SS UU Stage 12.2 - Spider Dance

ironwater

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Hey there,

I'm not an UU mainer, even if I play the tier from times to times. Did get the reqs for this suspect (s/o Mimilucha for the team) and didn't really find Scizor problematic during my laddering session or in the games I watched recently. Bulky SD Scizor can be a great win condition but it has several checks and if you keep them healthy enough you're fine most of the time. Choice Band or offensive Scizor are scary, but rather easy to weaken or revenge kill. My opinion may be biased because of the team I used and because I didn't encounter a lot of "regular teams" while playing on ladder, but I'm leaning to vote no ban. Will try having a look at the posts here to have a more informed opinion (also please give us the identifying thread before I forgot I did this).
 

Indigo Plateau

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It’s been a while since I made a post on forums but this is the first time in a while I’ve enjoyed the meta so I wanted to quickly share my thoughts. I can understand some people’s sentiment of “building sucks and Scizor is the most unhealthy element of it” despite disagreeing with it. I felt this exact way about Aegislash for a LONG time and it felt like an uphill battle trying to convince others. Adaam had a great post so I don’t want to regurgitate info and I’ll try to make it short.

I simply can’t get behind the sentiment that Scizor is the primary suspect of a supposed unhealthy tier. I’m going to be talking from my personal experience (playing and spectating) but Scizor doesn’t even feel like a Top 5 mon for me most of the time. Cobalion, Keldeo, Hippo, Mence, Prim, and Diggersby (in no particular order) all feel worse for me to deal with both in the builder and in practice. Scizor has a few checks that are excellent in the current meta: Cobalion, Keldeo, Mence, Rotom-W, Amogus, to name a top five off the top of my head. A few mons can naturally run Fire-type coverage at no severe detriment, such as Jirachi, Necrozma, Celesteela, Slowking, and Chandelure, to name a top five off my head again. It really just doesn’t feel particularly hard to check this mon for me in practice despite it seeming worst at times on paper.

The most successful Scizor set I’ve seen is bulky with Knock/BP/Roost and SD or U-turn last. This makes counterplay when I’m building for it pretty similar - as opposed to something like Aegislash, for example, which I felt could run 3-4 sets very well. People mention Scizor being very restricting because it’s bulky and can theoretically Knock the entire tier (including its checks) and yeah sure, it can. Theoretically. If Scizor was broken, there would be more games where it completely dominates or exerts insane amount of pressure, and I just don’t remember more than a few games where it’s done so. I see my aforementioned list of mons doing this way more consistently than Scizor.

Lastly, I really haven’t felt the tier to be more matchup based than it was before. This is probably just dependent on people’s taste (I talked to Sage, umbry, Lyss, etc about this) but I hated UUPL meta with a passion and thought it was much worse. Every week I’d be deciding between two teams and felt that the teams I went with were just constant uphill battles or unwinnable and the ones I didn’t pick would’ve won comfortably. I saw other teams that would just completely ignore like 3-4 mons but just not run into them so hey, it worked. From playing and watching, most games in individual and team tours have felt and seemed fairly balanced in this new meta, and the survey also reflected this with all time highs in competitiveness and enjoyment.

For these reasons, I’m strongly DNB on Scizor and will be voting as such. I wouldn’t be heartbroken if it gets banned anyway because (hot take?) I think it’s overrated lol. Want to improve restricting building? #BanPrim (joking but not really)
 

Sage

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Hello. I was supposed to write this about a week ago but I got busy and demotivated because there were like ten DNB posts in a row. It seems that some of us have a very different view of the meta right now (and that's okay), but I'm here to add some fuel to the fire for those who think Scizor is unhealthy (key word there, not broken.) It is pretty plain to see that Scizor is not winning games in an immediately dominating fashion like threats of UU's broken past have (Aegislash, Mienshao come to mind here), and Adaam's post was a mostly fair game by game assessment of this. There's some individual results I can disagree with (Expulso v. Umbry comes to mind as a game where Scizor's longevity against two on paper strong checks was shown, even when used as a sack earlygame it continued being a nuisance and eventually got the clean), but it's not some overpowering monster. For me, Scizor's issue mostly boils down to one move: Knock Off. Scizor is too good at using Knock Off in my opinion, and this has ripples in the builder and the meta development that I consider overcentralized and unhealthy.

Common sets
SetCheck(s)Counter(s)
3 Attacks + Roost:Amoonguss: :Celesteela:* :Azelf: :Diggersby: (Fire Punch) :Hydreigon: :Keldeo:/:Keldeo-Resolute: :Nidoking: :Nidoqueen::Scizor: (Bulky Swords Dance & Offensive Swords Dance) :Hippowdon: :Cobalion: (Swords Dance) :Salamence:* (Flamethrower) :Thundurus-Therian:* (Incinerate) :Skarmory: :Moltres:* :Rotom-Wash: (Will-O-Wisp) :Noivern:* :Rotom-Heat:* :Slowbro-Galar:* :Registeel: :Entei:*
Bulky Swords Dance:Amoonguss: :Celesteela:* :Azelf: :Diggersby: (Fire Punch) :Hydreigon: :Keldeo:/:Keldeo-Resolute: :Nidoking: :Nidoqueen::Cobalion: (Swords Dance) :Salamence:* (Flamethrower) :Thundurus-Therian: (Incinerate) :Skarmory: :Moltres:* :Rotom-Wash: (Will-O-Wisp) :Noivern:* :Rotom-Heat:* :Slowbro-Galar: :Registeel: :Entei:*
Offensive Swords Dance:Amoonguss: :Celesteela:* :Azelf: :Diggersby: (Fire Punch) :Hydreigon:* :Keldeo:/:Keldeo-Resolute: :Noivern:* :Chandelure: :Entei::Cobalion: (Swords Dance) :Salamence:* :Skarmory: :Moltres:* :Rotom-Wash: (Will-O-Wisp) :Rotom-Heat:* :Slowbro-Galar: (Colbur Berry)
*Doesn't want to take Knock Off upon switch-in, but it can and still beat Scizor. As a result of this, they should probably be paired with another Scizor answer.
That asterisk is a problem. Knock Off became absurdly strong in gen 8, from all of increased distribution, loss of Mega / Z-crystals, and the addition of Heavy Duty Boots. Many of these Pokemon just don't work as counterplay when you consider losing their items. So many of these checks, even defensive ones, simply don't want to switch in (Celesteela, Moltres), and a lot of the Uturn counters don't consider how free the momentum gained many of the counters let Scizor have. Every single Roost Mence is running a Fire move, all the offensive threats that either naturally check Scizor through typing or through Fire coverage are surging. Scizor is not having as large an impact in the games as say, Cobalion is right now, but it's just so overprepped for in the builder because you simply can't afford to cheat vs. the threat of off Knock Off + SD BP in the same way that you can with the tier's other biggest threats. Primarina is harder to account for in the builder, but is held back by all of speed, durability issues, and lack of recovery on offensive sets. Teams aren't able to fit as much while keeping pace with the rest of the meta either. Diggersby is easily more of an immediate threat, but I would still argue has more counterplay through normal means (Choice locking abusable stabs, very limited direct switch in opportunities). The outplay room for Scizor is loading up your team with multiple fast BP resists that can't be roost stalled, having an ace initial Knock Switch (Amoonguss or bust often, still doesn't matter many of the times), and filling up half your team with Fire coverage. Cobalion, ID Skarm, Amoonguss (momentum suck without Spore, Colbur Slowking (owned by U-turn), and Rotom-W are the only >B+ level mons that can really be considered safe scouts to just the 3 attacks and SD Knock sets alone, and shockingly all of them were top 10 usage through the first three weeks of UUSD, even being stacked together quite a bit.



This was the top 10 through the first three weeks of UUSD (A couple things tied with Skarmory IIRC I think Diggersby and Nihilego.) This meta at a glance looks so unkind to Scizor, and it's Pick Rate just doesn't reflect that (still being #2 through four weeks Cobalion has usurped it). Half this list is a Bulky Scizor intial response, the Dragons run Fire coverage, Hippowdon is too good not to run despite being setup bait without Whirlwind, and Tangrowth is most commonly paired with Coba + one of Mence / Skarm. Win Rate obviously can't be relied upon as a metric because of so many variables, but Pick Rate does matter and Scizor being top 2 in a meta this unfriendly towards it is suspicious to me. Cobalion is a great Pokemon that was able to breathe with Swords Dance sets post Aegi, but I do think that part of its inflation is because of how awesome it is at answering Scizor + preying upon the counterplay. Amoonguss is setup bait, Mence is owned easily traded for with Stone Edge, Skarmory gets forced into Iron Defensing (abusable with rocks up). None of our other Knock Off users can as consistently remove 2+ items as Sciz does. Azelf and Diggersby come with more intial power to threaten switches but there is much more of a risk usually on those clicks because they are frail and can get blown up in a way Scizor doesn't by neutral hits. Their entry points are also going to be much more limited due to lack of direct switches. Tangrowth can be stone walled by Amoonguss or traded with itself. Thundurus would be good at this but pivot sets in particular + its usage in general are on a downswing, it still lacks recovery, and boosting sets are getting more value out of it currently. I most definitely sound like a broken record at this point but Scizor just is too low risk to use at a role that I don't find to be a good thing for the tier.

Enough of my own rambling, I want to have some counterarguments against other things brought up in this thread I disagree with.

Specs Primarina is rocking your shit. Unless you have a Chansey, the mon is going IN with rocks up, and you have a Slowking and a Hydreigon which let it in for free. Not to mention, the only thing that OHKO's it from full is Mamoswine, and only if it's Life Orb; if not, bye bye. So like, look how extremely strong Primarina is and were not banning it. It also has great set versatility and lots of usage.

This logic fails because we don't ban things based on their wallbreaking power, or many other obviously not broken Pokemon (Darmanitan, Conkledurr just to name a couple with UU usage) would also be banned. Scizor is also more than twice as used as Primarina currently, so I don't know where the usage line comes in.

People benefit more from checking Scizor than they do from using it! Scizor really isn't as broken as you think, and by having this mentality that you have to check the shit out of it, you're permitting weaknesses to other big strong meta Pokemon.

Scizor is harder to cheat against because there's no safe speed based counterplay to it except for Intimidate and Bullet Punch resists. Cobalion has the 115s, all our common Choice Scarf Users bar Jirachi, as potential revenge killers for its SD3A set.

Scizor and Aegislash can be compared in some regard when talking about brokenness. Obviously, two very strong Steel-types that can use a fair amount of sets. But here's where Aegislash becomes so much more broken. Yeah Scizor has set versatility but it has no special attack and HP Fire doesn't exist anymore so it's always using physical moves. The issue with Aegislash is it could be physical, special, or mixed; making it so much more of a threat.

This argument doesn't make sense to me: why does it matter what category something attacks from? Why are we comparing Scizor to Aegislash in any way? What does HP Fire Scizor have to do with things???

Scizor is really just restricted to Heavy Duty Boots, Safety Goggles, Rocky Helmet, or Protective Pads which are all inherently defensive items and therefore its offensive potential this generation is stunted.

Offensive Scizor is not anywhere near broken in my opinion but Life Orb Bug Bite is one of the most important mixups it has in its arsenal to try and be more proactive, something to keep in mind, Choice Band also seeing non zero-play as you said.

I'm pretty sure Cobalion rose to UU before Scizor was unbanned and Skarmory has been a highly ranked Pokemon for a long time now. Unlike Aegislash and Moltres-galar, there really aren't any wack ass unsets that have been invented to counter Scizor. It really doesn't need that much attention and there's another reason it just isn't broken.

I would say that while it is not as immediately ugly to see something like, say HP Flying Mamoswine for SM Buzzwole, the complete monopoly Fire coverage has is just as large of an adaptation that shouldn't go unnoticed. Cobalion would most definitely have risen Post-Aegi (not to #1 in my opinion, but I can't realistically argue that it wouldn't have because I can not see the future lol so this is moot.) Skarmory is ludicrously inflated right now by the need for it to blanket check a ton of frankly dumb physical options we have.

Scizor is a cool mon that benefits the tier way more than it hurts it. And if the community chooses to ban it, I think we will find a lot of issues before the new gen comes out and we will be in danger of having a tier that's just not fun to play.

