NFE ORAS council is currently discussing potential bans (mostly looking at Kadabra, and to a lesser extent Pawniard), now that NFEPL is over. If you participated in the ORAS preparations for the tour or played in the ORAS slot, feel free to contact me here or on discord (84percent#5652) to share your view, it would be greatly appreciated! Following the discussion we will most likely vote before the end of the week.
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NFE NFE Old Gens and OM Hub v2
- Thread starter S1nn0hC0nfirm3d
- Start date
Hey everyone, I've been playing a lot of dpp nfe recently, even building/assisting it in nfepl and imo the vr is pretty outdated. Proposing the following changes to the dpp nfe vr:
A to S: Murkrow has had an exceedingly good showing in nfepl, really only needing 3 moves to be effective and having the fourth slot open for coverage/roost/surprise factor (examples are hp ground, hp fire, dark pulse). It needs to be played well to be deadly but can perform the roles of wallbreaker, cleaner and trapper without difficulty. Even gets a decent amount of opportunities to switch in, usally only limited by rocks, which can be further mitigated through its natural synergy with spinners. It also helps that a lot of checks to Murkrow are pretty underrated/underused rn, examples being Lairon, Flaaffy and Magnemite (which is also why I think hp ground is usally the best 4th move). The only common defensive check to it rn is Metang, which isn't even great at it bc sucker is neutral and is also one of the easiest mons to chip. The rise of (sleep) rose is also a major boon for it, further cementing its place in the meta (which is at the top).
A to A+: Look at your teams rn and I guarantee piloswine rips through at least half of them. So many good mons in this meta are weak to either ground or ice, and in a tier without eviolite, it doesn't need to get supereffective hits in to claim ko's. The only thing holding this mon back is its weakness to a lot of top mons' attacks (like roselia, wartortle, metang or monferno) and its low speed. Lack of thick fat also means it doesn't provide a lot of resistances, so it doesn't get nearly as many switchins as something like metang (which is just as slow). Being slow and frail is a death sentence in dpp nfe but pilo is definitely bulky enough to withstand some good neutral hits. Sub lo and sub lefties are both great since it forces a lot of switches, not to mention priority ice shard which is always great in dpp
B+ to A-: Marshtomp is great defensive glue in general due to its good stats, checking a lot of common threats, having a decent support movepool and not even doing bad damage. It also has some set variety in a potential yawn, protect, ice punch etc. Can even run cb for the mixup. Don't really have much else to say on Marshtomp, just that it gets used enough to be in the A ranks.
A- to B+: Seadra isn't bad by any means, but I rarely find myself having a reason to slot this on a team over marsh or wart (or even tenta). Being an offensive water with good natural defense is handy, but it still falls flat vs staples like rose or wart w/o making heavy predictions. Having a wart/marsh to spin/rock/status feels more useful in a lot of situations (maybe I'm biased bc my tenta usage is sky-high but still). I've also seen people using this mon on rain but it genuinely sucks there.
B- to B+: Clef is a weird mon because despite lacking the bulk to imitate dpp ou clef, it's still immensely useful in a lot of common scenarios, being a great switchin to a horde of special attackers like rose/missy/grov/tang/yanma/flaaffy due to magic guard (in dpp magic guard ignores para btw) and recovery. It's helpful vs threats like kad and rain too while demolishing hail. A lot of the aforementioned mons and playstyles like spikestack are gaining popularity and clef's rank should reflect that.
B- to B+: Lairon is an underrated sidegrade to metang since it's actually a lot better at checking some things that metang wants to check. (examples being kad, missy, murky, bat, shelgon) Offensive variants are dangerous and roar sets pair well with sand and/or hazard stack.
B- to B: Tentacool compresses a lot of valuable utility into a single slot, freeing up the rest of the team. It provides tspikes+grounded poison, spin, defensive check to a bunch (most notably a rain answer not weak to coverage and a reliable monf check). Another way to put it is viewing tenta as a sort of rose-wart hybrid, not being as good as either but being good enough to deserve a spot on a decent amount of teams.
