour I had some ideas in mind. My old ubers building style is adapted from Ctown6's "spam mono eq mew and rhydon" idea, where mono eq mew destroys teams without zapdos, and rhydon destroys zapdos itself. Additionally, Exeggutor likes to explode on mono EQ Mew, which opens up Rhydon. Of course, this strategy is weak if an opponent brings a flying-type that is not Zapdos, which people should defnitely explore more since Cuno and Dnite are kinda goated. My first team this week is the classic mono eq mew + rhydon team. For the second team, I realized Cuno is extremely good in the current ubers landscape. It is a good defensive wall against Snorlax, completely blanks mono-eq mew, and does not invite Rhydon in. I paired it with Amnesia + Blizzbolt lax to snipe any potential starmie/cloyster.

ALTPL Week 2 vs. Enigami
G1:
G2:
G3:
I originally had a different team planned for g3 but g2 was very quick and I didn't even reveal Dragonite so I decided to reuse. I wanted to try building with Barrier2 this week. Its biggest issue is that it only has one attacking move. I think thunderbolt is the best mono-attacking move due to its low amount of resists and high PP. It of course has one big issue in Rhydon, so I slapped toxic on Zapdos as a rhydon lure. This team is kinda an auto-lose to rest don tho so its important to make sure there is none in scout. Wrap Dragonite G2 was meant to exploit Enigami's tendency to bring slower teams, as he is a fan of Lax + Don stuff. G3 team was a cuno team that I didn't bring last-minute.

ALTPL Week 3 vs. Ineros
G1:
G2:
Against Ineros there were some ideas I wanted to try out, as I was still in the phase of trying to explore this tier as much as posible. The heat this week was the game 1 physical Mewtwo. I paired it with Leer on both Tauros and Chansey for support, and it worked perfectly. Opted for a Physlax here since I knew this Mewtwo was weaker vs. Lax than the average M2, so just trading the laxes was how I wanted to play it out.

UWL Week 1 vs. YBW
G1:
G2:
In UWL I didn't start prepping until the day before the match and this week our team already had a massive lead so I decided to re-use some old teams from previous tours. Since YBW was supporting me for ALTPL I didn't want to re-use any of my ALTPL teams which is why I looked into the depths of my ubers builder for some teams (that ctown built lol). I'm not a huge fan of them and I kinda got smoked this week due to my lack of preparation, so not much to comment here. YBW did catch me off guard though and bring stuff that threw me off, so credit where its due.

UWL Week 2 vs. Maris Bonibell
G1:
G2:
G3:
Maris's Ubers scout was very diverse so there was no real tendency I could exploit. I knew she was a fan of mono-normal mew which I considered exploiting by bringing Kabutops, but I feared out of it last minute, and I'm glad I did because I replaced it with Cloyster G3 and it turned out to be the GOAT of the set, blanking m2 then exploding on Slowbro to enable my own. Lead Lax and Lead Mew are both attacking leads. Lax was more of a one-off gimmick but this set made me realize that Lead Mew was very real.

ALTPL Week 4 vs. Unowndragon
G1: (Barrier Version)
G2:
G3: (Barrier Version)
So my initial thought into UD is that his teams were generally passive which I could exploit with setting up a barrier2 endgame. I was once again using monobolt barrier2 for the same reasons I listed for Enigami. He's also a fan of mono eq mew which is why I zapped 3 times. The Zap + Cloy G2 is because if there is no Rhydon, Zapdos is really good, and UD never drops lax so if there is a Rhydon it is Rhydon + Lax which Cloy is fantastic into.

ALTPL Week 5 vs. King Billu
G1:
G2:
G3:
This is around when I finally started to figure out how absurdly broken twave Mewtwo is in this tier. I had always thought it was a good set but this is finally the week where I would say I truly started spamming it. Gengar and Slowbro kinda dissapointed me this set and this is when I started to sour on those guys. What's funny is that SaDiSTiCNarwhal predicted the g1 team spot-on. I also almost brought wrap g3 and since billu loaded gar zap i am extremely glad I didn't LOL. I also really liked the AmneBlizzTwaveBoom Mewtwo I brought. It's walled by Cloyster but nobody thinks "oh my cloyster walls their mewtwo" until all moves are revealed, so its fine.

UWL Week 3 vs. AM
G1:
G2: (Boom Version)
G3: (Boom Version)

Wanted to try more dragonite to balance my scout, but Gengar was a bad pick in hindsight. AM liked Lead2 so I thought I wanted Gar for backup sleep in case he blew it up on Jynx t1, and he also liked waters/ices which made gar look appealing, but it rlly doesn't enable this team at all. BeeOrSomething suggested bringing Thorlax into his icespam scout which I did. Never got to show tbolt on it but I did click the move when he blew up cloyster G3.

