OU RBY OU Viability Rankings

[Deezcastforms]

I think the biggest takeaway from this are my beliefs that Jolt is not an OU caliber Pokemon. Definitely a couple other things people may take notice of, but Jolt is easily the most important thing. With Rhydon on the rise (despite my putting it a spot lower than most), the Electrics are under more scrutiny than ever to prove their OU worthiness, and like Rhydon and Golem before them, Jolteon is largely a lesser Zapdos whose biggest edge is winning the 1v1 against it's competition (Golem's biggest edge was probably boom, really. But you get the point).

Jolteon is faster, but both of its attacking stats are weaker, it is frailer, and it has to spread its coverage for Chansey and Exeggutor over two moveslots while Zapdos can just use Drill Peck for both. This means Jolteon has to chose between Rest or Thunder Wave for its utility move, while Zapdos is free to fit two of Thunder Wave, Agility, and Hyper Beam onto its set, widening the gap even further between the two since Zapdos has better utility options because it has room for more.

Imo, Jolteon's best roles in OU is alongside Zapdos on teams that hard fish for no Rhydon, and on teams that need a Zapdos and a Slowbro answer compressed into one slot, which I do not see as OU caliber niches. Otherwise, just run Zapdos, or even coverage Thunderbolt on a better Pokemon.

 

[marcoasd]

At the time of my submission for the VR, I went with this order and I'll tell you why. My decisions were very much influenced by the huge amount of data available SPL and RBYWC (right before semifinals).
Plan was to let everyone vote and post after WC, but everyone is posting right now so I'll strike the iron when it's hot.









mister inevitability
midgame revolves around him
I confirmed this pick from my most recent post because Chansey is passive and this hurts a lot against Snorlax; both pokemon are pests when unstatused, but Starmie doesn't lose as much value to paralysis. Chansey is great early, but Starmie is one of the very best pokemon late in the game (possibly number two). It refuses to go down.
Starmie is also arguably the best lead in the game. It deals with important pieces in the metagame like Cloyster, Exeggutor, Rhydon and Surf makes it decent against Alakazam too.
This take is controversial because Chansey is used in almost every team due to its typing and I can't fault you for ranking the blob higher, but I'll take power over versatility.
is a sleeper that doesn't care as much as other ones about paralysis, but it often has to eat some ice moves in the process. Other than that, it lands Thunder wave and leaves the floor to nastier pokemon. Limited role, monoice isn't threatening and beambolt is owned by Snorlax and Alakazam. Still does what it does and it's something you gladly take.
has Recover and it can be problematic to switch into it in a world where Seismic Toss Chansey is rare (due to Rhydon) and things like Slowbro and Exeggutor have lower than usual usages. It pairs well with Cloyster and this helped it. Speed is also important.
is the best pokemon with a sleep move, not the best sleeper because it has the hardest path to landing the sleep move. Still does what it does, but it lacks some offense: it takes permanent damage and can't dish it out as easily. Rest is only a patch, not a solution.
is a great hitter. Snorlax is better at switching into Normal-Types and it's also better at taking out Cloyster with Hyper Beam, but Rhydon has its targets too: Alakazam, para'd Starmie, Reflect Chansey, Gengar and obviously Zapdos or monolax (Rhydon will fish for critical hits that look like OHKO moves). Substitute is great. It feels like Rhydon could be ranked even higher for what it brings offensively.
is an annoyance, it punishes Exeggutor Rhydon builds and slow teams in general. It's not easy to KO it without access to proper tools, consider that things like Gengar, Counter Chansey and Rhydon punish monoLax and Tauros isn't all that happy to make room for Thunderbolt.
I had to put its win rate into account. Cloyster lowkey forces Snorlax and Tauros to use moves that suck against Gengar, Jynx is common. Hypnosis and Explosion do the rest.
win rate isn't spectacular but it grew to something respectable. And usage is crazy high.
you couldn't see me ranking Zapdos lower than Gengar and Jynx, but it's happening. Maybe this has something to do with win rates in recent tournaments and also with the fact that I'm not using a lot anymore. The landscape hasn't changed: Rhydon is doing great and many teams have just one weakness.
Having Zapdos so low is still awkward and I feel like a lot of this is related to teambuilding: most players are using Zapdos teams that don't work. Zapdos can work. And when it does...
same reasoning as for Zapdos here. Snorlax using Selfdestruct more often is bad news. Exeggutor, Cloyster and Gengar have Explosion, Rhydon can 3HKO, Starmie has Thunderbolt and so does Chansey sometimes. And I don't like using Reflect because I want versatility. It still enjoys the presence of Jynx, Sing Chansey, Alakazam and ReflectLax but I'm not defending his case as much as I could this time. Sorry bro.
still frail. I won't rule it out, but Snorlax and Tauros adapting to Cloyster hurt Jolteon more than Cloyster. Anyway, Rhydon sends his regards.

I didn't go deeper because my criterias (stats and eye test) fade away here. I have not seen these pokemon in action enough, not in the new context.
At first glance I support Amaranth's list because I buy the reasoning behind it, maybe a bit harsh on birds and Victreebel but you have to pick something.

 

[Excal]

S: /
S-:
A: / /
A-: / / / /
B: / /
C: / /
D: / / /

hardest part of this for me was the a tier. i think any order of zam mie egg is understandable. i put zam top cause i think it's the most busted, but mie has more defensive utility and egg is more immediately threatening + has sleep. very hard to order.

gengar is just more versatile than jynx. has more "counterplay" in bad lead mu, better sleep sack & defensive utility, and the gar vs jynx lead mu is so lopsided compared to, say, gar vs zam.

moltres is a fat threat with high bs factor. much harder to wall than articuno. being eq immune shouldn't be slept on either, even with its rock slide weakness.

 

[Ortheore]

I don't agree with characterising Jolteon as an inferior version of Zapdos. The extra speed and lack of Ice weakness make a huge difference and let it be useful in many more ways than the more specialised Zapdos. It's usable as a lead and is imo one of the more threatening ones (volatile is the word that springs to mind). Its superior speed means it's both a better revenge killer than Zap and it requires different support. It also depends less on its bulk to sweep (Zap is likely to be trading hits with stuff like Tauros), which combines with its lack of Ice weakness to make it more effective midgame as a water type check.

For the bottom tier, Golbat should be the 4th worst. It’s terrible but provides EQ immunity in some theoretical ParaFuseSpam team. Ditto is obviously largely trash yet I can’t rank it bottom. It at least provides scouting in 4 of your opponent’s moves, and by your opponent’s response to it, it can be possible to deduce other move-sets. For Seaking and Seadra, there are just a myriad of other options outclassing both. It’s extremely difficult to justify either.

I strenuously object to anything other than Ditto as the worst pokemon in rby. Scouting honestly isn't that valuable imo given how many pokemon run functionally the same set every time and Ditto isn't even good at it anyway with how hard it is to bring it in and Transform without dying. Even then, you're sacrificing a teamslot for something that may gain info, but won't improve your game state. Having used Ditto extensively I can attest that its primary use in practice is as dedicated death fodder.

I also disagree with ranking Seadra alongside it, Agility is enough to differentiate it from other Waters (Cuno still overshadows somewhat though and Agility isn't a great niche) and its damage output is significantly better than Seaking's. Still a bad pokemon but doesn't belong with Butterfree/Golbat/Seaking imo

 

[Tarvold]

I strenuously object to anything other than Ditto as the worst pokemon in rby. Scouting honestly isn't that valuable imo given how many pokemon run functionally the same set every time and Ditto isn't even good at it anyway with how hard it is to bring it in and Transform without dying. Even then, you're sacrificing a teamslot for something that may gain info, but won't improve your game state. Having used Ditto extensively I can attest that its primary use in practice is as dedicated death fodder.

I also disagree with ranking Seadra alongside it, Agility is enough to differentiate it from other Waters (Cuno still overshadows somewhat though and Agility isn't a great niche) and its damage output is significantly better than Seaking's. Still a bad pokemon but doesn't belong with Butterfree/Golbat/Seaking imo

Yes I know in many cases gleaning information in this way will not be that valuable, which is why Ditto's still bottom tier. But it's still something unique nothing else can do, which helps save it from 'absolute worst' rating in my criteria.

Seaking also gets Agility so Seadra's not winning any extra points there. It only adds weight to the argument that they belong together. You could make the argument for one over the other, though both are pretty much equally bad so it doesn't really matter. Personally I would value a bit higher Seaking's slightly better mixed attacking potential (e.g. with TailWhip has a better shot at cheesing through Para'd Mie/Zam/Chans - Pokemon that will inevitably switch in to wall either. *I know Seadra gets Leer but has lower attack to exploit it). However with Seadra's better Special and HPump I could understand someone championing the other way round.
The biggest problem with these Agility Waters is just what real justification do you have for running either? Starmie is right there as the most blatantly superior option with it's naturally high speed tier, not to mention coverage, TWave and Recover. You already mentioned Articuno as a superior Agility user which hits largely the same targets as these 2, harder. Neither of Seaking and Seadra are really ever going to achieve anything notable with Agility, or without. Zapdos is the main thing that really shines with Agility because of its mixed attacking sweeping potential, while sometimes having the potential to get off a TWave on Tauros or something else valuable before it goes down.

 

[Ortheore]

Yes I know in many cases gleaning information in this way will not be that valuable, which is why Ditto's still bottom tier. But it's still something unique nothing else can do, which helps save it from 'absolute worst' rating in my criteria.

Seaking also gets Agility so Seadra's not winning any extra points there. It only adds weight to the argument that they belong together. You could make the argument for one over the other, though both are pretty much equally bad so it doesn't really matter. Personally I would value a bit higher Seaking's slightly better mixed attacking potential (e.g. with TailWhip has a better shot at cheesing through Para'd Mie/Zam/Chans - Pokemon that will inevitably switch in to wall either. *I know Seadra gets Leer but has lower attack to exploit it). However with Seadra's better Special and HPump I could understand someone championing the other way round.
The biggest problem with these Agility Waters is just what real justification do you have for running either? Starmie is right there as the most blatantly superior option with it's naturally high speed tier, not to mention coverage, TWave and Recover. You already mentioned Articuno as a superior Agility user which hits largely the same targets as these 2, harder. Neither of Seaking and Seadra are really ever going to achieve anything notable with Agility, or without. Zapdos is the main thing that really shines with Agility because of its mixed attacking sweeping potential, while sometimes having the potential to get off a TWave on Tauros or something else valuable before it goes down.

I mean I'm not disputing that Transform is unique, it's just that Ditto is so bad that it can't even do what it sets out to do. Not to mention that unique doesn't mean worthwhile, which is a problem when it costs a whole teamslot.

I'm not as fussed on Seaking vs Seadra since I've only used Seaking, but suffice to say I value having average raw power (HPump) over being a mixed attacker that's bad at both physical and special attacks. I also don't buy that TWhip is a difference maker, as that seems like a poor use of a turn- you'd probably get just as far attacking.

Edit Enigami: booooo, watch me rank everything D+ to talk about them in this thread :P

 

[Enigami]

I'm gonna stop this here. Please take the Seaking vs. Seadra (and Ditto, Butterfree, etc.) talk to this thread:
OU - RBY OU Ladder / "Jank" Discussion Thread | Smogon Forums

Pokemon undeserving of any rank above F really don't need discussion in a viability ranking thread.

 

[SaDiSTiCNarwhal]

Maybe too many subdivisions but order matters up to C+ where it gets a little dicey, and D where at which point it doesn't matter at all at the end of the day

Reasoning for S+ to B

S+

The only reason I rank Snorlax above Tauros is due to Hyper Beam Lax. A single Body Slam crit from Snorlax can turn the game wide open, especially when it has a powerful finishing move in Hyper Beam.

