Metagame SV LC UU Metagame Resource and Discussion Thread

Hey guys, my team was unfortunately eliminated from LPL, so I feel like I can drop the various squads I used over the course of the season. I finished with a 5-3 record, which while not bad, certainly is less good than I would have preferred. Overall, I think the metagame itself is in a pretty decent spot. Outside of Deer, who's more annoying than it is oppressive, there is a good amount of variety both in terms of individual pokémon and playstyles (which in lc is a rarity). Having to deal with 2 notable shifts over the length of the season man for quite a bit of adaptation and meta development, which I think you'll be able to see in the builds I ended up with. Anyway, without further ado, here are the teams I built and used this LPL season.

*Click Sprites for Pastes*
Week 1 vs NotJackewu | W, replay
Camel Deer Balance
:Stunky::Deerling::Clauncher::Numel::Swablu::Nacli: ILLEGAL

So Week 1 LC UU was objectively the worst iteration of the meta we had for the whole tour and the major reason for that was the power of :Numel:Numel and it's Stockpile Body Press set. That set singlehandedly warped any game it was involved in into a exercise in prayer hoping you'll crit/not be crit depending on if you had the Numel on your side or not and my game vs Jack was no exception to this.

Anyway about the team itself, I started building it wanting to use a fun idea in Tera-Ground :Stunky:Stunky, because I'm making this post like 2 months after making the team, I can't quite remember what specifically Tera-Ground was for outside of maybe opposing Stunky, but the set itself is kind of support Sandile in a different font, being a tad faster and packing Sucker at the expense of Rocks and using up the Tera. :Deerling:Deer was added to do degenerate Deer things, not much to say beyond that tbh. :Clauncher:Clauncher, being one of my favorite bulky-pivots in the tier was added to get slow U-Turns to bring in Stunky, Deer and Numel safely while also providing a solid emergency Chewtle check and at least possibly force the Tera from Numel. :Numel:Numel was broken so I was abusing it. :Swablu:Swablu was added because it was and remains the tiers best source of hazard control with its strong bulk and ability to defog, though it had competition from Bramblin at the time. Last up was :Nacli:Nacli to provide my team with rocks while threatening opposing Swablu in a world before we discovered Larvitar. Nacli also provided me a second Houndour check who remains one of my most feared mons in the tier.

As the game played out, my Swablu sort of dominated the early game before being forced to Tera-Fairy by Jack's Riolu after missing a crucial Hurricane. Tera-ing Swab was not ideal for me as it meant I wouldn't be able to Tera my Deerling into a Ghost for Jack's Numel, or my Stunky into a Ground making its Tera Blast effectively useless this game. Eventually, Jack is able to get his Numel in and start attempting to set up. And after he both did not tera and stayed in on my Clauncher's potential Water Pulse where I U-Turned instead, I was forced into trying to win the Numel War. Ultimately, my Numel ended up critting first and I was able to win the game. Honestly, a pretty lame game, but a W is a W.


Week 2 vs zeroouttathere | W, replay (the replay server was being stupid)
Hound Tea Balance
:Swablu::Shellos::Snover::Makuhita::Houndour::Sinistea: LEGAL
Following Week 1, Week 2 LC UU looked quite different. We banned Numel so we don't have to deal with that anymore, but we also experienced a tier shift where we also lost Bramblin, Meowth, and Stunky (as well as Numel, but that didn't matter since we banned him anyway). In return we received Cyndaquil, Oshawott, Sandile, and Shellos. The former 2 ended up being fairly irrelevant, but the latter 2 proved to be quite solid additions to the meta. With my Week 2 opponent being my good buddy zero, I wanted to bring something solid that also packed some strong homerun power. This team was probably one of my most successful builds this tour, as it was stolen and used at least twice more during the season by others.

The team I ended up with started off with me trying to create a solid defensive core with :Swablu:Swablu being a natural starting point, since the community was still struggling to find ways to pressure and punish it effectively at this time. New drop :Shellos:Shellos was added to provide the team with rocks while sort of threatening opposing Swablu with Ice Beam. :Snover:Snover and the new Snow mechanic provided me with an excellent Chewtle check with some crazy good physical bulk and its STAB combo + Water Pulse make it fairly annoying to switch into to boot. :Makuhita:Makuhita is the lesser talked about fighter in LC UU, but it has some real nice aspects to it including Knock Off, which is quite rare at this point, crucially for this team, Thick Fat which allows it to be a reasonable Hound check, who I am always terrified of. Speaking of :Houndour:Houndour, that was the next member of the squad and it provides the team with some real firepower. Tera-Ghost is my favorite Tera-type on Hound as it allows it to avoid dangerous fighting type moves such as Croagunk's Vacuum Wave and get setup opportunities from them. Life Orb Hound already has 0 switchins, and that is even more the case at +2. The final member of the squad is :Sinistea:Sinistea, using a somewhat unique set with no Shadow Ball, opting for Endure instead. My thinking on this was that Shadow Ball doesn't really hit that much anyway, and between Psychic and Tera Blast-Fighting, I'd hit everything I need to, since Slowpoke wasn't in meta yet. By opting for 15 speed and Endure, I could also ensure that the teacup could function as an emergency "give me a chance vs Chewtle" button assuming they don't know my set, which zero didn't.

In the actual battle, my Swablu once again carried my early game taking out Chewtle by itself hitting a huge Hurricane before going down and allowing Sinistea to come in and set up. The fact that zero's Impidimp lacked both T-Wave and an attacking move, meant that the teacup was able to roll through the remaining members of zero's squad despite the Light Screen boosting their spdef. It was the perfect game for the set I brought and it paid off for me big time.

Week 3 vs HanPyol | L, replay
Grass Spam
:Sprigatito::Snover::Makuhita::Rolycoly::Tadbulb::Salandit: LEGAL
For Week 3, my opponent had not yet played LC UU this season and frankly the opponents were basically punting their UU slot and ended up just stealing/reusing teams for most of the regular season. Unfortunately for me, that wasn't quite apparent yet and I rolled into my exact 6 that I used the previous week against zero, which was frankly hilarious. Particularly because they had to make up their own sets and ended up catching me off guard during the game itself.

As for my team, I decided I wanted to use :Sprigatito:Sprigatito because I just like that mon and people were generally low on it so I wanted to prove them wrong with a new innovation: AcroCat. This one is also Tera-Ground to provide some additional counterplay to opposing Fires and Meowth-G. The unfortunate thing about running Tera Blast-Ground, however is that you have to drop one of Grass-STAB, Sucker, or U-Turn and on this team, I opted to drop the Grass-STAB because as you'll notice, I have plenty of other options for Grass on this team starting with the next member, :Snover:Snover. Snover was brought over from last week's team exactly filling largley the same roll. I was very into the physical bulk Snover posesses at this time and this team would need a primary Chewtle check. With 2 Grass-types already on the team I needed to address the threat of opposing fires and that brought :Makuhita:Makuhita and :Rolycoly:Rolycoly to the squad, between Maku's Thick Fat and Coly's Flash Fire, the team had 2 solid Fire checks. Maku is the exact same set as last week, and Rolycoly is not good, but is probably the best available spinner (dire, I know). On the brightside, it does at least set rocks and threaten Swablu, so that's good enough for me. :Tadbulb:Tadbulb was added to the squad as yet another curveball, and theoretically it also has a lot going for it being the only Electric type available that is worth using thanks to its coverage for Ground-types in Muddy Water. It also is able to switch into and pressure Swablu and its access to, gimmick move, Parabolic Charge means that it has some form of recovery available to it. Honestly, if it weren't for the middling speed, the Bulb would be really solid in the meta and I should try to use it more. Last up for the squad is :Salandit:Salandit, a mon that is very good as an offensive Fire in the meta. While not quite possessing the wallbreaking power of Houndour, Salandit does have a better defensive secondary typing and crucially a higher speed tier hitting 18 to Hound's 17. With Tera Blast-Grass it is able to easily blow through would be checks such as Nacli or Wooper and the Oran Berry allows some more wiggle room to switch in multiple times a game.

In game, I got wrecked by the combination of Houndour and Scarf Tera Ground Snover. My lack of a scarfer myself made it so Snover could just click quite easily vs me especially once I let my Makuhita go down. No real excuses this week, I rolled a poor matchup and didn't play weel enough to overcome that on top of it.

