Seems like you could work around that sort of thing with a decent Golem team. Seems to beat around 1/2 of it assuming you paralyse the threats
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Lower Tiers RBY NU Hub
- Thread starter Sabelette
- Start date
It's probably too early to do so being only 100 or so games into the NU grind but I thought that I'd clarify some of the thoughts I had on the metagame, mostly to write it down on paper and force myself to think about the metagame on a theoretical level. Take this opinion with a grain of salt, I'm here really to read and learn. I've roughly ordered Pokemon within their tiers, though there are a lot where I'm unsure and they could be interchangeable. If they are in different tiers, then there is a decent drop off between the lowest of the higher tier and the highest of the lower tier.
S Tier
- The reason I've put Mime in a tier on its own and not also brought Charizard up there is that whilst both roughly equally warp the tier in my opinion, Mime is almost mandatory on every team and Charizard simply isn't. The entire tier, except Mime and Exeggcute simply cannot switch into Mime very well at all and it has a decent speed tier, can spread status and is a menace in every single game. Often Mime ends up trading Twaves with Mime just so neither player has to deal with unparaed Mime in the late game. I think Mime can be used even more oppressively than it currently is, since people sack Mime or let it get twaved in places where the trade is not beneficial.
S- Tier
- Is extremely obnoxious, good both as a lead and in the back. The scariest set is the SD/EQ/Spin/Beam which can if given the right circumstances sweep teams pretty easily, especially since it is bulky enough to tank up a hit from a bulky water so it can SD on a large portion of the tier. Fire Spin is also very annoying for chipping stuff into range, its miss rate of 30% per spin makes it manageable though since a lot of the metagame can threaten Zard pretty hard with super effective moves or neutralise that part of the game with a toxic/twave, especially the latter. Since Zard has limited defensive utility, it cannot function if it is twaved unlike Mime which can still switch into opposing Mime and some special attacks. Charizard warps the tier as much as Mime and more than Clef, but it can be technically interchanged with other fire types or not have a fire type at all.
- All around the best scrapper in the tier, coverage hits everything, Twave for Mime, Sing also an X-factor. Being able to force Mime out even once whilst having great utility vs. the rest of the tier is amazing and it puts work in in the vast majority of games like the two above. Underrated part of Clef is being able to trade with Nidoking even when Paralysed due to its defensive normal typing. I'd say the only real hard matchup for Clef is Moltres, but even then Clef can just click Twave or Sing and then switch and there are plenty of fire resists in the tier which may be a positive play based on the game state. One thing that Clef does really well is its general adaptability and allows you to assess the game state and use it in any number of ways, whether it be to trade with Mime, get rid of King or generally spread status. Its weakness is generally its tendency to get chipped down, otherwise I think it would be on every team.
A+ Tier
- Another pretty decent trader, not quite on Clefable level, but its resistances allow it to switch into Fire/Water moves and general bulk can help it deal with ground types. You need a water type so that Poliwhirl/Seadra don't run away with the game and blastoise is the best of the lot. It makes playing water spam compositions painful with the knowledge that blastoise walls them extremely hard. It is arguably a bit too passive and resting opportunities allow in Mr.Mime/Nidoking which are a pain to switch into. You can throw blastoise in front of Fire types and it generally works out, it barely lives +2 EQ into Hyper Beam vs. Charizard on most rolls from full HP and you can spam surf vs fire spin giving a high percentage play of at least either trading or forcing it out if you get into trouble.
- The coverage is generally unwallable and it hits hard. Ground typing allows it to pivot in on Twave from Paralysed Mime or a lower HP Clefable and make Electrode useless. Nidoking is something that can put in a lot more work when stuff is paralysed, chipped, forced to rest, that's when it really shines. If you are using it early on in the battle, it is not quite as influential. Generally I am a fan of four attack Nidoking in the current metagame, Rock Slide really helps vs. Fire Spin from Charizard/Moltres and KOs with a tiny bit of chip and in general punishes pivots into flyers on EQ. Substitute is also fine though. Mime and Clef prevent it from being better.
A- Tier
- This pokemon has a lot of defensive utility due to being 4x Resistant to Fire. Both the SD and Rest variants are pretty decent and having the Fire/Normal Resistances more than makes up for the EQ weakness. It walls all fire types not named charizard and can still trade with that mon as a secondary check. This is whilst having the best offensive presence of the waters aside from Kingler, Kabutops hits hard without even needing to SD. It does struggle with Mime, Nidoking and Clefable which limit it a bit. The Speed Tier is just about good enough to be able to sweep in the late game assuming Mime is paralysed and there is no Nidoking. I think there is still a gap between Nidoking and Kabutops which is why I put it in a lower tier.
- I think very highly of Golem. In a tier that has a lot less bulk, it is a powerhouse and has a lot of calcs in its favour. Take Blastoise, who is as beefcake as it gets in NU vs. Golem as an example, Golem 3HKOs 93% of the time with EQ meaning even the fattest mon can't really switch into Golem if it was forced to rest. Golem can also switch into Mr. Mime on Twave/Electric moves and it forces Mime out since it 2HKOs with EQ. Boom of course is amazing and adds another dimension to its game. I think it has a lot of entry points in on the tier and is difficult to switch into in the midgame unless you have an exeggcute leading to these bizzare cycles where Golem gets free kills on fire types when they try to use fire spin to pivot. Also it generally lives Charizard attacks at even +4 from full health, stymying Charizard sweeps. Sometimes it is worth staying in with Mime and clicking Psychic once to help late game Charizard sweeps.
- Moltres can't be much lower than this mainly due to its absurd BST that allows it to trade effectively with non-rock or water type pokemon. It trades well with Mr. Mime despite being weak to Tbolt just because Fire Blast is that strong and Moltres is that tanky. It does suffer a bit as a side effect of Charizard being so good whilst lacking the crucial EQ coverage that makes Charizard a beast. Fire Spin/Fire Blast/Toxic/Rest is my favourite set, I do think that it is pretty difficult to wake this pokemon up though after you rest since it does give the opponent a lot of momentum and it is easy enough not ever use the fire moves that Moltres would soak to gain rest turns. That is a general issue with rest though. Overall a solid mon.
- Poliwhirl is a water type amnesia user that for some reason speed ties with Mime. Hypnosis obviously is great but inconsistent and Poliwhirl I feel sometimes can really pop off or it is useless and little inbetween. Lead is generally used, but I think there is a lot of room to explore with poliwhirl in the mid/late game. Its lack of bulk will mean its never as ubiquitous as blastoise, but it does have some defensive utility merely due to the typing. A good pokemon to use if you want to casino games for sure.
- A decent support lead on the proviso you get off the sleep and fast, it does struggle a bit with Fire types in general which is why it can't go any higher than this. Being up against a fire type lead is always a risk and a few good fire spins can mean you are doing nothing and in fire blast range or just straight up blast crit or burn is gonna be pain/death. Most Fire-Types also have a decent chance of waking vs. Venomoth, which can stop it getting double powder and lead you to being behind even when you have gotten the sleep off due to venomoth having little defensive utility. Has better odds vs. Poliwhirl lead, though losing that war is also pain since amnesia is coming turn 2 whereas venomoth doesn't have the same board presence. Mega Drain though does give it use vs. Golem which is great.
B+ Tier
- I like this pokemon a lot and it has a great offensive presence. I think it is best used as a breaker for other pokemon, such as breaking through bulky waters like blastoise and kabutops. Paralysis really benefits Kingler as well. The lack of Special is what really holds Kingler back, not being able to switch into a Moltres Fire Blast and threaten it out for example and generally having a limited amount of blast switchins meaning it is hard to find an entry point as any fire blast switch in means you have to deal with mime revenge killing. Crabhammer barely not OHKOing Nidoking whilst Tbolt 2HKOs is pain, same with +2 Hyper Beam not OHKOing clef whilst tbolt 2HKOs. I think utilising it to get rid of that one key defensive backbone is where it really goes off. A good entry for Kingler is Golem, one of the few that can well.
- Mainly agility + hydro pump is a menace to deal with, gives it a possibility to outspeed fire spinners. Rest is fine, making it a less bulky blastoise. Hydro Pump does hit extremely hard, what really holds it back is the lack of ability to clean other waters and it just has less defensive utility than Blastoise and it can't annoy teams quite like Poliwhirl can.
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- I think Rapidash/Ninetales are pretty similar. It depends whether you want the bulk to live 2 charizard EQs of Ninetales or be able to outspeed and rack chip on charizard later on in the game. I think as a general pokemon Ninetales is better, in the lead slot I like Rapidash getting off the toxic on lead charizard and then being able to use its speed later on in the game. Both of these mons are a lot better I think in theorymon unfortunately than in practice. In a tier where you have to take risks, not being able to switch in on say a predicted Nidoking EQ in a tight game limits your options like Charizard/Moltres can.
- I think this pokemon is around about here, perhaps lower. Conversion is a cool tech, though I think it can be played around in ways that gives opponents free turns. The main big conversion win is vs. Mime, but getting Porygon in vs. Mime is a nightmare as crit or special drop means you have to sack and that is far more likely than in OU where it has a niche of barely being able to switch into Snorlax. Copying Kabutops is also pretty cool, it does leave you a bit limited on your moveslots though as well if you want twave.
B- Tier
- Undoubtedly a better overall pokemon than either rapidash or ninetales but does not have spin which makes its usage more limited. I could see it going higher if balance archetypes go up as its defensive utility is strong.
- When you want a second but worse clefable, you can have wigglytuff. Unfortunately it is not quite as bulky, doesn't hit anywhere near as hard and as a result it is nowhere near as good. To take one notable example, assuming Wiggly and Clef have Blizzard, Nidoking beats Wigglytuff in the pure 1v1 but loses to Clefable. Not being able to tank two fire blasts from Moltres, not being able to 2hko golem with blizzard if you are using that on most rolls...pain. You can still use it because normal typing is still good and can trade somewhat decently and spread status.
- A mon with high highs and low lows. Being able to switch into Golem and Mr. Mime are easily its best traits. Unfortunately it can't switch into anything else. I think you can have a reasonable chance of getting double powder off as long as you haven't paralysed something like clefable. Missing with this pokemon can make it essentially a dead weight too since outside of support it doesn't offer much. Boom is also a bonus, though eggs boom is not its big brothers.
C Tier
- unfortunately nearly every team has a ground type on. Outside of that situation its pretty good, you kind of want to lead it due to its speed, but that gives away the game which means it wont get much done if opponent has golem/nidoking.
- think this mon is underrated, its hard to outright force anything out that isnt paralysed/asleep but super fang or general breaking in the early mid can be pretty strong against its typical switchins after you have traded status and it is pretty fast, unfort slower than zard tho.
- Could see this moving up potentially, an underrated SD sweeper with good coverage some defensive utility in the ground type. Struggles with the water types and the lack of fire resist.
- probably my favourite of the SD Hyper Beam sweepers, speed tying with charizard is big. Hard walled by Golem/Kabutops though.
- similar to fearow, great attack and bind. this really hates charizard/moltres/rapidash/ninetales. Its barely too slow to be a sweeper given its weakness to fire type.
D Tier
- A weaker but bulkier nidoking. It isnt the wigglytuff to clefable since having double nidos makes you super weak to mime and nidoqueen is slower than blastoise
- if you ever wanted to go full wrap spam you could add dragonair, doesn't do much damage and has poor accuracy moves and hates ice moves.
- pretty cool in theory since its piddly defence doesn't matter when you are immune to most physical attacks. Its low HP and letting in nidoking/hating mime and weak coverage does prevent it from being better.
- A frailer mime without tbolt. Pretty grim that blastoise which hits like a wet noodle can 2hko this with body slam.
Potential
- Not sure where to rank this, but I honestly think it could be in C/D, obviously is strictly outclassed by Golem but could be used as a switchin to fires and eventually boom on an incoming water, allowing golem to be conserved more and be threatening or do its job vs. charizard in the late game.
- cool mon, havent really used it much outside of boomspam but I think it does have potential
- mostly a placeholder for all SD + Hyperbeam mons which can probably work, Scyther is faster than Zard but yea has clear big weaknesses.
