Hello everyone, pp here. Now that GSCPL III has concluded, I wanted to take the time to write up a VR post for GSC UU considering I got a lot of practice with the tier during the tour. Funnily enough, GSC UU is being featured this month as an RoA spotlight ladder with an accompanying tour, so I hope this post will be helpful and encouraging to people just starting with the tier. Before I start, I want to give a big thanks to
cherryb0ng,
Celebiii, and
holly/dawn for helping me prep for my games and giving me copious practice battles to hone my UU skills. I wouldn't be writing this if it wasn't for your help! I highly encourage anyone interested in GSC lower tiers to check out dawn's excellent YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@dawn2955. Without further ado, let's begin!
S tier
By far the greatest play-maker in the tier, and the pokemon I think is the most important to prep for in the builder. With +2 attack and DE-hp ground coverage, Scyther 2 shots almost the entire tier. I wouldn't bother with hp bug anymore, the coverage from ground is too important for mons like Omastar and Haunter. It has unparalleled speed for the tier, outrunning and seriously threatening offensive staples like Mr. Mime and Gyarados. You're only really safe vs Scy if you're running Crobat or Shuckle and both of these pokemon are highly exploitable and only fit on stall teams which I personally don't consider very good. Scyther can even pass its boosts to its teammates for additional destruction, although baton pass is incompatible with double edge which definitely stings. Another cool tech is light screen to set up on pilo, nido, and oma. Just be careful not to get frozen as that's one of the worst feelings in the world.
This is the Snorlax of GSC UU. Unprepared teams
will get run over by curse resttalk Granbull. Almost all teams are forced to have either a normal resist or immunity to avoid losing to bull. The standard and best set is mono normal, but 2 attacks with hp ground is also viable, although it does now lose to Slowbro. There are also other more niche options like a restless curse user with LK on hyper offense teams, 2 attacks with thunder to lure Omastar which otherwise is probably the best Granbull check, or even resttalk with heal bell. Granbull isn't quite as flexible as Snorlax is in OU, and it can sometimes struggle with strong special attackers, but only a fool would discount how dangerous it is. There's a reason most people consider it #1.
Spikes. Without spikes, this tier would be close to unplayable, and Qwilfish is the only viable spiker. If Granbull is UU's Snorlax, this is UU's Cloyster. Qwilfish is quite fast for the tier, and so it's often more than just a suicide spiker. It can hit deceptively hard, making it harder to switch into than you might first imagine especially considering sludge bomb's 30% poison rate. Often times your best option is to 1v1 the opposing Qwilfish with your own to avoid taking damage on your other pokemon. The first 3 moves are always locked to spikes + stabs (don't bother with surf, just stick with hydro), but in the last slot you have the choice between haze and curse. Haze can help disarm a setup sweeper like Granbull or Pinsir (although you must account for the speed tie vs the latter), while curse helps muscle through Blastoise which can otherwise be a very annoying roadblock while also giving your team an extra, albeit often ineffective wincon. Qwilfish has traditionally not been considered S tier, but I think the astronomical usage rate speaks for itself. The only teams that should consider dropping it are HO and SOME but not all stalls.
A+ tier
If you consider yourself a button clicker, this is the pokemon for you. Piloswine is by far and away the best ground type in the tier, sorry Nidoqueen lovers. I will admit that Nidoqueen has a higher ceiling than pilo, but I think the mammoth is an overall more consistent choice in today's meta. Pilo should only ever run stabs and resttalk; trying out other options removes what makes pilo so threatening. Being able to attack while sleeping makes pilo an insanely dangerous threat especially considering its perfectly complementary stabs. The defensive liability of ice/ground typing is not so much an issue in UU where grass types are rare, and fire and fighting types are almost nonexistent. Pilo's ice neutrality forces electrics to run hp water which cuts into their bulk more than hp ice. Most of the tier will be at least 3hko'd by one or both of Piloswine's stab moves, and the ones that aren't are constantly threatened by the prospect of being frozen (with the exception of opposing pilo, of course). Ice beam is probably the freest move to click t1 with pilo, as pilo is great at forcing switches and the more opportunities you get to freeze the opposing Gyarados or Blastoise, the better. Base 100 attack stab EQ hits very hard and 1 crit can spell doom for the likes of Slowbro, reflect Hypno, and Granbull. Piloswine has had a stranglehold on the tier for the past year and a half now, and
cherry made an excellent video on the topic.