B to B+: Not sure why Yanma fell off a cliff vr-wise, lead is still annoying and speed boost hasn't stopped being a good cleaner. It has a great speed tier and has no trouble outspeeding scarfers and some rain mons due to protect. If rocks can be kept off it even has a good amount of switchin opportunities.
B- to A-: Shelgon is a legitimate threat, and has pretty good defenses/typing to back it up. There's only one pokemon in the A ranks that resists its stab (it also helps that people refuse to use the other good steels) and even it doesn't do that great vs it because of fire fang and shelgon having 100 base defense. you really don't need any particular item or fourth move so it can easily run protect to prevent something booming on it or running yache/lum to further increase its survivability. The biggest factor holding Shelgon back is that even +2 jolly gets outsped by common scarfers, some rain mons and +1 yanma (jolly is still necessary since you do outspeed monf).
B to C: Being a mixed rain abuser (with pursuit) is cool but it's generally inferior to horsea/oma/kabu.
C to UR: I see no reason to ever use this, even on a wack fire spam build Quilava seems better.
UR to B+: I was genuinely surprised to see that Magnemite isn't ranked since it enables a lot of the best mons to be even better pretty easily while not even being a horrible standalone mon. With sub/mrise/tbolt/filler (usally hp grass, hp fire, flash cannon, twave or boom) and max speed timid it reliably traps and removes Metang and Lairon (for Bronzor it depends on the sets). Imo it's actually better than Diglett despite its trapping being a lot more widespread due to Diglett's immense frailty while Magnemite can safely switch in on its main targets on anything that isn't eq. Furthermore, steel typing is broken in dpp and its additional electric typing allows it to thwart birdspam along with the usual suspects. Electric stab isn't common in the meta and it threatens a decent amount of mons, but it really shines when pairing it with mons that appreciate steels being gone (a lot of these are at the top of the vr already). Examples include missy, rose, bat, murky, kad, viggy, kadabra, yanma and shelgon notably making birdspam even better and dragmag or psyspam potentially dangerous. B+ might seem pretty egregious for a previously unranked mon but in a lot of games getting rid of the steel is super valuable. I'll end this by posting a dpp game from nfepl where a magnemite team made by me (and excellently piloted by shiloh) won a game. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4uu-573796
That's all from me, have a good day :)
A to S: Murkrow has had an exceedingly good showing in nfepl, really only needing 3 moves to be effective and having the fourth slot open for coverage/roost/surprise factor (examples are hp ground, hp fire, dark pulse). It needs to be played well to be deadly but can perform the roles of wallbreaker, cleaner and trapper without difficulty. Even gets a decent amount of opportunities to switch in, usally only limited by rocks, which can be further mitigated through its natural synergy with spinners. It also helps that a lot of checks to Murkrow are pretty underrated/underused rn, examples being Lairon, Flaaffy and Magnemite (which is also why I think hp ground is usally the best 4th move). The only common defensive check to it rn is Metang, which isn't even great at it bc sucker is neutral and is also one of the easiest mons to chip. The rise of (sleep) rose is also a major boon for it, further cementing its place in the meta (which is at the top). A to A+: Look at your teams rn and I guarantee piloswine rips through at least half of them. So many good mons in this meta are weak to either ground or ice, and in a tier without eviolite, it doesn't need to get supereffective hits in to claim ko's. The only thing holding this mon back is its weakness to a lot of top mons' attacks (like roselia, wartortle, metang or monferno) and its low speed. Lack of thick fat also means it doesn't provide a lot of resistances, so it doesn't get nearly as many switchins as something like metang (which is just as slow). Being slow and frail is a death sentence in dpp nfe but pilo is definitely bulky enough to withstand some good neutral hits. Sub lo and sub lefties are both great since it forces a lot of switches, not to mention priority ice shard which is always great in dpp B+ to A-: Marshtomp is great defensive glue in general due to its good stats, checking a lot of common threats, having a decent support movepool and not even doing bad damage. It also has some set variety in a potential yawn, protect, ice punch etc. Can even run cb for the mixup. Don't really have much else to say on Marshtomp, just that it gets used enough to be in the A ranks. A- to B+: Seadra