Resource ZU Old Gens Hub - [GSC] Quickban Slate @ 359!

Hi, it was honor managing and having a heavy involvement in what will likely be the best old-gens core to ever exist in ZUPL (until next year?). This season has certainly resparked my love for ZU Old Gens and I have a lot to say about every one of these metas. Because I have so much to say, I’m going to be splitting these posts up, with this first one addressing the SM VR and what I believe needs to change on it. For this post, I will be referencing the current SMZU metagame, via tests, usage stats, ZUPL performances, and personal opinions reflective of a lot of testing and experience.

Just wanna shoutout Rav3, who while I might not have agreed with his metagame takes all the time, is a fantastic player who gave me a lot of perspective on the meta that I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.


DROPS:

:combusken: Combusken S->A+
Espcecially given my recent thoughts on Combusken being the most questionable Pokemon in the tier, this is going to be controversial to some. Is Combusken the scariest Pokemon to face if it is given free turns? Absolutely (exclusing Bibarel). Does that make it worthy of an S rank…. not neccesarily. S rank is supposed to be exclusive for the best and most versitile Pokemon in the tier, and I certainly don’t think that Combusken meets the criteria here. Despite its offensive capabilities, its quite franky a teambuilding liability in most cases in this meta. It provides very little in terms of defensive compression on a team. It showcased a pretty terrible winrate this ZUPL, further adding to my belief that unless used correctly, it’s actually not that splashable of a pick. Currently I think that its on-paper offensive power makes it somewhat of a one trick pony - Inferno Overdrive sets have come to the front in terms of viability, with Life Orb sets showing too little room for playmaking due to the additional chip it already takes from recoil and limited defensive stats. Giving free Toxic Spikes for Mareanie also doesn’t help it as it necessitates a certain team structure to be able to guide it as a viable win condition in games. Additionally, Combusken tends to get over-prepped for in a lot of games, which leads me to believe that Combusken is being used poorly or in the wrong situations with the wrong teams. It requires a very specific formula for success and it lacks the splashability of an S Rank Pokemon.

:torterra: Torterra S -> A+
Torterra boasts the achievment of being the Pokemon with the worst winrate in this ZUPL. While on paper it has lots of good sets, it doesn’t really perform in any of its roles as well as an S ranking would suggest. Frankly, having your Ground type have a secondary typing weak to Ice as well really doesn’t help it in a metagame where Electrivire (and to an extent Rotom-Fan) is the dominant Electric type in the meta. Additionally, having a Grass type neutral to Grass and Water also limits its value in a tier where threats like Exeggutor and Swanna are at all-time highs in popularity and consideration when it comes to teambuilding. It’s certainly deserving of a spot at the top in A+, but Swanna is clearly the best Pokemon in the tier right now and the VR should reflect this.

:bouffalant: Bouffalant A+ -> A-
Bouffalant has primarily been turned from the stallbreaker it used to be into some sort of wanna-be Eggy check… but even with AV, Sap Sipper, and Pursuit, it doesn’t really do that very well. Every time we attempted to use Bouffalant, we had to compromise team structure to make a “better" Eggy check or we just ended up replacing it overall. I’ll dive more into this in a later nom, but Grimer-A is infinitely better than Bouffalant in this regard and in my opinion it takes away one of Bouffalant’s major (percieved, I don’t think it actually does it very well to begin with) niches away. I wouldn’t consider winning a single game out of only three over the entirity of ZUPL a standout performance of an A+ Pokemon in the tier list.

:mawile: Mawile A -> B+
Mawile previously rose to prominence in a meta where it could utilize its strong typing and intimidate to check powerful phsyical attackers like Pinsir, Silvally-Dark, and Granbull, strong Normal types like Toucannon, Komala, Bouffalant, Sawsbuck, and Silvally-Normal, and still remain useful vs utility picks like Pawniard and Bronzor. Unfortunately, as the meta shifted, Mawile has kind of lost its place right now. The rise of physical attackers that rely on super effective moves to break through the Intimidate debuff (Combusken, Golem, Torterra, even the normals have adapted to consistently run Earthquake), Special attackers that can take advantage of Mawile’s middling SpDef stat even with not particularly impressive special attack stats of their own (Swannas usage is heavily skewed towards special sets, Silvally-Dragon blows it up with Flamethrower and even if they're running Thunderbolt for Mareanie, Mawile doesn’t take it very well), and most importantly Special attackers that can brute force through resists (Exeggutor in particular is the most notable example, even able to OHKO Mawile in many cases, though Beheeyem is a good example as well) have not treated Mawile very well and it should drop a few ranks as as result. Special Defense investment in some sets that are popping up just isn’t enough to save Mawile’s terribly defensive stats that were previously carried by fantastic typing and ability that fit favorably in the meta of the past, and in fact it just makes Mawile worse at the specific niche it used to be good at. It’s now sadly nothing more than an inconsistent rocker and it doesn’t have the defensive stats to let it do what it wants to do.

:dusclops: Dusclops A- -> B
Despite my advocating for Dusclops years ago, I think it’s also fallen a bit out of favor currently. Stall isn’t nearly as popular as it was before, and Dusclops getting a measily single use during ZUPL suggests that it’s been all but forgotten about. Too many teams are way better at capitalizing on passivity right now, and defensive Pokemon that can’t provide some sort of momentum compensation (more specific examples later but Gorugeist-Super and Mareanie both fit the criteria as well) are big time liabilities and Dusclops can’t really function anymore. Momentum compensation on defensive Pokemon will likely be a common topic throughout this post as it is an important concept that has made itself very apparent in recent trends.

:kecleon: Kecleon A -> B+/B
Speaking of forgotten Pokemon, Kecleon just doesn’t really have a home right now. The main reason is likely because of its inability to shrug off chip damage from hazards and status, not even having leftovers to aid it in most cases. Kecleon found itself a niche in the past due to its fantastic coverage and great natural special defense stat that allowed it to threaten checks, but as the meta diversified over the last year and a half it finds itself with some serious 4MSS and tank sets with recover are just flat out momentum sinks with no positives going for it. Toxic Spikes and hazard priority are way too important to permit a defensive Pokemon like Kecleon to survive currently and the fact that its fallen off a cliff in usage suggests the same.

:lickilicky: Lickilicky A- -> B+
In the same vein as Dusclops (and to an extent Mawile), Lickilicky hasn’t been able to keep up with metagame trends and provides way too little utility for the massive momentum sink that it is. It still has a niche on stall but its completely unviable in any other team compositions which limits its placement on the VR in my opinion. I do think its better than Kecleon, however because of the fact that it does do it specialized job very well.

:pawniard: Pawniard A- -> B
This Pokemon doesn’t do… anything. Despite being the pre-evolution of my favorite Pokemon, it really lacks a lot in comparison to other Pokemon in the tier. Silvally-Dark’s natural defensive stats makes trapping way safer, and theres a lot more flexibility in terms of spreads and the fact that players can’t usually assume Silvally-Dark from team preview. Theres significantly more counterplay to Pawniard and while it does provide hazard control options, they’re usually inferior. Add on to the fact that Pawniard can just drop to an Exeggutor Leaf Storm and you’re really losing a lot of reasons to run it. It’s only situationally good when running a Z move and/or situationally on webs but even then its pretty dodgly. Another Pokemon insanely outclassed by Grimer-A.

:shuckle: Shuckle B+ -> B
The sad reality of shuckle is that it’s tied to an obsolete playstyle. Webs HO is way out of the meta, as screens and rain are confidently better go-tos when it comes to offensive playstyles. Needs to drop as a result.

:granbull: Granbull B+ -> B
Granbull is a case where it was good because it was able to prey on more passive teams that as I have previously stated have fallen out of the meta quite a bit. It was able to create some defensive utility with Intimidate and its Fairy-typing but its been left a bit in the dust as a result of its poor speed tier and lack of recovery outside of the extremely rare Z-Heal Bell, which hasn’t been seen in ages to my knowledge. A loss in its single appearance this ZUPL doesn’t fare well for this Pokemon.

:vigoroth: Vigoroth B+ -> B
Another Pokemon with a single showing and a single loss, Vigoroth has also fallen out of favor due to the fact that it was a common stallbreaker that really doesn’t have a use anymore with the decline of stall and the rise of breakers that it can’t handle.

:camerupt: Camerupt B -> B-
This Pokemon is really bad. Pretty much the definition of a “feast or famine” mon, Camel used to be really good into certain fat matchups, but in any useless where it can’t get off free hits, its absolutely useless. For Camerupt to put dents in teams, it has to be at full health and in a position where no good player would allow their play line to deteriorate to such a point so fast. Even if it can get in once, its often a play where Camerupt is forced to 50/50 what move it clicks and if it doesn’t get it right it may not ever get a chance to come in again. It’s just too slow and requires way too much to go right for it to have any sort of use in a game.

:sawsbuck: Sawsbuck B -> B-
Another Pokemon that has just really fallen off, it’s best set from years ago was its scarf set which provided specific antimeta capabilities, being able to revenge kill threats like Floatzel which has been flying low in usage as of late, while being able to hit normal or grass resists like Pawniard or Probopass hard with Jump Kick coverage. I still think SD Sawsbuck with a Z move could have some use, but overall that role is just outclassed by Leafeon as a result of a deeper movepool (access to Knock Off, Celebrate) and Leafeon sporting some pretty great natural bulk.

:pinsir: Pinsir B+ -> B
Pinsir used to be one of the best Pokemon in the metagame, but in all honesty it was just high usage as a result of ladder people really liking the generally inferior Scarf Moxie sets that were flying around. The biggest issue with Scarf Pinsir is that its the single biggest Combusken fodder in the game - you can NEVER click X-Scissor, your main STAB move, unless you want to auto-lose to Combusken. SD sets have some use but generally have trouble setting up as the things that it always hated facing are still popular (Golem, Swanna, aformentioned Combusken) as well as how the defensive Pokemon it was able to take advantage of aren’t nearly as popular anymore with the exception of Bronzor (and it still doesn’t like eating a Toxic). The Z-Me First set has been rather underused in my opinion but is still a situational use sweeper that can’t always find the right windows to win games.

potential drops to think about:

:poliwrath: Poliwrath A- -> B+
I think I may be in a minority with this opinion, but I think Poliwrath is not very good right now. It’s something quite abusable by many threats (Swanna, Eggy, Evire, etc.) and is really only something you put on a team when you desparately need some last-mon role compression when building.