S Tier
- The reason I've put Mime in a tier on its own and not also brought Charizard up there is that whilst both roughly equally warp the tier in my opinion, Mime is almost mandatory on every team and Charizard simply isn't. The entire tier, except Mime and Exeggcute simply cannot switch into Mime very well at all and it has a decent speed tier, can spread status and is a menace in every single game. Often Mime ends up trading Twaves with Mime just so neither player has to deal with unparaed Mime in the late game. I think Mime can be used even more oppressively than it currently is, since people sack Mime or let it get twaved in places where the trade is not beneficial.S- Tier
- Is extremely obnoxious, good both as a lead and in the back. The scariest set is the SD/EQ/Spin/Beam which can if given the right circumstances sweep teams pretty easily, especially since it is bulky enough to tank up a hit from a bulky water so it can SD on a large portion of the tier. Fire Spin is also very annoying for chipping stuff into range, its miss rate of 30% per spin makes it manageable though since a lot of the metagame can threaten Zard pretty hard with super effective moves or neutralise that part of the game with a toxic/twave, especially the latter. Since Zard has limited defensive utility, it cannot function if it is twaved unlike Mime which can still switch into opposing Mime and some special attacks. Charizard warps the tier as much as Mime and more than Clef, but it can be technically interchanged with other fire types or not have a fire type at all. - All around the best scrapper in the tier, coverage hits everything, Twave for Mime, Sing also an X-factor. Being able to force Mime out even once whilst having great utility vs. the rest of the tier is amazing and it puts work in in the vast majority of games like the two above. Underrated part of Clef is being able to trade with Nidoking even when Paralysed due to its defensive normal typing. I'd say the only real hard matchup for Clef is Moltres, but even then Clef can just click Twave or Sing and then switch and there are plenty of fire resists in the tier which may be a positive play based on the game state. One thing that Clef does really well is its general adaptability and allows you to assess the game state and use it in any number of ways, whether it be to trade with Mime, get rid of King or generally spread status. Its weakness is generally its tendency to get chipped down, otherwise I think it would be on every team.A+ Tier
- Another pretty decent trader, not quite on Clefable level, but its resistances allow it to switch into Fire/Water moves and general bulk can help it deal with ground types. You need a water type so that Poliwhirl/Seadra don't run away with the game and blastoise is the best of the lot. It makes playing water spam compositions painful with the knowledge that blastoise walls them extremely hard. It is arguably a bit too passive and resting opportunities allow in Mr.Mime/Nidoking which are a pain to switch into. You can throw blastoise in front of Fire types and it generally works out, it barely lives +2 EQ into Hyper Beam vs. Charizard on most rolls from full HP and you can spam surf vs fire spin giving a high percentage play of at least either trading or forcing it out if you get into trouble. - The coverage is generally unwallable and it hits hard. Ground typing allows it to pivot in on Twave from Paralysed Mime or a lower HP Clefable and make Electrode useless. Nidoking is something that can put in a lot more work when stuff is paralysed, chipped, forced to rest, that's when it really shines. If you are using it early on in the battle, it is not quite as influential. Generally I am a fan of four attack Nidoking in the current metagame, Rock Slide really helps vs. Fire Spin from Charizard/Moltres and KOs with a tiny bit of chip and in general punishes pivots into flyers on EQ. Substitute is also fine though. Mime and Clef prevent it from being better.A- Tier
- This pokemon has a lot of defensive utility due to being 4x Resistant to Fire. Both the SD and Rest variants are pretty decent and having the Fire/Normal Resistances more than makes up for the EQ weakness. It walls all fire types not named charizard and can still trade with that mon as a secondary check. This is whilst having the best offensive presence of the waters aside from Kingler, Kabutops hits hard without even needing to SD. It does struggle with Mime, Nidoking and Clefable which limit it a bit. The Speed Tier is just about good enough to be able to sweep in the late game assuming Mime is paralysed and there is no Nidoking. I think there is still a gap between Nidoking and Kabutops which is why I put it in a lower tier. - I think very highly of Golem. In a tier that has a lot less bulk, it is a powerhouse and has a lot of calcs in its favour. Take Blastoise, who is as beefcake as it gets in NU vs. Golem as an example, Golem 3HKOs 93% of the time with EQ meaning even the fattest mon can't really switch into Golem if it was forced to rest. Golem can also switch into Mr. Mime on Twave/Electric moves and it forces Mime out since it 2HKOs with EQ. Boom of course is amazing and adds another dimension to its game. I think it has a lot of entry points in on the tier and is difficult to switch into in the midgame unless you have an exeggcute leading to these bizzare cycles where Golem gets free kills on fire types when they try to use fire spin to pivot. Also it generally lives Charizard attacks at even +4 from full health, stymying Charizard sweeps. Sometimes it is worth staying in with Mime and clicking Psychic once to help late game Charizard sweeps. - Moltres can't be much lower than this mainly due to its absurd BST that allows it to trade effectively with non-rock or water type pokemon. It trades well with Mr. Mime despite being weak to Tbolt just because Fire Blast is that strong and Moltres is that tanky. It does suffer a bit as a side effect of Charizard being so good whilst lacking the crucial EQ coverage that makes Charizard a beast. Fire Spin/Fire Blast/Toxic/Rest is my favourite set, I do think that it is pretty difficult to wake this pokemon up though after you rest since it does give the opponent a lot of momentum and it is easy enough not ever use the fire moves that Moltres would soak to gain rest turns. That is a general issue with rest though. Overall a solid mon. - Poliwhirl is a water type amnesia user that for some reason speed ties with Mime. Hypnosis obviously is great but inconsistent and Poliwhirl I feel sometimes can really pop off or it is useless and little inbetween. Lead is generally used, but I think there is a lot of room to explore with poliwhirl in the mid/late game. Its lack of bulk will mean its never as ubiquitous as blastoise, but it does have some defensive utility merely due to the typing. A good pokemon to use if you want to casino games for sure. - A decent support lead on the proviso you get off the sleep and fast, it does struggle a bit with Fire types in general which is why it can't go any higher than this. Being up against a fire type lead is always a risk and a few good fire spins can mean you are doing nothing and in fire blast range or just straight up blast crit or burn is gonna be pain/death. Most Fire-Types also have a decent chance of waking vs. Venomoth, which can stop it getting double powder and lead you to being behind even when you have gotten the sleep off due to venomoth having little defensive utility. Has better odds vs. Poliwhirl lead, though losing that war is also pain since amnesia is coming turn 2 whereas venomoth doesn't have the same board presence. Mega Drain though does give it use vs. Golem which is great.B+ Tier
- I like this pokemon a lot and it has a great offensive presence. I think it is best used as a breaker for other pokemon, such as breaking through bulky waters like blastoise and kabutops. Paralysis really benefits Kingler as well. The lack of Special is what really holds Kingler back, not being able to switch into a Moltres Fire Blast and threaten it out for example and generally having a limited amount of blast switchins meaning it is hard to find an entry point as any fire blast switch in means you have to deal with mime revenge killing. Crabhammer barely not OHKOing Nidoking whilst Tbolt 2HKOs is pain, same with +2 Hyper Beam not OHKOing clef whilst tbolt 2HKOs. I think utilising it to get rid of that one key defensive backbone is where it really goes off. A good entry for Kingler is Golem, one of the few that can well. - Mainly agility + hydro pump is a menace to deal with, gives it a possibility to outspeed fire spinners. Rest is fine, making it a less bulky blastoise. Hydro Pump does hit extremely hard, what really holds it back is the lack of ability to clean other waters and it just has less defensive utility than Blastoise and it can't annoy teams quite like Poliwhirl can./ - I think Rapidash/Ninetales are pretty similar. It depends whether you want the bulk to live 2 charizard EQs of Ninetales or be able to outspeed and rack chip on charizard later on in the game. I think as a general pokemon Ninetales is better, in the lead slot I like Rapidash getting off the toxic on lead charizard and then being able to use its speed later on in the game. Both of these mons are a lot better I think in theorymon unfortunately than in practice. In a tier where you have to take risks, not being able to switch in on say a predicted Nidoking EQ in a tight game limits your options like Charizard/Moltres can. - I think this pokemon is around about here, perhaps lower. Conversion is a cool tech, though I think it can be played around in ways that gives opponents free turns. The main big conversion win is vs. Mime, but getting Porygon in vs. Mime is a nightmare as crit or special drop means you have to sack and that is far more likely than in OU where it has a niche of barely being able to switch into Snorlax. Copying Kabutops is also pretty cool, it does leave you a bit limited on your moveslots though as well if you want twave.B- Tier
- Undoubtedly a better overall pokemon than either rapidash or ninetales but does not have spin which makes its usage more limited. I could see it going higher if balance archetypes go up as its defensive utility is strong. - When you want a second but worse clefable, you can have wigglytuff. Unfortunately it is not quite as bulky, doesn't hit anywhere near as hard and as a result it is nowhere near as good. To take one notable example, assuming Wiggly and Clef have Blizzard, Nidoking beats Wigglytuff in the pure 1v1 but loses to Clefable. Not being able to tank two fire blasts from Moltres, not being able to 2hko golem with blizzard if you are using that on most rolls...pain. You can still use it because normal typing is still good and can trade somewhat decently and spread status. - A mon with high highs and low lows. Being able to switch into Golem and Mr. Mime are easily its best traits. Unfortunately it can't switch into anything else. I think you can have a reasonable chance of getting double powder off as long as you haven't paralysed something like clefable. Missing with this pokemon can make it essentially a dead weight too since outside of support it doesn't offer much. Boom is also a bonus, though eggs boom is not its big brothers.C Tier
- unfortunately nearly every team has a ground type on. Outside of that situation its pretty good, you kind of want to lead it due to its speed, but that gives away the game which means it wont get much done if opponent has golem/nidoking. - think this mon is underrated, its hard to outright force anything out that isnt paralysed/asleep but super fang or general breaking in the early mid can be pretty strong against its typical switchins after you have traded status and it is pretty fast, unfort slower than zard tho. - Could see this moving up potentially, an underrated SD sweeper with good coverage some defensive utility in the ground type. Struggles with the water types and the lack of fire resist. - probably my favourite of the SD Hyper Beam sweepers, speed tying with charizard is big. Hard walled by Golem/Kabutops though. - similar to fearow, great attack and bind. this really hates charizard/moltres/rapidash/ninetales. Its barely too slow to be a sweeper given its weakness to fire type.D Tier
- A weaker but bulkier nidoking. It isnt the wigglytuff to clefable since having double nidos makes you super weak to mime and nidoqueen is slower than blastoise - if you ever wanted to go full wrap spam you could add dragonair, doesn't do much damage and has poor accuracy moves and hates ice moves. - pretty cool in theory since its piddly defence doesn't matter when you are immune to most physical attacks. Its low HP and letting in nidoking/hating mime and weak coverage does prevent it from being better. - A frailer mime without tbolt. Pretty grim that blastoise which hits like a wet noodle can 2hko this with body slam.Potential
- Not sure where to rank this, but I honestly think it could be in C/D, obviously is strictly outclassed by Golem but could be used as a switchin to fires and eventually boom on an incoming water, allowing golem to be conserved more and be threatening or do its job vs. charizard in the late game. - cool mon, havent really used it much outside of boomspam but I think it does have potential - mostly a placeholder for all SD + Hyperbeam mons which can probably work, Scyther is faster than Zard but yea has clear big weaknesses.
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Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
Well, this demon has everything, and I mean everything, to be successful. 100 Speed is a hair ahead of most of the tier, with only Rapidash and Electrode truly outspeeding it. Well, there's Scyther too, but...it's Scyther. Thus, in many scenarios, Charizard not only has the initiative, but it also has Fire Spin to lock Pokemon down, though the accuracy makes it a degree of a commitment. This isn't too fun for the uninitiated to fight against, but isn't different from Rapidash or Ninetales so far, and the consistency bites you in the ass if you keep doing it as we've seen so many times. Fire Spin makes offensively checking it a bit of a diceroll, but when it does miss, that can potentially be game over for any Fire-type, which is really what's balanced this tier in some respects. What comes up must come down, I guess!
What's keeping Charizard ahead of the pack, then? This is quite the package to open, so let's have a look. The smoking gun is most certainly Swords Dance, which it has unique access to and uses to great effect. This, coupled with moves like Earthquake, Hyper Beam, and Body Slam, keeps the ball rolling, it can often set up noticeably earlier than other Pokemon and run them down quickly. +2 Earthquake can 2HKO Golem, for example, which is otherwise a respectable check to the fire lizard with wings. If the Pokemon isn't able to KO or otherwise incapacitate Charizard, it's always got the initiative regardless, because Fire Spin is there. Couple this with a neat Earthquake immunity itself to add to its various points of entry, and you have a Pokemon that is very difficult to deal with. STAB Fire Blast is cool, I guess, but I've been dropping that quite a bit lately with all the Fire- and Water-types running around. Feels niche.
But, Swords Dance is far from all it has. Slash is a very notable part of its arsenal, being what's effectively a base 140 power move; this is unresisted coverage alongside Earthquake in this tier, and also grants it immediate power. Often dealing a decent chunk to virtually anything and covering the otherwise nice defensive checks in Moltres and opposing Charizard, you see this on many lead sets. In response to this, we've even seen Counter Charizard in RBYPL existing almost solely for this purpose, which comes with the added bonus of being a switch-in-and-KO machine against Hyper Beam users like Fearow. There's even some Toxic Charizard variants existing to make it not Fire Spin, but in response, non-Fire Spin sets going all-in on Swords Dance have popped up and succeeded, using the additional moveslot to use stuff like the otherwise difficult-to-run Body Slam and turn the tables on Pokemon like Mr. Mime.
To vaguely illustrate the variety Charizard has, I put in all the sets I normally run here. Some sets are far better than others, some are just variants of the same strat, I normally just use this for building teams.
Anyway! This all culminates into something that's a bit of a nightmare to offensively check, and defensively checking it is tricky since Fire Spin tends to make it a gamble. I'm curious about the thoughts our resident NUers have, as some people in the RBY server have even called for a ban on it or Fire Spin in the past. I'm ambivalent, although I don't think I'd miss either of them...
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#I will continue to mention Pikachu and there is nothing you can do to stop me >:)
I compiled the RBY NU Speed Tiers if anyone is interested, mainly made it for personal use but figured I'd go ahead and share it, though I know most people have memorized most of the speed tiers by now. Probably more useful for the niche mons. If there's any bad mons you'd like me to add like Agility Porygon or Arbok lmk, didn't feel like including them but I don't mind updating this.
edit: added Drowzee post-posting of the thread
I compiled the RBY NU Speed Tiers if anyone is interested, mainly made it for personal use but figured I'd go ahead and share it, though I know most people have memorized most of the speed tiers by now. Probably more useful for the niche mons. If there's any bad mons you'd like me to add like Agility Porygon or Arbok lmk, didn't feel like including them but I don't mind updating this.
edit: added Drowzee post-posting of the thread
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So it is Week 3 of NUSD. Two very important discussion points have been circulating right now. The topic of whether we should ban Charizard and/or Poliwhirl.
1. Charizard
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/rby-nu-discussion-vr-thread.3679758/post-9051643
Read May's post on the matter, it goes into detail.
2. Poliwhirl
Poliwhirl is extremely threatening rn, where if it lands sleep it usually goes 2 for 1. Its best counterplay afterwards usually ends up being ToxicToise and whatnot, which relies on accuracy making the pokemon even more rng dependent. In some cases itll even go 3-1 with random Psychic special drops and whatnot, its insanity. Its just cancer rn, rolls games on rng and is often forced onto teams thanks to its status as a sleeper.
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Making this post to go ahead and start gathering forum opinions on the matter. Do you think Poliwhirl and/or Charizard should be suspect tested? What about Fire Spin, Amnesia, and Sleep as alternatives? Do we have any Mime banners? Do you have any alternative ideas (Hipmonlee has proposed moving the UU/NU cutoff line to add mons like Venusaur into the fray)? Personally I would like to see suspects after NUSD, it seems needed. Ik from talking to people like Rabia that if we dont make changes our odds at returning to NU tours are very slim, the tier is in a poor light rn.
1. Charizard
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/rby-nu-discussion-vr-thread.3679758/post-9051643
Read May's post on the matter, it goes into detail.
2. Poliwhirl
Poliwhirl is extremely threatening rn, where if it lands sleep it usually goes 2 for 1. Its best counterplay afterwards usually ends up being ToxicToise and whatnot, which relies on accuracy making the pokemon even more rng dependent. In some cases itll even go 3-1 with random Psychic special drops and whatnot, its insanity. Its just cancer rn, rolls games on rng and is often forced onto teams thanks to its status as a sleeper.
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Making this post to go ahead and start gathering forum opinions on the matter. Do you think Poliwhirl and/or Charizard should be suspect tested? What about Fire Spin, Amnesia, and Sleep as alternatives? Do we have any Mime banners? Do you have any alternative ideas (Hipmonlee has proposed moving the UU/NU cutoff line to add mons like Venusaur into the fray)? Personally I would like to see suspects after NUSD, it seems needed. Ik from talking to people like Rabia that if we dont make changes our odds at returning to NU tours are very slim, the tier is in a poor light rn.
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Fire Spin > Zard test. It's the same gripes I have, granted less these days, about Wrap in RBY UU.
Edit: I also understand the idea to just ban mons > moves, complex, etc. so if Spin off the table then Charizard. I think the partial trapping moves in general are just pretty lame in the lower tier formats.
Edit: I also understand the idea to just ban mons > moves, complex, etc. so if Spin off the table then Charizard. I think the partial trapping moves in general are just pretty lame in the lower tier formats.
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suspects? 
Charizard has shown to be an incredibly strong teammate in RBY NU. It has just about everything a fire could want. Coverage, a high speed stat and access to Fire Spin make Charizard amazing currently. All of these make Charizard amazing no matter the game. I do feel like Suspecting Charizard could be beneficial, but I don't think the meta suffers from it being here. Other Fire-Types aren't completely unviable from Zard existing, and It isn't impossible to beat. I wouldn't be opposed to a suspect test, but I'm not saying that a suspect test is a terrible idea. On the other hand, here is a suspect test I do feel strongly about. Poliwhirl is ridiculously hard to pull off. Landing hypnosis is a pain, then you have to somehow not get paralyzed by anything, and then you can dish out damage. Well, unless your opponent has trode. Poliwhirl has only every worked for me a few times since I've started playing this tier. The other times it either only got off a hypnosis, or didn't do anything and my lead was waisted. You run the risk of a waisted lead slot half of the time, and your reward is being able to get some pretty good damage off. Poliwhirl is good, but not broken.I've made some of my opinions known on the Discord but I thought I'd put them in a more readable format here. I won't be around either ways for this suspect either ways as I will probably go back to not playing RBY when NUSD ends but I do think the general question is interesting at least if it is not a kneejerk reaction to a small number of very haxy games that have taken place in NUSD and I am writing this post on that proviso.
First it's probably best to briefly broach the topic of the general publics perception towards RBY and that it is a coinflip tier. Pac mentions that RBY may not be brought back to NUSD next year and is seen in a poor light. Personally this is an issue that is endemic to RBY, especially from a spectators point of view it just looks like a bit of a funfair and whilst this does make for exciting viewing it isn't always obvious what exactly is happening in the games. I think this especially to be the case for people who don't really play RBY so expecting RBY to get respect from the wider community is somewhat futile especially when most players don't even know the various interactions, probabilities, ranges, cycles and mechanics properly. The only way to prove legitimacy is through excellence, you can see this through Troller's performances in RBY OU and how much skill impacts the outcome of a game when you are gaining the tiniest of advantages over and over again. I see no reason that RBY NU is not the same and if I was not so inexperienced and actually mained RBY, I'd hope to be in a position to prove it. I do think poor play and poor team choices exasperates the problems mentioned above and stronger level of RBY play and more understanding of the tier would squash some of these issues and I am certainly no exception to this and shouldn't be playing in NUSD at all if I was honest.
- I mostly agree with what was said above, I think Charizard is clearly an amazing pokemon. Lead Charizard is good, but I think what most people have issue with is SD, Hyper Beam, EQ, Fire Spin set. What I will say is that I've never gone into an endgame where I haven't been completely outclassed in the early-midgame where I have not had some counterplay to deal with Charizard. How I see it is almost like a Tauros in how I play around it (though obviously you don't need Charizard every game). Charizard is quite a vulnerable pokemon defensively and it needs to get up a SD in order to become really threatening and it is actually pretty difficult to do this without being 2hkoed or crippled by twave. Then you can just go into your actual check you've saved for Charizard and trade damage. That is at least what I do. Now if you aren't respecting Charizard, Charizard gets in on a sleeping pokemon etc. then that's a different story altogether. I think Fire Spin might put Charizard over the edge, merely because it can use it to pivot and scout for said checks, like it punishes you switching in golem or kabutops on a predicted +2 beam or can be used to chip pokemon into range of attacks, though I think this is extremely inconsistent and a low probability play. Does it need banning? I don't honestly know.
- It is inconsistency the pokemon. I will stand by the fact that I think some of what makes it good is praying on bad play/teambuilding around it. Without this, I do not believe it would have anywhere near the impact that it did. One of the main things that is kind of annoying about Poliwhirl is that it is just more rewarding than Venomoth even though Venomoth has the more accurate sleep. On a two turn interaction, Venomoth has a 57.75% chance of winning the war whereas Poliwhirl has a 41.25% chance with the 1% chance being double sleep miss, but the latter is a lot more impactful leading to this situation where Poliwhirl is fine to lead into Venomoth despite that sleep probability. I talked a bit Here and Here about how crippling sleep is as a status to the point where it could be called a death sentence and the unlikeliness of pokemon waking up except vs. other asleep Pokémon or weak sleep leads and this was in RBY OU where Pokémon can actually take hits and Chansey hits like a wet noodle. I disagree with the assertion that Poliwhirl can get 3 for 1 trades, for me that only happens due to errors in play or teambuilding. I understand that it has happened in NUSD, but I stand that these are due to that factor. That being said I could see why it is seen as annoying to play against.
