Lower Tiers Sword and Shield UU Discussion Thread

[Rae]

op stolen from the ou thread! approved by clementine

SS UU Discussion Thread​

This thread is dedicated to the discussion of the SS UU metagame. Discussion topics span from such things as metagame developments, set innovations, and general observations you have noticed as of late. You are welcome to post anything you like as far as the metagame goes, with a few simple rules.

Rules:

• Do not ask simple questions here; instead, post them to our "Simple Question, Simple Answer" thread.
• Do not post one-liners that contribute nothing to the discussion. We do not ask that you write giant paragraphs with each post; we simply ask that you ensure your post has substance and adds to the discussion.
• Posts should bear in mind the standard clauses, mods, and bans that are in place for the SS UU metagame:

Clauses & Mods

Here are some prompts to help guide your thinking:

• What are your personal favorite Pokemon to use in the metagame, and why?
• What current cores do you find to be strong or fun to use?
• Do you like the current metagame, or find it to be well balanced? Why or why not?

Remember that at any point, moderators have the discretion to intervene or remove posts as necessary.

 

[Rae]

To kick us off, I'd like to talk about some fun Pokemon I love using in the tier!



I feel like Rotom-Wash is an incredible Pokemon in the tier, functioning as a solid pivot into a large amount of the metagame, notably Hippowdon, Scizor, Celesteela and Mamoswine. The ability to spread status with Will-o-Wisp and Thunder Wave is always incredibly handy, and being a Defogger that can immediately punish common hazard setters is great. Pain Split constantly punishes common Chansey balance teams, and Rotom's fantastic synergy with a number of common offensive teammates like Scizor, Zarude, Nihilego and Hydreigon, as well as pairing well with defensive pieces like Salamence, Amoonguss, Nidoqueen and Tangrowth makes Rotom a fantastic glue and teammate, pairing well with a multitude of different Pokemon on Bulky Offense structures.



Whether its Boots or Scarf, Zarude is a poweful offensive pivot and revenge killer, capable of checking Excadrill and Primarina most notably, making it a strong option for a lot of teams that love its ability to force switches and punch holes through teams that may lack a safe switch-in. There's a lot to love about the monkey, and as someone who has always leaned towards the kinds of structures it commonly finds itself on I feel like not mentioning it here would be unfair. It's a fast, strong Pokemon that rewards good play and reminds you to stay humble in your approach offensively while having the potential to blow teams back. Even the Bulk Up set is worth a mention as probably my favourite set up sweeper in the tier.



If you know anything about me and my relationship with this tier, it's that I am this dog's number one fan, and no matter what I will constantly tell you that it is better than most people think. Lycanroc has the incredible potential to break apart defensive cores, but struggles greatly with the fact that it often has to kill itself due to Life Orb and potential Rocky Helmet Pokemon lying about. Choice Band variants are also very strong and tend to do well into offense, but lack the ability to switch between moves and therefore make it much more prediction reliant, This aside though, with the Amoonguss becoming more popular than Tangrowth, the surge of Cobalion and Crobat usage, as well as the popularity of Chansey and Salamence balance teams, Lycanroc-D may have a shot at becoming more popular because of its breaking potential.


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Just a small post for now, but I hope others join on talking about the tier :D

stay fresh​

 

[Liz Angeles]

UUFPL IV Teams/Review

W1 vs river

Kind of a weird team for this week, the basic idea behind cb azu was that it could punish teams with bad fairy resists, it actually does this better than prim because if you don't load chansey you need some sort of moonblast switch in, which you have a few different options for, but not all of them are good into azu. The biggest problem with running cb azu is it kinda sucks into skarm and amoonguss. This team fishes for no skarm a bit, although glowbro can win if you face spikes, it's just not a great mu on preview, but I didn't think that was particularly unreasonable into udon who i don't think has ever used skarm. safety goggles glowbro is a pretty massive threat into shroom teams though, it might not auto win but this team has enough longevity to play it slowly. goggles might be unnecessary but I really didn't wanna take stun spore on glowbro so i felt it was worth. The other reason i liked azu was that it was a breaker that outspeeds conk, which udon runs a lot. The main reason i lost this game was I didn't play well, i loaded into no fairy resist and loaded glowbro into hatterene, diggersby was kind of annoying for this team but I was disappointed in how i played it, put it down to rust or me not being very good idc.