isn't bad by any means, but I rarely find myself having a reason to slot this on a team over marsh or wart (or even tenta). Being an offensive water with good natural defense is handy, but it still falls flat vs staples like rose or wart w/o making heavy predictions. Having a wart/marsh to spin/rock/status feels more useful in a lot of situations (maybe I'm biased bc my tenta usage is sky-high but still). I've also seen people using this mon on rain but it genuinely sucks there. B- to B+: Clef is a weird mon because despite lacking the bulk to imitate dpp ou clef, it's still immensely useful in a lot of common scenarios, being a great switchin to a horde of special attackers like rose/missy/grov/tang/yanma/flaaffy due to magic guard (in dpp magic guard ignores para btw) and recovery. It's helpful vs threats like kad and rain too while demolishing hail. A lot of the aforementioned mons and playstyles like spikestack are gaining popularity and clef's rank should reflect that. B- to B+: Lairon is an underrated sidegrade to metang since it's actually a lot better at checking some things that metang wants to check. (examples being kad, missy, murky, bat, shelgon) Offensive variants are dangerous and roar sets pair well with sand and/or hazard stack. B- to B: Tentacool compresses a lot of valuable utility into a single slot, freeing up the rest of the team. It provides tspikes+grounded poison, spin, defensive check to a bunch (most notably a rain answer not weak to coverage and a reliable monf check). Another way to put it is viewing tenta as a sort of rose-wart hybrid, not being as good as either but being good enough to deserve a spot on a decent amount of teams. B to B+: Not sure why Yanma fell off a cliff vr-wise, lead is still annoying and speed boost hasn't stopped being a good cleaner. It has a great speed tier and has no trouble outspeeding scarfers and some rain mons due to protect. If rocks can be kept off it even has a good amount of switchin opportunities. B- to A-: Shelgon is a legitimate threat, and has pretty good defenses/typing to back it up. There's only one pokemon in the A ranks that resists its stab (it also helps that people refuse to use the other good steels) and even it doesn't do that great vs it because of fire fang and shelgon having 100 base defense. you really don't need any particular item or fourth move so it can easily run protect to prevent something booming on it or running yache/lum to further increase its survivability. The biggest factor holding Shelgon back is that even +2 jolly gets outsped by common scarfers, some rain mons and +1 yanma (jolly is still necessary since you do outspeed monf). B to C: Being a mixed rain abuser (with pursuit) is cool but it's generally inferior to horsea/oma/kabu. C to UR: I see no reason to ever use this, even on a wack fire spam build Quilava seems better. UR to B+: I was genuinely surprised to see that Magnemite isn't ranked since it enables a lot of the best mons to be even better pretty easily while not even being a horrible standalone mon. With sub/mrise/tbolt/filler (usally hp grass, hp fire, flash cannon, twave or boom) and max speed timid it reliably traps and removes Metang and Lairon (for Bronzor it depends on the sets). Imo it's actually better than Diglett despite its trapping being a lot more widespread due to Diglett's immense frailty while Magnemite can safely switch in on its main targets on anything that isn't eq. Furthermore, steel typing is broken in dpp and its additional electric typing allows it to thwart birdspam along with the usual suspects. Electric stab isn't common in the meta and it threatens a decent amount of mons, but it really shines when pairing it with mons that appreciate steels being gone (a lot of these are at the top of the vr already). Examples include missy, rose, bat, murky, kad, viggy, kadabra, yanma and shelgon notably making birdspam even better and dragmag or psyspam potentially dangerous. B+ might seem pretty egregious for a previously unranked mon but in a lot of games getting rid of the steel is super valuable. I'll end this by posting a dpp game from nfepl where a magnemite team made by me (and excellently piloted by shiloh) won a game. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4uu-573796That's all from me, have a good day :)
With PL over, I figured I'd dump the BW teams I made for Insult and compensate for not dumping what I made last time.
Week 1 (W)
Scraggy was a pick I had a lot of confidence in, and while this team was originally prepped with DnB in mind, it worked out nicely against Dani. Kadabra + Duosion had a hard time picking up any steam with Scraggy on the board, and although I did get some luck with a first turn Shed Skin proc and a poison on the Combusken, I think the outcome would have been the same.