UWL Week 4 vs. Sabelette
G1: (Recover Version)
G2:
Sabelette was very different from most other people I've been up against for two reasons. 1. her building style is somewhat similar to mine in that she doesnt spam amnesia + recover + 2 attacks mew, isnt afraid to drop Lax, and values stuff like bull/egg/twave. 2. she somehow ALWAYS outpreps me and kinda reads my mind on what to bring. Because of this I had to find a balance between stuff that are good into her and stuff that she won't build against. No mono-normal mew this week, no rhydon spam, and I opted to use STARMIE for the first time in 9 sets. I am a pretty vocal ubers starmie hater but this is more into the traditional team styles. Into boomspam stuff ppl like me and sabel use, starmie has a lot of potential. The second team was the dragonite team i brought versus AM and I mentioned I didn't like Gengar on that team, and replacing it with Starmie was a huge improvement to it.

ALTPL Finals vs. Enigami
G1:
G2: (Blizzard Version)
I took the week off in UWL since we already made finals in that tour, which let me focus more on ALTPL prep. I had discussed RBY Ubers with Enigami and told him how I thought laxless and twave mewtwo are good and right after this discussion he began using a lot of laxless and twave mewtwo so I was a little worried. I felt Cloyster was generally good into him since I know he's a fan of MieEggDonLax, and even with his new teambuilding style he was mainly replacing Lax with Bull which Cloy is generally still good into.

UWL Finals vs. Eledyr
G1:
G2:
It was time for revenge after Eledyr knocked me out of the RBY Ubers Indiv Tour. I wanted to bring some kind of boomspam team G1 and Bee suggested Lead Gengar. I decided to do the Thorlax + Articuno pairing that i did in week 1 of ALTPL (funny how my ubers experience came full circle in this way) where Lax baits in waters which enables cuno. The G2 team is the exact team I passed to Shiloh for AM. Has Thorlax once again since AM liked Cloyster, but didn't reveal it and I thought there is no way Eledyr would expect me to use Thorlax 2 games in a row.

Meta Takes

Section 2

The way I'm gonna structure this is my main points will be in bold and then I will explain why I believe these in the following paragraph(s). They are meant to flow into each other though.

Mewtwo is used best as an Enabler, not a Sweeper

There are two key archetypes of RBY Ubers teams in my opinion. It comes down to "does Mewtwo enable its teammates?" or "does Mewtwo's teammates enable it?" The classic style of RBY Ubers is the second, use your Egg and Lax to trade down then win with Amnesia Mewtwo. I think that the first style, the one where Mewtwo enables its teammates, is superior. Most of my teams are built this way, Mewtwo forces chip and Para, but then stuff like Tauros and Rhydon actually are what wins me the game.

In order for this teamstyle to work you need to play really agressive. This essentially never lets the opponent switch in Mewtwo and start setting up Amnesia. The teamdump is filled with strong Physical Attackers such as Tauros and Rhydon, or Exploders like Exeggutor and Cloyster. This essentially prevents the opposing Mewtwo from getting any free turns to boost whatsoever. Mons that Mewtwo can set up on more easily, such as Alakazam, Starmie, and Chansey, are a lot more rare for me.

Amnesia Mewtwo is overrated

Now I wanna talk about one particular set:

Mewtwo​

- Amnesia​

- Psychic / Thunderbolt​

- Ice Beam / Thunderbolt​

- Recover​

This is arguably Mewtwo's most famous and popular set, which I will be referring to as AmneReco2. I know Barrier2 also runs Amnesia and Recover but I will be calling that set Barrier2. When I say AmneReco2 I am specifically referring to the one with two attacking moves. I believe that this is a bad set. If you glance at the teamdump, you will see that I used this ZERO (0) times throughout both tours. The problem with AmneReco2 is that you do not actually threaten opposing Mewtwo with it. The moves that Mewtwo runs that actually threaten opposing Mewtwo are Thunder Wave and Self-Destruct, and this set has neither. The only real way you can threaten opposing Mewtwo with this set is to freeze fish it, which is extremely unreliable. This leads me to my next point:

Stop playing Mewtwo Freeze Wars

Mewtwo Freeze wars can be avoided 100% of the time. The most consistent way to handle opposing Mewtwo is to paralyze it and go to a Physical Attacker or something with Explosion. You always have a Mew and you should ideally have two of bull/lax/don (or one of them + some exploders is also good). This allows you to force out opposing Mewtwo much more consistently than freeze fishing it. If you and your opponent are playing Amnesia Mewtwo Freeze wars, you are removing your ability to actually outplay your opponent and instead letting the game come down to luck. You have 154 base special and a 25% critrate at your disposal, so why would you turn this mon into a freeze fisher?