I'm sorry to say this harshly but this is the absolute biggest deficiency in mindset we could have, there is plently of time to sort a tier out before a new gen drops and this kind of fearmongering is cheap bullshit determined to keep a status quo.
Disclaimer: agreeing with Lily that Scizor is not Capital B Broken, and that you can't use Scizor to complain about other problems in the meta without drawing a map towards how it affects things. Will be responding to the parts of her post I don't agree with below:

"Scizor mandates multiple answers in the builder."
This isn't to say you need multiple hard Scizor counters on every team. Obviously that would be an unreasonable team building strain. But you can't just slap Skarmory or Cobalion alongside a host of Pokemon walled by Scizor and get away with it. That's really just asking to lose. Stuff like Primarina, Azelf, Hydreigon etc. - those aren't Scizor counters or even close to it, but they're mons it can't find opportunities on. Limiting it that way is highly effective.


The softchecks of either offensive threats that can blast past it, or Fire coverage users, are definitely nice to have and they do help with the issue of feeling like you need multiples of that Cobalion / Rotom / Amoonguss / Skarm and co. group, but they don't get to the root of beating Bullet Punch. Scizor's Bullet Punch may be weaker than we've seen it before, but it lasts in games far longer now. Especially when the Scizor user has the advantage in removing Heavy Duty Boots, I think it is hard to beat solely through offensive pressure.


"Banning Scizor would free up teambuilding significantly."
I don't remember who used this analogy but I frequently bring it up in discussions like these. Pokemon tiers are like glasses of ice water; the best Pokemon are the cubes at the top, and the worse Pokemon are below them. When you take one ice cube out of the glass, it doesn't just stay stagnant; a new one floats up to take its place, and the structure of the cubes together changes. Banning Scizor won't free up teambuilding, it'll just change the tier to focus on different threats.


I really, really don't vibe with this personally. It equates every single tier as having the same amount of "ice cubes", as the metaphor says, which doesn't paint the right picture. I can only say this from my own subjective viewpoint because frankly it would take too much work / collaboration to "academically" come to a conclusion on this, but this is the worst SS UU I've seen since coming back (~late 2021 pre Mienshao ban) in terms of matchups being deciphered on preview. I can with much more accuracy guess who is going to win Turn 0, and there's an extreme polarization of matchups that i've seen in a ton of the UUSD games. Different things would grow stronger in Scizor's absence. Some we could almost certainly predict (Nihilego being an easy example), others we wouldn't be able to guess. But just because things change that isn't an argument to keep Scizor because new top threats will constrain building. There's different levels of how constrained you can feel, and to me this is the worst it has been. More than Aegislash (a ludicrously broken individual Pokemon, but in a far more lax meta to me.). To be fair, Hippowdon's arrival at the same time as Scizor has a lot to do with this in my opinion, but I still view Scizor as major contributor.

Thanks for reading.
I lastly want to address the mindset of there being “too many threats” to account for, so let’s just ban one and see what happens. Not only is this entirely against how we tier on this site, but it’s also unprovable. We don’t know if the meta will improve after a ban, and anyone claiming otherwise can not argue this in good faith. Removing a Pokémon has two negative consequences: we no longer have access to a tool in the builder, and we indirectly buff many Pokémon. If Scizor goes, we lose a Steel-type with recovery, Knock Off, and most importantly, priority in a damn slow tier. Not only that, other threats will get better, and to what extent is unknown (see Cobalion’s recent meteoric rise after Aegi went). I ask those who currently think we need to ban a threat for the sake of it to please reconsider.

I hope this isn't what the prevailing thought of the Ban Scizor voters thought is, because it's not what I have seen. I have already admitted not to being able to see the future, but I've done my best to argue why Knock Off Scizor is just way too good at what it does and the issues I have with it in the builder. Lamenting what we lose if Scizor leaves is not that relevant to me, but I don't see those roles as unreplaceable (Steel that Roosts being the annoying one, but we have an assortment of other Steels some of which directly benefit from Scizor leaving). I don't ban just to ban, but because I think this tier will be better without the bug.

I have doubts that this post is going to convince anyone because it's become somewhat of a meme how lacking Scizor can sometimes be in battle right now, but I do view it as a large root of many problems me and other likeminded players have of the meta, and it's worth preserving the opposition argument for history's sake if nothing else. I will be voting Ban on Scizor. Also if anyone says we shouldn't complain about SS Scizor because of how broken SM Scizor is I'm blocking you <3
 
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Lily

wouldn't that be fine, dear
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Scizor being top 2 in a meta this unfriendly towards it is suspicious to me.
To be clear I'm not singling out this part, this is a response to the whole paragraph - I just don't really get what point you're trying to make.

Your list is a list full of Scizor checks that prevent it from making progress - it still gets a ton of usage regardless, but I don't really see how that's a bad thing? It gets usage because it's good glue and tends to be bs-resistant by design, not because it's outlasting all of these checks as has already been shown.

On top of that, none of these Pokemon really popped up bc of Scizor? Like, in the most recent UUPL where Scizor only became available later on, the usage stats indicated the same trends regardless of its presence:
Code:
Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Tangrowth          |   81 |  32.93% |  49.38% |
| 2    | Aegislash          |   67 |  27.24% |  55.22% |
| 3    | Nihilego           |   66 |  26.83% |  56.06% |
| 4    | Thundurus-Therian  |   64 |  26.02% |  54.69% |
| 4    | Cobalion           |   64 |  26.02% |  42.19% |
| 6    | Amoonguss          |   55 |  22.36% |  60.00% |
| 7    | Zarude             |   52 |  21.14% |  42.30% |
| 8    | Zygarde-10%        |   51 |  20.73% |  50.98% |
| 9    | Salamence          |   47 |  19.11% |  44.68% |
| 10   | Hydreigon          |   46 |  18.70% |  58.70% |
The drops in usage here are almost all unrelated to Scizor; Nihilego is obvious as you said, Thundurus and Zygarde are used much less because of the extremely omnipresent Hippo with Scizor mostly being an afterthought, and Zarude's obviously much less necessary because SubTox Aegi is gone and Cobalion is everywhere. Granted Zarude doesn't love needing to bust through Scizor but it's not even that hard to put it in range of 2 Lariats so if Scizor was truly the problem for Zarude it'd still be doing just fine. Salamence, Hydreigon, regen grasses etc still persist even with the grasses being owned by Scizor bc it's just not the death knell for them at all.

Then we have the rises in usage; Slowking was just barely outside top 10 before and is naturally better in a meta w/o Aegi, Skarm was a huge winner not because of Sciz but bc of Aegi leaving, Rotom probably did mostly appear bc of Scizor. Not like any of these mons were in a poor spot before, they all had comfy high usage, metagame shifts just further bolstered it.

I'm not trying to compare this to the Aegislash meta because that's apples to oranges really. I'm just saying that none of these mons were bad before, and I fail to see how them rising a bit in usage is a bad thing for the tier.

So I guess what you're trying to say is that Scizor's continued high usage despite the meta seemingly being awful for it is a sign that it's just too good? If so I can't say I follow. Tangrowth and Amoonguss are wholly invalidated by Scizor, the former I'd invalidated by its counterpart too and the latter hates Coba's existence, and even ignoring that they're shoddy checks to everything in the top 10 bar Rotom. They still get usage because they're just incredible pivots that can always get value even in bad matchups just like Scizor. It's not a sign of unhealthiness.

I am sorry if I'm misunderstanding this, I'm not trying to refute your argument so much as understand it; it feels like the focus is entirely on usage which I don't really feel is all that relevant. If you could explain it to me differently I'd appreciate it!! The Knock Off argument makes a bit more sense. I'm gonna think on that, but I'm having trouble seeing it as a problem.

Also just a reminder that you have 1 more week to get reqs!! Some people thought it ended today and it does not!!
 

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.
There's a really fascinating logical and hypothetical question for me when deciding how to vote on Scizor regarding building, although I'm not sure it even applies for Scizor.

That is, how do we determine if an element is merely a (near) building necessity versus an unhealthy constraint.

I think about this often but what prompted my thought was Celebiii's post, which assumed (in my view largely incorrectly):

You can't build a (good) team that is reliable against Scizor without Skarmory or Cobalion.
(Do read the rest of his post before judging, he says much more than just this one point: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-uu-stage-12-2-spider-dance.3704866/#post-9278508)

So even though I disagree with the substantive premise here (I think you can have other reliable Scizor countermeasures not including Skarmory and Cobalion, Colbur Flamethrower Slowbro-Galarian comes to mind), at least the internal logic of the argument is clear - Scizor is forcing teambuilding to be more difficult because it forces you to use a narrow subset of Pokemon.

So anyways, to be clear, I am voting do not ban on Scizor. I didn't really agree with the premise of Celebiii's argument and Sage's post seemed too speculative for me - the gist of it is that Scizor really is broken, it's so broken that people constantly prep for it which is why people don't think it's broken...I'm over simplifying and you should read the rest of it but yeah ithe internal logic here isn't sufficiently convincing for me to vote ban.

The larger point though, the question of what is healthy versus what is merely necessary still interests me. Almost nobody disputes that there are necessities when building. Nearly all teams run Stealth Rocks. Nearly all of them run at least one Steel type. Essentially every Pokemon higher than A- on the viability ranking needs a solid check at least on the team.

Not necessary, but still extremely common and arguably necessary on non HO teams include moves like Knock Off and Volt Switch immunity.

How are we supposed to determine if any of these necessities or at least highly germane to building elements are indicative of a broken or bannable offense?

I am able to satisfy myself answering this question through comparison - to previous iterations of the metagame and to similar threats in the metagame. In other words, if the necessities that a threat brings is not remarkably different from other iterations of the metagame or other similar high level threats in the metagame, that necessity is not indicative of a broken or bannable threat.

Of course this statement does pose a number of follow up issues.

1) What exactly does "remarkably different" mean in this case? How can I operationalize this?
2) What about at the start of the metagame, when there is little to compare to?

Regarding 1), I believe this this explains why so many similarly strong players can have different opinions on the metagame. It's really just an opinion question. But I don't think the bolded statement is sophistic as it might sound. I can compare Cobalion and Scizor for example and reasonably argue that both of them require a similar level of counter play on each time, indicating that neither (or both!) are really broken. That's what I did in my head, if not in this post.

Things like Knock Off and Stealth Rock being nearly necessary can be best justified in my view by comparison to different iterations of the metagame. We've accepted it before in UU this generation so it's really just part of the metagame now, it's not significantly more necessary than it was before.

Regarding 2), well we don't need to worry about this right now - maybe at the start of generation nine if I want to use this logic again! But it does suggest the start of the metagame is absolutely fundamental to deciding how to proceed with tiering - perhaps having bias towards a period with minimal information isn't ideal. But it at least doesn't pose any issue for applying this logic to the Scizor test now.

Anyways, to sum it up - I think the argument that Scizor's presence means it's highly prepped for but it's actually still a lurking broken threat is overly speculative, I think the argument that Scizor constrains building too much isn't correct substantively and even if it was, I'd apply my logic of comparison here before deciding if Scizor was broken or bannable.
 
Now that Scizor has been suspected (if u thought it said 'banned' before, you're wrong), i'd like to ask council (as well as just get general feedback) on the next steps for the tier. While I've heard some mention that the tier may not be getting any more suspects, I don't think that's a good idea. I really think the two mons that should be looked at right now are Celesteela and Registeel.


Celesteela I've already written a post on in the old Aegi suspect thread, which I will link here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-ss-uu-stage-12-1-fallen-kingdom.3702333/page-2#post-9270812. I stand by most of what I wrote in this post. I will point out that Rotom-W is a better check than I make it out to be there -- clicking Pain Split on the Meteor Beam when it comes in is pretty reliable for both keeping it at high health and dealing damage to the Celesteela. I will point out that Rotom-W also has to check Cloyster, however, which I consider to be a very good Hyper Offense mon, especially with Slowking's usage decreasing. So while it's a decent check to Steela, the fact that it also has to check Cloyster leaves it more likely to be capitalized on by Celesteela into a snowball. At +2, a Cloyster pin missile is a pretty strong 2-shot: +2 252+ Atk Cloyster Pin Missile (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Rotom-Wash: 230-275 (75.6 - 90.4%) -- approx. 2HKO after Leftovers recovery. This means Rotom-W becomes a poor check to Celesteela if combined with Cloyster, which largely relies on bulky waters like Rotom to stop it.

i've heard some people say that Celesteela is mostly just another annoying threat, as well as that banning it would get rid of an important defensive glue, and I would like to iterate that I think both of these points are false. Celesteela's potential as a glue mon on Bulky Offense is actually quite mediocre -- most defensive mons get reliable recovery, hazards, status, knock off, regenerator, removal or pivoting moves, and Steela gets status (sometimes) and leech seed (which is good, but not amazing). While it does get great natural mixed bulk with a great typing, that's all it gets. It's not as splashable as Skarm, for example, because while skarm walls slightly less it has the advent of laying spikes, blocking set up sweepers like scizor, regi and cobalion with iron defense, and reliable recovery. As a steel mon on Bulky Offense, I would almost say Celesteela is worse than Jirachi -- which isn't bad, but it's not the first option your going for. As a glue mon in general, despite it's amazing typing, it's still not very good -- other defensive mons just offer more utility than steela has to offer.