W2 vs leni

this team was pretty sick, i originally had some different sets but refined it a bit with some help from crushy. psyshock slowking was one change we made, not something i'd normally ever consider but you're running two special breakers on this team essentially so future sight was kind of luxury rather than something needed to force progress, and the mu into sub prim and bounce gyara was a lot harder without psyshock, ended up running into sub prim so it was a good thing i did change it. Played around with a few different kiss sets but ultimately twave was the only one that gave me a playable ho mu and overall felt most solid. Idk if this hydreigon set is really good or not but the idea was that in a lot of mus scarf kinda sucks and with this set you can try to switch it in on knock offs and keep boots on other mons, idk if you really need all this hp but I'm also not sure how much you need more spatk so I ran with it. aside from that everything is fairly normal, pairing chandy with kiss is really cool in breaking down each other's checks but i think this team would struggle with certain chansey structures, i just felt it kind of maximised my chances for this week cos it was really different from my usual stuff (kind of a theme this tour) and would catch a lot of stuff i expected to face. Still probably didn't play all that great this week though, did enough to win but I felt kinda rushed and unfocused.

W3 vs franco

prep was pretty tough for this game, I started prep during w2 tbh cos i played really early and had the free time. Franco had reused teams from the previous uufpl up to this point and he used stall a decent amount so i knew i had to have the tools to beat that, was also slightly concerned about facing prim diggersby as i felt like people were spamming those and tang into me, likely because my amoonguss and tang usage was very low and diggersby and prim generally do well into zarude structures (or grassless which i'd brought twice already this tour.) I knew I wanted to bring one of tang or amoonguss but I genuinely hated everything I was building with them because I didn't feel they matched up that well into franco overall. Then I started looking at thund t into him, more specifically this 6 which i rmt'd and I felt it was a good call, but still being concerned about the trends i'd been facing i tried to consider whether there was a way I could fit tang over zarude, which necessitated a few other changes that ultimately led me to this 6. I don't normally like darkless because of the threat double dance reuni poses as well as polt but i felt that it wasn't reasonable to run a dark type literally every week and i bring them so often that double dance reuni would be a slightly wild bring into me. I did consider some other stuff, fspin drei was one option, also had some amoong + steela + togekiss stuff which seemed promising, but i felt this was the best balance between comfort, accounting for the opponent, and accounting for general stuff i'd been facing a lot. mu was probably the worst I could've gotten from the scout, and gyara easily could've lucked through everything, but ultimately think my play was solid here, and this game really showed the power of sd u turn sciz which isn't normally a set i think is that great but was ultimately needed here to help break through amoong structures which are often kinda soft into it. played the endgame pretty riskily but i didn't wanna sit for another 20 minutes tryna break through amoong hippo if i got turns wrong and let keld in at the wrong times etc, and probably i was always too far ahead to lose at that stage, but yea would not recommend playing like that lol. other interesting turn in this game was t2, going thund to volt switch might seem slightly strange but the idea was that if it was spore it'd always click it there and if it wasn't spore then i shouldn't let nihi take para for basically no reason, keeping rocks up vs tenta wasn't realistic at that stage anyway and there was nothing else i could let take sleep. definitely still had some stuff to improve on after this week but overall i felt i was as close to playing at my highest level as i'd been since sspl/uuwc, I was testing with tmm a lot which really helped get my instincts back so shoutouts him for that. Holy shit tang is bad though, even when i was testing it felt like i had a team with 5 pokemon and a tangrowth but i tried to cope and tell myself it's needed here for prim and grounds but it's barely even good into them, never using it again.

