Metagame np: Stage 5: Butterfly (Vivillon Suspect Test)

[gum]

thank u to ishtar for the help w some of the writing!!

~~~

The PU Council has decided to Suspect Test Vivillon after the most recent survey!!

First gracing PU with its presence earlier this generation, Vivillon was a force to be reckoned with in PU that was eventually kicked out of the metagame. Now, 7 months and an unban later, the butterfly is back to being a contentious issue. It has everything to work well; Compound Eyes in conjunction with Sleep Powder and Hurricane make Vivillon a formidable Quiver Dance sweeper. That move in particular is what makes it go from bad Pokémon to terrifying sweeper. In a tier lacking in Steel-types, Vivillon can use its tools to get past the little specially defensive Pokémon we have, such as Muk and Articuno. Even defensive options such as Naclstack and Probopass that should fair better against it thanks to their typings are vulnerable to the right Tera types. Despite its bad bulk, its toolkit means it can find setup opportunities and pause a bigger threat to would-be answers. The aforementioned Sleep Powder is particuliarly important to this point; with some luck, not much is safe. The unpredectibility of its Tera type as well as last move options such as Substitute, Tera Blast, Bug Buzz allow Vivillon to be dominant in its interactions, demanding careful maneuvering. Lastly, it's also possible to argue that Vivillon is inherently uncompetitive; Sleep Powder and Hurricane are both moves that can very easily take the game out of the players's hands

Despite this, Vivillon has a myriad of issues both offensively and defensively. Offensively, it relies on Tera a lot to get past its answers while also being slightly on the weaker side, meaning it often requires multiple boosts to properly sweep through a game. This reliance on Tera and Sleep Powder overall makes it a very unreliable Pokémon that requires a lot to go its way; with a sleep sack, or without the right amount of Sleep turns, Vivillon can be pretty helpless vs defensive staples like Muk and Chansey. Defensively, its terrible bulk means it's very possible to stop in its tracks and prevent setup opportunities. Even when it does find opportunities, it's slower than many of our Choice Scarf users like Rotom, Swanna, Morpeko, Indeedee, and Hisuian-Sneasel, while priority users such as Sneasel and Basculin can pick off a weakened Vivillon without much issue. The same way it can abuse Tera, it's very vulnerable to Pokémon flipping the script on it due to often dying to even unresisted attacks. This makes it very reliant on Sleep Powder to find setup opportunities, something that is often easy to see coming.

~~~


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

Live suspect tournaments times will be edited in shortly, expect an update post!

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

​

minimum games needed

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

​

​

Suspect information:

• There will be no draws allowed for any potential qualifiers. If you qualify with draws, your suspect requirements will not count, and you will not be allowed to vote. There is no way to actively enforce ties to prevent abuse, so they will be disallowed. Use stall at your own risk.
• All games must be played on the Pokémon Showdown! PU ladder on a new alt with the following format: "PUVL (nickname)”. For example, PUVL gum or PUVL shitar.
• Do NOT impersonate other people in your ladder alt, do NOT use any usernames which are offensive, flame-baiting, or targeting specific users, and do NOT use usernames which could be interpreted as breaking any of the username rules on Pokémon Showdown! Failure to abide to this will result in you being barred from voting in this suspect, and potential infractions.
• The suspect test will last for 13 days, ending on Saturday, November 25th 11:59pm -5.

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

​

 

[PrincessGardevoir]

Hi, my opinions aren't always correct but I like sharing them!

Viv is super scary and I don't like facing it! It's one of the mons where you say 'Man, I really wish Tera wasn't around right now!' The only practically surefire answer (assuming you don't get slept) is Assault Vest Houndstone, who uniquely has the bulk, typing that isn't weak to any common Vivillon Tera Blasts, and relevancy curtsy of being a genuinely good mon in its own right to blast through it, additionally hitting its physical defense. Cramorant can usually take one Hurricane and paralyze it in return with Surf/do huge damage with Hurricane, but its slower and gets slept easily or if Viv clicks QD again you just lose. Muk and Arti resist one of its STABs and have the SpDef to tank any other hit, but Tera Blast means it can blow through both of them.

It's not an overpowered mon, since there's a lot of counterplay in priority, scarfers who are naturally faster, AV mons who can eat any +1 or +2 hit, as well as defensive Teras, but it definitely feels like an uncompetitive mon in forcing terrible trades like burning your Tera to stop it midgame, using Tera Blast Ground to blow through Muk, and Sleep making even great defensive answers shaky.


tldr: im not sold either way of ban or no but i don't like facing it regardless

 

[Hera]

i think viv adds too much variance to the meta to stay legal imo. i might be able to buy the line of reasoning that it's not broken (although i disagree, i've found it really easy to get free turns out of this thing and just snowball), but even if it wasn't, idt a mon like viv that changes the gamestate to dice rolls and uncontrollable variables to be healthy. with viv, it always feels like it's just one 2-3 turn sleep/one correct tera type/one random tech option like tb rock or buzz or sub away from beating its counters and snowballing out of control, and many of these factors are completely out of the opponent's control or rely on winning 50/50s. i've been using sash tera electric buzz on a team with ways to keep rocks off consistently and it just wins against the teams that rely on electrics and/or bulky psychics like sap sipper farig to check viv (which is a surprising amount of them), but i've also seen sub sets that beat chansey and cuno in 1v1s with favorable odds and random tera options like rock, fighting, and grass that beat a lot of standard checks and counters like cuno, naclstack, and scarf basc respectively. generally the only way you're beating viv is by either winning faster with your own win con (read: your own viv) or by not giving it free turns, which is difficult when you consider it can just resist what move you throw at it cause tera or it can put things to sleep with a move that almost never misses, as well as the mutiple viable fighting and ground-types that can lock itself into a bad move trying to revenge kill something else and there goes the game i guess. if it stays legal for longer than a week of puwc then people will end up overprepping for it like they did with lilli in pupl and the meta won't be enjoyable. hopefully it gets banned so we can move onto more meta development with puwc.

 

[rien]

if it stays legal for longer than a week of puwc then people will end up overprepping for it like they did with lilli in pupl and the meta won't be enjoyable. hopefully it gets banned so we can move onto more meta development with puwc.

viv was used on only 1 team out of 10 last week, this along with the recent vr vote where it was only ranked b+ (alongside fellow qd sweeper masq) shows that council members and scl players really don't view viv as broken or problematic. viv and lilli are also not remotely comparable because bulky synth is the set that broke lilli (and before it was popularized no one really thought of sleep lilli as a massive threat bc it simply wasn't), and viv doesn't get reliable recovery so it can't do bulky.

just wanted to respond to this really quickly, won't repeat everything i said on discord but viv is massively overrated by the general playerbase and there seems to be a big discrepancy between them and high-level players that simply view it as an unreliable sweeper that they'd only seriously consider running on ho. no one overprepped for viv last week and no one is going to do so this week, like i'm really not concerned about someone bringing av komala to scl because that's just not going to happen

 

[sugar ovens]

this along with the recent vr vote where it was only ranked b+ (alongside fellow qd sweeper masq) shows that council members and scl players really don't view viv as broken or problematic ...

... that simply view it as an unreliable sweeper that they'd only seriously consider running on ho. ...

I never like it when people use "viability" arguments when it comes to tiering decisions, like that viv can get unlucky with sleep turns, or that it can have the wrong tera type for a matchup... and coming from a council member, this is honestly just depressing. A pokémon doesn't have to be one of the best in terms of viability to be considered broken or problematic, especially when the problematic aspects are unpredictability or uncompetitiveness. A pokémon that has access to a variety of options that enable it to beat almost every potential check and counter may be very matchup-reliant and as a result of that, less viable. An uncompetitive pokémon that results in the game being decided by dice rolls is not a good, viable pokémon to *use*, especially not in high-stakes games, yet it does diminish the effect of player choice and skillful play. I'd say when deciding a pokémon's viability you should consider both the best and worst scenarios that can happen while *using* the mon, whereas when deciding on banning a pokémon it doesn't matter if the mon in question sometimes does nothing when you *face it*. What does matter is that, at other times, it can take the game out of your hands without you having any control, both in game or in the builder.

So yeah, i don't personally agree with viv's VR ranking but that's something completely separate from what this should be about. Is Vivillion broken, uncompetitive, or unhealthy? I'm slightly leaning towards ban mostly due for reasons outlined in Hera's post. Playing against vivillion involves a lot of blind guessing and 50/50s, having it cripple one of your mons and then banking on it having a favourable tera type / not having substitute, burning your own tera before it reveals its set, and/or hoping for lucky sleep turns. Plus the hurricane confusions, as a cherry on top.

 

[rien]

I never like it when people use "viability" arguments when it comes to tiering decisions, like that viv can get unlucky with sleep turns, or that it can have the wrong tera type for a matchup... and coming from a council member, this is honestly just depressing. A pokémon doesn't have to be one of the best in terms of viability to be considered broken or problematic, especially when the problematic aspects are unpredictability or uncompetitiveness. A pokémon that has access to a variety of options that enable it to beat almost every potential check and counter may be very matchup-reliant and as a result of that, less viable. An uncompetitive pokémon that results in the game being decided by dice rolls is not a good, viable pokémon to *use*, especially not in high-stakes games, yet it does diminish the effect of player choice and skillful play. I'd say when deciding a pokémon's viability you should consider both the best and worst scenarios that can happen while *using* the mon, whereas when deciding on banning a pokémon it doesn't matter if the mon in question sometimes does nothing when you *face it*. What does matter is that, at other times, it can take the game out of your hands without you having any control, both in game or in the builder.