RISES:

:mr.-mime: Mr. Mime B+ -> A-
Mr. Mime is a solid option for Choice Scarf, Choice Specs, and NP sets, with good coverage and defensive typing despite a poor physical defense stat (reminder that it has a whopping base 120 Special Defense). The ability to revenge kill Combusken on scarf sets, as well as tons of available utility in Encore, Healing Wish, and Trick, leaves Mr. Mime to be a quite dangerous threat if not correctly analyzed during team preview. I can’t count the number of times I’ve assumed a Mime was choiced just to have it NP in my face.

:basculin: Basculin B- -> B+
Basculin is reallly strong. Like REALLY strong. It has a number of hard checks but its raw power just pushes through a lot of resists, and it always has that Ice Beam coverage option to nail grass types like Gourgeist. Its incredibly fast, tying swanna, most notably outspeeding silvally forms, and has access to priority that cleanly 2HKOs Electivire (with CB) and Mr. Mime, providing reliable Combusken counterplay, and it absolutely blows my mind that Basculin needs just a single 20% defense drop proc to force Mareanie out, which people often just slap on as their water resist and call it a day. It also breaks through typing checks like swanna, putting a lot of pressure on teams with its immense power with a speed stat more than able to support its higher rank.

:corsola: Corsola B- -> A-
The Corsola deniers need to finally appreciate this beast for what it is. Corsola is the definition of defensive momentum, able to blanket check so much of the tier and provide momentum through dual status threat, hazards, and regenerator. Hazards in combination with good defensive stats and Regenerator is an extremely powerful combination, as normally the turn you spend getting up rocks is a tax that often gets negated a lot by Regenerator healing. It also is good into the best Pokemon in the tier, Swanna, and completely blanket checks so many Pokemon. I can’t sing praises about Corsola enough and it also has perfect defensive synergy with Gourgeist-Super, which honestly is the superior 2-Pokemon defensive core to the Bronzor + Mareanie that dominated SMZU for so long.

:wishiwashi-school: Wishiwashi B- -> B/B+
ZU players have learned a bit from the current gen in realizing how good Wishiwashi can be when it comes to a bulky slow water-type pivot. Its now often replacing Silvally-Water as the bulky Water-type of choice due to its access to sustain through RestTalk and just better defensive stats overall. Silvally-Water also leaves some to be desired in terms of EV investment as it always feels like you’re making unnecessary compromises when you’re allocating your EVs into defense or speed or the fact that you need Spcial Attack to threaten Mareanie, as you have to be able to deal with it when it comes in. Obviously Silvally-Water has a lot more going for it in other ways but Wishiwashi definitely has taken one of Watervallys previous niches and proven that it can do some things a lot better.

:grimer-alola: Grimer-Alola C+ -> A-/B+
This is the big kicker of this post. Grimer-Alola is insanely good. I was a skeptic at first when Rav put me onto it but its just such a do-everything Pokemon. Theres a reason it saw so much usage in the early weeks of PL specifically - its a tspikes absorber, a knocker, a pursuit trapper, and perhaps the best eggy check in the tier. It has respectable defenses but its incredible defensive typing and movepool just makes it so much more appealing than any of the other options out there. The fact that its a grounded poison that isn’t Eggy fodder, and in fact an eggy counter, is just unreal. This mon carried a great winrate and playrate during ZUPL and it would have been higher if Rav wasn’t such a choker ;) I genuinely think this Pokemon is better than Kanto Muk lol.

:shiinotic: Shiinotic C+ -> B-
Shiinotic isn’t as bad as people think it is. It fits on a lot of teams right now and Fairy typing is good defensively. Spore and Strength Sap provide a lot in terms of momentum compensation and it definitely has a sitautional use given stuff like Pawniard is finding less use, while Grass-types like Leafeon, Exeggutor, and Simisage, Water types like Poliwrath and Simipour, and Electric types like Raichu and Electivire have been thriving lately. It’s also still really good into the staple meta picks like Golem, Fightvally, etc.

potential rises to think about:

:stunfisk: Stunfisk C -> C+/B-
Maybe the best voltturn punisher in the tier, amazing defenses, solid movepool. Can deal with a lot of stuff based off of good offensive and defensive electric/ground typing.

:floatzel: Floatzel B+ -> A-
I feel like this mon is heavily underused and underrated. The bulk up sets look really crazy on paper and it has performed very well in tests. The meta over adapted to its overhype when it first came into the tier years ago (remember when Mareanie used to run Sludge Bomb?). It’s a contender for the best bulky balance demantler in the tier and I could potentially see it rising a tier.

:silvally: Silvally-Electric B -> B+
Solid form that has always had fantastic coverage, but with Silvallys struggling to deal with Mareanie more as it has been opting to tech into SpDef investment have opened a good use for Silvally Electric as people have realized that Electivire is sometimes kinda hard to check without an electric resist alongside an immunity, and BoltBeam being the only coverage you need frees up a lot of options for moves and utility.

thanks for reading feel free to ask me on discord if you want any further explanations
 
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Hey guys! post-pl council realized that a lot of the BW ZU metagame is heavily unbalanced and the current state of the tier is quite unhealthy.

Naturally, there are some changes in order that I've teased around some areas, namely my interview and a few discord chats, but before we dive into that, a couple announcements. Council has been restructured, with the leave of Tack, and joining us, thebtboy, SSJRobbieRotten, JonAmon 25, and Mirbro. Congrats to all of you guys

Now onto the fun stuff. The meta was of course, centralized and broken by a large majority of elements, none of which were incredibly reliant on eachother, but if one left, the other became lacking of efficient answers. The council took votes on all of the below Pokemon, and the results will be listed as well.

Trubbish: 6/6, banned
Glalie: 6/6, banned
Frillish: 6/6, banned
Munchlax: 5/6, banned
Emolga: 5/6, banned

SBPC: ban all
DnB: ban all
btboy: ban all
SSJ: ban all
Jon: ban all
Mirbro: dnb Munchlax and Emolga, ban Trubbish, Glalie, and Frillish

:Trubbish: :Glalie: Spikes were an overwhelming force in BW ZU, and a massive part of the reason was how reliably they could be set. Since removing the hazards outright is just not an option, we decided to place a nerf on hazard stacks by removing their most reliable (and sometimes unstoppable) setters.

:Frillish: And even with hazard stacks having their most reliable setters gone, private testing showed that Frillish still proved to be incredibly unhealthy to the metagame, as no spinner could reliably challenge it over longer games, and attempting to break it was sometimes just impossible due to hazard chip racking up incredibly fast, so naturally, Frillish will be leaving as well.

:Munchlax: While Munchlax already bordered broken due to its absurd ability to end games after just a single turn of setup, the loss of reliable counter Frillish and a majority of its problems with being worn down by hazards suddenly vanishing, Munchlax was presumed to be incredibly overbearing, and was voted to the banlist as well to let the meta settle, however this may be retested.

:Emolga: And finally, the most controversial of the bans, Emolga was presumed to be overwhelming due to its SubTox sets in conjunction with its in access to AcroGem, giving it the ability to quickly end games, especially now that one of its best checks, being Curse Munchlax, has left the tier. Emolga is most likely to be retested, but in order to make sure the new metagame can stabilize, Emolga was voted to a ban.


These changes naturally mean a good majority of the resources are down again so, expect a new prelim vr in about 2 weeks, and tagging Apagogie to update the roomtour banlist!
 
With the process of updating ZU's old gens, several councils have expanded:
ORAS: Toto added
BW: JonAmon 25 Mirbro SSJRobbieRotten thebtboy added
DPP: Procrastinasian is the new leader of DPP ZU council and S1nn0hC0nfirm3d stepped down, thanks for all your work. beauts Drud thebtboy were also added
ADV: SSJRobbieRotten added

-

In other news, the ORAS ZU VR is undergoing an update and the SM ZU VR will receive an update in the near future. Before SM ZU gets a VR update, we plan on sending a survey to the player base to gauge their general thoughts on the metagame and opinions on a few Pokemon. We are still finalizing the criteria to determine a player list (will use ZUPL/SM Cups/other major SM ZU tournaments during gen 7).
 
Re: BW Bans

This kinda seems like major overkill... Why was so much banned at once? Spikes were generally considered to be the overwhelming force in the tier as they were too easy to get up and too punishing for most teams... So why not just ban the spikers? There's something seriously wrong with: Spikes are broken so we're removing them, and we're removing Frillish as well, but that makes Munchlax broken, but that makes Emolga broken. Theres a clear break in the reasoning after the Spikes ban.

First of all, when I said BW needed to be redone, I meant over a gradual period of testing. This method is equivocal to putting a piece of duct tape on your arm and ripping it off to see what comes off. The problematic spikers should have been banned on their own, and then the tier should have been stabilized for a while to see how that already drastic change affected the metagame. Instead, Frillish, Munchlax, and Emolga were banned for absolutely no reason, in nearly unanimous votes? Total breach of any tiering philosophy Smogon has. We wanted to make the tier more fun, not just scalp it for things with high usage. If we're looking at things more directly, all the Pokemon banned in a context of spikes being removed doesn't really make sense:

Frillish's primary use was spinblocking, its not some crazy defensive or offensive threat, and its usage was directly tied to the spikers. With Spikes gone, naturally Frillish's usage and dominance would plummet in favor of other options. The Munchlax ban seems so random to me, how can you just theorymon that this Pokemon will suddenly be broken with Spikes removed from the tier? You banned Frillish for no reason just so you could have a reason to ban Munchlax as well?

Emolga especially is a Pokemon that is nerfed by Spikes being gone - one of its biggest factors it had going for it was that it was a momentum heavy Pokemon that was Spikes immune, making a lot of what made it really good functionally relate to Spikes being dominant in the tier. If Spikes are gone, theres no reason to remove Emolga.

e: re: "internal testing" do you have a compilation of some of the replays that were done, I'd be interested to actually see a large sample size of what is so overbearing about frillish. I honestly don't believe that you can even figure out a meta via internal testing but I'd like to see what was done anyway.