My personal opinion, if you are merely looking for the feel of this tier is fun and cool to play and doesn't feel unfair, then I'd ban sleep and partial trapping. Without partial trapping, Charizard is a lot more manageable (I honestly don't think it is anything more than annoying and anti-fun on anything else) and if people are still have issues with Charizard I think it could be tested then. Poliwhirl I think is a non-factor without Hypnosis. Assuming the above is not done and it is purely competitive, I don't think either Charizard or Poliwhirl is broken, well not beyond Mime levels of broken so can't be banned on those grounds. I'd probably suspect Poliwhirl due to the inconsistency it brings into games, though it is one of many of these in RBY history. Charizard I wouldn't be overly against it but I suspect if I was allowed to vote I'd probably say no.
First it's probably best to briefly broach the topic of the general publics perception towards RBY and that it is a coinflip tier. Pac mentions that RBY may not be brought back to NUSD next year and is seen in a poor light. Personally this is an issue that is endemic to RBY, especially from a spectators point of view it just looks like a bit of a funfair and whilst this does make for exciting viewing it isn't always obvious what exactly is happening in the games. I think this especially to be the case for people who don't really play RBY so expecting RBY to get respect from the wider community is somewhat futile especially when most players don't even know the various interactions, probabilities, ranges, cycles and mechanics properly. The only way to prove legitimacy is through excellence, you can see this through Troller's performances in RBY OU and how much skill impacts the outcome of a game when you are gaining the tiniest of advantages over and over again. I see no reason that RBY NU is not the same and if I was not so inexperienced and actually mained RBY, I'd hope to be in a position to prove it. I do think poor play and poor team choices exasperates the problems mentioned above and stronger level of RBY play and more understanding of the tier would squash some of these issues and I am certainly no exception to this and shouldn't be playing in NUSD at all if I was honest.
- I mostly agree with what was said above, I think Charizard is clearly an amazing pokemon. Lead Charizard is good, but I think what most people have issue with is SD, Hyper Beam, EQ, Fire Spin set. What I will say is that I've never gone into an endgame where I haven't been completely outclassed in the early-midgame where I have not had some counterplay to deal with Charizard. How I see it is almost like a Tauros in how I play around it (though obviously you don't need Charizard every game). Charizard is quite a vulnerable pokemon defensively and it needs to get up a SD in order to become really threatening and it is actually pretty difficult to do this without being 2hkoed or crippled by twave. Then you can just go into your actual check you've saved for Charizard and trade damage. That is at least what I do. Now if you aren't respecting Charizard, Charizard gets in on a sleeping pokemon etc. then that's a different story altogether. I think Fire Spin might put Charizard over the edge, merely because it can use it to pivot and scout for said checks, like it punishes you switching in golem or kabutops on a predicted +2 beam or can be used to chip pokemon into range of attacks, though I think this is extremely inconsistent and a low probability play. Does it need banning? I don't honestly know. - It is inconsistency the pokemon. I will stand by the fact that I think some of what makes it good is praying on bad play/teambuilding around it. Without this, I do not believe it would have anywhere near the impact that it did. One of the main things that is kind of annoying about Poliwhirl is that it is just more rewarding than Venomoth even though Venomoth has the more accurate sleep. On a two turn interaction, Venomoth has a 57.75% chance of winning the war whereas Poliwhirl has a 41.25% chance with the 1% chance being double sleep miss, but the latter is a lot more impactful leading to this situation where Poliwhirl is fine to lead into Venomoth despite that sleep probability. I talked a bit Here and Here about how crippling sleep is as a status to the point where it could be called a death sentence and the unlikeliness of pokemon waking up except vs. other asleep Pokémon or weak sleep leads and this was in RBY OU where Pokémon can actually take hits and Chansey hits like a wet noodle. I disagree with the assertion that Poliwhirl can get 3 for 1 trades, for me that only happens due to errors in play or teambuilding. I understand that it has happened in NUSD, but I stand that these are due to that factor. That being said I could see why it is seen as annoying to play against.My personal opinion, if you are merely looking for the feel of this tier is fun and cool to play and doesn't feel unfair, then I'd ban sleep and partial trapping. Without partial trapping, Charizard is a lot more manageable (I honestly don't think it is anything more than annoying and anti-fun on anything else) and if people are still have issues with Charizard I think it could be tested then. Poliwhirl I think is a non-factor without Hypnosis. Assuming the above is not done and it is purely competitive, I don't think either Charizard or Poliwhirl is broken, well not beyond Mime levels of broken so can't be banned on those grounds. I'd probably suspect Poliwhirl due to the inconsistency it brings into games, though it is one of many of these in RBY history. Charizard I wouldn't be overly against it but I suspect if I was allowed to vote I'd probably say no.
I have not played this tier in a tour yet so my opinion comes from watching RBYPL and NUSD matches, hope to play it when an individual tour comes around. I believe it is way too early in the development of this tier to do a suspect test or a ban, which would be bad for the development of the tier and its playerbase.
My main argument is that the tier is not being played optimally yet. I have watched a lot of replays before posting this and believe a lot of Poliwhirl/Charizard dominance is due to suboptimal playing, or mistakes in risk assesment and game planning. NU is a very fast paced tier based on trades, so mistakes hurt a lot.
This was especially clear when RBYPL inserted new players into the tier, some of whose strategies deviated from what previous knowledge of the tier dictated. I believe the playerbase needs to offer more optimal pokemoning and this requires more time and better competition for them to figure out the tier. Doing a suspect test right now would (1) just replicate this not optimal playing and offer weak evidence; (2) end up with bans that change the tier, thus deleting all evidence and gained knowledge from RBYPL and NUSD. It'd be like starting again.
On criticism by people who play other tiers/gens: I subscribe what Ika Ika Musume says above, RBY will always be the target of this criticism and the best way to answer is to showcase solid playing and people with winning records. RNG is no doubt a big factor in NU with the speed ties and Fire Spin being clicked so much (probably suboptimally too lol, it's not always worth the risk), but top RBY players have dealt with RNG successfully in OU, take the time to figure this out in NU too.
My main argument is that the tier is not being played optimally yet. I have watched a lot of replays before posting this and believe a lot of Poliwhirl/Charizard dominance is due to suboptimal playing, or mistakes in risk assesment and game planning. NU is a very fast paced tier based on trades, so mistakes hurt a lot.
This was especially clear when RBYPL inserted new players into the tier, some of whose strategies deviated from what previous knowledge of the tier dictated. I believe the playerbase needs to offer more optimal pokemoning and this requires more time and better competition for them to figure out the tier. Doing a suspect test right now would (1) just replicate this not optimal playing and offer weak evidence; (2) end up with bans that change the tier, thus deleting all evidence and gained knowledge from RBYPL and NUSD. It'd be like starting again.
On criticism by people who play other tiers/gens: I subscribe what Ika Ika Musume says above, RBY will always be the target of this criticism and the best way to answer is to showcase solid playing and people with winning records. RNG is no doubt a big factor in NU with the speed ties and Fire Spin being clicked so much (probably suboptimally too lol, it's not always worth the risk), but top RBY players have dealt with RNG successfully in OU, take the time to figure this out in NU too.
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I dont have the time to do this, but I have been thinking it would be worthwhile to do some maths on various checks for Charizard and Moltres to see how effective they are.
Like, if full health Blastoise switches into a Charizard SD what are the odds Zard can spin to win. Stuff like that.
Because, for instance, I know that the odds Zard beats Blastoise in that situation are actually pretty damn high.
Like, if full health Blastoise switches into a Charizard SD what are the odds Zard can spin to win. Stuff like that.
Because, for instance, I know that the odds Zard beats Blastoise in that situation are actually pretty damn high.
I've actually done all these calcs. Unfortunately I'm on my phone for the weekend so I can't access my spreadsheet. Since the roll is like 80-94% on beam at +4 and Zard spin does 2.2-2.7% noncrit, iirc to get to a 5050 you needed to hit 4 spins on average assuming no crit spin which is something like a 22% chance. Spinning down to 80 for guaranteed beam ko is a completely different story and I'd say impractical.
It's 89.4% for +2 Quake + Beam to guarantee the KO on Blastoise
Also don't forget to factor in the Blastoise crit. The ideal line is SD on the switch, EQ and eat the Surf, then Spin Blastoise into HBeam range btw. This gives you protection against predicting the Hyperbeam.
Yea for sure this does give other complications such as you can just go another pokemon on the spin which would then be far more likely to be way out of range of beam so the chances would go way down. Spinning down Kabutops, Golem, Kingler, opposing Charizard or a HB Moltres can cause you huge issues in this line. I'm generally not a fan of just switching into blastoise as charizard goes for an SD, I find most pokemon in NU can just do something that completely messes up Zard or puts it in range of a Surf even if Charizard can theoretically SD on them and generally the best line is just to attack Charizard on its SD turn rather than switching into blastoise on an SD generally because if the charizard just attacks then you can be in range in future. Some times obviously you have to do this but yea.
Like for example on a typical team that people bring, lets say something like whirl/moth lead, blastoise, clef, mime, nidoking, charizard...zard cant even SD properly cause it just gets completely screwed as soon as it goes for SD since Twave from mime/clef into Tbolt, rockslide/blizzard from nidoking, stun spore from venomoth and surf/pump from whirl (this is assuming Im even bringing in these pokemon again after the lead). The only real good place to SD is vs. opposing Zard, in which case you are doing a 50/50 or you have brought in your zard on my zard which gives me the advantage at least in the 1v1. Some people have Kabutops or Golem instead of Nidoking, which really just makes it even more difficult if you position well.
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Yeah, my point here is if Charizard with a free turn gets >1 KO against an otherwise reasonable team, then that is a pretty clean case for NUBL.
Just off the top of my head, Charizard needs two free turns to get past a Golem. If there are other mons like that then overall its probably not so bad. I would be curious about the maths for various Moltres sets as Charizard checks too.
But just based on being pretty likely to steamroll a Blastoise, Charizard does seem a little OTT. But, on the other hand, I also find it very fun to play with.
Also just doing the maths for this line, since we've got this far already. Assuming 3 hits each spin, because its too complicated to do anything more sophisticated and that's the average. I get roughly 37.5%. Which, honestly.. isnt all that outrageous..
[Edit] - Shouldnt be allowed to do maths late at night, Charizard's odds are significantly better than that.
Just off the top of my head, Charizard needs two free turns to get past a Golem. If there are other mons like that then overall its probably not so bad. I would be curious about the maths for various Moltres sets as Charizard checks too.
But just based on being pretty likely to steamroll a Blastoise, Charizard does seem a little OTT. But, on the other hand, I also find it very fun to play with.
[Edit] - Shouldnt be allowed to do maths late at night, Charizard's odds are significantly better than that.
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I'm with spies, I don't think NU is being played to its fullest potential right now, it's still pretty new and the meta evolves/changes pretty damn quickly. People are still experimenting with different 'mons/sets and I think it would be a shame to suspect test anything before we give the meta a chance to settle.
Personally, I think Charizard is the best 'mon in the tier (even above Mime) because of all the different options you have with it. Sure, it kind of has 4MSS but the fact that you need to prepare for Spin, FB, Slam, EQ, SD, HB, Slash, and I've even gotten hit with Counter Zard before... there's just a lot to keep in mind with building with it or facing it. So yeah it's the best in the tier for me over the more predictable Mime. But I don't think it's degenerate enough to be suspected. Fire Spin is annoying but the 70% accuracy is so shaky that AgiliSpin really isn't even a worry most of the time, certainly not as much as AgiliWrap. SpinSpam really isn't that great of an archetype and I'm happy we've evolved past it. Anyway back to Zard, it's just a really good 'mon in an underdeveloped tier, so I think it should stay.
Poliwhirl I think should also stay for similar reasons above (new, underdeveloped tier that's not being played optimally) but also because of its inconsistency. Sure it can go 2 for 1, even 3 for 1 sometimes if your opponent misplays, but the fact that it relies on 60% accuracy Hypnosis and is kind of useless once statused makes it a hard sell for me to ban this thing. I'd certainly rate it like bottom of A rank/top of A- rank if I was making a VR but it's really not that degenerate/teambuilder warping. I also think the debate of LeadWhirl or BackWhirl is interesting, because IIRC didn't LeadWhirl have a terrible winrate in RBYPL (cba to check lol)? So maybe it's not even as good as we think, at least from a lead perspective.
tl;dr leave NU alone (for now)
Personally, I think Charizard is the best 'mon in the tier (even above Mime) because of all the different options you have with it. Sure, it kind of has 4MSS but the fact that you need to prepare for Spin, FB, Slam, EQ, SD, HB, Slash, and I've even gotten hit with Counter Zard before... there's just a lot to keep in mind with building with it or facing it. So yeah it's the best in the tier for me over the more predictable Mime. But I don't think it's degenerate enough to be suspected. Fire Spin is annoying but the 70% accuracy is so shaky that AgiliSpin really isn't even a worry most of the time, certainly not as much as AgiliWrap. SpinSpam really isn't that great of an archetype and I'm happy we've evolved past it. Anyway back to Zard, it's just a really good 'mon in an underdeveloped tier, so I think it should stay.
Poliwhirl I think should also stay for similar reasons above (new, underdeveloped tier that's not being played optimally) but also because of its inconsistency. Sure it can go 2 for 1, even 3 for 1 sometimes if your opponent misplays, but the fact that it relies on 60% accuracy Hypnosis and is kind of useless once statused makes it a hard sell for me to ban this thing. I'd certainly rate it like bottom of A rank/top of A- rank if I was making a VR but it's really not that degenerate/teambuilder warping. I also think the debate of LeadWhirl or BackWhirl is interesting, because IIRC didn't LeadWhirl have a terrible winrate in RBYPL (cba to check lol)? So maybe it's not even as good as we think, at least from a lead perspective.
tl;dr leave NU alone (for now)
Since our team in NUSD is now unfortunately out of playoffs contention and I may not play NU again should others in my team wish to play and am unlikely to take it as seriously when there is nothing at stake anymore, I thought I'd make a final post on some of my observations on the metagame in my time playing RBY NU that can hopefully help people if they want to jump into the tier and see decent success before I move back to retirement.
When I was drafted, I had honestly not played a game of RBY NU ever and not a single game of RBY for about 3 and a half years. The RBY community has been overall a very welcoming place but one unfortunate thing that it does have is the idea that outside players cannot, provided they put in the work, pick up and play RBY to a tournament level. I do understand the idea that RBY players should get RBY slots and I felt bad that I was depriving someone else of my particular slot that I wasn't really expecting to get anyways. I guess I felt pressured somewhat to prove myself and not just end up going 0-X until I was substituted out. I probably have grinded close to 200 games of RBY NU since the start of NUSD because I wanted to have a better idea of what works and what doesn't.
The first thing I really did was try and delve into the samples that were put up for NUSD. These were, along with some teams Ho3nconfirmed gave me, the teams I used for the first week and a half or so to practice with when I had relatively little idea about the intricacies of the metagame. Asides from that W1 team dump, I was pretty much on my own and came in blind.
https://www.smogon.com/roa/?format=gen1nu
I do not know when these were created and therefore I cannot comment on their accuracy as of the time of creation. I do think they are a pretty good starting point, some of the teams I do like and others not so much, but play with them and see what suits you. When I started building my own teams which I did past week 1, this is formula that I came up with that will generally give solid teams. I think what differentiates me a lot from some of the other players I've played against in RBY NU is I like to keep things pretty simple and don't stray that far away from that. Over 15 Tournament games, I've used 12 Pokemon more than once (Mr Mime, Clefable, Blastoise, Charizard, Poliwhirl, Nidoking, Golem, Venomoth, Kabutops, Seadra, Exeggcute, Ninetales) and honestly I think you could get away with just using the first 9 plus Moltres with nothing else and do perfectly fine.
Simplistic Building in NU:
General thoughts on NU
When I was drafted, I had honestly not played a game of RBY NU ever and not a single game of RBY for about 3 and a half years. The RBY community has been overall a very welcoming place but one unfortunate thing that it does have is the idea that outside players cannot, provided they put in the work, pick up and play RBY to a tournament level. I do understand the idea that RBY players should get RBY slots and I felt bad that I was depriving someone else of my particular slot that I wasn't really expecting to get anyways. I guess I felt pressured somewhat to prove myself and not just end up going 0-X until I was substituted out. I probably have grinded close to 200 games of RBY NU since the start of NUSD because I wanted to have a better idea of what works and what doesn't.
