Ruins of alph Olympics around the corner. Maybe a good time to actually decide on the RBY OU / RBY UU border. (Since it actually says in the OP "We'll likely be using this to define the OU / UU cutoff point ")
As it stands Victreebel is still not officially classified as OU. Thus it is allowed in UU. Since tiering in old gens (look at GSC) has been done by viability in the past, I believe that it should be done the same way in RBY OU. By that logic Victreebel should be clearly OU and thus disallowed in UU. It is the 9th highest rated Pokemon in this list, which is maybe one or two positions too high, but it's OU status should not be questioned at this point.
Just to be clear, Victreebel is not broken in RBY UU but it simply is good enough for OU. (For example Rhydon would not be broken in RBY UU, still no-one questiones it should not be allowed.)
That is just an example. It would simply be really nice if we could cleanly classify the Pokemon in RBY into OU and UU (and following UU a potential NU, like in GSC). And since this thread is "finally" up-to date with the I would say relatively settled (post-Crystal_-) RBY OU metagame it's as good of a time as any with RoA olyimpics and some RBY UU play around the corner to start that process.
So the question remains: Which Pokemon should make the RBY OU cut and which do not? I think it's pretty universally agreed upon that everything B-ranked (Gengar upwards) should be OU. At the same time, I feel it's reasonable to classify everything D-ranked as not-OU (Porygon downwards).
So for me the question remains about the C-ranked Pokemon. Do we classify all of them OU? Do we classify all of them not-OU? Do we discuss them case by case? So I want to get the proces started. (If this is the wrong thread, feel free to move it somewhere else Lutra Earthworm )
Personally, I would be okay with all three of the suggested methods, but lean towards discussing it case-by-case.
All of them to OU certainly has merit, as they all have some roles in the tier, but none of them is really a consistently seen pick in high-level play, though all of them do see some usage and people do use them to success as well. Still that is why all of them to "not-OU" or UU is viable as well. In fact, as it currently stands, all of them except Golem are legal in UU (as is Victreebel though, which my point is, it should not), and I know the tier and can tell you, none of them (except maybe Dragonite) is even close to being overpowered in UU, let alone even part of the group of "best Pokemon in the tier".
But let me briefly discuss them all case-by case (my personal stance on them, not set in stone):
Theres only few qualities Golem has over Rhydon. But people should never forget about the value of Explosion. I don't want to have the Rhydon vs Golem debate here, just to put it short, I think Golem is a good enough Pokemon personally, with enough of a niche in the tier ("mini-Rhydon" with Explosion, which is still not bad. Kangaskhan is often seen as "mini-Tauros" and it would probably have more of a reason to be used if it had anything to set it apart from Tauros, like Golem does from Rhydon in Explosion) such that Explosion gives it the right to call itself OU.
Articuno needs a lot of support vs Chansey, Starmie and Cloyster/Lapras. We all know that (unless you freeze the former two). But when you manage to take care of those (or just weaken them enough) Articuno just wrecks everything. Lapras cannot claim the same since it simply is not as strong as Cuno. Cuno almost does with Ice Beam what Lapras achieves with Blizzard (which can still miss).Tauros is most of the time 2HKOed by Blizzard plus Ice Beam, stuff like that... Borderline case, for sure, but imo such a powerhose Pokemon still makes the cut for OU.
Moltres is not hard walles by as much as Articuno is,but I'd still give the general edge to Cuno, since its moves just hit more reliably that Moltres'. Which is Moltres main issue: Reliability. Also normally losing to Rhydon as opposed to Articuno is not great either. But the potential definitely is still there, even more than in Articuno's case since burn + Fire Spin + Agility is on paper a dangerous combination. The added attack makes Chansey not as great of a check as it looks since one Fire Blast with a few Fire Spin hits puts it in Hyper Beam range quickly. If I had to give "not OU" to one of the birds though, I'd defnitely see an even stronger case for Moltres than Articuno. Still an equally strong powerhouse and thus I'd lean to also give Moltres the approval of OU.
Dragonite is probably the Pokemon in C-rank with the greatest potential to turn games around. It also is one of the Pokemon with the greatest potential to disappoint at the same time. Still, AgilityWrap is dangerous as it always was. And it does have access to Thunderwave as well, which I think is still a bit underexplored from most people. I definitely see the potential and thus to me it also belongsto OU.
Persian has its uses in OU for sure. but it is extremey frail on both sides and Slash only has an abysmal chance to 3HKO Snorlax, which means with a Reflect up, Snorlax can actually stall out Persian's Slashes. Something that makes it really unappealing to use Persian for me, since one of the merits it should bring along is beating Reflect-users. No Paraslams as well, and ironically not being able to hax with it's spammable move due to no secondary effect and already always landing a critical hit for me is not appealing enough. On this one I would actually say it should be not-OU.
I hope I can spark some discussion on the issue and we can "properly" tier RBY as it has been done in GSC relatively recently as well :]
As it stands Victreebel is still not officially classified as OU. Thus it is allowed in UU. Since tiering in old gens (look at GSC) has been done by viability in the past, I believe that it should be done the same way in RBY OU. By that logic Victreebel should be clearly OU and thus disallowed in UU. It is the 9th highest rated Pokemon in this list, which is maybe one or two positions too high, but it's OU status should not be questioned at this point.
Just to be clear, Victreebel is not broken in RBY UU but it simply is good enough for OU. (For example Rhydon would not be broken in RBY UU, still no-one questiones it should not be allowed.)
That is just an example. It would simply be really nice if we could cleanly classify the Pokemon in RBY into OU and UU (and following UU a potential NU, like in GSC). And since this thread is "finally" up-to date with the I would say relatively settled (post-Crystal_-) RBY OU metagame it's as good of a time as any with RoA olyimpics and some RBY UU play around the corner to start that process.
So the question remains: Which Pokemon should make the RBY OU cut and which do not? I think it's pretty universally agreed upon that everything B-ranked (Gengar upwards) should be OU. At the same time, I feel it's reasonable to classify everything D-ranked as not-OU (Porygon downwards).
So for me the question remains about the C-ranked Pokemon. Do we classify all of them OU? Do we classify all of them not-OU? Do we discuss them case by case? So I want to get the proces started. (If this is the wrong thread, feel free to move it somewhere else Lutra Earthworm )
Personally, I would be okay with all three of the suggested methods, but lean towards discussing it case-by-case.
All of them to OU certainly has merit, as they all have some roles in the tier, but none of them is really a consistently seen pick in high-level play, though all of them do see some usage and people do use them to success as well. Still that is why all of them to "not-OU" or UU is viable as well. In fact, as it currently stands, all of them except Golem are legal in UU (as is Victreebel though, which my point is, it should not), and I know the tier and can tell you, none of them (except maybe Dragonite) is even close to being overpowered in UU, let alone even part of the group of "best Pokemon in the tier".
But let me briefly discuss them all case-by case (my personal stance on them, not set in stone):
I hope I can spark some discussion on the issue and we can "properly" tier RBY as it has been done in GSC relatively recently as well :]
Last edited: