BW Ubers - My thoughts since picking up the tier:
Introduction:
As you guys know, I have developed a love for this tier ever since trying to pick it up for some discord tour, I truly do believe this to be one of the best (if not the best) tier i have ever played, its incredibely unique in terms of mons and viable comps while being challenging itself to play at a high level, and since my BWPL 5-2 run has ended unfortunately, I have decided to make a post saying abt my current thoughts towards the meta and it pushing forward, kinda like how Hack did in his UPL post.
My disclaimer is that I will not be sharing any specific spreads or whatever, but I may share some techs that are already a bit known
Playstyle Thoughts:
Introduction:
As you guys know, I have developed a love for this tier ever since trying to pick it up for some discord tour, I truly do believe this to be one of the best (if not the best) tier i have ever played, its incredibely unique in terms of mons and viable comps while being challenging itself to play at a high level, and since my BWPL 5-2 run has ended unfortunately, I have decided to make a post saying abt my current thoughts towards the meta and it pushing forward, kinda like how Hack did in his UPL post.
My disclaimer is that I will not be sharing any specific spreads or whatever, but I may share some techs that are already a bit known
Playstyle Thoughts:
- Centralizing playstyle, if your team cannot beat this, it should go to the garbage bin
- Very optimized playstyle, I truly do believe FerroCruel doesnt have much room to improve
- Be careful vs the new CM Water Gem Ogre when using these, said teams always relied on slower, shakier checks alongside Tspikes to fuck with Specs Ogre, CM+Water Gem shows this team's great weakness
- Noobkiller, absolutely great bring vs people who dont know how to play the tier, oftentimes you can just click Tspike vs their HO and win effortlessly by just not being stupid
- In terms of Arc forms, I believe SR Ghost to be the best Arc form in these teams, as otherwise the chances to beat Magic Sun can be very narrow, SR Ghost+SpD Ogre+Gene is a classic no doubt, which can use literally any 6th mon it so desires, however one must not underrate potential Fightceus on these teams, especially with a fat Stalk Gira-O, as Fightceus is incredible vs physical-leaning HO (ekiller+groudon) and is absolutely great for reliably killing both Dialga and Ferro (massive annoyances for these teams)
- Do not use Dialga Ferrocruel ever, Dialga as the SR is asking for Magic Sun to fuck you over and most other slots are better than Dialga in this structure if you use SR Ghost+Gene (Skymin, Gliscor, etc) and if you drop Gene then its probable Offense will have a easier time into you, maybe it has a niche with Scarf in those builds, but id rather sooner run Scarf Zekrom in Ferrocruel than Scarf Dialga, honestly
- Scarf dragons are classical and maybe require a comeback in this type of styles, even though to me I always prefer Gene honestly, but I can see Zekrom being good as its ability to pivot into Ho-Oh's Brave Bird might be useful, food for thought
- Latios Spikes Balance, usually with Ferro+SR Ghostceus is a very interesting playstyle, I think theres a lot of potential in this
- The usual Roost/Roar/Draco/Thunder Lati+Ferro+SR Ghost is quite difficult to make other viable builds with, to me the SR Ghost kinda means you need to use SpD Ogre for Darkrai, which likely means you will be using Gene as the scarfer, now obviously this isnt a bad thing however it does mean there arent much takes around, even if those are the most consistent, usually meaning its AntiLead/Ferro/Ghost/Ogre/Gene/Lati, which is a great build but somewhat inflexible?