S

Tauros is Tauros, it crits and does a lot of damage, its quite fast, and can win games outright with good luck.

Kaz made a statement during invitational, showing how Chansey can be dropped if you want it to. That being said, its Chansey; between Sing and whatnot, Chansey is S rank along with Tauros.

A+

Starmie is a cut above Egg or Zam, as it's bulky enough to eat Tauros Body Slam + Hyper Beam, Psychics from Zam, and can wall mono-ice Chansey. TBolt allows it to beat other Starmie (and thus I believe is virtually a necessity for back Mie) as well as Slowbro. Ice moves at lead are scary as well

A

Ranking Egg vs. Zam is though, but I feel like Egg gets a lot done. It can Sleep, paralyze, boom, and Psychic is really strong. Not only this, but with SurfBolt, Mega Drain (and even Stun Spore + Mega Drain) offer some respite vs. the offensive power of Surf Starmie.

Zam is incredibly strong with a high crit rate and 33% Psychic drops. Back Zam can tear through endgame (seen here:https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1ou-1613858400-sex0cla9jylexrya6a8bdofgtdrda8ypw), although I feel like lead Zam is a little undewhelming for anything other than using it vs. Gar lead to get a double to Egg/Jynx/Gar.

A-

Typically this is the tier I always found Zapdos & Rhydon together in, but given recent trends I had to drop Zapdos to right below but in a separate tier. Rhydon's EQ is insane, he walls Zapdos, Sing Stoss Chans, Rest can wall mono-Lax, and Leer can put additional pressure on Lax/Cloy that otherwise wouldn't be there.

B+

Zapdos might be falling short in recent times, but it's still a potent end game sweeper and can be greatly effective against Triple Psychic teams.

Cloy has boom, makes EQ Lax look like lackluster, and if Tauros isn't TBolt then Cloy can do a decent job at nullifying it. You might have a Starmie, maybe a Zam, but 1 of those 8 Blizzards can be all too devastating, and I've found myself even having trouble in the midgame vs. Cloy with Egg + Zap teams.

Gar is not as consistent as Jynx (and Jynx already isn't overly consistent), but it has pretty astonishing win rates. It's more prominent than previous years, and Psychic Gar makes the Gar vs. Gar opening extremely erratic. That being said, it can make using a mono-Lax really awkward and the same thing for TBolt Tauros, even if the Gar is asleep.

Rounding out the B+ tier is of course Jynx, who sleeps and then sometimes freezes, but Gar win rate is just quite impressive. (Also walls mono-Ice Chansey)

B

Slowbro can literally just win the game, or literally not do a single thing beyond maybe a T Wave, but the fact that the former can be said is impressive enough.

If Zap is down bad, Jolteon is down horrendous, but I don't think that's enough to put it closer to C+ than B+, so I think bottom of B is where it sits. Jolt crit rate can result in lunacy

C

C+

Tanky + sorta strong + walls Cloy + Confuse Ray/Sing/Freeze can be bullshit last outs

The birds, Articuno is better cause it can freeze its check, Moltres relies on hitting a 75% move (for the most part)

Only reason I don't think I can rank them higher is because of the currently high prevalence of Gar, but I'm a fan of both, particularly Persian who can potentially put in a lot of work in the mid game if you can catch a well timed Lax Rest turn. Obviously both hate back Mie

Being a Pokemon who's soul purpose is to shut down (in my opinion) the S+ rank Pokemon to preserve your more viable 5 is enough for me to put Porygon in C+ instead of C.