I think mime is the best psychic in the tier. This is a reasonably controversial take considering Hypno's longstanding dominance, but I think mime's greater offensive pressure and unpredictability give it an edge. Standard resttalk with psychic and thunder is a very solid rest talker and will dish out powerful special hits with the best of them. Mime on mime mirrors are a seriously common occurrence between offense teams because of how difficult it is to switch into mime otherwise. Mime also has a myriad of other options to throw a wrench into your opponent with. The most common is probably thief which is a very effective way to crippling an opposing pokemon like Hypno or mime itself. Thief sets often pack hypnosis in the last slot, but this isn't set in stone and may not be the most effective option considering most of mime's switch ins are sleep talkers. T-wave is another option to spread status, but you can often score paras with thunder anyway. Nightmare and encore can be devastating in the right position and are a lot less telegraphed on mime than they are on something like Kadabra. Finally baton pass can be used to pass substitutes which can be game ending when paired with set up sweepers, or even attack boosts from meditate or curse.
Hypno is GSC UU's premier tank. With maxed out stats, Hypno has impressive mixed bulk that can stand up to most of the tier's physical attackers and all of the tier's special attacks. This is the primary pokemon you aim to remove if you're running something like nightmare psychics. Hypno's decent speed tier allows it to stomach the occasional crit and still come back later to rest off the damage. This makes it a much more effective wall than fellow psychic tanks Slowbro and Slowking. Hypno has a vast movepool, and has a number of options for its free slot (psychic and resttalk are almost always required). T-wave makes switching into Hypno to set up on it or thief it difficult. It prevents Scyther from coming in freely on a sleeping Hypno, which is usually one of its easiest entry points. Reflect allows Hypno to patch up its physical bulk vs scy and pilo and provides helpful team support. Don't bother with light screen as it is devoured by Scyther and Piloswine who you don't want to give free entry to. Seismic toss provides good chip on everything and allows Hypno to actually hurt opposing psychics instead of just pp stalling. Curse with mono normal coverage in body slam is also an option with pursuit support and can be a surprisingly effective wincon late game, however it does take a long time to get going. Sleep talkless sets do exist, but the 2 free turns they give the opposition can enable crit fishing from physical attackers and as such are less consistent choices. Hypno's main issue is being passive, but if you play intelligently, it can be one of the most annoying pokemon to face and will save your ass against the tier's powerful special attackers.
Haunter is the most splashable normal resist/immunity in the tier. With a special attack stat equivalent to that of Raikou, haunt hits hard with electric-psychic coverage. Haunter's main role in the tier is to blank mono attacking bull while not letting up on offense. Its attacks sting, especially when paired with the omnipresent spikes and often a lack of leftovers courtesy of Haunter's thief. Haunter is probably the most common thief user in the tier, and it does a great job at removing leftovers from pokemon like Hypno because it scares the daylights out of Qwilfish and Gyarados. Haunter can also effectively spinblock Blastoise as long as it's resting, as 66% of the time Blastoise will do nothing and Blastoise's surf has pitiful odds of 2hkoing Haunter from full (with spikes it has a 90% chance to 2 shot). Tbolt is most common for an electric attack, but thunder can be used on heavily offensive teams that really need haunt's attacks to leave a mark. Psychic is the secondary attacking move used to hit nido and opposing Haunter as well as chip ground types. Hypnosis is an option for the third slot, but it's inaccurate and most of haunt's switch ins are sleep talkers anyway. Shadow ball is a meme option on SD pass teams which can surprise an opposing psychic or haunt, but it's generally not very effective. In the last slot, haunter most often runs explosion or destiny bond. Both moves are great, and can even be run together on the same moveset for increased adaptability. Because of Haunter's low attack stat, boom often cannot kill pokemon without some prior chip so don't go clicking it willy nilly. Haunter can sometimes struggle to break opposing tanks like Hypno and Lanturn without killing itself which leaves its own team open to be ravaged by Granbull. Haunt also tends be lured relatively easily by hp ground Granbull, so make sure you use it carefully. Despite its fragility, Haunter is an excellent play-maker and easily deserves A+ tier.