For the point that Steela is just "another annoying offensive threat", I also think that's not true -- Steela's usage has jumped on ladder to 20%, and while ladder loves Hyper Offense, I think this is legitimately pointing to how weirdly reliable Steela is for a mon that threatens flinches to win. As I mention in my post, Steela has everything going for it as a Hyper Offense mon: Fantastic defensive typing and bulk, access to what is basically agility in automotize, great offensive stats, great coverage in flying/fire/rock, a high flinch chance move in air slash, and, what I believe truly makes it broken, meteor beam and access to beast boost (special moxie). While being forced to give up an item for power herb isn’t great, Meteor Beam is a fantastic move. With power herb, it essentially in the moment gives it a stab 120 bp rock move, and the +1 boost makes all it’s other moves stronger. As well, the strategy of switching to a rock resist to absorb it doesn’t really work – the common rock resists (grounds like Hippo, steels like Skarm, fightings like Cobalion) get blown open by it’s other coverage moves, and so can’t stay in – this means it can reliably click Meteor Beam AGAIN on the switch, snowballing even harder. The rock coverage also makes counterplay much less reliable – it wins against electrics other than Rotom-W (which is only A-, despite being a good mon) because of how strong meteor beam is, as well as destroying the few fire mons the tier has to offer. You also cannot sack a mon into Meteor Beam to avoid it/get a mon in for free, because of Beast Boost, meaning sacking a mon to Meteor Beam means Steela now has +2 special attack and speed, and your only counterplay becomes clicking the x button. As well, other than it’s 2 real checks in Chansey and Rotom-W (which isn’t even as reliable, as mentioned both above and in my previous argument), you need to revenge kill with scarf-drei flamethrower, which doesn’t do over 70%. Even mons that should be okay into it, like AV glowbro, Slowking, SpDef Prim and other bulky waters, as well as Nihilego, aren’t reliable because of the flinch chance – in many cases it just needs one flinch out of 2 attacks to win, which is a roughly 50% chance. To counterarguments that reference things like Togekiss, Togekiss can’t come out from full and basically reduce the game to a coinflip. Steela can, and frequently does.
Finally, I’d like to point out the precedence for banning Celesteela. As I, and pokemonisfun in his post above mine in the link point out, Celesteela is a better goltres. It has a better natural typing, more bulk, a higher flinch chance, and better coverage. It’s easily more dominant than goltres was (see the 20% usage) and yet, for some reason, council hasn’t decided to ban it. There’s really no reason. Even if the argument about it’s defensive benefits were true (which I don’t think they are) it doesn’t even matter. If a mon has a set that is broken, it’s broken – you can’t justify keeping it because in some cases it’s not broken, or benefits the tier.

As well, I’d like to mention a list of players (most if not all of who are better than me) who agree with my thoughts on a Steela suspect:

pokemonisfun

Clefable (Mengy)

haxlolo

Luirromen

justdrew

BigFatMantis

Totomon

Corporate Donkey

As well as others I’ve seen in the PiA and UU discord.

At this point, I really believe there is no point in not suspecting Celesteela. It’s too good of an HO mon, and it makes the tier actively worse, and to quote Lily, the only real goal of suspecting mons is to make tiers less bad. This, as far as I’m concerned, is open and shut.

Now, the next mon that should be suspected is Registeel. I’m not going to bother referencing a bunch of calcs for registeel because everyone knows it’s good, there’s no point. It sets up on so much with Iron Defense, Amnesia and Body Press, and the fact that it gets Body Press makes it broken, straight up. It’s easier to point out what it doesn’t set up on: Chandy, Hatterene, Togekiss, CM glowbro and Skarmory, maybe taunt crobat. That’s it. Better have one of those on your team or Registeel wins on preview. None of these are above A rank. Most are B+, so more niche. This should go without saying, but why do we have a mon in the tier that we let basically win on preview against a large amount of teams. To go back to the Lily quote, it makes the tier actively worse. As well, many teams that lack these 5/6 mons are meta teams – Registeel exploits them because it’s anti-meta and just wins so many matchups. Getting rid of registeel actively makes the tier more competitive, which is the point, because Regi’s only real counterplay against most teams is the x button. Even moreso than Celesteela, I think this is open-and-shut, and I would be legitimately very interested to see counterarguments to banning Regi, or at least doing some complex ban of Body Press/ID/Amnesia to not steal it from RU.

Sorry if this is more rough than my last post; Registeel is really open and shut and I've already elaborated on most of Celesteela's issues.

EDIT: As numerous players have rightfully pointed out to me (Celebiii and KM being the main ones), Nihilego is a very good Celesteela checks, needing 3 flinches to be taken out in a regular sequence. Disregarding great HO coverage moves like tbolt which auto-win, the chance of this happening is very low, and I kind of talked shit despite being pretty wrong in this regard, so apologies to both for getting heated. I'd still like to point out I think the rest of the argument stands, and still believe Celesteela is worthy of being at least suspected, and I want to point out that while I mentioned Nihilego as a check, I definitely undersold it. Sorry for getting salty guys (:/)

There are numerous interactions where Steela does win, with Mb
 
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Since I was tagged, I just want to point out that, while I agree Celesteela could use a suspect, and I would actually consider voting to ban it, I would be more interested in retesting some UUBLs first to see if this can fix any potential issues the tier has. I think the tier is fine and works well, but Steela is definitely the most problematic out of anything else. Prim and Coba are very good mons, but they don’t really have many problematic aspects of snowballing into an unbeatable position as easily as Steela can do this (a lot of times it just needs to flinch one thing and then it’s an auto win).

I don’t think Steela is the best mon in the tier or even close to it. But when you talk about something being problematic or unhealthy I think it certainly can fit the bill more than other things. But a lot of things can be like this and still be fine in the tier, and I think there are some UUBLs that actually are less problematic and can be retested first.
 
It's been forever since I've made a post in the UU forum between my myriad computer, Internet, & real-life problems and the myriad suspect tests I've been trying to stay out of the way of since they're already frustrating enough for people. As such, I hope that everyone has been doing okay, especially with 2022 being the "wonderful" year it is that keeps on giving (misery).

Despite still ghosting a bit, I'm only posting at all at present to chime in that I agree that if anything gets tested next in the constant parade of Gen 8 UU suspect tests, then it should definitely be Celesteela. :celesteela: That thing has been super obnoxious been since it got here, and Meteor Beam only made it even more so given it became a naturally super bulky mon that HO could use to rather easily sweep with, to the point that it's still frequently more thwarted by Meteor Beam missing than most of its actual checks. Hell, in just randomly ghosting a couple of days ago, over the course of a mere six games, I witnessed two different games were supposed checks to it got screwed over by singular Air Slash flinches, and that's all it took for it to win the entire game after a single boost; that's not proof of anything since anecdotes generally can't be, but it's just a somewhat "funny" coincidence.

I'm also chiming in say that I can even agree with BigFatMantis's sentiment that maybe one of the UUBL mons can be retested at this point. When it comes to that, however, in looking through what's currently languishing in UUBL, there's nothing I personally see that sticks out as "obviously" improving the predictably now Scizor-centric meta. Not that I'm giving my opinion much weight in this instance given how long I've been "gone", and so I patiently await disagreements here (or on Discord where I won't see them) since I'm still just going to make a list despite that if it's being brought up; it's ultimately up to the council as always anyway:


CURRENT GEN 8 UUBL MONS (A.K.A. WHAT TO UNBAN WHEN YOU'RE UNBANNING):
01. :aegislash: - Gen 8 UU just banned this, and it got to stay here for far too long as it was IMO. Please no.

02. :alakazam: - Magic Guard sets are likely still busted even with Overlord Scizor here once again, so it's probably a bad idea.

03. :arctozolt: - ...Maybe, even though I loathe Aurora Veil teams, since it doesn't actually resist Bullet Punch and is weak to Stealth Rock? Then again, it isn't weak to Bullet Punch either, so....

04. :blaziken: - Haha. No.

05. :dracozolt: - Gods no. Excadrill and Hippo being down here now basically makes this pretty much impossible to safely unban, especially since unlike its Hail form, it actually resists Overlord Scizor's Bullet Punch (and then murders it with Fire Blast or even Bolt Beak).

06. :gengar: - Maybe? I don't really see it improving the meta much for the better, especially with Goltres now gone, but it is pretty frail on the Bullet Punch Defense side of things, so.... Still, it's probably better to not do so with Pursuit gone though.

07. :hawlucha: - Tapu Bulu teams, Woody. Tapu Bulu teams everywhere. Please no.

08. :kommo-o: - I like Kommo-o as a mon, I really do, but given that Game Freak was dumb enough to make Clangorous Soul a thing at all, this is probably too obnoxious to ever be UU again while it has that move, unfortunately.

09. :latias: - Maybe? No real opinion at present.

10. :latios: - Slightly less maybe? No real opinion at present.

11. :mienshao: - Oh goodie, another Regenerator mon. Just what any meta needs since Regenerator is such a fun ability.... /s I guess Mienshao is probably one of the "safer" UUBL mons to retest, admittedly, but I've made it known repeatedly just how much I loathe Regenerator, so adding a threatening mon with that ability just seems guaranteed to worsen the meta in my eyes, especially since it pivots with U-Turn so easily.

12. :moltres-galar: - Gen 8 UU just banned this, though between this and Aegislash, it's maybe the lesser evil I guess. [/damned by faint praise] It should probably stay gone though.

13a. (:staraptor: - Here in spirit, like always. [/willfully ignores National Dex])

13b. :terrakion: - Didn't Gen 8 UU retest this already? I've genuinely forgotten. I guess I can see people arguing for it to be tested again even in the case where Gen 8 UU already has though, just because it's "weak" to Overlord Scizor's Bullet Punch (though literally never a guaranteed OHKO without max Adamant Choice Band or an SD). So I could see people arguing Terrakion should get another shot since Scizor hadn't "graced" UU with its presence again yet, but meh. Terrakion remains pretty obnoxious to deal with defensively, even with all of the Regenerator around and what with Slowbro never coming back, especially since the otherwise unused Palossand just gets mauled by (Scizor's) Knock Off and since Hippo can similarly only take on & check so many different mons at once even before getting inevitably smacked by Knock Off itself. (Hippo also sabotages its own team against this mon if they're special attackers and/or aren't immune to Sandstorm, which is always funny.)

14. :thundurus: - It seems unlikely that unbanning it would be for the better, but like the Lati twins, I honestly don't know or have much of an opinion on it at present.


So, yeah. Personally unsure of what UUBL could be released to "improve" the current meta. [Insert your preferred "shrug" .gif here.]

For the record, I have no opinion on suspecting ("Demon") Registeel :registeel: either at present since it was just brought up, though I can at least see why some people would want it gone given how obnoxious the similar Mew set was/is. This is especially true since I'm agreeing that Celesteela should go for how obnoxious it is rather than because of it being far and away the best thing currently in the Gen 8 UU tier (since even now it isn't...probably).
 
Throwing my hat in the ring for a Terrakion retest again. The meta is dramatically different and significantly less favorable to it than it was banned… but all that said, last time I supported a restest for it, Aegislash wasn’t banned, and that obviously skews things. Also, I can definitely see an argument that Terrakion wouldn’t make the tier “better” necessarily and that it shouldn’t be retested as a result, but imo, and this is purely a personal tiering ideology opinion, that’s not a good reason for something to stay banned. Something should be banned because it’s broken, unhealthy, or “uncompetitive” (as buzzwordy as that is), and that ban should only last as long as long as that applies. I think the majority of UUBL would still fall into one of those categories, but not Terrakion, or at least it has a strong potential chance to not be broken. Whether or not it’s a net positive influence on the tier past that point would be imo too subjective a point to argue in favor of keeping it banned; if we just balanced our tiers solely based on that idea, then that could justify literally dozens and dozens of bans until the tier is reshaped into a personal ideal, and everyone’s personal ideal would be dramatically different from each other’s.

