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As I talked about in this post a bit, I had been really feeling burnt out on ORAS UU, which can also be seen in the hiatus I took from this thread. Part of that is also just not having a ton to talk about compared to when almost none of my ideologies had been publicly chronicled outside RMT rants and stuff, but yeah. It must've happened 7-8 times by now, but every now and then I feel like there's nothing left to do in this tier. What I mean by that is that it'll feel like I've tried every idea there is to build or is mildly interesting to me. I'd imagine people in all kinds of tiers feel the same way in some capacity when they've been playing a given metagame for so long. This was actually an exact rant I gave to noah thisbemyalt in call a few weeks ago. The metagame is simply so centered around a handful of key threats (cough conk cough), that sometimes it feels like you can't think outside the traditional norms without throwing away all consistency or well, competence. As mentioned in that SM post, I just wanted a breath of fresh air in a different metagame for UUPL, and I accomplished just that before getting forced back into ORAS without really a desire to do so. Still, my team was in contention for playoffs and I was going to give my best shot in a tier I've dedicated so much time to in the past. It was expectedly frustrating at times, but I left after the two games feeling like I did make some sort of 'break-through'. As suggested by the title, that happened to be Rotom-H. Break-through is certainly an overstatement, but simply the discovery of mons that have been hiding in plain sight in the builder is always refreshing, allowing you to expand or evolve upon certain frameworks, making building feel less stale and more enjoyable.
In my time in SM, I became known as a Rhyperior spammer, which I kind of used to my advantage that tour, knowing people would be reluctant to some extent to load up one of the tier's omnipresent pivots in Rotom-H, since it is almost entirely blanked by the rock dino. So many bulky offenses have a natural reliance on it due in large part to its ability to check Scizor and overall utility it can provide. However, since at the same time I was trying to avoid spamming the shit out of Rhyperior to avoid cteaming efforts, I unsurprisingly became more and more annoyed by Rotom-H and the momentum it can provide the user if the opponent isn't packing a hard wall to it. Trying to cut it off in the builder and in games was a real headache, leading to a realization. Why have I never tried using this thing in ORAS?
Its speed tier is infinitely better in the slower setting it finds itself in and the only Dragon around that can give it trouble is Hydreigon. Sure, there's no Scizor to check, but that honestly just gives it freedom in being able to take a more offensive inclination. However, something that's been on the rise even more than it already was is Demongross, aka Toxic bulky Metagross for those unaware. Fire-types in ORAS have seen a stark drop off in general, as referenced by my much earlier post on Entei. As a result, it reminded me a bit how Moltres has seen a tremendous rise in ADV OU, due in some capacity to the fact that there isn't all that much that can outright threaten Metagross in that setting either. It is no different in ORAS, where pretty much all of its answers to this point had largely been composed of bulky Water- and Steel-types, which are essentially what Demongross is meant to pick on in the first place, whether it was due to Toxic + Protect or its bulk and passive recovery, respectively. Even if it doesn't like eating Toxic, Rotom-H presents the user with an a fantastic means of coming in early and sitting on or threatening everything it wants completely unpunished. All this + me remembering an old team Ark used to use against me featuring a Specs set on it, where it was weirdly super threatening despite barely existing at all just kinda put the pieces together in my mind.
Beyond threatening the Steel-types that find themselves on every team, it doesn't stack up all that poorly against their omnipresent partners either. I honestly think Trick is a crazy good move in ORAS, especially with how much Florges is generally relied on to do as most team's catch-all answer to basically any special attacker. If it gets tricked and loses basically all of its utility moving forward, it obviously just throws off any intended functionality of the opposing defensive core. Yeah yeah I know what you're thinking. I've even called Seismitoad jesus many many times in recent months, being by far the tier's best Stealth Rock user and compressing many essential roles. It does wall the oven's STABs, but again, it doesn't appreciate catching a Trick either, and honestly beyond Overheat, Volt Switch, and Trick, the last slot can be anything. In the two games I used it in UUPL, I opted for HP Grass last, and it even came into play my first game. The thing's counterplay is honestly just so limited, and it can easily see offensive opportunities on things like an Acrobat stranded Roosting, or simply on any other slower Pokemon early on. As noted earlier, it's only real 'counter' is Hydreigon, which doesn't appreciate a Specs Volt with rocks up by any means, and Scarf likely wont have reliable recovery to fall back on. The thing is just so immediately threatening while offering the team a solid source of momentum / overall disruption in the process.
That last point is especially crucial. In my anti-Entei post, something I stressed over and over was how little Entei truly offered to a team. The opponent can easily pack a hard check to it and be just fine, especially if they can keep rocks up, something that isn't all that hard to accomplish given ORAS UU's rocker vs remover viability disparity. Sure, the same can be said for Rotom-H, and Entei surely has a higher ceiling in the right matchup, but from a consistency and team support perspective, I'd honestly give the edge to Rotom-H. Strong Volt Switch, superior coverage, and Trick disruption, Ground immunity, etc. are just leagues more consistently valuable than a strong E-Speed imo. The key term is consistency, as it will rarely be outright useless if played well. That ties into a notion that's always frustrated me with ORAS UU. A lot of the time so much of tournament games feels like it largely depends on the builder instead of the battle, but things like Rotom-H and Heracross rewards strong play so well that I've been gravitating more and more to things like them as time has gone on. They can just as easily do nothing as they can easily overwhelm the opponent if used appropriately, and in my mind, that's near invaluable in a bo1 setting. Sure, Entei will have matchups where the opponent doesn't give it the respect it deserves and itll get 6 kills as a result, but there will always be a degree of risk in loading it up. Rotom-H isn't perfect by any means, but the aspects of consistency and general utility is just so good when it comes to putting together strong, cohesive teams, whereas Entei teams often feel like it's on an island, forced into carry a load it isn't always capable of shouldering.
Again, Rotom-H isn't exactly a perfect mon, as I may have been implying to this point. The main knock in the mind of most people, myself included, I'd imagine would be its Scald weakness as an Electric-type, where theoretically it should be getting some offensive momentum going. It also just despises the presence of rocks, just as Entei does, but on that note, it does a tremendous job of immediately threatening some of the tier's most prevalent rockers early on, making it much easier to justify as opposed to Sacred Firing into Toad a couple times anticipating them to click rocks, etc. The thing isn't crazy bulky either without any investment, meaning it takes a bit more from things like Crobat than it would prefer, meaning it needs some backup on that front as well. However, it does present a good mid ground against the Bats and Steel-types of the world, allowing for more in-game flexibility / mid grounds in combination with its momentum generating capabilities. I'm officially a fan, and I definitely regret ranking it like mid 60s or whatever it was in the most recent VR without giving it a fair shot.
Here and there, I've always talked about how sometimes I'll feel like I'm out of ideas in this metagame, but just like any other tier, everyone has their own concepts and views that translate into new trends and pushes. In recent times, there has been a bit of an uptick in the usage of hyper offense, and that is largely due to two people: Garay oak and Pearl. This was especially noteworthy considering the two played each other in UU Snake 1 here, and coincidentally, both of them happened to bring their own fresh takes on the playstyle. The top team above is of course the one made by Garay, and it has a striking resemblance to the hyper offenses of ORAS UU when it was the main gen. Throw up your Spikes with Froslass, bust some holes, and try to clean with one of your goons, whether it is Mega Sharpedo or Slurpuff. The second team, Pearl's, is obviously a screens-based approach. It is powerful in its own right and was a bit more inventive given the past norms of the style, coming out on top in this given matchup. Overall, the game largely put the playstyle back on the map in the minds of ORAS players, or at least myself, especially given the curveball from what is traditionally seen as a much slower tier than say, SM UU.
In any tier, hyper offense has never really been my thing. I'm always big on my defensive utility and overall flexibility in-game, two aspects HO is not particularly known for. There will always be matchups where it feels like you can't do much or feel like you have to make the aggressive play every turn, but that's the tradeoff with such a high-octane style. Still, despite some issues, the tier does have a respectable amount of immediate power and one-off high potential sweepers that will generally suffer from issues mentioned in this post. However, hyper offense largely throwing defensive cohesiveness to the wayside naturally opens some doors for threats such as these.
The most prominent one, which in my opinion is what makes hyper offense worth using, is Slurpuff. I don't think it needs too much introduction, as it's done the same thing for years and years now, ever since YABO first popularized it in the midst of gen 6. That of course is its incredibly high sweeping potential, and it is especially apparent given the recent popularity of teams using Empoleon as the Steel-type of choice. Slurpuff can easily bust through it, as opposed to others like Demongross, Mega Aggron, Doublade, etc. With that said, any good HO will supply Slurpuff with partners to mitigate the impact of those unfortunate one-on-one matchups. Beyond sweeping potential, it is ironically what ties the team together defensively in a way. A notorious trait of most Pokemon in the tier lacking much defensive utility is generally a far-from-optimal one-on-one matchup with Hydreigon, one of the two kings of the tier. Simply put, it is incredibly hard to keep the Dragon at bay between its Speed, raw power, and coverage array. However, with Slurpuff sitting in the back, the user will constantly have to think twice before say, locking into a Scarf STAB move or dropping its Special Attack two stages to deal with another threat. There is basically nothing else in the tier that can fulfill the role of 'Hydreigon deterrent' on these kinds of teams and I swear it is nearly impossible to make up for this issue otherwise. Slurpuff is the goat, just wish max Speed Adamant could not fucking SPEED TIE Scarf Hydreigon, giving it much better rolls in key matchups like versus super bulky Haze Bat. Pearl was able to get away with it on his screens team, but otherwise it is much harder to justify.
When I tried my hand at hyper offense this UUPL, I was admittedly very happy with how it played in practice. Yeah yeah it still had traditional HO issues from time to time, but it was shockingly consistent in the games I played. It can be seen as the bottom team in the screens above. Highkey Garay really cracked the code on the style, as you may notice my version is super similar to his. Froslass is super hard to pass up, especially with the relatively low amount of slower U-turn and Volt Switch users that can be a real bitch for things like SM lass. It's essentially a free layer and has a decent ceiling to accomplish a bit more. Some of the other mons are more self-explanatory, such as Nidoking providing rocks as well as a very potent wallbreaker, punishing the likes of Florges for its teammates that need it out of the way ASAP. I'm not huge on Doublade in this tier generally, given its meh matchups against Waters and jazz, but it fills a crucial role defensively here, offering a sponge to the other king of the tier that fucks with the style: Mega Aerodactyl, as well as other things like Cobalion that Shark may have to deal with. Also spin blocking is cool if 100% needed. Shark does Shark things. It is HO: the mon. Great cleaner and honestly it's much better these days than I gave it credit for. See, Conkeldurr's most popular set in tournaments these days is CB, given its game-to-game consistency and raw power. However, despite it being a good Shark check in a vacuum, that set is pretty flipping exploitable since it naturally has to lock into a fighting move that shark is capable of scouting. Florges is still a bitch for it, but that's on the rest of the team to exploit. As for the last slot, I did some scouting for the game I prepped for, ironically against Garay, and he did not seem big on Bulk Up Conk at all, so I opted for a bit more of a high-ceiling option with Taunt 3 atk Hydreigon, instead of his Taunt offensive bat, which fits the style well in its own right and is much better in that given matchup.
I focused a bit more on this structure because it's pretty much the standard at this point, and like I said, it is wayy more consistent than I expected in theory. For such a balance-heavy tier, it was pretty refreshing to see an approach like this see good success in recent times, and it is largely due to people like Garay and Pearl, as mentioned earlier. The style isn't perfect by any means, but it certainly has the tools at its disposal and the right trends going its way to be a respectable metagame threat in the future, as it has been in the last couple tournaments coupled with strong play. So yeah, despite me taking a bit of a step back in the ORAS-pushing department, it's cool to see this kind of development. Big thanks to them.
If you’ve ever been around me ever, you’re probably familiar with what it by far my biggest Pokémon trigger: the infamous greed powder. It is in my opinion, the worst possible play anyone could make, but it consistently happens again and again, and I’ve never really talked about it here on smog. Every time it happens, I’m convinced a puppy dies somewhere out of pure disappointment and sadness, especially when it actually works out and the cycle continues.
For those unaware, a greed powder is categorized as a Sleep Powder, usually from Roserade in this setting, that is used in the face of a Pokémon that severely threatens it, most notably early on in a game. I’m honestly starting to think that sleep is a legitimately broken mechanic, since I mean, you essentially get to play 6 v 5, and for them to even the playing field, they are forced to lose momentum in some form to do so. However, people tend to get a little too carried away with the potential benefits, where the foe could be out of commission for as long as three turns. The most common examples include scenarios like early-game one-on-one matchups between Roserade and a Steel-type rocker such as Mega Aggron or Metagross. The temptation is naturally huge to pop the Sleep Powder, prevent rocks, and go from there. However, as we all know, Sleep Powder isn’t a perfect move and it’s accuracy is kinda ass. If it were Spore in this situations, it would be perfectly fine since there is really nothing to lose and the benefits still remain. But that’s the issue, there is a risk in clicking Sleep Powder. On top of the 25% chance to miss, where you can just die on the spot and lose out on one of your primary progress makers, they can also just wake up after 1 turn and you accomplish nothing. Between that 25% miss chance and 33% chance at a first turn wake the following turn, it comes out to about a 50% chance that the play will benefit the Rose user AT ALL, with the added chance of dying on the flipping spot. Roserade is very very very rarely useless, and rocks are never that constricting that it’s worth the risk so early on. In the same vein, sleep is sooooooo much more effective when it’s used on the switch, so that the foe doesn’t burn any turns immediately and it is guaranteed to have some sort of positive impact. Roserade should be preying on its constant good one-on-one matchups against things like Florges and bulky Waters to freely throw on a Sleep Powder on the presumed likely switch, making the most of the sleep turns without much of a risk involved at all. It becomes so much easier to put the opponent on the back foot and fuck up the initial intention of their team with a member being dead weight for at least a turn.