W4 vs lostmemories

this was basically a lily team with steela over reuni, i didn't really plan on it but I liked the idea of adding toad to amoong + steela and then i wanted heal bell and it felt like this structure was kinda forced. bit of a random bring but i was testing it and it felt fine and i figured it'd have a playable mu into everything. Also had a hippo version which was interesting, sand chip was kinda useful and it was arguably more solid, but i was slightly concerned about random suicune (not that toad actually beats suicune but amoong + toad should stall it out fairly well unless i'm bad). toad without tox is kinda weird but i feel like ep is kinda necessary for coba here and you can't drop your other moves so yeah, steela toxing mence isn't exactly unrealistic anyway. overall synergy of this team is pretty cool, the defensive core really applies pressure in the right areas for coba and kiss to thrive. loaded into a pretty weird mu, i think i probably made it closer than it should've been but i wasn't familiar with my opponent at all so it was hard to get a read on what they'd click, felt during the game they didn't have the most solid grasp of what was happening. turn where i sacked drei was weird, i could've stayed because facade needed a pretty high roll to kill me and they technically shouldn't rly risk it but if they went for it and i lost shroom i felt i should be losing long term + ice punch seemed fairly reasonable into me so i was concerned about that, any other switch risked too much while i felt that sacking drei essentially solved all my problems and i could close out the game without too much trouble from there, didn't anticipate lo coba doing 98% to toad, shit nearly gave me a heart attack, was dead to max roll which would've lost me game on spot probably, more patient play with coba could've caused me a real problem but ig you can't click cc into toad without revealing orb anyway so who knows. from there they probably could've put up more of a fight by trying to 1v1 kiss with chansey, it would've lost but depending on how it worked out i could've been low enough that molt became a real threat, once molt went down sub coba was always gonna win though, overall probably not my best showing but i managed to get the win which was the main thing.

W5 vs tmm

I had tested a lot with tmm the past couple weeks of this tour so I was concerned about this week because he's very familiar with my play, and i felt if i got behind it'd be harder than usual to come back because he knows how i click in those situations. with that said my advantage this week was gonna be in builder because while i rate tmm there and he's very creative i felt that he often left long term weaknesses due to not having the most solid resists to things, and to give myself the best chance to win that was the area i had to exploit. I built this team for homefield advantage like 20 minutes before i was meant to play someone, it's basically just solid core + conk, one of the most boring teams ever, but scizor and zydog are the type of mons that will kill you long term if your team isn't the most objectively sound, especially with conk to open holes for them. i changed the scizor to this cos i've been most comfortable with this set recently and made zydog iron tail because i was slightly concerned about togekiss and the last move can be basically whatever, overall felt very confident loading this though. ended up getting a kind of weird mu, big problem for me was getting up rocks was really difficult and i couldn't really deal with port chansey, in a vacuum it's probably not that bad for me but allowing free rocks t1 was awful, staying and flaming into chans was also horrendous though so idk, playing out of position with rocks off here just wasn't really doable. was incredibly fortunate he let coba go down and i also p much needed a first turn wake, but i found a winpath and played towards it and managed to pull it out, was getting kinda frustrated at this point cos i felt like i hadn't really played well in most of my games even though i'd won 4 of them but wins are wins ig.

W6 vs zs

tbh at this point i really just was not that motivated for ss, i was enjoying sv a lot more and i felt like i was getting forced into boring team choices because they were just the correct thing to bring and i really wanted to win this tour. i felt like nihi was objectively the correct bring here and other structures with it just didn't really appeal to me, so i went with this. i brought the same team in snake except i had hex nihi, and zydog over diggersby, + a couple other minor tweaks. I can't really take credit for this team cos i think attribute used basically the same thing before me although it was in my builder for a long while before snake, this structure has been brought a bit by a few different people though, franco even loaded it w7 with prim over suicune, it's just overall pretty solid and when i brought it in snake it got a pretty good mu into mantine stall which is a sign of a good suicune team probably (alas i lost cos i'm bad). i really tried to make other stuff work but i really did hate like 90% of the mons in this tier by now so my options were limited. game was pretty bad, i don't even wanna analyse cos there were multiple nonsense clicks where i just forgot what i was doing, incredibly disappointing. hindsight says i shouldn't have taken twave off nihi and if i really wanted to load knock nihi i should've used a different team cos you need a way to punish coba here.