Am I making sense right now? I feel like I’m getting too esoteric lol; the TL;DR is I think Terrakion may no longer be bannable for the reasons it once was, and I think that alone deserves a retest, then from there people can decide whether or not they like it in the tier as opposed to denying it a retest because they don’t like the idea of it in the tier separate from whether or not it would actually be broken or unhealthy.
 
In an extension to my previous Celesteela post, I’ll be discussing how Celesteela HO structures match up against the sample teams, as they’re a pretty decent snapshot of different structures of the meta.

This is the team I’ll be using: https://pokepast.es/0a1150c3964e497f (thanks to Silver Note in the PiA discord for this team).

The one change I’m making is replacing Flamethrower on Celesteela with Fire Blast – Making KOs is so important for Steela to snowball that I’d argue the tradeoff is very much worth the lower accuracy. If you think this is unfair, let me know, but I'd argue hitting thresholds is optimal for Steela.

If you want to skip to my conclusions don't look in here, I just review the sample teams and how they fare. I list the structures that don't auto-lose below.

Team 1: Monky HO: https://pokepast.es/351bdf88301c4eff

Celesteela can easily come in on a +1 Keldeo here after it takes a kill and automotize. While Keldoe will do up to 70% with scald (and risk a burn), once Celesteela comes in, Air Slash will do at least 80% damage, and assuming Keldeo has taken any chip, it’s gone. After this, if Celesteela isn’t burned, the Bullet Punch will not kill (only doing a max of 25%), and Steela can pick up another kill. At this point, Celesteela wins. It’s worth noting that the opposing team also packs Celesteela, so it’s a bit of a competition to see which team gets Steela out first. However, the team I’m using has a stronger matchup thanks to thunderbolt/Meteor Beam Nihilego. Regardless, this team gets swept, although it’s not totally reliable – Keldeo needs to have been stopped from setting up beyond +1, but with an HO team this is pretty doable.

Team 2: Choice Specs Vanilluxe: https://pokepast.es/3b643955371916c4

This team has poor counterplay into Offensive Celesteela. If Steela is able to come in on Zarude, Azelf, Excadrill or Salamence, it becomes very threatening due to the lack of counterplay. If you instantly go from one of these threats to Slowking, you lose – because Excadrill is a fantastic rocks setter for HO and HO is designed to keep pressure up and prevent removal, I will assume hazards up, although in some matchups that won’t be the case. Slowking takes 12% from hazards when coming in on the auto, then takes on average 47% from meteor beam, while dishing out 27% with scald, and giving a chance for burn. After this, air slash deals at least 41%, which is enough to kill Slowking outright. From here, Celesteela wins. It is now at +2 special attack and speed, deals 85% at least to Salamence if it comes in from here, which if it has taken any chip over the course of the match, means it’s going down and giving Steela another +1 special attack boost. Even if Mence isn’t killed in one round, flamethrower does around 50% thanks to Celesteela’s great bulk. If Slowking misses a burn, Celesteela wins the game from here. If Slowking got the burn, Steela now has 1 more turn left, from which it will kill the next mon that comes in. If not, it outspeeds and OHKOs every other mon on the team from here. So at worst, barring missing it’s very accurate moves and getting crit, Celesteela either wins the game or takes out half of the opponent’s team – this is a very worthwhile trade at worst.

If you bring slowking in on the automotize, and then pivot to Excadrill to absorb the meteor beam, the issue now is that Excadrill does nothing to Celesteela thanks to it’s great typing. Celesteela can actually set up another meteor beam and eat around 40% from Excadrill’s Iron Head. Then at this point, if slowking comes in on a boosted fire blast with rocks up, it takes 40%. Assuming it has taken no chip over the course of the match, Air Slash now has a roughly 50% chance to kill it before Slowking can deal any damage to it. If it doesn’t kill, there is still a large chance to flinch. At this point, Slowking needs a crit to stop Celesteela, and Celesteela can run away with the game from there. Celesteela has now +3 Special attack, and one-shots everything on the team.

Team 3: LO Mamo + Salazzle BO: https://pokepast.es/dc5d43961de5a278

Here, Zarude can come in and automotize on less mons. It’s a fair bit stronger in this matchup. But if it comes in on Zarude or Cobalion, which is always possible – this team has mons like Gyarados and Necrozma which can bring out Zarude, as well as Nihilego to bring out Cobalion, a set up becomes possible, but suspect, thanks to the Mamoswine in the back. If it clicks Auto on the Zarude, the Zarude can either lariat it for around 41% or go to Slowking. If they go to Slowking, they lose for reasons mentioned previously. This team, however, now has the less common HDB over Colbur Slowking, which fares better here. Steela does 47% with mbeam, and now 2shots with Air slash. It If it gets burned from scald (around a flat 50% chance), it is weak enough to be revenge killed by Mamoswine ice shard after. However, if it misses this chance or it avoids the first burn then flinches the second turn, with around a 20% chance of happening (meaning the 50% chance is more like 44-5%, which is still quite good), Slowking loses this exchange, and Mamoswine Ice shard doing 30% max, can’t stop Celesteela, which proceeds to sweep.

Now, if Zarude lariats for 41%, switches into Celesteela on either the Air Slash or Fire blast, there are two ways this sequence goes. On the Fire Blast, it deals 45% average (57% with rocks), so Steela is now at around 50% health after leftovers. it can either flamethrower for half it’s health(note: Air slash and Fire Blast do min 70 to Zarude, but considering it’s coming in on Gyarados or Necrozma and eating a boosted ice fang or heat wave, it’s forced to switch), Celesteela now, assuming the BO Steela comes in from full and eats hazard damage, just needs an extra flinch to put it within range of a fire blast KO, and therefore, a sweep. However, that’s it’s best case scenario, and even then, assuming slowking isn’t harmed, it can come in on the predicted fire blast and either deal the necessary damage to allow Celesteela to be finished off by Mamoswine. However, Celesteela can win the game from coming in on a weakened slowking (slowking either scalds or goes immediately to BO steela on auto, which deals 50 to HO steela before dying to Mbeam -> FBlast and not doing enough to let Mamo stop it with Ice Shard), if it was used to finish off Necrozma. Or, it can weaken Slowking for a very possible Necrozma sweep, which makes it a worthwhile trade, However, this team has less options for Steela to truly sweep thanks to having Mamoswine in the back. It’s an okay matchup for that team, but Steela still has entry points to win.

Thundurus-T + Scarf Digg VoltTurn: https://pokepast.es/7a9e9e25b4c2193a

Here, there are numerous opportunities for Steela to come in, and even better, this team doesn’t have the priority to stop it. If it comes in on Zarude, weakened slowking via Necrozma, or Digg choice-locked into EQ/Ice Punch, it can set up a sweep. The team’s immediate best switchin is slowking, which (because it’s not boots) gets 2-shot by mbeam -> Air slash from full, maybe dealing 30% with scald. If it comes in on Zarude and gets hit for 40% while autoing, and goes into slowking to absorb the mbeam, it then can KO the Slowking with Air Slash (or another meteor beam) and get to +2 (or 3 if it KOs with a second meteor beam – going into Coba to absorb it doesn’t work because Coba then dies to Air Slash, which at +2 will also do over half to Slowking). Then, it can sweep. Moltres, barring the 30% flinch which defines Air Slash, can kill it from there with flamethrower, but if it has any chip on it, say, from coming in on LO Scizor, it goes down, and so does the rest of the team. If Steela reaches +3 by this point, Moltres dies to Air Slash, and the game is lost for the sample team. Steela wins.

This team loses because it lacks reliable defensive counterplay, relying on Slowking, and lacking the proper speed-control options here to take advantage of it. It’s worth noting that right now, Scarf-Diggersby is considered by a lot of people to be the best scarf-speed control in the tier, and even it can’t revenge kill Steela. Also worth noting is that Mamoswine is less common thanks to Scizor, but I’d argue it’s still a good mon.

SD Sciz + CM Keldeo BO: https://pokepast.es/619bddbb50aade66

This team is kind of easy for Steela to sweep, despite seemingly having the perfect combo of counterplay in Raikou and Scizor – Raikou’s tbolt does 80% minimum to Steela, and Scizor’s tbolt does 14% on average. Odds are pretty high Steela goes down reliably here. However, if Steela is able to come in on Mandibuzz or Hippo, it is able to reliably set up a sweep, as well as if it sacks a mon into Shroom spore and comes in, but this also presumes no double switch, so it’s not reliable.

Auto on switch to Raikou here, mbeam does 63% on average (if raikou is weakened from checking gyarados OR scizor, it dies here and Steela sweeps. Speed control is gone, and it’s at +2 spA and speed. If Nihi or Gyarados are able to work to take out scizor, Steela also wins). Raikou severely weakens Steela before dying to fire blast. Scizor comes in and, depending on the roll for Raikou’s tbolt (there’s a 62% chance for tbolt to do above 85%, which is what scizor needs to kill steela guaranteed) Steela kills raikou -> getting beaten by scizor priority. However, now if Mandibuzz is weakened at all from checking Steela, gyarados is more reliable, especially with Raikou gone. Even at it’s best, a clear pattern here is that Steela will take out at least 2 mons on teams, IF it doesn’t sweep, without it’s surefire checks in Rotom-W, Nihilego, and Chansey, which are on very few of these teams. As well, it can proceed to take out or weaken these checks to let another mon sweep – if Rotom-W is weakened, it’s much less reliable at checking Cloyster, for instance.

LO Starmie + Pads Scizor BO: https://pokepast.es/81a71925ead8f8b9

This team is also susceptible. If it comes in on Hippo or Hydreigon on a draco meteor, or possibly scizor if you’re willing to suffer a knock off. As well, coming in on a post-spore shroom is possible, but considering the way HO is played, I’ll judge that as being not likely. The best option for either of these is switching into Starmie on the automotize, or knocking with Scizor and then switching out into Starmie on the Mbeam charge (if it loses it’s power herb). However, even when Starmie comes in from full, assuming rocks are up, there is a 62% chance for Starmie to die to Meteor Beam before it does anything. It’s not very reliable, but it’s worth noting that Steela is more likely than not to immediately net a +2 special attack boost. After that, Scarf hydreigon is the best counterplay. If Starmie hasn’t been chipped, and if it happens to live the Meteor Beam, thunderbolt will do around 65% and leave Celesteela open to die to Hydreigon Dark Pulse.

However, at this point, assuming full Celesteela, Hydreigon can possibly (if not chipped, which considering Necrozma is on the team may not be very likely) go for the 1 dark pulse flinch, hope for no kill on the air slash (38% chance to kill from full after rocks) and then 3hko steela. This is relatively likely – around a 32% chance of happening. However, if it doesn’t or if Steela goes for automotize on the first turn and isn’t flinched, it can potentially just win from there – there’s no more counterplay after beating the Hydreigon.

Specs Keldeo + Pivot Rotom-W Sand: https://pokepast.es/cb7a0b5d9e51fa98

This team has Rotom-W, but it needs Sand to be up to actually stop Celesteela. Rotom-W can pain split on the Mbeam and volt switch after eating an air slash. Air slash has a 30% chance to flinch, but Steela needs to net 2 flinches to stop Rotom-W from Volting out, which isn’t very likely (only a 10% chance). Then, if Excadrill is in sand, it can come in, outspeed and finish off Steela. It’s worth noting that if Celesteela comes in on Tangrowth, it eats knock damage and therefore has a small chance of being killed by Rotom-W volt switch. However, if it comes in on Hippo after 2 turns of sand, Hippo needs to come in again before Celesteela can be stopped by Excadrill, still giving Celesteela time to throw out attacks at the team, either clicking +2 fire blast or air slash on things like Salamence and Keldeo, requiring essentially another sack or a read to get Excadrill in on Air Slash. So, here, Celesteela (at best) heavily weakens Rotom-W and gets killed by Excadrill. At worst, it takes out Excadrill on the read and wins or gets another sack and heavily weakens Rotom-W, potentially easing the sweep for Scizor, for example. Even in this bad matchup, it does a lot.