So yeah, i don't personally agree with viv's VR ranking but that's something completely separate from what this should be about. Is Vivillion broken, uncompetitive, or unhealthy? I'm slightly leaning towards ban mostly due for reasons outlined in Hera's post. Playing against vivillion involves a lot of blind guessing and 50/50s, having it cripple one of your mons and then banking on it having a favourable tera type / not having substitute, burning your own tera before it reveals its set, and/or hoping for lucky sleep turns. Plus the hurricane confusions, as a cherry on top.

i should've also mentioned that council explicitly said that viv got 5/8 ban votes just as a response to the tiering survey and not because most of them view viv as problematic or unhealthy, but i digress.

as for me being a council member, first of all i'm no longer one but nevertheless i'm so sorry to disappoint you! second of all, i belong to the tiering camp that views rng as less of a problem than others would, and am largely in opposition of banning cheesy rng elements like bright powder, king's rock, evasion abilities, etc.. i won't go into detail about the nature of cheese strategies since it's not relevant to the discussion but i very much view viv as an extension of these. you mentioned a ton of variables that ultimately just don't add up in most games to a decisive vivillon sweep, and to these add vivillon's poor initial stats and bulk and the fact that it can still miss both hurricane and sleep powder. to put it simply - too many stars need to align for viv to work, and more often than not they simply do not, which is why you're not seeing a ton of viv in high-level play. while it's inherently more frustrating to feel like you're not in control and are losing because of rng as opposed to just getting outplayed, viv simply isn't consistent enough to dominate games on team preview, and even when it does get some rng in its favor, it's not that fast and definitely not difficult to chip down or revenge kill, girl. there are a dozen better pokemon in the tier that are much more consistent, have a similar or higher degree of unpredictability with tera, and are far less reliant on tera to function, none of these are remotely banworthy, and i'd rather ban all of them before viv.

 

[gum]

hi, we'll be doing 2 suspect tournaments this weekend!!

Saturday, November 18th at 9:00 AM Eastern Time (GMT-5), hosted by zoowi
Sunday, November 19th at 5:00 PM Eastern Time (GMT-5), hosted by Melt Gibson

 

[zoowi]

congratulations to Theblobfishman9 for winning todays live suspect tour
they now qualify for the vivillon suspect vote

semifinals 1 replay (Theblobfishman9 vs xiaoheizi114514): https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-1993434481
semifinals 2 replay (k8ppy vs bodi 69): https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-1993445836
finals (Theblobfishman9 vs k8ppy): https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-1993449608

bracket 19 participants

 

[Bella]

Alright, so i got reqs! After an embarrassing long amount of resets, here's my opinion on viv.

the TLDR

Im voting ban. What is basically a mon with a fast spore allowing it to take out most of its checks and an extremely powerful STAB and even more powerful boosting move adds to much variance to the meta with tera for me to find it healthy imo.

BUTTERFLY
So, lets talk about Vivillon, shall we? Well, lets look at some of the reasons (i personally believe) it's kinda busted.

1: Compound Eyes
The fact of the matter is Viv has such a incredible ability for what it does. I've said it time and time again, having a mon that basically has a fast spore on all of its defensive checks in the tier such as Articuno or Probo forcing switchouts is NOT OK. Makes it infuriating at times to face against and makes it very difficult to play around as it basically forces you to sleep something else on your team to make sure your counter is fine against it. And thats not even to start on how it makes Hurricane very very spammable, making it difficult for more offensive heavy teams to take hits from it consistently.

2: QD is just so easy to set up
Quiver Dancers in the tier have time and time again proven how broken QD as a move is, and that's no exception with viv. Viv has basically forced the majority of Scarfers minus Passimian be 90 speed or above, and if its +2 you may as well forget about winning at that point. Sure, viv is frail but when you can easily get 2-3 QDs off thanks to Compound Eyes Sleep Powder that gets overwhelming and fast.

3: The 2 Ts (Tera and the Toolkit)
Imo Viv is (by far) the best abuser of tera in the tier. Tera Blast Rock or Ground can make possible answers like Articuno, Golem-A, or Naclstack not able to win. Even if you don't run tera, Bug Buzz to hit more bulky threats like Farig or Sub to allow Viv to set up QD even more which i find overwhelming imo. Feels very bullshitty, i guess.