W7 vs javi

an old classic. rmt'd this a while ago. i think while it's probably not the most objectively sound team and it breaks a lot of rules of this tier that's part of what makes it as threatening as it is, the entire plan is just to get hazards and vortex the opponent to death and it regularly does this. mostly loaded it cos we had to win the week and i wanted to click a bit. think the only interesting turn in battle was t25, objectively i should iron defense here but i was pretty tilted by the gsc game just before this so my thought process was basically that if i clicked it i'd get crit anyway and it's probably still winning if i don't get the roll the next turn anyway, just would've had to work a bit harder. i sack zarude on t36 because i want to prevent nihi from getting a speed boost cos crit hex could kill slowking, the way i played it i was only dead to crit on zarude into crit on slowking, and once i avoided the crit on rude the game ends as soon as i get slowking in vs steela.

probably the last time i play this tier for a while although tbh who really knows. I just feel completely burned out with it at this point and i've started hating like all the interactions the tier has which is probably a sign that i need more time away from it. wanted to post something before i take a step back though so here we are. would like to shoutout Crushy for helping me prep this tour and TMM for testing a lot during the middle of it, really helped me shake the rust off, also thanks to umbry for listening to me whine a bit during w7 and telling me the team i loaded would probably win. 5-2 isn't a bad record all things considered but it doesn't feel particularly good, especially given we missed playoffs, that's mons though ig. I would drop a load of metagame hot takes or something to close this out but all of my opinions are unfortunately really boring, so yeah, thanks for reading or whatever.

 

[Attribute]

After a little bit over a year of playing this tier in tournaments, I've decided to make this post to reflect on my current thoughts of the metagame. This tier in particular will always feel a bit special to me, as it's the first tier that isn't Monotype that I really tried to get into/put some effort in, and it's the one I've enjoyed the most out of the lower tiers I've dipped into in the past year. Before diving into my thoughts, I would like to thank kumiko and Lyssa for their posts on this tier, as it played an important role in helping me learn the tier by knowing what's good and what isn't, as well as knowing what certain things do. Some parts of their influence can still be seen in the teams I make today, and things would probably be very different if I've never came across those posts. Highly recommend these posts for anyone trying to get into SS UU! Lastly, I would like to thank bb skarm and Cam for drafting me in UUPL XI (I was just a friend pick, thank you DugZa for telling them to get me lol), as it was my first team tournament in a tier forum (that isn't Monotype), and it really started my enjoyment for the tier.
kumiko's Post: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/scl-ii-uu-discussion.3706982/page-3#post-9403637
Lyssa's Post: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...y-ranking-thread.3674793/page-24#post-9396179

The following VR is similar to the one I submitted for the actual VR, I just took out the random nonsense mons that I don't feel like talking about or don't know much about (you seriously can't tell me 'sigigastro' was a thing at one point...). Also disclaimer: I've never made a VR before so it may be possible that the tiers I put some mons in might be nonsense, so just focus on the descriptions I have for them. Also note that I put everything within the tiers in alphabetical order, so the ranks within the tier aren't relevant. Without further ado...

Personal SS UU VR:

S:
- Probably a surprise to some, but the lone mon in S is nihi. It is by far the most consistent rocker (aside from maybe chansey), and is able to check some of the more prevalent special attackers in the tier, such as thundt, toge, scarf hydrei, etc. People would probably say exca removes vs it but knocking it off on switch in + having something such as flame body or rocky helmet on your team invalidates it altogether. Lots of different ways to just be annoying, such as twave or sludge bomb poisoning, or having a random coverage move that might throw off your opponent. Meteor beam sets are a waste of a nihi imo, but their existence can possibly have an influence on your opponent during a game. Sometimes feels hard to kill cause black sludge just keeps it alive for long periods of time and nothing really removes it aside from knock thundt. Non rocks sets with black sludge are great too, and can cause even more of an annoyance. Overall a great mon, and will usually always have an impact on any given game with the right set. It can maybe be a bit exploitable so this can definitely drop in the future, but for now, I think it's the best mon in the tier.

S-:
- What most would probably consider to be the best mon in the tier. It's impact is felt in the builder, more so than almost every mon in the tier, and has a lot of ways to function as a rocker or a set up mon. SD cob is probably slightly better than its rocker variant, but both can still be super annoying. People realizing gbro exists kinda drops it off for me, as well as people (usually) always being prepared by cob by virtue, so I wouldn't consider it the best mon in the tier. Best way of dealing with zor with more fast paced teams, and can switch into a nihi. Iron head flinching after an SD makes its usual checks not always reliable, further making it annoying to deal with defensively. Can justifiably run either twave or toxic, and any form of applying paralysis, burn, or poison will always be valuable, which will probably be seen throughout this post.
- Has possibly the most threatening knock off in the tier, even if it has no attack investment whatsoever. Has been knocking off boots on everything for a very long time, making zor + rocks one of the more threatening things in the tier. There are ways around this; it isn't necessarily hard to find counterplay its still a zor, and it's impact offensively isn't why it's here. Defensively, it can't get poisoned, and is one of the few things that can switch into chansey while not really being annoyed by paralysis, should it have twave. Takes advantage of hippo, which is always appreciated. More often than not, there is probably always gonna be a way to win with SD zor. It's here for it's SD sets, but stuff like band can maybe have potential, as well as some defog sets. I haven't really tried either of those though, cause why do so when I can just use SD?