Noivern + THundurus-T Spikes BO: https://pokepast.es/d0c79fd5b12d4878


This team gets obliterated by Celesteela. If it comes in on Skarmory, Zarude, or Hippowdon, or a weakened Slowking, it can win vs Slowking on the switch, rock resist Hippowdon can’t do anything to it so it can’t absorb a meteor beam, and after it nets a +2 boost nothing can outspeed it or live either a +2 air slash or fire blast.

Estarossa semi-stall: https://pokepast.es/3e645bf835bdf2f0

Loses to chansey

Nihilego + Salamence Stall: https://pokepast.es/0ea1dc87d6680fa9

Loses to Chansey and Nihilego


With these analyses of the sample teams being done, I’d like to address a few shortcomings to this approach. These aren’t necessarily up to date, and if I had tournament spreads it would be easier to look at the current Snake Draft teams. As well, from what I can see of them, they seem to be stronger into Celesteela than this sample of teams are, so be warned about this when reading this argument. As well, if it seems like I’m exaggerating Celesteela’s ability to get in on the field, please let me know. I’m trying to be as realistic as possible, but I may be biased when making this argument. I’m typing this up pretty loosely, so if you notice potential issues here, feel free to let me know as well. However, now I’d like to, from looking at these teams, point out the team structures that don’t auto-lose to Celesteela (Bulky Offense – Stall).

  • Chansey teams
  • Chansey never loses to Celesteela barring extremely bad luck or being extremely weakened already.
  • Rotom-W structures WITH either priority (Mamoswine/Zygarde/Scizor/Conkeldurr) OR scarf Hydreigon/Zarude in the back.
  • Nihilego teams with either priority OR scarf Zarude/Hydreigon in the back.
  • Nihilego loses to double meteor beam – a rock resist that can damage Steela (not Hippo or Pert, basically) can be swapped to for absorbing the second meteor beam, but going before the charge turn is a pretty ballsy predict that can backfire, and going after the charge turn to just absorb the attack means that Steela can throw out more air slashes/fire blasts, and Nihilego cannot live 2 +2 air slashes after coming in on a meteor beam and taking two stacks of rocks damage, even with black sludge.
  • Raikou + Scizor teams (Raikou cannot be chipped below 60% for this to work, and there is a chance if the tbolt roll is low that BP scizor won’t kill)
  • Rhyperior structures (rare, but worth noting)
  • Bulky Slowking/Primarina structures with specifically Scarf Hydreigon with Fire Blast in the back.
  • Defensive Celesteela structures with Scarf Hydreigon in the back (BO steela deals 50% with flamethrower)
  • Rotom-H structures paired with an offensive rock resist (for example, Cobalion) – priority/scarf drei and zarude also pair well here.
  • Even with this, Rotom-H has a very small chance to 1-shot HO steela from full with Overheat. This means Celesteela needs to flinches to stop it from full at +2, which isn’t likely, but Rotom-H is forced to etiher come in via smart pivoting or after a sack because of it’s weakness to Mbeam. If it’s paired with Hippowdon or Swampert, Celesteela can continuously set up meteor beams and boost itself, so it really wants an offensive rock resist as a partner to discourage this.
These, to my knowledge, are the structures that stop Celesteela from sweeping. While this may seem to neuter my point, I’d like to point out that teams without these just cannot do anything to Celesteela once it comes on the field barring misses from it’s own attacks. This is probably a decent amount of teams. As well, even with the teams that stop this ONE pokemon from sweeping them, this pokemon has 5 teammates in the back that can take advantage of holes it bursts in the enemy team. Getting rid of rotom-wash or Raikou can make it much easier for LO Scizor to sweep, for example. In these cases, trading is actively useful and doing a lot here, making it more difficult to stop it’s teammates. As well, unless you’re using Chansey or Rotom-W with prio/scarf drei, it’s taking a kill at least. Unless you’re using Chansey, it is heavily damaging a mon, at least. Heavily damaging Rotom-W, for example, means if it’s paired with Cloyster, that either Cloyster can proceed to overwhelm/sweep the team after steela goes down, OR that CLoyster can heavily weaken Rotom-W and set up Celesteela’s own sweep. Weakening Chansey can make it easier for Mbeam nihilego to sweep. So it’s always either contributing via killing a mon or heavily weakening a mon. I’d argue this constitutes broken or at least unhealthy – the fact that you need to list structures that don’t auto-lose to this mon makes it at least borderline to me.

Apologies if this is pretty rough, and if anyone has issues with the calcs I use, please feel free to message me or reply below :)
 
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Throwing my hat in the ring for a Terrakion retest again. The meta is dramatically different and significantly less favorable to it than it was banned… but all that said, last time I supported a restest for it, Aegislash wasn’t banned, and that obviously skews things. Also, I can definitely see an argument that Terrakion wouldn’t make the tier “better” necessarily and that it shouldn’t be retested as a result, but imo, and this is purely a personal tiering ideology opinion, that’s not a good reason for something to stay banned. *snip*
To be clear, I actually agree with this, not that anything I say has much clout (and I honestly don't want it to). Even though I think Terrakion probably would (and maybe should) end up staying banned, I'm not vehemently against retesting it or anything on the list outside of Blaziken, Hawlucha, Kommo-o (sigh--stupid Clangorous Soul), and maybe Mienshao, and even that last one is just because of how much I loathe Regenerator more than anything else. So I fully admit my bias there once again.

So my only caveat is that if Terrakion already did get retested before during this Gen (which I feel like it did but I can't verify in a quick search, so maybe it was only discussed and never followed through on), then I feel like it should be at the back of the line for retesting if the council deems it fit for retesting at all alongside any other UUBL mons. The same goes for Latias too, for the record, since I had genuinely forgotten that Gen 8 UU had already retested that mon.
 
:ss/Gengar:

Hi everyone, I want to talk about Gengar.

A long, long time ago it was sent to the UUBL abyss. It was not in the tier for very long (in fact it wasn't even in UU at all! It was RU at the time). But it was determined rather quickly that it was broken, mostly because of substitute sets. If you look at the meta now though, it's not exactly Gengar's playground. Now, I'm not saying Gengar would be bad (it would most certainly be a top tier mon), but with so many threatening Ground types, and even defensive Ground types like Hippo, I really don't think it's going to be gamebreaking anymore. The meta is waaaaaaay different than it was when Gengar was around. The offensive counterplay to it is tremendous - basically any Choice Scarf user will OHKO it, faster threats like Zydog/Azelf will OHKO it, even things like Crobat can significantly threaten it. The defensive counterplay is admittedly a bit minimal, but with so much AV Tang going around, and more specially defensive Ground spreads on Hippo/Swampert etc., I don't think it's impossible to manage defensively. Could even encourage more Obstagoon usage which could be a good thing.

But Gengar isn't alone.

:ss/Latias:

Latias I think was the closest UU Suspect vote this generation (it was like 1 to 3 votes in favor of banning). If you release both Latias and Gengar simultaneously, the dynamic they create with each other would be very interesting to see. It's possible Latias doesn't fit in the current meta, but if we are talking about testing, it's certainly worth a shot. With Prim as good as it is, it can't be THAT bad right? And both Latias and Gengar will deflect problematic attention away from Celesteela, since all of these mons can threaten each other in different ways.

We are running out of time to shape the meta and I think if we can make it more interesting it's worth giving some of these mons another chance through testing, rather than banning things like Celesteela. At best we have an even better, more interesting, more diverse meta to play with. At worse we just don't unban after the test if they become too much.
 

Indigo Plateau

is a Community Leaderis a Top Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Past SCL Champion
UU Leader
I’m glad this thread has been active following (and throughout) the suspect test - thank you to everyone who’s posted. I did want to make something clear on retesting things from UUBL though: we don’t test things solely for the purpose of giving them a chance and seeing if they’re balanced. Testing things randomly doesn’t line up with tiering framework and is, most of the time, just a waste of time.

We have 3 months and 2 weeks left until the release or Scarlet and Violet. We’ve never been shy to suspect test potentially broken or concerning Pokemon. Realistically speaking though, testing things “just to test them” won’t happen with how close we are to Gen 9. The council has generally agreed that there’s nothing we’d like to retest from UUBL at this point (not to mean it’s completely off the table if things drastically change). Our recent survey showed all-time highs in responses for competitiveness and enjoyment. The highest response for testing a current UU mon was Scizor, which we did. I find little to nothing wrong or problematic with the metagame right now concluding the Scizor test and based on our survey results.

I know not everyone shares my opinion. If you don’t enjoy the current metagame or think there’s something problematic with it, by all means, I encourage you to post. However, I also highly encourage you to stray away from theorymonning or just saying “well, Terrakion was banned in a different meta and it could be balanced now.” Want something retested? Tell us why and how the Pokemon is balanced now. Tell us what a Pokemon will add to the meta to make it undoubtedly better while remembering we don’t test just for fun. Think a Pokemon is broken or unhealthy? Show us concrete examples of a certain Pokemon being unhealthy or broken in battle. Don’t just tell us that Celesteela has the ability to sweep a plethora of teams - if it did, it would be doing so.

Hope that helps to clear things up and also give my (and some of the council’s) view on things. I figured I’d post before I see a post on every single UUBL mon potentially getting retested lol
 

Luirromen

:]
is a Tiering Contributor
OUPL Champion
Hello, I would like to share my support here to a Celesteela suspect test in the future.

Celesteela

:ss/celesteela:
Celesteela has been an excelent pokemon during SS UU since it first dropped, it was even considered the best pokemon of the metagame at some point. Celesteela was seen for a large time mainly as a Steel type with actual special bulk, despite not having direct way of recovering, it was capable to keep itself healthy between Leftovers + LSeed + Protect. Across time we have seen diferente Celesteela variations, like the new defensive standar one that consist of using Toxic > Protect to force a lot of progress vs usually common defensive celesteela pivots like AV Tang and Washtom, there was also an AV variation back then, even Choice locked variants, and ofc the variation that has called the most atention to the playerbase in general recently, the Autotomize Meteor Beam variant.

How does it work?
This is probably one of the easiest pokemon to use on hyper offense teams, can sometimes be seen on some balanced builds, tho the main way to use it is alongside other set up sweepers. It just needs 1 turn to set up an Autotomize and start clicking buttons vs everything it has in the front. Once you get your +2 Speed, you just need to use your Meteor Beam to get a +1 SpA boost, making even harder to switch out around it, Meteor Beam has the particullarity that, unlike other set up moves, also deals damage to the opponent, meaning that you dont become pasive while setting up unlike other boosting moves like Nasty Plot or Sword Dance. Once you get a KO, it will become pretty easy for the Celesteela user to snowball through the opposite team.

What makes it that easy to use?
How the metagame has evolved into a more slow and bulky metagame, mostly centralized around Hippowdown, bulky Grass types and Steel types works in favor for Celesteela, as Celesteela has an amazing match up vs those 3 aspects of the metagame. Hippowdown is unable to even touch Celesteela in the first place, even if you run offensive moves aside from Earthquake like Fire Fang or Body Press, Celesteela is naturally bulky to take on those hits, despite rarely, some Hippos run Whirliwind, which is probably the only way it has to not be used as a fodder, but as I said, this option is pretty rare to be seen and is most of the time overlooked due to how good is Hippo's ability to spread passive damage with Toxic + Stealth Rocks + Sand. Grass types basically are also a free invite to Celesteela (unless you are a CB Zarude locked into Darkest Lariat or a boosted Bulu), Amoonguss at best it can try to put it to sleep if the Celesteela user tries to use it as fodder, but this is risky in most scenarios and also is not guaranteed to keep Celesteela asleep enought turns so you can send on a revenge killer, in this scenario the Celesteela user either Air Slashs to get a KO on Amoonguss (if the Amoonguss user is already damaged) and keep a trong and even more boosted Meteor Beam for later, or it can just Autotomize and take the spore, as if the Amoonguss user succesfully puts Celesteela to sleep, has to inmediately switch out into a revenge killer, since Amoonguss is unable to actually damage Celesteela, but even then, Celesteela will have during this process 2 chances to wake up and slam the opponent. Tangrowth is probably one of the most common Specially defensive pivotson the meta, and it cant deal with Celesteela, it can take 1 hit (AV set) but thats it, then what? the best way it has to damage Celesteela is either with Knock Off or Focus Blast, which none of them will do that much anyways, an intelligent Celesteela user will likely to just Meteor Beam on the Tangrowth slot or Autotomize, and if it loses the Power Herb can still click Meteor Beam anyways, as Tangrowth is forced to switch out. What about Steel types? Doesnt Steel types resist Flying? Well yes, and no, yeah ofc Steel resist Flying, but Celesteela has acces to reliable Fire coverage on either Flamethrower or Fire Blast, and even then, the most common Steel types seen on more balanced teams, are unable to actually defensively check Celesteela, Scizor is mosf of the time slower and gets OHKO by Flamethrower, it doesnt even resist Meteor Beam, Cobalion has a very poor Special Defense, and wont take so well any Fire coverage as well, Skarmory as well has a very poor Special Defense and gets easily KO by fire coverage. What is my point about all of this? Since Celesteela has good match ups vs this 3 relevant aspects, Celesteela has a lot of scenarios where it can set up with little to no risks.