Blizzard >>> Ice Beam on Mewtwo

This leads into my next point nicely. Blizzard is almost completely superior to Ice Beam in my opinion. First of all, the damage is extremely relevant, as a crit Blizzard ohkoes Zapdos and Exeggutor, which a crit Ice Beam never does. Ice Beam has historically been used over Blizzard for its PP in Freeze Wars, which I just spent a whole paragraph explaining why you should not be playing Freeze Wars. The main case for Ice Beam in my opinion is Barrier2, because that's when you actually need PP the most. On any non-barrier2 set, I believe Ice Beam to be unviable. You are always better off using Blizzard, and there have been several RBY Ubers games in ALTPL/UWL that Ice Beam Mewtwo missed a roll on Exeggutor or something that Blizzard would have gotten.

Paralysis is Fantastic; Thunder Wave is Mewtwo's Best Move

Paralysis is great in every RBY tier, but I feel it's somehow even better in Ubers. An unparalyzed Mewtwo is way more threatening than a paralyzed one, meaning the best way to fight Mewtwo is to paralyze it (as I said earlier). There is no better mon at forcing paralysis on the opposing Mewtwo than your own, since Mewtwo generally switches into itself, allowing yours to lure and paralyze the opposing one. "I don't want to paralyze the opposing Mewtwo so I can freeze it" is generally a TERRIBLE strategy, as I've talked about earlier. In at least 90% of games, you want the opposing Mewtwo paralyzed, so dont be afraid to spam the yellow button.

Physical Attackers and Explosions Rule

In RBY Ubers the Physical Attackers are the real dangerous mons. This is why I've said earlier that Mewtwo is the superior enabler while Mew is a better sweeper. Tauros, Snorlax, and Rhydon are also all great lategame. I feel like most people misuse their Lax though. Instead of just trading Laxes, you should try to force asymmetry, kill their lax to make the most out of your own. Explosion is also great, and it goes hand in hand with Thunder Wave. Exploding on a Paralyzed Mewtwo, then revenging with a Physical attacker means your opponent either has to switch into a move from tauros/lax/rhydon (hard!) or sack Mewtwo (not ideal!). This is a win-win situation for you.

Stat Dropping Moves are Extremely Useful

Sometimes you might run into something like Reflect Mew, or want a more consistent way to take down a Mewtwo spamming Recover. Leer is a great way to guarantee progress against these guys, since it usually forces them out. I also want to shoutout Kinesis Alakazam and Sand Attack Jolteon for being able to force out Mews. In a generation with no Phazing, these are effective ways at forcing out the Mews

Viability Rankings

Section 3

I've found it very hard to VR in Ubers because I feel what is good in this tier is extremely scout-specific. Mewtwo/Mew/Exeggutor/Tauros are the only 4 mons I would consider good into any player, and any mon outside of these 4 has some matchups that are really bad into them. Most of the ranking is just vibes and I think you should treat each tier (except S) as mostly unordered. I felt like it was pretty easy to divide the tiers up, but ordering the mons within tiers was hard. Just to be clear this is still an ordered VR.

S - The Unexploitables
The 4 mons who I ranked in S are the four that I believe are unexploitable. You can justify spamming these Pokemon if you want to, and there is almost no downside to doing so.

These guys are the top 2 and I'm not gonna explain why because you know why already. What I do want to talk about though, is that the gap between Mewtwo and Mew is very small and if someone ranked Mew > Mewtwo it is an extremely valid opinion. The main distinction between the two in this tier is that Mewtwo is a check to itself, while Mew really isn't. This is part of why I now believe that Mewtwo is a better enabler, while Mew is a win condition. You generally have to go more out of your way to check Mew.

You might be wondering why the fuck these two are in S2. They are not mandatory by any means, but usage =/= viability. Although Egg/Tauros are not mandatory, they are, in my opinion, the two non-uber Pokemon that are good into anybody. Snorlax/Zapdos/Rhydon all have matchups that I would like to avoid, while Egg and Tauros generally don't have any bad matchups. If you wanted to spam Exeggutor and Tauros it would be pretty hard to stop you, there are some shared weaknesses like Articuno but these can be patched up with teammates or slapping Recover on Mewtwo.

A - The Main Supporters
This group of Pokemon are the ones I use and respect the most that are not in the top 4. This group of 5 rounds off a pretty distinct top 9. The gap between the #9 and #10 Pokemon is the biggest viability gap on my VR. However, spamming any of these mons is punishable, so they should all be in rotation.

Ubers Rhydon is my personal GOAT. I went two weeks of UWL without using Rhydon and thought the mon was washed then brought it to ALTPL finals and remembered how busted it is. I think the meta shifting towards boomspam isn't great for Rhydon as its harder to spread para through a boomspam team and Rhydon is bad into Tauros lasts (altho it can put up a fight against leer bull). However, Rhydon is still my go-to bring if my opponent brings more traditional teams, as the Twave Mew + Rhydon strategy really cleans up more passive teams. I really wish I could rank Rhydon higher since its my fav mon to pilot in this tier but I cannot in good faith put it above Egg and Tauros since those mons are so splashable and broken.