For the love of god if you greed powder and miss, you have absolutely no right to get mad, but it consistently happens over and over again. There are a couple of exceptions though. The main one is that I’ve been placing a heavy emphasis on it coming early on in the game, since sometimes rolling the dice on sleep turns is the most optimal play in a mid- to late-game situation. It might not be the perfect play but it does allow for a new avenue for closing out games if needed. The other one isn’t really an exception. It’s just that Sleep Powder against Doublade is essentially Spore, so there’s no risk involved. They might wake up after 1 turn but that’s fine since there was no chance at losing Roserade for nothing and the potential pay offs are still there.
Also I wrote this on my phone on break at work so it might not have been perfect, and ignore the fact that I accidentally hit post and deleted while I was halfway done with it bop.
Welcome back powderers. I believe since my last post we've developed a good understanding of the term greed powder and have roasted its abusers accordingly. For that, I would like to thank you, even if it does not always prevent them from doing so in the future. If there's any play in Pokemon that deserves some nice public shaming, it is greed powdering from gen 6 onward. On that note, I wanted to clarify something real quick. In DPP UU there is an especially notable user of Sleep Powder in its king god Venusaur. It has been known from time to time to throw out greed powders itself, but because it is prior to gen 6 sleep mechanics, there is an added wrinkle. Sleeping mons can sleep for as much as 4 TURNS, which is honestly fucking outrageous and is also the case in ADV, though the main example lies in OU. But anyway, if we do some quick maths again, it would be the obvious 25% chance to miss, along with a 25% chance they wake up after one turn, as opposed to the 33% chance present in ORAS on. Between the miss chance and the chance to first turn wake, the chances of it benefitting the user at all rise to 56.25% along with a higher broken sleep ceiling of 4 turns, making it more excusable than that of the 50.25% chance of benefit with a sleep ceiling of only 3 turns. It remains a greed powder in some capacity, but from this point forward, in gens 3/4 it will be referred to as a "weighted greed powder" in favor of the user of course. GSC sleep is stupid and can last as long as 6 turns which is fucking ludicrous so yeah nothing wrong there. BW sleep as we all know is broken as shit since it just ohkos if they don't stay in and burn them all so no issues there either.
Today I also wanted to focus on another other aspect of the most cursed move from gen 6 onward, expanding beyond its traditional application. The most notable one is that of the stubborn powder. Here's an example. One player has a Roserade versus a Seismitoad. It is a favorable one-on-one matchup and the opponent should opt to get out of the way of a potential Grass move, you know because they want to keep it it's probably useful. The Roserade user opts to Sleep Powder expecting the switch, making it an optimal powder, but the issue is it misses the incoming Metagross because Sleep Powder blows 25% of the time. Now, theoretically, the Roserade player should switch if they can't kill the Metagross with anything, as this would be a perfect example of a greed powder. However, the key difference is that because they just missed an optimal powder, they are likely tilted and will often go for the follow-up greed powder to help make up for their loss in momentum. It is definitely a greed powder, no question about that, but because they just missed, no one can really fault them for clicking it again since they were just Pokemon'd. It doesn't make it any better of a play but you gotta have some sympathy there for the previously honorable optimal powderer.
Sleep is stupid, and don't forget to verbally abuse any greed powderers you see from gen 6 onward. Thank you.
VERY IMPORTANT EDIT: note that traditional greed powderers are not allowed to complain when they miss, but if you miss a stubborn powder after missing the initial optimal powder, you're allowed.
Yeah so Conkeldurr is broken as shit and that is well-established, but it isn't the only roided up Fighting mon knocking heads these days. Heracross is a mon I've fucked around with more and more over the last couple UUPLs and UU snake, and I've only gotten more and more impressed with how fucking good and also versatile it is. I talked some about the latter aspect here after UUPL 2020, but has only progressed further since then. While I do think sets such as those have their own merits, the one that I've really turned to these days is that of Leftovers Swords Dance STABS Stone Edge. It started in UU snake when I was keen on using SD Heracross against someone due to some of their tendencies, but didn't want to be completely blanked by standard Haze Crobat, as any non Stone Edge set would be. Then it kind of occurred to me...what exactly are we missing here without the usual Knock Off? Yeah it's a very good move in general, especially for crippling its most common answer in Florges, but when it comes to actual coverage, you're only missing out on Doublade of all things in its absence. Doublade has really had a hard time lately, considering the general rise of Mandibuzz in the last four years or so in addition to the omnipresent bulky Waters of old. It still has a time and place, but it generally has a very hard time getting the ball rolling itself, so missing on it isn't all that important with some half decent support in the back, especially when taking into account its lack of any recovery.
In practice, that assortment of moves with an Adamant nature can be devastating in quite literally any matchup. I swear that isn't an exaggeration. I alluded to it a bit in the Rotom-H post, but it is simply one of those mons that allows you to get a shit load of mileage out of it if used correctly. It is so so strong, whether it is immediate or after an SD, and that is the key difference between its direct competition in Bulk Up Conkeldurr. BU Conk is the number one reason building in this tier is ass due to its limited counterplay, and it remains easy to support, but it does have its moments where it finds itself continually thudding into Florges or Cress or whatever, not making much progress on its own. That is perhaps the biggest advantage of SD Edge Hera. It has the coverage and raw power to muscle through any traditional Fighting checks. Now, that can be said for CB Conk of course, assuming it has the optimal move assortment itself along with aggressive play, but there is a key difference between these two. That is the aspect of natural defensive utility. Choice Band Conkeldurr is capable of trading with the vast majority of the tier at worst, but due to its low Speed and therefore lack of later opportunities, it does have its limitations. Meanwhile, in addition to its solid Speed tier, Heracross has a naturally favorable matchup against the tier's bulky Waters much like bulky Conk, while also offering a formidable offensive check to things like Krookodile and other Fightings. I don't mean to imply that Heracross is the head and shoulders better Pokemon, as mentioned many times that Conk is what ruins this tier, but this Hera set is in my personal opinion, a more rewarding and consistent happy medium between Conk's two sets, hence my gravitation towards it more so than its opposition in recent tournament best of 1s.
As discussed above, what makes Heracross so good is its unique blend of Guts, power, Speed, and interesting resistances. When it comes to games themselves, it is simply amazing at progressing the game state. There are so few Pokemon that can truly out-threaten it in true one-on-ones, leading to some pretty linear lines of play from the opponent. The most apparent one is honestly the obligatory initial switch to Florges. It can easily threaten its common Water, Steel, or whatever other partners, forcing their hand early and causing them to immediately fall on the backfoot when it gets off a relatively free SD. The Hera user can simply Megahorn for a clean 2HKO, then suddenly the opponent is picking a mon to sack, as it easily eats a Moonblast. That's the big interaction where its bulk, speed, power, etc. really comes into play, making it weirdly one of the nicest Florg-reliant punishes available. Chances are that zero other Pokemon on the team will be willing to switch into the +2 bug, meaning their defensive glue is biting the dust or something else in hopes that they can heal it later. Beyond that setup, its aforementioned vastly favorable one-on-one matchups extends to the broken man himself: Conkeldurr. CB Conk is such as stupidly free lead in most cases, since it can trade with nearly anything and play off the initial assumption of a Bulk Up set, forcing the opponent's hand similar to Heracross ironically. Heracross is one of the few mons however that can truly threaten both sets in a pure 1v1, limiting its opportunities early on and swinging the momentum in favor of the Heracross user. That trait is so fucking rare without leading a Florges or Bat or whatever and risking a huge loss of initial momentum. Also it fucking DUMPSTERS any Slowking Mandibuzz team, my god. The mf bug just puts the ball in your court from the get-go in almost every game, netting some sort of positive if its user clicks the right buttons. Highly recommend.
+2 252+ Atk Heracross Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Florges: 191-225 (53 - 62.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
most beautiful calc of all time ^^^
+2 252+ Atk Heracross Stone Edge vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Mandibuzz: 442-522 (104.4 - 123.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Heracross Stone Edge vs. 248 HP / 112 Def Crobat: 246-290 (65.9 - 77.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
Side note: people always talk about the vacuum left by a mon if its banned, and that has been reasoning for leaving old tiers alone. In this case, outside of Conk offering a decent Hydreigon check, I genuinely think Heracross can HEALTHILY fill the role of roided up Fighting breaker if it were to leave. Key word healthily, as its effectiveness largely depends on how it is used and played against, putting it into the hands of the players, as opposed to Conkeldurr's stranglehold on the teambuilder since Bulk Up has so few actual answers. Just let me/us ban it please.
As I slowly become more active I figure it's the perfect time to make an ORAS UU post. To the point though, Krookodile is one of the most interesting mons in my eyes over ORAS UU's development in the past 5-6 years. Krook could have been argued as a top3 mon at multiple points in ORAS UU's history and it seemed like it just started to slowly fade out as time went on. When I think of this mon and ORAS, I think of your typical CB set with pursuit. The set specifically has not evolved much since the entire premise of using CB is to pursuit trap. The only change in modern day ORAS UU that I think is worth making is having Stone Edge as your last slot instead of superpower in the current meta. The rise of Mandibuzz is generally the cause of this since superpowers main niche was slamming a potential hydreigon that otherwise could check the croc. As CB lost popularity over the years, Pak started to experiment helmet krook more, which had its perks, but if I'm being completely honest that set is dogshit right now. I think if you're going to use krook right now, finding a way to abuse CB's pursuit potential will get you the most mileage out of this mon.
Let get into why CB krook essentially died off in the first place. I couldn't find one definitive reason so I think it's a couple different things. Firstly, ever since conk came into the mix, every bulky psychic and their mother run a colbur berry. For mons like cresselia and reuniclus, they would sometimes run them anyways before conk was allowed but conk really elevated this issue and when you're choice band dark type cant muscle through a single bulky psychic in the meta without taking 90% or dying, I'd understand where people would be less inclined to use krook because of this. Secondly, Conk himself being a fighting type and also a top2 mon in the meta for consistent years now is likely a reason why a dark type that formely saw insane usage, dropped off. I could sit and and talk about fairy's in ORAS UU, but I honestly don't think shit like florg/whims/sylv is the issue. If anything, the way those mons have been trending has helped krook seeing as whims and sylv have also fallen off a bit as mons.
Now time to debunk myself. I honestly think CB krook is a fucking fantastic mon right now in the meta. I can sit here and say what I want about how the meta shifted in the past to adapt around this mon, but no matter which way you fucking shift left,right,up, or down, pursuit will always be broken and there are still a lot of ways you can outplay people and beat them with a mon like this. Basically what I'm saying is that krook is a calculated type of wallbreaker since it has access to a move like pursuit. It's not something you should be just brainlessly clicking with because It's actually still not that hard to check. Bulky Psychics still use colbur berry, conkeldurr is still in this fucking tier (please let pak ban it), hydreigon is still here, BUT I think pursuit is as good as it's ever been in an ORAS UU meta. I feel like pursuit goes incredibly far beyond just clicking it on something its supereffective against even thought that's obviously still a positive. Continuing on though, I think roughly around 1/6 of the relevant meta could potentially get pursuit trapped during a game for some sort of decent benefit to a player. I'll try and group shit to make it easier.
Trapping Mega Aero/Crobat: Two mons that I think give krook a lot of outplay potential to get a trap off. Crobat and mega aerodactly tend to provide teams with speed control, a secondary celebi/conk check with aero, and a primary conk check/softer celebi check in crobat. What can you do? Well of course, using conk or celebi with band krook is likely still effective. The problem with this is that there is still a significant chunk of the meta that can still check conk and celebi so it's not completely brainless. Luckily krook traps a few more mons that can help open both of them up still.
Trapping Steels/Grounded Poisons: Honestly, there's only like three steels you should be potentially trapping in my eyes. Empoleon is one, doublade, and escav are the others. Doublade and escav are more or less irrelevant, but for whatever reason some people still like to use dogshit pokemon in this tier and it gives me more shit to write about so I'll include them. The poisons you could be potentially trapping are Roserade and Nidoqueen/King. Trapping empoleon is something that I feel like gets overlooked a lot of the time, but it's actually incredibly effective. Empoleon is a mon that can be a blanket check for celebi and fairys on BO oriented teams and If you position well and outplay you're opponent, getting a clean 60% on that mon can open up a lot for teammates like celebi/drei/specs sylv/cm florg although cm florg technically beats it anyways. The grounded poisons are where you can give a lot of room for the latter CM florg. Roserade and the nidos are an inherent cock block to CM florg and with a proper trap you can gain a lot of progress on nidos and outright ohko rose. Trapping any of these poisons and the aforementioned crobat is also progress for any fighting type like conk/hera/cob as well, although heracross does pretty well on its own ngl.
Other: I don't really want to give ghost types their own section since the only ghost type that has any consistent viability is jellicent, which should be trappable in the current meta since they should always be carrying leftovers if any mileage is to be gained with that mon. I already mentioned shitty doublade in steels and stuff like chandelure/hoopa are complete piss takes in the current meta, but yes you do trap them too and you could probably pair CB krook with snorlax and find some success this way although lax is still poor in this meta. Oh trapping the occasional entei is great too for fairy's and also just preventing your team from losing all momentum via broken sacred fire.