What about its checks, are they good?
Celesteela has both defensive and offensive checks, they do exists and they are good, no doubts about it, there isn't any pokemon whose whole existance on the metagame relies on being a good Celesteela check as Palossand was once during Terrakion metagame. Probably the most common defensive check you can see right now on most teams is Rotom-Wash, an amazing pivoting mon by itslef that also match ups well vs the metagame, and one of the most splashable Flying resists on the actual metagame, despite being a good Celesteela check, it still struggles vs it. A boosted Meteor Beam will deal a massive damage to Rotom-W, forcing it to stay healthy in order to take the Meteor Beam and then use Pain Split to mitigate the damage taken, followed by that, Volt Switch into something that can revenge kill Celesteela, something that can only be accomplished by base 86 or faster Choice Scarfers or strong priority users like Mamoswine' Ice Shard, Lycanroc's Accelerock or Conkeldurr's Mach Punch (since the other 2 relevant priority users of the metagame, Scizor's Bullet Punch and Zydog's ESpeed are unable to KO Celesteela unless is really low on health). Nihilego has been hit really hard by how the metagame has evolved, but keeps being a decently good pokemon to use, specially alongside Hippowdown, Nihilego's natural good Special bulk and Rock typing allows it to take on Air Slash and Fire coverages from Celesteela, and takes relative well Meteor Beam, unless you are super low on health Nihilego should get the job done for you, unfortunate it doesnt 2HKO Celesteela with Power Gem (with rocks up has a 5.1% chance to do so), meaning that the Celesteela user can perfectly charge an extra Meteor Beam and ensure the KO on Nihilego or try to fish Air Slash flinchs, and after it deals with Nihilego you better have an 86 Base Speed or faster Scarfer in the back or some sorf of priority, because purely rely on Nihilego is not a good solution. Chansey is the perfect counter to most special attackers and here is no exception, you will have to be extremely unlucky vs Celesteela if you are using Chansey, I personally preffer to run Twave Chansey over Toxic on non Stall builds, it helps vs Cobalion and Scizor, and as a side effect it eases the 1v1 vs Celesteela a lot. There are other defensive answers like Heattom, AV Glowbro or your own Defensive Celesteela, but I think those 3 are the most worth noting.
As I had been mentioning if your goal is to outspeed Celesteela you need a base 86 speed of faster Scarfer. The most common and viable scarfers of the tier (Darmanitan is just a ladder gimmick, not a good Scarfer outside of Sun Teams) are Diggersby, Zarude and Hydreigon, from those 3, Diggersby is slower than +2 Celesteela, Zarude is a decent Scarfer but match ups awful vs more bulky teams, since it will be taking Rocky Helmet Damage from mons like Cobalion, Skarmory and Amoonguss making it the less used option from the 3, letting us with only Hydreigon as a Scarfer. Choice Scarf Hydreigon is good by itself, and has a good move on Fire Blast to take on Celesteela, and it doesnt compromise itself by using it as it helps vs the general metagame as a whole, however it is unable to OHKO Celesteela even after rocks damage, and Celesteela; even if cant OHKO back either, can fire back with Meteor Beam, or if it already used it just go for Air Slash, none of this KO Hydre from full but let a significant damage so a teammate can abuse that, the best case scenario for the Celesteela user here, is already have KOed something + have the +2 in speed (So you will be at +1 SpA and +2 Speed), here the Celesteela user has 2 options (3 if you keep having your Power Herb), just go for the chip damage with Air Slash, click Meteor Beam if you keep having your Power Herb giving you a 75% chance to OHKO after rocks, or use another Autotomize to get faster than Hydreigon and fish for Air Slash flinches, this one is only optimal if you dont see anything in the back that could have a priority move. Even if you dont KO any of this cheks, you let the door open for a teammate to clean the game, and that brings me to my next point.

Is Celesteela good by itslef or has a teammate to pair that makes it good?
Celesteela is good by itslef, but you can run multiple set up sweepers that share checks with Celesteela. I had talked with some friends and we agree that Celesteela + DD Mence, can easily overwhelm Flying resists, I came with a team that abuses this to the most, by using Celesteela + DD Mence + SD Talonflame, Talonflame is a niche pokemon but is the fastets Flying type that can set up and helps to overwhelm Flying resists for Celesteela and Salamence, I played with it on the ladder and made it all the way to 1500 by just losing 3 games with it (vs another Hyper Offense, vs a Sun Team and vs an Unaware Quag Stall), unfortunate I didnt save replays since I wasnt planning to do this post in the first place, but most of the time I ended up with a Celesteela sweep or Celesteela leaving the door open for Mence and Talonflame to fisnish the job, I will let a team description and importable at the end here. The most deadly pair for Celesteela in my opinion however, is BD Azumarill, why? As I mentioned, the best scarfer vs Celesteela is Hydreigon, Diggersby is slower and Zarude is less common (this is reflected on the usage stats as well), and Hydreigon is the ultimate Azumarill set up fodder, as it resists any of its moves, and also, Hydreigon teams are likely to use either Amoonguss or Tangrowth as their Grass types, pokemon that wont be taking a +6 Knock Off and Play Rought respectively very well, after that is pretty easy for Azumarill to just clean the game, also Celesteela can let the door open for Azumarill vs Washtom, as it will likely let it in range of a +6 Aqua Jet. Before I read someone mentioned Cloyster being a good Celesteela pair, even tho I havent tried it myself I can see why it is, as they share Washtom as a check, leaving each other the door open to break throug it.

:talonflame: :salamence: :celesteela: :azumarill: :excadrill: :espeon:
(Click on sprites for importable)
As I said, this team works on the idea of overwhelm Flying resists, so one of the Flying type breakers has an easier time to win. Excadrill works as the standar HO SR setter and provides Rapid Spin support for Talonflame and Salamence, since none of them are carrying Boots. Lead Excadrill has a bad match up vs Rocky Helmet hippo, Helmet Hippo is very likely to get rocks up, so I paired it with Espeon to bounce rocks, but this Espeon carries an Air Ballon to make it a complete Hippowdown counter, this slot was originally an Azelf, but I was struggling with Helmet Hippo, so I added this Espeon set, Xatu is an alternative as well, but I preffered Espeon due to being faster than most of the unboosted metagame. The remaining 4 pokemon are set up sweepers, but as you might note most of them share the same chekcs, Talonflame is the niche pick here, and is carrying Giga Impact just for the whole purpose to nail Rotom, delete Rotom gives a huge advantage for both Celesteela and Azumarill to clean the game, at 94% (which is basically Stealth Rocks + 1 Leftovers recovery) you always OHKO Rotom with a +2 Giga Impact. I preffer Jolly Azumarill over Adamant, since this unables standar Mandibuzz to try and revenge kill with Foul Play, and also unables Skarm to come in and click Iron Defense before you attack it with Knock Off, also helps with more niche scenarios like Seismitoad or Adamant Crawdaunt.
The hardest match ups I have faced with this team are Unaware Stalls and teams with Lycanroc-D, as it can easily revenge kill most of the offensive threats, Raikou is managable but also gave me a little bit of troubles while playing.

Autotomize Celesteela is threatning, but what about the other sets? Are they broken as well? Do they apport something positive?
Other Celesteela sets are as well good, but not broken, they all are managable, the Toxic Leech Seed set despite annoying unless you have a Tentacruel, is not a conditioning set on the teambuilder, AV and Choice sets were better on other stages of the metagame and I dont think they do even exist right now, so they dont suposse any problem in the teambuilder, Defensive sets are probably the next most common sets, and I think they contribute well to the tier, as they provide an amazing special sponge to the team, and an actual steel type with special bulk. But even if those sets are managable and good contributions to the meta, and only the Autotomize set is broken, should we keep Celesteela? Of course not, we could use that same argument with Komoo-o, SD and Defensive Stealth Rocks sets were good and managable, but the Clangorous Soul set was stupidely broken and easy to use that mostly overshadowed any other set, and the result ended on Komoo-o getting banned, this applies to Celesteela as well, even if defensive sets are good contributions, the Autotomize set is what pushes Celesteela over the edge.


Celesteela's problem got reflected on the last usage stats, where it got the #2 most used pokemon, showing how easy is to use it, and how easy can snowball vs most teams. I know the ladder not always reflects the real state of the metagame (look how Darmanitan has a higher usage than Amoonguss '-' ), but Celesteela has been called a problem by people recently and I really think action should be taken on it. About UUBL pokemon, even tho I would love to re test Latias I think that, we as a community, should prioritize balance the actual state of the metagame rather than add a new pokemon to the metagame just because "Doesnt seems broken right now", a re test on a pokemon doesnt always has to be like that and also has to be accounted if it would provide something possitive to the tier with examples, so for now I think we are fine with no re-testing and maybe if the future depending on how the metagame evolves that can be a possibility.
Thanks for reading :]
 

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.
My survey answers...

1662995282548.png


I always find it difficult to answer the "how much do I like UU" question because I really do like it or else I wouldn't play it...I think? Anyways, I try to be consistent with my answers - I put a 9 last time and since I don't think my feelings changed significantly, I am keeping it at a 9.

The competitive answer, well, I normally try to answer this question by saying how feasible is it to build teams that deal with the vast majority of the metagame threats - can you build good teams? In my view, you can - with a couple exceptions - you will usually always struggle against the titanic breakers like Flame Orb Conkeldurr, Life Orb Mamoswine, and Specs Primarina are the really meta ones that you basically will never have a safe switch in to unless you have a super specific counter (Mence, Rotom-W, and Chansey respectively). And these are the ones with just enough bulk/speed to get multiple openings usually vs most teams. We've accepted long ago, as in, before this generation, that offensive counter play has to be considered when building teams and evaluating banworthy threats. I feel that the three Pokemon I mention are the main ones that lack switch ins but still have enough flaws that offensive counter play is sufficient - for example, Mamoswine is pretty well known by most players to be heavily prediction reliant - every time it comes in vs a Mence for example, and if there is a Scizor in the back - it struggles to decide whether to click Ice move or not.

With that in mind, I am saying I do believe it is entirely possible to build good teams that perhaps have a few holes to these threats, but those holes can be covered by offensive counter play generally.

1662996148218.png



This one and Hippowdon honestly surprised me. I don't know why people want to suspect test it to be frank - I assume it's the combination of sets, they all seem extremely strong right now although I think Rest Talk is pretty much uncontroversially the least threatening. Still, Tentacruel still abuses her since many Primarina are dropping Psychic to get a better Tangrowth MU with Ice Beam, and Bulu still beats Primarina more comfortably than the other grasses because it outspeeds Primarina. It does abuse Hydreigon and Salamence very well. That might be a big difference between it and Conk/Mamo - Conk/Mamo don't get free entry versus basically any offensive threat, Primarina can occasionally come in for free against these mons (and almost always on Hydreigon). So in this sense, I agree that Primarina is probably more suspect worthy than our other titanic breakers.

Nevertheless, it only has the immediate titanic power levels with Choice Specs, which is frankly closer to frail than bulky on the physical side and often times prediction reliant. The other sets rely on Scald burns to get past Tangrowth. Combined with the fact I think Tenta/Bulu are underrated counterplay, I don't think Primarina should be suspected.