I NEVER run Snorlax alongside Rhydon as it makes my team very slow, and Ubers teams struggle to fit teamslots to begin with. Snorlax's big thing is Self-Destruct. In Ubers 100% of Snorlaxes should have this move, if your Lax doesn't explode you are throwing. In Ubers I treat Physlax more like a Rhydon alternative that trades the zapdos matchup and a stronger spammable STAB for the ability to Explode. The only problem is checking Zapdos is really important if you have mono-eq mew, so Rhydon is forced onto a lot of teams over Lax. However I think Amnesialax is really slept on, and should be run more. Whats funny is I brought Amne BlizzBolt lax a few times and never got to click bolt which is sad.

I used to have Zapdos #4 but it has soured on me a bit. I think Zapdos's best trait is its ground immunity to punish greedy mono-eq mew (greedy =/= bad btw mono eq mew is fantastic). It is still the best flier in the tier, but the main alternatives for fliers (articuno and dragonite) aren't too far behind. Using Zapdos as your ONLY flier is very exploitable in scout, as your opponent can pair mono-eq mew with rhydon and cover both zapdos and zapdosless matchups. Zapdos is still a fantastic mon, but the fact that other fliers compete with it knocks it down a bit.

Chansey is not as washed as people think. Most sets are bad, but Sing gets it into the top ten. Sing Chansey should ideally be the team's sleepsack, landing sleep on something with Sing then being slept itself. I think Sing Ice is the best Sing set so you can spam some ice moves before going to sleep and so that Rhydon doesn't bully you. The PP shouldn't really come up because as I've said before PP stalling in Ubers is typically not necessary. If you want to stall, try running Flash on Chansey. Unparalyzed Flash Chansey is honestly a decent Mewtwo staller. I stopped using it though since I've found Kinesis Zam better as a staller, and Flash almost requires Chansey stays unparad to function, but Sing allows Chansey to remain relavant. BoltBeam, Reflect, and Light Screen are all bad.

Cloyster continues to be one of the most disrespected mons in all of RBY. It being ranked EIGHTEENTH on the current VR is a travesty because this mon is amazing. You generally have to drop Lax to run it but the trade is often worth it. STAB Blizzard is broken in this tier, and you have great physical bulk to fight Bull/Lax/Mew. Cloyster also LOVES less Starmie, and is a great partner to twave mewtwo (i.e its best set). Cloyster also has Explosion which is a great progress-making tool. You also aren't walled by the stuff people use to wall Snorlax such as Refcuno and Aerodactyl. If you do face a Starmie you might struggle a bit but Starmie's relative rarity makes it much less of a worry than OU. You also wall BarrierIce2 which can potentially show up.

B - The Rotaters
This group of Pokemon are ones that are more scout-dependent. They are all very good but I am not bringing them every week to games. My opinion on them is the most volatile by far on this ranking. Some of these mons can move up/down 3 spots depending on the day.

Without Kinesis Alakazam does not achieve anything at all is almost entirely inferior to Starmie, as Starmie's Water STAB means it's actually threatening to Mew, while Alakazam's moves bounce off. I also don't think Seismic Toss is a great click in Ubers since you miss the 4HKO on both of the Mews. Kinesis though, is fantastic in this tier, since accuracy drops are able to force out boosted Pokemon. Alakazam is also a good mon at luring in Mew/M2 and forcing Twave on them, potentially letting you free up a moveslot on your Mews.

I WAS WRONG. STARMIE IS NOT A SHITMON. I'm still not a huge fan of Starmie and I think it is very scout-specific. Basically it is great into offense but not good into defense. However, as the meta is shifting more towards boomspam, chansey somehow falling off even more, and twave recoverless mews, Starmie might continue to rise. U kinda need surf to hit Mew tho so it has less set flexibiity than it has in OU. The reason why I can't really rank Starmie higher is because if you are playing against an Amnesia Mewtwo your Starmie basically becomes setup fodder, and being setup fodder for Amnesia mewtwo is really really bad.

Wrap is at its best in Ubers I feel. Again with the twave mews meta it's easy to spread paralysis for these guys to dominate. There's also less Alakazam and Starmie. Laxless can be tough for these guys though. Outside of Wrap, Victreebel and Dragonite are still very functional mons. Victreebel has sleep and can even be a lead (outspeeds hypno, s/o ctown6), while Dragonite has a flying immunity, and it is very important to have non-zapdos fliers in your rotation so you don't get cteamed by mono eq mew + rhydon spam.

Cuno is honestly pretty great in this tier. Similar to Cloyster in that Ice STAB is very good in this tier, and Articuno also has a valuable ground immunity. This mon is THE counter to normal spam/mono-eq mew/rhydon spam. The "spam mono eq mew and have rhydon for zapdos" strategy completely falls apart if it runs into Articuno, as Cuno doesn't give a flying fuck about Rhydon. Reflect Cuno is also not awful against other SD mew sets. Cuno's main issue is that, like Starmie, it's not really threatening Mewtwo. At least Starmie can paralyze it, while Cuno can't really do anything and is forced out. I think Starmie and Articuno are fairly similar Pokemon in the tier, they have the same good matchups, and are weak to Mewtwo, while Articuno has the awesome Ground Immunity and Agility in return for not having twave.