Wrap: CB krook is good yo. To kind of tie everything together though, I just want to reiterate the fact that even thought CB krook can do so many good things for a lot of very good pokemon in this tier, it's still a fairly high skill type of mon to use. In the hands of a good player who can position well and outplay their opponent, this mon will work still. If you play like a fuck and hard switch your krook into a roserade leaf storm, don't expect to get anything out of this mon. To touch on what you're last move should be again as well though, Stone edge Stone edge Stone edge. Mandibuzz is one of those X factors that regardless of what you trap can trap during a game with this mon, it will still be able to find longevity in the hands of a good player and check a mon like celebi for an entire game. Mandibuzz teams usually don't have great inherent krook answers from what I've noticed though and opponents may think it's safe to be able to check your krook and celebi on its own since it doesn't really need leftovers to check celebi. I think this notion just gives stone edge a lot of potential in this meta and also helps cover what its trapping capabilities cant cover for its team. My final add would be that I do prefer krook to aero right now as a trapper specifically because it doesn't take up my mega slot/if I still do want to use mega aero I can use hone claws. I cherish using my mega slot in oras right now to try and be creative and break the meta in unexpected ways. Yes, you can always just use mega aero and role compress your dick off for speed control and a better offense check, but I value my mega slot very heavily right now and they work a bit differently as trappers anyways even thought they can still trap a fair amount of similar mons. Long wrap but ok.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6uu-530640 ---- This was a game I had against Killintime in UUSD. I'd say this mu is pretty unlikely but it can def happen in todays ORAS UU. There was nothing for me to trap, but with edge coverage krook matchups really well simply as a breaker against a team like this.
Krookodile @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
Hey, I don't play much ORAS UU but it was fun I did it in uusd (once) and when helping ppl test. With the Conkeldurr vote confirmed I thought it'd be appropriate to include the overall UUPL stats here. Individual weeks stats can be found here.
Conk is banned. As I said in the ban proposal itself, I had quite literally been waiting years to make that post. It never seemed realistic and I figured it wouldn't have to worry about being let down if I just accepted things as they were. Obviously I would've loved for Conk to be banned, as stated 5000 times, and I was going to try given the opportunity, but it never seemed like it could really happen. The support was way stronger than I could've reasonably expected, and unsurprisingly that showed in the voting results as well. It was not even close and I finally won't be the dude screaming in the distance to ban Conk.
I said a while back that I literally did not care what happened post-Conk ban for better or worse as long as it happened. Naturally, I expected there to be a lot more breathing room in the builder in a historically very restricted tier to build in, and that has shown to be true in my limited building to this point. Things should feel much fresher and I expect there to be much more interest in general when it comes to ORAS in the near future and hopefully long-term as well. What's going to be weird and also kind of cool is that with a change of this magnitude, it's going to shift the tier immensely. Past meta teams excluding Conkeldurr will probably still be fine, but there seem to be so many more avenues and approaches that don't entail losing to Conk immediately anymore.
In a way, everyone is on the same level again. Not to make this some sort of ego stroke, but given the general lack of building within the tier aside from a handful of people, a lot of the time these random tournament games would just be something I made in 2017 versus something I made in 2019. Somehow everyone gained access to everything I ever touched somewhere down the line even if I never shared it with anyone directly, down to the EVs and sometimes weird techs. Ask anyone with similar experiences and yeah they can attest to how frustrating it can be, especially in such a bogged down tier that took so much trial and error to progress. It was a decent reason why I tend to try to build something new every week I play it in whatever tournament but it was never all that realistic, which is why stuff like Conk was so frustrating for me and maybe less so for the people who haven't thrown shit at a wall for years, hoping something would stick or not get swept by Conk. But yeah, with such a shift and a theoretical spike in interest, it'll be interesting to see where things go. The tier could look incredibly different within a few years and I couldn't be happier about it, even if I'm just as in-the-dark as anyone else when it comes to this new meta. Honestly a lot of what I've written in this thread could be seen as obsolete in the near future, and I don't mind at all because it was all trying to build to this point.
i prob coulda posted this a few weeks ago, but here's my 2 cents on what i'd expect in the short run:
to nobody's surprise, crobat's gonna take a huge hit here. while bulky bats will still very much be viable for its good longevity as a defogger (or not), it's no longer a necessary pick on a huge portion of teams. on the flip side, i actually expect offensive bats to see an uptick in popularity as a lot of teams tend to lack strong answers to sky plate/banded brave bird. viability-wise, i definitely see it falling out of the a-ranks, but offensive sets are good enough that it won't fall below b/b+ rank (personally i lean towards b+). it was still a decent option before conk dropped, and i still expect it to be decent now.
heracross and machamp being two of the most impacted ones, but another under-the-radar threat i expect to become more relevant again is sd luke. although it still won't have an easy time clicking sd, losing one of its most common checks/revenge killers will certainly do it a lot of favors moving forward. it'll never hit peak prowess the way it did back in the xy meta, but it'll surely establish itself again as a dangerous set-up sweeper.
mega shark was still a massive fucking threat with conk, and similar to lucario, it's gonna have a fuckin field day with its biggest rker out of the picture. oh boy
there will prob be other things in my mind but i've got no active brain cells atm so i'll stick with the obvious shit for now. looking forward to building a bit without conk anymore
Back when Conkeldurr was around ravaging the tier (get used to slight variations of that phrase), it shifted the tier as we knew it immensely, placing a huge strain on building creativity and structure possibilities as a whole. There were only so many team styles that were truly optimal, and that still applies to some capacity in any tier, including the new ORAS UU, but it was ridiculously more apparent with the immortal Fighting-type around. Perhaps the mon that suffered most from its presence was Snorlax. Dating back to 2015, I was actually a huge Snorlax spammer, as it presented a unique win condition while offering a weird blend of defensive utility, checking things like Entei, Hydreigon, and winning the 1v1 against Crocune. Needless to say, that combination basically applies to nothing else in the game, but still, fitting this thing only became harder and harder with Conk present.
A huge issue was of course that the Fighting brute simply didn't die. What set it aside from other Fightings like Heracross was its ridiculous resilience. Between its bulk, Drain Punch, and passive recovery from Lefties, the thing wouldn't go away, essentially invalidating the possibility of soft checking or using offensive pressure in hopes of handling it long-term. Now that it is gone, Snorlax can go back to winning the long-term battle against its main checks in Fighting-types, as it can immediately threaten the new mainstays in Heracross and Mienshao, making it a much more consistent wincon with much more leeway to get the ball rolling. It also helps out that Ghosts are still likely nowhere to be found, and that is due in large part to the ever-presence of Mega Aerodactyl. Its also very possible that Empoleon could continue its trend away from its safest option, Roar, in favor of Toxic to cripple the rising Seismitoad, which prides itself on beating the penguin one-on-one.
Honestly though, Conkeldurr itself in practice wasn't the biggest problem when it came to running Snorlax. It was more so the stranglehold it had on teambuilding. I genuinely believe there were simply too many roles to fill when it was around for a Snorlax team to be truly cohesive. It still offered its aforementioned defensive utility, but filling out the team around it was no easy task. More often than not, its structures would devolve into do-nothing bs that essentially treated building as a checklist more than anything else, usually just hoping Snorlax would have a good matchup. That is still very possible in today's ORAS, but now there will be much more leeway, not needing one of the few hard counters to Conk next to it. That sounds kind of small on the surface, but any breathing room is huge for a mon that can be as passive as Snorlax with its recovery relying on Rest cycles. Any additional midgrounds for what it is meant to handle are immensely appreciated so it doesn't have to sit there giving up more momentum than it already may have to. Ideally, its defensive utility is more of a luxury than anything, as if it is meant to consistently handle the Hydreigons or whatever else of the world, it quite literally has to stay in and burn the sleep turns. Otherwise, it obviously can't keep coming in to handle it, Nidoqueen, etc.
While this is mostly speculation at this point, it is hard to do much of anything else without any real tournament exposure yet. Snorlax will always require some degree of support, but it should be much easier than ever. Due to this newfound flexibility in the builder in combination with the removal of its most resilient answer, it could be in its best place since that stretch where it's all I ever used. Only time will tell, but at least it won't be nearly as much of a pure matchup pick.
Again, it's hard to go too too far into any metagame developments, considering there haven't been any big team tours or anything featuring ORAS UU following Conk's ban, but it seems to be a pretty safe assumption that the tier is leagues better than it used to be. I've been building more and more the last couple weeks, and it has actually been enjoyable. Sure, some kind of grace period would be expected, given how many times I've bitched about Conkeldurr invalidating so many team types with its sheer presence alone, but I swear it's more than that. I've been asking around for various ideas to work with, and something I've noticed beyond x mon or y mon is better without the brute out there terrorizing everything is just how fresh everything seems. There is so much flexibility and room for newfound innovation now. So many mons have the leeway to perform roles that they could previously never hope to pull off without being completely hit or miss based off what you face in a given game. Even if a certain mon in question did not directly benefit from a bulky Fighting-type that never dies leaving, there is just way way more to do in general without Conk looming over your head, waiting to 6-0 by clicking Bulk Up a couple times, or playing off that to nuke some shit with CB.
Something I absolutely loathed about playing this tier in bo1 settings was that of the matchup based nature it could commonly stumble upon, largely spurred by Conk's presence and the natural pace of the metagame. Building felt more like a checklist than anything, despite my best efforts to break whatever mold, and Conkeldurr was the biggest one right at the top. It's easy to say you can do this and that to play around whatever threatening mon, but Conk was like the most unforgiving mon to face and it was not close. Sure, stuff like Suicune can also just win games on its own, although the thing is that it has plentiful, otherwise-viable counterplay, much like most other set up sweepers like that. Through my own experiences from playing and also spectating, something that always bothered me is people would use these glaringly flawed teams in one way or another, but in some capacity the matchup itself would come down to who ignored the right things. That applies to any tier to some extent, but it has always irked me here of all places, where I'd had a lot of my own success as a player and had been far more involved building here than anywhere else. Now, things are more free-flowing and it does seem like there is much more room to play around whatever comes up, rather than going all in to be prepped for xyz but not for abc with 8 holes that happen to not come up here. Teams can feasibly be more cohesive and actually fulfill a purpose, rather than ignoring major things for the sake of attempting to do so or ending up with do-nothing shit that checks every box on paper. It was possible before, but with only so many viable approaches.
Yeah I didn't have a ton of analytical or concrete analysis here. It's just been genuinely enjoyable to open the team builder lately, unlike much of ORAS's run since 2016. Yes, I wouldn't have played this tier for so long if there was no fun to be had, but so much of that time was spent beating my head into a wall, essentially finding new ways to get fucked by Conk on paper. There would be break-throughs here and there, hence the progress ORAS has made since its initial run, but good god was it frustrating along the way. It's so god damn exciting and I hope people try it out for themselves at some point. It's lowkey been giving me vibes of the beloved 2015 pre-Alakazam and shit ORAS UU metagame, if that says anything.
Again, it's hard to go too too far into any metagame developments, considering there haven't been any big team tours or anything featuring ORAS UU following Conk's ban, but it seems to be a pretty safe assumption that the tier is leagues better than it used to be. I've been building more and more the last couple weeks, and it has actually been enjoyable. Sure, some kind of grace period would be expected, given how many times I've bitched about Conkeldurr invalidating so many team types with its sheer presence alone, but I swear it's more than that. I've been asking around for various ideas to work with, and something I've noticed beyond x mon or y mon is better without the brute out there terrorizing everything is just how fresh everything seems. There is so much flexibility and room for newfound innovation now. So many mons have the leeway to perform roles that they could previously never hope to pull off without being completely hit or miss based off what you face in a given game. Even if a certain mon in question did not directly benefit from a bulky Fighting-type that never dies leaving, there is just way way more to do in general without Conk looming over your head, waiting to 6-0 by clicking Bulk Up a couple times, or playing off that to nuke some shit with CB.
Something I absolutely loathed about playing this tier in bo1 settings was that of the matchup based nature it could commonly stumble upon, largely spurred by Conk's presence and the natural pace of the metagame. Building felt more like a checklist than anything, despite my best efforts to break whatever mold, and Conkeldurr was the biggest one right at the top. It's easy to say you can do this and that to play around whatever threatening mon, but Conk was like the most unforgiving mon to face and it was not close. Sure, stuff like Suicune can also just win games on its own, although the thing is that it has plentiful, otherwise-viable counterplay, much like most other set up sweepers like that. Through my own experiences from playing and also spectating, something that always bothered me is people would use these glaringly flawed teams in one way or another, but in some capacity the matchup itself would come down to who ignored the right things. That applies to any tier to some extent, but it has always irked me here of all places, where I'd had a lot of my own success as a player and had been far more involved building here than anywhere else. Now, things are more free-flowing and it does seem like there is much more room to play around whatever comes up, rather than going all in to be prepped for xyz but not for abc with 8 holes that happen to not come up here. Teams can feasibly be more cohesive and actually fulfill a purpose, rather than ignoring major things for the sake of attempting to do so or ending up with do-nothing shit that checks every box on paper. It was possible before, but with only so many viable approaches.
Yeah I didn't have a ton of analytical or concrete analysis here. It's just been genuinely enjoyable to open the team builder lately, unlike much of ORAS's run since 2016. Yes, I wouldn't have played this tier for so long if there was no fun to be had, but so much of that time was spent beating my head into a wall, essentially finding new ways to get fucked by Conk on paper. There would be break-throughs here and there, hence the progress ORAS has made since its initial run, but good god was it frustrating along the way. It's so god damn exciting and I hope people try it out for themselves at some point. It's lowkey been giving me vibes of the beloved 2015 pre-Alakazam and shit ORAS UU metagame, if that says anything.