BW Leadership: Reverse the bans on Frillish, Munchlax, and Emolga. It's not too late; its the right thing to do. We can always test them later when more testing is done after the Spikes-less metagame develops. It's a lot more intrusive to a tier to reintroduce elements like that at a later time after a metagame develops rather than keeping them here outright.
 
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this got argued a lot on discord before I made this post but I'm just making a quick bop here since I don't have a lot of time (5gen edit: SBPC stepped down and I'll lead BW ZU for the time being as old gens leader)

:emolga: :munchlax: While council was relatively sure of these mons being ridiculous, Durza's post points out it was objectively theorymon, and it was my genuine mistake to let
these bans rock as a legitimate thing

:Frillish: While this guy on the other hand is genuinely unhealthy just due to the way it enables every single spiker with only a single hazard laid down, and breaking it being a nightmare when applying scald burns, pivots such as meganium, etc, The way it's ban was gone about was not correct, and for the time being, will be allowed again
 
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Hey Pokémaniacs!

During ZUPL III I was working with old gens to help some of my teammates. I tested ORAS with TWiTT, SM with rav3 (even I played one week), DPP with Heysup, and finally BW with roxieee. After some thoughts and discussions on all of these generations and associated metas, I decided to drop my opinions here. I will divide this post in two parts: 1) DPP and SM (because they are not very long) and, 2) BW. Even though you will not believe me, after playing BW and building around, I fell in love with it. I love stall and hazard stacking and that's why I enjoyed the meta. However, I am well aware that hazards there are not healthy and they are kind of broken. Thus, in the part of this post around BW, I will discuss the "brokenness" of hazards in BW altogether with my opinion about VRs and how ZUPL went for this generation. Without further ado:


SM



This will be very short. I think that Durza summarize many of my thoughts. The meta is incredibly good and funny although there are some Pokémon that need to be revisited: Torterra, Combusken, Eggy, and Swanna.

:Exeggutor:
In my opinion, it is a top tier slow breaker Pokémon. CSpecs Leafstorm and Psychic plus HP fire/ground are really good atm. Pursuit trapping is the best and practically only way to deal with Eggy (as many other Psychic-type Pokémon) without being too passive. As some of you know, Bronzor typing and bulk allows it to just switch into it and click Toxic or Stealth Rock without hesitating. However, Bronzor like Eggy is easily trapped by pursuiters such as Pawniard and Alolan-Grimer.

Thus, just pairing your Eggy with Pawniard or Alolan-Grimer allows you to deal with opponent’s Bronzors which can be troublesome for you Eggy and they are normally its rocker but, at the same time, they can be really useful to erase opponent’s Eggy. This is provoked by the fact that there are no good switch ins to Eggy (it can be revenge killed but its bulky is not bad, although you can go with one of your pivots and click U-turn for free gaining momentum) right now. Banning or doing a suspect on it I think it is the way to go right now if we do not want to centralize the metagame to Eggy + Pursuit teams.


:Torterra:
This is quite controversial. The other Grass-type broken Pokémon presents different sets: more offensive such as DD Z-Rockium defensive sets. Imo, the latter are pretty bad and they are not useful to check Electric-type Pokémon due to Ice-type attacks (Ice Punch on Evire, for example). However, DD Z-Rockium sets can disrupt teams at specific moments. However, it lacks good coverage due to DD and it is still pretty slow and can be revenge killed by typical CScarfers. Imo, good Pokémon but a healthy one.


:Combusken:
THIS is the other broken Pokémon. Speed boost + Z-Fightinium/Firium + SD is too good. Yes, no bulk and can be revenge killed by Aqua Jets and so on. But before that, sets with SD and Protect can go brr once they have its main counters (Golem, Mareanie, Corsola) worn down. You normally have to play the game: “I make you think I sack this but in reality, I sack this on your Z-Move to revenge kill your Pokémon”. This line means that defensive counterplay of this Pokémon is very limited.

+2 252 Atk Combusken Sky Uppercut vs. 252 HP / 224+ Def Golem: 254-302 (69.7 - 82.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+2 252 Atk Combusken All-Out Pummeling (160 BP) vs. 252 HP / 224+ Def Golem: 476-564 (130.7 - 154.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO


However, due to Sturdy ability, some damage is needed to reach the OHKO. This makes Golem running Protect to gain some HP after entering the field and coming back to full HP. But remember that, in many teams, Golem is also the premiere check for Electric-type Pokémon and many times is difficult to keep it at full HP.

+2 252 Atk Combusken Thunder Punch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Mareanie: 158-188 (52.1 - 62%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252 Atk Combusken Gigavolt Havoc (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Mareanie: 294-348 (97 - 114.8%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO


I know that many of you consider TPunch Combusken set bad and an unset by itself. But, imo, TPunch is good as Mareanie is the best way to deal with Busken and help against Swanna at the same time and getting rid of TSpikes problem. Thus, running TPunch (and maybe Z-Electrium) isn’t a bad idea.

+2 252 Atk Combusken Sky Uppercut vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corsola: 312-368 (93.4 - 110.1%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

Corsola is amazing and, in paper, it can set up rocks, regenerate HP switching out, and help against both Busken and Swanna. In reality, it can barely survive a Sky Uppercat at +2 form Combusken.


:Swanna:
Swanna is the staple of the tier imo altogether with Evire and Torterra as the third party. It has some speed control (CScarf sets and Aqua Jet), Z-Mirror Move is good once fast threats are gone, and Z-Rain + not-missing Hurricane is also quite good. This versatility is troublesome as it is difficult to know which type of Swanna you have there. And also you cannot check all Swanna’s sets at once. However, this makes Swanna an interesting Pokémon and pick and it has still counterplay with Haze Mareanie, spdef Corsola, and Wishiwashi which is an interesting pick with HP Electric (something I have been playing around lately on ZUPL III as Swanna + Combusken check).



Tldr; Ban/Suspect Eggy + Busken, leave Swanna and Torterra as they are.

Finally, I wanted to share with you a team I made for ZUPL III when I was playing 5th week against blalib. However, at the end, I didn’t finally used it after comparing it with many other teams.

:Beheeyem: :Wishiwashi-school: :Silvally-Fighting: :Golem: :Gourgeist: :Swanna:

Balanced team with Golem + Gourgeist-Super + Wishiwashi-school as the defensive backbone. Golem is the main rocker and helps against Evire, Rotoms, and Busken. Gourgeist-Super is quite good as a physical backbone in general (i.e. Komala). Wishiwashi-School was a nice pick with a spread that helped against Busken but mainly the two sets of Swanna (that’s why HP Electric as a surprise factor). Silvally-Fighting is a good pick in general for defogging and going in and out (Knock-Off absorber). It also pairs well with Beheeyem which CSpecs allow it to pick some kills (maybe Eggy here could be cool too). Trick is useful at some moments against bulky teams. Finally, Z-Mirror Move Swanna with Aqua Jet gives some speed control which was absent (not that much unfortunately) and it is your main wincon in the late-game and sometimes mid-game.




DPP


Right now I can understand why so many people is enjoying this meta. Although it is a bit ancient and there is no good counterplay for hazards, it is quite funny and there is this surprise factor of the leading Pokémon. Beauts described very well that situation with Shedinja, and I think this shows the importance of choosing well your lead. I have found myself sometimes leading with the wrong Pokémon and losing the game or being in a bad MU due to this. You will also find some replays of the teams I am sharing today.

:Wailord: B- to B
You just need to rewatch some heysup games in ZUPL in which he used some SubTox Wailord set. It is amazingly good rn with enough bulk and spreading damage with Surf + Toxic and scouting with Substitute. This is, in part, one of the waiLORDS of why we won this ZUPL.


:Exploud: C+ to B-/B
I think this is a monster. You will find a team with some games in of the pastes below. It does not have a great speed but it reaches 238 without positive speed nature. It is enough to outspeed some bulky Pokémon such as Tangela (which is a 2HKO with Double-Edge and a roll with Return but rocks help to get the 2HKO easily). Beyond that, its movepool allows it to hit many of the bulky Pokémon of the tier.

Beyond that I will share a couple of teams that I think they do good:

:Kecleon: :Swalot: :Shelgon: :Kingler: :Wartortle: :Tangela:

Kecleon is our main lead, good spdef, rocks and spreading Toxic. One of the best Pokémon in the tier. Swalot is our wincon and second spdef wall that pairs well with Kecleon. However, sometimes it is pressured by physical attackers although it has +2 on def. Shelgon is the wish passer and toxic spreading too. Big bulk due to eviolite. Wartortle helps with more toxic spreading and getting rid of hazards with Rapid Spin. Foresight allows it to overcome Banette if played correctly. Tangela is the beast here. Although it has no recovery (it depends on Shelgon) Sleep Powder and Leaf Storm are so strong to get some sleeps or faints right away. Finally, Kingler is our second wincon with double dance. You need to use it in the appropriate moment and is the main weakling of the team (you can use other wincons here). Overall, the defensive backbone is good but in this tier you cannot use a complete/pure stall team and you need a main wincon to overcome some problems. Slaking could be cool too.


:Persian: :Exploud: :Tangela: :Solrock: :Swalot: :Chatot:

Persian is the lead with Fake Out and U-turn. Be aware of Mightyena. Exploud is one of the best mixed breakers around rn. Tangela and Swalot do the same job as the last semi-stall team. Solrock sets up rocks and give some physical wall. Endure and Custap Berry are really useful to get some faints when no expected. Finally, CScarf Chatot is your speed control altogether with Persian.



BW



First of all, I would like to thank exBW TL SBPC for the opportunity he brought me giving me a seat in the council and also for all the work he has done since the beginning of BW ZU. It is sad to see how it has ended, without any appreciation of your work behind the scenes during all these years, but part of why BW ZU exists is thanks to you. BW current council and I wish you the best for your foreseeable future projects. You will always find in BW ZU a sweet home to come back.