Week 4 vs Ralts_boy | W, replay
Parting Shot Set-up Spam
:Impidimp::Chewtle::Axew::Larvitar::Varoom::Fletchling: LEGAL
Week 4 came along and I wanted to massively switch up from the builds I had been running. My lack of speed control was looking like a problem and so I wanted to address that with this weeks team. Around this point of the season, HO centered around Impidimp, Chewtle, Axew, and Larvitar really started to be en vogue and I decided to hop on the trend.

The 1st 4 mons on this team are exactly that HO core I mentioned. Where mine differed from the typical variants however is my decision to not use screens on :Impidimp:Impidimp, instead opting for a more support pivot set. Frankly, I don't like screens Imp, it can't run all the moves you want on it and wierdly struggles to effectively grab momentum or put a sweeper in a genuine position to sweep unless its lategame and the pivot set can usually do just as good a job in that scenario. Also tbf, I just never have clicked with screens as my HO gimmick. Anyway :Chewtle:Chewtle serves as my first set-up sweeper and for many it is the single most threatening mon in the tier with Shell Smash; Tera-Dark, Strong Jaw-boosted Crunch; and the ability to run Stomping Tantrum to break through it most common check in Croagunk. Imo, Chewtle is solidly strong, but not overwhelming or consistently able to just win enough to be a real issue at the moment. :Axew:Axew, I'll be honest, is probably the best mon that I just am not good at using. Something about it makes it so I never try to build with it, so including it here was an attempt to step out of my comfort zone a bit and use a uniquely threatening sweeper that can break extremely well with its access to Mold Breaker and powerful Tera-Dragon-boosted Outrages. The last mon of the HO core was the newly discovered threat, :Larvitar:Larvitar. During week 3, Reggg innovated bringing Larvitar as a way to truly punish the extreme presence Swablu had on the early weeks of the season. With its Rock-typing Larvitar was able to come in and resist both attacks most commonly run by Swablu and set rocks in its face or more often get a free Dragon Dance off, and become an immediately threatening sweeper with its EdgeQuake coverage and Tera to help avoid being revenged via its common weaknesses to Water, Grass, or Fighting type attacks. My Larvitar are Jolly, honestly because I didn't think about how this tier lacks a 20 speed mon that you need to outspeed at +1. Wiglett technically exists but is hyper niche and would probably have Aqua Jet for you anyway, just Tera and ignore it imo. Supporting my HO core, I decided to call up 2 LC RU mons in :Varoom:Varoom and :Fletchling:Fletchling, who will go on to make several more appearances on my teams moving forward. Varoom compeleted my Parting Shot duo that existed to provide as many switchin and set-up opportunites to my sweepers as possible. It also provided me with a scarf mon for some much needed speed control, after last week, I didn't want to get cooked by a lack of speed again. Fletch was something I starting experimenting with as a second option for Defog in situations where I didn't want the passivity brought by Swablu. With Gale Wings and Heavy Duty Boots, even in the worst case scenarios Fletchling can provide my team with some last-minute, possibly game changing support via a priority Defog to remove Screens or hazards, Hurricane to get off a powerful hit, or even a Tailwind to allow whatever is able to come in after Fletch goes down to outspeed whatever is on the enemy side and revenge it. Special Fletch is honestly better than physical Fletch right now as with physical, you either run a weak-ass Acrobatics, don't guarantee a priority hit if you run a strong Acro, or only get 1 instance of priority if you use Brave Bird. While you might miss Hurricane, when you do hit, you can at least keep hitting at priority. Also as a PSA: never run a speed boosting nature on Fletch, it so desperately needs the power from Adamant/Modest.

Game itself was a pretty whack one unfortunately, I rolled into an HO mirror, except rather than Varoom and Fletch as the final 2, my opponent went for Rolycoly and Belly Drum Cetoddle. My Scarf Varoom caught the opponent off guard and was able to pick up 2 kills in the 1st 4 turns. After that, I started playing pretty bad and let my opponent find a set-up opportunity with their Cetoddle. I was luckily able to withstand that and find an opportunity to set-up my Chewtle on my opponents Impidimp, but then I got super bailed as I clicked Smash again thinking Imp wouldn't have an attacking move but it did and missed its Play Rough. From there I won after my opponents Axew was unable to ohko my Larvitar. Undeserved win on my end, but that's the game we play.

Week 5 vs Albi | L, replay
Frog Spikes
:Froakie::Larvitar::Sinistea::Croagunk::Rowlet::Houndour: LEGAL
Week 5 put me up against one of my favorite people to play against in Albi. Our games are always fun and I look forward to this matchup as much as any every season.

Starting off this team I decided that I wanted to try to run Spikes. Swablu was still a dominant force in the meta as a reliable Defogger, but the rise of Larvitar made it so that even if my Spikes got removed, I likely end up in a threatening position. In terms of Spike setters though, we don't really have a ton of stellar options, :Froakie:Froakie is probably the best one though as it can threaten Swablu with a pretty strong Ice Beam if it ever tries to Defog in your face, or you can just U-Turn out to :Larvitar:Larvitar, who was the next member on the squad. Standard stuff with Larvitar really, nothing much worth commenting on further. :Sinistea:Sinistea was the next mon to find its way onto the squad, and I wanted to use the same idea as last time with it. This time however, rather than Eviolite, I decided to run Lum Berry as a way to ignore a potential T-Wave from the likes of Deerling. With Endure, I figured I could still get a near-guaranteed Weak Armor boost regardless and thought the pay off would be worth the risk. :Croagunk:Croagunk was added, honestly solely because I hadn't used it yet this season, and I decided to get a little unorthodox with this set as well opting to drop Dry Skin for Poison Touch as the ability and run a physical Bulk Up variant. Dropping Dry Skin was a decision made because I wanted to be physical on this team and I wanted Gunk to not just fall over to a potential Houndour, who remains a nightmare in my prepping mind. :Rowlet:Rowlet was added sans-Defog, mainly as a way to complete a Fire-Water-Grass core with the next member of the squad and Froakie, but more importantly provide me a Ground resist/immunity. Life Orb :Houndour:Hound rounded things out providng the team with an immediately threatening breaker, especially if Spikes were up.

Getting into the game vs Albi. It was an Offense vs Hyper Offense matchup and the game was balanced throughout the early game on a razors edge. Eventually I got myself into a bad position vs Sinistea and was forced into a 50/50 with my Houndour. I could either Tera-Ghost predicting the Tera Blast Fighting from Albi, or I could remain a Dark-type predicting Albi to predict my Tera and hopefully see a Psychic or something out of the teacup. Unfortunately, I got the play wrong and my Hound dropped to the +2 Shadow Ball and Albi's tea was able to win from there. It is what it is, realistically I should've done better to not be in that position in the 1st place. Usually, when you lose to Tea, its your own fault and that was the case here as well.


Week 6 vs reggg | W, replay
AcroCat's Revenge
:Mankey::Meowth-Galar::Clauncher::Sprigatito::Salandit::Fletchling: LEGAL ILLEGAL
Week 6 brought me a matchup against then undefeated, new-to-LC UU sensation, reggg and honestly I'd been excited about this one for a while at this point. As timing had it we got to face off in the first week post-June shifts which brough Mankey, Chespin, and Fuecoco to the tier at the cost of Sandile, which made for a somewhat unpredictable landscape. At this point in the season reggg both undefeated and basically using the same shit every week, especially Croagunk and Larvitar.

My team for this week started off with me wanting to play with the new toy, :Mankey:Mankey, but I didn't want to just slap a scarf on and call it a day. If you notice, I'm not the biggest scarf user of all time, I try to get greedy with speed whenever possible, and I decided to make this Mankey a sort of Crabrawler/Mienfoo-Hybrid. Bulkier, pivoting, and immune to Will-o Wisp if necessary. One of the really cool things about this Mankey is that it lives a +2 Chewtle's Liquidation from full after rocks unless you get supremely unlucky. Somehow, this was the first appearance from :Meowth-Galar:Meowth-Galar on a squad of mine that I brought. As probably the most reliable Rocker in the meta and a great pivot that hits surprisingly hard, Meowth-G is excellent on most teams. This one is rocking Brick Break to be an answer to potential enemy screens as well as to hit opposing Meowth-G. :Clauncher:Clauncher was next as a 2nd bulky pivot to get in mons like Salandit, Mankey, and Sprigatito. Also it eats any hit from Chewtle at +2 and can OHKO back with a pretty beefy Aura Sphere. Ice Beam was chosen to hit Swablu for decent damage over Dark Pulse, because Slowpoke wasn't yet a major mon in the meta, and there was no way reggg was bringing it regardless. The actual star of the show for this team is :Sprigatito: AcroCat, aka Sprigatito. This time opting to drop Tera Blast-Ground for native Grass-STAB, Sprigatito was positioned to handle both opposing Croagunk and Larvitar that reggg is so fond of. :Salandit:Salandit and :Fletchling:Fletchling round out the squad providing speed, offensive firepower and general team support. Both sets we've seen before, so I won't comment on them further.