A tier
Despite bad base stats, Lanturn is one of UU's most deadly tanks. Water/electric is one of the best type combinations for UU, boasting stab on 2 of the best attacking types. Lanturn is an electric not walled by grounds, and a water not walled by opposing waters. Lantun absolutely decimates opposing water types like Gyarados, and Omastar, and is often impossible to safely switch into for teams using one of the slow twins as their sleep talker. Lanturn is also quite beefy letting it effectively 1v1 mime and haunt without much trouble. The only real safe switch ins to Lanturn are Hypno, grass types, Ampharos, Chansey, and opposing Lanturn, and only 2 of those are good in the tier. Resttalk should be on all sets to keep Lanturn dangerous while sleeping. Surf and thunder hit incredibly hard, and thunder's para chance ruins pokemon like Electabuzz and Jumpluff. Lanturn and pilo pair together to make a terrifying offensive core with their types complementing each other perfectly. Often times the best way to beat Lanturn for offensive teams is to either trade for it with Haunter, or to bring in a ground (preferably Nidoqueen because she's faster) while it's resting and hope for bad sleep talk rolls. However, both of these come with major consequences if incorrectly sequenced.
Gyarados is a phenomonal mixed attacker in GSC UU. With maxed out stats, gyara's special attacks do solid damage, and so it can take advantage of its wide special movepool to throw out the dangerous combination of hydro pump and thunder. Water-electric coverage plus hp flying makes gyara a formidable pokemon to face. The last slot was traditionally used for roar shuffling, but I personally find double edge more useful on a game to game basis. It's actually stronger than stab hp flying and so can nab a few KOs that would otherwise be just out of reach. It also gives you a strong move to hit Lanturn on the switch which otherwise walls gyara infinitely. Some people have experimented with hp ground or ghost (
Celebiii should be credited for ghost gyara) to pressure electrics and psychics respectively, but I think hp flying is necessary for the big hit on Scyther which gyara checks well as long as it's at full health. Because of its great bulk, gyara can live non-stab electric hits which enables it to 1v1 Nidoqueen in a pinch. The best thing about gyara by far is its immunity to ground and spikes making it able to stick around all game without needing to heal manually. This makes it the best pilo answer in the tier (unless frozen) which is a massive deal in the current meta. Like pilo's ice beam, gyara can freely fire off thunder on forced switches to try to catch a water type or spread para. Be careful not to get in the habit of leaving gyara in on Qwilfish though, as a poisoned gyara is much less effective.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Nidoqueen is a long way from the #1 position she held for many years. As the tier has progressed, people have come to realize and exploit Nidoqueen's flaws: she's got a bad type for the tier, she's weaker than most other grounds, she's ruined by status, and she has a difficult time making it on the field to make use of her good coverage. This isn't to say she's bad though. Nidoqueen is still an extremely dangerous wallbreaker in the hands of an experienced player, and it's unwise to discount her even if Piloswine's taken her throne. With EQ, thunder, and fire blast, nido's able to hit the entire tier for at least neutral damage. With spikes down, switching into nido can be an absolute nightmare, especially considering she's moderately fast, and can even come packing LK to disarm one of her checks. Moonlight is realistically the better NYC event move in her last slot, allowing her to heal up the myriad of weak super effective hits thrown at her. Dawn has even built teams using thief Nidoqueen to cripple sleep talkers. Nidoqueen has one of the highest ceilings in the tier, but she also has a low floor, so use care when using her. If you do, you'll be rewarded with one of the best damage dealers in all of GSC UU.