C

I think Vic has decent potential vs. Mie Don builds (duh), but if you can use a gameplan that involves in paralyzed that back Mie it can really shine. Inaccurate move syndrome is really dire though

Walls electric + boom, I really don't think its D, sorta like my Jolteon ranking

C-

Electric immunity + SD is pretty good

SD + massive attack stat
Sorta Tauros, but slower
Sleep + SD + Razor Leaf
Psychic + T Wave; Hip once pitched a 4 Psychic team (Mie Egg Zam Hypno), and on a team like that I think Rest is potentially better to account for a Psychics vs. Psychics end game.
Slash + normal resist
actually surprisingly strong with Hydro Pump + Hyper Beam and TBolt for chipped Mie

The Randoms

T Wave + electric that can hit Rhydon
essentially Persian but worse, but really funny if you can hit all of your Super Fangs + Body Slam crits
Hypnosis + Amnesia
T Wave + Crits + Boom
Super effective vs. S tier Pokemon + Counter
T Wave + Sing
crits
normal resist

Weak to BlizzBolt + only Normal always walled by Rhydon
only niche is negated by the fact double switching exists + useless besides niche
only on full wrap, weak to Psychic
Poliwrath w/o Hypnosis
rolling kick is potentially funny/Counter

 

[BeeOrSomething]

I haven't played rby ou as much as I would like but I thought why not post my thoughts on the VR after playing rby in 6 out of 7 weeks in Academy Premier League (decently high level discord tournament) and making it to Top 24 in RBY Majors. I'm only ranking mons I've used though so no golem or gimmicky setup sweepers.

Explanations

The best pokemon. Snorlax is incredible midgame but Tauros has always been there to just crush end games or bail me out of situations where I was behind due to hax or being outplayed and it's just such an amazing game winner. It does things snorlax could never do, largely thanks to its great speed tier.
Best mid game pokemon no doubt. Hyper beam reflect lax is just so good at sniping kills from high percentages and busting through cloyster and chansey. All the other attacking options are still really good too, all you really need is body slam reflect and rest. PhysLax is inconsistent but when it goes off, man does it dominate games. Not really too fond of amnesia rest lax but the boom variant is a cool chansey lure and I think the gimmicky ones with shit like thunderbolt are pretty funny and surprisingly useful too.
Tauros and snorlax are simply just better. Also chansey is droppable as seen from certain players like Kaz. However, a chansey is still a chansey.

The defensive profile is just so incredible and being able to mix and match coverage and have starmie function as either a lead or a back mon depending on your team's needs is just so amazing.
Zam is fucking nuts. This mon is actually so good holy shit. I basically never regret using it. The speed and special stat and incredible hax potential with crits, psychic drops, and full paralysis can be mindboggling. Amazing offensive monster that comes with the very useful benefit of checking a variety of opposing threats, especially sleepers. Also yeah sure zam often gets slept but that just means one of your other pokemon isn't slept and sometimes it can just bullshit through the sleeper with full para and misses and whatnot. Also that's really only lead zam, back zam is just even better.
Great mon but I've just had more personal success with zam and the competition for sleeper role on a team disincentivizes using eggy slightly IMO. Also it's really slow and weak to ice.

I'm sure everyone knows this but rhydon is on the rise. Even with less zapdos, it still gets a lot of opportunities and just does so much damage, and when it crits it's ruinous.
Great (relative) answer to stuff like snorlax rhydon tauros and non-tbolt chansey, clamp is a really good move, blizzard does big damage, preys really effectively on a lot of teams like lead mie/zam + egg + filler (i.e. zapdos, rhydon). Boom is also always a nice trait for when you really need it or you can use it with little repercussion (i.e. lax dead and you need smth gone, etc). However, paralysis is always a bitch and starmie is more popular than ever. Hyper beam lax and tbolt tauros are also very very real and cloyster will always have consistency issues with inaccurate moves along with of course crits and para.