A+:
- On the same level as nihi in terms of its effectiveness on keeping rocks up. Kinda just able to status everything whether its poison or paralysis (mostly effective at the latter though) and is pretty much the only thing that can switch into non snore prim consistently. Can be abused by hazards but nonetheless its a chansey, and should never really be useless in any given game.
- One of the best forms of speed control in the tier. Ground type + speed control are already good traits, but having uturn is a bonus. Even if its still a scarfer, it can still be annoying to switch into, especially if you're getting turns wrong. SD sets have potential.
- Ground resists in this tier kinda suck which makes exca good. Good role compression since its ground + steel type + hazard removal (not the best at it but still solid) all in one slot. Can occasionally toxic common switch ins. Grass types aren't always safe due to +2 iron head being able to flinch them down, or zarude just not being able to take it well. Not really a wincon/shouldn't be put on a team to function as one, but it is capable of winning games occasionally.
- This is probably an A rank mon but... oh well lol. Good form of speed control, scarf dark pulse is surprisingly threatening if you don't play primarina or toge. Non scarf variants are cool, such as specs and taunt, but I feel like your team is gonna end up auto losing to something in the builder if you don't use scarf. Due to this, I think it can be A.
- Probably one of the more reliable hazard removers in the tier. EQ should be used more, being able to not be nihi food is too good of a trait to always drop. DD sets can be cool, just hard to build a team around with on non ho. The surprise factor of DD can really turn a game around though, it's just hard to disguise it on a team very well. Has a surprisingly hard hitting hurricane.
- Good old reliable. One of my favorite mons to use, and it does so much on one slot. It's main trait is being able to absorb scizor knock and threaten it out, meaning you don't have to switch into your flying type every time vs it and have your boots knocked off (think moltres/mence/mandi etc). Even having your cobalion not knocked can go a long way. Another thing is being able to check sd cob, which is one of the main things you have to account for in the builder when building a team. Beats chansey 1v1, neutralizes demon regi, doesn't necessarily mind taking the amoong stun spore cause the threat of sludge bomb poisoning still exists, and just being able to live ground moves from zyg/digg/exca so you can stay in once and regen it off later. There's probably a lot more, but these traits are what first came to mind. Should definitely be used more.

A:
- The grass types in this tier are a bit strange. The big ground types in the tier are zyg/digg/exca and it can only take on digg well, which isn't really ideal for a grass type. Having to add a zyg answer on a team right after adding a grass type kinda sucks, and is one of the reasons I don't have much usage of it; it's a grass type without the ideal traits of a grass type. In all fairness to it, it's very good if you do run into digg but yeah being mid vs the other two offensive isn't great. Stun spore super annoying to switch into if you don't have your own amoong, and it's impact is felt when teambuilding.
- One of my more favorite mons in recent times. Taunt sets are alright, but I've been a huge fan of NP hex sets in recent times, as its a wincon that naturally outspeeds all the non scarfers in the tier. Does need a bit of support and it's not really splashable so perhaps it's an A- rank mon in actuality but I was biased when I was making this so...
- If you build this tier you're probably thinking how the hell you're supposed to deal with this thing and you probably end up defaulting to chansey + snore answer. Basically the mon you have to cope the most for in the builder if you don't use chansey. Offensive prim is super dumb to account for in the builder but teams its on usually end up being weak to a thing or two, but nonetheless the payoff of using it can be ridiculous. Snore prim is a bit easier to check but it can check some stuff defensively such as non ihead sd cob so the tradeoff isn't bad.
- Interesting mon. It doesn't really check anything super specific, but rather it soft checks a good portion of the tier, but because of that it can potentially get overwhelmed. Due to that it's not really the most splashable mon but it's still very good. Susceptible to status but it shouldn't be a big deal most of the time. Slightly a cope response to offensive prim. In my opinion, it's best trait is being able to somewhat neutralize boots azelf, and if they happen to be ebelt azelf they're on a timer due to hazards. Solid mon overall, can't ever go wrong with something that has regen
- Not as good as prim in terms of having to switch into, but it's up there. One of the few things that can actually remove nihi's black sludge, which can go a long way. Can be an electric immune as long as you have amoong or zarude on your team, so it's defensive profile isn't super terrible. One of my favorite things to pair crobat with, as it's something that benefits from the lack of black sludge on nihi.
- Best grass type in the tier in my eyes. Slowking is generally pretty stupid to switch into but this just invalidates that altogether. I think scarf sets kinda suck cause imo one of the main reasons to use this is to not have slowking walk all over you and having scarf makes you pretty awkward into it, nor do I think it's an ideal scarfer to have cause your speed control also ends up being your check to ground types, so it can get kinda messy in that department. As mentioned earlier, the grass types in this tier are awkward and zarude being bad vs scarf digg teams is certainly a big negative for it.
- One of the big 3 ground types. Can kind of act as a form of speed control on fatter teams as long as you aren't weak vs raikou/azelf defensively. Somewhat similar to digg in the sense that it's a form of speed control + ground type, just not always gonna be speed control on every team you put it in. Tang dropping in usage makes this pretty good and can honestly be A+ on this list.