"I rest easy knowing that perhaps one day soon, Granbull and Piloswine will be able to wrest Nidoqueen (also known as the Margaret Thatcher of GSC UU) from her throne." -BKC
Electabuzz is the only viable pursuit user in the tier, but that's not all buzz is good for. Electabuzz clocks in at 308 speed which ties with the always dangerous Scyther making it an emergency answer. Buzz has a wide movepool which includes the elemental punches meaning it doesn't have to rely on hidden power to hit ground types. It also has access to and is one of the best users of thief, enabling it to cripple a ground type on the switch. As alluded to earlier, buzz's main role is trapping Haunter for most commonly mono normal Granbull. Buzz has decent enough bulk to switch in on Haunter's non-stab psychic and hit it with pursuit on the switch. If haunt opts to stay in and 1v1 buzz, buzz is faster and can hit it with a powerful psychic. Fire punch is a fun option to smack pilo on the switch, as it's stronger than cross chop and is compatible with pursuit. It's not all sunshine and roses for the electric oni though. Buzz is relatively frail, and as such has a hard time switching in on anything but electric attacks. It's not even great at this because it is absolutely ruined by paralysis (unless you're running resttalk which I don't think is good outside of stall). Its non-stab attacks can also sometimes come up short in terms of damage, which is why buzz almost always needs spikes to be effective. Electabuzz is a good lead, but don't be cavalier with attacking into something like Hypno, as you could end up eating a crippling t-wave.
A- tier
This is going to be your most consistent answer to Granbull in most cases. Hp ground bounces off Omastar's high defense, and its special attack is meaty enough to threaten back with a clean 3hko. Oma's bread and butter is resttalk, for the same reason as most defensively inclined pokemon. It loses a lot of effectiveness when it cannot attack in its sleep. Surf and ice beam are the classic combination, with beam clocking Scyther and threatening grass types, but with the decline of grass types, hp electric has become more common to avoid being free entry for qwil and other waters. Losing out on ice beam for Scyther does suck, as you now are not nearly as good of an answer, but the coverage for qwil and gyara is much appreciated. Some people have opted for thief to make their oma more offensive, but I think that doesn't play to its strengths and is more often than not a waste.
In a tier where spikes are so common, Blastoise has the hefty responsibility of being the only good rapid spinner around. Blastoise once again almost always runs resttalk to avoid being immobilized every time it has to heal. Surf, spin, resttalk is the only viable set imo, with options like roar and EQ being gimmicky and bad. That being said, toise does a great job with its 1 set. You don't outspeed qwil, but without curse, or seriously good luck, qwil will very rarely keep spikes up against you. You also have the great bonus of being an excellent answer to pilo, and even nido because you outspeed, threaten with surf, and are only 3hko'd by the inaccurate thunder. Blastoise does have issues with passivity. A sleeping Blastoise is an excellent setup opportunity for Scyther, and Haunter is safe to come in, spin block, and threaten with a strong electric attack. Having 2/3 of toise's sleep talk rolls either doing nothing but clear hazards, or resetting your sleep can be a liability at times, but overall Blastoise is still a great wall and spinner despite its passive nature. It's also 100% required on any and all stall teams and keeps them from being even worse than they already are.
Pinsir is GSC UU's rising star. Pinsir was forgotten for a long time, and seen as nothing more than Great Value Scyther because people were using it wrong. Hp bug is absolutely not it on Pinsir. Ever. Being walled by Haunter is disgusting, and the extra stab boost doesn't help it break when double edge is the move you click the most. Once hp ground became the standard, Pinsir got a lot better. Being a swords dancer stronger than Scyther is a big deal when your coverage is actually good. Normal and ground coverage is perfect, and Pinsir can slot body slam in the last slot to fish for paras. Power gamers know about the cursed rock throw set that kills Scyther after a boost. Pinsir also has high speed for the tier outrunning Gyarados and speed tying Qwilfish making haze a very risky solution. Pinsir has good bulk, and can stomach a few hits before going down. This makes it an excellent early game wall breaker. Best of all, Pinsir SETS UP ON PILOSWINE. This is absolutely incredible and skyrocketed Pinsir from B or B- all the way here to A-. Being able to set up on and then clobber pilo and friends is invaluable right now, and Pinsir's early game breaking makes a Scyther in the back even more ridiculous to deal with because they share similar checks. Double bug HO is a great archetype at the moment, and I expect to see more good things from Pinsir soon.