Alright hopefully this one doesn't come off as too much of an ego stroke, but I won the first Conk-less ORAS UU Cup earlier today and wanted to share some thoughts on things, expanding on the mostly theory-based post above a bit. I've never been someone who's taken individual tournaments all that seriously aside from like UU open and some others on the come up back in the day, but with my interest in UU old gens being at an all time high I figured I would give Classic a shot this year. Simply put, it's been a lot of fun to this point, and that has mostly been due to my obviously refreshed interest in ORAS. I've always had these little spells where it would feel like there was nothing left to do, and the more I built throughout this tournament, the more I felt like there was too much to do. Good god I never thought I'd be able to say that about this tier, but I just checked and I built somewhere in the vicinity of 35 teams since the start of that tour. Now, a good amount are revamps of old shit that lost to Conk or variations of similar ideas, but the point remains that there is a TON to do at the moment. I still have a good amount of ideas floating around that I either couldn't bring to fruition or didn't have the right environment to apply them to. Anyway, as I said in the post, winning that tour meant to a lot to me for very apparent reasons. Before this tour, part of me worried about leaving this tier behind a bit now that the war on Conk was finally won, but the opportunity to build with a real purpose again really reinvigorated my interest as well. It's always easy to be like I want to build with x, y, and z, but for me at least, I need something to go off of to get some real inspiration going, and that's exactly where tournaments like these come in. Big shoutouts to everyone who accepted by 4000 test games, talked through whatever I had, or gave me ideas either for the new meta or whatever opponent. It was a lot of fun throughout and I owe them a lot. With all this said, I would like to think I've gained a bit more experience here as opposed to when everything post-Conk was all theorization and hypotheticals. Posting again should get easier and easier between that and also UUWC going on currently. Without any real exposure it was hard to get anything concrete going so I was iffy on doing so too much before things developed a bit. If it wasn't clear enough, this tier is in a great place from my very biased point of view and as I mentioned before, I think more people should get into it, especially while no one really knows what's going on yet (myself included). It's been a great time so far.
Back when Conkeldurr was around ravaging the tier (get used to slight variations of that phrase), it shifted the tier as we knew it immensely, placing a huge strain on building creativity and structure possibilities as a whole. There were only so many team styles that were truly optimal, and that still applies to some capacity in any tier, including the new ORAS UU, but it was ridiculously more apparent with the immortal Fighting-type around. Perhaps the mon that suffered most from its presence was Snorlax. Dating back to 2015, I was actually a huge Snorlax spammer, as it presented a unique win condition while offering a weird blend of defensive utility, checking things like Entei, Hydreigon, and winning the 1v1 against Crocune. Needless to say, that combination basically applies to nothing else in the game, but still, fitting this thing only became harder and harder with Conk present.
A huge issue was of course that the Fighting brute simply didn't die. What set it aside from other Fightings like Heracross was its ridiculous resilience. Between its bulk, Drain Punch, and passive recovery from Lefties, the thing wouldn't go away, essentially invalidating the possibility of soft checking or using offensive pressure in hopes of handling it long-term. Now that it is gone, Snorlax can go back to winning the long-term battle against its main checks in Fighting-types, as it can immediately threaten the new mainstays in Heracross and Mienshao, making it a much more consistent wincon with much more leeway to get the ball rolling. It also helps out that Ghosts are still likely nowhere to be found, and that is due in large part to the ever-presence of Mega Aerodactyl. Its also very possible that Empoleon could continue its trend away from its safest option, Roar, in favor of Toxic to cripple the rising Seismitoad, which prides itself on beating the penguin one-on-one.
Honestly though, Conkeldurr itself in practice wasn't the biggest problem when it came to running Snorlax. It was more so the stranglehold it had on teambuilding. I genuinely believe there were simply too many roles to fill when it was around for a Snorlax team to be truly cohesive. It still offered its aforementioned defensive utility, but filling out the team around it was no easy task. More often than not, its structures would devolve into do-nothing bs that essentially treated building as a checklist more than anything else, usually just hoping Snorlax would have a good matchup. That is still very possible in today's ORAS, but now there will be much more leeway, not needing one of the few hard counters to Conk next to it. That sounds kind of small on the surface, but any breathing room is huge for a mon that can be as passive as Snorlax with its recovery relying on Rest cycles. Any additional midgrounds for what it is meant to handle are immensely appreciated so it doesn't have to sit there giving up more momentum than it already may have to. Ideally, its defensive utility is more of a luxury than anything, as if it is meant to consistently handle the Hydreigons or whatever else of the world, it quite literally has to stay in and burn the sleep turns. Otherwise, it obviously can't keep coming in to handle it, Nidoqueen, etc.
While this is mostly speculation at this point, it is hard to do much of anything else without any real tournament exposure yet. Snorlax will always require some degree of support, but it should be much easier than ever. Due to this newfound flexibility in the builder in combination with the removal of its most resilient answer, it could be in its best place since that stretch where it's all I ever used. Only time will tell, but at least it won't be nearly as much of a pure matchup pick.
After some time to digest things a bit more, coming to a conclusion about whatever mon theorized about three months ago is expectedly much easier. Naturally, that sentiment applies to Snorlax pretty soundly. It was thought to be one of if not the number one beneficiary of Conkeldurr leaving, for the reasons listed above. Yes, it lost its number one check that never fucking died, but also, there was supposedly much more leeway in the teambuilder to fit in this thing. Both statements are true, but in my mind, it hasn't translated as nicely as we may have originally expected. This goes for a lot of these one-off mons that it was easy to be like oh yeah with Conk gone he's probably better.
The truth is that with Conkeldurr gone, there have been so many doors opened that it sort of feels like playing an entirely different metagame. There have been developments on developments, and there should be even more moving forward. Naturally, not all of these were going to favor Snorlax, even if it did get better itself in theory. Some of these main complications include a rising inclination toward much faster pace styles, given the general team structure brought about by the now-dominant Mienshao. Mienshao in of itself is far from perfect counterplay to Snorlax with its dog shit defense, but if you're pivoting in and out and constantly punishing passiveness while still packing a strong HJK in the back to nail it, it does at times have a hard time getting going in matchups that are supposedly favorable for it.
Another big big development as of late has been Jellicent. It probably deserves its own post at some point, but it has absolutely thrived in a Conkeldurrless metagame. The short version is that it has always had very limited counterplay given the combination of broken ORAS burns and its ability to shit on general passiveness, but accounting for its defensive lapses in comparison to other bulky Waters made it hard to fit along with the old team constrictions. The latter of which primarily alludes to Conk of course, which also was not a mon it liked facing by any means, essentially forcing Florges next to it to make up for that one matchup. Now, it does not necessitate a Fairy next to it, and it and its teams can go in a more upbeat direction as well. Needless to say, it perhaps the worst mon to face while using Snorlax, even if its packing CB Krook or something assuming its Colbur. The jelly fish is just a massive bitch for it, and chances are that it won't be dying back down any time soon.
Aside from all this other movement in the metagame hindering it in whatever capacity, the main thing that's jumped out to me that really shouldn't be that surprising, is again, the passivity in forces on the user at times. It's really annoying for obvious reasons, but especially so if on paper its supposed to be a check to all this random special shit, whether it is Hydreigon, Nidos, etc. On paper, that is one of its best traits, as those are some of the hardest Pokemon in the tier to feel all that comfortable against, but if Snorlax is to function as a continuous and reliable answer to the above, then it is all but forced to of course click Rest and burn its Sleep turns. So yeah, that's a pretty nice way to lose all momentum in a meta that appears to only be getting more and more fast-paced.
With all this said, it's not like I think Snorlax is some terrible mon. It's certainly better than it was in some capacity, but it is unclear just how much at this point. The thing will always have its matchups where it just steamrolls shit, but the issue has always been trying to get something going around it that's truly cohesive, rather than trying to band-aid check all these holes then hoping Snorlax wins on its own. I'd imagine its ideal that Snorlax has as little defensive pressure on it as possible, perhaps next to Florges to offer some other way of checking Hydreigon while mitigating the momentum loss of its sleep, but again, that may easily end up too vulnerable to the Shaos and Jellicents and goons running around. I do need to do more experimentation myself frankly, but to this point I've been underwhelmed.
Crobat was among the handful of mons that could be pointed to as 'reliable' counterplay to Bulk Up Conkeldurr, which of course was notorious for being able to beat an absolutely heinous amount of mons in pure one-on-ones. With a Haze itemless bat set, Bulk Up simply could not get the ball rolling on its own, as any damage it could do would be Roosted off and any boosting would simply be removed. With that said, much like the other hard answers to Bulk Up Conk, it often found itself in passive recovery cycles in order to handle it long-term. Maintaining rocks on the opponent's side is not a tall task in ORAS UU, where the removal options are pretty limited and the good rockers can threaten most removers in some capacity. This was the main reason for HazeBat being as passive as it was at times, even if it was not the (bad) remover itself like it never should be. Even if Conk could not directly threaten it, Crobat would come in, take rocks, eat a Knock for 20 whatever, then it would basically have to Roost to be able to repeat the same cycle next time it came about. Also, Conk's counterplay is so limited that there would rarely be midgrounds, making switches to Bat even more telegraphed and exploitable. It was not hard to double to some mon that threatens bat from Conk and instantly make meaningful progress with rocks up. With Conk gone, not only can it more realistically forego Haze, an otherwise limited move in what it can accomplish, but it can take on a more proactive role in general.
The primary set I'll be referencing here is that of Brave Bird/U-Turn/Roost/Taunt. There are obviously more options it has at its disposal, but that is probably the safest set to default to given the pressure it can apply, especially with rocks on the opposing side and essentially all of the tier's Flying resists lacking recovery. It wasn't like inconceivable that you could fit this set in Conk meta, but no matter the case, chances are you'd be looser versus Conk than you'd prefer, which is hilarious to think about. An example was my most recent RMT, which had Bat/Whimsicott/SD Heracross, which are essentially three of the 'better' individual 'checks' which still can't truly shut it out on their own. Even with it gone, it's hard to understate just how stupid of a threat Conk was to threaten. Anyway, now Crobat isn't consistently forced into using such a reactive set, where it needs a shit load of bulk to handle these Fightings most effectively, which only made it more passive on top of these other aforementioned issues. It was just a price you had to pay for taking essentially the only route available that wasn't generic Fairy shit or Mandibuzz + Slowking that could be half decent against the broken Fighting thing.
Now none of this is the case. It can afford to take a more proactive approach, rather than sitting around handing momentum to the opponent in hopes of not losing the long game. It can make meaningful progress on its own and play a valuable role as part of a cohesive offensive core. I don't have any hard stats in front of me but this thing is legitimately threatening with some good options around it to punish Steels or Aero or whatever and it has seemed to be cleaning up a good amount of games as of late. In any case, this thing can keep teeing off on these mons then U-turning out to chip them down for later, or just get the U-Turn momentum initially to get the ball rolling offensively. Even with Conk gone, there is still a lot of merit in running it in the first place, as it is one of the few naturally fast mons in the tier without attaching a Scarf, and now Mienshao has reached the forefront of usage. Aside from the occasional Stone Edge, it is a fantastic check, even without a ton of bulk investment. Sure, it's still rocks weak and resulting momentum loss blah blah, but the point stands. It also has an underrated amount of flexibility in its sets, whether it is the different utility moves or its 5000 item choices. Between that and its Speed, respectable offensive presence, and natural defensive utility, it a great mon in the new metagame and has been a breath of fresh air for the previously established Bat + Emp teams that may have gotten even stronger due in large part to this shift.
After several minutes of trying to find the log of myself saying there is no reason to put AV Shao on an ORAS UU team, I got lazy, but yeah as you may guess from the title and some of my team choices in UU snake 1, my opinion on it as shifted a ton. Ever since McMeghan first invented the set in SM UU during Smogon Snake Draft 2, I think it's fairly safe to say it's always been a polarizing mon. For years and years, dating back to BW (to my knowledge) the primary Mienshao set has of course been Choice Scarf along with some sets featuring Life Orb + Regenerator as well. When Assault Vest was first brought about, McMeghan likened it as a replacement to AV Tornadus-T in OUs of old. Its respectable natural bulk, further bolstered by AV, in combination with the broken ability of Regenerator made the bird damn near unkillable as a pivot, and that largely applies to Mienshao too, bulk aside, especially considering the fact it doesn't care much about Stealth Rock either. Still, what business did this mon with paper-thin defenses have continually pivoting into powerful special moves like Hydreigon Draco Meteors? It was almost inconceivable at the time of its inception, but more and more people eventually picked up on its merits, but skeptics always remained, mostly due to how constricted SM UU building always was in combination with how few Pokemon Mienshao truly helped out against defensively. Additionally, there was powerful physical priority like Scizor Bullet Punch and the tier was much faster paced compared to ORAS, featuring threats such as Terrakion and Latias. It still had merit, but it remained difficult to justify.
However, its initial usage put the set's existence on all UU players' radar, leading certain people to experiment with it in ORAS UU. At the time of this transition, I was still lukewarm on the prospect of the newfound pivot in SM, and I was even more skeptical in ORAS, where some of the main staples at the time, Slowking, Crobat, and Florges, theoretically walled it. Honestly, it was another case of me being a little too critical of something that I didn't have sufficient experience with myself. This tournament, especially after week 1 as mentioned above even though I actually used AV Mienshao that week, one of my goals to was to keep more of an open mind when it came to sets like this. Over the last couple years, sometimes it had felt like I was beating my head into a wall with the same types of concepts over and over, leading to frustrations with the heavy constraints on building in the tier. Needless to say, branching out some gives building a newfound fresh feeling and makes it more fun overall, as like I've said, building is my favorite aspect of this dog shit game.
AV Mienshao's positive traits are basically incomparable to anything the tier had seen before. The mon has such a unique blend of Speed, respectable power, useful utility moves like U-turn and Knock Off among other coverage options, and finally, the stupidly broken ability of Regenerator. Traditionally, when you think of pivots in the tier, it generally would tie back to mons like Slowking or U-turn Mandibuzz, which could stomach hits from powerful attackers and not lose too much momentum in the process in comparison to their more passive defensive counterparts. Mandibuzz and the other big slow U-turn user, Gligar (which Conk spearheaded a big drop off in), saw additional merit in the fact that they could slow U-turn on top tier threats in Hydreigon and Celebi, but more so the latter. It was a massive point of emphasis for me when it came to developing some more modern team structures, as Mandibuzz could alleviate pressure off of the Steel-type Pokemon slot in dealing with the onion, as Steels are also infamous for being chipped down over time. Back when things were much slower and clunkier offensively, it was a much more common opinion that Celebi could be too much for the tier, mostly due to the issue with Steels mentioned above. The point of all this rambling is that Mienshao takes this trait of pivots in the past, while incorporating a much up-beat and offensively-minded approach. The key traits here are its Speed, as for most ORAS teams, there are usually two Pokemon max that'll outrun the fighting cat thing, as well as its ability to eat just about any one hit on the special side. This of course includes a STAB Psychic from Celebi, which outdamages Regenerator recovery, but it makes the initial pivot into the onion fairly safe and is nearly guaranteed to net you some sort of progress. It can syphon off some of these huge threats offensive pressure and completely turn the tables momentum wise. Essentially, AV Mienshao is incredibly brain dead and makes some in-game sequences exponentially more fluid for the user.