I feel Jynx is really good at letting the rest of your team not worry about sleep nonsense. Some teams also deadass dont have switchins to Jynx after sleep (e.g egg bull lax in back with no recover on mewtwo, nothing likes switching into jynx blizz here). Even if there is a recover on a mew there is a chance u get frozen and lose the game as well. Jynx's biggest downside is that is doesn't really have a way to spread para and isn't useful outside of the first couple of turns, and in a tier where you are already pressured for teamslots, its often hard to justify as a sleeper over eggy/chansey who can do other stuff too.

this mon is overrated as fuck and the fact that it is ranked #7 on the VR is fradulent. Lead Gengar gets owned by Lead2 and has a good chance to do nothing against its "good" matchups (same problem as lead gar in OU). But in Ubers it's even worse since every team has a Mewtwo that can switch into Gengar after it lands sleep! I like Back Gar more in Ubers for these reasons and it can exist as a nice "gotcha" on a predicted boom. It also has boom itself so you can always get it to trade for something. The main issue is I find myself struggling with teamslots a lot in Ubers since you need so many roles to fill (two slots already taken by mews, then u need twavers, sleep, a lead, and phys attackers), so I don't really use Gengar often. One last good thing it has going for it is it stops Mono-normal Mew in its tracks.

I really started to hate slowbro as the tour progressed because I feel it is kinda just bad cloyster. You don't even really threaten Amnesia Mewtwo that well (even vs. psy ice) and Mewtwo can just bail on rest to something actually dangerous. However I do still respect its place in the tier, which is why it is not lower.

C - The offbeats
This group are the Pokemon that I will really only bring in very specific circumstances. They cannot be used "randomly" and you need a good scout to justify using them, and none of them are really consistent. However they all have a place in the tier, and still need to be respected.

Most scout-specific mon in the tier. Into some scouts this mon is an absolute god while into others it is unviable. However I feel the scouts Aero is good into, other stuff are good into instead, and me starting to use Articuno a bit more has made me a little sour on Aero as of late.

The ultimate punish to Zap/Don spammers who also let their mons take para too hastily. Most of the time Rhydon is better but Sandslash is notably more useful at fighting Rhydon itself. It still has a bunch of problems though.

Just like Kinesis saves Alakazam, Sand Attack saves Jolteon. Unlike OU where Zapdos's Flying-typing is arguably a nerf, in Ubers the ground immunity is much more impactful making Zapdos even better compared to Jolt than it was in OU. I feel Sand Jolt is mostly worse than Kinesis Zam tho, esp since you have less longebity.

Zapdos/Cuno/Dnite are better almost all of the time, the one thing I could see justifying Moltres for is vs. CloyDon spammers but even then Dragonite is like fine. Moltres does hate para a ton too so ur not even great into twave mono eq mew.

Golem is worse than Rhydon in OU because it misses important ranges right? Well if you look at the Mew/M2 Calcs:

Rhydon Earthquake vs. Mew: 131-154 (32.5 - 38.2%) -- 98% chance to 3HKO
Golem Earthquake vs. Mew: 115-136 (28.5 - 33.7%) -- 0.2% chance to 3HKO
Rhydon Earthquake vs. Mewtwo: 140-165 (33.7 - 39.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Golem Earthquake vs. Mewtwo: 125-147 (30.1 - 35.4%) -- 25.3% chance to 3HKO

Missing the 3hkos on the Mewbers is really bad which makes Rhydon a lot better. Although Golem can still explode ofc so it has its place, but then I would just use Physlax

This mon can honestly rise a few spots maybe I just don't really use it. Ctown got me on the lead vic crack so if I want to antilead Egg and still have a way to spread para I opt for that.

D - I likely won't use
These are Pokemon that I have seen/experimented with but don't feel comfortable bringing to a serious game

It's doing the same thing as OU Persian mainly but I feel its much harder to fit a second tauros in the tier, and since reflax is basically nonexistent you lose that matchup. Slash also doesn't hit the mewbers that hard.

Faster than Mewtwo and having boom is nice but I like to paralyze the opposing Mewtwo so I generally have a good amount of stuff faster than it.

I theoryed this for a bit it's honestly not terrible into mono-normal mew. You can come in on it and set up Swords Dance. It is a fish for that set though so not a consistent bring at all.