Magneton is the sole steel type in the tier. As such, it takes up the mantle of being a Granbull check that can also stonewall common psychic-electric coverage from the likes of mime and Haunter. Mag is probably the best switch to Haunter in the entire tier. There really isn't much haunt can do vs it other than thief and d-bond. Even explosion bounces off. Mono Granbull is similarly helpless and really takes a beating from mag's 120 base special attack stab. Outside of those 2 matchups however, mag can be kinda middling. It's very exploitable by grounds, even with super effective hidden power, and is often unable to successfully fend off the likes of pilo and nido. Mag's bulk isn't all that great for steel type standards, and neutral hits can hurt a lot more than ideal especially considering the stat drop from running hp water which is necessary to avoid pilo bullying you all game. Mag also really struggles with hp ground variants of Granbull, and while it can eat one from full, it will be out of commission for the rest of the game. Despite these flaws, I still think Magneton is a solid mon in the tier solely because of how good it is into some of the hardest pokemon in the tier to answer. Also agility offensive sets should be experimented with more. I don't think they'll be particularly good, but I think it's a niche worth exploring.
B+
Dodrio's double edge is the strongest unboosted physical attack in the tier. This coupled with either drill peck or hp ground and its high speed make Dodrio one of the most threatening pokemon on paper. For a pokemon with poor defenses, Dodrio finds itself as a resttalker more often than not. This enables it to absorb status while simultaneously keeping up offensive pressure. The spikes immunity also helps greatly in keeping Dodrio healthy throughout the game. Options like whirlwind on 3 attacks variants have been used, but they're less consistent and more flimsy than the resttalk set. Drill peck is probably better than hp ground as it 2hkos Haunter, and hidden power is doing pitiful damage to oma. This also means you have a second good sleep talk roll into Scyther. Speaking of Scyther, it's the primary reason Dodrio isn't seen as much. Scyther is notably faster, and hits harder after 1 turn of set up. The immediate power of Dodrio often is not worth the lower speed and inability to clean house the way scy can. Dodrio however is a phenomenal recipient of a passed SD, and so can be paired with Scyther for a double(or should I say triple) pronged flying assault.
Jumpluff's excellent speed and access to encore make it one of, if not the best Scyther roadblocks in the game. Locking set up sweepers into a boosting move neuters them completely, and even if they attack into the switch, maxed stats and the low base power of wing attack means pluff isn't immediately threatened with death and can relatively safely heal with synthesis or throw off status moves. Leech seed is also useful for healing and forcing switches with spikes down. Outside of this role however, Jumpluff is very limited. Its attacking stats and moves are awful and so it has no real way to dealing damage outside of leech seed which isn't very good in GSC. Its passivity means it is open to be exploited, and is often an invitation for sleep talkers to burn sleep turns since sleep talk itself cannot be encored, or for qwil to lay spikes. Jumpluff is also RUINED by paralysis, so if it ever takes a stray thunder it has a 30% chance to pretty much be instantly KOd. Jumpluff was better when Nidoqueen was more common because nido can never risk status, but with pilo usurping nido its viability has suffered a bit.
Despite me putting them in B+, the slowtwins are some of my least favorite pokemon to use in the entire tier. They are painfully slow, and so they lose a lot of effectiveness as walls because 1 crit does them in permanently. They will almost never get a chance to recover unless they come in on a para'd pokemon, or gamble against an opposing sleep talker. That isn't to say there aren't good things about them though. Their stabs are potent together, and they are reasonably strong meaning they can be tough to switch into safely. They are quite bulky in their respective defense stats, and can rest loop (assuming they never get crit lol) a number of dangerous pokemon, notably non curse Granbull and Piloswine for Slowbro and Nidoqueen and Gyarados for Slowking, although gyara is not immediately threatened by psychic due to its bulk. T-wave is an option on both to catch pokemon like gyara trying to take advantage of them, but this also means giving up one a valuable attacking move. I honestly wouldn't recommend these guys too highly right now. The prevalence of mime and Lanturn has seriously hurt their viability, and while they are still functional and effective sometimes, they are certainly inconsistent in my eyes.