Also, earlier I mentioned some of Mienshao's theoretical counters. There are a couple key aspects of this topic. One of which is simply that when it comes to pivots, it is often the things they can pivot and their interactions with them are more prevalent than the Pokemon that hard counter the pivot in turn. Mandibuzz is again a great example. Sure, defensive Fairy-types have long been staples with the presence of Hydreigon and Conkeldurr, but Mandibuzz matches up well with many other common Pokemon in the metagame, giving it defensive value and an unintentional support avenue to its teams by effectively pivoting in teammates on these things that feast on it 1v1. Again, Mienshao is a much more offensive variation on this concept, especially when rocks are up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that pressuring Crobat is a thousand times easier with rocks on the opponent's side, leaving it stuck clicking Roost much more often than it would prefer, purely so it can continue to check things like Conkeldurr and others. Click U-turn a couple times as rocks dig in and suddenly the bat just gets more and more abusable offensively. As for Florges, Mienshao's last moveslot should undoubtedly be Poison Jab. The rolls here aren't great but the thing is, they don't have to be. AV Shao simply Knocks Off Florges's Leftovers, then Jabs on the switch next sequence. It does enough that the flower has to keep clicking Synthesis, and the Shao user can stay in and simultaneously burn its Synth PP and fish for Poisons which are bound to happen. It's unironically one of the better ways to truly punish Florges-reliant balances, as they often lack any other form of meaningful counterplay without some really crack head pivoting. So yeah, so much for its omnipresent strong counterplay.
The jist here is that even though things can seem pretty weird on the surface, it's crucial to keep an open mind in situations like this, as they can further some of your own concepts and the ensuing potential combinations that push the metagame forward. For instance, week 1 I opted to pair Mienshao with CM Reuniclus, a mon notorious for losing boosting wars to Celebi and having some trouble getting the ball rolling with Darks like Hydreigon running around. I loved the fit of Mienshao next to it because of its ability to deter those threats, and it could also get Reuniclus in to punish more passive team members like some of those mentioned above. It didn't end up working as intended for other reasons, but the possibilities are endless with these types of off the wall picks and it makes building a lot more enjoyable, exploring unprecedented combinations. This type of stuff is why I wanted to join the tournament in the first place, as falling into those same building ruts can be so easy, and nothing quite compares to the inspiration from building week-to-week. AV Shao isn't perfect by any means, but it is such a bitch to kill and offers some pretty incomparable support and fluidity to its teams.
Mienshao in the post-Conk meta has been ridiculously good. It was already a very good mon before, as mentioned in the post above, but it reaching this kind of status would have been inconceivable a couple years ago even if i knew Conkeldurr would eventually leave. After all, one of my key points with it leaving was that Heracross could shoulder a similar load offensively, albeit in a healthy way that promotes interactive gameplay. Now, Heracross is still a good mon, due in part ironically because it is a good offensive check to Mienshao, but in a way, Conk actually seemed to make it better. It was one of the only mons around that could lead off and be 'fine' against either Conk set, which is not something the vast majority of offensive mons could claim. It also had clear means of shitting all over the standard Conk counterplay, whether it was nailing Crobat on the switch with a powerful Stone Edge even unboosted or simply clicking SD on the obvious switch to Florg and instantly forcing a kill. It's definitely still good, punishing Mandibuzz Slowking and the new age Mandibuzz Jellicent teams as well as ever, but perhaps its niche isn't quite as clear as it once was. Instead, Mienshao is the one that saw the absolutely meteoric rise.
Before, the main set worth using was Assault Vest, which remains a good set and has much more flexibility now with its moveslots. One of the set's best attributes was putting Florges balances on the backfoot with the pace it naturally gives its team, while it could directly threaten the defensive fairy between Knock Off and Poison Jab. It can still very well do that, but now there is generally less reliance on those types of mons. In other words, Poison Jab is still good, but it is much less of a necessity than it once was. This is something I've put a good amount of thought into as I've used it more and more, and there are a good amount of options in that last slot. HP Ice is incredible at flipping the momentum war versus Gligar teams on its head. Its overall uses are limited, but Knocking on the switch to the scorpion thing then dealing half as they U-turn out can potentially be game-ending. This would've meant jack all before, since Conk put Gligar into extinction, but it too has seen a solid rise in usage since it can at least pivot on these more popular fightings most of the time. Some other more niche options I've tried are Stone Edge and Aerial Ace. Both are obviously quite team-specific, but that kind of flexibility is partially why AV Shao is so great. The former's utility is pretty apparent since it can nail Flyings for some good damage, while the latter can pick off a somewhat weakened Heracross, which again will assume it's safe. The hierarchy probably still goes Jab > HP Ice > everything else, but having the room to do some fuck shit like this is really cool.
Assault Vest is the usual default with the basically unmatched utility in pivoting into special attackers like Hydreigon, Celebi, etc. from full, but other sets have much more merit than they used to in my opinion. Scarf was much bigger in the old days of gen 6 compared to Conk meta, but it seems to be making a decent resurgence. The issue before with it, while still not bad or anything, was that Conk would force these hard counters to it on essentially every team. It could still keep up the pressure, especially with rocks up, and revenge kill whatever, but overall its lack of pure defensive utility held it back in such a constrained metagame as well. Now, things are much more fast paced, and its additional Speed over Scarf Hydreigon and Aero and shit is really nice along with the fact that its counterplay isn't quite as resilient as they had to be before when immortal Conk was still running around. Overall, it is a much better fit for the playstyle of the current meta, making it a lot easier to justify than before.
The remaining sets are the breaker-oriented ones, which are by far the hardest to fit but definitely have the highest in-game ceilings of any set. This is of course referring to either Life Orb Regenerator 4 atks and Reckless Choice Band. They each have merit in their own right, but they can be pretty easily lumped together when it comes to trying to fit them onto teams. They do not have either the defensive utility of Assault Vest or the revenge killing capabilities of Choice Scarf, so fitting the extremely fragile breaker without a ton of directly positive attributes otherwise can be super tough. With that said, if they are well-supported and get into the right positions against the right teams, they can be absolutely devastating and deserve a mention here. Like, they can literally just take over games with some correct reads, and that can't be said for the other approaches to Shao. The consistency isn't quite there though, as some games boosted HJK will get 17 kills or you snipe the bat on the initial switch and have free reign, but you can just as easily run into some more sturdy answers or not get the choke point read at the right time in one of your only real opportunities to come in and kill shit. Life Orb obviously is more free-flowing, as it can click moves then freely U-turn out if things don't go as planned, while Choice Band's raw power is nuts but requires more precise play unless its matchup is ridiculous. There's a decent amount of trade off between the two, but ultimately its preference.
I'd probably put this thing in A+ or maybe even S if things continue as they are, if I were to re-rank everything today. In hindsight its rise isn't the most staggering thing in the world, but the key thing is just how much more room it has to do things that aren't mindlessly switch in your AV Shao on half the meta, Knock shit off, and continue offensive momentum. It can still do that, but it has so much more to offer with the way the meta has progressed.
Yeah yeah we're back to mention Conkeldurr 1200 times in spite of it being gone for a while at this point. It obviously has a lot of ripple effects, but maybe some aren't the first thing you think of with its departure. Whoda thunk that that thing leaving would mean there's actually room to explore new routes and previously established mons aren't shoehorned into roles they would otherwise never want to perform. Aside from Crobat, Slowking may be the most prevalent example. For so long, much of its role tied into simply running a Colbur Psychic set, which checked Conk well enough in tandem with some revenge killers that you can kinda get away with that approach instead of the usual Florges or bulky Haze Bat. It was still wayyy shakier than you'd prefer, but it was at least feasible. Feasible in that even though the stupid ass thing could literally pop your Colbur the first sequence, then easily win the next one as you switch into a Bulk Up. Slowking could at least chip it pretty well enough for something else to pick it off, which hilariously could not be said for much. But yeah, realistically, if you had a Slowking, it was shoved into this usual role since fitting it next to another check wasn't usually the most optimal team structure around. However, offering a half decent check to Conk was what allowed more up-beat bulky offenses to exist in the first place, purely because of how stupid Conkeldurr was and making things work well enough from a defensive standpoint.
Aside from using Colbur Berry and Psychic, it did have a bit of flexibility in its last slot, but still, it wasn't anything to get excited about. It was basically your pick of what random utility move to use alongside the fixtures of Scald, Psychic, and Slack Off. The default was generally Toxic, as a lot of Slowking bulky offenses ironically did not like running into other Slowking all that much. In turn, its presence low key killed off CM Slowking for the most part, in addition to Conk beating it handily as well. These days though, there are really only two fixtures on its set, being Scald and Slack Off. Even though I've largely defaulted to Leftovers because the extra recovery can make all the difference against things like Aero which do a bit more to it than it would like, there are presumably other options to be explored in that area as well. That likely entails some different resists berries in combination with those now-free moveslots, but yeah even stuff like that was never truly feasible before.
Onto moves, as mentioned, there have always been a decent array of options to choose from. Slowking's movepool is really cool, and it has more room than ever to truly delve into the possibilities. Starting off with some of the most obvious ones, Calm Mind is much more feasible, as it does not necessitate a Fairy next to it anymore to help with Conk in its stead. Still, Toxic Waters are around which is pretty annoying as well as a rise in Jellicent, but the boosting does let it abuse a lot of bulky staples in some capacity and aid it in flipping Hydreigon matchups on their head. Toxic as mentioned is a super safe default. Scald + Toxic from Slowking is unironically one of the hardest things in the tier to switch into unless you have a Celebi. Other switch-ins like Seismitoad, Hydreigon, Fairies, etc. are pressured much more than they would like, and Roserade likely won't be hard switching into a possible Psychic move. On that note, Psychic moves are still viable of course, but there are much less of a necessity as before since Slowking can still pressure Fightings otherwise. Thunder Wave I've always kind of seen as a worse Toxic, since whatever switch-in usually hates the poison anyway, but the merit is pretty clear, at the cost of being worse off at pressuring other fat mons. Future Sight is a really cool option, especially with the rise of Mienshao, as anyone who's played competitive Teleporting could probably tell you. Dragon Tail is something I've liked a lot, letting it chip down things like Hydreigon and Celebi pretty well, while letting it avoid being set up fodder for CM Reuniclus. Its attacking move pool with Ice Beam, Signal Beam, etc. has some cool potential with the aforementioned resist berries, although they would be a bit more team specific.
In a way, it sort of reminds me of Heracross, as even though it does have more breathing room in what it can do, its niche is a bit less pronounced than it was in the previous meta. With that said, that could be for the best. Even though I was really well known for using Slowking before, there was a reason I eventually fell off on it to some extent. It would be relied on to do some much on those bulky offenses, often times more than it could really handle. Due in large part to that, I really disagreed with how high it was ranked in the most recent update, but I did get the appeal of course. Today, it is seeing some stiff competition from Jellicent, which fills a fairly comparable role defensively with a much larger payoff in the right matchups. However, it is still a fairly resilient Mienshao check along with being a sturdier Aero check with its more feasible access to Leftovers recovery. It remains a good option mostly between broken Regenerator, its matchup versus these two metagame staples among others, and the new flexibility I've written 12 paragraphs about.
In the last post I made about Suicune, I defended its newly low viability ranking compared to its previously very high standard. It has been one of the most iconic Pokemon in the tier, basically since the start of the gen when I was a literal fetus. Its consistency as a sweeper definitely did wave in and out to some extent, but that sweeping potential in tandem with its incredible defensive utility was what made it such a dominant presence. Even at its low points, I have always believed that using a team 6-0d by it is never okay. It's one thing to be weak to x B+ threat that can realistically be played around, but it is a whole other animal when a Suicune starts clicking Calm Mind and it snowballs out of control faster than literally anything else in the tier aside from Bulk Up Conk. In my opinion, that dominant status maintained even through Conkeldurr meta, but there was certainly much less flexibility in the approaches its users could take in the builder around it. Some day one of these posts won't reference Conk 90 times, but this is not one of those.
The obvious interaction there lied in two aspects, being Conkeldurr as a resilient check in of itself and also that Suicune teams are not forced into the largely passive routes they largely were in that time frame. Getting a proper supporting cast was much harder in Conk meta, since it would mostly revolve around checking the right boxes defensively. However, now there is much more breathing room in the slots around the Water legend. In particular, Fairies are much much less of a necessity. Fighting-types not named Conkeldurr can actually be checked by other means, and mons like Heracross are not nearly as durable long-term. Threats to Suicune like Roserade and Celebi are more easily pressured and punished, whereas before, they would have a ton of freedom to do what they wanted in the face of all those clunky defensive mons and with the momentum Suicune would naturally hand them. This is mostly due to combinations such as Suicune + Gligar or Suicune + Mandibuzz being much more feasible, allowing Suicune teams to take a more upbeat nature, instead of always being forced into Florges + passive mon 1, passive mon 2, etc.