4: On counters and checks...
Is it just me or does it feel like you need 2 Vivillon checks on most teams? Like, you need a defensive answer and an offensive answer? Anyways, it feels like Viv really needs dedicated checks to beat it. Most of its offensive checks (Scarf Rotom, Scarf Basculin, Naturally faster mons like Zard or AChu or whatever) feels like they are just one or turns QDs away from no longer beating it. Most defensive checks (Like Articuno, Probopass, and the like) are a Tera or Sleep away from getting decommissioned.

Im going to spend the last part of this message responding to what rien said about claiming that viability = banworthy. Imo that is not the case. I very much agree with sugar ovens post on this debate; inherently a pokemon can be considered broken if it makes games a diceroll and makes the game uncompetitve, even if its viability or placement on the VR does not reflect that. In fact, i have seen an example of this in a tier i play, with SS LC's Magby Ban being less because of Magby's viability (because, much like viv it was also B+ on the VR) but more so because of how dicerolly games became because of it (once again, much like viv). Even then, i do not agree with Viv's placement on the current VR (i have constantly believed since it dropped it is a top 3 mon in the tier minimum, and even outside of viv i believed the current VR is flawed but that's a post for another time), and using viability to measure a Pokemon's uncompetitiveness is silly.

Anyways, really hope viv is banned. I would be open to giving it a look when all the DLC 2 drops come to the tier in 2 months, but for now for the sake of the tier's playerbase and for PUWC to not turn into teams with AV Komala everywhere i really would like to see it gone.

 

[Melt Gibson]

congrats to whatifred for winning the second suspect tour! they will qualify to vote in the suspect!

Semifinals 1 - FakeFan0 vs Pambopino
Semifinals 2- whatifred vs AMusicianChatot
Finals - whatifred vs Pambopino

bracket

 

[Melt Gibson]

been a bit since i've made one of these posts, so here goes! before the results this saturday i wanted to drop my thoughts on the topics at hand + some other miscellaneous stuff :)


is it broken? no. do i hate it, and wish with my every waking moment it was gone? yes. compound eyes sleep powder basically being a fast spore is very annoying and does make counterplay often come down to how many sleep turns the vivillon manages to get out of you. outspeeding after a QD is often difficult to manage, much less two, and this also assumes that the thing you're using to outspeed can actually check vivillon. hurricane being an actual reliable STAB move also sucks since at +2 it's going to start blowing massive holes in your team regardless, and not being able to bank on a miss as reliably as you would some others (masquerain, zard, etc) makes those do-or-die situations feel a lot worse to play out. i do agree with the points brought up stating that getting the conditions for a vivillon sweep are pretty dicey, usually requiring wearing down several threats that are very common at the moment, having the right tera, getting good sleep turns, etc., but the cheese factor alone ends up leading to it winning in a lot of situations where it shouldn't, and i think that's enough for me to want it gone.


what the fuck is this guy's problem? genuinely mandates a ghost at this point, and houndstone is the only one that's both reliable AND in favorable meta conditions right now. there do exist other checks: sableye stops it relatively well, and so do indeedee and zen headbutt muk. however, the problem with sneasel-h doesn't come from the lack of checks, but moreso the fact that it can reasonably tech for most of/all of them. SD/dual STABs are a given, and that last slot is a toss-up between extra coverage, trailblaze, sub, taunt, and more. this isn't even getting into the multitude of effective tera types you could run, ghost, dark, and fire are all perfectly viable and some others probably aren't bad either. there have been ample scenarios where i've seen it get a substitute up and just auto-win, or only lose because of a gunk shot miss. absolutely farms balance and seems a bit crazy to me in most matchups.


kinda cracked as a HO lead? combination of speed, volt immune, rocks, and memento make this very strong into a lot of structures and great at enabling your power plays to go ham. would 100% recommend.

 

[gum]

something i'd like to see more from the pro-ban side would be replays of vivillon doing something stupid, or proving to be a constricting presence in the builder. as of now, most conversations we've had in the discord and the room have led to nowhere because every single pro-ban argument is one that is only true on paper

vivillon being able to very rarely win once the stars align does not make it a broken or unhealthy element that we should seek to remove for the sake of the tier. i understand how the on-paper volatileness makes it undesirable to keep around for some, but what matters the most is practice. so far, vivillon has not been some presence you need to overprep for in the builder. most of our specially defensive walls, like chansey, muk, articuno, golem, and naclstack are not at all pokémon you want on teams because otherwise you'll lose to vivillon. they're all great defensive options that we'd be using regardless of the butterfly. the same thing can be said about offensive answers, like choice scarf swanna, morpeko, indeedee, and rotom, who are all good pokémon with or without vivillon. i really believe the building aspect has been overblown by the pro-ban side, while, again, there's been little to show for vivillon in games; looking at 10 scl games over 2 weeks, vivillon has been brought once, and it didn't do anything something else with a focus sash couldn't have done there. people aren't overprepping for it either, as most of them are as safe against vivillon than say, charizard or sneasel - two other random pokémon you have to be mindful of in the builder. and so this leads me to ask a question to everyone in this thread who has expressed to be pro-ban: what are your arguments based on, and how am i supposed to believe they have value when everything we've seen so far contradicts your arguments?