I also created a plot about top 10 used Pokémon in ZUPL and also their winning probability. Only one Pokémon reached 50% usage (Frillish indicating how centralizing it is). However, as you can see Glalie and Frillish did not reach more than 50% of winning probabilities and this is due to the fact that in some games there was some hazard war between two teams. Beyond that, it is important to highlight the fact that Trubbish did better as it was amazing in setting both TSpikes and Spikes and giving some physical bulk (more longevity than Glalie). Munchlax was the second most used and had a great success due to Whirlwind sets. Solrock was the main rocker and good lead against Glalie (threatening it in 2HKO and setting up rocks). Whiscash and Vullaby were the two stars, with some usage and great success. The former as DD sweeper and also SubTox crippling Frillish. The latter as fast Taunt user and Foul Play/HP Fighting for physical attackers and Pawniard, respectively. Sandshrew was also great due to its physical bulk + Rapid Spin + Stealth Rock. I hope you find this plot user-friendly. I got this information from Replays and Stats done by tingling.

1635325744936.png

So now with the king of the ring for today’s post. BW is a great generation but with some flaws right now. Many people in ZUPL got angry due to the state of the metagame. I can completely understand that position because hazards were a good and easy way to fish some unexpected wins. Glalie and Trubbish (mainly) were really problematic because they could set up Spikes (and TSpikes the latter) which, if built correctly, no team were able to get rid of. It is important to remember here that in BW mechanics Defog only works for opponent’s field. Thus, this implies that you can only rely on Rapid Spin as your move for entry hazard removal. This means that if you pair your spikers with a good Ghost-type Pokémon (aka Frillish) to spinblock, you will be able to set up your hazards for the entire game. It is obvious to say that this is quite constraining for teambuilding and provoked a decrease in usage of some playing styles such as pivoting offense and stall, among others. Beyond that, we reached a moment when if you were not playing hazard stacking or Frillish, you were starting in a bad position. Why that? Because it was nearly impossible to stop spikers.

:Glalie: & :Trubbish:
Glalie was neither the fastest Pokémon of the tier nor the bulkiest one. However, Glalie had enough speed to reach 284 and outspeed many of our leads (such as Solrock, Drilbur, Sandshrew) and it could OHKO them with Explosion and STAB Ice beam. Thus, it meant that you could not either Taunt it for the first turn or faint it. Moreover, if you pair your hazard stacking Pokémon with Frillish, it is very difficult for the opponent to erase them. That’s why many players stop bringing rapid-spinners such as Sandshrew or Staryu, they were not good enough and they were highly pressured/abused. Trubbish was also really good as a physical wall and setter of both Spikes and TSpikes. Beyond that, its bulk was amazing due to Sticky Hold ability (it always kept Eviolite) and it had some longevity due to Pain Split (which was very annoying sometimes). I would like to paste here below some games in which hazard stacking showed how good was and deciding the ending result of the game:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5pu-576811
Tack vs BA is a pretty good replay of how hazards were really good. BA had some counterplay with SubTox Kingler for Frillish but at the end, after many turns of hazard stacking damage, Tack got the win in an even match.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1404425459-fbipit0te1xmqo978kmz3p9dnxyeia4pw
roxieee vs SBPC here not only Dragonair is a beast but pairing its DD setting up with hazards is amazing. Practically anything can be done against it and, imo, this replay show how broken is pairing hazards + some good sweeper.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5pu-577806
McSim vs roxieee This replay is similar to the previous one. Dragon spam with Spikes is amazingly good (and more if you pair it with Whirlwind Lax). The faster you set up your own Spikes in comparison to your opponent, the more probabilities you have to win.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1412139387-c26rbw2c6yjslwmo7znmr03fkgdgtxypw
SBPC vs dnb Another replay of how pairing some breakers with hazards is broken. Nothing to say, you only need a good cleaner too like Pikachu in this case.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1416798683-6eao22nddj99pqzjvghaljkxf2u58j1pw
SBPC vs Tack Replay of hazards vs hazards. Who wins? In this case TSpikes as there is no Poison-type grounded Pokémon.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1420001136-lx9g435twwhtdyv543as4gmpk6t0dh6pw
BA vs dnb Replay of hazards vs hazards number 2. Who wins? Hazards again but the one with more in the opponent’s field (dnb). Good cleaner again like Pikachu with ESpeed.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1442027784-djmdmjlf23jlxpzvsqxkxoo068gewfcpw
thebtboy vs me Hazard stacking with Trubbish, Lunatone, and Frillish can give you a solid win although some breakers are present in the opponent’s field (Cranidos).

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1435325103-mvfb99hu5nkprapttysd36kie7eq929pw
btboy vs me Hazard stacking with Frillish and Whiscash as a wincon. Vullaby is also really good right now paired with Frillish.

However, hazard stacking per se didn’t always win.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1410972965
SBPC vs BA Not having a good Ghost-type Pokémon in your field can provoke the shining of Glalie’s frailty. Glalie can only set up some Spikes and try to get a kill. Here, it couldn’t due to Rock Tomb (so it only got one field of Spikes). If you cannot maintain them there, then you lose.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1420124734
You need to set up more and having a good cleaner/breaker. In this case, JonAmon25 mup against roxieee’s team was not that good and decided the game.

In general, we can see an important trend in BW ZUPL’s games: there was more presence of hazard stacking teams towards the end of the tour. Approximately more than half of all teams used presented hazard stacking although the winning results were like 50% (in part because some were hazards vs hazards and in some cases it lacked a Ghost-type Pokémon to avoid Rapid Spin). However, if you check Frillish + hazard replays you can see there was no good counterplay practically in the opponent’s team. It is true that sometimes a good SubTox Kingler or Thunderbolt Staryu (thanks toto) could be useful. However, this opens other problems that indirectly associated to this centralization of hazards + Frillish: SubTox Kingler and Whiscash are suboptimal but necessary, fast Vullaby and Frillish can be good against Trubbish, among others.

In general, although hazard stacking was not always that good as we could expect, playing it properly and having Frillish + cleaner in the team provoked a high change of winning the game. Beyond that, hazard stacking is very constraining until the point of (in my case) not bringing Rapid Spin Pokémon and just go for the hazard stacking war.

:Frillish:

BW ZU council initially banned this Pokémon altogether with Trubbish and Glalie due to the fact it has a third party in the hazard stacking wars. Moreover, Frillish provokes the appearance of some suboptimal sets in some Pokémon such as SubTox Kingler, Walrein, Whiscash, which otherwise would be running more common and “healthy” sets as Agility or DD. Frillish give counterplay to other Pokémon such as Munchlax (due to fast Taunt sometimes and the Ghost-type) or Simisear (if not +4 and running Grass coverage). Frillish is also good against some rockers (Sandshrew, Drilburr, Solrock). Altogether this brings the question: Why should not I be using Frillish in all teams? This splashability of Frillish is troublesome, at least.

It is true that we banned Frillish according to the hazard stacking metagame, and, in practice, it is not fair to say that this Pokémon will be broken after Trubbish and Glalie banning. Thus, after deliberation and thanks to DurzaOffTopic and ZU community who brought a good point here, we decided to unban it again. However, are there other good hazard stacking Pokémon that can take on the role of Glalie and Trubbish and keep Frillish near broken borderline? Hello Omanyte and Whirlipede!! Yes, there are still a couple of Pokémon that need to be studied how well they work altogether with Frillish in the future metagame. Although Omanyte can have some usage in more offense/HO teams, I can see Whirlipede doing practically the same job as Trubbish. It is true that has some down-sides (rock weakness, eviolite can get knocked-off…) but its bulk is sthg to take into account. Thus, we are planning to do something around Frillish and rechecking how hazard stacking is going to be after Trubbish and Glalie bans.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1442020423-s1t320lbjf411akjwahwzbbnijzm7s5pw
btboy vs me This team shows not Frillish per se but how Whirlipede can take on the job of Trubbish. Beyond that, this team was also used in ZUPL by roxieee getting a win too. Lax is really good altogether with Frillish and Whirlipede.


:Munchlax: and :Emolga: scenario

Both Pokémon have been staples in BW ZU for a while. Emolga is a fast Taunt user with SubTox and Acrobatic sets. However, due to hazard stacking scenario, pivoting sets of Emolga have not seen any usage. Although SubTox sets can still be dangerous, without permanent hazards on the opponent’s field (or at least, semi-permanent hazards) some checks to Emolga can enter the field without any worrying. I can see pivoting Emolga’s sets raising and the appearance of some checks (Muk among others) that can enter the field without problems and tank both Acrobatics and SubToxic sets. Thus, imo, we need to keep an eye to Emolga evolution but with this new metagame, Emolga can be healthy.

Munchlax has been near the broken borderline for a while. Curse and Whirlwind sets were really good. However, the efficiency of Whirlwind set after Trubbish and Glalie bans may be decreased and it will completely depend on Whirlipede and Omanyte taking this role. Lax can still be troublesome (more than Emolga imo) and, again, it is important to keep an eye on this Pokémon as it has been centralizing the metagame for a while. However, without permanent (or with semi-permanent) hazards, new Pokémon (and fighting-type Pokémon) can rise that can check offensively Munchlax (Pingnite hello!). This maybe will change the story. I would also like to highlight here that Munchlax brokenness is completely bound to hazard stacking but also to Frillish as the latter can Taunt and stop Body Slams without blinking an eye. If Frillish goes, Munchlax can become more troublesome, although Whirlwind sets will decrease in viability. Munchlax is in a rare position, and its usage will have great changes in the foreseeable future.

Viabilty rankings

Now I would like to nom some Pokémon that, imo, after Glalie and Trubbish bans and seeing how good they were in the ZUPL need to be revisited.

:Abra: A to A-
I have not seen Abra in all the tour. Beyond that, I think it can be Pursuit trap fodder (Pawniard has been used quite a lot) and it can easily be stopped by Lax. Moreover, with semi-permanent hazards, Abra will have hard times breaking through opponent’s teams.

:Corsola: STAY A
I would have decreased its viability if hazards were still here. And we will see what happens with Whirlipede on that topic. However, right now without Spikes around, Corsola becomes better. However, it has still some competition with Frillish and Solrock/Lunatone as they do similar jobs overall but Corsola works pretty well for role compression.

:Kingler: A- to A
This Pokémon can be used as sweeper (Agility SD sets) but also as SubTox helping to break through Frillish which is a monster right now. I have used it quite a lot with great success and in ZUPL it shine in BA hands.

:Vullaby: A- to A
This Pokémon is incredibly good and I saw great success with it in dnb hands. Afterwards, I started using it and I fell in love due to fast Taunt and a great Pokémon for checking Pawniard which is really good atm (with Foul Play and HP Fighting).