Meme Zone

These aren't Pokemon that should be brought to serious Ubers games, but can be used for fun. This tier is unordered.
Set up SD on mono EQ Mew
Only ground-immune sleeper in the tier
Super Fang could maybe do something
Mirror Moving Mew's SD is funny
Wrap spam
Terrible Zapdos Alternative that isn't walled by Rhydon
Ground immune with funny confuse ray
Spore + SD on mono EQ Mew
Ctown used this so I'm obligated to rank it, fast double powder but use Vic instead
SD + Wrap and also a decent cloy/cuno check?
Putting this in meme zone might be a hot take but the main appeal to non-zapdos fliers is to not be walled by Rhydon so I feel legendary birds/dnite are just better
If you want to meme use this in OU instead
I feel this could do something but Kabu prob better cuz SD
More Wrap Spam
For the comedians who blow up gengar so your opp thinks they can boom safely then you catch it with this guy
lol.

Overall I feel like this tier is still super unoptimized and still has a lot of room for development. I'm glad the tier has gone away from Amnesia Mewtwo freeze wars but there's still a lot of room to grow! I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop in UPL and eventually RBYPL!

 

[AM]

First venture into RBY Ubers in team tour UWL did not do too well scorewise but wanted to play this over some other formats. Partially to try it out myself in something that "mattered" and to also help out a bit in ATPL where I was managing. Despite my record, some of the behind the scenes tilt via RNG and circumstances, lack of motivaton in the later weeks, and my teammates finding this format to be a hellish watch (lol), I do think the format is fine relatively speaking. Definitely is much different than the traditional M2 wars that people assume it is.

I wont be doing like a team dump like gastlies above, mostly because a lot of stuff the credit is either stunner047 completely, was an old team by Unowndragon (I stole gastlies teams for the week after I played her cause they were good ), or it's a 6 I put together that stunner revised a bit or Eledyr making minor change but if Sab or whoever runs the resources here saw something they liked that I used they can just message me on discord or PS when they see me.

Also won't be doing a traditional VR cause TierMaker kind of a pain to work with but if I had to rank the best mons in the format it's probably M2, Mew, Eggy, Tauros, Snorlax in that order for a top 5. The other stuff I think is supplemented by those mons or for like the lower tier mons are irrelevant (like Golbat) and shouldn't be used on a serious team. Cloyster is low like Gastlies mentioned and I think stuff like Chansey and Gengar are not good what so ever. I don't share the opinion Chansey Sing is good simply because I think Sing is an awful move, and its inaccuracy can put you extremely behind for possibly not too much value. Eggy is the best sleeper, followed by Jynx imo. They have enough to threaten outside of just putting stuff to sleep.

It also not very clear but Ice coverage is shown to be higher than stuff like Elec coverage in the usage stats of various people when we were running scouts. Some of it is the freeze component of it obviously but I would attribute it to stuff like Egg being so good you can't afford to be walled by Eggy, old Psy/Bolt M2 as an example of stuff Egg does whatever it wants to. M2, Mew, Egg imo are not droppable mons but Egg can be dropped on Wrap teams. That might change overtime but I think dropping those 3 mons besides the Wrap exception for Egg is throwing in the builder.

That's the end of my mess of a post. I dont think ill be playing RBY Ubers again in team tour (lol) but it's a cool format despite it's quirks and maybe i'll support those who do want to play it.

 

[Eledyr]

Hi, I'm here to share my POV of the metagame a bit more in depth after UWL concluded, and placing myself in semis of the RBY Ubers indiv tour (which I sadly had to drop cuz of a bad health condition on the day I was supposed to play, but oh well ). tl;dr: the tier is... In a nice shape! Development around Mewtwo used as an enabler, as gastlies mentioned, revolutionizes the pace of the game, and allow for a less stale gameplay. Mewtwo being always at bay of being KOed by a Self Destruct followed by a strong physical attacker is a wonderful innovation.

My personal VR:

Quick explanation:

S rank is self explanatory. Mews are still the undisputed 1st and 2nd best mon of the tier, and absolutely mandatory in each and every team. Realistically, you can't justify dropping one or the other. However, even at the top, set variety and moveset evolves. Both Mew and Mewtwo have seen innovations in how they're played. While Mewtwo was long considered a setup sweeper, it has found itself caught in a storm of Thunder Waves, crippling it extremely hard. And the culprit is... Mewtwo! You've guessed it, Self-Destruct + Thunder Wave redefines the M2 mirrors. The crucial point making Boom2 so effective is the fact that Setup2 is limited in the option it can run to prevent itself from being put in danger by this very set. If running Barrier (which has been used as a way to deal with physical attackers which thrived this UWL), it's limited to only 16 PPs with Ice Beam, or 24 PPs with Thunderbolt, and completely walled by any of Slowbro, Lapras, or Cloyster or a Ground-type.

That said, Mew is also evolving: we've seen the rise of Thunder Wave MonoMew last UPL, and this UWL confirmed the potential of it. It's a very clear, meta-defining set, which puts heavy pressure on everything. Not even Zapdos is a free switch-in, as getting paralyzed is a real pain in the #@! for it. The older, classic Swords Dance + dual move (Body Slam / Earthquake) has also been used quite a lot. We've seen little to no Reflect, although we've theorized its use with my partner stunner047.