- Fightceus takes seems to be what would interest me the most in these styles, Fightceus+Lati is a inherent strong core because of how much Fightceus usually abuses the answers to Lati, while also being to para or tox lure Ghosty for it, making for incredible synergy, with Spikes though, that can mean you are forced to use Gira-O, which is not bad but also leaves you rather inflexible at times, especially considering the need to anti-lead, granted, its probably possible to anti-lead with Wisp+Magic Coat Gira-O and allow yourself another stronger mon, though I think with Wisp+Magic Coat you are likely better off with Steelceus
- Steelceus is still great in these, but I think overall Steel has a took a hit on all of Blaze/Gem Don/Ho-Oh trends, it also needs Thunder for SpD Ogre but without Wisp, its much worse vs stuff like Ekiller or Ferro, Roar is also nice to win CM wars but usually not necessary, think I would Wisp most often but honestly idk
- As in terms of anti-leads, I think Sash Ttar is underwhelming these days, and will either SR or take a kill but usually cant do both, I think, however, there might be something to Custap Ttar again, with great bulk and ability to SR on pretty much everything + the ability to bluff Sash makes it have undeniable potential in getting surprise kill with Counter or cripple something with Twave, while using SR in the custap turn, and vice versa, SR Sash Exca is likely my favorite in these builds, as its able to utterly dominate a lot of Magic Suns and still beats Deoformes (personally, I like to run Bulldoze for this MU), SR Sash Chomp probably has some niche, it has amazing coverage and is incredible into both DeoA and Sash Ray, however its MU vs DeoS probably means it must likely be fit w a spinner or Mcoat Gira-O, I think a anti-lead or a spinner is essential for these squads to function and not lose to Deo HO
- Tect Tox Lefties Exca likely underrated in these teams as well, its incredible at defeating Dialga and other Steels in rain, it also helps with the Lati weakness these teams often have (and thus why they use Ferro)
- LO Ray is maybe a cool alternative to Latios? Anti-leads too so you dont need another slot for it, usually I feel LO Ray+Ferro builds are hard to justify vs spikeless Ray, however the benefits are there and Ray is a disgustingly good wallbreaker, maybe with goofy Arc forms?
- Goofy Arc forms are underrated, stuff like Elec or Ground should be more explored in these teams, as it gives a crucial plus into the Magic Sun MU allowing for greedy SR mons, Grass is also notable, especially with Helmet Skarm and Gira-O, being a CM user that beats Ogre is very big for a Arc form and it also checks Don/Palkia, making it somewhat a cool mon to use in these, Dark kinda sucks but it can beat Ghosty while doing a Ghosty-esque role when it comes to SR so, it also allows for Special Gene, making it somewhat cool?
- Do not count Palkia out in these teams! It can still be cool with Specs most likely, I can see some teams wanting Scarf but usually those teams r mid, still Palkia is cool for its Kyogre capabilities while doing even more dmg than Lati with Specs, most likely nicely put alongside arc forms such as Elec or Ground, but I can see it in some teams that use LO ray as the lati substitute? Who knows...
- Deo HO is a overrated as fuck playstyle, especially with SR Dialga, its often very easy to overwhelm and because they dedicate a slot to the Spiker lead, it usually comes into losing vs Ray Spikeless and Lati Spikes Balance with anti-leads, not to mention Tspikes are incredibely annoying, though usually you will have tools vs them, SR Dialga often makes stuff like Groudon or Gliscor even more overwhelming while also not being a good check to most things, LO dialga users get their soul broken when they want it to take a Lati's Draco or Specs Palkia and the more SpDish ones get cooked by Focus Blast Arceus regardless, making one of the MUs u want to resist Judgment on, incredibely dicey as u just get Focus Blasted and forced out, not to mention that without Lefties's crucial longevity, u are bad into FerroCruel, though maybe Custap has its merits, SpD Dialga also lacks offense and inherently makes ur team a bit more passive, which is not good vs the standard Ray+Ghost spikeless offenses