Feraligatr is an underrated threat. Access to quakeslide coverage and water stab makes it tough to switch into especially when paired with screech to help it bust through walls like Hypno. Gatr is also surprisingly fast, outrunning Lanturn, Magneton, and Nidoqueen. Its bulk isn't shabby either, and allows it to 1v1 gyara in a pinch. Gatr's a pretty good pilo check, so that already makes it kinda good. Being able to KO Scyther with only minor chip is also amazing. I think gatr's main weakness is its lack of a spikes immunity like gyara has, and its reliance on spikes to beat more defensive pokemon. I think it's rather underexplored, and could certainly rise in viability if people start using it more.
B tier
With agilipass banned, Quagsire is seeing much less usage than it had this summer. That doesn't mean quag's bad, but the style of team quag fits on now is a lot less common and consistent. That team style is stall. Belly drum Quagsire is the equivalent to using BD lax on OU stall teams; ware the opposing team down slowly, then bowl them over with a slow, but bulky drummer. Quagsire's amazing typing and good bulk mean that it can safely drum in the face of a lot of pokemon, rest up, and then continue to ravage the opposing team. A well played quag is almost unstoppable, and it's important to constantly force damage on it before it gets out of hand. It pairs great with para spreaders and is overall the best wincon stall has in my opinion. The reason it's not ranked higher is less because of quag's own faults, and more because I personally find stall an unreliable play style as a whole.
Bellossom is the best grass type in UU that actually uses grass type attacks, but with ice beam Nidoqueen a thing of the past, there sadly isn't a lot left for bello to do. It was really nice for eating nido's hits and scaring her out with status, but with Piloswine ruling the roost, bello's time in the sun is sadly over. Bello isn't the worst pilo check in the world, but it takes a lot more from pilo's ice beam than it did from Nidoqueen's, and it speed ties making the match up iffy. The best thing bello has going for it is shutting down Lanturn, which as previously stated can be agonizing to switch into. That's a nice niche, but it doesn't make up for the toss up MU against pilo, and a horrible weakness to both miracle berry scy and qwil. SD bello is also a total meme and will almost never sweep, so if you do use bello, stick to status spreading and screens. I'm probably overrating it here, and I wouldn't be surprised if it continued to decline in effectiveness.
Gligar's a pokemon that's kinda sorta good but only fits on super narrow team structures, and as such is not often seen. Gligar is primarily a fire blast Nidoqueen wall as well as s Scyther/Pinsir/BD Quagsire safety measure, as it can use counter to stop all these pokemon in their tracks. Hp rock can also heavily dent scy if you're able to get in without giving Scyther a boost. Thief is a good move to cripple an opposing team member and toxic is an option for spreading status on mons like gyara that otherwise will totally dominate Gligar. Screech can be cool for forcing switches with spikes down, but Gligar is pretty weak so I don't think it's all that great at that job. Gligar only really fits on weird semistall teams, and while its traits are useful there, and it can be annoying to play against, in a meta where pilo is everywhere, and as a result waters are everywhere, I think Gligar's a pretty meh pokemon.
Electrode is the definition of 1 note. It quite simply has 4 viable moves: thunder, reflect, light screen, and explosion. Anything else is a waste on this guy. Luckily for trode, these 4 moves are quite nice at facilitating HO teams which is the only place you'll ever find Electrode. It comes in on Scyther or waters, sets screens vs the ground type switch, hopefully doesn't let Haunter take the boom, and allows a set up mon like Pinsir or Scyther to hopefully clean house. It's actually kinda effective, but it's insanely predictable, and so it can be easy to go wrong with Electrode vs someone who knows what it does.
Kadabra is pretty much always outclassed by mime. It does have higher special attack and speed, but its defenses are super terrible and it has a hard time switching into anything. It doesn't even switch into opposing psychics well because they often have either thunder or t-wave, and because Kadabra opts for recover over resttalk, it is horrified of status. You can try to circumvent this with substitute, but that's not entirely reliable unless you switch in on rest, and even then mime's thunder will break your sub every time. Kadabra even has worse electric damage because it doesn't get thunder itself and instead must use thunderpunch which doesn't do anything to opposing psychics. Encore and nightmare are cool moves, but I think mime pulls them off better because of its higher bulk and the surprise factor. When you see Kadabra, you pretty much immediately know it's going to be a disruptor, which makes it easier to play around. I would only ever use it on double psychic teams with mime, but even there I don't recommend it too highly.