A-:
- Mixed feelings about this mon. It's definitely good, I like boots sets a lot but it is pretty useless defensively so it only really ends up fitting on the balanceish teams. Should be used as a form of speed control when putting it on a team cause 361 speed is still a respectable speed tier and has to make up for the fact that it can't switch into anything. Excellent mon against fat, even if they have a slowking since you can potentially vortex them. I don't think ebelt is ideal, and I especially don't recommend putting it on bulkier teams cause it's just gonna take hazards multiple times since you're uturning half the time, and thus you'd want the longevity of boots.
- Could farm pretty hard even if teams are slightly prepared. Somewhat similar to prim in the sense that you're probably gonna have to trade against it, though it is harder to switch into for sure. Being on a timer hurts it A LOT though
- Invalidates HO pretty hard. It's pretty shit at removing hazards so you should never use it as means of taking knock offs.
- Flame body has insane targets, such as azelf, zor, exca, digg, and more. Definitely needs to be paired up with good removal though
- Switches into cob + nihi, ground type, rocks setter all in one slot is great for it, though taking a knock off from nihi can suck if it does happen to be that. Slowking food but it's defensive profile kind of justifies it.
- Underrated mon imo, there are times where I favor using it more than azelf. Unlike azelf, it has some uses defensively such as being able to switch into prim once (this goes a long way), can switch into toge, and can switch into thundt a couple of times. Has the same speed and pivots similarly to azelf. Having the opportunity to scald burn the ground types is an amazing trait for it, and is a good reason to use it over azelf on some teams. It's worse vs fat and it can still feel kind of weak, but it's still great as a form of speed control that can take a hit when needed.
- Invalidates gbro and is a decent zyg switch in. It has it's moments where it feels super broken, though it can't really fit on every team
- Similar to reun, although it doesn't really do anything defensively, though it does have good defensive stats. Similarly, it can't really fit on every team. Sub rest is by far it's best set, being able to not get taken advantage of slowking tporting into something that forces it out while having the longevity of the typical crocune set is excellent. The counterplay for this thing is pretty limited and, honestly, it should be banned LOL it's just a super lame mon all around and can pretty much just be an insta win button. Not to mention it can just pp stall the things it needs to.
- Unique defensive traits. Able to neutralize demon regi, switch into zydog, and walling scarf hydrei are all convenient. Surprisingly versatile; doesn't necessarily have to be limited to its np/healbell/airslash/roost set (though that is probably the more consistent one). Also checks prim at the absolute slightest.