- To me, the best form of Deo HO is Deo-S with SR, I think spikes only is rather weak and often cant get the job done, while getting SR from the get go is super underrated and very valuable, thus stuff like DeoS/Ekiller/Don is good, usually think Deo HO is worse with Ogre because they often cant fit stuff like Ray for Kabu and Gira-O will get overwhelmed rather quickly, not to mention you might just lose to the rare Kingdra, DeoS Don is great in the sense that Don is able to provide a check to Kabu and appreciates DeoS's SR in making it able to use more dangerous sets such as Double Dance Ground Gem
- Deo S could probably honestly drop Spikes and be ran wout a Ghost, like Hack's DeoS+Haban Palkia+Ekiller team, Deo S also has incredible synergy with another great physical mon in Ghost Gem Blaziken, whos ability to abuse Ghostceus is invaluable for these Sun Offenses, who are rather weak to both Wisp and CM Ghosty, I think thats the way moving forward for Deo S
- SR+Spikes Deo S is still fine though, and every single team should have a plan vs it, while I think its not good/personally wouldn't run it, disrespect it and nothing will trash u like this will, so every team must come prepared for DeoS+Darkrai at all times
- DeoS+Ogre teams still interest me, but most often with a goofy Arc form, if its Ghostceus, then you are better off with Ferro (or even Forre?!), I think maybe theres something to DeoS+Grassceus (I know it has been done, but...), usually tho I think Deo-S Rain should have Kabu-proof forms (Water, Grass, maybe Dragon lmao)
- Gira-O should often use Draco Meteor in these squads for opp Gira-O, its absolutely incredible and punish a ton of greed when ppl dtail on the mirror and just get blasted
- Spikes Deo SR something else is usually bad, anything in that form of setup (bar Forre) is usually bad, stop bothering with Accelgor or Froslass PLEASE.
- My favorite playstyle. Spikeless Offense has a soft place in my heart for being both incredibely consistent and having great MUs around the board, with me on a quest to optimize every single aspect, to the minor of details
- This playstyle usually centers around Sash Ray with Twave/Draco/V-Create/ESpeed, its able to open massive holes and anti-lead DeoS while also checking some key threats to your usual setup of Rain Offense (Kabutops, for example), it uses Gene as a overall momentum grabbing tool and glue, being able to help u vs the Latis alongside a Arc form (usually Ghost), these type of teams also can skimp on usual Ogre checks thanks to the SpD SR+Thunder GhostCeus and Sash Ray, making it able to beat SpecsOgre via Offense and vs ScarfOgre via GhostCeus's specific spread to live a Spout from 100% and Sash Ray being able to Twave and neutralize it, Ray/Ogre/Ge0ne are to me, always use in this playstyle, maybe Ogre can be Groudon, but usually liked Dual Weather takes more than solo Groudon, as Groudon-only has a issue vs CM Ghosty and honestly Ghosty as a whole ngl, usually you use strong attackerslike Palkia/Kabu/Don/Blaze/etc as fillers
- Magic Coat Ghostceus can be used as a AntiLead alternative, this can be done to free up ur Rayquaza to run LO (Draco/V-create/EQ/ESpeed) to absolutely shit on FerroCruel (can also lead vs FerroCruel and get surprise EQ kill), it can be SR/Magic Coat/Judg/Focus or Magic Coat/Judg/Thunder or Fire Blast/Focus, you can also run Wisp/Recover/Magic Coat/Judg if you can afford being a bit more passive and need more defensive stability, however I think Mcoat 3 attacks or SR+Mcoat 2 attacks is superior most of the time because its more immediate into Ferro
- CM Water Gem Ogre is a tech used in these teams for the FerroCruel MU, the idea is that those teams rely on slower water resists+tspikes to deal with SpecsOgre, CM flips that in its head by leading it t1 vs Tenta/Arc and get a free CM, to which u thunder into hydro followup and KO ferrothorn, still being at 100% or just like 70%s, you are still able to get a bunch of kills, Specs is superior in most ways since you can run 306 speed much better and be more immediately dangerous, however a lot of Sash Ray teams need CM Water Gem Ogre to make up for the lack of LO on Ray, I generally use CM/Hydro/IB/Thunder as I prefer not getting phazed by SpD Ogre once I waste my Gem but CM/Water Spout/IB/Surf is also similarly viable, usually if you can though fit other ways to beat Tspikes and run Specs