The game itself was In.Tense. and saw AcroCat show off its power in a way even I couldn't have expected, eventually picking up all 6 kills on the way to victory. The unsung hero of the game however was Fletchling who was able to Defog away the screens, U-Turn out of Larvitar, and in teh late game set up the Tailwind that allowed me to just barely clutch it out thanks to reggg running Adamant Larvitar. All hail AcroCat, all hail Fletch the god.

Week 7 vs Mike Cometa | L, replay
Hawlucha at Home
:Mankey::Froakie::Sinistea::Larvitar::Rowlet::Houndour: LEGAL ILLEGAL
In week 7, my team had already secured playoffs and I think even had wrapped up the 1 seed so this game barely mattered at all. That made it the perfect opportunity to bust out a wild set idea I had been sitting on for about a month at this point, once I realized Mankey was likely on the way to LC UU. Whether or not this set is ever actually worth running is up for debate, but it at least looks fun as hell and I wasn't gonna waste the opportunity to run it before playoffs.

Hawlucha at Home, :Mankey:Mankey was the set I had cooked up, Endure to activate Salac Berry, Bulk Up to get strong, Drain Punch to heal up from 1 HP and Tera-Flying Acrobatics to just hurt things as much as possible. Note: I have yet to actually achieve the fantasy of this set, but you have to admit, it's funny. Keeping with the Acro theme, next on the squad was physical :Froakie:Froakie. Much like AcroCat the week before, AcroFrog is really adept at handling both opposing Croagunk and Larvitar, this time with the added layer of contributing potential Spikes. (The reason I didn't go with this set vs Albi 2 weeks ago was because he had seen it in tests before). :Sinistea:Teacup returned to the squad this time rocking a slightly different set, dropping Endure for Giga Drain since Juan (who builds for Mike) loves running stuff like Wooper or Slowpoke, and opting for Stored Power over Psychic because Fuecoco exists and "Stored Power beats Unaware". :Larvitar:Larvitar, :Rowlet:Rowlet, and :Houndour:Houndour are all mons we've seen before with some minor tweaks to sets. Larvitar runs Stone Edge over Rock Blast due to the addition of Chespin. Rowlet drops Roost for Shadow Sneak (for no reason, tbh I don't like Rowlet much idk why I used it). And Houndour added Protect over Mud Shot, because I basically never clicked it and Mankey exists now.

The game itself was revenge for my robbing of Ralts_boy earlier this season as Mike's Scope Lens Scarfed Scorbunny ruined me. High-roll Crit my Froakiee T1 with U-Turn and things went downhill from there. I was almost able to pull it back, but my Hound did not have quite enough HP after being crit by Scorbs U-Turn late game when on its last stand. Though tbf, I got lucky myself, Dark Pulse flinching the Tera-Fighting Sinistea which allowed me a chance at the end in the first place. I also misplayed my Mankey not clicking endure on 57% Swablu's Hurricane, opting to Bulk Up instead hoping for a miss. Oh well

Bonus Week 7 Gali vs reggg | W, replay
Fight Spam
:Croagunk::Mankey::Meowth-Galar::Clauncher::Larvitar::Fletchling: LEGAL ILLEGAL
In addition to the team I used week 7 I also built the team Gali used versus reggg when they had to sub in last minute. This was one that I was considering myself, but ended up deciding to let Gali run it instead and it picked up a win, so that's neat.

Type-spam and overload style builds are lowkey some of my favorite archetypes of Offense and with 2 excellend Fighting types in the tier now that Mankey had arrived, it only seemed natural to try a Fight-Spam team. Life Orb :Croagunk:Gunk serves as the breaker and Scarfed :Mankey:Mankey is on clean up duty late game. Both sets are fairly standard for what they are, though Gunk is running Gunk Shot as a 4th to bop potential Chespin that think they wall. :Meowth-Galar:Meowth-G gets to run Fake Out on this team over Rocks because :Larvitar:Larvitar is packing those. :Clauncher:Clauncher is the same lobster you've seen every time out of me, and :Fletchling:Fletch is rocking a new tech in Tera Blast-Grass to try to punish any Larvitar that think they can set up on it like I had to deal with vs reggg myself. More on this set to come.

Semi-Finals vs MTB | W, replay
JuanSG-style Balance
:Fletchling::Meowth-Galar::Fuecoco::Deerling::Slowpoke::Mankey: LEGAL ILLEGAL
My opponent in Semi-Finals was from the team that was punting their UU slot the whole season just stealing or reusing, so I didn't have an idea of what to expect. As a result I decided to go for something that was as solid as possible with my own little bits of flavor added in. Now, I didn't necessarily head in intending to do this, but what I landed on was basically the exact same team as one built by JuanSG, except I use Fletchling over Swablu.

:Fletchling:Fletch is legitmately the key mon on this team with this fully special set. This Fletch has everything: Priority Defog for opposing Screens and other Hazards, Priority Hurricane to bop opposing Fights and Grasses like Deerling, Heat Wave to hit Meowth, and most importantly Tera Blast Grass to ruin a Larvitar's day. This set is genuinely really good (or at least was with how the meta evolved this LPL). :Meowth-Galar:Meowth-G, :Deerling:Deerling, and :Mankey:Mankey also feature here as they have before running fairly standard sets, not much to highlight there. :Fuecoco:Fuecoco's is a new face on my builds however and is rocking my standard set of Tera Fairy, Slack Off, Flamethrower, Yawn, and Stomping Tantrum. There are definitely at least 4 other viable options to use over both of my last 2 moves, but I like Yawn for forcing things out in defensive duels and Stomping Tantrum to not be walled by Houndour or Salandit. :Slowpoke:Slowpoke is the final member of the team to talk about, and there's not really much to it. Tera Fairy to remove all of Slowpoke's native weaknesses and just sit on things with T-Wave and Slack Off, dual STAB to hit important threats like Croagunk and Houndour as hard as possible, and hella bulk + Regenerator just to be a nuisance. Tbh I don't like running Slowpoke or respect it as a mon, but damn has it been effective, so it had to come.

As for the game, I felt very in control the whole time in a balance vs balance matchup with 3/6 mons the same on each side. We unfortuntately end up in a Slowpoke War for a little while, but eventually I find an opportunity to get my Deer in to threaten their Slowpoke out and am able to pick up a kill on their Meowth-G who was massively chunked by my own Meowth's Brick Break earlier. From there I was on the front foot through my Meowth's ability to pivot into Impidimp and Slowpoke and picked up a kill with my Fletchling's Hurricane on Makuhita. My own Meowth went down shortly after. Eventually after my Fuecoco is able to take out my opponent's Deerling, my own Deer is able to finish out the game with relative ease. My one regret is that Fletch actually had insane matchup this game and was denied the opportunity to show it... but we got the W so who cares.


Unfortunately, my team and I were unable to make it to the Finals where I would have gotten to face reggg again, but Overall I'm pretty okay with how the season went and am looking forward to more LC UU in the future. Thanks for reading!
 
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It’s shifts time!
After a June ladder infested by the monster that was Growlithe-Hisui, these are the mons we lost
:mankey: after enjoying a month as the best scarfer, its sad to see it go, but we got good replacements in the scarf department don’t worry
:slowpoke: another mon leaving that had just become a staple in many structures, with its ability to easily spread paralysis and tank a lot of hits. We are safe from slowpoke wars, for now…

and now, we have a long list of new mons joining the tier!
:meowth: the cat finally came back home, giving us a good option to stop setup sweepers with its Fake Out + Feint combination, and also a good way to keep momentum when trying to break bulky structures, being able to get free damage with fake out and pivot out with uturn vs slower mons. I can see some mons starting to run Tera ghost to avoid being revenged by this.
Its biggest problem is probably its Galar counterpart, that is currently the best steel type in the tier and they can’t be used together, but it’s gonna have a big impact on the meta, especially in the builder.
:greavard: after staying in ou since the beginning of the gen, we finally get the chance to play with this guy! Amazing physical wall with rest for recovery, stab prio in shadow sneak, and surprisingly good (but kinda weak) coverage options with ice/fire/psy fang and stomping tantrum. It would have really enjoyed mankey still in the tier, but it’s still gonna be a decent options in many structures.
:sandile: another returning mon. it was (and likely still is) very splashable as a scarfer, now without mankey competition. Tera flying + stabs gives it all the coverage it needs, and Moxie makes it very hard to sack and revenge unless you have something faster or prio. Thankfully the cat is here to save us all from free moxie sweeps.
:gimmighoul-roaming: 18 speed, np + shadow ball + Tera blast. It pretty much has no other moves and no bulk. I don’t see this making a huge impact cause it basically forces you to Tera but I’m still curious, especially because of the good speed tier.
:zorua: a bit surprised about this, definietly a good mon. Stab knock, pivoting with uturn, illusion creating possible new strategies, and an alternative scarfer to Sandile. I have high hopes for it
:meowth-alola: this is probably going to ru asap. 19 speed, np and coverage is fine, but it remains very weak to really create a threat to opposing teams
:fennekin: another fire type to add to the big list we currently have, although this is really not keeping up with the others, both in speed (16 is ew) and in coverage, walled by houndour of all things. Likely dropping to ru at the first chance.
:slowpoke-galar: will it replace its kanto cousin in the para spam teams that were beckming very good lately? Probably not, but a new bulky mon to experiment with, tho a lot of dark and ghosts dropped with it.
 