IMO it didn't fall off as bad as other people seem to think. Rhydon is popular but it's not in every game, and zapdos will still perform wonderfully in those games. Even with rhydon, you can still hide zapdos until rhydon is gone or basically gone and go from there. Zapdos can also enable double switches if both it and rhydon are alive and relatively healthy which can force progress if you play well. Rhydon is still a massive pain though, punishing any misplay massively and it shapes how you play so much in a decently constricting way, and there will always be some consistency issues.
Jynx can be either the most bullshit mon ever, or the most bullshit mon ever. Depends on if you're viewing it from your pov or your opponent's. Sometimes it will land a sleep and freeze something or stick around all game and be an annoying piece of shit with rest. Other times it'll miss lovely kiss or get full para'd a bunch and just die without doing anything or it'll give your opponent a million opportunities to bring in tauros and whatnot. I think this placement is about fair. Enabling chansey to run a set that isn't sing is also quite nice.
I've come around on this mon, up until recently I really hated it for how inconsistent it was but I think I just sucked ass at pokemon. Great defensive profile especially with more hyper beam lax and jynx, and sleep and boom are always good tools. Its tbolt is pretty strong too. However, zam and rhydon will always be there to plague it and it can't do much defensively if the opponent's snorlax has earthquake.

Overhated. I understand why people don't like it that much, but for me it's performed pretty well and IMO it's not really that dependent on the presence of zapdos. It absolutely appreciates the opponent having a zapdos for it to take advantage of but it can function fine without one. The speed/crit rate and good stats combined with rest for bullying chansey somewhat are great traits. This mon definitely depends a lot on the player's experience with it though, I will admit.
Jynx 2, but a sweeper rather than a sleeper. Sometimes it will get crit immediately or full para'd or exploded on, sometimes it autowins a game.
Gonna be honest I haven't used this mon too much but I've faced it a decent number of times and it's pretty annoying to switch into. Very bulky too. Also lets you click thunder wave turn 1 without making you hate yourself which is always nice. Hella competition though and it's a magnet for bullshit since it's so slow and doesn't pack recovery.

Good mon if the opponent doesn't have a cloyster and starmie is either absent or you can bullshit through it in some way with freeze or paralysis. Really bad if either of these are false though and the electric weakness blows.
Articuno the second. Sort of. More inconsistent but it doesn't hate cloyster or lapras which is nice. Instead it hates slowbro and now it's weak to ice and starmie is even more of a pain.
Just like lapras, lets you click twave turn 1 which is awesome. Stab razor leaf + wrap is also quite cool. Back zam/starmie suck ass for it though and it's so frail. Gengar is also a massive pain if you don't click stun spore at the right time or get rid of it first.
Last time I used it I was worse at the game but w.e. Diet tauros that constricts teambuilding and hates paralysis and just taking damage in general. Can also feel lackluster at dealing damage. However, a diet tauros is still not that bad when the base is tauros.
Jynx the threequel. Sometimes you land every wrap, sometimes you get para'd and slammed by an ice move. However, unlike jynx it's an awful lead and unlike slowbro it has like no opportunities to switch into battle and it's even more rng reliant than slowbro. It's pretty funny when it just runs over an entire team though.

 

[vapicuno]

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the late post - I don't have as much time this year to work on this so I'll refer you to the previous post for details and to the attachment.

S:
A:
B1:
B2:
C:
D:
E:

The status of Lapras is up for debate - Lapras is actually quite distinct from the rest of C, as you can see from the dendrogram and dissimilarity matrix. It's ambiguous whether or not it should be its own tier - the line could be drawn in the dendrogram such that it is its own tier or part of C. This is quite unlike Slowbro from last year where the dendrogram was clearly indicating that it belonged in its own tier.

 

[phoopes]

Thanks so much to vapicuno for taking the time to do this yet again! Much appreciated.

shiloh Amaranth and emma also helped me out in putting this together too so shoutout to them!

And of course a big thank you to our voters: shiloh Ctown6 Genesis7 marcoasd Gastlies Enigami HSOWA McMeghan Hayburner Gefährlicher Random spies chuva de perereca Serpi Kaz SaDiSTiCNarwhal kjdaas Mikon Lusch M Dragon Mako FriendOfMrGolem120

Criteria to vote was one or more of the following:

• Played 5 games and won at least 2 in SPL XIV
• Top 16 of RBY Invitational III
• Top 16 of 2022 RBY Circuit

With this in mind we had 34 qualifiers, and the above 21 people voted. Here's the spreadsheet with how everyone voted (hopefully easier to read than last year's lol)

Thanks again to everyone mentioned! I'll update the OP shortly with the new VR.