The first thing I really did was try and delve into the samples that were put up for NUSD. These were, along with some teams Ho3nconfirmed gave me, the teams I used for the first week and a half or so to practice with when I had relatively little idea about the intricacies of the metagame. Asides from that W1 team dump, I was pretty much on my own and came in blind.
https://www.smogon.com/roa/?format=gen1nu
I do not know when these were created and therefore I cannot comment on their accuracy as of the time of creation. I do think they are a pretty good starting point, some of the teams I do like and others not so much, but play with them and see what suits you. When I started building my own teams which I did past week 1, this is formula that I came up with that will generally give solid teams. I think what differentiates me a lot from some of the other players I've played against in RBY NU is I like to keep things pretty simple and don't stray that far away from that. Over 15 Tournament games, I've used 12 Pokemon more than once (Mr Mime, Clefable, Blastoise, Charizard, Poliwhirl, Nidoking, Golem, Venomoth, Kabutops, Seadra, Exeggcute, Ninetales) and honestly I think you could get away with just using the first 9 plus Moltres with nothing else and do perfectly fine.
Simplistic Building in NU:
Lead - / / /
- Generally here I like Charizard, Mime, Poliwhirl and Venomoth, these are the best leads in NU in no particular order. If I was to do a lead tier list, I'd say Poliwhirl and Venomoth are S tier, Charizard is S- Tier, Mime is A tier and then Moltres B+ Tier, Ninetales and Rapidash are B- tier. C tier is like Primeape, Fearow and Golem. I'd say you can get by fine with just using Poliwhirl, Venomoth, Charizard and Mr. Mime lead.
Core
- The core I like to run the majority of games is Mr.Mime + Clefable + Blastoise. Clefable and Blastoise aren't mandatory on every team, but I think they give you a solid backbone and flexibility in gameplay that is high value and I have used them I'd say in about 80% of my games. I think these three pokemon are more important than Charizard, even though the latter is a terrifying sweeper. With Mime just use the standard set every game, with Clefable I think that Body Slam, Twave, Blizzard, Tbolt is good for the vast majority of cases. I think the general flexibility that Clefable offers with this set and the fact that it can trade with pretty much every pokemon in the metagame makes it good. Without Blizzard you cannot hit Golem or Nidoking, without Tbolt you cannot hit Waters. It is 4MSS but in this case I think there is a general answer people can go to. Of course you can use other options like Hyper Beam, Counter, Sing here if you wanted and have other pokemon fulfill the roles, it just leaves you less flexible in gameplan. I think generally double Twave and para spam allows pokemon like Nidoking, Golem, Kabutops and Kingler to really shine as well as Mime ofc and can stop threatening pokemon in their tracks. Blastoise set generally depends on the lead. If the lead is base 90 or below, you need Seismic Toss and Hyper Beam, if not you can run Slam. Blastoise does not need Rest, it can run four attacks or toxic or counter. As a general rule, rest turns are bad because a pokemon such as Charizard can SD or it lets in Mr Mime so sleeping pokemon are dead unless you get really lucky or you are in a niche situation. Blastoise can run it if you are worried about Seadra or opposing Blastoise or Fire types not named Charizard in late game.
I am only talking standard composition here, you can obviously run exeggcute instead of Clefable or Porygon or something.
5th / /
- Here you generally have two options, if you chose Charizard/Mime lead, then you should have a sleeper in this slot. Which one is up to you, I'm a big fan of mid Whirl which is why I have ordered them in this priority. I think sleep should be on every team just because of how powerful and damning it is and even if Poliwhirl didn't have sleep, amnesia shenanigans are harder to deal with later on in the game than early on. Sleepers can be brought out later on to trade sleep after the opponent has gotten their sleep and you have dealt with their sleeper.
6th - / / / / / ( / other mons)
- If you chose a sleep lead, then you want to choose two pokemon from here. The key I think is to have a secondary charizard check beyond Blastoise, this is because Blastoise often gets weakened early game, especially if opposing lead is a Fire type or Poliwhirl gets off a sleep and then it is often best to Blastoise. Generally I like at least one swords dance pokemon per team, this helps you break through bulky waters and niche pokemon like Porygon. The best of these is SD Charizard. My current favourite is Fire Blast Charizard for Egg/Venomoth though you can run anything on 4th move, SD EQ and Beam are mandatory. For Nidoking I like four attack with Rock Slide and nearly always use this set since it trade with Charizard, with Kabutops SD, with Golem you can run fire blast if you feel your team is egg weak as it 2hkos. So if you follow the rules of 1 SD Pokemon or setup sweeper (moltres/seadra count as this), at least 1 SD Charizard check, I think you will always come with a good team if you are using meta pokemon. A ground type is nice but not mandatory, you can just trade with Electrode if you see it and don't have a ground type and ground types do not like switching into Mime or Clef anyways other than on a predict. If you don't know what to do, I think SD Charizard is always a good 6th since unlike other SD mons (asides from Scyther which is walled by Kabutops and Golem and roasted by any fire blast) it is faster than Poliwhirl therefore threatening it out even if it somehow manages to hax blastoise after it wins a sleep war.
/ / / - Generally here I like Charizard, Mime, Poliwhirl and Venomoth, these are the best leads in NU in no particular order. If I was to do a lead tier list, I'd say Poliwhirl and Venomoth are S tier, Charizard is S- Tier, Mime is A tier and then Moltres B+ Tier, Ninetales and Rapidash are B- tier. C tier is like Primeape, Fearow and Golem. I'd say you can get by fine with just using Poliwhirl, Venomoth, Charizard and Mr. Mime lead.
Core
- The core I like to run the majority of games is Mr.Mime + Clefable + Blastoise. Clefable and Blastoise aren't mandatory on every team, but I think they give you a solid backbone and flexibility in gameplay that is high value and I have used them I'd say in about 80% of my games. I think these three pokemon are more important than Charizard, even though the latter is a terrifying sweeper. With Mime just use the standard set every game, with Clefable I think that Body Slam, Twave, Blizzard, Tbolt is good for the vast majority of cases. I think the general flexibility that Clefable offers with this set and the fact that it can trade with pretty much every pokemon in the metagame makes it good. Without Blizzard you cannot hit Golem or Nidoking, without Tbolt you cannot hit Waters. It is 4MSS but in this case I think there is a general answer people can go to. Of course you can use other options like Hyper Beam, Counter, Sing here if you wanted and have other pokemon fulfill the roles, it just leaves you less flexible in gameplan. I think generally double Twave and para spam allows pokemon like Nidoking, Golem, Kabutops and Kingler to really shine as well as Mime ofc and can stop threatening pokemon in their tracks. Blastoise set generally depends on the lead. If the lead is base 90 or below, you need Seismic Toss and Hyper Beam, if not you can run Slam. Blastoise does not need Rest, it can run four attacks or toxic or counter. As a general rule, rest turns are bad because a pokemon such as Charizard can SD or it lets in Mr Mime so sleeping pokemon are dead unless you get really lucky or you are in a niche situation. Blastoise can run it if you are worried about Seadra or opposing Blastoise or Fire types not named Charizard in late game.
I am only talking standard composition here, you can obviously run exeggcute instead of Clefable or Porygon or something.
5th
/ / - Here you generally have two options, if you chose Charizard/Mime lead, then you should have a sleeper in this slot. Which one is up to you, I'm a big fan of mid Whirl which is why I have ordered them in this priority. I think sleep should be on every team just because of how powerful and damning it is and even if Poliwhirl didn't have sleep, amnesia shenanigans are harder to deal with later on in the game than early on. Sleepers can be brought out later on to trade sleep after the opponent has gotten their sleep and you have dealt with their sleeper.
6th -
/ / / / / ( / other mons)- If you chose a sleep lead, then you want to choose two pokemon from here. The key I think is to have a secondary charizard check beyond Blastoise, this is because Blastoise often gets weakened early game, especially if opposing lead is a Fire type or Poliwhirl gets off a sleep and then it is often best to Blastoise. Generally I like at least one swords dance pokemon per team, this helps you break through bulky waters and niche pokemon like Porygon. The best of these is SD Charizard. My current favourite is Fire Blast Charizard for Egg/Venomoth though you can run anything on 4th move, SD EQ and Beam are mandatory. For Nidoking I like four attack with Rock Slide and nearly always use this set since it trade with Charizard, with Kabutops SD, with Golem you can run fire blast if you feel your team is egg weak as it 2hkos. So if you follow the rules of 1 SD Pokemon or setup sweeper (moltres/seadra count as this), at least 1 SD Charizard check, I think you will always come with a good team if you are using meta pokemon. A ground type is nice but not mandatory, you can just trade with Electrode if you see it and don't have a ground type and ground types do not like switching into Mime or Clef anyways other than on a predict. If you don't know what to do, I think SD Charizard is always a good 6th since unlike other SD mons (asides from Scyther which is walled by Kabutops and Golem and roasted by any fire blast) it is faster than Poliwhirl therefore threatening it out even if it somehow manages to hax blastoise after it wins a sleep war.
General thoughts on NU
Poliwhirl and its problematicness
I kind of discuss this earlier and my opinion hasn't really changed. There is a standard pathway to deal with Poliwhirl, technically you can disrupt this with Counter, but Poliwhirl without 1 Defence DV 0 Defence EVs has 0% chance of KOing Charizard and even then a low chance of KOing whilst putting it in range of two Slashes the majority of time or you can always click EQ since it does the same thing in the context of the cycle. I expect this might become more common place if counter lead whirl becomes a thing. The pathway when you lose a sleep war is similar even if you get countered on a slam or stoss on blastoise since Counter takes up either Psychic or Water move which you have to reveal. Generally I think the most dangerous and underutilised whirl is later game Poliwhirl. I've found quite a lot of success with it.
Random Pokemon that are surprisingly strong
I think Seadra, Pinsir and Primeape are pokemon to look out for. Seadra becomes a huge threat on the proviso that Blastoise is gone and can break through everything else. Pinsir is just a decent SD Sweeper that I think only I've used so far in NUSD, I do rate it due to its power and the fact I think Fire types are kind of less common than perhaps they were at RBYPL. Primeape I just think it's a surprisingly alright lead and back pokemon, mainly due to its speed tier, I wouldn't recommend it or anything, but it is useable. In general I don't use too many of these pokemon outside of friendlies unfortunately I think like most RBY tiers the viable list of pokemon most people should be using is a lot smaller than it might seem.
Clefable and Blastoise vs. Charizard
Even though I think Charizard is the second best, I tend to use these Clefable/Blastoise more than Charizard. I think this is generally because of their defensive utility. If we are ranking by how needed is something in a game, then only Mr. Mime is mandatory. What makes Blastoise great is its defensive presence, being able to trade with a particular threat of the opponent, whether it be Poliwhirl, Charizard or Kabutops. You will encounter one of these every game, so Blastoise is a useful defensive piece every game and can be used in a variety of different ways dependent on the situation in the game. Clefable is this to the next degree, you can use it to trade with any pokemon in the tier. Even Porygon you can paralyse and spam body slams until Porygon FPs or you crit if you wanted to theoretically. Charizard does its thing where it is a threat needed to be looked out for every game, but it is not flexible and does not change its role dependent on the opposing team composition. Clefable especially allows players to assess the opponents team composition and use it differently accordingly in order to set up something like a Charizard or another back pokemon or neutralise an opposing threat before the opponent even knows what your composition is and the value of that pokemon fully. I think it rewards skill expression a lot.
Charizard Checks and Brokenness
It is undoubtedly true that every viable team needs at least two SD Charizard checks or one and your own SD Charizard. Does that make Charizard broken, well yes and no. I think the reason you need more than one is mainly due to the nature of NU, the trade heavy nature and the fact that the main charizard checks fulfill many roles, checking other fires and waters means that one is likely to get chipped to the point where it can only tenuously check charizard. This is where I think a lot of those flashy SD Charizard sweeps come in when they are not late late game. I often like to have three checks, like I bring a team of Venomoth, Mime, Clef, Blastoise, SD Charizard, Kabutops but really these pokemon also serve other purposes. Yes I can use my own charizard to beat his charizard if its chipped with an SD, but it also does other things, same with Kabutops and Blastoise, it just gives more freedom to trade Blastoise with Poliwhirl say or Kabutops with Moltres or use SD Kabutops to break through opposing waters without instantly becoming Zard weak. If anything, the whole team Charizard cant SD on without either being 2HKOed or paralysed other than in the mirror. I think this sort of approach really limits charizards threat, yea it can obviously still do its thing every game but then so can tauros in OU but there are ways to limit tauros and force it to switch even if it is an offensive powerhouse. This is why I generally stray away from fire types not in the lead slot (asides from Charizard), I have for example only used Moltres once in 5 weeks because Charizard can SD on it without it giving a 2HKO (even if you toxic it doesnt matter if I cannot then be KOed by the next pokemon so I get another SD or two attacks on next mon after I KO moltres), same with Arcanine, Rapidash and Ninetales though these are just not that good outside of lead. Moltres does have an upside of fire blast power that makes it worth it so I still recommend it.
On Tier List
My tier list honestly hasn't really changed too much so I'll just write out the cliffnotes here. I think pokemon can be kinda interchangeable within their own tier but I have ordered them.
S:
A+:
A-:
B+:
B-: 
C:
I did not bother after C. I think it is fruitless to debate whether seaking is better than staryu and is best to keep all those pokemon unranked for now on my list since I do not see them putting work in the vast majority of games.
General Tier Enjoyment
I think a lot of the complaints about NU is due to its very offensive nature, fast pace and variance. I come from a tier that has this a lot, I actually have really enjoyed my time playing NU, I do think it is a tier that rewards skill and game planning. I find that other RBY tiers are more forgiving of mistakes in gameplay since NU is so fast paced which is why a lot see it as unfair. Being able to map out games and knowing when to trade, what pokemon to have in when, when to sack and how to trade even when the matchup seems disadvantageous will get you far. Often it is the correct move to EQ with Nidoking in front of Mr Mime for example or clicking an attack with Charizard against Blastoise or trading your Mr Mime for Clefable dependent on the game state. I think this unconventional way of trading isn't found as much in other RBY tiers which makes it fun.
I kind of discuss this earlier and my opinion hasn't really changed. There is a standard pathway to deal with Poliwhirl, technically you can disrupt this with Counter, but Poliwhirl without 1 Defence DV 0 Defence EVs has 0% chance of KOing Charizard and even then a low chance of KOing whilst putting it in range of two Slashes the majority of time or you can always click EQ since it does the same thing in the context of the cycle. I expect this might become more common place if counter lead whirl becomes a thing. The pathway when you lose a sleep war is similar even if you get countered on a slam or stoss on blastoise since Counter takes up either Psychic or Water move which you have to reveal. Generally I think the most dangerous and underutilised whirl is later game Poliwhirl. I've found quite a lot of success with it.
Random Pokemon that are surprisingly strong
I think Seadra, Pinsir and Primeape are pokemon to look out for. Seadra becomes a huge threat on the proviso that Blastoise is gone and can break through everything else. Pinsir is just a decent SD Sweeper that I think only I've used so far in NUSD, I do rate it due to its power and the fact I think Fire types are kind of less common than perhaps they were at RBYPL. Primeape I just think it's a surprisingly alright lead and back pokemon, mainly due to its speed tier, I wouldn't recommend it or anything, but it is useable. In general I don't use too many of these pokemon outside of friendlies unfortunately I think like most RBY tiers the viable list of pokemon most people should be using is a lot smaller than it might seem.
Clefable and Blastoise vs. Charizard
Even though I think Charizard is the second best, I tend to use these Clefable/Blastoise more than Charizard. I think this is generally because of their defensive utility. If we are ranking by how needed is something in a game, then only Mr. Mime is mandatory. What makes Blastoise great is its defensive presence, being able to trade with a particular threat of the opponent, whether it be Poliwhirl, Charizard or Kabutops. You will encounter one of these every game, so Blastoise is a useful defensive piece every game and can be used in a variety of different ways dependent on the situation in the game. Clefable is this to the next degree, you can use it to trade with any pokemon in the tier. Even Porygon you can paralyse and spam body slams until Porygon FPs or you crit if you wanted to theoretically. Charizard does its thing where it is a threat needed to be looked out for every game, but it is not flexible and does not change its role dependent on the opposing team composition. Clefable especially allows players to assess the opponents team composition and use it differently accordingly in order to set up something like a Charizard or another back pokemon or neutralise an opposing threat before the opponent even knows what your composition is and the value of that pokemon fully. I think it rewards skill expression a lot.
Charizard Checks and Brokenness
It is undoubtedly true that every viable team needs at least two SD Charizard checks or one and your own SD Charizard. Does that make Charizard broken, well yes and no. I think the reason you need more than one is mainly due to the nature of NU, the trade heavy nature and the fact that the main charizard checks fulfill many roles, checking other fires and waters means that one is likely to get chipped to the point where it can only tenuously check charizard. This is where I think a lot of those flashy SD Charizard sweeps come in when they are not late late game. I often like to have three checks, like I bring a team of Venomoth, Mime, Clef, Blastoise, SD Charizard, Kabutops but really these pokemon also serve other purposes. Yes I can use my own charizard to beat his charizard if its chipped with an SD, but it also does other things, same with Kabutops and Blastoise, it just gives more freedom to trade Blastoise with Poliwhirl say or Kabutops with Moltres or use SD Kabutops to break through opposing waters without instantly becoming Zard weak. If anything, the whole team Charizard cant SD on without either being 2HKOed or paralysed other than in the mirror. I think this sort of approach really limits charizards threat, yea it can obviously still do its thing every game but then so can tauros in OU but there are ways to limit tauros and force it to switch even if it is an offensive powerhouse. This is why I generally stray away from fire types not in the lead slot (asides from Charizard), I have for example only used Moltres once in 5 weeks because Charizard can SD on it without it giving a 2HKO (even if you toxic it doesnt matter if I cannot then be KOed by the next pokemon so I get another SD or two attacks on next mon after I KO moltres), same with Arcanine, Rapidash and Ninetales though these are just not that good outside of lead. Moltres does have an upside of fire blast power that makes it worth it so I still recommend it.