1662996669097.png


I just think it's far too weak to Toxic and is overly reliant on Toxic itself. Essentially every single offensive threat can beat it if Hippo switches in or at least has high odds - Thundy runs Gknot, Hydreigon can run Specs/NP, Cobalion can Shuca/Magnet Rise/Balloon, Zygarde can 2HKO most sets with Outrage or Toxic cripple. The list goes on. I would love to hear why people think this is suspect worthy, I'm sure I'd learn something.


1662996865253.png


There are quite a few posts in the forums about Celesteela including one here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-ss-uu-stage-12-1-fallen-kingdom.3702333/page-2#post-9270812

Basically I think the Automize Air Slash thing is too cheesey and OP.

1662996961820.png


I talk about Registeel at the end of this post https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-ss-uu-stage-12-1-fallen-kingdom.3702333/page-2#post-9269990
 
Hello to the few people left playing this game and even fewer who bother to read forums posts!

After not having played mons for well over a year I just recently started playing again, basically I just threw together some HO and after some tweeks I ended up with some basic Gyara/Steela/Zor variation that is very similar to the sample team Monky25 provided. My plan was to get used to the meta again and get to know common sets/structures a bit before trying to build actual teams, but to my surprise Steela just won game after game for me, which is why I decided to make this post:

This mon has great natural bulk and, unlike for example Gyara, can easily find opportunities to set up on for example Hippo and other meta staples. On top of that it can deal with the tiers priority fairly well, even resisting Bulletpunch. Steela by no means has 0 counterplay, but unless you have a Chansey most of it revolves around sacking a mon to chip it and go to scarfer faster than it after auto to revenge. Nihileg and Wash come to mind, but the latter has to be mindful around Meteorbeam and Wash is usually chipped fairly easily. On top of all that there's Airslash flinches to make even these checks somewhat shaky which can ultimately result in Steela Beastboost sweeping your ass.

Overall I'm not trying to argue this mon is complete nuts, but in my opinion it just cheeses a bit too well and gives the user too many odds in their favor. Judging from the community survey results Steela seems to be the mon most people consider for a potential suspect, so I'd be glad if council or whoever the fuck is responsible for these things would consider it further!

top 10 uu.png

also pif cutest ladder player bop
 
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Hello to the few people left playing this game and even fewer who bother to read forums posts!

After not having played mons for well over a year I just recently started playing again, basically I just threw together some HO and after some tweeks I ended up with some basic Gyara/Steela/Zor variation that is very similar to the sample team Monky25 provided. My plan was to get used to the meta again and get to know common sets/structures a bit before trying to build actual teams, but to my surprise Steela just won game after game for me, which is why I decided to make this post:

This mon has great natural bulk, and unlike for example Gyara, can easily find opportunities to set up on for example Hippo and other meta staples. On top of that it can deal with the tiers priority fairly well, even resisting Bulletpunch. Steela by no means has 0 counterplay, but unless you have a Chansey most of it revolves around sacking a mon to chip it and go to scarfer faster than it after auto to revenge. Nihileg and Wash come to mind, but the latter has to be mindful around Meteorbeam and Wash is usually chipped fairly easily. On top of all that there's Airslash flinches to make even these checks somewhat shaky which can ultimately result in Steela Beastboost sweeping your ass.

Overall I'm not trying to argue this mon is complete nuts, but in my opinion it just cheeses a bit too well and gives the user too many odds in their favor. Judging from the community survey results Steela seems to be the mon most people consider for a potential suspect, so I'd be glad if council or whoever the fuck is responsible for these things would consider it further!


also pif cutest ladder player bop
I agree that Steela should have been suspect tested but we are a bit too late in the game now. Unless we did a suspect basically immediately, there would only be a few weeks post-suspect to assess the meta before SV comes out and its possible it will be in a worst state (maybe maybe not it’s really impossible to tell for sure.)

I don’t think any tiering action on anything should be done at this point based on the level of enjoyment most people get out of the tier from the survey results, since it’s hard to imagine a new meta post-action (of any kind) that would yield higher enjoyment yields.

That being said, I’d still support a Steela suspect if it were to happen immediately, but any sort of further delay just makes it harder to make happen. The tier has basically been closed and we should cherish its ending with celebration of our good times as we wait for our newborn child SV to come to us in November.
 
Since I'm the one who typically does usage stats for tournaments, I was asked a few times to compile UU Swiss stats to see what was used. I gradually began keep a list of all the replays throughout the rounds, and even though round 7 has a few matches that weren't completed, I doubt they will get done, so I managed to get a final total of all the usage stats, pictured below. This thread has been inactive and there's not really another place to post them but maybe they can spark discussion, as they give good information of what the tier is really like for tournament players that isn't too advanced like UUPL or SCL. I probably missed a few but got most replays and totaled to about 602 replays.
Swiss Stats

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Cobalion           |  438 |  36.38% |  50.46% |
| 2    | Salamence          |  394 |  32.72% |  51.78% |
| 3    | Scizor             |  304 |  25.25% |  51.32% |
| 4    | Hippowdon          |  269 |  22.34% |  47.96% |
| 5    | Tangrowth          |  265 |  22.01% |  48.30% |
| 6    | Slowking           |  243 |  20.18% |  51.44% |
| 7    | Amoonguss          |  230 |  19.10% |  53.91% |
| 8    | Excadrill          |  227 |  18.85% |  53.74% |
| 9    | Hydreigon          |  214 |  17.77% |  47.66% |
| 10   | Primarina          |  212 |  17.61% |  46.23% |
| 11   | Rotom-Wash         |  193 |  16.03% |  49.74% |
| 11   | Nihilego           |  193 |  16.03% |  47.67% |
| 13   | Celesteela         |  191 |  15.86% |  51.83% |
| 14   | Skarmory           |  176 |  14.62% |  51.14% |
| 15   | Chansey            |  165 |  13.70% |  52.12% |
| 16   | Diggersby          |  164 |  13.62% |  53.66% |
| 17   | Zarude             |  163 |  13.54% |  53.37% |
| 18   | Thundurus-Therian  |  158 |  13.12% |  42.41% |
| 19   | Azelf              |  139 |  11.54% |  47.48% |
| 20   | Zygarde-10%        |  133 |  11.05% |  48.87% |
| 21   | Gyarados           |  128 |  10.63% |  54.69% |
| 22   | Keldeo             |  122 |  10.13% |  40.98% |
| 23   | Conkeldurr         |  117 |   9.72% |  47.86% |
| 24   | Necrozma           |  113 |   9.39% |  48.67% |
| 25   | Moltres            |  102 |   8.47% |  47.06% |
| 26   | Jirachi            |  100 |   8.31% |  50.00% |
| 26   | Slowbro-Galar      |  100 |   8.31% |  50.00% |
| 28   | Crobat             |   96 |   7.97% |  50.00% |
| 29   | Noivern            |   83 |   6.89% |  55.42% |
| 30   | Nidoqueen          |   77 |   6.40% |  45.45% |
| 31   | Togekiss           |   76 |   6.31% |  52.63% |
| 32   | Krookodile         |   73 |   6.06% |  52.05% |
| 32   | Raikou             |   73 |   6.06% |  52.05% |
| 34   | Mamoswine          |   70 |   5.81% |  48.57% |
| 35   | Lycanroc-Dusk      |   67 |   5.56% |  50.75% |
| 36   | Azumarill          |   61 |   5.07% |  65.57% |
| 37   | Swampert           |   59 |   4.90% |  57.63% |
| 38   | Mandibuzz          |   58 |   4.82% |  43.10% |
| 39   | Crawdaunt          |   52 |   4.32% |  46.15% |
| 40   | Zarude-Dada        |   51 |   4.24% |  33.33% |
| 41   | Tapu Bulu          |   46 |   3.82% |  30.43% |
| 42   | Hatterene          |   43 |   3.57% |  55.81% |
| 42   | Dhelmise           |   43 |   3.57% |  51.16% |
| 44   | Vanilluxe          |   41 |   3.41% |  53.66% |
| 45   | Reuniclus          |   40 |   3.32% |  50.00% |
| 46   | Scolipede          |   39 |   3.24% |  56.41% |
| 46   | Rotom-Heat         |   39 |   3.24% |  41.03% |
| 48   | Chandelure         |   37 |   3.07% |  51.35% |
| 49   | Umbreon            |   33 |   2.74% |  57.58% |
| 49   | Registeel          |   33 |   2.74% |  45.45% |
| 51   | Politoed           |   31 |   2.57% |  45.16% |
| 52   | Starmie            |   30 |   2.49% |  56.67% |
| 52   | Tentacruel         |   30 |   2.49% |  50.00% |
| 54   | Kingdra            |   27 |   2.24% |  40.74% |
| 55   | Polteageist        |   24 |   1.99% |  62.50% |
| 56   | Tornadus           |   22 |   1.83% |  27.27% |
| 57   | Magneton           |   21 |   1.74% |  85.71% |
| 57   | Froslass           |   21 |   1.74% |  52.38% |
| 59   | Entei              |   17 |   1.41% |  64.71% |
| 59   | Suicune            |   17 |   1.41% |  47.06% |
| 61   | Quagsire           |   16 |   1.33% |  68.75% |
| 61   | Seismitoad         |   16 |   1.33% |  50.00% |
| 61   | Venusaur           |   16 |   1.33% |  50.00% |
| 64   | Darmanitan         |   15 |   1.25% |  53.33% |
| 64   | Nidoking           |   15 |   1.25% |  33.33% |
| 66   | Toxtricity         |   14 |   1.16% |  57.14% |
| 66   | Torkoal            |   14 |   1.16% |  57.14% |
| 68   | Salazzle           |   12 |   1.00% |  50.00% |
| 69   | Regidrago          |   11 |   0.91% |  72.73% |
| 69   | Regieleki          |   11 |   0.91% |  36.36% |
| 69   | Golurk             |   11 |   0.91% |  36.36% |
| 72   | Incineroar         |   10 |   0.83% |  80.00% |
| 72   | Golisopod          |   10 |   0.83% |  60.00% |
| 72   | Sylveon            |   10 |   0.83% |  50.00% |
| 72   | Rhyperior          |   10 |   0.83% |  40.00% |
| 72   | Roserade           |   10 |   0.83% |  20.00% |
| 77   | Lanturn            |    9 |   0.75% |  66.67% |
| 78   | Indeedee           |    8 |   0.66% |  62.50% |
| 78   | Kabutops           |    8 |   0.66% |  62.50% |
| 78   | Indeedee-F         |    8 |   0.66% |  50.00% |
| 78   | Haxorus            |    8 |   0.66% |  50.00% |
| 78   | Cloyster           |    8 |   0.66% |  37.50% |
| 78   | Obstagoon          |    8 |   0.66% |  25.00% |
| 84   | Slurpuff           |    7 |   0.58% |  57.14% |
| 84   | Marowak-Alola      |    7 |   0.58% |  57.14% |
| 86   | Leafeon            |    6 |   0.50% |  66.67% |
| 86   | Omastar            |    6 |   0.50% |  66.67% |
| 86   | Cresselia          |    6 |   0.50% |  16.67% |
| 89   | Decidueye          |    5 |   0.42% |  60.00% |
| 89   | Gastrodon          |    5 |   0.42% |  60.00% |
| 89   | Ninetales          |    5 |   0.42% |  60.00% |
| 89   | Articuno           |    5 |   0.42% |  60.00% |
| 89   | Porygon-Z          |    5 |   0.42% |  40.00% |
| 89   | Porygon2           |    5 |   0.42% |  40.00% |
| 89   | Heracross          |    5 |   0.42% |  20.00% |
| 89   | Milotic            |    5 |   0.42% |   0.00% |
| 89   | Xurkitree          |    5 |   0.42% |   0.00% |
| 98   | Aerodactyl         |    4 |   0.33% |  50.00% |
| 98   | Mantine            |    4 |   0.33% |  50.00% |
| 98   | Sirfetch’d         |    4 |   0.33% |  25.00% |
| 98   | Jellicent          |    4 |   0.33% |   0.00% |
| 102  | Articuno-Galar     |    3 |   0.25% | 100.00% |
| 102  | Diancie            |    3 |   0.25% |  66.67% |
| 102  | Mesprit            |    3 |   0.25% |  66.67% |
| 102  | Exeggutor-Alola    |    3 |   0.25% |  66.67% |
| 102  | Sigilyph           |    3 |   0.25% |  66.67% |
| 102  | Druddigon          |    3 |   0.25% |  33.33% |
| 102  | Ribombee           |    3 |   0.25% |  33.33% |
| 102  | Gardevoir          |    3 |   0.25% |  33.33% |
| 102  | Celebi             |    3 |   0.25% |  33.33% |
| 102  | Blastoise          |    3 |   0.25% |  33.33% |
| 102  | Bewear             |    3 |   0.25% |   0.00% |
| 102  | Espeon             |    3 |   0.25% |   0.00% |
| 114  | Regice             |    2 |   0.17% | 100.00% |
| 114  | Arctovish          |    2 |   0.17% | 100.00% |
| 114  | Araquanid          |    2 |   0.17% | 100.00% |
| 114  | Charizard          |    2 |   0.17% |  50.00% |
| 114  | Shuckle            |    2 |   0.17% |  50.00% |
| 114  | Eldegoss           |    2 |   0.17% |  50.00% |
| 114  | Braviary           |    2 |   0.17% |  50.00% |
| 114  | Rotom-Mow          |    2 |   0.17% |   0.00% |
| 114  | Xatu               |    2 |   0.17% |   0.00% |
| 114  | Passimian          |    2 |   0.17% |   0.00% |
| 114  | Jolteon            |    2 |   0.17% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Regigigas          |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Regirock           |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Barbaracle         |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Vikavolt           |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Polteageist-Antique |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Glastrier          |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Vileplume          |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Archeops           |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Cofagrigus         |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Corphish           |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Tyrantrum          |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Doublade           |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Runerigus          |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Flygon             |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Lurantis           |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Inteleon           |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Dugtrio-Alola      |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Pangoro            |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Sharpedo           |    1 |   0.08% | 100.00% |
| 125  | Exploud            |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Morpeko            |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Klefki             |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Dragalge           |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Heliolisk          |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Centiskorch        |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Sandslash-Alola    |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Stakataka          |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Whimsicott         |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Zoroark            |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Vaporeon           |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Flareon            |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
| 125  | Uxie               |    1 |   0.08% |   0.00% |
I won't talk too much about the usage stats themselves but if usage stats were based on this usage, the following Pokemon would be officially UU:
. Meanwhile, the following Pokemon are UU by usage but didn't hit a 4.52% or higher based off swiss and would not be considered UU:
. This isn't something to take too seriously but it's a neat thought exercise regarding tiering placement and how they line up with tournament usage. There's always talks about ways to improve the usage-based tiering system and who knows, maybe next gen someone comes up with a new solution. Any other comments about swiss stats would be cool to see discussed.