B+:
- Not super high on this mon as it's a defensive steel type that doesn't really check anything (aside from exca) defensively, but is just something whose goal is to be annoying. I don't think it's super hard to account for flame/slam/leech/tox sets in the builder, but I suppose this thing just auto wins if you don't have its usual counters. It's mbeam set is good though, and can actually apply to non ho.
- This is pretty much a must use on ho. 90% of teams are threatened by a gyara sweep, and the diff combinations of coverage moves just make it more troubling. A bit hard to fit on non ho cause of how much it needs removal but the payoff can be huge
- Sub CM sets are the only sets to entertain tbh. It can win games by surprise, though you'd probably rather use sub rest suicune more often than not. Still a threat that should be respected nonetheless, and can punish unprepared teams pretty easily.
- I don't think the id/amnesia set is too good anymore, but I think it's a solid rocker. It's similar to chansey that can actually fit on more teams since it's a steel, but it isn't really susceptible to stealth rocks. Can twave and toxic like chansey, and can act as a prim check.
- I've never used this mon before but it's not bad and can probably be A-. Farms exca teams pretty easily, though it is susceptible to rocks. This ends up leading to using something like dhelm or starmie with it, though those mons have some issues that make skarm teams kinda awkward.
- Pretty underrated mon. Not really exclusive to ho; it can fit on bulky offense just fine. Specs sets are cool, as well as black sludge sets which is a great way of making progress while having some type of longevity. Soft checks cobalion which is a cool thing it can do defensively

B:
- Pretty good at keeping rocks up, though the teams it ends up on can be sketchy. Sand stream usually ends up working against the user, but using sand force is still troll. Can be taken advantage of pretty hard but I suppose it does actually check a lot of stuff defensively.
- Weird mon. I think defog is the only set that can actually fit onto a team and it's actually decent at removing hazards, but the wilo set is insanely hard to make full use of and not splashable at all. It doesn't check too much defensively and not that threatening offensively and it's pretty much carried by volt switch. Could be B-.
- Respectable rocker. Similar to hippo, just not as passive. I am potentially overrating it though and it can probably fall to B-.
- Do not use AV, defensive sets with helmet are usually the only sets entertaining 99% of the time. The only grass type that can actually deal with all 3 of zyg/digg/exca at the same time which deserves some credit. Amoong food, though infestationing it on switch can at least prevent doubles from happening. Good band daunt answer, and a decent way of dealing with conk, though not that reliable
- Very underrated grass and is probably deserving of B+ just looking at the competition in this rank lmao. Taunt sets can soft check reun, as well as suicune and prim. Can switch into zyg fairly easily, and can punish digg uturns with helmet. SD sets can be cool too, though it does require having the ideal coverage for every mu.

B-:
- This mon is a kind of a budget conk in every way possible, though I suppose it's easier to use. Can farm pretty hard, though cob being able to switch into a knock off is pretty unfortunate for it.
- A cool mon that I figured can be used in a similar way people were using it in ORAS OU, though it's mostly only applicable to suicune teams. Being able to give suicune pp back, or generally just heal anything useful back up is nice, but it's cool thing trait is being able to defensively check conk (really the only thing in the tier that can do this), which can prove to be useful for chansey teams. Other than that, it's just a really fat mon, that can soft check zyg, offensive prim, gyara, and so on. Twave is a must for it to make up for the passiveness.
- Can/should only be on skarm teams. It doesn't have many great traits that a grass type should have, but it can be worked around. 8 pp healing move with no regen sucks though.
- Respectable rocker, which can also soft check offensive prim, as well as shut down reun. Has a decent amount of twave targets + it has uturn so it's not a complete momentum sink
- Good rocker on ho. Taunt tox sets can be cool
- Switching into this can kind of suck but it's still a worse conk in my eyes
- DD sets can be pretty scary if you aren't running a mandi. Has enough sets to make it hard to have a concrete gameplan against. Can probably be B.
- 3 atk lo starmie can probably be B as well. Only thing that can really switch into it reliable is chansey, though pivoting around it is doable. Hazards + life orb + the threat of status make it manageable to deal with though.