Sandslash can be quite dangerous if it gets going. It's the only ground type in the tier that can actually use rock slide, and so its coverage is actually quite nice for a swords dancer. However, because its speed tier is medicore, it only really fits on dedicated paraspam builds, which are not common and hard to make work. Substitute allows it to further take advantage of paralysis, and to potentially dodge hydro pumps from a para'd gyara or qwil. Outside of those teams, it's pretty middling because of how badly it loses to pretty much every water type. Pinsir is a much better swords dancer on teams that don't aim to paralyze literally everything. Outspeeding pilo is nice though, and it can be really threatening when left unchecked, it's just hard to get to that point. Also I wouldn't bother with rapid spin memes as it's wholly outclassed by Blastoise and has an iffy MU vs qwil.
B- tier
Bah bah black sheep have you any worth? For a long time the answer was no because Ampharos gets bullied so incredibly badly by Nidoqueen it's not even funny. Amphy is quite literally the freest switch for nido outside of Shuckle, and that nullifies her greatest weakness of not having good entry points. Amphy's good qualities are often not worth letting that happen, and this was especially true when Nidoqueen was still the best pokemon. Amphy completely fell out of the metagame for a while, but with nido taking a backseat to pilo now, it's seen a slight resurgence. Ampharos outspeeds pilo, and has access to fire punch to sting it hard on the switch. Fire punch has a number of advantages over hp water: it's stronger vs neutral targets, it doesn't lower your bulk, and it has a burn chance that gives you something to pray for in the nido MU. Ampharos is also a quite solid check to both Lanturn and Gyarados, which are famously hard to switch into. Amphy is still quite limited by how bad it is against ground types, and only really fits on bulkier teams.
Kabutops is the worst excuse for a Granbull answer in the tier. It has pretty weak bulk for rock type standards, and Granbull outdamages it quickly, even after it uses swords dance because of the defense boost from curse. You're honestly better off using hydro pump vs bull, and at that point you might as well be using Omastar because it hits harder and more consistently, is able to heal with rest, and takes far less damage because of its good bulk. Kabutops also has to rely on the weak ancient power for its stab, which not only has low base power but also only 8 pp. The omniboost is admittedly really funny, but it's only 10% so I would never bank on that happening. It struggles to break stuff like Blastoise without giving up either hp ground or hydro pump for double edge, and has a poor defensive type outside of "walling" Granbull. Being slower than Qwilfish is also horrible. At least it's pretty good into Scyther and I've heard it's good into stall, but I personally have never seen it work in that MU.
Crobat is the first of the shitty trinity of exclusive stall pokemon. It has 1 use, and that's haze stalling Scyther. It quite literally has no other purpose in the tier as its MU into Pinsir is much worse because of Pinsir's higher bulk and more expendable nature, but it is pivotal in preventing Scyther from obliterating your stall team. Protect is probably better for healing than resttalk because Crobat is spikes immune and getting bad sleep talk rolls can be lights out. Thief and toxic are other decent options alongside haze and wing attack. I have already alluded to the fact that I think stall for the most part is pretty bad, and a big part of the reason stall is bad is because it often has to rely on Crobat and the other 2 clowns below it in B- tier. To be honest, more recent stall teams that substitute Jumpluff over Crobat and probably better than the old standards.
Curse Chansey is a meme please for the love of god stop trying to make it work. I know False Swipe Gaming hyped it up, but they don't have the best track record in their portrayal of this tier. Chansey's main use is acting as the special wall and cleric on stall, and it's not too great at its job in its current state. Heal bell and counter/t-wave/seismic toss are incompatible on Chansey, and so if it opts to provide cleric support, it becomes super free entry for every physical attack in the game to wail on it. Thunder and present are Chansey's main ways of dealing damage. Thunder is an anti-Qwilfish measure, and present has the capacity to due huge damage to pokemon whose 2nd type is special (it's a weird GSC glitch.
dawn has a great video on her channel about it) and can prevent sleep talkers from burning turns vs her. I've seen dawn use counter and t-wave on Chansey paired with heal bell Granbull, and that seems to be a more effective use of her, as she can now threaten to kill any physical attacker brazen enough to duke it out with her.