Hello everyone! We are 2-almost-3 weeks into LLL now, and only a few days from the next shift, but I wanted to share my thoughts on a few of the mons we got this month. This may be completely irrelevant in a few days, but I thought I might be nice in the pleasant case that we keep the mons we got, as well as hopefully helping out anyone playing UU in LLL.

:Zorua:
First up is the most important one, Zorua. After 2 weeks of LLL and playing test games, I think this mon is in competition for best in the tier. It instantly becomes the best knock off user in a tier where that is severely lacking. It's ability to disguise and bait in fat mons like Swablu to knock them off is extremely valuable. It's utility set has a plethora of good options like U-Turn, Sucker Punch, Taunt, Copycat, Memento, Encore, etc. But not only that, it's Swords Dance and Nasty Plot sets can be incredibly threatening. This mon is just all around amazing and would fit well on any team in the meta we have.

:Meowth:
Next up we have Meowth, the original Kitty Meow Meow and the cousin of UU's beloved Meowth-Galar. Meowth is certainly a good mon, stab Technician Fake Out/Feint is very threatening, U-Turn and coverage moves to hit Larvitar and Ghost types. The only thing holding it back is how good Meowth-Galar is, giving it a higher opportunity cost than normal. I like Meowth, but I think it fits on less teams than the aforementioned Zorua. I'll be interested to see it's usage stats moving forward (please don't leave).

:Greavard:
The the graveyard dog, Greavard dropped to UU for the first time this gen. Albi made the point in the previous post that this would have been a welcome addition in a Mankey meta, but unfortunately this was not destined to be. Greavard has an excellent ability and is a great physical wall, but unfortunately I do not think the current meta is very friendly too it. Zorua is now (in my opinion) one of the best in the tier, and Greavard certainly does not want to be knocked off. In addition, it does not match up well into many of the other top mons, for example Swablu, Shellos, Houndour, Axew. It doesn't even do well into Deerling with Bullet Seed ignoring Fluffy because of non-contact and Ice Fang being terribly weak. I like the dog a lot but it will have to wait to see if we get Mankey back before I give it more consideration.

:Sandile:
Lastly for my post today, we see the return of Sandile. I think Sandile has become the forgotten dark type, with Zorua and Houndour seeing a decent amount more usage than it. When it was here previously, I found it to be incredibly dangerous, as the combination of Earthquake, tera blast Flying, Crunch, and Stone Edge hits near the entire tier super effectively, and Moxie makes it snowball easily. Now it faces more competition it it's role as a both a dark type (Zorua and Houndour) and a ground type (Larvitar being A+). I still like it a lot, both its eviolite and scarf sets being good, and I'll be curious to see how much love it gets as LLL continues.


Those 4 are really the only ones I have thoughts I wanted to share, I'm not super interested in the other mons that dropped but that's not to say they aren't viable, I would love to see some creative sets and teams people make with them. Thank you if you've read this far, I am looking forward to seeing the UU meta progress as the season continues!
 
Alright y'all August has brought us yet another shift so we have yet another tier update post from yours truly.

We say goodbye (for now) to :Meowth:Meowth and :Shellos:Shellos

and we welcome back to the tier all of :Bramblin:Bramblin, :Mankey:Mankey, :Slowpoke:Slowpoke, and :Voltorb:Voltorb

Tbh I expect that we'll see both of our departures back again at some point, but for now we'll wish them well in LC OU. :Meowth:Meowth leaving will have offense in this tier breathing a sigh of relief as they don't have to worry about Fake Out shutting down their frail sweepers quite so much. It also means I can run Tera Ghost on things a little less. :Shellos:Shellos had recently cemented itself as the premier bulky water in the tier following the departure of Slowpoke, as it was a pretty solid switch in to new threat Zorua. Most annoyingly the loss of the slug leaves us with 1 less rocker to use.

As for the additions:

:Bramblin:Bramblin finally returns after a 2-month vacation in LC OU and graciously enters the tier as an actually viable Rapid Spinner and Spiker. In fact, it entirely shuts down the current most popular sets on our 2 Defog mons in Swablu and Fletchling thanks to its Wind Rider ability. However, Bramblin does enter a meta with at least 3 top tier Dark-types to deal with as well as a slew of scary Fire-Types, so its not completely free for the tumbleweed.

:Mankey:Mankey was honestly my favorite pokemon to use when it was last in LC UU. It was the best scarfer in the tier and had some very neat non-scarf sets at its disposal as well between it's excellent movepool and very solid speed stat. The top of the meta is likely to be little different to the last time it was around with the addition of mons like Zorua, Sandile, Greavard (who I think is bad in LC UU), and most notably Voltorb, I am quite interested in where Mankey slots in. With several of the additions being as fast or faster as our pig-monkey friend, does Mankey feel pressured to run its scarf set more often, or can it still get away with its solid but no longer spectacular 17 speed tier.

:Slowpoke:Slowpoke is gonna do Slowpoke things again. Shortly before taking its sabbatical in LC OU, it had established itself as the premier bulky water in the meta spreading Thunder Waves and just generally being annoying. Things now may be more difficult for the pink blob however as several of the new additions previously mentioned have super-effective STAB for Slowpoke's base-typing. If Slowpoke is forced into being a Tera-sink, it may not be quite as dominant or splashable as it was previously.

Lastly we have :Voltorb:Voltorb. In the time since Voltorb was last in LC UU, it went on to genuinely thrive in LC OU as a top meta threat with its blistering speed and strong STAB combo of its native Electric typing and Tera-Ice. However since its cousin from the old country made their way to Paldea, Voltorb found itself outclassed in every way and has made its way back to us in UU to be a big fish in a smaller pond. NGL Voltorb looks like an absolute menace to LC UU as it is by far the fastest thing we reasonably have to deal with (Wiglett sucks). Couple that with the previous genuine lack of relevant Electric-types to deal with, Voltorb is going to have a massive impact on the meta from a team building perspective. Torb is certainly the most interesting and impactful change we received this shift, Swablu and Fletchling are in shambles at the news.

Anyway y'all LLL is currently ongoing but we hope to have a VR update to reflect both last-month's and this month's meta changes released by Sunday, August 13th. Feel free to leave any of your thoughts here as well. Have fun and happy playing!
 
a day late, but who cares...

One of our more crazy shifts this month
Goodbye: :Axew:Axew, :Croagunk:Croagunk, :Fuecoco:Fuecoco, :Houndour:Houndour, and :Teddiursa:Teddiursa???
Hello: :Larvesta:Larvesta, :Magnemite:Magnemite, :Stunky:Stunky, :Surskit:Surskit, and :Wingull:Wingull

Additionally... Starting next month, LC UU is transitioning to the Quarterly-Shift system!

**What does this mean?**
The September ladder stats (which will include about 2 weeks of DLC1) will make up our final Monthly Full-Shift.
The October Stats will be used as Month 1 in the standard 3-month system used with a quick drop threshold of 1.53%. November will be Month 2 with a 2.28% quick drop threshold. And the December Stats will complete the set as Month 3, giving us a Full-Shift on January 1, 2024
So after October 1, any mons in LC UU will remain LC UU through the new year unless we take tiering action against them. We will still be eligible to receive new mons to LC UU via the quick drop system, but we won't be losing anything and should have less seismic changes each month.

**Why are we doing this?**
Frankly, the monthly changes are too hard to keep up with given our playerbase and number of games played each month. The increased stability provided by the Quarterly system will allow for better actual meta development and be a net positive for players both established and new since you won't have to scrap your whole builder each month.