i view vivillon as a very unreliable sweeper, one that is not worth using on any team that isn't ho - a playstyle that inherently already hinges on luck. you shoot yourself in the foot by using something that, more often than not, fails to sweep because it needs too much to go its way, and, even then, is not something you have to pray you get lucky against; it doesn't hit particuliarly hard, it's easy to deny it setup opportunities, and it's not the hardest pokémon to outplay when most of its lines are so obvious as vivillon doesn't have the bulk or strength to afford getting a turn wrong

at the end of the day i wouldn't mind vivillon leaving, it doesn't really add much to the tier,. it's just not broken, unhealthy, or uncompetitive

 

[ishtar]

want reqs? take part in the roomtour tomorrow saturday @3pm -5, hosted by Hera!!

 

[Docter_Peng99]

Id say that vivilon is doing the exact same thing liligant did sleep powder quiver dance which means it should be banned but of course liligant is still decent with sleep powder quiver dance in nu but still, clearly it's the sleep setup combo that's making it broken.
Still rotom ice and rotom both outspeed with scarf and can destroy Viv with stabs.

 

[rien]

Id say that vivilon is doing the exact same thing liligant did sleep powder quiver dance which means it should be banned but of course liligant is still decent with sleep powder quiver dance in nu but still, clearly it's the sleep setup combo that's making it broken.

the broken lilli set was bulky synthesis, not sleep powder

 

[Hera]

due to both of the finalists of the most recent suspect tour having reqs, a match between the semifinalists decided who got reqs. however, the winner of that match has forfieted their reqs, so no one gets them. still, congrats to S1nn0hC0nfirm3d for winning the suspect tour!

semifinals 1: getting sturdy (Remedy4brokenh3art) vs puvl sugar (sugar ovens)
semifinals 2: zoowi vs. Ho3nConfirm3d (S1nn0hC0nfirm3d)
finals: Ho3nConfirm3d vs. puvl sugar
third place match: getting sturdy vs zoowi

bracket

 

[gum]

vivillon has been banned!
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-pu-stage-5-voting-vivillon.3731808/#post-9874425

this will probably be our last suspect test for the next couple of months, as we go through dlc 2. feel free to use this thread to discuss anything you want about the metagame!

 

[PrincessGardevoir]

vivillon has been banned!
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-pu-stage-5-voting-vivillon.3731808/#post-9874425

this will probably be our last suspect test for the next couple of months, as we go through dlc 2. feel free to use this thread to discuss anything you want about the metagame!

This changes almost nothing about my teams (but I can go back to Tera Grass on Golem-A for the Dug mu) but LETS FUCKIN GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

To not make this a one liner, I wanted to talk about a particular set on one of my favorite PU mons not named Golem-Alola once again!

Last Respects (Houndstone) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Fluffy
Tera Type: Dark / Fire / Fairy
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Poltergeist
- Shadow Sneak
- Play Rough / Body Slam
- Crunch

This is my favorite gluemon in the tier; Golem might be my favorite wallbreaker, Sneasel-H might be my favorite cleaner, but Houndstone keeps nearly every team I run together. AV plus Fluffy gives it incredible matchups across the board, being able to soak one hit from virtually every mon in the tier, and threaten back in return with Houndstone's solid Attack and Poltergeist access, as well as Shadow Sneak for priority.

Play Rough smacks the Darks fairly hard (Especially Bird) and Crunch 2HKOs Farigiraf; I also tried Body Press for a while to hit Orth for okay damage, but turns out Polter hits for more unless the target is Probopass or Avalugg-Hisui, so. Tera Dark is my go-to to block Will-o from Sableye, resist Knock Off, change your weaknesses to more contact-oriented types, and to better handle Farigiraf. Tera Fairy is kinda cool to instakill every Dark type around, especially Spiritomb and to call out Sneasel teras, while Fire means you don't lose to Charizard immediately.

EVs are pretty simple, he's got enough speed to beat out max speed non-jolly Golems and Jolly Avalugg-H. Because I've seen a bunch of Jolly leads and I'm tired of them.