On Tier List
My tier list honestly hasn't really changed too much so I'll just write out the cliffnotes here. I think pokemon can be kinda interchangeable within their own tier but I have ordered them.
S:
A+:
A-:
B+:
B-:
C:
I did not bother after C. I think it is fruitless to debate whether seaking is better than staryu and is best to keep all those pokemon unranked for now on my list since I do not see them putting work in the vast majority of games.
General Tier Enjoyment
I think a lot of the complaints about NU is due to its very offensive nature, fast pace and variance. I come from a tier that has this a lot, I actually have really enjoyed my time playing NU, I do think it is a tier that rewards skill and game planning. I find that other RBY tiers are more forgiving of mistakes in gameplay since NU is so fast paced which is why a lot see it as unfair. Being able to map out games and knowing when to trade, what pokemon to have in when, when to sack and how to trade even when the matchup seems disadvantageous will get you far. Often it is the correct move to EQ with Nidoking in front of Mr Mime for example or clicking an attack with Charizard against Blastoise or trading your Mr Mime for Clefable dependent on the game state. I think this unconventional way of trading isn't found as much in other RBY tiers which makes it fun.
Last edited:
Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
Lead Zard + Back Poliwhirl (pokepast.es)
I built this team in the summer of 2021.
I liked the flexibility of the structure. I used it 3 times in RBY PL (2 times in week 4 and 1 time in the tie break final)
The team has become very popular in NUSD, every week players use it successfully. i think it's the most common team at the moment. There are a number of variations as well.
I think this structure is good for players who want to learn the level.
I built this team in the summer of 2021.
I liked the flexibility of the structure. I used it 3 times in RBY PL (2 times in week 4 and 1 time in the tie break final)
The team has become very popular in NUSD, every week players use it successfully. i think it's the most common team at the moment. There are a number of variations as well.
I think this structure is good for players who want to learn the level.
Some RBY NU Teams - Replays from NUSD
( / )
Exodia Composition - Big 5 + Whirl
Exodia Composition 2 - Big 5 + Moth
Description:
Replays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-599572
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-599570
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-597334 (F Spin Zard > Blast Zard)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-597820
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-597817 (F Spin Zard > Blast Zard)
Water Spam with Counter Blastoise
A different Water Spam but with Kingler
Description:
Replays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-600639 - Unrevealed Kabutops
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1nu-1491563187-tqmub6s4ey9kg9296lc3jok3xrnpeaxpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1nu-1491568882-ony889xjm2xzfu6h9nvmr6mb04l6k99pw
(
/ ) Exodia Composition - Big 5 + Whirl
Exodia Composition 2 - Big 5 + Moth
Description:
This archetype is probably one of my favourites. Poliwhirl can be replaced with Venomoth which I think is actually even better since Venomoth can sleep and then Stun Spore Blastoise or Mime. When I was first starting out in NU, this was the first proper team I really built, essentially popping the five most broken pokemon together with the broken sleep hence I called it Exodia. This was where I started using Hyper Beam Blastoise and Swiss Army Knife Clefable as a standard. Hyper Beam allows you to KO Poliwhirl in three turns instead of four with Stoss Stoss Beam, giving you a lower chance of getting haxed in case you lose the sleep war and allowing you to hide the fact you have a Charizard. The Clefable set allows you to trade with every pokemon in the metagame and its utility is immense allowing you to throw clefable in versus whatever you deem a threat depending on the game state. Double Twave from Mime and Clef really helps set up Nidoking for later on in the game. Four Attacks King similar to Clefable because you want to be able to trade with Charizard/Moltres if need be, it just gives you a huge amount of flexibility in the game. SD Charizard here with Fire Blast for Egg/Venomoth, hits on Mime/Clef without mindgames and burning potential Kabutops/Golem Switches. The original team had Fire Spin Charizard over Fire Blast.
Replays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-599572
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-599570
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-597334 (F Spin Zard > Blast Zard)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-597820
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-597817 (F Spin Zard > Blast Zard)
Water Spam with Counter Blastoise
A different Water Spam but with Kingler
Description:
This team was inspired by a team I'd seen used by Serpi. The second variant is actually extremely similar with either the same or almost the same pokemon. I replaced Kabutops with Kingler in that particular case since I thought it would be better in a player specific matchup. Triple Water is actually pretty strong at the moment despite four pokemon being electric weak. It is Electrode weak, but in this particular case generally you want to trade with Mr. Mime or Clefable. Ninetales lead can be used over Charizard if you are worried about Electrode as another switch in and generally you just attack Electrode as its squishy you can KO it even if you lose a pokemon for it. That can also help patch up the matchup vs. Mr. Mime but as a consequence you lose the ground immunity and general Charizard threat factor. With Poliwhirl, Kabutops and Blastoise, there is a minimal chance that Fire Spin Spam can break through as long as you play well and Seadra has secondary switchins, therefore came the idea to use three attacks counter blastoise for its general surprise factor. If you change to Poliwhirl lead + SD Charizard, you can even hard Blastoise on Slash and click Counter.
Replays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1nu-600639 - Unrevealed Kabutops
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1nu-1491563187-tqmub6s4ey9kg9296lc3jok3xrnpeaxpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1nu-1491568882-ony889xjm2xzfu6h9nvmr6mb04l6k99pw
So I've been spreading propganda sharing my opinions on the Discord about NU that kind of go against the grain a bit... I see lots of people's tier lists end up with about twenty Pokemon in NU but I think the real number is much less than that. I've debated with myself a lot about what the "correct" number is and I've gone to even as low as twelve at times but that was just me being really stingy I think. What it comes down to is that when I look at my own personal rankings, I only see fourteen Pokemon that I would bring to a serious tournament game. This number could go up a bit depending on a few things, like if I'm scouting my opponent and trying to find a really specific counterpick I guess. But the number I'm arriving at is fourteen. Here's a quick rundown:
Mr. Mime: At this point everyone knows Mr. Mime is pretty much required. That's what being a fully-evolved Psychic-type in this tier will do lol.
Tier Staples: I'm talking about Charizard, Clefable, and Blastoise here. While I do think Charizard is the second-best Pokemon in the tier, I do feel it's more droppable than Clefable or Blastoise. Still, if I'm building for a serious game I'm pretty much going to have the "NU Big 4" on every one of my teams.
Base 90 Sleepers: Venomoth is consistent with Double Powders. Poliwhirl can take games if it hits Hypnosis on the right target. I think Venomoth is more suited to the lead spot than Poliwhirl, as I think "BackWhirl" works better as a cleanup tool than "LeadWhirl" does at punching holes in the opponent's team early.
A-Rank Grounds: Nidoking and Golem are both just damn good Pokemon in this tier. I give Nidoking the edge but really both of them can make a big dent in your team if they get brough in on the right targets.
Swords Dancing Waters: Throwing Kabutops and Kingler in the same category here because of their similarities, even though I think Kabutops is a tier above Kingler due to its better defensive utility. Either way, both are powerful.
Moltres and Exeggcute: These two are completely different but they're the last of the Pokemon that I feel are obviously NU. Moltres just beasts on the tier with its incredible stats and Exeggcute is the best Mime answer in the tier. I consider Moltres on about the same level as Kabutops and Exeggcute to be about the same level as Kingler.
Other B-Ranks: In addition to Kingler and Exeggcute, I find Porygon and Seadra useful enough to count as B-rank. Am I bringing them to a serious tournament game? Eh, maybe. Pory is a nice wall until it eventually full paras, and Seadra is a cool Agility sweeper as long as you've removed your opponent's Waters. They're not the greatest though.
After this, I find mostly everything else to not nearly as good as the stuff above it. Like yes, there's a niche for these Pokemon, but it's not nearly as helpful a niche as the fourteen Pokemon above. Let's go over what those niches are exactly:
>90 Speed Anti-Leads/Damage Dealers: Here we have Primeape, Raticate, and Fearow. The goal here is to get some damage off on your opponent's lead, be it Venomoth, Poliwhirl, or Charizard, before they put you to sleep or 2HKO you with Fire Blast in the case of Charizard. In either case, you're putting yourself down early in hopes that you can revenge kill their Venomoth, Poliwhirl, or Charizard much easier later in the game. And that kind of just doesn't vibe well with me. Out of these, I think Raticate has the most potential... not as a lead though, but as a breaker with Super Fang. But I'm not sure if even that's enough to make the cut for me.
Fire-types: Arcanine, Ninetales, and Rapidash already have some competition from Charizard and Moltres. Ninetales and Rapidash kind of rely on Fire Spin which is just so inconsistent. Arcanine is fine I guess? It's in this weird middle ground of wanting to be in the above category but also being a little beefy? Either way, with how big Water-types and Golem are in this meta, along with competition from top-tier fire-types, I find it hard to justify using any of these.
"Budget" options: Wigglytuff is fine. But Clefable is way better! You could use Clefable and Wigglytuff on the same team, but I think between Clefable, Blastoise, plus one of the other top tiers you typically have all the defensive pieces you need. Sandslash is fine. But if you want a Ground-type or a Swords Dance user there are better ones. You don't neeeed the role compression in this case. Pinsir is fine. But if you want a Swords Dance user or a *gulp* partial trapper, there are better options. I don't think you neeeeed the role compression in this case either (even if Bind is more consistent than Fire Spin).
Electrode: Electrode doesn't really fit into any of the other categories besides maybe being a >90 Speed Anti-Lead. But with its poor movepool and the prevalence of Golem/Nidoking, it struggles to make an impact.
---
Realistically, I do not think NU is only going to end up being fourteen Pokemon. It could end up being as much as 24 for all I know, if we include everything I listed. It's probably going to be somewhere in between, but for me personally (at least from what I've seen so far) I don't think there's a lot worth using in a tournament setting beyond those top fourteen. Maybe I'm missing something because with the "NU Big 4" I haven't been too creative with my building recently but like... it's been working pretty well so change my mind haha.
Mr. Mime: At this point everyone knows Mr. Mime is pretty much required. That's what being a fully-evolved Psychic-type in this tier will do lol.
Tier Staples: I'm talking about Charizard, Clefable, and Blastoise here. While I do think Charizard is the second-best Pokemon in the tier, I do feel it's more droppable than Clefable or Blastoise. Still, if I'm building for a serious game I'm pretty much going to have the "NU Big 4" on every one of my teams.
Base 90 Sleepers: Venomoth is consistent with Double Powders. Poliwhirl can take games if it hits Hypnosis on the right target. I think Venomoth is more suited to the lead spot than Poliwhirl, as I think "BackWhirl" works better as a cleanup tool than "LeadWhirl" does at punching holes in the opponent's team early.
A-Rank Grounds: Nidoking and Golem are both just damn good Pokemon in this tier. I give Nidoking the edge but really both of them can make a big dent in your team if they get brough in on the right targets.
Swords Dancing Waters: Throwing Kabutops and Kingler in the same category here because of their similarities, even though I think Kabutops is a tier above Kingler due to its better defensive utility. Either way, both are powerful.
Moltres and Exeggcute: These two are completely different but they're the last of the Pokemon that I feel are obviously NU. Moltres just beasts on the tier with its incredible stats and Exeggcute is the best Mime answer in the tier. I consider Moltres on about the same level as Kabutops and Exeggcute to be about the same level as Kingler.
Other B-Ranks: In addition to Kingler and Exeggcute, I find Porygon and Seadra useful enough to count as B-rank. Am I bringing them to a serious tournament game? Eh, maybe. Pory is a nice wall until it eventually full paras, and Seadra is a cool Agility sweeper as long as you've removed your opponent's Waters. They're not the greatest though.
After this, I find mostly everything else to not nearly as good as the stuff above it. Like yes, there's a niche for these Pokemon, but it's not nearly as helpful a niche as the fourteen Pokemon above. Let's go over what those niches are exactly:
>90 Speed Anti-Leads/Damage Dealers: Here we have Primeape, Raticate, and Fearow. The goal here is to get some damage off on your opponent's lead, be it Venomoth, Poliwhirl, or Charizard, before they put you to sleep or 2HKO you with Fire Blast in the case of Charizard. In either case, you're putting yourself down early in hopes that you can revenge kill their Venomoth, Poliwhirl, or Charizard much easier later in the game. And that kind of just doesn't vibe well with me. Out of these, I think Raticate has the most potential... not as a lead though, but as a breaker with Super Fang. But I'm not sure if even that's enough to make the cut for me.
Fire-types: Arcanine, Ninetales, and Rapidash already have some competition from Charizard and Moltres. Ninetales and Rapidash kind of rely on Fire Spin which is just so inconsistent. Arcanine is fine I guess? It's in this weird middle ground of wanting to be in the above category but also being a little beefy? Either way, with how big Water-types and Golem are in this meta, along with competition from top-tier fire-types, I find it hard to justify using any of these.
"Budget" options: Wigglytuff is fine. But Clefable is way better! You could use Clefable and Wigglytuff on the same team, but I think between Clefable, Blastoise, plus one of the other top tiers you typically have all the defensive pieces you need. Sandslash is fine. But if you want a Ground-type or a Swords Dance user there are better ones. You don't neeeed the role compression in this case. Pinsir is fine. But if you want a Swords Dance user or a *gulp* partial trapper, there are better options. I don't think you neeeeed the role compression in this case either (even if Bind is more consistent than Fire Spin).
Electrode: Electrode doesn't really fit into any of the other categories besides maybe being a >90 Speed Anti-Lead. But with its poor movepool and the prevalence of Golem/Nidoking, it struggles to make an impact.
---
Realistically, I do not think NU is only going to end up being fourteen Pokemon. It could end up being as much as 24 for all I know, if we include everything I listed. It's probably going to be somewhere in between, but for me personally (at least from what I've seen so far) I don't think there's a lot worth using in a tournament setting beyond those top fourteen. Maybe I'm missing something because with the "NU Big 4" I haven't been too creative with my building recently but like... it's been working pretty well so change my mind haha.
Hey everyone! As you may have heard, RBY NU is getting a ladder/tour in the upcoming month! And looking at the current state of the VR, it's a bit out of date. So the NU Council decided it would be nice to give the viability rankings a temporary update so they reflect the current state of the metagame a bit more accurately, as a resource to people that might just be getting into the tier. Note that this is not an official Viability Rankings update, it's just the thoughts of the council averaged together to try and help people out. Below is a snapshot of the new unofficial Viability Rankings, as well as a spreadsheet that shows the councils' individual placements and the averages. Let me know if I screwed up somewhere, but yeah, here they are:
The spreadsheet can be found here.
In order for a Pokemon to appear they must have been ranked by at least three of the five council members. If there were ties, I broke them with the following philosophy in mind: value consistency over variance. So for example, Moltres is above Venomoth for receiving A- rankings across the board, while Venomoth received one A+, three A-, and one B+. If there was no difference like that, ties were broken by my personal opinion lol. It's not as scientific as the vapicuno method, but I think it's a nice update.
Let me know what you think/if I made any mistakes! Cheers.
EDIT: oops I forgot to mention, thank you to Enigami, Khaetis, Ika Ika Musume, Serpi, and S1nn0hC0nfirm3d for doing this!
The spreadsheet can be found here.
In order for a Pokemon to appear they must have been ranked by at least three of the five council members. If there were ties, I broke them with the following philosophy in mind: value consistency over variance. So for example, Moltres is above Venomoth for receiving A- rankings across the board, while Venomoth received one A+, three A-, and one B+. If there was no difference like that, ties were broken by my personal opinion lol. It's not as scientific as the vapicuno method, but I think it's a nice update.
Let me know what you think/if I made any mistakes! Cheers.
EDIT: oops I forgot to mention, thank you to Enigami, Khaetis, Ika Ika Musume, Serpi, and S1nn0hC0nfirm3d for doing this!
Played on the monthly ladder quite a fair bit and just wanted to have a crack at a VR. Some of these takes may be hot since a lot of stuff around the low B/C/D ranks may be based on anecdotal experience, it is ladder after all.
This meta is unexpectedly enjoyable and I look forward to playing more, aidos!
S Rank
Mr Mime:
Best Psychic in the tier by a long shot and if you don't use it you're playing RBY NU suboptimally, don't have much more to say on this since its the general consensus. Side note, Counter Mr. Mime has been great for me recently because of all the Body Slam/Slash/Hyper Beams thrown at it. Also helps with seismic toss from opposing mime/blastoise.