 

[Melbelle]

The status of Lapras is up for debate - Lapras is actually quite distinct from the rest of C, as you can see from the dendrogram and dissimilarity matrix. It's ambiguous whether or not it should be its own tie

If I understand correctly isn't Mie and Chansey's rank placement also ambiguous?

 

[Amaranth]

Jynx 11 after it just had its best SPL in 6 years (and possibly more but I wasn't around) is frankly shocking

 

[Melbelle]

Jynx 11 after it just had its best SPL in 6 years (and possibly more but I wasn't around) is frankly shocking

She's got fans

 

[Excal]

rhydon too high

 

[KingOfTheZoogers]

My turn for personal VRs

Rhydon makes some sets and mons signifigantly worse.

Slowbro haves a strong defensive profile which gives him good setup opportunities, still able to be haxxed.

Moltres Fire Spin is marginally underated. If your opponent haves limited options and Moltres is at +2 Speed Fire Spin haves pretty good odds of dropping Chansey and Starmie into ranges. Para on them also helps a lot for Moltres and Chansey eates Twave a lot, Starmie sometimes can't avoid it.

I believe in the currently ranked SD users. Golem can work on boom offense. Gyara and Hypno are basically barely good enough to be legit choices on certain teams in my opinion.

Most E Tier mons on the offical VR are ultra cringe. Raichu can have the good of the a better Rock/Ground matchup undone by Eggy. Omastar is in big danger against anything it likes using its typing against. Dodrio is just too fragile, rocks also eat it.

 

[asterat]

can someone give me a tl;dr on why gengar is up so much? I remember gengar being like right above slowbro and that seems reasonable from my rby experience? have people started using structures that rely on Gengar as sole sleeper or something? are tauros/lax dropping eq? surely the rise of zam and starmie last few years cannot be good for gengar. i'm just pretty surprised to see him above cloyster and jynx.

 

[Gastlies]

People are using more body slam + reflect + rest + hyper beam lax to deal with starmie and cloyster, along with the occasional thunderbolt tauros (although much more rare). This are sets that gengar can just sit on during a game. Also double sleep is becoming more popular now and Gengar shines on double sleep teams since its sleep is pretty inconsistent so it likes having a backup sleeper. Also beats jynx who's been performing really well lately.

 

[Melbelle]

can someone give me a tl;dr on why gengar is up so much? I remember gengar being like right above slowbro and that seems reasonable from my rby experience? have people started using structures that rely on Gengar as sole sleeper or something? are tauros/lax dropping eq? surely the rise of zam and starmie last few years cannot be good for gengar. i'm just pretty surprised to see him above cloyster and jynx.

I don't rly think double sleep is on much of a rise, egg + singchans is a little more popular but not by a wide margin.

Gengar is a very strong sleeper (you ALWAYS pair it with a sing chans or egg tho) and as said above can literally block the best set of the best midgame pokemon and stop the strongest lead (jynx) who otherwise gets 15-25% to just roll for game in just a few turns if you lead it. Back Gengar is also very strong and has a good surprise factor. On top of that you threaten para Starmie and anything that doesn't like taking a boom (which is most Pokemon). Really a genuinely amazing Pokemon

 

[Bug Maniac Aydon]

Gengar is a very strong sleeper (you ALWAYS pair it with a sing chans or egg tho)

Bruh you're saying Gengar can't function as a sleeper without a better sleeper holding its hand

And I'M the based one

 

[KingOfTheZoogers]

Bruh you're saying Gengar can't function as a sleeper without a better sleeper holding its hand

And I'M the based one

It doesn't always need to put something asleep.

Being able to sleep a check or switching into something like mono normal Lax is really good. Its also a big risk if you switch in on Tauros and the Tauros stays in.

 

[Hipmonlee]

VR submitters need to define the cutoff between OU/UU!