Shuckle infinitely pp stalls pilo and nido (as long as it doesn't get frozen LOL). That's about it. It is the most passive pokemon in the tier and cannot do any damage outside of toxic and sandstorm, neither of which are all that effective because of how good resttalk and ground types are. Defense curl should be on every Shuckle to prevent Granbull from setting up on you and killing you. It's also a nice pp stall move because you only need to use it twice to max out Shuckle's defense and it has a million billion pp. The problem with Shuckle pp stall is that you need spikes to prevent your opponent from switch stalling you, and if you're fitting Shuckle and all the other important stall pokemon, fitting Qwilfish alongside them isn't super easy.
C tier aka meme tier
Wigglytuff is only to be used alongside Granbull as either an Omastar lure with curse thunder, or a secondary mono normal curser with a lure Granbull. It can be kinda effective if played right, but as soon as it's revealed, everyone's going to know what's up and you will suddenly be pretty useless.
The agilipass ban made Girafarig an unmon. I've seen
Celebiii use curse + amnesia + stabs, but I think even he will admit that's a meme set. Really no reason to use it anymore without agilipass because Granbull is a better normal, and pilo is a better mixed attacker.
Victreebel never has enough moves to be good. You absolutely will always need swords dance and sludge bomb, and there isn't much use to running it without status, so you have to make the choice between giga drain for pilo or hp ground for qwil. Both are pokemon you do not want to let in for free, and both seriously threaten vic if it doesn't have the right move. Forgoing status just makes you a really bad Scyther/Pinsir because the type is absolutely horrible for the tier. I suppose it's ok if you can remove qwil for it, but it's just so hard to make it work.
Another victim of the agilipass ban. Belly drum Politoed is far inferior to Quagsire without the ability to boost its speed, as it lacks stab on its physical attacks and as such cannot break nearly as well as quag. It also has a worse type and lower physical bulk which makes it more susceptible to being chipped out of drum range (+2 attack is almost worthless so drumming below 50% isn't advisable). LK is nice to have, but is done better by Granbull on HO. Trying to emulate Vaporeon and use a growth resttalk set is a bad idea because you just get hazed by qwil or phazed by gyara.
Arcanine lets in Qwilfish, is walled by resttalk psychics, and is weak to water and ground. Need I say more? Crunch does pathetic damage to Hypno, and is only scary if it gets a spdef drop before Hypno either paras you or chips you down with psychic. Arcanine actually can be pretty threatening into double bug offense, so potentially it could start to see some more use, but it's pretty worthless outside of that MU.
Super meme tier spinner. Graveler is slow as shit, has a horrible defensive type, and has puny special bulk so it takes a ton of damage from almost everything. At best you get 1 spin off vs Granbull, and then try to explode before immediately dying. Similarly to Sandslash, Blastoise is always going to be a better spinner, so there's really no use in using this guy. Even Sandslash is better at spinning lol.
Pikachu is the strongest electric type in the tier with light ball and has surf to slam ground types, but it's killed so easily that it rarely is able to show off that impressive power. The inability to hold leftovers further weakens its already laughable defensive profile. It can work, but needs herculean support and is not worth it when there are a number of far superior electrics in the tier to use instead.
Meme drummer who's kinda fast but is so weak both offensively and defensively. At least it's better than Poliwrath
Bellossom and Victreebel are already bad, so when you fuse them together, you get something somehow even worse than either of them. The name really fits here because of how stinky this guy is. Absolute unmon.
And that's it! I hope you enjoyed reading this, and it was in some way a helpful resource for understanding the tier. For the tier veterans, I hope this VR will spark some discussion on the tier, and I would encourage you to make your own VR posts if your opinions differ from mine. I really hope the UU community will see some new faces as a result of the spotlight ladder and tour! Here's a visual representation of my tier list for those of you who don't want to spend an hour+ reading this entire post.
does not resist Hidden Power Bug, which was rather disappointing to find out. That means that it always takes neutral or super-effective damage from Scyther's Hidden Power move (but at least Wing Attack and Return).
this just explodes it doesn't matter.