- As of the filler attackers, Palkia is a great option, its ability to be able to check Kyogre and thus free Ghostceus from using Thunder, its also amazing at breaking Tspikes teams with 4A Lum (Rend/Hydro/Thunder/Fire Blast) or 4A Fight Gem (Rend/Hydro/Thunder/Focus Blast), Lum is able to beat Tspikes easier while Fight Gem breaks Dialga better and denies Ekiller setup, its able to fit both in Dual Weather and even in stuff like Kabu, Manaphy is also VERY underrated, its ability to simply bullshit games cannot be understated in any capacity, with Para support, its a total demon, para support it easily gets from Ray and Gene (and can even fit on Dual Weather with SR Twave Don!), theres also the swedish classic with Dialga+Fightceus which is also incredibely good with Mana, Lati can be somewhat decent if you have good tools to just kill Ferro or abuse it (thus the Wisp Mcoat Ghosty), Blaze is fun and allows for easy Special Gene fit but you have to consider the Tspike weakness, so you must use CM Ogre with it and Kabu for cleanup after Blaze chips every Kabu answer down, Kabu is almost its own archetype lol and it usually benefits a lot from extra attackers
- As of the filler for support, well, other SR is underrated, usually these teams have used SR Ghost for good reason, the mon at the end of the day compresses a bunch of roles at once and does a lot both offensively and defensively, however using SR in other slots can allow for either other Ghost sets for some incredible upside ie the Magic Coat sets OR it can allow funny arc forms (more on this later), but on the topic of SR mons, Cobalion is underrated as hell, its a recent Swedish invention but it has a lot of incredible roles at once, its ability to fuck up Ferrothorn with Taunt+Fight STAB is great while also punishing both Gene's U-Turn and Gira-O's Dtail with Helmet, it can also check slower Ekillers with CC, Volt Switch keeps momentum up as well and allows you to be able to outplay Magic Sun, phenomenal mon, oh did I forget to mention it absolutely trashes non Aura Sphere Dialga? yeah exactly. It also is the world's greatest punisher to Sash Tar thanks to Taunt denying SR and if they Low Kick, it breaks the Sash due to Helmet, while you can also set SR urself, while theres Coba, one can also use Groudon for some real nasty Dual Weather stuff, with SR+Twave and Ground Gem, its able to provide fantastic support via Paralysis (usually paraing Lati, which is big for Ogre) and setting SR super reliably, its also incredible vs Magic Sun in general as they usually have 0 switch-ins when it comes to Modern Magic Sun, Gira-O variant is more complicated but still very feasible to get em up, SR Don is also super useful defensively thanks to being able to delay SR from Dialga via Ground Gem, Ground Gem is also key to able to nuke Ekiller from high percentages, it also can make your FerroCruel MU better thanks to the fact a lot of those teams dont have good leads into Groudon as well, Cobalion can somewhat do well vs Tspikes too via Helmet punishing spin + Taunt + CC, SR Dialga is sometimes ran exclusively for 2 things, one being the FerroCruel MU, where Lefties Dialga with a set of SR/IB/Thunder/Aura Sphere (yes, no stab) is able to completely dominate those teams (allowing for SpecsOgre) and is able to fish para with Thunder vs Wisp Ghosty, Dialga uses IB there to own Glisc FerroCruel, a hard MU otherwise but ALSO to win weather war, as the extra 50% on Groudon as Dialga is one of the best lures of it, is too big, that way you can use Dialga with more heavily weather dependant mons (Mana/Kabu/SD ArcWater) since its very consistent at getting damage on Don so you can win the weather war later, as for other support mons that dont use SR, I have found Amoonguss to be quite effective, with SpD investment its able to be a good Ghostceus pivot that beats CM Ghosty via Swagger+Foul Play, Helmet+Regen is world's greatest punish to Gira-O's Dtail and its resists+natural bulk is able to deal very well with Ekiller or Kabu thus allowing for some nice defensive security and being able to fit Special Gene+Kabu thanks to this synergy