Charizard:
Hotter take here, considering most people here don't consider Zard nearly as mandatory as Mime. While I agree its quite possible to build viable zardless teams, no one can deny the centralization the tier has taken around it. Fire Spin, Slash, Fire Blast, Earthquake, Hyper Beam, Swords Dance, Counter, I cannot stress enough how amazing this mon's toolkit is. Charizard's moveset can be customized to fit every NU team composition and it's by far the most threatening and versatile offensive mon in the tier, both early game and late. While it is more droppable than Mr. Mime, I think that its presence on the fast majority of viable builds along with its speed tier and unique access to earthquake as a fire type makes it S tier (or S- if you want to call it that).
A+ Rank: If I had the balls I'd toss these mons in S rank and label this the NU big 4, but I feel like its too early to make that assumption.
Clefable:
Coverage for everything, stab body slam, reliable paralysis, unreliable sleep, just an overall amazing mon that always puts in work no matter the matchup.
Blastoise:
Best defensive glue in the tier, most teams need this to help with all the fires along with being a strong check to mons like seadra, golem, and nidoking. Surf+Ice Beam is also good coverage in its own right, so its not exactly a passive blob either.
A- Rank: These mons work well alongside the Big 4(lol I lied its not too early) and combine to make, what I believe to be, the most consistent RBY NU team compostions.
Nidoking:
Best Ground in the tier and even better coverage than Clefable somehow. This mon never flops for me, always seems to make progress and when luck goes your way no mon is more punishing (well maybe one but we'll get to that afterwards). Moltres misses fire spin? Rock Slide and goodbye. Blastoise gets full parad? Tbolt and goodbye. Clef misses blizzard? Eq and goodbye. And these are mons that are considered to have good matchups vs Nidoking.
Venomoth:
Great lead and best status spreader in the tier imo. Double powder is fantastic if you can get them both off and psychic special drops+mega drain actually makes for decent offensive pressure combined with self-supported paralysis and sleep. The only negative to this is the good but not fantastic speed tier. Being slower than fires sucks because of the weakness and relative frailty, and speed tying with you know can turn the lead mu into a coinflip for game.
Coincidently, these above six mons make for my favourite team to use currently and I find it hard to deviate from this without having worse results.
Poliwhirl:
I hate this mon. Its impossible to use cause its strategy relies so much on a 60% chance that I never land and its impossible to beat reliably for the same reason. I saw something in the RBY UU vr discussion about Haunter being S rank if it hits hypnosis and D tier if it doesn't, and its the exact same situation here, except poliwhirl has access to amnesia and can go 2/3 for 1 if luck goes your way.
Moltres:
Faces minor competition from Charizard but they work perfectly fine together, a mon with these stats really can't be much lower than this. Agility is great and strong mixed defensive/offensive stats make for a tanky behemoth should you go the rest route.
B+ Rank: These mons are frankly fantastic and are borderline A-, but I find them slightly less splashable than the A rank mons.
Golem:
Stab EdgeQuake is great and Explosion is great. Only thing holding this back is the Earthquake, Blizzard, and Water/Grass Weaknesses coupled with a poor speed tier that can leave it relatively easy to exploit its defensive profile for free turns (example: Venomoth sleep powder, Poliwhirl Hypnosis. It can boom and once its checks have been weakened and paralysis has been spread it can be devastating lategame. It requires a touch more team support than Nidoking tho which keeps it here.
Kabutops:
Another mon that suffers from an annoying eq weakness while Charizard dominates the tier. The normal resistance tho is a worthy tradeoff and it creates a multitude of opportunities to click swords dance or throw out a stab water move. It's in my B+ rank mostly because it can face competition from charizard, pinsir, and kingler as a sd sweepers, poliwhirl and kingler as offensive setup waters, and blastoise as a defensive water. While no mon possesses Kabutops' unique qualities, namely its typing, its impact can be replicated through the use of various combinations other A/B ranked mons. By no means is Kabutops bad tho, its the second best sd user in the tier.
Kingler:
Nuclear sd hb bot that hits hard on the special side thanks to crabhammer. Lacking some of Kabutops defensive utility along with being more linear and predictable lands it just below its fellow water.
Exeggcute:
Great Mr. Mime wall and Golem check, but it can feel really passive at times especially after throwing off its sleep powder. Low speed and vulnerability to fire and ice moves could have landed it in B-, but that felt too low for the best mon to beat Mr Mime without trading your own.
B- Rank: As we travel down the ranks my thoughts are going to be shorter since these aren't mons I typically use or face often.
Seadra:
Big proponent of this because of blastoise's tendency to get overwhelmed by mons packing electric coverage. agility is great and can let it sweep when toise has been weakened sufficiently, also being less vulnerable to paralysis. it also packs a similar, albeit worse, defensive profile as blastoise that allows it to check fires.
Pinsir:
Partial trapping that doesn't have horrendous accuracy is always decent, along with sd hb makes it a respectable mon. My issue with this is struggling to find points of entry/sd opportunities when every mon seems to threaten it with paralysis or a 2hko on a crit or smth.
Raticate:
Powerful breaker but similar to Pinsir it's frail af and lacks the immediate power to revenge kill mons. It does have a great speed tier tho, faster than sleepers and threatening mons like Nidoking and Moltres.
Rapidash:
Rapidash>Ninetales is an unpopular opinion I'm sure and everyone seems to jerk off Ninetales added bulk and special, but I value that speed tier a lot for outpacing Zard and i feel like it makes it much more effective as a fire spin pivot as well as lead.
Arcanine:
Arcanine is part of the reason I don't rate Ninetales (the other part is Moltres). I just feel like if you want a bulky fire spin pivot you go moltres and arcanine can serve as a stronger attacker vs fire checks like Blastoise thanks to the extra attack. Tbh I haven't used Arcanine much but I respect its niche.
Porygon:
Recover is cool, this mon feels very underexplored, but its stats really limit what it can do.
C Rank: Niche stuff that I won't go into much detail with
Electrode:
Decent when they don't have a ground/exeggcute, explosion bot if they do (which isn't bad dmg tbf), deadweight if its a golem.
Fearow:
Ppl seem to rate this but I didn't face it at all while on ladder and it doesn't look very enticing, feel free to prove me wrong.
Primeape:
Best fighting mon in RBY, which is kind of sad. Decent coverage, strong speed tier, and clef bully makes it a cool antimeta pick. Too late since I don't wanna make another vr but actually raise it to B- between Rapidash and Raticate, it's actually good I started using it.
Dragonair:
For all you APT fans
Ninetales:
Hot take for sure, but I explained it already above.
Nidoqueen:
It's outclassed by Nidoking but its good enough to warrant a spot alongside it occasionally, less of a gap than clef/tuff anyway.
Wigglytuff:
It's outclassed by Clefable but its good enough to warrant a spot alongside it occasionally.
Abra:
Psychic is a broken type in RBY
D Rank: Bad but they did something once that another mon couldn't replicate.
Sandslash:
Not a fan of this at all, there are better sd users and better grounds, but you guys seem to like it.
Weepinbell:
Razor leaf, sleep powder, wrap combo is cool.
Muk:
This seems like kinda a noob trap on ladder ngl, ppl are using it but it barely works outside of being a boom bot.
Scyther:
Sd hb bot faster than zard
Gastly:
Ass but Hypnosis and ghost typing leaves it barely usable.
Arbok:
Why can't this work? Glare+Wrap seems like such a great combo but in practice it's so inconsistent.
Drowzee:
If ur cool use this over Exeggcute as a mime check.
Slowpoke:
Cope from losing Poliwrath and Golduck
Machamp:
Primeape but slower and bulkier idk it did ok vs me once, it's not hitmonchan.
Magneton:
Electrode except even worse vs grounds but u ohko Blastoise with Thunder so thats fun. Piss poor speed too, terrible ngl.
Ponyta:
If you want to run 5 fire spin mons its kinda based.
Seaking:
If you want to run Seadra+walmart seadra for some reason.
Staryu:
Recover and twave makes it not the worse mon ever.
Weezing:
Semi-passible toolkit, never actually used it.
Onix:
If you wanna run Golem and shitty golem run onix, bind and speed makes it better than graveler I think.
Mr Mime:
Best Psychic in the tier by a long shot and if you don't use it you're playing RBY NU suboptimally, don't have much more to say on this since its the general consensus. Side note, Counter Mr. Mime has been great for me recently because of all the Body Slam/Slash/Hyper Beams thrown at it. Also helps with seismic toss from opposing mime/blastoise.
Charizard:
Hotter take here, considering most people here don't consider Zard nearly as mandatory as Mime. While I agree its quite possible to build viable zardless teams, no one can deny the centralization the tier has taken around it. Fire Spin, Slash, Fire Blast, Earthquake, Hyper Beam, Swords Dance, Counter, I cannot stress enough how amazing this mon's toolkit is. Charizard's moveset can be customized to fit every NU team composition and it's by far the most threatening and versatile offensive mon in the tier, both early game and late. While it is more droppable than Mr. Mime, I think that its presence on the fast majority of viable builds along with its speed tier and unique access to earthquake as a fire type makes it S tier (or S- if you want to call it that).
A+ Rank: If I had the balls I'd toss these mons in S rank and label this the NU big 4, but I feel like its too early to make that assumption.
Clefable:
Coverage for everything, stab body slam, reliable paralysis, unreliable sleep, just an overall amazing mon that always puts in work no matter the matchup.
Blastoise:
Best defensive glue in the tier, most teams need this to help with all the fires along with being a strong check to mons like seadra, golem, and nidoking. Surf+Ice Beam is also good coverage in its own right, so its not exactly a passive blob either.
A- Rank: These mons work well alongside the Big 4(lol I lied its not too early) and combine to make, what I believe to be, the most consistent RBY NU team compostions.
Nidoking:
Best Ground in the tier and even better coverage than Clefable somehow. This mon never flops for me, always seems to make progress and when luck goes your way no mon is more punishing (well maybe one but we'll get to that afterwards). Moltres misses fire spin? Rock Slide and goodbye. Blastoise gets full parad? Tbolt and goodbye. Clef misses blizzard? Eq and goodbye. And these are mons that are considered to have good matchups vs Nidoking.
Venomoth:
Great lead and best status spreader in the tier imo. Double powder is fantastic if you can get them both off and psychic special drops+mega drain actually makes for decent offensive pressure combined with self-supported paralysis and sleep. The only negative to this is the good but not fantastic speed tier. Being slower than fires sucks because of the weakness and relative frailty, and speed tying with you know can turn the lead mu into a coinflip for game.
Coincidently, these above six mons make for my favourite team to use currently and I find it hard to deviate from this without having worse results.
Poliwhirl:
I hate this mon. Its impossible to use cause its strategy relies so much on a 60% chance that I never land and its impossible to beat reliably for the same reason. I saw something in the RBY UU vr discussion about Haunter being S rank if it hits hypnosis and D tier if it doesn't, and its the exact same situation here, except poliwhirl has access to amnesia and can go 2/3 for 1 if luck goes your way.
Moltres:
Faces minor competition from Charizard but they work perfectly fine together, a mon with these stats really can't be much lower than this. Agility is great and strong mixed defensive/offensive stats make for a tanky behemoth should you go the rest route.
B+ Rank: These mons are frankly fantastic and are borderline A-, but I find them slightly less splashable than the A rank mons.
Golem:
Stab EdgeQuake is great and Explosion is great. Only thing holding this back is the Earthquake, Blizzard, and Water/Grass Weaknesses coupled with a poor speed tier that can leave it relatively easy to exploit its defensive profile for free turns (example: Venomoth sleep powder, Poliwhirl Hypnosis. It can boom and once its checks have been weakened and paralysis has been spread it can be devastating lategame. It requires a touch more team support than Nidoking tho which keeps it here.
Kabutops:
Another mon that suffers from an annoying eq weakness while Charizard dominates the tier. The normal resistance tho is a worthy tradeoff and it creates a multitude of opportunities to click swords dance or throw out a stab water move. It's in my B+ rank mostly because it can face competition from charizard, pinsir, and kingler as a sd sweepers, poliwhirl and kingler as offensive setup waters, and blastoise as a defensive water. While no mon possesses Kabutops' unique qualities, namely its typing, its impact can be replicated through the use of various combinations other A/B ranked mons. By no means is Kabutops bad tho, its the second best sd user in the tier.
Kingler:
Nuclear sd hb bot that hits hard on the special side thanks to crabhammer. Lacking some of Kabutops defensive utility along with being more linear and predictable lands it just below its fellow water.
Exeggcute:
Great Mr. Mime wall and Golem check, but it can feel really passive at times especially after throwing off its sleep powder. Low speed and vulnerability to fire and ice moves could have landed it in B-, but that felt too low for the best mon to beat Mr Mime without trading your own.
B- Rank: As we travel down the ranks my thoughts are going to be shorter since these aren't mons I typically use or face often.
Seadra:
Big proponent of this because of blastoise's tendency to get overwhelmed by mons packing electric coverage. agility is great and can let it sweep when toise has been weakened sufficiently, also being less vulnerable to paralysis. it also packs a similar, albeit worse, defensive profile as blastoise that allows it to check fires.
Pinsir:
Partial trapping that doesn't have horrendous accuracy is always decent, along with sd hb makes it a respectable mon. My issue with this is struggling to find points of entry/sd opportunities when every mon seems to threaten it with paralysis or a 2hko on a crit or smth.
Raticate:
Powerful breaker but similar to Pinsir it's frail af and lacks the immediate power to revenge kill mons. It does have a great speed tier tho, faster than sleepers and threatening mons like Nidoking and Moltres.
Rapidash:
Rapidash>Ninetales is an unpopular opinion I'm sure and everyone seems to jerk off Ninetales added bulk and special, but I value that speed tier a lot for outpacing Zard and i feel like it makes it much more effective as a fire spin pivot as well as lead.
Arcanine:
Arcanine is part of the reason I don't rate Ninetales (the other part is Moltres). I just feel like if you want a bulky fire spin pivot you go moltres and arcanine can serve as a stronger attacker vs fire checks like Blastoise thanks to the extra attack. Tbh I haven't used Arcanine much but I respect its niche.
Porygon:
Recover is cool, this mon feels very underexplored, but its stats really limit what it can do.
C Rank: Niche stuff that I won't go into much detail with
Electrode:
Decent when they don't have a ground/exeggcute, explosion bot if they do (which isn't bad dmg tbf), deadweight if its a golem.
Fearow:
Ppl seem to rate this but I didn't face it at all while on ladder and it doesn't look very enticing, feel free to prove me wrong.
Primeape:
Best fighting mon in RBY, which is kind of sad. Decent coverage, strong speed tier, and clef bully makes it a cool antimeta pick. Too late since I don't wanna make another vr but actually raise it to B- between Rapidash and Raticate, it's actually good I started using it.
Dragonair:
For all you APT fans
Ninetales:
Hot take for sure, but I explained it already above.
Nidoqueen:
It's outclassed by Nidoking but its good enough to warrant a spot alongside it occasionally, less of a gap than clef/tuff anyway.
Wigglytuff:
It's outclassed by Clefable but its good enough to warrant a spot alongside it occasionally.
Abra:
Psychic is a broken type in RBY
D Rank: Bad but they did something once that another mon couldn't replicate.
Sandslash:
Not a fan of this at all, there are better sd users and better grounds, but you guys seem to like it.
Weepinbell:
Razor leaf, sleep powder, wrap combo is cool.
Muk:
This seems like kinda a noob trap on ladder ngl, ppl are using it but it barely works outside of being a boom bot.
Scyther:
Sd hb bot faster than zard
Gastly:
Ass but Hypnosis and ghost typing leaves it barely usable.
Arbok:
Why can't this work? Glare+Wrap seems like such a great combo but in practice it's so inconsistent.
Drowzee:
If ur cool use this over Exeggcute as a mime check.
Slowpoke:
Cope from losing Poliwrath and Golduck
Machamp:
Primeape but slower and bulkier idk it did ok vs me once, it's not hitmonchan.
Magneton:
Electrode except even worse vs grounds but u ohko Blastoise with Thunder so thats fun. Piss poor speed too, terrible ngl.
Ponyta:
If you want to run 5 fire spin mons its kinda based.
Seaking:
If you want to run Seadra+walmart seadra for some reason.
Staryu:
Recover and twave makes it not the worse mon ever.
Weezing:
Semi-passible toolkit, never actually used it.
Onix:
If you wanna run Golem and shitty golem run onix, bind and speed makes it better than graveler I think.
This meta is unexpectedly enjoyable and I look forward to playing more, aidos!
Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
Came second in NUSD on my team, but also didn't win a single game on my end despite my prep! Graaagh! Anyway, I'm probably gonna use the NU Spotlight Tour as my little play den for developing my theory more. I think my weight is shifting more towards a few other passions, but lord if NUSD wasn't some of the most fun I've had.
"Mama May! I don't want to think, can you feed me your NU metagame opinions?!"
