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Resource Simple Questions & Simple Answers Thread (+FAQs)

KineSquared

KineSquared

Ubers UU Founder
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Community Contributor Alumnusis a Metagame Resource Contributor Alumnus
(Inspiration from Jett's Simple Questions & Simple Answers Thread)
Welcome to the SQSA Thread!

As the name suggests, if you have a question that can be asked in one or a couple lines and/or answered in one post, please post it in this thread. When asking a question, make sure that your post is relevant to Ubers UU. In-game questions should be asked in Orange Islands and questions about Smogon as a whole should be asked in this thread. To avoid any ambiguity, please quote the post you are responding to when answering a question. Your answers should contain at least a brief explanation, even if it was the simplest of questions.

:unown-question: Frequently Asked Questions :unown-question:​

Why is this OU Legal Pokemon Banned?
Ubers UU is only based on usage stats in Ubers. If a Pokemon (such as Ribombee, a premier Ubers Sticky Webs user) gets above 4.52% usage in a given period, it will be banned in Ubers UU regardless of its OU status.

How do Tier Shifts affect Ubers UU?
In short, besides our own (which will be announced both in the forums and our discord) they don't! Again. any Pokemon that does not reach a 4.52% usage rate in ubers over a given period is legal in Ubers UU.

If you ban too much, will Ubers UU just become OU Lite?
First of all, there are a lot of Pokemon that would need to be banned for this to even remotely become a reality. While many "OUBL" Pokemon are very popular and good, we have plenty of Ubers that still have lots of room to grow. Secondly, as a Council we are dedicated to making sure that our decisions take into account that we must draw a line somewhere at what defines "Ubers UU level power", and will continue making decisions to ensure we maintain a proper tier!

Is there Ubers UU for Old Gens / National Dex?
While they are not a part of our official discord server, you can find links to side formats in our discord's Alt Metagames channel! As of now, this is limited to SS Ubers UU, SM Ubers UU, and National Dex Ubers UU.

How can I play Ubers UU?
As of now, this tier does not have a ladder. However this doesn't mean you cannot play the tier! We are part of the Unnoficial Metagames Circuit as well as a playable tier in UM based team tours such as UMPL. You can also hop into the Unnofficial Metas showdown room to play in room tours, or you can join the discord and use our Games Ping role to find friendly games!
 
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disclaimer: i never played this tier, just kinda lurked to see what was viable. i've never seen Annihilape once, not even in this VR, even though it's D rank in Ubers (haven't looked at usage stats, but i can't imagine them being that high)
i've been meaning to ask why is Annihilape not good, it's one of my favorite mons and i really wanted to use it
 
hollyxkid said:
disclaimer: i never played this tier, just kinda lurked to see what was viable. i've never seen Annihilape once, not even in this VR, even though it's D rank in Ubers (haven't looked at usage stats, but i can't imagine them being that high)
i've been meaning to ask why is Annihilape not good, it's one of my favorite mons and i really wanted to use it
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Unfortunately, Annihilape somehow manages to reach over 4.52% usage in Ubers, so it is unavailable to play in Ubers UU.
 
Melons-N-Soda said:
For Houndstone, is Fluffy or Sand Rush preferred? If Sand Rush, which of the two sand setters is best ATM?
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To answer your second question, Hippowdon is generally considered better in the tier, as it has a neutral type matchp into top attackers like Zacian, Palafin, and Palkia-Origin. Hippowdon also learns Whirlwind which is a very useful move against setup sweepers and to generally disrupt the opponent's game.

Edit: ttar isn't bad mind, it's got some good matchups into things like Chi-Yu and a few Arceus forms, but difficult to use reliably
 
Mechalico said:
What led to these seven initial bans?
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Our article in the flying press briefly covers this, but here's another version:
The first bans were arc water, flying, steel and electric due to them running a taunt, calm mind, judgement recover set. These types were both highly spammable and good defensively, and lead to arceus dominating the meta, and speed ties resulting from that to decide games were no fun.
Basculegion-F was banned for being extremely good with last respects. It had versatility that houndstone doesn't quite have, and can outspeed the unboosted meta with swift swim (jolly sand rush houndstone is slower than zacian). Once tera-normal became required on every team, we knew it had gone too far.
Arceus-ghost was banned in octobers via usage, but dropped in november. It acted as the ultimate spinblocker, could use the same terrifying taunt set the other forms could, and was one of the most effective e-killer forms.
Skymin was the most recent ban, for it's uncompetitiveness. Air slash lets it luck through its checks, and its speed meant it could flinch down almost everything. It made the tier much less fun to play.
 