And, we have an interesting case here, with the ambiguity of Lapras. When you say Lapras is ambiguous, Vapicuno, how did its inclusion in C come to be? Because this could potentially be quite important in the case where Lapras is voted OU, since it would bring all of C with it, with our tiering rules as currently defined.

 

[vapicuno]

If I understand correctly isn't Mie and Chansey's rank placement also ambiguous?

Yes Chansey could technically be S2 and Starmie could be A1 but it wasn't really as consequential as the Lapras thing and has a smaller difference in ward linkage so I didn't mention it.

Vapicuno, how did its inclusion in C come to be?

I actually mean that I don't think there's a default as to where Lapras lies. I just put it in C for convenience but it could well be treated like Slowbro's ?? tier last year.

I'm guessing that the dendrogram identified it as closer to C because some people ranked it lower than several mons in C (even Dragonite, the worst of them all), but people would mostly rate Lapras at most above Jolteon, rarely Slowbro.

 

[Hipmonlee]

So, firstly, it would be good for the separation of tiers to be based on some objective measure, which I thought was the case, but your wording here suggest perhaps not entirely?

But, on that, I think with the way our tiering works now, I think the best idea is for us to err on the side of differentiation. If you can say "Lapras is actually quite distinct from C" its important that our tiering reflects that.

Otherwise we have the potential for Lapras to be voted OU, but for it to carry Dragonite into OU with it, since the tiering is assuming that there is no way to delineate Lapras from Dragonite.

 

[vapicuno]

So, firstly, it would be good for the separation of tiers to be based on some objective measure, which I thought was the case, but your wording here suggest perhaps not entirely?

The objectivity of the method lies in quantifying the distance between groups of pokemon (tiers/subtiers), but some extra inference and maybe subjectivity is needed to interpret more ambiguous cases.

We have gone a long way from the beginnings of this method where we drew tier demarcations from eyeballing ranking plots to having a code that spits out tier groupings on demand. It's evolved from something of an experimental science to a definite procedure, which works for 95% of mons, but where the results are less clear, we have to return to science, i.e. look at all the evidence, which may be conflicting, and find the convincing narrative.

One way of drawing conclusions is the dendrogram, where the subjectivity lies in determining the threshold - think of it as drawing a horizontal line across the dendrogram and reading the branches below as tiers.

Here's an example dendrogram from my home tier. It's pretty intuitive to draw a horizontal lines at the level of the written letters to represent full tiers (and another line right that cuts right above the purple subtier, to demarcate the subtiers).

ADV OU Fall 2022 Dendrogram

Another way to make conclusions is the ranking plot. This decision is supported by the most primitive method of quantitative tiering, with tiers defined by (mostly) non-overlapping error bars (and subtiers defined by the mons that fit into the height of the average error bar in that region).

ADV OU Fall 2022 VR Ranking Plot

Yet another way is to look at dissimilarity matrix, and find the group that the Pokemon overlaps with the most.

If you look at Lapras you will see that
1. There is a way to draw the tiering threshold that would either include or exclude Lapras while leaving all other tiers intact. (Supports independence or C)
2. The dendrogram suggests a huge overlap with Jolteon but not Slowbro (recall that a condition for being in the same tier is interchangeability, which doesn't apply here to Lapras and Slowbro). It does however suggest decent overlap with the rest of C. (If Lapras has to belong to a tier, supports C more than B2).
3. But, the ranking plot shows that Lapras' error bar doesn't cross into Persian or Jolteon. In fact, it can be considered closer to Jolteon. (Supports independence or maybe even B2)

Under these contradictions, I went to look a bit deeper at the data. It looks like there were 3 people who didn't rank Lapras onwards, which when combined with the people who did rank Lapras lower, gave the impression that there were more people who didn't look at Lapras favorably than there might actually be. IIRC the code gives equal preference to all unranked mons.(I'm on my phone so unable to check this point).

Under all this, I feel a bit more convinced that Lapras belongs in its own independent tier.