Week 2 (W)
This week saw Insult paired up against EviGaro, a good friend of mine. I decided to continue the trend of anti-psyspam building with a fairly generic Sneasel team. Delete the Natu, get hazards up with Roselia and Metang, yada yada yada you know the drill. I personally don't like Wartortle, but I didn't relish the idea of going without removal, and it had some natural synergy with Sneasel trapping the ghosts.
Week 3 (L)
The previous two teams had a notable vulnerability to NP Monferno, so Lampent seemed like the perfect fit, especially in tandem with something that hated the Fire-types (Bronzor.) In hindsight specs Ebuzz was a blunder, but it ultimately didn't up mattering due to a misprediction involving Bronzor getting Fire Blasted. Unfortunate that we lost with the MU in our favor, though still a team I like all the same.
Week 4/Week 5 (W)
Originally built for use against Tlenit, we agree to recycle this team for the week 5 game against Voltage. Survivability was the name of the game here, with a rock-solid defensive core and two hard-hitting attackers in Kadabra and TrickPlot Missy to assist in breaking fatter teams. This ended up coming in handy when Voltage rolled up with a very cool Trubbish hail team, with Scraggy dismantling the Sealeo effectively.
Week 6 (W)
Fille was going to be a difficult opponent to prep for, so I once again opted for a fairly tried-and-true core of Sneasel + Monf + Kad with a bit of a twist. The Monferno was originally scarfed, but at the suggestion of Beauts (huge s/o to them), we crafted a bulkier spread to better check opposing Sneasel. The Clefairy set was intended to be our ace in the hole: it could 1v1 a good number of defensive Pokemon thanks to CM + Magic Guard, and Thunder Wave was very helpful for shoring up the team's rather lackluster speed control. Didn't end up doing much in-game, but Insult still played magnificently and won.
Week 7 (No Contest)
The Hattrems sealed the Finals week 5-0, which meant the BW match was deadgamed. This was intended to win out against both of Evi's usage trends: sand and Sneasel. Tangela was a natural choice, as it could realistically sit in front of sand's usual suspects with proper play. The Frillish set was intended as a countermeasure against Monferno with built-in anti-Pursuit measures in the form of some defensive investment and Protect.
Overall I'm very satisfied with how I built this season, though I'll be the first to admit I fell into some clear building trends/traps that I need to break. Feel free to use any of these teamsbut pls don't change the nicknames I spent an entire five minutes finding Persona music to use for them
Week 1 (W)
Scraggy was a pick I had a lot of confidence in, and while this team was originally prepped with DnB in mind, it worked out nicely against Dani. Kadabra + Duosion had a hard time picking up any steam with Scraggy on the board, and although I did get some luck with a first turn Shed Skin proc and a poison on the Combusken, I think the outcome would have been the same.
Week 2 (W)
This week saw Insult paired up against EviGaro, a good friend of mine. I decided to continue the trend of anti-psyspam building with a fairly generic Sneasel team. Delete the Natu, get hazards up with Roselia and Metang, yada yada yada you know the drill. I personally don't like Wartortle, but I didn't relish the idea of going without removal, and it had some natural synergy with Sneasel trapping the ghosts.
Week 3 (L)
The previous two teams had a notable vulnerability to NP Monferno, so Lampent seemed like the perfect fit, especially in tandem with something that hated the Fire-types (Bronzor.) In hindsight specs Ebuzz was a blunder, but it ultimately didn't up mattering due to a misprediction involving Bronzor getting Fire Blasted. Unfortunate that we lost with the MU in our favor, though still a team I like all the same.
Week 4/Week 5 (W)
Originally built for use against Tlenit, we agree to recycle this team for the week 5 game against Voltage. Survivability was the name of the game here, with a rock-solid defensive core and two hard-hitting attackers in Kadabra and TrickPlot Missy to assist in breaking fatter teams. This ended up coming in handy when Voltage rolled up with a very cool Trubbish hail team, with Scraggy dismantling the Sealeo effectively.