I've classified the A+ and A ranks, as I believe a lot of Pokemon are actually very viable in the tier, thus only having a A rank would have been too convoluted. This may not be a very popular take among the RBY Ubers playerbase, but I still believe Snorlax is the 3rd mon of the tier. I've found very little reason to not use it, and among all the teams I've used AND prepared during this whole tournament, a single one did not have Snorlax in it. Simply said, it can do everything, and it can do it well. It's most popular set remained PhysLax; Normal moves are just broken on Snorlax, and it can easily snowball out of control with the powerful 30% chance of paralyzis of Body Slam, great bulk, and Attack. It's one of the mon you'll often see after Mewtwo used Self Destruct, as the combination of Blizzard, Self Destruct, and Body Slam is almost a guaranteed KO on Mewtwo. The following Pokemon is probably a hot take as well, but I believe Tauros has shown dominance in the last tournaments. Tauros is Tauros, and if your Tauros is alive, there's a way to win. But I'm gonna be honest, Tauros and Exeggutor are both equally as good, and nominating it over Tauros is absolutely valid. It's by far the most reliable sleeper, and Explosion is once again a valid reason to fear it.

In A rank, we find the Pokemon that are good, but which can be exploited. I'm insisting on the fact that it doesn't mean that they're bad; simply, having some of them too often in your team can be exploited, and here some form of counterteaming can appear. Following this definition, Zapdos is probably the best Pokemon; Zapdos is exploitable, yes, but even in tough matchups, it's not gonna be bad, like, at all. Its lead metagame is great, and besides facing the Rock / Grounds of the tier, no other Pokemon likes to switch into its moves. Gengar is next, and uh, I have a love-hate relationship with it. Being the fastest sleeper of the game has its edges, but Hypnosis's precision is so foul, I understand why Gastlies don't rank it this high. That being said, the combination of fast sleep + Explosion is excellent, and we can't deny that to Gengar. Rhydon is arguably the next strongest physical attacker of the tier, after the Normals. Rhydon is awesome and hits like a truck, but its low Speed and Special are easy to exploit, especially in Ubers. I'm closing the A rank with the blob; I've run the almost entirety of UWL with Chanseyless teams, and I tend to believe I could have easily gone Chanseyless for the few games I've not used it; simply said, its conventional use is way too passive, especially in the current metagame where physical attackers are so spammed. It's not trash per say, but it tends to be difficult to run when most attacks you'll take are physical.


These high ranks being explained, I'm gonna go with softer explanations for lower ranks.

B ranks are the mons that are pretty good, but show clear and easy to exploit flaws. Even if it's ranked 1st in the B rank, I do not think Jynx is even close to be A rank. There's a clear gap. Next comes Slowbro, which acts as a soft m2 check, which is never bad but need cautious scout because it can't take thunderbolt, like, at all. Cloy and Dragonite are next, and here comes the first Wrappers of the tierlist. I think Wrap is a very broken move, and it's only kept in check because their user all are flawed and have very poor matchups into Mewtwo. Similarly to Slowbro, Cloy can soft check Mono-Ice Beam Mewtwo, as well as Boom2 running Blizzard, but has negative matchups into any other unparalyzed M2 set. Meanwhile, Dragonite is always at bay of being OHKO'd by an Ice-type attack, but makes up for it by being fairly bulky otherwise, and boasting the disgusting combination of Agility + Wrap. Sandslash is a great cleaner, but its lower base Attack stat compare to Rhydon makes it overall far harder to use. Jolteon was used here and there, and is a decent lead. One of its best tool is definitely Sand Attack, which is extremely irritating to face. Used in back, it can be a legitimate way to PP stall a paralyzed Mewtwo, as once paralyzed and dropped to -6 accuracy, Mewtwo only has a miserable 18.68% chance to attack successfully.

Last but not least, C ranks are niche mons, they can work but only on dedicated teams. Vic is a go-to in Wrap teams; compared to Dragonite and Cloyster, which can work outside of these archetypes, Vic can't really do that. I used Electrode in several teams, and it was a very annoying lead; being the undisputed fastest Pokemon, combined with Flash to reduce Accuracy, and you get something that can even annoy the hell out of Rhydon, of all things. Hypno is niche, but the niche of having both sleep and paralyzis while being faster than Exeggutor (although, for a lower accuracy on its sleep-inducing move) is definitely a positive trait. Lapras is also great, and I'm quite surprised it's not used more. Its Blizzard is nasty, and Sing, while having terrible accuracy, is devastating if it lands. Persian is another physical attacker, and is way lower on the VR because its bulk is really miserable. Compared to the two best Normals -Tauros and Snorlax-, Persian is always 2HKOed by Mewtwo's Psychic. That being said, Slash's guaranteed crit is great in order to break stuff, and in late game scenario where the Mews are weakened, it can easily turn into a KO machine. But it requires much more setup than the other mons, and lacks tools to deal with healthy threats, such as a status-inducing move (Tradeback Ubers ? Yes, no ?). Finally, the two birds are mons that I have very few experience with, and I may be harsh with them. They do provide useful things for a team, but yeah, they need heavy setup and a whole teambuild process centered around them. They can do things, but they're far from being splashable.