Absolutely, child!
I think that the people who grapple and pull this tier around with ban proposals are looking for problems with something where there are no problems. I can see the anti-Charizard arguments as it's certainly oppressive (arguably around UU Tentacruel's level, but eh...) but I think the tier would struggle to distinguish itself without something like it. I've taken a neutral "if you do it do it right" stance on the tier so far and I think it's going to stay the same. I remember some of the NUers saying "do something or we cut it" but I don't think I'd want the tier kneejerkingly butchered for people that don't play it. I think the play we saw was fantastic and I genuinely had some of the best RBY games of my life in this tour.
But what do I actually think, personally? Charizard being an oppressive top tier is the most beautifully fitting thing I have ever seen. In RBY, it's one of the faces of Kanto. In NU, Charizard has always been top tier. I think this is a legitimate draw to playing the tier from an outsider's perspective and I don't think this should change. It's really cool.
In terms of progression, with the top tiers now cemented, I think it's worth developing the lower-ranked Pokemon further. I think we're starting to work our way down, and that's what I've been doing. Pokemon with most potential include Raticate, Sandslash, Fearow, Wigglytuff, and Muk. A lot of my teams feature these Pokemon, and there's plenty of reason for it, as you'll see. I also think Arcanine has a lot of room for innovation, though I don't know whether it'll necessarily its "barely NU" status. I have a feeling Moltres is going to fall off the metagame hard with time. Mimeless feels possible and I think people are just adamantly opposed because "Mime good" rather than looking for reasons why a team could benefit without it.
"I need teams, woman! Gimme!"
Alright, let's get into my team dump for this tournament. There's a lot here! Be aware that a lot of team names are in Welsh because you are looking at a Welsh builder. Main things are "Gwell" = "Better" and "ond" = "but", the rest is unimportant. You'll get over it, ya pansies. There's a lot of weirdness with my compositions here and that's because I think my outlook on RBY in general - particularly here with NU - is quite different compared to other players. I know one person said prepping for me can be like an exam sometimes, and this is probably why.
These are my favourites to play with, and I think they make each Pokemon subject the best it can be!
- This is a compressed version of another team I made (thus "Compression of Rats" for the team name) where I upgraded my Blastoise set and added Clefable for role compression. I used this against Serpi in fantastic fashion, only for Raticate to get crit by Golem. I didn't have Bubble Beam on it at the time, as I wanted Thunderbolt for Blastoise, but that proved to be a bad opinion.
- A better version of a Sandslash team I made with Shellnuts a while back, wirth Ika's insight. This is the best you'll get with Sandslash in my opinion, and "Double Rock" structures involving Kabutops+Golem should shift in this direction.
- I made this in the RBY server and it does work. If you want to try Lead Fearow, use this team, it works against Fire Spinners and sleepers; you'll crit Drill Peck and kill Venomoth and Poliwhirl will miss Hypnosis and get Mirror Move'd the next turn. Be optimistic! Oh, and Golem works alongside it for shutting down basically anything else. Nice early-game lead that lets Poliwhirl shock the world later.
These teams are also really good! You can use them and do well!
- Raticate's Super Fang is amazing for Kingler, allowing it to take out a ton of stuff. The Blastoise set here is terrible, change it to literally anything else. I think Surf/Blizz/SToss/Counter or Slam may be the play here.
- PinTops MKII, but you'll want to make it MKIII by fixing the Charizard and Blastoise sets a bit. It can work, and it's good.
- A copied team structure from observing how Ika plays NU. I believe I put Counter on the Poliwhirl here when playing Serpi in Week...I forgot the number, it just wasn't the Finals one! Don't use Counter unless you know how your opponent reacts to Poliwhirl though!
- Same as above only when Ika leads Venomoth.
- ClefTuff, in what I believe to be its next evolution: using Kingler! Ika suggested a version with Golem and Mime lead, which we changed because I felt a primal fear at the very idea of using Sing.
- An Ika-branded Water Spam team only I changed a couple of things I think? Can't remember now. Kingler is good against Golem enjoyers, so I wanted to bring it twice against Serpi, and this is one of the best team structures to use it on.
- TRIPLE. TACTICS. TALENT! This is a Triple Counter team featuring Raticate, which is insanely high-roll-y, your aim is to win out every trade until Raticate goes balls to the wall and wins. Ninetales is a pretty underrated lead and we used it because we needed something faster than base 90, wherein it dropped.
These teams are terrible and I don't think they work very well. They could work with some fine-tuning, most are failed Muk-related experiments, which I think has a lot of potential on some archetypes. My builder is littered with these because building is smashing your head against the wall until a gem drops.
- One of my attempts to make Normal Spam a thing. It's ok, probably one of the best out of my "failed experiments".
- "Multres", me and pac had the idea that Muk works well alongside Fire Spin users, so maybe Moltres could work. I think you can just slap a Charizard on here and be better off.
- Acid Armor Muk is quite good, it's just not in the right meta. Mega Drain makes it a great way to dismantle Golem, and Sandslash can reduce the awful Ground weakness the mere existence of Muk on a team causes. I called Acid Armor + Mega Drain "KarMuk" because it sounded funny.
- The Crayon Chewers, I was gonna bring this on a 1-0 lead to try and show how bad AgiliWrap is. On the other hand, look at this thing, when was it going to show anything? It needs Moltres, Charizard, anything to give it any remote offensive pressure. Awful.
- Is Scyther the next evolution for BlastArc? No? Ok.
- A variant of what I brought against Serpi in Finals Game 2. I didn't use it in the end because me and Ika realised that Kingler is a better way to deal with his Golem spam. He then proceeded to not bring Golem at all.
"Mama May! I don't want to think, can you feed me your NU metagame opinions?!"
Absolutely, child!
I think that the people who grapple and pull this tier around with ban proposals are looking for problems with something where there are no problems. I can see the anti-Charizard arguments as it's certainly oppressive (arguably around UU Tentacruel's level, but eh...) but I think the tier would struggle to distinguish itself without something like it. I've taken a neutral "if you do it do it right" stance on the tier so far and I think it's going to stay the same. I remember some of the NUers saying "do something or we cut it" but I don't think I'd want the tier kneejerkingly butchered for people that don't play it. I think the play we saw was fantastic and I genuinely had some of the best RBY games of my life in this tour.
But what do I actually think, personally? Charizard being an oppressive top tier is the most beautifully fitting thing I have ever seen. In RBY, it's one of the faces of Kanto. In NU, Charizard has always been top tier. I think this is a legitimate draw to playing the tier from an outsider's perspective and I don't think this should change. It's really cool.
In terms of progression, with the top tiers now cemented, I think it's worth developing the lower-ranked Pokemon further. I think we're starting to work our way down, and that's what I've been doing. Pokemon with most potential include Raticate, Sandslash, Fearow, Wigglytuff, and Muk. A lot of my teams feature these Pokemon, and there's plenty of reason for it, as you'll see. I also think Arcanine has a lot of room for innovation, though I don't know whether it'll necessarily its "barely NU" status. I have a feeling Moltres is going to fall off the metagame hard with time. Mimeless feels possible and I think people are just adamantly opposed because "Mime good" rather than looking for reasons why a team could benefit without it.
"I need teams, woman! Gimme!"
Alright, let's get into my team dump for this tournament. There's a lot here! Be aware that a lot of team names are in Welsh because you are looking at a Welsh builder. Main things are "Gwell" = "Better" and "ond" = "but", the rest is unimportant. You'll get over it, ya pansies. There's a lot of weirdness with my compositions here and that's because I think my outlook on RBY in general - particularly here with NU - is quite different compared to other players. I know one person said prepping for me can be like an exam sometimes, and this is probably why.
These are my favourites to play with, and I think they make each Pokemon subject the best it can be! - This is a compressed version of another team I made (thus "Compression of Rats" for the team name) where I upgraded my Blastoise set and added Clefable for role compression. I used this against Serpi in fantastic fashion, only for Raticate to get crit by Golem. I didn't have Bubble Beam on it at the time, as I wanted Thunderbolt for Blastoise, but that proved to be a bad opinion. - A better version of a Sandslash team I made with Shellnuts a while back, wirth Ika's insight. This is the best you'll get with Sandslash in my opinion, and "Double Rock" structures involving Kabutops+Golem should shift in this direction. - I made this in the RBY server and it does work. If you want to try Lead Fearow, use this team, it works against Fire Spinners and sleepers; you'll crit Drill Peck and kill Venomoth and Poliwhirl will miss Hypnosis and get Mirror Move'd the next turn. Be optimistic! Oh, and Golem works alongside it for shutting down basically anything else. Nice early-game lead that lets Poliwhirl shock the world later. These teams are also really good! You can use them and do well! - Raticate's Super Fang is amazing for Kingler, allowing it to take out a ton of stuff. The Blastoise set here is terrible, change it to literally anything else. I think Surf/Blizz/SToss/Counter or Slam may be the play here. - PinTops MKII, but you'll want to make it MKIII by fixing the Charizard and Blastoise sets a bit. It can work, and it's good. - A copied team structure from observing how Ika plays NU. I believe I put Counter on the Poliwhirl here when playing Serpi in Week...I forgot the number, it just wasn't the Finals one! Don't use Counter unless you know how your opponent reacts to Poliwhirl though! - Same as above only when Ika leads Venomoth. - ClefTuff, in what I believe to be its next evolution: using Kingler! Ika suggested a version with Golem and Mime lead, which we changed because I felt a primal fear at the very idea of using Sing. - An Ika-branded Water Spam team only I changed a couple of things I think? Can't remember now. Kingler is good against Golem enjoyers, so I wanted to bring it twice against Serpi, and this is one of the best team structures to use it on. - TRIPLE. TACTICS. TALENT! This is a Triple Counter team featuring Raticate, which is insanely high-roll-y, your aim is to win out every trade until Raticate goes balls to the wall and wins. Ninetales is a pretty underrated lead and we used it because we needed something faster than base 90, wherein it dropped. These teams are terrible and I don't think they work very well. They could work with some fine-tuning, most are failed Muk-related experiments, which I think has a lot of potential on some archetypes. My builder is littered with these because building is smashing your head against the wall until a gem drops. - One of my attempts to make Normal Spam a thing. It's ok, probably one of the best out of my "failed experiments". - "Multres", me and pac had the idea that Muk works well alongside Fire Spin users, so maybe Moltres could work. I think you can just slap a Charizard on here and be better off. - Acid Armor Muk is quite good, it's just not in the right meta. Mega Drain makes it a great way to dismantle Golem, and Sandslash can reduce the awful Ground weakness the mere existence of Muk on a team causes. I called Acid Armor + Mega Drain "KarMuk" because it sounded funny. - The Crayon Chewers, I was gonna bring this on a 1-0 lead to try and show how bad AgiliWrap is. On the other hand, look at this thing, when was it going to show anything? It needs Moltres, Charizard, anything to give it any remote offensive pressure. Awful. - Is Scyther the next evolution for BlastArc? No? Ok. - A variant of what I brought against Serpi in Finals Game 2. I didn't use it in the end because me and Ika realised that Kingler is a better way to deal with his Golem spam. He then proceeded to not bring Golem at all.
Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
Ah yes, the fabled PvK double post. Had some time to think since there's been a lot on my mind lately. Decided I'll play out the current tours I'm in and retire to playing casually for a bit.
So, here's my (likely) VR submission for when they go up!
It's basically status quo with a few changes and Pokemon additions that I felt were absent. In my opinion, for some of the Pokemon ranked, there were some that were more viable, especially Seaking. For example, I would find myself using Magmar before stuff like Poliwag any day.
Right now, we seem to know where everything is viability-wise for NU itself, but development of lower-ranked Pokemon and movesets appears to be poor. We've seen a lot of diversification in NU-ranked sets during NUSD, and people are giving sub-NU Pokemon a look. I like this.
So, here's my (likely) VR submission for when they go up!
It's basically status quo with a few changes and Pokemon additions that I felt were absent. In my opinion, for some of the Pokemon ranked, there were some that were more viable, especially Seaking. For example, I would find myself using Magmar before stuff like Poliwag any day.
Right now, we seem to know where everything is viability-wise for NU itself, but development of lower-ranked Pokemon and movesets appears to be poor. We've seen a lot of diversification in NU-ranked sets during NUSD, and people are giving sub-NU Pokemon a look. I like this.
S Tier - Use on every team, very good, pls do not drop
Mr. Mime defines a lot of the game, being the best Psychic-type available. Unresisted coverage, only really contested by itself. I think people are playing it way too liberally right now, when it's paralyzed you can really abuse it, since all damage it takes is permanent. I've seen people sleep sack this thing, what the hell are you doing?
However, I do think that "Mimeless" is possible, considering the current heuristics. If it's so disposable, maybe it's not that Mime is powerful, but that it is less valuable than it looks. I know Sevi has been a proponent of it, but he doesn't show off in bracket much due to a busy life, so who knows when someone will finally crack open the casket of this objectionable concept.
A+ Tier - Use at least 1 on all teams, start your builds from here + mime
These Pokemon are noticeably above the rest and form what you can see as NU's Big 4 alongside Mime. However, it's far from what you see in other tiers, this one's power level is very low.
Charizard is the one I would call almost-undroppable. The offensive synergy with Mime had a big showing this tournament, and I think it will only continue to strut its stuff in future ones. Many end-game scenarios come down to Charizard and Mime finishing everything off, and you can't even really give Charizard a turn. What I wrote here still stands. If you really really really wanted to change this tier, you would look at this first.
Blastoise is by far the bulkiest Pokemon available and has a surprising amount of set variety. Recent exploration of sets without Rest have been very interesting and I think this will continue for a while. It just allows a lot of teams room to breathe, and gives a safety mechanism against Poliwhirl. I really like Counter lure sets, being able to punt another Blastoise is great. You should use this on most teams, but I think it can be replaced with Kabutops sometimes.
Clefable is the best Mime check, as well as the best check to itself, which can come up quite a bit. It stops Mime's progress quite a bit, but is also vulnerable to just getting worn down and/or gank'd by Mime anyway, so I think it may be worse than the rest. I've run teams without this quite a bit but my opinions are improving. It can run a lot of cool stuff and I hope to see set discussion for it a lot more in the future.
A Tier - Use a couple or all on most teams
Poliwhirl is just nuts and you could convince me to put it in A+ with a bit of adderall. Hypnosis + Amnesia is enough to put any team into nicotine shot and if you don't know how to fight it it's winning almost on its own. Luckily, it's an NFE with almost solely Speed to give it its strength, and that's why it's not Mime-tier. The main problem outside of that is, true to its forgetfulness, it's very inconsistent, and finds itself being stalled (not walled, important distinction) by either Exeggcute, Blastoise, or both depending on its coverage. Plus, Hypnosis is omegalul and dansgame. If you want to gank people on ladder, though, bring this little memelord.
Kabutops hits so hard and I love its typing, you can use this over Blastoise sometimes and I would not laugh at you. Lots of ways to go about its offence and defensive sets aren't bad either. +2 HB is a tried-and-true concept, Slash hits very hard, Surf means Golem doesn't laugh at you, so on, so forth. The main issue is that +2 EQ Charizard hurts this poor thing so much. Regardless, this is the best SDer outside of Charizard, so if you're like me, you're spamming this all day.
Nidoking finally manages to find its footing in NU, with amazing coverage and a typing that makes it immune to Toxic and Electric-type moves, which is insanely valuable for many team styles. While defensively weak, it pivots in and out of battle while not losing offensive momentum, this is such an important distinction for understanding why it works so well. QuakeSlide and BlizzBolt, plus other neat niche options like Body Slam, makes this Pokemon quite literally the perfect offensive Pokemon! It's just...bad defensively, which is why it's not on its rightful throne...
Golem hits really hard.
Venomoth is fast and sleeps things, then either gets sacked to status to block for the game, or dies. It's got a case of Jynx syndrome, where it's good because of sleep and just very little else. Like sure, you've got powders and Psychic, maybe a bit of Mega Drain tomfoolery, but if Venomoth actually gets a kill off of damage alone then you should buy a lottery ticket.
B+ Tier - These are good!
Kingler is simple: get that one, super important hit in, and win from there. Swords Dance is hard to set up, but at this power level, it's hitting immensely hard regardless, you can use Body Slam, Crabhammer, and Hyper Beam liberally. It's still great for breaking past Blastoise, though, so you should bring it! Crabhammer is its most important move, making mincemeat of Golem, which it switches into cleanly.
Exeggcute is Enigami's dark child and one of the better Mime checks. Powders, has STAB Psychic, can explode, that's all very neat! It's an LC in a pool of very powerful FEs though, so it does have to watch itself...
I don't like Moltres much and I think I could rank it lower. It has stats galore and the potential to do serious damage but it just does not see that happen often. AgiliSpin is terrible in my experience, when Charizard of all things can set up on it during its rampage you know it's bad. I know the Rest sets are cool but eh...nobody's bringing up teams or using it much, so I think I can drop it here. I think it has the most potential, but it's just potential...