Week 6 (W)
Fille was going to be a difficult opponent to prep for, so I once again opted for a fairly tried-and-true core of Sneasel + Monf + Kad with a bit of a twist. The Monferno was originally scarfed, but at the suggestion of Beauts (huge s/o to them), we crafted a bulkier spread to better check opposing Sneasel. The Clefairy set was intended to be our ace in the hole: it could 1v1 a good number of defensive Pokemon thanks to CM + Magic Guard, and Thunder Wave was very helpful for shoring up the team's rather lackluster speed control. Didn't end up doing much in-game, but Insult still played magnificently and won.
Week 7 (No Contest)
The Hattrems sealed the Finals week 5-0, which meant the BW match was deadgamed. This was intended to win out against both of Evi's usage trends: sand and Sneasel. Tangela was a natural choice, as it could realistically sit in front of sand's usual suspects with proper play. The Frillish set was intended as a countermeasure against Monferno with built-in anti-Pursuit measures in the form of some defensive investment and Protect.
Overall I'm very satisfied with how I built this season, though I'll be the first to admit I fell into some clear building trends/traps that I need to break. Feel free to use any of these teams
The NFE ORAS council has voted on both Kadabra and Pawniard. As a result Kadabra is now banned, while Pawniard stays legal.
In other news, we can finally present the first Viability Ranking for the revamped ORAS format. You can find it here!
Lastly, I want to announce that I'll be leaving the NFE ORAS council. Quagg will take over sole "leadership", and Shing'n Streets joined the council as a new member! Wish you guys the best with the format that got me into NFE in the first place :]
NFE UU October Shift:
Rise: Fraxure, Zweilous, Togetic, Dusclops, Charjabug, Roselia
Fall: Krokorok, Gabite
It's suprising to see Zweilous get no use while Duosion was NFE UU yet now that Duosion is good in NFE it rose to counter it. Fraxure was likely broken anyhow (but we didn't see enough NFE UU activity during NFEPL to see for sure) so I'm thankful it's gone.
Roselia is a solid mon but with replacements in Ivysaur and Gloom, I don't expect it will be missed too much, outside of hazard role compression.
Just as Dusclops leaves the tier, we get a solid Dark type in Krokorok. I have a feeling that Moxie scarf is going to be good, especially with togetic leaving. Lampent and Drakoloak, both top tier mons, fear it offensively which no dark type in the tier previously filled this role as Vullaby, back when it was UU, was more used defensively and Morgrem was usually too slow to cause much trouble.
I think that Gabite is going to be pretty good in the meta as it beats the two traditional go-to rockers: Lairon and Metang.
I'm excited to see how the NFE UU meta develops this cycle, especially with the NFE UU forum tour around the corner.
Rise: Fraxure, Zweilous, Togetic, Dusclops, Charjabug, Roselia
Fall: Krokorok, Gabite
It's suprising to see Zweilous get no use while Duosion was NFE UU yet now that Duosion is good in NFE it rose to counter it. Fraxure was likely broken anyhow (but we didn't see enough NFE UU activity during NFEPL to see for sure) so I'm thankful it's gone.
Roselia is a solid mon but with replacements in Ivysaur and Gloom, I don't expect it will be missed too much, outside of hazard role compression.
Just as Dusclops leaves the tier, we get a solid Dark type in Krokorok. I have a feeling that Moxie scarf is going to be good, especially with togetic leaving. Lampent and Drakoloak, both top tier mons, fear it offensively which no dark type in the tier previously filled this role as Vullaby, back when it was UU, was more used defensively and Morgrem was usually too slow to cause much trouble.
I think that Gabite is going to be pretty good in the meta as it beats the two traditional go-to rockers: Lairon and Metang.
I'm excited to see how the NFE UU meta develops this cycle, especially with the NFE UU forum tour around the corner.