That concludes this post. I hope I made my arguments clear. Just let me clear it: I'm no rocket scientist, and I'm open to arguments about my VR. I'm also expecting changes in the future tournaments in the tier, as stated the development of Self Destruct Mewtwo opened the way for more set variety with Mewtwo, and stuff like Flash + Twave M2 have begun to rise in popularity. I can't wait to see more of it in the near future.

Thanks for reading all that, and I wish yall a nice week

 

[gastlies]

Edit: This is an APRIL FOOLS POST lmao mewtwo and mew are still legal in ubers dw

Tiering Update ​

The Ubers council has unanimously decided to ban Mewtwo and Mew from RBY Ubers. This ban will take place effective immediately. The reasons for the bans are as follows:


Mewtwo's power is unmatched in RBY Ubers. Amnesia functions like two Calm Minds and Recover has 32 PP. This makes Mewtwo impossible to kill. The only effective way to kill Mewtwo is to freeze it with your own. This effectively makes RBY Ubers games Mewtwo Freeze coinflips, which we have decided is unhealthy, so we banned Mewtwo.


Mew is also very broken in this tier. Swords Dance, 100/100/100 bulk, and Soft-Boiled makes it very easy for Mew to boost to +6 and sweep a team. Additionally, with Mewtwo banned, it will be much harder to power through Mew.

I would like to also speculate on what RBY Ubers will be like with Mewtwo and Mew banned:

Speculation

I think Tauros will probably be the best mon in the tier. With Mewtwo and Mew gone its wallbreaking power seems unstoppable.


I think these three will probably be very good; Lax might start running Reflect to deal with opposing Lax, and Boltbeam Chansey also seems really good. Exeggutor will also still be great.


These two become really buffed with Mewtwo and Mew leaving. Starmie can afford to run sets like Psychic + Blizzard now since it no longer needs Surf for Mew which is cool.


Zapdos seems really deadly but its role in walling Mono-EQ Mew is gone. Rhydon will still exist for the Zapdos matchup most likely.


These are probably the last 3 mons I would consider to be "good" in Ubers. Cloyster is good into Tauros and Lax, I think Lead Jynx would still be good especially since there's no more Mewtwo to switch into Blizzard, and if Reflect Lax is a thing Gengar can wall sets that drop Earthquake which is cool.

 

[zinnias]

bro im bout to crash the fuck out,youre literally making the tier into OU

 

[Pengu]

fuck imma just go play ou now >:(

 

[MC Squared]

Big Stall banning all the cool mons

 

[phoopes]

Tiering Update ​

The Ubers council has unanimously decided to ban Mewtwo and Mew from RBY Ubers. This ban will take place effective immediately. The reasons for the bans are as follows:


Mewtwo's power is unmatched in RBY Ubers. Amnesia functions like two Calm Minds and Recover has 32 PP. This makes Mewtwo impossible to kill. The only effective way to kill Mewtwo is to freeze it with your own. This effectively makes RBY Ubers games Mewtwo Freeze coinflips, which we have decided is unhealthy, so we banned Mewtwo.


Mew is also very broken in this tier. Swords Dance, 100/100/100 bulk, and Soft-Boiled makes it very easy for Mew to boost to +6 and sweep a team. Additionally, with Mewtwo banned, it will be much harder to power through Mew.

I would like to also speculate on what RBY Ubers will be like with Mewtwo and Mew banned:

Speculation

I think Tauros will probably be the best mon in the tier. With Mewtwo and Mew gone its wallbreaking power seems unstoppable.


I think these three will probably be very good; Lax might start running Reflect to deal with opposing Lax, and Boltbeam Chansey also seems really good. Exeggutor will also still be great.


These two become really buffed with Mewtwo and Mew leaving. Starmie can afford to run sets like Psychic + Blizzard now since it no longer needs Surf for Mew which is cool.


Zapdos seems really deadly but its role in walling Mono-EQ Mew is gone. Rhydon will still exist for the Zapdos matchup most likely.


These are probably the last 3 mons I would consider to be "good" in Ubers. Cloyster is good into Tauros and Lax, I think Lead Jynx would still be good especially since there's no more Mewtwo to switch into Blizzard, and if Reflect Lax is a thing Gengar can wall sets that drop Earthquake which is cool.

I refuse to add to your react score for this because I’m 99% sure this bit was done for AFD before.

You are a troll and it is very obvious.

 

[meamPearl]

I refuse to add to your react score for this because I’m 99% sure this bit was done for AFD before.

You are a troll and it is very obvious.

Okay but did you watch the new Trolls movie that shit peak frfr