:Sandshrew: B+ to A
This Pokémon has an amazing physical bulk and it gives you both Rocks and Rapid Spin. Beyond that you can run Toxic for crippling Frillish too.

:Drilbur: UR to B+
This Pokémon is an offense Sandshrew and also give you Rapid Spin and Rocks at the same time. SD sets with EQ are really good but you need some previous chip if you want to break down Frillish. Mold Breaker makes it a beast bc this can go through Solrock with some chip too.

:Staryu: B- to B
As Toto mentioned, Staryu can break through Frillish or, at least, provoke that this Frillish need to run some spdef investment and be weaker for the physical part. Staryu may be the solution we were looking for.

:Whiscash: UR to B
I do not know how this Pokémon was UR. DD or SubTox sets are really good, breaking some backbones or baiting for Frillish. Beyond that, Bounce is a thing too helping against Meganium which is highly present nowadays. Special sets are not good enough but important to mention.

:Meganium: UR to B+
Great check for many Water-type Pokémon and with great bulk at the same time. It has seen a lot of usage during this ZUPL and, imo, it can do other jobs beyond being a defensive backbone (screens setter for HO).

:Whirlipede: UR to B
I think hazards will still be good due to Frillish at least. And Whirlipede can do this job quite decently. Thus, I can imagine Whirlipede at B, at least as it is the best one for this job.

:Omanyte: UR to B
Omanyte can see some usage rn in rain teams again and also as Spiker + Rocker in one Pokémon. However, this can be seen only in HO teams practically and, imo, HO teams weren’t that good these last days. We need to revisit them in this new metagame.

And that's it for today. I have been working quite hard for this post. Now that I am part of the BW council, I am glad and open to discuss anything you have in mind and play as much as you want. We know that there are things we need to improve and many of us are new in the council (it is my second one but the first in ZU) so please, be patient and open to give us suggestions. We want to make BW great again! During the following days there will be new things coming up so stay tuned :blobpex:
 
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Following the bans of Glalie and Trubbish, BW Council remains concerned about another Pokemon: Frillish. Even with the removal of the aforementioned Spikers, Frillish remains the tier’s preeminent spinblocker. The ability to consistently and reliably spinblock against the tier’s hazard removers can be problematic when used in conjunction with the hazard setters that have emerged in the wake of the Glalie and Trubbish bans — Omanyte and Whirlipede. Although both of these Pokémon have flaws which make them inferior to Glalie and Trubbish, they are viable and supported well by Frillish. Its general longevity and favorable matchups against Rapid Spinners gives it the potential to dominate games, which has motivated Council to announce six suspect tournaments which will take place from November 5th-7th. Six ZU room tournaments will be held on Pokémon Showdown at the following days and times:

Friday, November 5th at 6 PM GMT - won by Toto
Friday, November 5th at 11 PM GMT - won by BeatsBlack
Saturday, November 6th at 4 PM GMT - won by Drud
Saturday, November 6th at 8 PM GMT - won by Tuthur
Sunday, November 7th at 4 PM GMT - won by S1nn0hC0nfirm3d aka Ho3nC0nfirm3d aka Crybaby Tylenol
Sunday, November 7th at 8 PM GMT - won by Jett

The winner of each tournament will receive one (1) vote on a potential Frillish ban.
Note: A player can only have a maximum of one vote. In the event that the winner of a previous tournament wins a subsequent tournament, a vote will instead be awarded to the runner-up of that tournament. For example, if Player A wins Tournament #1 and Tournament #2, and Player B loses to Player A in the finals of Tournament #2, one vote will be given to Player A for winning Tournament #1, and one vote will be given to Player B for coming in second place in Tournament #2. In the event that two previous winners play in the finals, then the vote will go to one of the semifinalists. If only one of the eliminated semifinalists had not won a previous tour, the vote will default to them. If both eliminated semifinalists had not won a previous tour, the vote will be rewarded to whoever wins a best of one (BO1) head-to-year between them. If all four semifinalists had already won one of the tours, the tour will be redone at a later date and time to be announced within 24 hours of said tour’s originally scheduled time.

It should be noted that council members will be permitted to participate in these tours, but will be considered ‘previous winners’ and cannot earn any additional votes. This means that Frillish will be voted on by 5 council members (JonAmon 25, DnB, Mirbro, SSJRobbieRotten, and myself) and the 6 winning suspect participants.
Frillish will not be banned unless a simple majority (6+ votes) is achieved.
 
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Frillish suspect tours have concluded!

Thank you to everyone who participated, and congrats to our winners Toto, BeatsBlack, Drud, Tuthur, S1nn0hC0nfirm3d, and Jett. The deadline for council members and suspect qualifiers to cast their vote is Friday, November 12th at 11:59 PM GMT -5.

Council will be deliberating on Frillish between now and then, and reqs-getters are welcome to do the same or engage in discussion as they see fit. I will be contacting the suspect qualifiers shortly with steps on how to vote. Thanks again to everyone who took an interest in the metagame!
 
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just wanted to post about the new drops to dpp zu! :Camerupt: :Crawdaunt: :Electabuzz: :Golbat::Gorebyss: :Marowak: :Pelipper: :Whiscash: :Wormadam-Trash:

i'll be the first to admit that i am not well versed in the tier to begin with (but i do have some experience!), and i have yet to actually play since the shifts, and i havent even used any of the new mons or the sets i'll be linking in a paste below. BUT these are just some standard sets that i think work well on paper. the moves + spreads are certainly adjustable. for instance, golbat can run physdef over spdef investment, and crawdaunt and camerupt can opt for hidden power grass over electric to hit whiscash over pelipper while still hitting bulky waters like lapras, walrein, and wailord. these sets are not exhaustive of everything these mons can accomplish, and i would highly encourage folks try them out for themselves and adapt them to yours + your teams' needs, or to come up with other sets entirely! anyways, here's the paste.

might edit in some thoughts on the mons themselves in a bit, but i might save that for later when i actually get to test them out.
 
frillish-bubble.gif

First of all, thanks to everyone who participated in these BW ZU suspect tours this last weekend. And also congratulations for the people that obtained reqs for this suspect :) I am glad to see all of you participating in this new BW ZU era. I am sorry for not playing but at least I tried to play a short game last tour in order to not feel bad helping with the participation. Anyway, in today's post I am gonna write down some of my thoughts that have derived from both internal testing and these suspect tours.

:Glalie: and :Trubbish: bans have shown that BW ZU metagame can be improved as right now it feels a bit more balanced than before. However, I still think that hazard stacking is a problem but smaller than before. This means that we are going to the right way, as step by step we are improving the state-of-the-art of BW ZU metagame. Hazard stacking playstyle consists of an interplay between three elements: setters (:whirlipede:, :omanyte:, and :venipede:), rapid spin users (:drilbur:, :staryu:, :sandshrew:), and rapid spin blockers (:frillish:, :lampent:, and :gastly:). Let's talk about each other separately.



Spike Setters:whirlipede::omanyte: :venipede:

I have only posted the most common ones although we can find other Pokémon such as Pineco, Shelmet, Snorunt, Budew and so on. Initially, the ones with more hype were both Whirlipede and Omanyte. However, some players such as Hoen and 5gen (correct me if I am wrong) started to use Venipede due to its speed which is higher than Whirlipede's one (in detrimental for its bulk though). In general, although its utility and brokenness have decreased due to Glalie and Trubbish bans, hazard stacking are still highly disruptive. However, they are not as good as before. There are different strategies to stop hazard stacking: Taunt users (Emolga, Vullaby...) or Rapid Spin users that can pressure both setters and Frillish. The former means the fact that some fast Taunt users are viable right now such as Emolga and Vullaby which can mainly stop Whirlipede and Venipede at the beginning of the game. However, this is not always enough as they can come in the mid-game and set up when Taunt users are not in the field. Thus, this needs to not be your only solution. Rapid Spin users right now are really good as I will comment in the following paragraphs.

Imo, Whirlipede is still the better choice over Omanyte and Venipede, however I can see why some people is starting to run the other two but in niche scenarios. The disruptive power of only one layer of Spikes or TSpikes is so big that makes building process difficult and tough sometimes constraining it quite a lot.











Rapid Spin blockers :Frillish: :Lampent: :Gastly:

Here we have three components. However, the only really good is the first one. Gastly is too frail and it only pressures a bit the Rapid Spin users. Lampent is a better one but its typing and lack of reliable recovery are bad against Sandshrew, Drilbur, and Staryu. Furthermore, Frillish the only good choice in general (and specficially for bulky teams). Frillish presents great bulk, Taunt, and reliable recovery. Moreover, its typing allows to pressure Rapid Spin users such as Drilbur and Sandshrew and its ability allows to soak some Scald from Staryu provoking the fact that Staryu needs to run Tbolt/Toxic to hit it. Toxic Frillish has widely been used recently as the best way to go. However, some teams have evolved running an unset of Rest Frillish which works against Shrew and Staryu mainly but not for Drilbur as SD EQ is a 2HKO. However, in this case, Vullaby/Meganium can be used as good partners to avoid this 2HKO and highly pressure Drilbur. Nonetheless, Frillish has other good and positive roles in the metagame as checking Munchlax, Simisear, among other breakers/wincons. Banning Frillish could be beneficial for the tier (as this would mean a higher nerfing for hazard stacking playstyle), however this would also imply an imbalance for the metagame as other breakers could be amazingly good after this ban.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1447538169





Rapid Spin users :Staryu: :Drilbur: :Sandshrew:

There are other Rapid Spin users (:Spinda: BeatsBlack ) but they are not good enough right now to pressure Frillish or setters. Those aforementioned three are really good right now, specially the two first ones. Staryu is faster than Frillish so it does not need to be scared of being Taunted. Moreover, it has reliably recovery and it does not care if it is statused due to Natural Cure ability. Beyond that, the combination of Toxic and/or Thunderbolt can beat normal Frillish without Rest (this set of Frillish is quite passive though). Beyond that, Staryu can also scare setters with Scald and other Rapid Spin blockers such as Lampent with the same move. Drilbur is quite nice for offense builds with Mold Breaker ability and SD to break through Solrock quite easily. Moreover, it can 2HKO Frillish and maybe OHKO with some previous damage (calcs below). However, I felt like a 4MSS situation because of Stealth Rock, EQ, Rapid Spin, Toxic, Rock Slide, Swords Dance. In order to beat consistently both Frillish and some of its teammates need to run some coverage like Rock Slide and it is not always easy to SD due to its frailty in general. Finally, Sandshrew is a good rocker and physical wall but as a Rapid Spin user it has some room for improvement. EQ does nothing and it needs to spam Toxic without pressuring it a lot and it does not have reliable recovery.