I've advocated for slotting AVstone in on nearly every team I've seen since it just patches up so many defensive holes in a single slot; Spinblocker (not that said role is relevant,) CC absorber, wall for one of the best mons in the tier in Sneasel, priority mon to pick off teams lategame, and general nuisance because fat. I like him.

 

[asa]

Abomasnow moved from PU to NU
Chansey moved from PU to NU

Eelektross moved from NU to PU
Floatzel moved from NU to PU
Froslass moved from NU to PU
Mesprit moved from NU to PU
Palossand moved from NU to PU

December’s tier shifts! Losing Chansey is pretty big and will likely improve the viability of certain special attackers, though losing Abomasnow is significantly less notable outside of killing hail/veil offense ig. As for what we gained, everything looks really good (Mesprit might even be too good, tbh), and we finally have another Ground-type.

Looking forward to reading people's thoughts on the shifts :)

 

[Dorsia]

Glad to see Mesprit back in PU, the place it used to belong for some gens with its best allies being Skuntank and Gurdurr.

My favourite set in SV:



Mesprit @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Electric / Fairy
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Psyshock / Mystical Power (this move exists?)
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam / Dazzling Gleam

Mesprit is really unpredictable; Scarf, Specs, LO, CM, NP, perhaps Band as well.

 

[Melt Gibson]

time to drop my thoughts on the drops!!


This looks like it has the potential to be really broken, between its insane support movepool, access to any stat boosting move it could want, and any coverage under the sun. Knock, Rocks, Healing Wish, and U-turn are all great for team support. Calm Mind, Nasty Plot, and to an extent, Mystical Power, are lovely for offensive variants, and Levitate's interactions with Tera give it a shocking amount of defensive utility. Scarf or Specs AoA sets are also probably decent. While we definitely do need more time to see how things develop and to see if any of the checks overlap between sets, I'm not optimistic about it and do think this has potential to be silly.


Oh my god it's so good. Top 5, even. The classic AV pivot set with Thunderbolt/Flamethrower/Giga Drain/Volt Switch is as good as always, and Coil is a strong wincon with a lot of room for development. You do have to worry about Ground-types, but we're not exactly wealthy on that front and both sets have a variety of tools to get around them anyway, so it's no biggie. The eel came in at the best time ever for Electrics in SVPU, and I for one am very happy to see it.


OH MY FUCKING GODDDDD YES FINALLY A GROUND WITH A NOT SHIT SPDEF STAT AND ACTUAL RECOVERY AND UTILITY OUTSIDE OF SETTING ROCKS AND BLOWING UP JESUS FUCKING CHRIST (it's good and checks a lot, will probably become a tier staple)


A spiker that's not shit is always welcome here, I can finally build offense teams with a lead that isn't Dugtrio and I'm very thankful for that. Destiny Bond shenanigans are probably good, fast Taunt is great, and Ice/Ghost offensively is super solid as well. Just overall really good.


Hits like a freight train but with rain being pretty much dead idk how much we'll be seeing it. Still super fast and super strong though, so I can see it just doing what it's done in past gens but better.

 

[plznostep]

Winners and Losers of Drops

Hey PU, love the new drops in the tier but their aren't too many so I thought I would make a post like this instead because its fun to talk about what benefits from these drops that was already here >:)
I won't be covering everything that benefitted either because i wanted the post to look cute and there are too many.
(sprites are from the PMD Sprite Repository, they are all so cute! :D)

Winners

Ice-type Breakers

Now we have a fairly common Ground-type in Palossand, these Ice-type breakers have an easier target to come in on to start clicking their strong Ice-type moves. Additionally, Eelektross means that these Ice-type pivots have a really splashable slow pivot they can use to get in more easily, which they could struggle to do before due to their poor defensive typing. There is another winner here I want to mention that these two Pokemon benefit from getting better as well due to its hazard control in Lurantis, which I will be covering soon. I have also noticed myself that Ice-resists are fairly scarce or they are Pokemon like Orthworm who doesn't like taking Crabominable's Fighting-type moves or Knock Off while Glaceon is so strong that it doesn't care that Orthworm resists it. Out of these breakers, Crabominable is more potent I would say due to Glaceon having a tougher matchup into Articuno (although it does a lot of damage to it still) and Cryogonal while Crabominable's only real answer is Houndstone.