This newfound proactivity helps out its sweeping potential immensely. Feasibly slinging a Toxic on Seismitoad, slow U-turning out of the Grasses into Pursuit, hard doubling to AV Mienshao on them to gain momentum, etc. All examples of Suicune teams having opportunities to grab momentum that were rarely realistic to expect before, where things would usually boil down to switching between hard counters and hoping not to be overwhelmed by the right combination of threats with rocks usually on your side. Again, it was still a perfectly viable approach, but now the Suicune user has possibilities to aggressively progress its own game plan beyond the classic double to Aero on the switch to the Grass. Gameplay fluidity with it is at an all time high, and it is definitely worth more consideration in the current meta. Sure, trends like the rise of Jellicent and Roserade being everywhere are annoying, but the point here is that those kinds of issues can be more easily overcome in the builder and especially in the games themselves, which was not always the easiest claim to make when Conkeldurr had the entire world revolving around it.
Mega Sceptile occupies a very unique niche in ORAS UU. For those that aren't aware, the first time I put a scarfer on a team and felt good about it was quite literally in SM. That basically implies that every team I ever used while ORAS was the main gen had one of Crobat, Mega Sceptile, Mega Aerodactyl, or was slow as shit. That is some absolute tom foolery, but that kind of ridiculous handicap was not even that noticeable in my mind since all three were very good mons in their own right. With that said, it isn't like the viable scarfer supply is anything crazy either, making the trait even more valuable. Due to that factor and its obvious ability to threaten the tier's omnipresent bulky Water-types, its potential role in the tier was as clear as day from the moment it dropped. In the time since then, not much has changed in that sense. It still does what it does and it does it pretty well.
However, I would say it did have a bit of a rough stretch from roughly early 2017 to the last couple years because of the huge shifts around REDACTED. In particular, Mandibuzz was the biggest pain for the gen 3 starter to deal with. It by itself is a fantastic check to Mega Sceptile, but what put things over the top was the fact that in 2016ish, a hugely popular style was that of Mega Sceptile + Gyarados + CB Krook along with the usual fillers. Good god was using Mandibuzz into this shit free wins. The bird could blank the entire offensive core and abuse the telegraphed switches to the theoretical bulky Fairy in typical Mandiqueen fashion. From there, Mandibuzz only ascended and ascended, becoming one of the main faces of the tier's only truly viable and consistent approaches to bulky offense. In response, those Gyarados-centric teams all but died off, bringing about a necessary shift to utilizing the leaf lizard thing.
In that time frame and on, it still provided teams with that coveted Speed control and answer to Waters, but it wasn't the most practical thing to get a cohesive team around. There was even a time in UU snake where I stole a Scep team because I couldn't make anything I liked myself with it and credited CBU/killintime for making the 1 viable team with it. There were obviously others and I did use it in UUPL 2021, but yeah. It could be due to my own biases, where I spammed the shit out of Mandibuzz + Aero and also Mandibuzz + Florges, but I think my distaste for it mostly had to do with how inconsistent it could really be offensively. In matchups such as those, it would force a recovery move and get on out in almost every instance. Additionally, Scald is a super broken move especially in gen 6. Sure, it 4x resists Water, but unless something is immune, then its naturally vulnerable to Scald. This may sound like a nitpick, but if you hard your Sceptile into a Suicune as you take rocks and eat a burn, then suddenly you're at less than 63 the following turn assuming there hasn't been any Giga recovery.
I'm not trying to say Mega Sceptile was some unviable mon, but those were my usual issues with it that prevented me from using it more than others generally would. Those attributes did make building with it a bit more annoying, but it obviously still had some good traits going for it, as mentioned. I would say in this REDACTEDless meta, it could be in a better place than ever. Previously, many teams could be boiled down into the following: Florges balance, Mandibuzz Aero bulky offense, and Crobat Empoleon bulky offense. Its matchup versus the former two is obviously much worse than it would prefer, but its main selling point was that the latter would rarely be able to fit a hard answer to it. Empoleon is the main Steel, while they could not always fit Speed control beyond the usual Crobat, setting the table perfectly in tandem with Florges being out of the picture as well. It is not an auto win matchup by any means, but the ball is heavily in the user's court as the opponent scrambles to play around it.
Some of these factors are now applied on a larger scale, as there is a general drop off in bulky Fairy reliance. Now it is much less of a dice roll in the builder to be able to get the ball rolling itself, especially since it should be paired with a rocker that can assist in keeping Mandibuzz on the back foot, compared to the old Gyara team days where it would get free turns left and right to sit on everything. Also blah blah there is generally much more flexibility in the builder in the new meta, allowing Sceptile teams to be more proactive, enacting much clearer game plans instead of being checklisty. If supported well, I think it's in a way better spot than its ever been.
To be honest the main complaint at this point is the fact that it literally wants like 8 moves. Giga Drain, Leaf Storm, and Dragon Pulse are all self-explanatory. Focus Blast and HP Fire fulfill similar roles, each possessing traits over each other in some regard but I'd say they're about even in supplying Scep with a clear way to punish Steels. Protect essentially makes Mega Sceptile one of the hardest Gyarados counters in the game, while giving Modest sets a much easier time in getting the ORAS-Mega-Speed-mechanic evolution off and obviously scouting choice users. Leech Seed is pretty solid, annoying Florges, Steels, whatever else, giving teammates an easier avenue in while chipping the foes for later. There's some other tom foolery you can fuck around with, but god it can be a headache to sort out, even in the context of what whatever team needs in that situation.
Something it feels like I've referred to here and there for a while is how easy it can be to maintain rocks in this tier relative to places like SM where Defog was much more abundant. As anyone who's played this game could tell, your hazards are the easiest way to apply pressure to the opponent over the course of a game. It is a natural means of making progress and making whatever threats or pivots all the more potent in performing their roles. One of the most common examples is how Stealth Rock can really flip matchups such as Life Orb Hydreigon vs Mandibuzz. If Hydra gets in with rocks up against an extremely Mandibuzz-reliant team when it comes to handling it, it can easily throw out boosted Dracos and essentially pick one, while otherwise Mandibuzz can easily pivot into whatever non-Taunt set and heal off the damage immediately after. Think Mienshao with rocks up, where a Florges has already eaten a Knock and suddenly the 20% or whatever from rocks and U-turn is really racking up over time. Things like Crovat are obviously much shakier if they come in, take 25, and hand momentum to the opp as they U-turn. It was a huge factor in making Conkeldurr as stupid as it was. Aside from the newly upbeat nature Mienshao has shifted the tier towards with its rise to prominence, this is also due in large part to how easily it can take full advantage of the tier's many reliable rocks setters in comparison to the removal options.
The tier's good removal options are fairly limited, much like other ORAS tiers to my knowledge. Even with the introduction of Defog, it definitely doesn't help that a lot of that move's distribution traces back to Flying-types, while most rock setters are bulky Ground-, Rock-, and Steel-types that can theoretically easily threaten them, warping that hazard interaction. Distribution of spin has historically been quite limited, hence potency of hazard stack centric teams in prior generations, especially when rocks were introduced in gen 4. There are more removal options than ever, but that does not necessarily mean its reliable. Aside from things that would never realistically use it like Aero, Bee, etc., ORAS UU's Defog options boil down to the following: Crobat, Gligar, Mandibuzz, and Empoleon.
Despite including them, the former two mons are things I really tried to avoid because of their notoriously poor matchup into the tier's main rocks setters. Crobat's case largely ties back to what I said about Flying-types usual matchup into the usual attributes of rock setters; it just isn't good in most of those one-on-one matchups. A Steel or Rock can come in on this thing over and over and get them back up. Gligar is weird, since its rocks set can easily come in and sit on bulky Steels and shit given that it has access to Immunity. However, Immunity being illegal alongside Defog is just a backbreaker, and the effectiveness of that combo was put on full display with SM stall, where in combination with another remover, there were only a couple mons that could truly maintain hazards. But yeah, without Immunity you get OHKOd by Toxic and lose the 1v1 to Aggron or whatever handily. Mandibuzz is still vulnerable to status, but least it can pressure Rhyperior and Mega Steels decently enough with Foul Play, while also being able to sit on them if they're statused themselves. Empoleon is threatened decently well by most rockers, but most of them are reluctant to hard switch in and there are decent methods of pressuring even Seismitoad with it.
Spinners comprise of Mega Blastoise, Tentacruel, and Forretress. Mega Blastoise is the most reliable by a lot, but it is not the easiest thing in the world to fit and can be vulnerable to status and general chip damage without using its RestTalk set. That set however does flip the hazard matchup in the right settings in a way that can't really be matched within the tier, but it does necessitate a certain approach and degree of inconsistency. Tentacruel is the same relatively passive utility-packed mon its always been. Theoretically it gives you some good stuff but it won't deal with or do much on its own. Forretress is even worse than Tentacruel on the front of trying to provide too much utility than it realistically can, coupled with its usual flaws of doing basically nothing you want out of a bulky Steel. It can be a bit annoying for opposing Steel rockers, but generally it is still usually used as a band-aid mon that can only handle so much responsibility that doesn't truly 1v1 all that much, let alone rockers.
Onto rockers, the main ones here are Seismitoad, Krookodile, Rhyperior, Nidoqueen, and Mega Aggron. The rocker pool runs a good amount deeper, but these are the key options that you can throw on a team and assume you'll get rocks up the majority of the time. When you see some of these mons you may not necessarily think of some offensive powerhouse, but they all have the tools to handle the vast majority of removers in some capacity. Seismitoad being immune to Scald is absolutely huge in distinguishing it from Swampert, especially on the hazard war front, which is why it is the better option between the two in most cases. It can just use Scald + Toxic and whatever other utility move and naturally beat basically any removal mon. Rhyperior and Mega Aggron make fantastic use of their uninvested offensive presence, sufficiently threatening basically everything while being able to throw Toxic on whatever else. This is the aforementioned case where Empoleon can 'threaten' them but the same can be said the other way, so it's hard to justify harding it into them at any point. Krookodile and Nidoqueen are the premier offensive setters, and as that introduction implies, they can outright threaten basically any remover. In fact, they are perhaps the main reasons Forretress is such a lackluster spinner. It can theoretically Toxic Toad or Rhyperior if it can fit it, but whatever it does, it will never threaten these two well enough. Nidoqueen shits all over it and for those unaware, Krook runs Rocky Helmet to aid it in matchups such as these. Krook specifically is a great example of how setters can just fuck around with their set in whatever way to easily fuck with the flimsy removal options available. Helmet + Taunt + Knock Off + rocks staying up is absolutely devastating for Mandibuzz to face, while Stone Edge last (a set I've fucked around with lately) can obliterate Defog Acrobats and play off the assumption of the usual Taunt from a Mandi user. Also does some cool stuff like outright threaten Aero.
So yeah, all these options are great in their own right as mons, and their reliable rocks only makes that fact more apparent. This post didn't even mention adequate rockers like Metagross, Gligar, Mega Swampert, Mega Steelix, etc., which are all fine to good, but have some sort of flaw. In whatever case, compare that pool of viable rockers to the literal handful of half-decent removal options and you get my overarching point here. Keeping rocks up is much much easier than keeping them off, which goes a long way in making it as fast-paced of a tier as it is on pace to become. It is the reason that getting a reliable stall team off the ground is super difficult. Gaining that natural advantage from the get-go swings things heavily into the court of the more offensive player. You already know I was going to mention how shitty boots are for Pokemon in this post, but jesus god it makes playing gens like this, BW, or DPP all the more enjoyable, simply knowing that you can make meaningful progress just from one of the most fundamental parts of the game. In my very biased opinion it makes the game much more interactive, putting a larger emphasis on positioning early to gain a notable advantage or prevent opportunities to do so from the opponent.
edit: also jellicent is a dick for any non offensive mega blastoise spinner
Why aren't they used as much and why do they see so little success?
Over the course of multiple generations UU has repatedly earned a reputation as "bulky Water - the tier" and there is no denying that there is something to this. I find this notion to be especially applicable to ORAS UU but for the longest time it has left me wondering where that leaves offensive Water types. After all, there is no shortage of options: Mega Swampert, Gyarados, Mega Sharpedo, Crawdaunt, Mega Blastoise, Feraligatr, hell even Kingdra and Barbaracle. Yet even though they should be everywhere, somehow they aren't and when they are used the results are often mixed at best. Gyarados is one of the best examples for this, delivering either curbstomps to unprepared teams or being a complete failure whenever running into a semblance of counterplay, with a noticeable tendency to the latter in recent times. Others have been residing in this tier for ages with no real usage whatsoever, plagued by what's ranging from seemingly minor inconveniences to more apparent, major deficiencies. So, what's stopping them? In this multi-post series, I intend to answer that very question. Inspired by Pak's enthusiam for the tier, I'll have a look at the various offensive Water types in ORAS UU, break them down to their core components and thouroughly analyze which particular individual faults are holding them back, what metagame developments are to blame, and whether, as is my theory, this is all a grand hoax trademark of the Scald-mafia.
Introduction
Before we get to the individual offenders, I would like to touch upon a general point which is that fitting an offensive Water type in ORAS UU often mandates another, sturdier Water type alongside it. The reason for this, among other things, is the threat of physically offensive powerhouses, most prominantly Entei and Mega Aerodactyl, and the plain fact that many of the tiers available answers to these threats are, well, Water types. Stacking weaknesses, however, is not the main issue with this approach. Many of the already established (defensive) Water types actually make for solid cores, specifically ones featuring the Enabler (think Slowking and Empoleon, Seismitoad and Empoleon) but it is a rarer occassion on which you see an offensive Water type interspersed with a defensive one. The issue with stacking an offensive Water type with a defensive Water type in ORAS UU lies within the options that leaves for the rest of your team. It's not unlikely at all that your team will be better off with something else in the offensive Water slot in the grand scheme of things. However, this is not to say building around and supporting them is impossible - just challenging.