**What about the DLCs?**
With DLC1 dropping in about 10 days, the LC ladder will get its first taste of the post-DLC meta. This will undoubtedly have a huge affect on the ladder we want to make sure we get the lesser used mons as quick as we can. Which is why, we aren't starting the Quarterly system until after DLC1 releases.
We figure the mons that are supposed to be with us by and large will drop down at the end of September and those that miss it will fall eventually either via quick drops or in January. The most important thing for us is to increase some stability with LC UU, so even though we likely will be missing out on some obvious LC UU mons, we feel that the benefit outweighs that cost.

When DLC2 drops (assumedly late-Nov/early-Dec) we will probably get more mons on Jan 1 than we are supposed to, but that is something I view as a greater benefit than a hinderance. As, since well will be into the quarterly-system we'll actually have time to play with all of our new toys before LC OU takes some of them in April.
*********************************************************

Lastly, LPL11 is probably going to start sometime in October, where will have our more stable meta.
However, I would like to run another individual tour as well at some point this year, but timing isn't super nice. Would the general playerbase be interested in an individual forum tour that will likely overlap with LPL11? The tour itself will be standard single elim, so not a ton of extra effort required, but I wanted to float the idea out there.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks guys! Have a good weekend!
 
As of time of posting, Wingull currently registers as illegal, while Teddiursa remains usable in gen9lcuu.
Both of these are errors in the application of our most recent shift, and until it is fixed, please play all games in standard lc.

Tagging Marty to make the change at their convenience
Thank you
 
DLC 1 finally dropped, lets see what this means for the pokemon that are currently LCUU!

:charmander: Weather Ball, Roar
:meowth-galar: :meowth-alola: Knock Off
:psyduck: Knock Off, Flip Turn, Vacuum Wave
:growlithe: Roar
:drowzee: Knock Off
:dratini: Scale Shot
:phanpy: Knock Off
:pineco: Lunge
:cacnea: Grassy Glide
:shuppet: Poltergeist
:combee: Lunge
:buizel: Flip Turn
:stunky: Knock Off
:gible: Scale Shot
:croagunk: Knock Off
:finneon: Flip Turn
:oshawott: Flip Turn
:axew: Scale Shot
:deino: Roar
:chespin: Grassy Glide
:flabebe: Pollen Puff
:skiddo: Grassy Glide
:skrelp: Flip Turn
:clauncher: Flip Turn
:fomantis: Superpower
:silicobra: Scale Shot
:arrokuda: Flip Turn
:tarountula: Knock Off
:tadbulb: Weather Ball
:maschiff: Lash Out
:bramblin: Poltergeist
:cetoddle: Knock Off, High Horsepower
:greavard: Poltergeist

as a reference, i used this page, that only lists fully evolved, and double checked in the teambuilder to see if Lc versions got the moves too.
im sure something slipped, for example Phanpy i knew from somewhere else it got knock off, otherwise i would have missed it, and its probably not the only case, but should be a decent enough idea of the changes
We also expect a ton of shitmons to drop in the coming mons so stay tuned for that, see you in LPL!
 
LLL is over and LPL is almost upon us, and so I wanted to take a moment to post some of the teams I used during LLL, talk about the meta, and some of my thoughts on it. I won't analyze each team in much depth, as the meta shifted a lot through out LLL, as well as everyone kind of sputtering out towards the end.

https://pokepast.es/23c42c58aa204577
First game of the season was against Joltage, and I was very excited for this one as we had a very close match in LPL that he ended up winning. This was the week of a new shift, and Zorua and Meowth were menace's in the builder, as well as Deerling being its constant para-flinch self. I cooked up a devious team full of unviable sets for this match. Highlights of the team include:
- Sticky Hold curse Grimer for a Zorua switch in, as well as toxic to punish Shellos (RIP)
- Pickpocket Impidimp as another knock off switch in, as well as letting me twave a potential Houndour that I know Joltage loves so much
- And the crème de la crème, agility tera electric Riolu with Inner Focus. Let's me set up on Deerling with fearing twave or flinch, as well not letting Meowth beat me with Fake Out

Just a beautifully unviable team (that forcasted by Grimer usage in many more weeks to come), and a very fun match vs Joltage where I was able to get my revenge.

https://pokepast.es/2affe330d2b534c1
Week 3 vs Flou, my favorite game of the season. Shellos was rising so we knew this would be the last week with it in the meta, and so I wanted to g ive it a proper send off. With the recover pp nerf in gen 9, the demon double dance Shellos set became a lot worse, and so I decided to make it work by making a tspikes team with the idea of just outlasting my opponent. I'd been saving this team idea since the beginning of LPL 10, so was eager to use it. In game, it couldn't have worked more perfectly, c'était magnifique. RIP to Shellos, hope to see it come back to UU soon.


https://pokepast.es/b242d71ffbd06622
Week 4 vs Juan
First week of a brand new meta in which we finally got Bramblin back, saw the return of Mankey, and finally welcomed Voltorb into UU. Zero and I cooked our hardest with this team, creating itemless thief Voltorb. Idea was that we knew Juan would use some bulky mon (as always) as the Voltorb switch in, and thief would let me simultaneously cripple its bulk and help remove it to enable Voltorb later on. We also had a nice touch of Shadow Ball on Slowpoke-Galar, as we figured we would see Juan bring a Slowpoke form and wanted to be able to win vs it 1v1. Both tech's played out well in a fun match, and Juan showed me why Zorua is probably the best mon in the tier back then, and probably even now, as it's SD tera Dark set decimated my team.

https://pokepast.es/22393261828cac69
Semi-Finals vs Teamo
Last team I wanted to talk about. For most of the mid to late season, I and many other people started to get burnt out, and I felt rather uninspired at this point and wasn't super keen on most of the teams I was bringing. However it playoffs now and so we tried our best to keep innovating. Another meta shift introduced Larvesta, Magnemite, and Stunky as well as having us lose highly relavant mons like Croagunk (my beloved) and Houndour. Oh, and Teddiursa too for some reason. Zero came up with the idea of using Barboach, a ground type that isn't crippled by Voltorb's tera ice and can switch into both Magnemite's stab's. I also decided to bring back Grimer for some unknown reason, using a curse rest set to try and beat Larvesta 1v1 as well as maintaining it's role as a suitable Zorua check.


Okay, a few notes on the meta as it currently is. Personally, I haven't enjoyed it much since the introduction of Voltorb, and to some degree the presence of Zorua, however this could also be to the burnout I was feeling. I believe those are far and above the best mon's in the tier. Their restriction in team building was felt like nothing else, even when Deerling was everywhere. With the only two forms of viable removal being Swablu and Bramblin, this can be taken advantage of extremely easily with Volt Turn teams and Knock Off Zorua. Team compositions started to feel very Cookie Cutter to me, every team needing a Zorua switch in, a ground type, Scarf Mankey check, Voltorb, hazard removal, and filler.

However, we will soon be facing our first post-dlc shift, so I am optimistic about seeing positive changes to the meta, as well as any innovations people make along the way. There's also the factor of increased knock off distribution and other move additions. Zorua's monopoly on Knock Off definitely contributed to its usage, so I'm hopeful we see some more variety in that area. I will also very much be looking forward to switching to quarterly shifts instead of monthly, having to completely shift meta's every few weeks in LPL and LLL felt very draining and I'll be happy to see some consistency.

Huge shout out to zeroouttathere for being a fantastic UU partner for LLL, had so much fun building and working on new ideas with you, you're the coolest DJ Little Cup player I know, go Chew Chew Trains.

That's all for this post, LPL is right around the corner so here's to a fun season.
 
Alright y'all. Enormous shift post-dlc to kick off our quarterly shift schedule. So we'll be with the current roster of mons until at least through the new year. We actually got so much, that I'm not going to write up about everything individually, because that's just too much, but I'll be dropping a graphic with everything we gained and lost this shift.
1696184759734.png

Lots of neat shit this time. IMO Highlights are :Axew:Axew, :Bellsprout:Bellsprout, :Crabrawler:Crabrawler, :Croagunk:Croagunk, :Fuecoco:Fuecoco, :Houndour:Houndour, :Mareanie:Mareanie, :meowth:Meowth, :munchlax:Munchlax, :nymble:Nymble, :quaxly:Quaxly (thank fuck), :shellos:Shellos, and :turtwig:Turtwig
but some of the other stuff might be cool too. lots of experimentation will be needed here
Feel free to post thoughts
 
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LPL draft this Sunday so some quick thoughts on a few mons for everyone that ends up playing UU.