Mechalico said:
What led to these seven initial bans?
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The first 4 bans were Arceus-Water, Arceus-Steel, Arceus-Flying, and Arceus-Electric. Water, Steel, and Flying were banned because they ran what we refer in the discord as THE SET which was Judgement, Calm Mind, Recover, and Taunt with max hp and speed. This led to an unhealthy meta where about 1/2 of games came down to an Arceus speed tie. Arceus-Electric was banned because it could run THE SET, but also because it had the best boltbeam coverage with Judgement and Ice Beam which was too strong.
Basculeigon-F was banned because it was too strong with Last Respects. It would very often reverse sweep teams that were unprepared and it got out of hand. It was super restrictive on teambuilding as every team needed a tera normal on at least one of their Pokemon and it was just an overall unhealthy part of the metagame.
Arceus-Ghost was banned because its extreme killer set had far too few checks. It would 6-0 teams left and right and it got out of control. On top of that, it was a ghost type so it blocked Rapid Spin, turning Cyclizar into setup fodder making hazards impossible to remove without using a very niche option like Mandibuzz or Talonflame.
Shaymin-Sky is a ban that I was encouraging since day 1 of the tier. It's combination of Air Slash and Serene Grace led to an unhealthy mount of luck that let it beat its would-be checks. The only way to reliably check it was with Covert Cloak Blissey but that could only be used on stall. Every turn that Air Slash was used was a coinflip weighted in the favor of the user.
 
cartertben said:
Why is darkrai so bad in this metagame? Is it simply because it gets stonewalled by magearna?
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It's mostly outclassed by chi-yu. Dark stab is good with coverage, but darkrai relies on focus miss to hit magearna neutrally as opposed to chi-yu. Its peed is good, but it's still outsped and OHKO'd by zacian. Chi-yu is already a scarfer, and scarfing darkrai insetad of specs means you're running low on a LOT of immediate power. Dark void being nerfed really killed its only niche. It was built to be not super powerful, and to be ubers w/ dark void, but now it's just a meh mon with an okay movepool and nearly useless ability
 
Magcargo said:
Is curse lugis viable?
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Generally speaking, no. I’m sure someone might get it to work cteaming in tour but the problem remains that it has no defense against phasing, isn’t threatening until several boosts, multiscale only going so far in terms of setting up a mon that needs so many boosts, and every team preparing for the much more threatening psychic type setup mons being ndw and mewtwo.
 
Is the Ladder gonna be updated anytime soon? I wanna get some experience with Arceus ghost before the LT playoffs start up.
 
Why is Dialga not considered very viable, either version of it really, and why is Origin slightly better than the OG?

More so I thought it'd be more useful given its a Dragon that on paper doesn't care about opposing Dragons or Fairies.
 
Melons-N-Soda said:
Why is Dialga not considered very viable, either version of it really, and why is Origin slightly better than the OG?

More so I thought it'd be more useful given its a Dragon that on paper doesn't care about opposing Dragons or Fairies.
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Unfortunately, it does care about dragons and fairies. An fast, offensive dialga takes mroe than 50% from magearna, can get ohko'd by zacian, and two-shot by a gouging fire outrage or earthquake. It faces a lot of competition with other utility steel types like magearna (can pivot) and solgaleo (knock off, pivoting, recovery), on the phazing side it's competing with the super bulky giratina, which also has will 'o wisp to help back up its defenses, and on the power side its competing with palkia-origin (also with good STAB and faster) and kyurem-white (stronger). It is kind of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none vibe going on. It does see some use as a utility/rocks lead, but thats about it.
 
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