Episode #1: Mega Swampert
Mega Swampert is for sure the most reliable of the whole bunch. Earthquake makes solid progress on its own against many physical walls and its natural bulk allows it to set up on Mega Aerodactyl provided a free switch which can create some interesting dynamics: the Aerodactly player has to be seriously careful when to pick up a kill. Allowing Swampert to set up a Rain Dance can spell doom even early on as it gets to damage the opposing structures. Just a single correct prediction as the other player switches around to stall Rain turns can sway the rest of the match in your favour. Naturally, it is also capable of cleaning up in the same way late game, enabled to set up by its phenomenal bulk even when having taken damage already. Still, two of the tiers mainstays, Hydreigon and Celebi, resist both of its STABS and can stomach an Ice Punch - even though they will be discouraged to switch in under rain. Personally, I find that patience is often the key to success with Mega Swampert if it is supported by a solid enough defensive backbone that the player can fall back on. Playing the long game and racking up kills one by one instead of committing to the very first opportunity to do some damage under rain is generally well-advised in these match-ups. In a similar vein, the rise of Slowking admittedly dampens Mega Swamperts effectiveness a little and makes good hazard management essential but at the same time the falling-out-of-favour of the likes of Gyarados and Chesnaught opens up other venues. Now, this all sounds well and dandy overall, but to get down to the problems Mega Swampert is facing, we ought to examine the teambuilding process, rather than just boast about what all it can do when placed in the right circumstances.
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Crobat and Empoleon make for a good supporting cast that also happens to synergize well with Swampert. On the one hand, Poison/Flying and Water/Ground make for an excellent combination of typings and being able to cyle in Swampert on Steel and Rock types with U-turn is evidently valuable. On the other hand, Empoleon serves as a generic specially defensive wall with a ton of utility options to choose from that also excellently fills the few gaps that Crobat and Swampert don't cover from a perspective of resistances. Moreover, Empoleon could simply be considered the next logical step next here as it provides much appreciated hazard removal for Crobat that it would much rather not rely on itself. Pretty good, eh?
Unfortunately, it's all down-hill from here. The check-list is still pretty expansive: While it acts as a decent offensive check to Mega Aerodactyl, you don't want to rely on Swampert alone for this, so you'll have to dig a bit deeper in the toolbox for the next team member. Ideally, you find something that can also provide SR support, which further limits the available options. Assuming you find something, a Fairy type or AV Mienshao seems inevitable at this point to fend off Hydreigon better, you still desperately want a Scald absorber, and better speed control in the form of a Choice Scarf user might not be entirely ill-advised either. Don't get me wrong, Crobat is fine speed control but I've always regarded being unable to reliably revenge kill the fast Megas as a bit of a hiccough. See, if you had the Swampert slot to work with defensively, you could slap Seismitoad there, be safer against Scald and better off against Mega Aerodactyl and Entei, and then still have three entire slots to work with - including a Mega. And herein lies the fundamental problem with Mega Swampert. It's a Mega that doesn't automatically provide speed control and a Ground type that would rather not have to fit Stealth Rock. Thus, most Mega Swampert teams will have a scarfer, commonly Hydreigon, in the back and a different rocker to address Swamperts shortcomings, which is undoubtedly restricting for the team structure at large. Consider that this problem arises even though Crobat and Empoleon structures are a tried and true concept. They offer great role compression in just two slots and while they do support Swampert quite well, they still don't seem to cover enough ground for it to be 100% deserving of that team slot overall. Now, it's good to keep in mind that this is merely one of many possible approaches to take with Mega Swampert, so perhaps a different take will yield better results.
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Mandibuzz, for example, fills a similar supporting role for Swampert as Crobat does in that it can cycle Swampert in with U-turn and it keeps Grass types in check. You're essentially trading an improved Celebi match-up for a worse Roserade match-up and while Crobat would rather not fit Defog it obviously has more offensive prowess and keeps Fairies and Fighters at bay in just one slot which is appealing. Additionally, speed control is an even more pronounced worry if you elect to take the Mandibuzz route, basically forcing the use of a Choice Scarf user. A combination of Crobat and Mandibuzz is not entirely unheard of but there is definite overlap between the two and choosing them both leaves you with far less freedom in the last three slots. As aforementioned, a sturdier Water is generally a good idea next to an offensive Water, and Slowking makes a lot of sense as the bulky Water of choice for this approach since it takes off pressure from Swampert as a reliable check to Entei and Mega Aerodactyl. Furthermore, Slowking can absorb Scald and take on Suicune 1v1 with a combination of Calm Mind and Psyshock or spread paralysis with Thunder Wave - all of which are traits that Swampert appreciates. The defensive synergy between Slowking and Mandibuzz is excellent too: together, they adequately address a considerable portion of the metagame. So, problem solved?
Not quite. See, from here on you still ought to fit at least one Fairy resist and a Stealth Rock user, then address the speed control issue, ideally add a status sponge and, finally, incorporate another soft check to Hydreigon so that Mandibuzz isn't tasked with handling too many threats by itself. Again, quite the list for three slots and, as you can see, similar problems as with the first core do arise. And while no team is perfect, it appears to me that builds with or around Mega Swampert never quite arrive at the level of optimization that others have reached because of the restrictions a Rain Dancing Swampert imposes on the team. Perhaps we're even better off that way - a truly optimal Mega Swampert build may well be capable of shaking the foundations of this tier. That is not to say that Mega Swampert is unworkable and never worth using - far from it. Just be aware that you'll have to pick your poison (and possibly a rather high dosage) at some point in the teambuilding process. Even in a check-list-heavy tier such as ORAS UU, you'll likely find better results with Swampert when you play to its strengths instead of ticking off every threat on the list. Therefore, one could argue that Mega Swampert fits better on offensively-oriented playstyles where the focus lies on more actively creating opportunities so that it can make even more frequent use of that blessed 150 base attack value. However, these kinds of teams aren't as popular to begin with and tend to prefer the likes of Mega Sharpedo (Spikes HO) and Mega Beedrill (VoltTurn). Other than these, all-out rain, which is a playstyle that at least theoretically can be made work with multiple Prankster Rain Dance users, is a possibility but has been exceedingly rare historically (mostly due to consistency concerns, I reckon). Thus, Mega Swampert still most often finds itself placed on typical bulky offensive teams that have been defining ORAS UU for ages. And, since its bulk is not to be underrestimated, you'd probably figure Mega Swampert would fit right in on those. As has been demonstrated, however, it does face a fair amount of challenges in that context. On that note, I would like to briefly cover one last approach to building with Mega Swampert, focusing on one particular partner for it.
That partner, is Florges. The flower-fairy complements Mega Swampert well because it can enhance its defensive capability to the point where you may not even need a second Water or Ground type as back-up. Pivoting into the likes of Empoleon, Metagross and Blissey without fear of being permanently crippled for the remainder of the game is extremely valuable, and continuous Wish support on the Steel (and a few Poison) types that Florges draws in grants Mega Swampert opportunities while its health stays topped up. You can even go so far as to drop Rain Dance with this approach. While it doesn't cover Swampert's weakness to Grass, Florges takes care of Hydreigon and Sceptile nicely, both of which resist Water/Ground STABs and will force Swampert out. While Florges does push the direction of the team more into balanced territory, it also makes speed control less essential because of extended staying power provided by Wish. Previously, I established that lack of speed control was one of Mega Swampert's greatest shortcomings but, seemingly paradoxically, on a bulkier team this need is suddenly mitigated. Now, these two don't leave as many options as you might think for the last four slots since balanced teams are fairly limited in terms of variety but since this pair does have respectable synergy, I figured I would be doing this analysis a disservice to not at least mention Florges here.
Conclusion
For me, even the more reliable offensive Waters such as Swampert you have to actively try to incorporate and support to make work - it's never occured to me when building in this tier that Mega Swampert could be a great fit for my already existing core because it doesn't immediately check off any boxes. And even without Conkeldurr around, ORAS UU still has plenty of boxes to check. Ultimately, it seems to me that Mega Swampert is brought out chiefly when an opponent displays a tendency to disregard it in the builder. This happens more easily and more frequently than you would think and it can display truly devastating performances in favourable match-ups but I've always found building with it to be somewhat of a pain. Nevertheless, I'll leave one fleshed-out version of each of the above-mentioned concepts featuring Mega Swampert in the hide tag below. Anyway, this has been enough rambling for only one (albeit arguably the best) of the many options for offensive Water types in ORAS UU. I'd love some input from other frequenters of this tier on Mega Swampert, be it successful builds or an aspect I overlooked, and whether or not you agree with my analysis. That's all for now, see you in the next one.
This looks like it could be straight out of Conkeldurr meta but it's likely still applicable now since it's a fairly standard assortment. Florges and Crobat support Swampert handsomely and U-turn/Volt Switch assistance from the other members helps by placing the beefy axolotl in favourable situations. Some oddities such as either fitting SR on Swampert or giving up Spikes on Forretress as well as a mildly worrying match-up into Snorlax remain, however. Perhaps I've been selling Stealth Rock sets a bit short, though. Note that any of Forretress, Crobat or Celebi probably needs to carry Toxic here for the team to be able to pressure Mandibuzz more efficiently.
Highly reminiscent of classic MandiRose but with Swampert>Nidoqueen and Hydreigon>Mega Aerodactly. I'm not entirely satisfied with this, but I couldn't make anything else with Mandibuzz work, really. As mentioned before, you just don't have that many options to work with here. Fighting types, particularly Heracross, can be a bitch if you're not careful (as you would probably expect from double Dark types) and the lack of a cleric severely limits Swampert's ability to pivot into attacks. Still, I find that the slightly more offensive nature of the team fits Swampert quite well - Spikes are particularly helpful in picking up KOs midgame.
A more experimental build featuring Diancie as a dependable Entei answer that retains cleric support. Apart from that it's not that different from the foremost build above other than Empoleon filling in for Forretress to account for the lack of a dedicated special wall (finally, a real steel). Celebi and Hydreigon actually have some freedom in their choice of set here depending on whom you would rather entrust the Choice Scarf with - if you choose to do so at all. While Hydreigon is the more obvious choice for this item and lets Celebi handle Suicune more reliably, Healing Wish is an enticing option on the Choice Scarf set to allow more reckless play with Swampert early on. It is, however, quite situational in practice and competes with other moves such as Trick. Overall, this is a decent six that has served me well in the past - even though Diancie can be underwhelming at times.
Gardevoir is a genuinely good Pokemon in the new meta, and in case you were worried, we're back to mentioning Conkeldurr every 8 seconds. Despite being a Fairy, Gardevoir has had a harder time fitting on teams than any other one, even more so than dog shit like Diancie. This was almost entirely due to the fact that it does not resist Dark. As a result, it could not very effectively check two top 3 threats within the tier, Hydreigon and Conk. It also doesn't even resist U-turn, all but offsetting the usual benefits of the usually broken Fairy typing aside from being immune to Draco Meteor, the most devastating move in the tier. Still, the way it was before, there was literally one approach to this thing, and that was using it as a flex slot on the classic Hydreigon/Empoleon/Seismitoad/Bat + fillers structure, which me and Pearl actually did make use of last UU snake. It was a fine option and pulled its weight, but ultimately not being able to truly handle either of those top mons aside from revenge killing them was a huge huge pain to overcome in the builder, even with its positive attributes going for it.
These main positives going for it mostly boil down to its access to Healing Wish, solid raw power, and better speed/coverage than its primary competition in Specs Sylveon. Healing Wish's distribution in the tier is incredibly limited, and it isn't all that hard to realize how big it can be. The main application of it on that Emp Bat framework was healing up Poison Jab Bulk Up Conk, as it could easily trade HP for a dead Florges the first sequence, then catch a Healing Wish and sweep through the remaining members. Dropping Mach could be a bit painful, just ask Pearl, but it was a nice concept that could not really be replicated by other options within the tier. The only other time I've tried something similar was with Scarf Celebi + Toxic Orb Heracross, but Scarf Celebi basically can't lock into any move and is really not worth using. Not only could Garde fill this role, but it also brought other utility to the table in the form of its raw power and extensive coverage options. Scarf is unfortunately outsped by Aero, otherwise it would be much better, but Specs is usually the way to go as a result, as alluded to with the Sylveon mention.
All this thing really needs on a Specs set is Moonblast, Healing Wish, and a Psychic move. You could honestly get away without Healing Wish, but as implied it is one of the reasons to use Garde in the first place. It's kind of weird in that even though it would gladly run like 8 moves on its set, you aren't all that strained just from those aforementioned three. The gist is that the tier does not have a ton of sturdy switch-ins to strong Fairy moves, making Moonblast very spammable, and that last coverage move is just there to nail the Steel on the initial sequence if even necessary, with the big two being Focus Blast and Thunderbolt. Yeah yeah TBolt doesn't obliterate most Steels, but it does put a dent into Empoleon, which is essentially the one Steel not named Escavalier that can comfortably eat up Moonblasts throughout a game and it gives some nice midgrounds into possible Slowking, Tentacruel, and whatever else. Psychic STAB doesn't necessarily make up for the defensive deficiencies, but it does help out in making Poisons much more reluctant to switch in. The raw power isn't quite as ridiculous as Sylveon, but it hits hard enough to present a solid threat in most matchups. Lastly, Trace has some really funny/nice applications, whether it is Intimidating Gyarados, Swift Swimming alongside Mega Swampert, stealing Nidoqueen's Sheer Force, etc.
Not checking Hydreigon does still suck, but Conk being gone opens a lot of doors to fit this thing. The most noteworthy one is in combination with Mandibuzz. The buzzard is p notorious for being able to check Hydreigon somewhat decently, but only really when rocks are off. It is a tough mon to rely on solely in dealing with it given how often rocks end up in play. However, it only truly struggles in these situations versus strong Draco Meteors, which as mentioned before is the single toughest move to deal with in the tier if you don't have a Florges. Enter: Gardevoir. It isn't perfect by any means, but the two in tandem are pretty solid at dealing with Hydreigon, which alone makes them a good core on bulky offenses along with their respective utility. Previously, these Mandibuzz bulky offenses would almost always have Slowking to help versus Conk blah blah, but the bird's supporting casts have never been more flexible. Sure, Gardevoir isn't fantastic at dealing with Mienshao, the tier's new prominent Fighting, but it's almost like it's a healthy mon that has more than 3.5 mons that can realistically deal with it. These kinds of developments are what make Conkeldurr's departure so exciting to me, as mons with previously established positive traits have all the more ways to put them into practice with formerly impossible approaches. Garde is just another example, whether it is putting its breaking capabilities into motion or providing uniquely unrivaled team support in Healing Wish.