:Crabrawler: This thing is going to run the tier now that Mienfoo and Timb have near invalidated its presence in standard play. Crab's combo of strength, bulk. coverage, and newly acquired access to Knock Off will let it threaten everything and force progress. Wouldn't be surprised to see discussions of banning it down the road, but it is of course still very early and I've only played a handful of friendly games.

:Mareanie: :Quaxly: :Shellos: Water type fans rejoice. God bless Quaxly finally joining UU, it will be a welcome sight in my eyes as the best spinner, although I'll still have to show Bramblin some respect. Mare I can see being among the best in the tier as well, it will be an excellent passive check, and has access to fun moves like toxic spikes and haze. It will still fear Crab's coverage moves, but at least can act as a way to threaten toxic or haze on it before crab gets out of hand. Shellos also find its way back, and while it will have fierce competition as a water type, I can still see it being valuable as a sticky hold stealth rock setter.

:Nymble: Very strong priority mon that I think will be quite good. It will have some competition with Meowth as a team's source of priority, but I can see it being a major threat. Greedy may finally have a tier where Nymble is actually viable.

:Meowth: Meowth does what it always does, be fast and hit hard with priority. It now has knock off as well, expecting good things from it.

:Munchlax: Munch my beloved. Probably harder to fit, and no longer access to Berry Juice, but I have hopes for it. Still an insane wall.

:Croagunk: Long may he reign. UU's newly appointed King falls back to us, much to my delight. I expect to see a slower, bulkier croagunk than we've seen in the past, as its typing and ability allow it to wall mareanie. It also gets knock off now so just another bonus.


So many new things to use and mess around with, I'm very happy with this shift and look forward to seeing the build creativity in LPL.
 
Hello and welcome to my team dump! All of these are outdated cause shrew just dropped but at least I can share them for history purposes now that all replays are lost to time.

:houndour: :croagunk: :quaxly: :greavard::sandygast: :voltorb:
just standard solid for week 1, I ended up reusing this in w3 vs scrubs. Only things of note are twave torb which I think is good to help speed control and really helps in Tera voltorb mirrors, and toxic croa, which, tbh, I don’t remember if I changed it, this might be an old paste, but oh well. This Greavard is the ultimate anti crab weapon but you can easily drop yawn for shadow sneak, S/o Tera blast fairy houndour with amazing coverage

:salandit: :voltorb: :slowpoke-galar: :bramblin: :deerling: :croagunk:
I remember I faced salandit w1 and I found it very scary so I brought it myself, rest is just normal stuff. I kinda leaned more towards poke-g to handle crab rather than greavard cause at least you can spread para or get some chip, tho it does rely a bit more on Tera. I think this was the week I played joltage and haxed him to oblivion, so I guess it worked?

:voltorb: :swablu: :buizel: :slowpoke-galar: :meowth-galar: :crabrawler:
Swablu is not like that awful imo, still soft checks a lot of stuff that can’t hit it super effectively. Voltorb definitely hurts it but I can still do its thing. Buizel is also not complete trash because of its speed tier and pivot move, and croa doesn’t eat ice spinner forever so At some point you can click the stab. Speed control is at an all time low here (as usual with my teams this tour) and Kip brought some super offensive stuff that really pressured this, but I think it was fine for the most part

:riolu: :slugma: :bellsprout: :charmander: :gible: :shellos:
the goated sun. riolu sets it immediately. Slugma switches in on stuff, procs weak armor, then sets sun/rocks/memento. Bellsprout and charm are the abusers. Shellos switches in on anything as soon as riolu sets sun and gets eject button out to a sun abuser (you can also switch into knock thanks to sticky hold and the interaction will still happen). Gible was there to kinda counter protect torb

:piplup: :venonat: :voltorb: :meowth-galar: :slowpoke-galar: :crabrawler:
I fished for a swablu vs the Juan team, they had brought it 3 straight weeks, and competitive piplup was just there for that. Unfortunately I didn’t face it but the other odd one (venonat) did a lot of work early game and allowed voltorb & co to win in the end (don’t use cm poke it sucks)

:fletchling: :bramblin: :deerling: :sandygast: :mareanie: :voltorb:
another super fun idea from goated reggg (at least one of us knows mons mechanics). I’m just gonna share this replay that happened afterwards cause I’m too lazy to explain lol, just know the whole plan didn’t actually come up in the game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9lcuu-2006763057-vxyiu9d7z9l22p419zikbqo3q2v0y62pw

:ducklett: :meowth: :greavard: :houndour: :voltorb: :gible:
I was starting to really like ducklett in my search for ground resists, houndour resists etc. I felt like it checked a lot of boxes, it’s also decently fast with no investment and can be both physical and special. I also finally brought meowth to have some real speed control. the goal is to force voltorb to Tera with the Ducklett-Gible core and then play the game on without having to worry about Tera. It worked, with Tera fairy houndour pulling off a reverse sweep

only team post shrew, tho I don’t recommend
:hippopotas: :sandshrew: :deerling: :meowth: :ducklett: :crabrawler:
gotta be honest, shrew drop wasn’t exactly timely, a very important drop after 8 weeks of playing a tier, I wasn’t a fan of trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t, so I just brought sand + fast mons with the goal of not being overwhelmed by opposing stuff. My entire defensive backbone is Ducklett, for the same reasons as above. Kip's video explains the game perfectly so I’m not gonna go over it extensively.
Key points were that I brought 6 physical mons into greavard (I did think about bramblin by bringing sap sipper deer, but greavard just did not even occur to me), I really really expected crab to have a move to hit poisons like zen or eq, would have never in a million years expected boltbeam punches, and the super bulky shrew set threw me off a lot too, all good brings by him and they ended up working.


And that’s another LPL season! After 5 tours of 50ish% records I finally managed to have a true breakout and go 7-2 (both losses to Kip, new nemesis unlocked, i will get my revenge:pip:).
Huge shoutout to reggg , pretty much all the teams were built in tandem and that really helped making sure everything was fine.
Also shoutout to goated managers Peachy07 and grape tylenol , we didn’t win this time but I’m sure next time they’ll let you draft the same exact team and we can try again:heart:
 
Hello and welcome to my team dump! All of these are outdated cause shrew just dropped but at least I can share them for history purposes now that all replays are lost to time.

:houndour: :croagunk: :quaxly: :greavard::sandygast: :voltorb:
just standard solid for week 1, I ended up reusing this in w3 vs scrubs. Only things of note are twave torb which I think is good to help speed control and really helps in Tera voltorb mirrors, and toxic croa, which, tbh, I don’t remember if I changed it, this might be an old paste, but oh well. This Greavard is the ultimate anti crab weapon but you can easily drop yawn for shadow sneak, S/o Tera blast fairy houndour with amazing coverage

:salandit: :voltorb: :slowpoke-galar: :bramblin: :deerling: :croagunk:
I remember I faced salandit w1 and I found it very scary so I brought it myself, rest is just normal stuff. I kinda leaned more towards poke-g to handle crab rather than greavard cause at least you can spread para or get some chip, tho it does rely a bit more on Tera. I think this was the week I played joltage and haxed him to oblivion, so I guess it worked?

:voltorb: :swablu: :buizel: :slowpoke-galar: :meowth-galar: :crabrawler:
Swablu is not like that awful imo, still soft checks a lot of stuff that can’t hit it super effectively. Voltorb definitely hurts it but I can still do its thing. Buizel is also not complete trash because of its speed tier and pivot move, and croa doesn’t eat ice spinner forever so At some point you can click the stab. Speed control is at an all time low here (as usual with my teams this tour) and Kip brought some super offensive stuff that really pressured this, but I think it was fine for the most part

:riolu: :slugma: :bellsprout: :charmander: :gible: :shellos:
the goated sun. riolu sets it immediately. Slugma switches in on stuff, procs weak armor, then sets sun/rocks/memento. Bellsprout and charm are the abusers. Shellos switches in on anything as soon as riolu sets sun and gets eject button out to a sun abuser (you can also switch into knock thanks to sticky hold and the interaction will still happen). Gible was there to kinda counter protect torb

:piplup: :venonat: :voltorb: :meowth-galar: :slowpoke-galar: :crabrawler:
I fished for a swablu vs the Juan team, they had brought it 3 straight weeks, and competitive piplup was just there for that. Unfortunately I didn’t face it but the other odd one (venonat) did a lot of work early game and allowed voltorb & co to win in the end (don’t use cm poke it sucks)