Clawitizer

What's that? Chansey left the tier? Clawitizer doesn't have a Pokemon who can actually counter it anymore? This change makes Clawitizer much more threatening because beforehand in a game if Chansey was there then it was very hard for Clawitizer to make progress. Now, there isn't a counter to Clawitizer anymore, Articuno is cleanly 2hko'd by Tera Dragon Dragon Pulse which was the second best thing to Chansey that could deal with it, and we have a lack of Fairy- and Specially Bulky Steel-types meaning Dragon Pulse is very free into the tier now without Chansey everywhere. The thing that keeps Clawitizer balanced is that its very slow so most special walls can invest into outspeeding it and its also fairly easy to revenge kill, but expect to see it more often since it a lot of the time can just force progress on an opposing team.

Lurantis

Lurantis benefits from these shifts quite nicely in my opinion as it is a great way of answering Floatzel and benefits from Palossand's existance as it completely stops that Pokemon from getting hazards up and blasts it with Leaf Storm. Thus, Defogging sets on this Pokemon are more valuable because it does better into hazard control and answers some scary Pokemon around in the tier. Conversely, their are more answers available to deal with Muk which was a hard counter to Lurantis before with Mesprit and Palossand being able to check Muk.

Bombirdier

Bombirdier benefits from Palossand and Mesprit's presence in the metagame as it completely destroys Palossand and can check Mesprit while also being a decent special wall in its own right versus Pokemon like Clawitizer, who you can EV to outspeed so you win versus it 1v1 due to Knock Off and Indeedee. It also provides Stealth Rocks and can also pivot with U-turn to get your threats in, while also boasting reliable recovery so it stays around during a game, which are all valuable traits.

Braviary

Braviary is a simple one, Palossand can't hit Braviary whatsoever and thus Braviary can find free ways to enter and potentially set up on it. That's basically it, while Braviary doesn't appreciate Eelektross, it doesn't mind it as such because Eelektross tend to go specially defensive and thus it can still chunk it fairly hard with Close Combat and Tera Ground is a fairly common Tera on Braviary anyways which helps your matchup versus Eelektross.

Losers

Dugtrio-Alola

There are multiple things Dugtrio-Alola hates about this drop. One, the tier dropped two Pokemon who have Levitate, one of which also resists Dugtrio-Alola's secondary STAB in Eelektross, although its worthy to note that Dugtrio-Alola resists most of Mesprit's moves, but it's Dugtrio-Alola; It's bulk is not good enough to take hits of course and if Mesprit is Tera Steel or Electric, then Dugtrio can't touch it at all. Two, the addition of Floatzel gives another Pokemon that can revenge kill Dugtrio-Alola due to being naturally faster and also hitting super effectively. What makes it even worse is that Floatzel has Aqua Jet meaning that Dugtrio-Alola can't pick it off at low hp with Sucker Punch. Three, Palossand entering the tier gives Dugtrio-Alola another check since Palossand can usually stomach its hits really well and hit it back hard with Earth Power. Not to mention Froslass's arrival makes it harder to justify using it as a lead for Hyper Offense since you're more likely to get more value out of Froslass since it has Taunt, Spikes, and can potentially take a Pokemon with it using Destiny Bond.

Sneasel-Hisui

Palossand being a very prominent Ghost-type is bad news for Sneasel-Hisui since sets outside of Trailblaze with Tera Grass and Tera Dark with Lash Out don't really fair to well into them, which can hurt Sneasel-Hisui's versatility. Froslass is also another Ghost that came to the tier but it's not nearly as good at checking Sneasel-Hisui. Additionally, Mesprit existing can also be a problem since Mesprit is fairly bulky, takes it's hits fairly well especially if its invested in physical defense and can threaten it back with Psychic, although it must also worry about Tera Dark. Lastly, Floatzel existing means that their is another Pokemon who isn't Persian-Alola who can potentially speed tie with Sneasel-Hisui which makes its hold on the speed tiers not as strong anymore but this is not that relevant. Sneasel-Hisui is still a great option though, these are just minor set backs for it.

Basculin

Floatzel almost completely outclasses Basculin unfortunately. Basculin has some notable traits, such as Rock Head to avoid Wave Crash recoil or potentially hitting harder with Adaptability/Reckless, but ultimately, Floatzel's superb speed and better coverage in Ice Spinner can make Basculin hard to justify over Floatzel.
​

 

[Morge]

Finally a tier shift that doesn't drop half of NU on us, I sure hope nothing happens this month that could change this.


Absurdly broken, between its several viable sets, pretty great bulk especially for an offensive mon of this caliber, and great tera options. Tera fairy dkiss with NP/CM alone feels busted and it can do so much more than that with seemingly very little overlap in counterplay. Oh and it gets budget torch song now so it can even set up on choiced sets because why not. Mons nuts please don't make us have to deal with this thing in PUWC I'm begging.