+2 252 Atk Mold Breaker Drilbur Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 160+ Def Eviolite Frillish: 201-237 (64.2 - 75.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Frillish Scald vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Drilbur: 152-182 (58.2 - 69.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

4 Atk Sandshrew Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 160+ Def Eviolite Frillish: 70-84 (22.3 - 26.8%) -- 25.4% chance to 4HKO

0 SpA Frillish Scald vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Sandshrew: 200-236 (65.7 - 77.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1447525502


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1448663526-5vrcwhd7sp6j6sorj2193exa8ztsvr7pw


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1448671929-tvkqsrr9k517fnnwiu9kyjh65d12w0npw



TLDR; Right now we are in a scenario in which Frillish is really good but not broken because besides hazard stacking Frillish would be amazingly good checking some Pokémon but a bit passive sometimes. However, hazard stacking without Frillish would still be really good and broken, imo. The fact that we only have three good Rapid Spin users constrain a lot teambuilding in order to ensure not losing to hazard stacking. Sincerely, I think it is unhealthy to run in every team a Rapid Spin user between Sandshrew, Staryu, or Drilbur due to the fact that hazard stacking is so good. This brings me to a position of banning Spikes in general (as SS LC did with Sticky Webs some months ago) or banning more Spike setters. Banning only Whirlipede and leaving Frillish could leave a hypothetical situation in which other setters would be really good due to Frillish. Thus, I think there are different possibilities right now:

Ban Frillish + Ban Whirlipede (after checking if it is the only one op) + potentially Ban some unbalanced Pokémon due to Frillish ban

or

DNB Frillish + Ban Spikes

I am more prone to the second one due to the fact that Frillish checks other Pokémon really nicely and it is not broken besides hazard stacking.
 
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TLDR; Right now we are in a scenario in which Frillish is really good but not broken because besides hazard stacking Frillish would be amazingly good checking some Pokémon but a bit passive sometimes. However, hazard stacking without Frillish would still be really good and broken, imo. The fact that we only have three good Rapid Spin users constrain a lot teambuilding in order to ensure not losing to hazard stacking. Sincerely, I think it is unhealthy to run in every team a Rapid Spin user between Sandshrew, Staryu, or Drilbur due to the fact that hazard stacking is so good. This brings me to a position of banning Spikes in general (as SS LC did with Sticky Webs some months ago) or banning more Spike setters. Banning only Whirlipede and leaving Frillish could leave a hypothetical situation in which other setters would be really good due to Frillish. Thus, I think there are different possibilities right now:

Ban Frillish + Ban Whirlipede (after checking if it is the only one op) + potentially Ban some unbalanced Pokémon due to Frillish ban

or

DNB Frillish + Ban Spikes

I am more prone to the second one due to the fact that Frillish checks other Pokémon really nicely and it is not broken besides hazard stacking.
i definitely believe that keeping frillish and banning spikes + tspikes is the way to go. i admittedly really havent had much experience in bw zu, but hazard stack, and spikes + tspikes in particular are so warping for the meta. carrying a spinner on every team is essentially an absolute necessity in order to try and prepare for hazard stack, especially because of how often you are pressured you are to try and spin. even still, oftentimes, not bringing your own hazard stacking mons puts you at a major disadvantage. and this alone is bad enough, but then factor in spinblockers, and it adds another layer (no pun intended) of difficulty. i dont think that frillish here is the issue, but as has been suggested, the combination of frillish + hazard stack. frillish seems like it would be a very healthy mon in the meta if spikes + tspikes were gone, as it is able to answer mons like munchlax, simisear, muk, and more.

simply put, i just personally dont find the meta to be fun at all when you are basically required to run hazardstack, a spinner, and a spinblocker on every single team in order to stand a chance, and the battles become either completed one-sided in favor of hazardstack, or a war of attrition with spikestack mirror matchups. and it's not like there isnt a precedent to banning hazards either. this year alone, swsh LC banned sticky webs, and sleep moves are even banned in all of the bw metas iirc, so i dont see the issue in banning spikes + tspikes. i think going this route, as opposed to banning our most prominent spikers, is the best course of action, because as it's been pointed out, if we keep banning our spikers, folks most likely will just resort to the next best things (budew, cacnea, snorunt, etc). in doing so, i think we would be much less restricted in the builder, see much more diverse teams, and ultimately have a healthier meta and a happier playerbase.
 
The Frillish suspect vote has concluded! There were four (4) ban votes, six (6) do not ban votes, and one (1) abstention, so Frillish will remain legal in BW ZU.
BeatsBlack - Do Not Ban
dnb - Ban
Drud - Do Not Ban
Ho3nConfirm3d - Ban
Jett - Do Not Ban
JonAmon 25 - Ban
Mirbro - Abstain
SSJRobbieRotten - Do Not Ban
thebtboy - Ban
Toto - Do Not Ban
Tuthur - Do Not Ban
Some voters thought that Frillish was only oppressive in the context of hazard stack, and an otherwise balanced Pokemon. Others thought Spikes themselves, and not Frillish, were the issue. Furthermore, several ban voters acknowledged the possibility that additional tiering measures might need to be taken, even if Frillish were to be banned. Therefore, it can be said that the consensus opinion was that hazard stack is problematic for the tier.

For that reason, BW Council is looking into banning Spikes, with there being precedence in banning moves (see: BW OU’s bans of Assist and sleep moves) and entry hazards specifically (see: SS LC’s ban of Sticky Web).

The council is interested in community feedback about Spikes and hazard stack in BW ZU. Any vote on Spikes will not take place for at least a few days, and we hope to see some discussion in the meantime. Thanks again to all who participated in the suspect tournaments!
 
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Metagame surveys have been a regular thing this generation in various tiers and SM ZU council would like to gauge the player base's thoughts and opinions on the meta (building, playing, threats). The criteria for choosing players is making finals of an SM Cup or playing at least three SM ZU games and winning one in ZUPL II or III. SM ZU council members will also give their thoughts.

Qualifiers from SM Cup I and II (made finals):
czim, Greybaum , a fruitshop owner, velvet, Feliburn

Qualifiers from ZUPL II and III (played at least 3 games and won 1):
DurzaOffTopic, Finchinator, Quagg, For the Bois, RawMelon, LPY, TJ, tlenit, Pujo
 
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:gs/poliwag: GSC ZU Poliwag Suspect :gs/poliwag:

62a1e0fc426cb7d950df3beaa0a20d0b.gif

With Old Gen of the Week back and other old gens like BW and DPP becoming a bit less chaotic, it is time for GSC to take the spotlight! Poliwag has been a controversial topic for a while, heavily relying on luck with Lovely Kiss and being able to completely wreck teams if it runs that correct Hidden Power type. It is notably very fast and only outsped by Diglett and Yanma, with the second having trouble revenge killing it reliably, forcing teams to usually rely on taking a hit and revenging it back with walls like Togetic, Croconaw, Bayleef, Onix or Koffing. And that's where the Hidden Power comes in. HP Flying Poliwag can run through Bayleef, HP Ground can OHKO Koffing and heavily dent Onix and so on. Poliwag also has its flaws though, it is not really bulky and lacks defensive utility. It usually has only one shot at setting up per match and struggles to KO most bulky mons at +6.

Now onto the suspect! There will be 6 suspect tours where the winner of each tour will be able to vote if Poliwag gets banned or not alongside the GSC ZU council, totaling 11 votes. These tournaments will follow the schedule below (same times as BW did their suspect tours).
Friday, November 26th at 6 PM GMT - won by JonAmon 25
Friday, November 26th at 11 PM GMT - won by Louna
Saturday, November 27th at 4 PM GMT - also won by Louna :smogduck: - runner up Beka got reqs
Saturday, November 27th at 8 PM GMT - won by Beka and runner up was JonAmon 25, so i gave the reqs to Jett, who was runner up of the first 2 tours:fukyu:
Sunday, November 28th at 4 PM GMT - won by Louna (for the 3rd time ffs), runner up Luna's Banned now got reqs
Sunday, November 28th at 8 PM GMT - won by Beka (I swear to god), runner up Tuthur got reqs

That's it, I hope to see you guys in the suspect tours and on the other tours during Old Gen of the Week!​
 
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:BW/whirlipede: :BW/omanyte:
Upon the conclusion of the Frillish suspect, BWZU Council received feedback from several suspect voters and community members that they believed the problematic element to be Spikes rather than Frillish itself. Council deliberated internally on a ban of the move Spikes, which would have been grounded in the precedent set by BW OU’s ban of Assist and Sleep moves, as well as SS LC’s Sticky Web ban.

However, BWZU Council determined that banning Spikes was a big step to take, and that it might be best to first try to address the issue via more Pokémon bans. As a result, we instead held a vote on Whirlipede and Omanyte, the two Spikers who saw a surge in usage in the wake of the Trubbish and Glalie bans.

Whirlipede has been banned via a 4-1 majority, and Omanyte has been banned via a 3-1 majority (with one abstention).

Whirlipede was the spiritual successor to Trubbish with its Poison typing, access to Spikes and Toxic Spikes, and Eviolite-boosted bulk, and replaced Trubbish on many teams rather seamlessly. Furthermore, its access to Poison Point and a 100% accurate STAB move in Poison Jab made it better at spreading status than Trubbish was. Its Stealth Rock weakness was considered, but council ultimately believed this factor did not sufficiently limit Whirlipede’s ability to enable a restricting playstyle. The lone do not ban vote came from dnb, whose reasoning was based on the belief that Spikes should be banned and not Whirlipede itself.

It would be much more difficult to draw parallels between Omanyte and Glalie outside of their usage on offensive compositions. Omanyte afforded a lot of role compression to these teams through its utility as Normal resist, its access to both Stealth Rock and Spikes, and its ability to pressure Ground-type removal with STAB Surf. For these reasons, council deemed it too strong for a tier with limited and low-quality removal options. SSJRobbieRotten abstained and dnb once again voted do not ban on the premise that Spikes are the problematic element, and not the individual Pokémon.