As per usual, I've taken a bit of a step back since I've been in tournaments and have been generally busy, but I figured this was a fairly interesting topic to bring up. When I was looking for ideas last week, I asked Gondra what he thought and something he mentioned was Moltres. Moltres was a mon I have fucked around with a bit in the past, largely in Conk meta where it could be a half decent offensive check with rocks off along with some other unique utility. However, the former point there has always been the big asterisk with using the legendary fire bird. I wrote a little while back how much better rockers generally are than the removers in this tier, which naturally makes it much harder to rely on something so vulnerable to them in any capacity. That's kind of a shame, since in a vacuum it can present a solid check to Heracross, Mienshao, Metagross, Cobalion, etc. It definitely is not lacking in the aspect of defensive utility, separating itself from a good amount of those rather inconsistent RUBL type mons.
Still, it is immensely difficult to overcome that rocks weakness if it is to do anything truly meaningful on a consistent basis. That's what reminded me of this one super old post by an ORAS ladder hero named Lapras, where he talked about how underrated Defog Moltres was on his semi stalls. As a literal fetus at the time and before the whole SM trend of double removal stall and shit, I was all like lmao look at this dude removing hazards with a mon 4x weak to rocks, but its matchup versus a lot of rockers is honestly not that bad. I just had this idea like, okay what if I tried to make a double Defog Moltres balance or bulky offense? That aforementioned defensive utility has only become more useful in the new meta which revolves a lot around these upbeat-Fighter-reliant bulky offenses. This was great in theory, as you could keep hazards off fairly well, and punish Mienshao U-turns with Flame Body.
Good god I put so much brain power into trying to make this shit work, and then the first test game I tried to play, it told me Flame Body + Defog was illegal. Massive brother moment that took away like 40% of the appeal in my mind, but still it has some solid uses. It is legitimately hilarious how little in the tier is willing to eat a Wisp. ORAS burns are broken ofc and less and less teams are relying on bulky Fairies to heal off their status ailments. Aero and the boys are obviously can't really switch in, and Seismitoad or whatever else eating a burn effectively lets Mandibuzz win the one-on-one between them. The set I settled on was Air Slash/Roost/Defog/Wisp with max HP and appropriate Speed creep, and through testing and this new sort of approach to it rather than a more offensive one I would traditionally take, it was kind of shockingly consistent. Even though Flame Body would be AMAZING to have, it still is pretty formidable defensively and pulled its weight in a lot of games whether it was that utility or just throwing out Wisps. Despite this approach sounding kind of passive in combination with Mandibuzz and other essential defensive staples, Molt went a long way in applying some degree of pressure. This comes in contrast to a lot of these opposing teams that largely rely on rocks being up along with their hard hitters, and usually its a safe assumption that they will be up. It's just kind of cool to me that Moltres of all things could sort of flip this dynamic in a way and let me see things a new way from the usual.
The matchup in the game itself wasn't ideal for Moltres since it did in fact run into a bulky Fairy and a Rest Water, but it wasn't dead weight by any means, and it rarely will be with this kind of set up. It's cool though what kind of approaches you wouldn't really think of before are only more apparent with Conk gone, and this is another example. For reference, here's the game and the versions I came up with, having some tradeoffs both ways but I was p happy with them.
After some time to digest things a bit more, coming to a conclusion about whatever mon theorized about three months ago is expectedly much easier. Naturally, that sentiment applies to Snorlax pretty soundly. It was thought to be one of if not the number one beneficiary of Conkeldurr leaving, for the reasons listed above. Yes, it lost its number one check that never fucking died, but also, there was supposedly much more leeway in the teambuilder to fit in this thing. Both statements are true, but in my mind, it hasn't translated as nicely as we may have originally expected. This goes for a lot of these one-off mons that it was easy to be like oh yeah with Conk gone he's probably better.
The truth is that with Conkeldurr gone, there have been so many doors opened that it sort of feels like playing an entirely different metagame. There have been developments on developments, and there should be even more moving forward. Naturally, not all of these were going to favor Snorlax, even if it did get better itself in theory. Some of these main complications include a rising inclination toward much faster pace styles, given the general team structure brought about by the now-dominant Mienshao. Mienshao in of itself is far from perfect counterplay to Snorlax with its dog shit defense, but if you're pivoting in and out and constantly punishing passiveness while still packing a strong HJK in the back to nail it, it does at times have a hard time getting going in matchups that are supposedly favorable for it.
Another big big development as of late has been Jellicent. It probably deserves its own post at some point, but it has absolutely thrived in a Conkeldurrless metagame. The short version is that it has always had very limited counterplay given the combination of broken ORAS burns and its ability to shit on general passiveness, but accounting for its defensive lapses in comparison to other bulky Waters made it hard to fit along with the old team constrictions. The latter of which primarily alludes to Conk of course, which also was not a mon it liked facing by any means, essentially forcing Florges next to it to make up for that one matchup. Now, it does not necessitate a Fairy next to it, and it and its teams can go in a more upbeat direction as well. Needless to say, it perhaps the worst mon to face while using Snorlax, even if its packing CB Krook or something assuming its Colbur. The jelly fish is just a massive bitch for it, and chances are that it won't be dying back down any time soon.
Aside from all this other movement in the metagame hindering it in whatever capacity, the main thing that's jumped out to me that really shouldn't be that surprising, is again, the passivity in forces on the user at times. It's really annoying for obvious reasons, but especially so if on paper its supposed to be a check to all this random special shit, whether it is Hydreigon, Nidos, etc. On paper, that is one of its best traits, as those are some of the hardest Pokemon in the tier to feel all that comfortable against, but if Snorlax is to function as a continuous and reliable answer to the above, then it is all but forced to of course click Rest and burn its Sleep turns. So yeah, that's a pretty nice way to lose all momentum in a meta that appears to only be getting more and more fast-paced.
With all this said, it's not like I think Snorlax is some terrible mon. It's certainly better than it was in some capacity, but it is unclear just how much at this point. The thing will always have its matchups where it just steamrolls shit, but the issue has always been trying to get something going around it that's truly cohesive, rather than trying to band-aid check all these holes then hoping Snorlax wins on its own. I'd imagine its ideal that Snorlax has as little defensive pressure on it as possible, perhaps next to Florges to offer some other way of checking Hydreigon while mitigating the momentum loss of its sleep, but again, that may easily end up too vulnerable to the Shaos and Jellicents and goons running around. I do need to do more experimentation myself frankly, but to this point I've been underwhelmed.
Yes, more Snorlax talk. A lot of my most recent posts revolved around its passivity by nature of its generally preferred RestTalk Curse set, and that much has held true to this point. As mentioned before at length, it was always hard to rely on this thing defensively, especially with the momentum it would give up by virtue of having to burn its sleep turns for it to even retain defensive utility versus Pokemon like Hydreigon, Nidos, and Entei. As such, it would result in huge momentum losses, which would often make this thing hard to get to work despite its sweeping and team fit potential which were theoretically at an all time high. Conk is gone after all and there is also much more room in the builder as a result.
However, all of these sentiments tie back to its RestTalk set. While that set does offer the most defensive utility on the surface, it often has trouble getting the ball rolling, whether it is having to Rest off various hits its forced to deal with or just getting abused by things that take advantage of its mono normal coverage. I was talking with Pearl about it a bit week 1 of UU snake and we both kinda reached the conclusion that this thing could still be fire if we thought outside the box a bit with it. He mentioned more of a BW UU approach which invests heavily into attack, often foregoing Rest in favor of coverage moves or Protect, which made me wonder about some sort of offensive Curse set. The set I ended up deciding on consisted of max Attack investment and a lot of sp def with the moves: Frustration, Earthquake, Facade, and Curse. The former two hit a ridiculous amount of the tier hard in conjunction, especially at +1, with basically the sole exception being Jellicent, which will be a huge dick to basically any Lax set. Facade lets it comfortably sit in on bulky Waters early-game, punching holes for either the rest of the team or itself later on.
On that note, even with Immunity to further fuck with Toxic users, it seemed like an ideal candidate to receive Healing Wishes from what is essentially the one viable user in Gardevoir. You can legit just set this thing up really early, as they fear going to their usual Fighting in Mienshao given its physical frailty, punch some holes at +1, then potentially Healing Wish it back up to clean later. It sounds kinda weird at a glance but this thing was shockingly consistent in testing. Sure, the surprise element helped a solid amount, given that many opponents expected a more traditional mono Normal coverage Snorlax, but that's what makes fucking around with stuff like this so fun. One of the only real joys of playing in high stakes best of 1s is playing off some of those usual assumptions made by the opponent, and this kind of set did just that. In the game itselfthat I used it, the thing got 2 crucial kills and basically made the game unlosable following its initial rampages.
So basically, with Conkeldurr gone, again there are so many doors opened that you might not otherwise consider on a regular basis. With sets like this in the past, it would be really hard to not just be bulldozed by Bulk Up Conkeldurr, as it outlasts the teams fairly soft Fighting checks to sweep later on. However, that's no longer the case and the Fightings running rampant right now are not nearly as immortal. This kind of stuff is always pretty exciting to me and the reason this game is worth playing in the first place. Without Conk especially, there will always be new fuck shit to try out to take advantage of default lines of thinking and the metagame overall. This Snorlax was a good example and it seemed like only a matter of time before some approach to this supposedly newly invigorated mon materialized over time.
Pelipper will never be a top tier mon or anything in ORAS UU, but it does have a pretty solid and respectable niche going for it. This mostly consists of its ability to act as a hazard removing slow pivot. Removal options in ORAS UU are super scarce, so finding anything that can fill the effectively fill the role without giving up too much in the process will always be appreciated. Its role as a slow pivot finds Pelipper used in a similar vein as Mandibuzz or Rocks Gligar. These kinds of utility-heavy slow pivots have a lot of inherent value, especially as the tier has moved in a more offensively inclined direction. Celebi is still a top tier threat, which will always imply that having the ability to slow turn out can help minimize its opportunities and ultimately keep it at bay. Something that's really apparent in the current meta is also that these slow U-turners can get the better end of pivot exchanges with AV Mienshao, which can otherwise be a huge menace when it comes to dictating positioning and the pace of the game. Essentially, Pelipper and its slow pivot counterparts just help in making gameplay more fluid, which is especially appreciated on the kinds of otherwise clunky balance teams that they help enable. Its also worth mentioning that Pelipper with a Relaxed nature can slow pivot on Empoleon too, which can unironically be a huge pain in the ass for a lot of non-Seismitoad balances to switch into.
Unfortunately despite its solid utility overall, the pelican generally does not possess nearly the level of defensive use as either one of Mandibuzz or Gligar, but the combination of threats it does fare well against is really unique and does make it justifiable on certain types of teams. This list includes things like Mega Swampert, Cobalion w/o coverage for it, Mienshao, Metagross, and Steels in general. I don't believe there's a single other Pokemon that can make a similar claim in handling this collection of mons. These usually favorable one-on-one matchups are increasingly crucial considering a solid portion of that list often find themselves setting rocks for the opposing team. If you run into an offensive rocks Mega Swampert with Pelipper, you'll make the opp want to break their keyboard into a million pieces. Otherwise, even if Metagross, Mega Aggron, or whatever else can sling a Toxic onto it, Pelipper is generally just fine with that exchange, as a burn would cripple them much more in return. Pelipper of course has reliable recovery in Roost and cleric support in Florges is essentially a fixture next to it. On that note, one of its best traits on Florges balance is that it can take pressure off the flower in having to continually come into Mienshao, which can easily prey on it over time. These good matchups come in direct contrast with what is probably Pelipper's most direct competition in Tentacruel. While it is necessary at times and does possess other utility like TSpikes and the superior removal option in Spin, Tentacruel does not accomplish a lot on its own and it hands out a fair share of momentum to rockers such as these that can directly threaten it.
To this point, I've probably made this thing sound like an A- mon, but it obviously does have its faults too. It is incredibly reliant on Scald for basically all of its offensive presence, which to be fair, is far from the worst thing in the world. Still, running into Seismitoad can be such a bitch without the proper support around it. In that specific matchup, it functions similar to Mandibuzz in that the two will get overrun in a pure one-on-one matchup with the toad, but if a teammate can throw a Toxic on it beforehand, then the matchup is flipped on its head and you get perma-off. Aside from just that, the lack of offensive presence and low sp def does hurt it in a shit load of common matchups. Outside those aforementioned positive interactions, Pelipper really does not do that well versus the rest of the tier at large. A big one there is that it obviously does not help at all against one of the kings of the tier, Mega Aerodactyl, despite occupying the role of the team's bulky Water, but it applies to a bunch of other stuff too that isn't all worth listing. Lastly, if it can't keep the rocks off in some capacity, it is wayy worse of a mon defensively. The most common example is the pelican versus Mienshao. With rocks off your side, Pelipper is a very safe switch that can sponge Knock and all that, but with rocks on your side, they can just U-turn and get some goons in. It really cannot act as a team's primary answer to Mienshao as a result, but luckily it and Florges have each other's backs in teaming up to deal with it throughout a game. Last thing, if a Cobalion clicks Volt Switch, it's okay to hit x instantly. Pelipper's not perfect by any means, but its one of those weird cases where a PU or whatever mon randomly has a solid niche in a tier where it should theoretically have no business holding its own.
Episode #1: Mega Swampert 
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