B Tier - These are good but less good
Porygon, Porygon, Porygon...a funny little blighter that walls random things. In this case, you can fit Conversion and wall Mime. But, that's more of a gimmick set, you have to drop coverage or (god forbid) Thunder Wave for that. I think that set can be optimised though...maybe Psywave tbh? Anyway, it's one of the only Recover Pokemon around, and that's big. It's got an OU movepool in a low power level tier, balanced solely through its catastrophicly poor stats. This can definitely rise when people start finding where they can splash it.
Ninetales is fine, it deals with Mime better than the other Fires and that's why I'm putting it here. It can also contest Charizard...sort of. 100 Speed Fire Spin is part of why we like Charizard, Ninetales is just that but without the funny moves really. Can't knock that. People are mortally opposed to the very idea of Fire Spam, but 2 Fires is still a tried-and-true core to me. Try it!
Raticate is amazing! Please use it! Super Fang is fantastic in a tier with so much permanent damage and its Speed tier is finally acceptable. You saw those teams I made, go spam them on the ladder and you'll see what I mean! Also, reference this!
Fearow has boundless potential. I think leading off with Toxic + Mirror Move sets is completely fine and it gives it some strong leverage; Toxic the wrappers, Mirror Move the sleepers when they miss (we're being optimistic here). Drill Pecking Venomoth is also quite neat. Outside of that, Fearow can definitely use Agility sweeper sets in the back, they just need working on more. It has a lot of cute gimmicks.
Wigglytuff is a second Clefable, and that in and of itself is great. I think ClefTuff is a very usable team comp with a lot of build directions and that's why it's here.
B- Tier - Alright you're getting pretty based here
Seadra is really neat but gets walled by Blastoise a bit too much. In fact, it's Blastoise but with a shite movepool and Agility as consolation. This makes it a nice sweeper in theory: Hydro/Surf/Blizz/Agi is cool, but also, you will find the waters having a party. It's great at PP stalling, though, Ika has showed me some awful endgames involving AgiliRest builds doing that (which I came up with to contest fire spam, ironically enough)
I love Sandslash and I think people just continually undersell it on account of its history of swinging and missing. This time I think it's real, it's not outclassed by Golem at all. Lack of a Ground weakness and the ability to 1v1 Golem easily while providing the TWave immunity is great for me and those teams I submitted should hopefully prove there's a place for that.
Arcanine is weird. It's been continually falling off its defensive niche because it's hard to fit, and EQ Charizard + Golem just continues to rip it apart. It's not terrible, it's just facing unfavourable shifts. I think Agility sets may be the direction to go in with the increasing need for "fast" Pokemon, and Arcanine tends to pummel them once set up. Keep in mind, it's juuust fast enough to outrun stuff like Poliwhirl, and has among the best Attack stats in the tier...give it a try. There's certainly a team for this. I was gonna use this in the Spotlight Tour but it's obviously not panned out, so maybe someone can take my torch.
Rapidash is fine, just inconsistent. Faster than Charizard, has Body Slam and Fire Spin, can technically AgiliSpin but really doesn't need to. I think the direction is Body Slam / Hyper Beam / Stomp or Fire Blast or Toxic / Fire Spin. I think people just saw the old win rates, clawed their eyes out, and demanded it drops to PU immediately. And we say cancel culture is bad, eh??? Rapidash did nothing wrong!!!
Pinsir hits hard.
Primeape is a really cool lead that Enigami (of course) came up with, it happens to have the perfect coverage while being sufficiently low value to sack because it's a Fighting-type. I don't know much about it but someone will probably reply with 3 paragraphs.
C-D - Approaching critical levels of based, warning!
Only gonna talk about my additions cus I'm getting lazy.
Aha! You rank Seadra in B+ in the current VR, but fail to rank Seaking! I am very intelligent. But seriously, Seaking certainly works like Seadra but has a physical bias, which does help it against Mime. I strongly believe it's better than the current D Ranks, and even at the top of my C Tier, simply because it can run the same set with roughly the same effectiveness, just played ever so slightly different. Yes, this is PvK's Wales, where we promote Cultural Seakingism. I think this Pokemon was just forgot, to be honest.
I think I went on a rant about Magmar somewhere in an analysis thread, read this and it'll probably say something.
Arbok is better than Ponyta and thus I will put it here. Glare is cool, it has decent coverage, I dunno you could probably bring it. Either rank this or cut off where it is.
Staryu has been theorymon'd a lot and I think there's merit in giving it a fair trial. Someone bring it to the spotlight tour, yeah?
Mr. Mime defines a lot of the game, being the best Psychic-type available. Unresisted coverage, only really contested by itself. I think people are playing it way too liberally right now, when it's paralyzed you can really abuse it, since all damage it takes is permanent. I've seen people sleep sack this thing, what the hell are you doing?
However, I do think that "Mimeless" is possible, considering the current heuristics. If it's so disposable, maybe it's not that Mime is powerful, but that it is less valuable than it looks. I know Sevi has been a proponent of it, but he doesn't show off in bracket much due to a busy life, so who knows when someone will finally crack open the casket of this objectionable concept.
A+ Tier - Use at least 1 on all teams, start your builds from here + mime
These Pokemon are noticeably above the rest and form what you can see as NU's Big 4 alongside Mime. However, it's far from what you see in other tiers, this one's power level is very low.
Charizard is the one I would call almost-undroppable. The offensive synergy with Mime had a big showing this tournament, and I think it will only continue to strut its stuff in future ones. Many end-game scenarios come down to Charizard and Mime finishing everything off, and you can't even really give Charizard a turn. What I wrote here still stands. If you really really really wanted to change this tier, you would look at this first.
Blastoise is by far the bulkiest Pokemon available and has a surprising amount of set variety. Recent exploration of sets without Rest have been very interesting and I think this will continue for a while. It just allows a lot of teams room to breathe, and gives a safety mechanism against Poliwhirl. I really like Counter lure sets, being able to punt another Blastoise is great. You should use this on most teams, but I think it can be replaced with Kabutops sometimes.
Clefable is the best Mime check, as well as the best check to itself, which can come up quite a bit. It stops Mime's progress quite a bit, but is also vulnerable to just getting worn down and/or gank'd by Mime anyway, so I think it may be worse than the rest. I've run teams without this quite a bit but my opinions are improving. It can run a lot of cool stuff and I hope to see set discussion for it a lot more in the future.
A Tier - Use a couple or all on most teams
Poliwhirl is just nuts and you could convince me to put it in A+ with a bit of adderall. Hypnosis + Amnesia is enough to put any team into nicotine shot and if you don't know how to fight it it's winning almost on its own. Luckily, it's an NFE with almost solely Speed to give it its strength, and that's why it's not Mime-tier. The main problem outside of that is, true to its forgetfulness, it's very inconsistent, and finds itself being stalled (not walled, important distinction) by either Exeggcute, Blastoise, or both depending on its coverage. Plus, Hypnosis is omegalul and dansgame. If you want to gank people on ladder, though, bring this little memelord.
Kabutops hits so hard and I love its typing, you can use this over Blastoise sometimes and I would not laugh at you. Lots of ways to go about its offence and defensive sets aren't bad either. +2 HB is a tried-and-true concept, Slash hits very hard, Surf means Golem doesn't laugh at you, so on, so forth. The main issue is that +2 EQ Charizard hurts this poor thing so much. Regardless, this is the best SDer outside of Charizard, so if you're like me, you're spamming this all day.
Nidoking finally manages to find its footing in NU, with amazing coverage and a typing that makes it immune to Toxic and Electric-type moves, which is insanely valuable for many team styles. While defensively weak, it pivots in and out of battle while not losing offensive momentum, this is such an important distinction for understanding why it works so well. QuakeSlide and BlizzBolt, plus other neat niche options like Body Slam, makes this Pokemon quite literally the perfect offensive Pokemon! It's just...bad defensively, which is why it's not on its rightful throne...
Golem hits really hard.
Venomoth is fast and sleeps things, then either gets sacked to status to block for the game, or dies. It's got a case of Jynx syndrome, where it's good because of sleep and just very little else. Like sure, you've got powders and Psychic, maybe a bit of Mega Drain tomfoolery, but if Venomoth actually gets a kill off of damage alone then you should buy a lottery ticket.
B+ Tier - These are good!
Kingler is simple: get that one, super important hit in, and win from there. Swords Dance is hard to set up, but at this power level, it's hitting immensely hard regardless, you can use Body Slam, Crabhammer, and Hyper Beam liberally. It's still great for breaking past Blastoise, though, so you should bring it! Crabhammer is its most important move, making mincemeat of Golem, which it switches into cleanly.
Exeggcute is Enigami's dark child and one of the better Mime checks. Powders, has STAB Psychic, can explode, that's all very neat! It's an LC in a pool of very powerful FEs though, so it does have to watch itself...
I don't like Moltres much and I think I could rank it lower. It has stats galore and the potential to do serious damage but it just does not see that happen often. AgiliSpin is terrible in my experience, when Charizard of all things can set up on it during its rampage you know it's bad. I know the Rest sets are cool but eh...nobody's bringing up teams or using it much, so I think I can drop it here. I think it has the most potential, but it's just potential...
B Tier - These are good but less good
Porygon, Porygon, Porygon...a funny little blighter that walls random things. In this case, you can fit Conversion and wall Mime. But, that's more of a gimmick set, you have to drop coverage or (god forbid) Thunder Wave for that. I think that set can be optimised though...maybe Psywave tbh? Anyway, it's one of the only Recover Pokemon around, and that's big. It's got an OU movepool in a low power level tier, balanced solely through its catastrophicly poor stats. This can definitely rise when people start finding where they can splash it.
Ninetales is fine, it deals with Mime better than the other Fires and that's why I'm putting it here. It can also contest Charizard...sort of. 100 Speed Fire Spin is part of why we like Charizard, Ninetales is just that but without the funny moves really. Can't knock that. People are mortally opposed to the very idea of Fire Spam, but 2 Fires is still a tried-and-true core to me. Try it!
Raticate is amazing! Please use it! Super Fang is fantastic in a tier with so much permanent damage and its Speed tier is finally acceptable. You saw those teams I made, go spam them on the ladder and you'll see what I mean! Also, reference this!
Fearow has boundless potential. I think leading off with Toxic + Mirror Move sets is completely fine and it gives it some strong leverage; Toxic the wrappers, Mirror Move the sleepers when they miss (we're being optimistic here). Drill Pecking Venomoth is also quite neat. Outside of that, Fearow can definitely use Agility sweeper sets in the back, they just need working on more. It has a lot of cute gimmicks.
Wigglytuff is a second Clefable, and that in and of itself is great. I think ClefTuff is a very usable team comp with a lot of build directions and that's why it's here.
B- Tier - Alright you're getting pretty based here
Seadra is really neat but gets walled by Blastoise a bit too much. In fact, it's Blastoise but with a shite movepool and Agility as consolation. This makes it a nice sweeper in theory: Hydro/Surf/Blizz/Agi is cool, but also, you will find the waters having a party. It's great at PP stalling, though, Ika has showed me some awful endgames involving AgiliRest builds doing that (which I came up with to contest fire spam, ironically enough)
I love Sandslash and I think people just continually undersell it on account of its history of swinging and missing. This time I think it's real, it's not outclassed by Golem at all. Lack of a Ground weakness and the ability to 1v1 Golem easily while providing the TWave immunity is great for me and those teams I submitted should hopefully prove there's a place for that.
Arcanine is weird. It's been continually falling off its defensive niche because it's hard to fit, and EQ Charizard + Golem just continues to rip it apart. It's not terrible, it's just facing unfavourable shifts. I think Agility sets may be the direction to go in with the increasing need for "fast" Pokemon, and Arcanine tends to pummel them once set up. Keep in mind, it's juuust fast enough to outrun stuff like Poliwhirl, and has among the best Attack stats in the tier...give it a try. There's certainly a team for this. I was gonna use this in the Spotlight Tour but it's obviously not panned out, so maybe someone can take my torch.
Rapidash is fine, just inconsistent. Faster than Charizard, has Body Slam and Fire Spin, can technically AgiliSpin but really doesn't need to. I think the direction is Body Slam / Hyper Beam / Stomp or Fire Blast or Toxic / Fire Spin. I think people just saw the old win rates, clawed their eyes out, and demanded it drops to PU immediately. And we say cancel culture is bad, eh??? Rapidash did nothing wrong!!!
Pinsir hits hard.
Primeape is a really cool lead that Enigami (of course) came up with, it happens to have the perfect coverage while being sufficiently low value to sack because it's a Fighting-type. I don't know much about it but someone will probably reply with 3 paragraphs.
C-D - Approaching critical levels of based, warning!
Only gonna talk about my additions cus I'm getting lazy.
Aha! You rank Seadra in B+ in the current VR, but fail to rank Seaking! I am very intelligent. But seriously, Seaking certainly works like Seadra but has a physical bias, which does help it against Mime. I strongly believe it's better than the current D Ranks, and even at the top of my C Tier, simply because it can run the same set with roughly the same effectiveness, just played ever so slightly different. Yes, this is PvK's Wales, where we promote Cultural Seakingism. I think this Pokemon was just forgot, to be honest.
I think I went on a rant about Magmar somewhere in an analysis thread, read this and it'll probably say something.
Arbok is better than Ponyta and thus I will put it here. Glare is cool, it has decent coverage, I dunno you could probably bring it. Either rank this or cut off where it is.
Staryu has been theorymon'd a lot and I think there's merit in giving it a fair trial. Someone bring it to the spotlight tour, yeah?
Here's my VR. I'm bad at this tier, do not put this into the VR calculations unless you're searching Jupiter for more people :3
- If you drop Mr. Mime you're asking to be bent over.
- I use at least 2 of the A1 Pokemon on every team I use, they're just consistently valuable. Other notes:
- SDZard is so insanely fucking good
- Blastoise sets are more customizable than ever, Counter is really good for instance.
- Sing and Counter Clefable are very underutilized atm I think
- Sleepers and Electric immunity here. Sleep is very broken in this tier tbh, so Whirl or Moth are generally needed on any team thats not an Exeggcute team or something. Besides your Zard and Mime, the Grounds are going to be the main offensive threats that wallbreak game to game. I especially value Golem, as having 1 mon that protects you versus Zard + Mime endgames is insanely valuable. Kabutops is weird, RestTops being dead due to SDZard puts it in a weird spot, but being the 2nd best SDer is still something.
- Kingler is very very very very scary, esp to Golem enjoyers like myself. Exeggcute is the third best sleeper, and is the most consistent Mr. Mime check available in the tier. Moltres hits fucking hard, but it struggles to establish a definitive place atm. In my B3 you'll see a variety of niche offensive threats that fit into certain team comps to do work, Raticate is a step above all of them so it goes here. Its super scary, fast af, and Super Fang is broken lol.
- B2 is the niche defensive and utility threats. Porygon walls Blastoise and can use Conversion to check like 2/3 of the tier depending on the scenario, but its frail and lacks offensive presence. Ninetales survives as the third best Fire, May basically explained it fine. Confuse Ray is an annoying move. Seadra should be an Agility sweeper, but in practice its often a defensive threat thanks to Blastoise's existence. AgiliRest is very pog however, if Fire Spam ever comes back it'll be in the spotlight. The fact Wigglytuff is viable is hilarious, but a Pokemon thats basically terrible Clefable is still good because of how good Clefable is.
- As mentioned earlier, all of these are niche offensive threats. Whether it be STAB Drill Peck, STAB Submission, Physical Fire, SD EQ, SD Bind, or STAB Thunderbolt, they each have a unique aggro tool that comes up sometimes. Only change compared to the official VR atm is that Electrode is like still okay, getting rid of the grounds isn't unfeasible with proper play, and it does force predictable play.
- C is basically the red-headed stepchildren of B3, same idea but not as good or tested. AgiliWrap, Faster than Charizard Fire Spin, Faster than Charizard Hyper Beam, Coverage Fire, Seaking but Hyper Beam, and STAB Thunderbolt thats stronger than Electrode. Muk and Gastly stand out, both acting as Toxic blockers. Muk goes for massive bulk, while Gastly goes for Normal immunity. Gastly is very underrated imo and could go up, its TBolt hits genuinely hard and Hypnosis is broken because Sleep. Its a check to Blastoise, Kabutops, Raticate, and Pinsir, while pivoting around various moves of Charizard, Clefable, Wigglytuff, and more. It could even go up to B3+ with time I feel, just needs someone to truly develop it. Rapidash is not great btw, the WR is indicative of inconsistency and low potency.
- D is the gimmicky bullshit. Abra is just Mr. Mime's Psychic as a Pokemon, Slowpoke has TWave + Amnesia, Nidoqueen is like almost as good as Nidoking but stacking them is generally a bad idea, Drowzee is a very very specific alternative to Exeggcute, PoliSwag is a niche lead that makes the funny Back Whirl even better, and Ponyta is just very funny. I swear Pikachu is somewhat viable, a TBolt equal to Mr. Mime with Surf and Agility comes up sometimes.