Council has not ruled out an eventual Spikes ban and we will continue to monitor elements relevant to the hazard stack playstyle that has centralized the tier for the past several months.
 
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Upon the conclusion of the Frillish suspect, BWZU Council received feedback from several suspect voters and community members that they believed the problematic element to be Spikes rather than Frillish itself.
As someone who voted DNB Frillish because I think Spikes are fine how they are in BW ZU, I'm quite surprised by this reasoning. If the BW ZU Council thought the banworthy element was Frillish, what made you change your mind on what element to tackle? The council is meant to pick the way on how tiering, so this suspect test resulting in DNB should have ended, at least for a moment, the talks on tiering Spikes in BW ZU. It's astonishing that a DNB vote led to a quickban on almost the same element of the metagame (Spikes). A quickban is already quite surprising given there is no upcomming BW ZU tournament and you had all the time to hold a suspect test.

Council deliberated internally on a ban of the move Spikes, which would have been grounded in the precedent set by BW OU’s ban of Assist and Sleep moves, as well as SS LC’s Sticky Web ban.

However, BWZU Council determined that banning Spikes was a big step to take, and that it might be best to first try to address the issue via more Pokémon bans. As a result, we instead held a vote on Whirlipede and Omanyte, the two Spikers who saw a surge in usage in the wake of the Trubbish and Glalie bans.
I'd like to know what made think the BW ZU council that banning 4 Pokémon was a smaller step than banning a move. Something, which has you said, is already quite common in BW (sleep moves, assist). In my opinion, nothing should have been quickbanned following the Frillish suspect test, because that vote just proved Spikes were fine in BW ZU. However, if actions had still to be taken on an element, it should have been a Spikes suspect test instead of an Omanyte + Whirlipede quickban.

tldr: can't wait for Budew's and Cacnea's quickbans.
 
As someone who voted DNB Frillish because I think Spikes are fine how they are in BW ZU, I'm quite surprised by this reasoning.

I would never vote tuthur on frillish :afrostar:



idk, BW is weird atm, we had sbpc and tack stepping back in council, leaving me as the "oldest" BW ZU council member and im not the most active atm. we added 5 great other users to the council and all of them dedicate a lot of time into the tier, testing new stuff and play around with a lot of ideas.

I was the person that started the whole "ban frillish" trend (sbpc & tack were on the same trend), because its the only spinblocker in the tier that also beats all spinners. Drilbur, Sandshrew & Staryu are the premier spinners of the tier, none of them can really touch Frillish. Many people started to run Toxic on those spinners, but I f.e. just adopted the BW OU Jellicent trend of just running rest + recover on the same set, to be safe from status if i need it and keep hazards up. I started running this set back in the Glalie days, but after the Glalie ban I just put Whirlipede on all my teams instead of Glalie, still worked out great, results stayed the same.

Now it was really hard for me to find tournament replays, where Frillish was actively spinblocking, but thats because most people just don't go for a spinner at all, because they are oftentimes dead weight if u face Frillish. Again, this is BW we are talking about, if I really want to prevent my opponent from spinning, I can do that.

The reason why I thought Frillish was the problem: Next to being the best spinblocker in the tier, it can also wall a lot of other mons, spam Scald, be annoying af with Taunt, it can be used on all teamstyles, if fits on almost every team. If the Frillish ban wouldve gone through, it would be rewarding again to play Spinners, because Lampent & Gastly would've been the only other usable ghost types in the tier, and most spinners can beat them.

So this, as a result, would make Spinners way more popular because they can reliably spin, which nerfs hazards, especially spikes as a whole in the process.

Now it is true that Frillish is kinda needed to keep Munchlax in check, but thats why I also voted on the Munchlax ban, as its the only mon that can beat all special attackers in the tier on its own. Another thing that can keep Munchlax in check are hazards, mostly Spikes, because it allows you to pressure it a lot with smart switches. But ofc, we wanted to nerf Spikes, so in order to try and balance things out, a Munchlax ban together with Frillish made total sense (to me).


Since we got drops like Muk, Glalie, Machoke etc., the tier was a lot of fun again for me, but also predictable. It was clear, that with Glalie, Hazardspam would become the new go-to strat and people figured it out pretty fast, that fat/stall teams with a lot of phazing are the way to go. trying to counter that, people started to run supper offensive teams that just try to punch through, but to counter that you just have to make some small adjustements to your stallteam, go for semistall instead and run offensive threats on your own and there you go

The thing that i see here is, that there were 2 options:
1.: Ban Spikes > a meta with frillish & munchlax
2.: Ban Frillish & Munchlax > a meta with spikes

The reason why we went for Frillish & Munchlax was, that we did not feel good about banning a move like Spikes, because idk, it has never happened before in a BW tier and we just felt comfortable with banning mons, instead of a move.
If we ended up banning Spikes and left Frillish & Munchlax in the tier, well, the whole meta would be around Munchlax and how to beat it, best way of doing so is, again, Frillish, so the meta would just be around those 2 mons again and how to beat them, with also using them yourself because Curse Resttalk Munchlax in a meta without Spikes is just broken.
Banning Frillish & Munchlax wouldve resolted in a meta, where Spikes can be used, but theres a good way to counter them, if you want to. You would have to run not so great mons that can Spin, but that would at least allow you to keep Hazards off most of the time. Which makes running Spikes not as needed as it was before, which results on Spinners just mostly Spinning to get Rocks off, which results in people dropping Spinners because they dont feel the need to run them anymore, which results in people running Spikes again because they might encounter no Spinners and the whole thing repeats itself, which makes the meta more interesting to me, because more strategies are viable.

Now the 3rd option that happend right now, was to just ban all the good spikes users, which leaves us even less mons in the tier, it also makes T-Spikes almost unusable, and they were already kinda niche before and it probably was the right call to just ban the move Spikes instead of all of its users, but again, we felt unsafe about doing something completely new (I know that Sticky Web got banned in some tiers before, but that was in another gen & its a completely different move). We should have talked about that to other members tho, we thought that we wouldn't get a lot of support on banning a Hazard move, instead of just mons.


This is just my opinion, not the opinion from the council, just wanted to share my thought process on the recent events. And I'm fine with people not wanting Frillish gone, the majority has decided. The whole council will do their best to further work on the tier :)
We are trying to make this meta attractive for new users and think about it a lot all the time, and while we might have rushed some decisions, we are just trying to resolve this whole hazard thing that makes this tier boring & stupid to play
 
Hey frens. It appears I must have fallen asleep and missed my stop, ending up at the Old Gens section. Nevertheless, I've decided to make this time somewhat productive as this post will be addressing the recent bans in the BW ZU metagame.

Act 1: Frillish

:frillish:
First off, some background regarding how much I've played, and how much I've learnt. I only really started playing because of the Frillish suspect tours and have been playing various members of the council (mainly btboy) and in BW room tours since to try and grasp a better understanding of the metagame.

During the Frillish suspect tours, Frillish wasn't used too often, but when it was, it lead to several scenarios. Frillish by itself wasn't unhealthy or broken to a level that banning it would be justified (at least in my opinion it was just a very solid wall that is pretty good at disrupting other walls, it's teambuilding implications on Spinners can be restricting though). Frillish with Spikes however lead to two different scenarios; either the Spikes team would manage to gain momentum finding turns to setup Spikes and deny Rapid Spin attempts, or Frillish would have little to no impact on Spikes being on the field because either A) Spikes won by itself or B) the other team didn't really care about Spikes. I'll touch on both later on but I've found that point B has become increasingly more relevant when regarding tier 3 (I'll be referring to each wave of bans a separate tier) Spikers (:venipede: & :shelmet:) given that these Pokemon offer a lot less stat wise, utility wise, and are pretty much only on teams because of Spikes. Anyways, I voted Do Not Ban on Frillish because I felt that its place in the metagame was fine and it wasn't overly oppressive despite the presence of Spikes. While I believed that Spikes was the issue back then (and I still do to some extent after these bans), it wasn't really part of the reasoning as to why I didn't vote for Frillish ban, or at the very least it was only a small factor (suspects should be focussing on the specific Pokemon that the suspect regards).

Act 2: Tier 2 Spikers

:omanyte: :whirlipede:
While Omanyte and Whirlipede are a cut below the tier 1 (:glalie: & :trubbish:) Spikers, they still serve other roles outside of just setting Spikes and are therefore the opportunity cost of having them on a team over other Pokemon wasn't very high. Omanyte functioned as a great entry hazard setter for offensive teams as it had both Stealth Rock and Spikes, but its strong attacks and its Flying-type resistance made it very useful in various scenarios even when Spikes would be less effective. Similarly, Whirlipede would tend to find itself on the slower paced balance teams, where it function as a great wall that could punish Pokemon by setting up entry hazards. The gap between the tier 1 and tier 2 Spikers wasn't particularly big but we'll see later that the gap between these two and tier 3 Spikers and beyond is pretty big. I wouldn't say that these Pokemon would be overwhelming without Spikes, sure Whirlipede could utilise Toxic Spikes, and Omanyte still had Stealth Rock, but the former doesn't cause immediate damage on switch-in, while only one layer can be setup of the latter. It'd also be somewhat difficult seeing either of these seeing much usage without the move but this is quite speculative so I won't delve much further. These Pokemon were great at their role because they could come in multiple times and setup several layers, although even 1 layer of Spike can be heavily abused in BW ZU. However, it was quite surprising these were both banned via a quickban. I feel like this was very unexpected and kinda unnecessary, compared to A) a suspect test of Spikes (or ig if you opted for these 2 Spikers instead) or B) nothing happens for at least a little while.

Act 3: Tier 3 Spikers

:shelmet: :venipede:
Now we're at the point where these Spikers have a very high opportunity cost when they are used on teams. Not all Spikes are created equal; Spikes is definitely much stronger against bulkier slow teams where the Spikes are far more punishing as they put many walls in the 2HKO range of the metagames best wallbreakers. Contrast this to offensive teams which immediatly fight back and play with their mons advantage given that these Spikers are pretty much deadweight outside of setting Spikes (Venipede can do some funny Endeavor stuff, Shelmet has a few tricks to do with Status and also Recover but Stealth Rock will make its life miserable, and these Pokemon's low stats and passivity leave them very easily to capitalise).