Teams I used in the NFE UU tour
Scarf Archen + DD Drakloak
similar to the double dd sample, with the usum starter trio, one dd sweeper instead of two, a rocker and a scarfer in Head Smash Archen, which I’m not sure how viable it is considering everything being so bulky with Eviolite but I wanted to try it
Tspikes Poipole
Not many poisons, so went with some Tspikes HO. Nasty Plot Poipole with Beast Boost raising its speed at every kill, Drakloak and Gothorita to punish hazard control (and Goth threatens the poisons coming in to absorb tspikes), SD Dartrix and Rocks Gabite. Lastly, Sub Tox Combusken to toxic non-grounded mons and in general stall out poison turns until opposing mons are in range of flamethrower. Drak is probably better with Specs Hex but I thought about it after the games
Agility + DD Spam
i wanted to use Seadra, ended up again with a core similar to the double DD sample.
Double Ghost Offense
There are probably better ways to pull this off. there aren’t many ghost switchins able to deal with both Gastly and Drakloak so I went with that, Krokorok as a rocker and dark switch in (in particular opposing Krok switch in), and usual fwg grass core, with Steenee over Dartrix mostly to try new stuff
Grassy Terrain
i thought about the first 5 mons, couldn’t find a 6th, then saw someone in previous rounds (cant remember who) who brought this same core but with Klang (banned) so I put a legal steel type and went with that. The nice thing is that Scraggy is one of the best Woobat answers but it’s also setup fodder for Swirlix, which puts the opponent in a tricky position when having to deal with both
Ill also mention some things about the vr, but take these with a grain of salt since I dont really have a lot of experience
to High tier. Threatens every high tier mon, very fast, gets toxic and flip turn for bulky mons
to Mid. Works in any hazard stack team as Defog deterrent and gets nice coverage + Nasty Plot
to mid. Good Spdef and Spatk, Knock, Rapid Spin, Scald and Ice Beam are all good support or damaging moves
and to Mid. Only for Grassy Terrain teams
to any (I cant see it in the vr). Maybe Mid, or maybe low, but NP with beast boost can take a couple kills with a free turn, and gets Tspikes. Seems decent.
Good luck to the people still competing in the tour!
Scarf Archen + DD Drakloaksimilar to the double dd sample, with the usum starter trio, one dd sweeper instead of two, a rocker and a scarfer in Head Smash Archen, which I’m not sure how viable it is considering everything being so bulky with Eviolite but I wanted to try it
Tspikes PoipoleNot many poisons, so went with some Tspikes HO. Nasty Plot Poipole with Beast Boost raising its speed at every kill, Drakloak and Gothorita to punish hazard control (and Goth threatens the poisons coming in to absorb tspikes), SD Dartrix and Rocks Gabite. Lastly, Sub Tox Combusken to toxic non-grounded mons and in general stall out poison turns until opposing mons are in range of flamethrower. Drak is probably better with Specs Hex but I thought about it after the games
Agility + DD Spami wanted to use Seadra, ended up again with a core similar to the double DD sample.
Double Ghost OffenseThere are probably better ways to pull this off. there aren’t many ghost switchins able to deal with both Gastly and Drakloak so I went with that, Krokorok as a rocker and dark switch in (in particular opposing Krok switch in), and usual fwg grass core, with Steenee over Dartrix mostly to try new stuff
Grassy Terraini thought about the first 5 mons, couldn’t find a 6th, then saw someone in previous rounds (cant remember who) who brought this same core but with Klang (banned) so I put a legal steel type and went with that. The nice thing is that Scraggy is one of the best Woobat answers but it’s also setup fodder for Swirlix, which puts the opponent in a tricky position when having to deal with both
Ill also mention some things about the vr, but take these with a grain of salt since I dont really have a lot of experience
to High tier. Threatens every high tier mon, very fast, gets toxic and flip turn for bulky mons to Mid. Works in any hazard stack team as Defog deterrent and gets nice coverage + Nasty Plot to mid. Good Spdef and Spatk, Knock, Rapid Spin, Scald and Ice Beam are all good support or damaging moves and to Mid. Only for Grassy Terrain teams to any (I cant see it in the vr). Maybe Mid, or maybe low, but NP with beast boost can take a couple kills with a free turn, and gets Tspikes. Seems decent.Good luck to the people still competing in the tour!
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