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Resource Simple Questions, Simple Answers
- Thread starter Rabia
- Start date
The NP thread with tiering changed or retests/suspects is the best place to go on the forums, but the discord and PS room are both active.
Council minutes is not something that will be updated frequently in every case; we have been going through a bit of a lull in tiering changes and having the metagame settle after a lot of different bans and usage shifts. NUPL is also happening, which generally overlaps with less bans as well, so there is less for the council to discuss.
You can also use this thread if you have any questions about the tier, of course.
your best bet for general thoughts from council is probably the NP thread given a few of us are frequent(ish) posters there. discord/ps room also work
It's Galarian Articuno bad? Or what's the reason is not used?
Galarian Articuno struggles to get past defensive Pokemon like AV/Leftovers Copperajah, Bronzong, and Diancie. It faces major competition with Xatu because of its ability in Magic Bounce and moves in Teleport and Heat Wave to hit Steel-types. People started using Galarian Articuno around 2-3ish months ago and the metagame simply adjusted to start using Xatu more because it's better defensively. I also posted a VR nomination for demotion, no reason to use it over Xatu nowadays anyway.
So I was looking through the NUPL usage stats and I noticed something odd: despite sirfetch’d being heralded as the biggest problem in the meta by many, it surprisingly has very low usage from the most recent weeks without clay, which represent the meta currently. Why is this the case? How does this affect the argument of sirfetch’d being broken because of its lack of usage?
I think that this is unfortunately not enough to draw a large conclusion. For starters, the tournament as a whole is a smaller sample size than one would like. But even beyond that, Sirfetch'd impact is still very clear on teambuilding trends, forcing people into limited pools of possible countermeasures, many of which are seeing spiked usage. I feel that individual tournament metagames -- be it NUPL, NU Snake, or other team tours --- are oftentimes subject to heightened centralization that skews usage in one way or another. This may very well be another example.
Of course, you can argue that these trends make Sirfetch'd less effective and that is very, very fair. However, I do not think low usage alone is enough to call something worse outright. You have to go a step further and analyze why/see how long of a time span this was over.
It offers nothing defensively and is not worthwhile offensively. It struggles with any and all water counterplay that’s durable as is, but add in how fragile it is and how good alternatives are and you get a steep hill to climb.
Just to add on to what Finch said, it has seen a tiny bit of use as a scarfer, if you want to try it, U-Turning on Vaporeon into anything that can handle it while also having a solid speed tier in NU, but it will come across as extremely weak and is more of a pivot machine at that point. If you want to go more powerful, just use Starmie. It’s superior in almost every way.
If you open the NU room, type in /tier NU and it will show you the entire banlist by NU. It's RU, NUBL, Drought, Snow Warning, and Drizzle. Light Clay happens to be banned under RU, but sadly there isn't a list I know of that tells you all the bans per tier, but feel free to type in /tier RU, UU, OU etc to see the rest of the BL's.
Is Mr rime or Mr mime viable at all? In terms as a spinner. Or is he just not usable at all?
It has no real niche that can distinguish it right now — same for Mime. Decent coverage and spin with boots can go a decent way, but it cannot break enough to justify sadly
For Duraludon, is light metal preferred because of croak's low kick?
Edit: Thanks, didn't realize heavy metal doesn't improve rajah calcs
Edit: Thanks, didn't realize heavy metal doesn't improve rajah calcs
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With the Light Clay ban nerfing Aurora Veil, and now the banning of Arctozolt from UU, is there a chance of re-allowing Snow Warning in the tier?
I know the last discussion before the ban was about Arctovish, but the reason that Snow Warning was banned was because it was about to have a third ban related to it, so by being the common denominator, it got banned from NU. This was a move criticized by many. However, now that two of thise factors are nerfed -the LC ban means that AV only lasts 5 turns, and Arctozolt getting banned means that Hail lost its most dangerous sweeper- it could mean that it has a shot at staying.
Now, don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that Auto-hail would be healthy for the tier, 5 turns of dual screens could be just enough, and Arctovish is still a dangerous threat, but I think it could be worth a shot. Specially since banning Snow Warning in the first place hurt more pokemon that banning Arctovish too would have.
I know the last discussion before the ban was about Arctovish, but the reason that Snow Warning was banned was because it was about to have a third ban related to it, so by being the common denominator, it got banned from NU. This was a move criticized by many. However, now that two of thise factors are nerfed -the LC ban means that AV only lasts 5 turns, and Arctozolt getting banned means that Hail lost its most dangerous sweeper- it could mean that it has a shot at staying.
Now, don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that Auto-hail would be healthy for the tier, 5 turns of dual screens could be just enough, and Arctovish is still a dangerous threat, but I think it could be worth a shot. Specially since banning Snow Warning in the first place hurt more pokemon that banning Arctovish too would have.
As much as I'd love to get into this, since I agree it could be worth considering, this isn't where I would make this post as it isn't a "simple" answer. Try over here in the metagame thread and get the discussion going.
It’s currently being worked on right now. Here you go
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/silvally-ground-qc-1-2-gp-0-2.3691071/
Question regarding drapion...
https://www.smogon.com/dex/ss/pokemon/drapion/
The recommended moveset recommends poison jab and battle armor. Wouldn't sniper+cross poison be better? its only a 10 BP difference, but has a boosted crit rate and that crit damage can be boosted by sniper. If i'm understanding correctly the niche wiht the sword's dance build is breaking walls, so crits don't seem like as much of a big deal for battle armor while you still muscle through said tanks at +2, wouldn't boosting your own crits be more beneficial?
https://www.smogon.com/dex/ss/pokemon/drapion/
The recommended moveset recommends poison jab and battle armor. Wouldn't sniper+cross poison be better? its only a 10 BP difference, but has a boosted crit rate and that crit damage can be boosted by sniper. If i'm understanding correctly the niche wiht the sword's dance build is breaking walls, so crits don't seem like as much of a big deal for battle armor while you still muscle through said tanks at +2, wouldn't boosting your own crits be more beneficial?
Less chance to poison and less consistent, which makes it harder to gameplan around. Generally the last spot can go a number of ways between Poison coverage and other moves, but it is not worth flirting with Sniper + Cross Poison due to general inconsistency and the lower floor with only 10% to poison and 70 BP.
Some of the best walls in the tier will be Sylveon and Vaporeon, both able to take hits from a whole variety of Pokémon and heal up their team with Wish and Heal Bell. Some other great walls can include Vileplume, AV Copperajah, Mudsdale, and many others. You just gotta find what fits your team! With Guzz, like you said you use, I’m a big fan of any Pokémon mentioned above, all who help or are helped by Guzzlord.