- Now to the goofy Arc theorem, these spikeless offenses do in fact love the idea of a ''kabu-proof'' offensive Arc form, from my experiments, Grass really isnt it, however Water's pair of ice resist, great stab in rain and overall useful defensive typing makes it a great Arc form in these teams, Dragon is a riskier yet even more offensively potent approach, it needs some extra ice resist or extra way to pivot around Scarf Ogre but its great if you can, these 2 forms are the best offensive forms at switching into Ogre directly as well, where Dragon gives a great Thunder resist, so you can even pivot into elec attacks from dragons, whereas Water pivots into ice attacks and such, its harder for kabu to rk em so that makes em more difficult to answer, Fightceus is also good in these but somewhat limited, again the Fightceus+Lati core is great as both of em have very high natural synergy, however the best use of Fightceus in these teams is in the classic Swedish build of: Ray/Dialga/Mana/Ogre/Gene/Fightceus, where Fightceus allows for crucial Twave support into both Latis and Ghostceus
- A possible new experimentation into Spikeless would be SR Custap TTar, where with Counter, can achieve surprise KOs while also anti-leading and setting rocks, I do believe its a bit inconsistent/meh but theres good potential in it, I look forward for this new approach in Spikeless stuff, even dropping Ray for this TTar (or maybe use this TTar to enable LO Ray? who knows?), however I can see its a bit awnkard, especially finding opportunities to SR with TTar outside of some MUs, also a lot of good players won't rly fall for the Counter trick, which makes this a bit difficult, still, there is probably something to it
- I dont use this often, its good though
- Arc set needs priority, I think you honestly cannot drop Ekiller in these teams
- I will be brief as I have little experience, but IMO the best variants are Blaze Magic and Gene Magic, both with Palkia, Gira-O+Darkrai is alright but I think usually its better off to use something else
- Espeon should run Sash i think but Trick Scarf may be better honestly, Trick Scarf also beats Skill Swap DeoS which is nice, either way I think Yawn is the best option in Sash sets, getting that awnkard sleep is great for those builds
- Dragceus in these should be explored, it has a water resist (nice vs Ogre), faster than Latis and has ESpeed, SD set still breaks well but you could even go 4 Attacks, the role compression of water resist and fast speed may make it able to forgo Palkia and add another offensive slot (Blaze Dragceus Gene Magic Sun?)
- I don't use often, its fine though
- Spikeless sand suck, it loses too hard to Ferrocruel at times and is not good into Dual Weather Spikeless, usually these Exca Sand offenses are rather weak and don't get the job done very well
- Sand with spikes on the other hand is very good, use with Ferro+SR Wisp Ghostceus, usually can control games very well and is incredible into various HOs that just straight up lose
- Sand fat underrated, fuck hack's hippo grassceus jira team honestly, with Forre, I can see these teams being potentially very dangerous, we should explore more often
- Sand NEEDS another speed control. You CANNOT use Exca as your sole speed control (only exception is maybe Sand Fat) because it usually means you cannot really play outside of your weather and usually you dont have enough tools defensively to justify the lack of a scarf, Scarf Lando-I is great for this reason
Misc thoughts:
People should be more creative/smart with their Arceus sets
Forre should be explored more, lead Spiker offenses should probably use it instead of DeoS, especially because having Tspikes means the offense MU is already in ur favor
I don't see Sun Balance/Stall often but imo it should be explored more often as well, usually fits good mons like Heatran, Fightceus, etc
Goth should be explored more too, hack already went in depth abt it in his post but it has incredible qualities that can make it fit in a lot of teams that want to win weather war (maybe Ray Kabu should use it?! well with Goth it usually gets weak to tspikes... CM Water Gem Ogre?)
Conclusion:
BW Ubers is one of the coolest tiers I have ever played and I am so happy to play it in tours, looking forward for some individual or another teamtour involving it, see ya around and yes ill continue to ask for games.