The SM goat is back. Eel has a lot of flexibility with what it can run, the classic AV slow pivot from gen 7 works great although it needs to run more SpD now, and coil is a scary wincon, and it has more room for experimentation because this thing learns every move in the game. Super splashable and generally very good mon.


A new ground type is very appreciated although palossand isn't the cure all to volturn we might have been hoping for, since its ghost typing and meh special bulk still leaves it vunerable to rotom and raichu-a, although its still a nice deterent for choiced sets. Its also semi exploitable, if you run both stabs you become set up fodder for braviary and give bombirdier and arboliva free switch ins, while slotting sludge bomb over earth power (not shadow ball that lets orthworm set up on you) does help with this but also makes you less effective against other mons (also walled by naclstack I guess). Its still great though, its a generally great phys wall with RELIABLE RECOVERY which is a rarity in this tier, especially for our phys walls. Its typing makes it an especially solid answer to all the fighting types, especially sneasel-h. Not quite the S(andaconda) tier ground we might have hoped for but still pretty great.


HO lead. Now a spikes lead is something HO didn't really have before unless you wanted to get super gimmicky and its really good at this job, but it kinda doesn't do anything else. If DLC later this month brings back triple axel I could see band sets becoming a thing again but for the time its fairly one dimensional.


Thankfully we aren't gonna be dealing with this thing under rain but its still has a lot of great traits for the tier. 115 is a great speed tier, putting it on par with the sneasels and persian-a as one of the naturally fastest mons in the tier, only outdone by the niche dugtrio and electrode. A strong stab move in wave crash lets it hit hard, it gets ice spinner to hit grass types, and it gets flip turn now to pivot. Its very frail and wave crash recoil makes that problem worse, and you're entirely dead into poliwrath but a great offensive pivot that I'm sure will make volturn teams even more fun to deal with.


Oh yeah we also lost chansey and abomasnow. Losing chansey really sucks, it kept a lot of scary stuff in check and helped hold a lot of balance teams together. Also stall is dead again lol. Losing abomasnow is much less detrimental, it was a solid breaker but I don't really think we lose much without it.

 

[Morge]

Wooo dlc yippee

Relevant NFE's:

New/Returning moves

(excluding dragon cheer and coaching since those are doubles exclusive, if I missed anything lmk)
Temper Flare:

Hard Press:

Alluring Voice:

Supercell Slam: (They finally give us a new physical electric type move and its a fucking jump kick clone. Still better than wild charge at least, as low of a bar as that may be)

Psychic Noise:

Upper Hand:

Pain Split:

Psych Up:

Triple Axel:

Double-Edge:

Endeavor:

Petal Blizzard: nothing!

Whirlpool:

Muddy Water:

Electroweb:

Sludge Wave:

Scorching Sands:

Feather Dance:

Future Sight:

Expanding Force: (I cannot believe they gave this back to mdd but not fdd)

Skitter Smack:

Meteor Beam:

Throat Chop:

Breaking Swipe:

Metal Sound:

Curse:

 

[LettuceLeaf07]

I started writing a random post last night about the changes I noticed, but Morge kinda did what I wanted to do but better. While Dewgong is an still OU staple, I still wanted to go over my opinions after maybe 7 or so games with the new mons.

THE best mon we got. First, it's a ground type that doesn't lose to our electric types (cough cough palossand). Whiscash is probably better than Rhydon at countering Rotoms and Raichus, but Morpeko can't touch Rhydon. Second, they gave Rhydon Supercell Slam. Why? I don't know. Since Stone Edge already hits flying types, this is probably only applicable to hit water types. It also gets heat crash, but I've found that it really doesn't need it, and that it isn't 120bp often. If you are using Supercell Slam, just remember that rock head does not block crash damage, but Reckless boosts crash damage moves.

This guy is the new meta. Friendly reminder: it is not weak to fire. Duraludon has the power to take a super effective hit, say "well that's not good," switch out, and STILL be usable. Somehow, I think that Rhydon is better. This either has to do with its lack of recovery due to eviolite or the fact that I'm running a very weird set (max def max spd evio twave sr draco bp). Its ability shouldn't matter too much unless you're using heavy slam, since neither low kick or heat crash are common. No idea if defensive sets, idbp, choiced special sets, sd, or maybe even resttalk will best on this mon, but it has options.

Teleport distribution increased. Unless their evolutions, Smeargle, or Deoxys drops down here, these are are non-gardevoir line teleporters. Wooo.

Best ice type. Haven't used it yet but between this and the other 2 NFEs you really should be using a fighting type.

Also, I've found myself really wanting a grass type to counter the Rhydons and Basculins I keep running into, but have not chosen to actually use one.