:fletchling: :bramblin: :deerling: :sandygast: :mareanie: :voltorb:
another super fun idea from goated reggg (at least one of us knows mons mechanics). I’m just gonna share this replay that happened afterwards cause I’m too lazy to explain lol, just know the whole plan didn’t actually come up in the game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9lcuu-2006763057-vxyiu9d7z9l22p419zikbqo3q2v0y62pw

:ducklett: :meowth: :greavard: :houndour: :voltorb: :gible:
I was starting to really like ducklett in my search for ground resists, houndour resists etc. I felt like it checked a lot of boxes, it’s also decently fast with no investment and can be both physical and special. I also finally brought meowth to have some real speed control. the goal is to force voltorb to Tera with the Ducklett-Gible core and then play the game on without having to worry about Tera. It worked, with Tera fairy houndour pulling off a reverse sweep

only team post shrew, tho I don’t recommend
:hippopotas: :sandshrew: :deerling: :meowth: :ducklett: :crabrawler:
gotta be honest, shrew drop wasn’t exactly timely, a very important drop after 8 weeks of playing a tier, I wasn’t a fan of trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t, so I just brought sand + fast mons with the goal of not being overwhelmed by opposing stuff. My entire defensive backbone is Ducklett, for the same reasons as above. Kip's video explains the game perfectly so I’m not gonna go over it extensively.
Key points were that I brought 6 physical mons into greavard (I did think about bramblin by bringing sap sipper deer, but greavard just did not even occur to me), I really really expected crab to have a move to hit poisons like zen or eq, would have never in a million years expected boltbeam punches, and the super bulky shrew set threw me off a lot too, all good brings by him and they ended up working.


And that’s another LPL season! After 5 tours of 50ish% records I finally managed to have a true breakout and go 7-2 (both losses to Kip, new nemesis unlocked, i will get my revenge:pip:).
Huge shoutout to reggg , pretty much all the teams were built in tandem and that really helped making sure everything was fine.
Also shoutout to goated managers Peachy07 and grape tylenol , we didn’t win this time but I’m sure next time they’ll let you draft the same exact team and we can try again:heart:
Stumbled across this thread by chance and I am very intrigued by the Slowpoke usage. Quick question, why is Slowpoke using surf instead of scald? Is there a very important roll that scald misses?

Edit: I forgot that Slowpoke lost scald, my apologies :psycry:
 
Hey y'all, Happy New Year! Happy New Shift! It's a doozy with the DLC2 having dropped this past-month

Updated Banlist:
LC UU Banlist:
Diglett-Alola, Drifloon, Drilbur, Elekid, Foongus, Gastly, Glimmet, Gothita, Grimer-Alola, Growlithe-Hisui, Impidimp, Koffing, Magby, Magnemite, Mareanie, Meowth, Mienfoo, Minccino, Mudbray, Pawniard, Porygon, Shellder, Shroodle, Snivy, Snubbull, Stunky, Tentacool, Timburr, Tinkatink, Toedscool, Trapinch, Voltorb-Hisui, Vullaby, Wattrel

NONE, Numel is unleashed


That means we lost both :Meowth:Meowth and :Mareanie:Mareanie. Peace out guys, we'll probably see you again eventually.

We have however, gained a TON of new mons: :Grookey:Grookey, :Larvesta:Larvesta, :Zorua-Hisui:Zorua-H, :Numel:Numel, :Chinchou:Chinchou, :Sandshrew-Alola:Sandshrew-Alola, :Torchic:Torchic, :Squirtle:Squirtle, :Corphish:Corphish, :Snover:Snover, :Doduo:Doduo, :Joltik:Joltik, :Cranidos:Cranidos, :Cottonee:Cottonee, :Treecko:Treecko, :Solosis:Solosis, :Dewpider:Dewpider, :Bulbasaur:Bulbasaur, :Inkay:Inkay, :Blitzle:Blitzle, :Oddish:Oddish, :Pikipek:Pikipek, :Seel:Seel, :Horsea:Horsea, :Exeggcute:Exeggcute, :Litten:Litten, :Golett:Golett, :Espurr:Espurr, :Rhyhorn:Rhyhorn, :Chikorita:Chikorita, :Tepig:Tepig, :Tyrogue:Tyrogue, :Milcery:Milcery, :Popplio:Popplio, :Mudkip:Mudkip, :Shieldon:Shieldon, :Beldum:Beldum, :Cosmog:Cosmog

Lots of cool shit, a bunch of trash, either way, it's a whole new world for us in LC UU. If I find time, I'll post with some thoughts on specific new mons.

Last but not least, We are freeing Numel from the LC UU BL prison to test how he fairs in a much changed LC UU environment.
 
On a side note, even though the drops will likely effect this, I wonder why Galarian Slowpoke is ranked higher than its Kantonian counterpart on the VR. Is the Electric and Grass weakness that crippling?
 
On a side note, even though the drops will likely effect this, I wonder why Galarian Slowpoke is ranked higher than its Kantonian counterpart on the VR. Is the Electric and Grass weakness that crippling?
I'd say the main reason for this is Voltorb. As the fastest mon in the tier it saw extremely high usage so that electric weakness was very relevant. Deerling also a relevant one with Bullet Seed, G-Poke as a pure psychic type tended to be more suited to teams. With the new drops though this could definitely shake up, hail torchic corphish and numel all being in the tier may push Kanto Poke back up.
 
2024 Q1 LC UU VL.png

btw I forgot to do this this past weekend, but here's the result of our community Viability List Voting
Mons are placed in the tier in which they received the greatest number of votes. In situations where two rankings tie for a particular mon they are placed in the higher ranking. If you have specific voting breakdown questions, let me know
 

Fille

Afk
is a Pre-Contributor
LCPL Champion
So I just won Babymonathon,
and quite frankly the new LC UU meta is one of the best LC metas so far. I thoroughly enjoyed particularly the last 2 sets vs Joltage and Kipkluif , unfortunately for them the current meta just really suited my style of play.

:chinchou::bramblin::grookey::shellos::larvesta::cottonee:

Classic VoltTurn shenanigans, I got my start in early gen 5 so it's an archetype close to my heart. TeraGround Shellos also seemed incredibly good in Chinchou meta, and ended up working wonders here as a bulky backbone. I realised going into the game tho that I'd likely want the Bramblin to have Poltergeist for ghosts not named Zorua, since getting a spin off is fairly pivotal, but it thankfully never came to that this match. Cottonee rounded out the squad nicely into shit like Grookey and Crabrawler, both of which could be slightly problematic for this team otherwise. Did not really end up being a relevant mon in this game though. As for Chinchou and Grookey, they'll be on literally every squad I post here bar 1, as they're both Bulky pivots that enables plenty other mons while having oddly good longevity in this meta despite lacking recovery.

:crabrawler::grookey::sandshrew::chinchou::doduo::croagunk:

My biggest struggle for this tournament was finding a rocker I liked, and I ended up settling on Shellos as my preference after this team was built. Sandshrew just never felt too good, besides on paper being great into mons like Croagunk and forcing Knock on plenty other key mons. Regardless, a missclick saccing my full health Grookey to a Torchic ended up costing me the game, albeit I could've apparently gotten away with not clicking Volt Switch on an obvious Tera from Squirtle in the lategame.

:Zorua-Hisui::Axew::gimmighoul-roaming::cottonee::Grookey::numel:

The only chinchou-less team in the bunch. Thankfully Cottonee gave me some leeway into Sun MU, which I did expect would come at some point, and I think this was the best team I had into it. Idea is simple, strong set-up sweepers, fast Reflect and a Memento mon. No hazards this time around, which is unusual for Screens I'd gather, but the same conundrum like earlier with the rockers. Could've fit them on Numel, but figured it had more value doing other things. Ebutton Cottonee felt like such a solid find tho, I was particularly happy with that.

:chinchou::bramblin::grookey::shellos::axew::cottonee:

Again another semi-fat Voltturn with a strong attacker. Shellos doing Shellos things really saved my game, and this is yet another example of why I think Dewpider isn't a great mon current meta (Or really any meta bar maybe LC RU?). There are just too many good Water Immunities that it simply can't touch, like Shellos, Croagunk and the less common WA Chinchou. DD Axew also has an incredible power level compared to the rest of the tier, so it's very good for players like me who enjoy controlling the tempo of the match with forceful plays.

Won in these 4 in a BO5, but had a couple other teams saved up as well.