There's at least 30 other mons I don't really feel like talking about cause they're likely bad but I figured that there were some worth mentioning:
C+:
- Pretty much shuts down prim/reun/suicune/gbro all while being a cleric. Valuable asset to hippo teams especially
- Can status nihi while potentially being annoying to switch into but it does zilch defensively
- Cool spike setter on ho
- Similar to articuno, though it is susceptible to status and it's more of a prim/reun answer if anything
- This mon is not worth using and it should never come to the point where you ever need to use it but I guess...
- Can punish digg/zyg teams. Speed control slot
- Good rocker which can honestly move up to B-, maybe B. One way of dealing with suicune, though as a ground type it's not great
- Prim switch in, though it's not hard to wear down and status sucks for it
- Owns ho pretty hard

Conclusion:
As mentioned earlier, this is the VR I submitted a few weeks ago (aside from the C rank mons) so there's still a little bit of things I'd change. Regardless of people's opinions on this tier, this was a pretty fun meta to get into if you don't mind the possibility of playing a long game every now and then. Suicune is pretty dumb for the tier imo, and is one thing I'd ban if I had to change something about the tier. Throughout the tours I've played over time, my takes on the meta changed as time went on, and it can kind of be seen on the teams I use each tour. Even with that, I really still do think that there's more things that can change up in the future, and there's many more ideas that I still have in store that I haven't really shown yet, and I look forward to showcasing them one day. Anyway, for those who managed to make it this far, thank you for reading! It's been a fun year

 

[Liz Angeles]

The current discussion around freeing uubl mons has made me reflect a lot on the tier so I wanted to write a more long-form post on where the tier is at and what the goal of dropping mons to change it would be, and whether or not it should be seriously considered. To start with, there's a perception of ss as a boring tier which I don't really agree with. Boring games do happen, but are most often a result of people making overly passive choices in the builder and they often get punished for it. This isn't to say that we're secretly playing this incredibly offensive tier where games are won and lost in the first 50 turns all the time, but the perception is far from the reality. Fundamentally the tier rewards good long term planning and playing towards bulkier wincons or positioning yourself into advantageous momentum cycles, and picking the right moments to seize back momentum and force progress. Broadly speaking I consider this the identity of the tier, and I think at times it can be engaging to both watch and play, however a lot of people feel differently, and it can be a very frustrating tier to play and prep for at times, largely because of the builder pressure applied by certain mons leading towards more "solved" structures, but tbh if you've watched recent games of this tier I feel like we've seen a lot more off-meta choices.

With all that said, the fundamental problem ss uu has is that a lot of people just don't like its identity. You can see this in the people playing it very often being semi-random tour players slotted in cos uu mains don't really enjoy it, and the general complaints whenever people bring certain team styles, or when there are long periods of not much happening in games. With that said, I think the general consensus among people who do play the tier is that it's fairly well balanced and while it has its annoying aspects that's just kinda the game we play. Given that, where does the desire to consider dropping multiple uubls at once, or freeing some of the more egregious uubls come from? From my perspective, I'm incredibly interested to see what the tier would look like if latias dropped, but from an identity standpoint I can't even vaguely justify this. I could talk about all the positives I think it could bring to the tier, however it would completely recentralise the tier around itself and fundamentally the dynamics would be incredibly different. The same could be said about aegislash or pretty much anything else you wanna talk about in uubl, with the exception of thund-I which I'll talk about later. My point here is that, the desire to drop these mons comes from a desire to make the tier more like other tiers, and ultimately leads me to the question of why? Why touch one of the more unique uu tiers in order to appease people who aren't really interested in playing it? Of course there are always gonna be people like myself who are just really intrigued by something like latias and don't think it would be broken, however the more I think about it the more I question whether satisfying my curiosity on this is really worth losing the identity of the tier that got me into tours and has generally been one of the most enjoyable tiers I've played, as much as I've been pretty fed up with it recently. Some people may disagree, but I've come to the conclusion that advocating for more wholescale changes to the tier is to no one's benefit.

With that said, I think the impact of freeing thund-I is much less significant than anything else in uubl, and adding its speed tier could have a lot of positive impacts on the tier. Other people's concerns with it basically being a faster thund-t do resonate with me as well, given that thund-t is a mon you often deal with by being faster than it, but overall i do think this could be worth a test at some point. With that said, I'm not sure this is the right time. I struggle to define who the ssuu playerbase even is atm, and while you could say this is concerning, it makes it incredibly difficult to justify taking action on anything, because I genuinely don't know who we're taking action for. I really do hope to see this tier thrive, but I struggle to see how a thund-I ban would positively impact things atm if the majority of games are probably gonna be people recycling teams from the current meta. You could also say that this shows a test is justified, but I'd rather hold off until such a time as there is more concrete support for it.