Introducing some cool mons
Tspikes aren't broken, moving on.. I still think there are tons of underused mons or hidden gems ready to be displayed and the above 2 mons are an example. Victreebel, a Poison-type so by default good in NU, carves out a niche of inflicting status, dishing out above average hits but most importantly: beating its own checks. With the combination of Strength Sap and Rocky Helmet, defensive Victreebel is able to beat Golbat, Togedemaru and other checks 1v1. Grassium Z is the mandatory item for the offensive spread as it gives you a safe nuke with Leaf Storm but also gives you +1 Speed with Sleep Powder, some sort of improvised wincon. We know from the Vileplume era that Grass-Poison is difficult to check and Victreebel does a decent job at fulfilling that annoying presence Vileplume had. Other added perks are being a grounden Poison-type and also some nifty calcs like this one: -1 0 Atk Incineroar Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 240+ Def Victreebel: 186-218 (51.2 - 60%) (15.6 - 18.3% recoil damage (add helmet damage)) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Oh and it also saw usage in grand slam quarters lol: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7nu-457915
Combusken is probably a bit more memey but it works really well with Tspikes. Subtect lefties chicken with dual stabs waits for the Tspikes to be up and proceeds to stall out turns while also getting exponentially faster. Obviously it faces issues from Future Sight Slowking, Golbat (both can kill it through sub), Comfey and probably some more but i feel it's a cool meta pick atm. Beating Incineroar, Heliolisk, stalling out a plethora of mons with Tspikes, and other metagame staples like Steelix and Dhelmise.
Braviary, Protect Sigi and Vikavolt still don't get the usage they deserve. Even Whimsicott is actually not that bad atm. bop
Tspikes aren't broken, moving on.. I still think there are tons of underused mons or hidden gems ready to be displayed and the above 2 mons are an example. Victreebel, a Poison-type so by default good in NU, carves out a niche of inflicting status, dishing out above average hits but most importantly: beating its own checks. With the combination of Strength Sap and Rocky Helmet, defensive Victreebel is able to beat Golbat, Togedemaru and other checks 1v1. Grassium Z is the mandatory item for the offensive spread as it gives you a safe nuke with Leaf Storm but also gives you +1 Speed with Sleep Powder, some sort of improvised wincon. We know from the Vileplume era that Grass-Poison is difficult to check and Victreebel does a decent job at fulfilling that annoying presence Vileplume had. Other added perks are being a grounden Poison-type and also some nifty calcs like this one: -1 0 Atk Incineroar Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 240+ Def Victreebel: 186-218 (51.2 - 60%) (15.6 - 18.3% recoil damage (add helmet damage)) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Oh and it also saw usage in grand slam quarters lol: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7nu-457915
Combusken is probably a bit more memey but it works really well with Tspikes. Subtect lefties chicken with dual stabs waits for the Tspikes to be up and proceeds to stall out turns while also getting exponentially faster. Obviously it faces issues from Future Sight Slowking, Golbat (both can kill it through sub), Comfey and probably some more but i feel it's a cool meta pick atm. Beating Incineroar, Heliolisk, stalling out a plethora of mons with Tspikes, and other metagame staples like Steelix and Dhelmise.
Braviary, Protect Sigi and Vikavolt still don't get the usage they deserve. Even Whimsicott is actually not that bad atm. bop