This is why I'm not thrilled to hear when a council member says that they opted to ban Omanyte and Whirlipede and if Spikes continue to be problematic, then we'll ban Spikes. Pokemon like Shelmet and Venipede fundametally suck, but because of Spikes they have a niche in the metagame. Sometimes these Spikes can still carry matchups, but unlike tier 1 and 2 Spikers, they have very little and sometimes nothing to fall back on when Spikes is not as good, which leaves teams playing 5 vs 6 or 5 and a half vs 6 if you're being generous (quite often these Pokemon are so passive that they give the opponent a free setup turn; curse you Dragonair). This essentially promotes teams with Spikes to be quite matchup reliant and I've found that there have been games where I've been able to fish where Shelmet and Venipede were able to get up at least more than 1 layer and be instrumental to winning a game. I also dislike the logic of the fact that Frillish makes these Spikers a problem, because these Spikers are obviously a lot worse and don't have as many opportunities to switch in and set Spikes up, therefore requiring more support from Ghost-types to spinblock when they do set up Spikes. Note that the Rapid Spinners here still suck but they suck less than our Spikers at this point, so there is actually a little bit of incentive to use them now. That being said Frillish still exists and faster teams would rather utilise multiple Taunt users to try and prevent Spikes from being set up. I'd say the metagame overall is fine but this doesn't mean that the Spikes issue is solved (banning the 4 setters is the wrong way to go about it given those 4 mons are most likely fine if Spikes was removed from their movepool). Spikes is still somewhat limiting against certain playstyles and I think that it'd be a cleaner ban overall but that's just my opinion.

Anyways enough rambling here are some replays that demonstrate what I'm talking about (admittedly this took some time to get because again these Spikers are super bad outside of setting Spikes, but archetypes that hate Spikes will continue to do so, borderline teams stand more of a chance because tier 3 Spikers lack consistency):

:venipede:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1459226251-tuf5w6x045u74vlxk94p6fmqe9n3n04pw - Spikes handshake but benefits me more because of my priority breakers
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1459696423-hb5l4tf9f2rs30jkzee9q8is1muevhtpw - Kingler is Blind but this game definitely would have shown that Spikes can be heavily abused my many Pokemon not just Munchlax and co.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1461133295-850dy29w8bab17tktlbedzrmhaup8s2pw - Encore Emolga allows Venipede opportunities to freely setup Spikes/forces switches when they are up.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1461101399-aj3xipw2u5qhnzldu85zjp9rkwz101upw - Venipede being useless against an offensive team.

:shelmet:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1460867952-8gdhlr1kjj6t6ovb8o9p3wo93ca0n61pw - Spikes is fine against TR. Shelmet is so slow, it manages to setup some Spikes.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1460876397-o8h3tj7hp9l9qwc632wnirxoe3wr2khpw - Very good vs balance-esque where there are often Pokemon which Shelmet can sit in front of.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1461106785-zs6ywo6ulutsx21zx0tzxxeznjyb2k6pw - Odd game, had to sack my Shelmet earlier but no Spinner means the Spike stays up; later on that one layer and Stealth Rock go a long way.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pu-1461120224-2ar0c8bx4ncgr42rd81sjp8fztvcc2xpw - Shelmet gets out Offensed, it's a solid wall in this mu but Spikes is immediately tempo losing it can struggle to find opportunities, especially when Rocks are up.

Massive thanks to mirbro, sb, and especially btboy for the games.

In my opinion, suspecting Spikes (I doubt there is any consideration to revert bans but who knows) would be the play. If Spikes get banned, free Glalie, Omanyte, Trubbish, and Whirlipede and see how the metagame plays out from there. Spikes is the more clean ban in both cases (Case 1: Tier 3 Spikers are deemed fine; Case 2: At least one of the Tier 3 Spikers is problematic) despite being a move ban because we lose 4 Pokemon that still would have value in the metagame. If we deem Spikes the problem it would be the best for the metagame's long-term health and interest to get rid of it instead.
 
GSC ZU Poliwag suspect follow up
First, I wanna thank everyone who participated in the tournaments or gave their opinion on Poliwag's effect on the metagame. Then, I want to congratulate the people who got reqs to vote alongside the GSC ZU council (JonAmon 25, Louna, Beka, Jett, Luna's Banned now and Tuthur). So, we already got 10/11 votes up (I'll update with IT Kam's vote whenever he has the time to do it) and Poliwag is BANNED from GSC ZU after getting 7/10 ban votes, already getting a majority. The votes are as follow.
czim - Ban
File 13 - Ban
Charles A. Theist -
t045t3r - Ban
Holly - Do not Ban
JonAmon 25 - Ban
Louna - Do not Ban
Beka - Do not Ban
Jett - Ban
Luna's Banned now - Ban
Tuthur - Ban
:gs/poliwag: Goodbye, Poliswag! :gs/poliwag:
Oh yeah, also a huge shoutout for Toto, Tuthur and Corthius for helping with hosting the tournaments while I was away
 
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DPP ZU Suspect Test

Hello, DPP ZU TL Procrastinasian here, here to announce updated Viability Rankings and Sample Teams (with more to come, check this post for the resources).

Additionally, DPP Council has deemed Marowak and Gorebyss as potentially concerning Pokemon in light of the new shifts last month (Marowak for its ability to OHKO most Pokemon in the tier with its coverage, and Gorebyss for its ability to self set rain as a standalone sweeper while being even more powerful on full rain teams).

The community will be allowed to participate in a suspect to decide if either Pokemon is banworthy. Tournaments will be held in a similar format to BW suspect tours, namely, on Friday-Sun at these respective times:

Friday, December 10th at 6 PM GMT - Won by Toto
Friday, December 10th at 12 PM GMT - Won by Tuthur
Saturday, December 11th at 4 PM GMT - Won by Charles A. Theist
Saturday, December 11th at 8 PM GMT - Won by czim
Sunday, December 12th at 4 PM GMT - Won by 5Dots
Sunday, December 12th at 8 PM GMT - Won by JonAmon 25
That's all folks! Good luck and I hope you all participate!
 
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Metagame surveys have been a regular thing this generation in various tiers and SM ZU council would like to gauge the player base's thoughts and opinions on the meta (building, playing, threats). The criteria for choosing players is making finals of an SM Cup or playing at least three SM ZU games and winning one in ZUPL II or III. SM ZU council members will also give their thoughts.

Qualifiers from SM Cup I and II (made finals):
czim, Greybaum , a fruitshop owner, velvet, Feliburn

Qualifiers from ZUPL II and III (played at least 3 games and won 1):
DurzaOffTopic, Finchinator, Quagg, For the Bois, RawMelon, LPY, TJ, tlenit, Pujo

Hi all, here are the results from the SM ZU survey. Note that including council and qualified voters, there are 13 respondents because a number of others opted not to respond.

1639102876532.png

The average response was 7.85/10, so most respondents enjoy playing SM ZU.

Forms response chart. Question title: How much do you enjoy building in SM ZU?. Number of responses: 13 responses.

The average response was 6.92/10, so most players enjoy building in SM ZU.
Forms response chart. Question title: How competitive do you find the metagame?. Number of responses: 13 responses.

The average response was 7.62/10, so most players find SM ZU to be a competitive metagame.


Now onto specific Pokemon. Note that the scale is healthy/not broken (1) to unhealthy/broken (10).
Forms response chart. Question title: What are your thoughts on Combusken in the current metagame?. Number of responses: 13 responses.

The average response was 5.38/10. While the average may suggest that most players do not find Combusken broken, slightly over half of the players see Combusken as a significant issue.

Forms response chart. Question title: What are your thoughts on Exeggutor in the current metagame?. Number of responses: 12 responses.

The average response was 7.00/10, though one player did not respond to this question. Overall, most players believe Exeggutor is unhealthy/broken.

Forms response chart. Question title: What are your thoughts on Swanna in the current metagame?. Number of responses: 13 responses.

The average response was 6.00/10, so most players find Swanna relatively unhealthy/broken.

Do you believe a course of action should be taken on Combusken, Exeggutor, or Swanna? If so, which Pokemon do you believe should be addressed and why?

This was more of a qualitative question with written responses so there is not really concrete data like the above responses. So, I'll break down the responses themselves:
  • 5/13 players believe Exeggutor should be addressed first, 3/13 for Swanna, and 2/13 for Combusken. The remaining three players believed that SM ZU should be left alone and remain unchanged.
  • Players found that Exeggutor has a particularly unhealthy effect on teambuilding because of how it forces usage of Pursuit trappers and Bronzor and its proficiency as a wallbreaker. Other players felt that while Exeggutor is a strong wallbreaker, its low Speed and common weaknesses limit it enough.
  • For Swanna, a few respondents believe it should be addressed first because of how good of a sweeper and/or breaker it is due to its set versatility (most notably Z-Mirror Move and Z-Rain Dance) and ability to pressure slower teams.
  • There were some varied responses towards Combusken. A few players find it to be incredibly threatening and a Pokemon that can easily set up, but others find that it is not as easy to build with as Swanna and Exeggutor and is easier to limit.
Forms response chart. Question title: If tiering action is planned for any of these Pokemon, which method do you prefer most?. Number of responses: 13 responses.

In the event of a vote, using a pool of qualified voters based on success in SM ZU tournaments is most ideal.


There was also a question on retesting Type: Null which most players did not express support for.

-

Thank you to all the players that responded, your feedback was valuable and will help shape SM ZU going forward. SM ZU council will discuss a course of action and go from there. Would be great to see additional posts regarding the results of the survey, specifically about a future vote.
 
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Tournaments will be held in a similar format to BW suspect tours, namely, on Friday-Sun at these respective times:

Friday, December 10th at 6 PM GMT - Won by Toto
Friday, December 10th at 12 PM GMT - Won by Tuthur
Saturday, December 11th at 4 PM GMT -
Saturday, December 11th at 8 PM GMT -
Sunday, December 12th at 4 PM GMT -
Sunday, December 12th at 8 PM GMT -
for clarification are these gmt -5 or gmt itself?
 
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