Speaking of tiering, with there being less than a month until Gen 9 and tiering for UU being done, I've got a few questions to ask to anyone who wants to answer about their thoughts about gen 8 UU. This feels very nostalgic to the posts I used to make when I was getting into UU after monthly stats or tier shifts and it's neat to end the generation off in the same way.

1) What are your overall thoughts about gen 8 UU? Did you find the new changes unique and a cool shake up? Or do you extremely hate it and wish you could pick up old gens easier? To add on a bit for those who disliked it, why? Did a certain threat you hate not get banned, or is it the overall nature of the generation?

2) What was your favorite metagame from the entire generation spanning across the DLCs? Was it the DLC 0 Noivern wars? Was it the DLC 1 Noivern wars? Did you like RoseBuzz meta the best, or is the current meta now your favorite part of the generation?

3) What would you consider to be one of your most successful teams this gen? I recently RMTd my infamous Buzzwole webs team, so I'm curious to see what others consider to be their best and/or favorite team to use from any point in the generation.

Ik this not a popular opinion but I really like SS UU; I think there are plenty of playstyles to choose from and playstyles to make work, and you can easily reach down into lower tiers to pick fun, niche options to build around. This generation was a wild ride and I'm excited to play, tier, and compete more in the new generation.
 

Moutemoute

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1) What are your overall thoughts about gen 8 UU? Did you find the new changes unique and a cool shake up? Or do you extremely hate it and wish you could pick up old gens easier? To add on a bit for those who disliked it, why? Did a certain threat you hate not get banned, or is it the overall nature of the generation?

2) What was your favorite metagame from the entire generation spanning across the DLCs? Was it the DLC 0 Noivern wars? Was it the DLC 1 Noivern wars? Did you like RoseBuzz meta the best, or is the current meta now your favorite part of the generation?
I really enjoyed gen8uu and I'm glad Smogon decided to ban Dynamax early on. Also this may sounds weird but I both loved and hated the fact that we had multiple metagames due to Pokemon HOME and DLC 1/2. I also loved the fact that some Pokémon stayed basically the whole generation viable across all the multiple metagames we had (things like Noivern or Cobalion) and that some Pokemon came back under the spotlight such as Milotic and Golisopod which were great Pokemon early on the 8th generation in UU. I really enjoyed Incineroar metagame early generation and I also think the current metagame is really great. I don't want to look cocky but I think we did great as a council and as a community as a whole to manage the tier and I think the current state of the metagame is much more enjoyable and healthy compared to the end of gen6uu or gen7uu. Unless those metagames, I really don't think there is a threat right now which could become too dominant in the future when gen8uu will "only" be an old generation. It's been a great generation to play at Pokémon and I think my +5000 ladder games can confirm it. Can't wait to see the final arc of the generation with UU Championship.

3) What would you consider to be one of your most successful teams this gen? I recently RMTd my infamous Buzzwole webs team, so I'm curious to see what others consider to be their best and/or favorite team to use from any point in the generation.
1667344503890.png

Sorry to all the people who faced this/those HOs before Light Clay was banned but those Screens HO were fire and I really fucking loved them all. If you want to learn more about the teambuilding process, I made a RMT of it like 1.5 years ago.
 

Sulo

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National Dex Leader
1) What are your overall thoughts about gen 8 UU? Did you find the new changes unique and a cool shake up? Or do you extremely hate it and wish you could pick up old gens easier? To add on a bit for those who disliked it, why? Did a certain threat you hate not get banned, or is it the overall nature of the generation?
I think gen 8 UU was, overall, an extremely fun experience for someone like me. For one, it was the very first UU I had gotten involved in, having started in the Isle of Armor meta and went on from there. I stuck around for DLC 2 (Crown Tundra) and was honestly very pleased with how tiering was handled overall. I do not think that any of the tier leaders/council had poorly gone about tiering whatsoever, with even some standouts like Aegislash (suspect tested multiple times with very ambiguous results) and Scizor (a LOT of people were confused about this and people didn't really seem to lean ban) being handled accordingly as well. They really listened to the community on most, if not all, suspect tests and quickbans. Nothing else to say, really; I'm just glad I was here to experience such a volatile, yet fun and enjoyable generation.

2) What was your favorite metagame from the entire generation spanning across the DLCs? Was it the DLC 0 Noivern wars? Was it the DLC 1 Noivern wars? Did you like RoseBuzz meta the best, or is the current meta now your favorite part of the generation?
100% Latias meta. I think that Pokemon was incredibly fun and had a lot to offer with its very solid defensive utility and set versatility and such, and was just a very fun pick overall. I still do get why it was banned, and I am of course not clamoring for it to be unbanned in the slightest, since it was quite ridiculous at the time (and possibly still now), but I really enjoyed using it.

3) What would you consider to be one of your most successful teams this gen? I recently RMTd my infamous Buzzwole webs team, so I'm curious to see what others consider to be their best and/or favorite team to use from any point in the generation.
I think that 1, 2, and 3 are some of my favorite teams to use ATM. I am a massive fan of Spikes balance teams and I wanted to try and take my own spin on it and deviate from using stuff like Dhelmise as the spinner in team 1. I think Starmie is alright here, taking some massive pressure off Tangrowth in staving off Keldeo and the like, as well as being an effective switch-in to Hippowdon, not being bothered by Toxic and threatening Scald burns. Ice Beam was an interesting choice here since it lets me beat Salamence a lot more easily and bait Hydreigon, which is otherwise very annoying for this. Team 2 uses the broken Togekiss to break down teams and sit on Pokemon like Hippowdon and Skarmory, being given numerous setup opportunities and such. I think that Rotom-H, while more unreliable as a Scizor check, is a good fit here, appreciating how well Togekiss staves off Hydreigon and Chansey and giving other members of my team free switch-in opportunities. Excadrill fits well here as well, since Togekiss has trouble with Nihilego is able to check it accordingly. It also accomdates for my lack of initial Knock Off switch-ins, at least prior to Conkeldurr's Flame Orb activating. Slowking + Conkeldurr is a pretty standard breaking core, taking advantage of Future Sight and pressuring Steel-types that Togekiss can't break through. Team 3 is one that I had made recently as well, but I'm enjoying it a lot. The idea is to Toxic Dark-types like Hydreigon (especially effective, since most don't run Roost on Choice Scarf sets) and Mandibuzz (prone to Knock Off from Diggersby) and win with Demon Reuniclus. The rest of the team is catered towards achieving that goal and supporting Reuniclus, with Primarina + Cobalion providing extra security against the aforementioned Dark-types and giving Reuniclus free setup opportunities via Volt Switch with Reuniclus.

All of these teams were made in our current meta. Really didn't expect to write this much, but I guess I just had a late-night rush of energy.
 
1) What are your overall thoughts about gen 8 UU? Did you find the new changes unique and a cool shake up? Or do you extremely hate it and wish you could pick up old gens easier? To add on a bit for those who disliked it, why? Did a certain threat you hate not get banned, or is it the overall nature of the generation?
I honestly liked the DLC2 meta pre Aegislash Ban and after. Aegislash was broken as hell don't get me wrong, but UU was beginning to be quite competitive and stabilize around this time. It also helped that tiering freeze is a thing around 9 months before the generation ended which made UU develop a more stabilized metagame without worrying about OU shenanigans (Looking at Exca, Slowking, WashTom being stuck in UU thank god). Because of the mons we have, we have proper checks and counters to much of the metagame and we can play the metagame what it was 9 months ago with some minor adjustments here and there and can experiment wildly to adapt to the metagame at large withour worrying if our teams will be outdated 3 months down the line. Also Can Bonk thank you

2) What was your favorite metagame from the entire generation spanning across the DLCs? Was it the DLC 0 Noivern wars? Was it the DLC 1 Noivern wars? Did you like RoseBuzz meta the best, or is the current meta now your favorite part of the generation?
As mentioned earlier, I liked the pre Aegislash ban and after because the tier has stabilized and we have a lot of options compared to DLC 0 or DLC 1. In both DLC's, the lack of mons made the meta feel suffocating imo and I can't build a team that is suited to me personally.

3) What would you consider to be one of your most successful teams this gen? I recently RMTd my infamous Buzzwole webs team, so I'm curious to see what others consider to be their best and/or favorite team to use from any point in the generation
https://pokepast.es/011767001c46836b
This is the recent team built with some help and it's honestly quite fun. I love Ferroseed in this meta. It abuses passive mons a lot and a 4x weakness to fire is not a problem under rain and only takes around 20 to 30% from mons such as Mence and Moltres and turns a would be counter to neutered threats with a combination of Leech seed and Protect/Knock Off/Thunder Wave. Ferroseed also gives a much needed resistance for stuff like Specs primarina which breaks the team or non Nasty Plot thundurus variants. Of course the team isn't perfect. It sometimes folds to Sub Gyara teams but with correct prediction, Gyara is a non threat. I.E. Sub Gyara gets somewhat beaten by predicted Encore or Non Sub variants being Ferroseed food. Keldeo and Conkeldurr can beat the team as well. But if the opponents send in Conkeldurr as an example on the ferroseed and I click knock off, the Conkeldurr is a non threat to the team. Or if Keldeo switched in on a thunder-wave, it can't come in later in the game. But the MVP of the team is honestly Gyarados. Gyarados gets so much chances to come in, click sub and DD up to monstrous levels. The only consistent Gyarados counter is honestly Rotom Wash and with sub and DD up, it can kill wash toms partners easily since nothing is faster than Gyara after one DD bar Venusaur, which can be beaten with correct predictions, and Hydreigon, which is fodder for Gyara after a sub or DD up. Give it a try and see how it goes.
I chose Seismitoad Expert Belt over Life Orb as I dont like the chip LO gives to Seismitoad. Seismitoad wants as much as health as it can and set up rocks or help sweep later in the game and Hydro Pumps boosted in rain is usually more than enough to help Kingdra or someone else sweep later in the game. However, the team is also very reliant on HPumps hitting and not hitting just one will send you on the backfoot.
 

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