In the event of a game 5, I was gonna bring :grookey::larvesta::chinchou::sandshrew::axew::croagunk: . In case I lost the first set, I would be bringing this :chinchou::bramblin::grookey::shellos::axew::croagunk:, a very similar team in the second set as I came through winners bracket. I would also be reusing the teams above, as well as the teams I brought in semis vs Kipkluif.​
 
LC UU Swiss is not over at the time of this post, but I lost to the only person I cared about beating reggg so I'm just making this post now. I never looked at the tier until a half hour before I played my games each week, but it's the kind of balance-centric-metagame I like where you've got your standard mons but there's still room for innovation and creative picks/sets, so I hope for y'all who consistently play the tier that it remains fun. Note there's a lot of bias on this as I like the mon a lot, but...

:sv/nymble: NYMBLE IS GOOD (if you're good) :sv/nymble:

For some reason, this mon is in LCRU, which is insane disrespect. It's still good enough to get wins in LCOU, and this tier is even better for it. LCUU has good hazard removal in both forms of Sandshrew, has a comparatively less powerful 4x Bug resist in Croagunk (versus Gastly in LC), there are tons of good pivot mons to help Nymble get on the battlefield like Chinchou, Larvesta, and Grookey, and it has the potential for set variety in LCUU. I'm going to go over my set versus Reggg just to highlight this little guy because there were 3 Nymbles and two unique sets over 3 games.

Game 1
Reggg being a good friend who knows my love for the bug, decides to bring his own on a Triple Bug team. I only had a chance this game because I dodged a Hydro Pump, but eventually, I got into a position of a +2 Speed Numel against a team with no Tera where every mon is weak to Fire Ground coverage. Other than Fire Blast accuracy, this is a lost game for Reggg except for one mon, Nymble. Because I was 23 HP and not 11 Def, Nymble is one of the few mons in this situation that's able to revenge-kill my Numel and stop the sweep, as the other main priority user Grookey would have been Tera Fire'd on, and still lost the game. Even as I went into my 4x resist Croagunk, I still took 25%, and if he U-Turn'd on the switch out then stuff got dicey fast. Nymble could have forced me to play for a sack war endgame, and even though I was up mons could have been losable if Reggg correctly clicks U-Turn when I predict FImp.

Game 2
I bring my own Nymble now and match up into a Varoom, not even close to the 4x resist I predicted to show up. What's worse is that it's running Toxic Spikes into my no Poison team, and it being faster than my Rapid Spinner Snowshrew allows it to keep the Horua healthier with Parting Shot to prevent the spin. Even while down a significant amount however, Nymble is still able to bring back games. Assuming the normal set, Reggg's game plan should be to get far enough ahead in sacks/damage that even if I get every single U-Turn/FImp turn correct, there are just not enough turns to kill everything. And honestly, it's a good enough plan as after my Horua kills Varoom, he still has enough healthy pieces to prevent FImp/Leech Life spam from winning. Eventually, it comes down to last mon Nymble. After Reggg makes the normally correct play of sacking the Chinchou to FImp, I reveal this very funny set. It should have won, but me living up to my namesake did not click Grassy Glide into the Crabrawler, and as a result, Nymble is squished at the finish line to no fault of its own.

Game 3
I only made two teams assuming I either won or lost in 2, and the rest of my builder is full of teams made by Reggg so I decided to switch the mon order around and make it Tera Ground Nymble. Nosepass and Sandshrew are potential problems, but there are 5 other mons on a team Nymble doesn't need to get every kill. After a pretty even midgame (minus the SpD drop that I'll ego say mattered), I'm eventually put in a position against a Protect Torchic that should run away with the game. On Turn 25 though, the Agility Nymble makes it at least winnable for me as it comes down to a speedtie to win the series. I actually won the tie, but I once again crushed Nymble's dreams as with 2 minutes of timer, I did not calc Leech Life into Torchic when I still had Tera Blast Ground available.

Conclusion
Now some of you will mention that Nymble lost all 3 games that it was a part of, but I argue that it was more of the player's fault rather than the mon itself being bad. Game 1 Reggg missed a game-winning Hydro Pump, and loaded a semi-troll team with one Fire resist into Numel + Tera Blast Fire Axew. In Game 2, I made a terrible click Turn 17 and got punished, so I failed to get the Nymble sweep I was setting up for. Finally for Game 3, not calcing to see what killed the Nosepass to prevent Stealth Rocks AND me not calcing against the Torchic lost me the game. I know that I do not play this tier actively enough to accurately talk about it, but IMO Nymble is scarier to see on team preview half the mons in the Solid above it (see Joltage's tier list from last month). It is the poster child of getting your turns right and can "I'm the better player I'll bring standard and outplay" itself to a win lot of games. I'm hoping for the next tournament that has LCUU in it, that Nymble is given the usage it deserves. The bug is good.​
 
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LC UU Swiss is not over at the time of this post, but I lost to the only person I cared about beating reggg so I'm just making this post now. I never looked at the tier until a half hour before I played my games each week, but it's the kind of balance-centric-metagame I like where you've got your standard mons but there's still room for innovation and creative picks/sets, so I hope for y'all who consistently play the tier that it remains fun. Note there's a lot of bias on this as I like the mon a lot, but...

:sv/nymble: NYMBLE IS GOOD (if you're good) :sv/nymble:

For some reason, this mon is in LCRU, which is insane disrespect. It's still good enough to get wins in LCOU, and this tier is even better for it. LCUU has good hazard removal in both forms of Sandshrew, has a comparatively less powerful 4x Bug resist in Croagunk (versus Gastly in LC), there are tons of good pivot mons to help Nymble get on the battlefield like Chinchou, Larvesta, and Grookey, and it has the potential for set variety in LCUU. I'm going to go over my set versus Reggg just to highlight this little guy because there were 3 Nymbles and two unique sets over 3 games.

Game 1
Reggg being a good friend who knows my love for the bug, decides to bring his own on a Triple Bug team. I only had a chance this game because I dodged a Hydro Pump, but eventually, I got into a position of a +2 Speed Numel against a team with no Tera where every mon is weak to Fire Ground coverage. Other than Fire Blast accuracy, this is a lost game for Reggg except for one mon, Nymble. Because I was 23 HP and not 11 Def, Nymble is one of the few mons in this situation that's able to revenge-kill my Numel and stop the sweep, as the other main priority user Grookey would have been Tera Fire'd on, and still lost the game. Even as I went into my 4x resist Croagunk, I still took 25%, and if he U-Turn'd on the switch out then stuff got dicey fast. Nymble could have forced me to play for a sack war endgame, and even though I was up mons could have been losable if Reggg correctly clicks U-Turn when I predict FImp.

Game 2
I bring my own Nymble now and match up into a Varoom, not even close to the 4x resist I predicted to show up. What's worse is that it's running Toxic Spikes into my no Poison team, and it being faster than my Rapid Spinner Snowshrew allows it to keep the Horua healthier with Parting Shot to prevent the spin. Even while down a significant amount however, Nymble is still able to bring back games. Assuming the normal set, Reggg's game plan should be to get far enough ahead in sacks/damage that even if I get every single U-Turn/FImp turn correct, there are just not enough turns to kill everything. And honestly, it's a good enough plan as after my Horua kills Varoom, he still has enough healthy pieces to prevent FImp/Leech Life spam from winning. Eventually, it comes down to last mon Nymble. After Reggg makes the normally correct play of sacking the Chinchou to FImp, I reveal this very funny set. It should have won, but me living up to my namesake did not click Grassy Glide into the Crabrawler, and as a result, Nymble is squished at the finish line to no fault of its own.

Game 3
I only made two teams assuming I either won or lost in 2, and the rest of my builder is full of teams made by Reggg so I decided to switch the mon order around and make it Tera Ground Nymble. Nosepass and Sandshrew are potential problems, but there are 5 other mons on a team Nymble doesn't need to get every kill. After a pretty even midgame (minus the SpD drop that I'll ego say mattered), I'm eventually put in a position against a Protect Torchic that should run away with the game. On Turn 25 though, the Agility Nymble makes it at least winnable for me as it comes down to a speedtie to win the series. I actually won the tie, but I once again crushed Nymble's dreams as with 2 minutes of timer, I did not calc Leech Life into Torchic when I still had Tera Blast Ground available.

Conclusion
Now some of you will mention that Nymble lost all 3 games that it was a part of, but I argue that it was more of the player's fault rather than the mon itself being bad. Game 1 Reggg missed a game-winning Hydro Pump, and loaded a semi-troll team with one Fire resist into Numel + Tera Blast Fire Axew. In Game 2, I made a terrible click Turn 17 and got punished, so I failed to get the Nymble sweep I was setting up for. Finally for Game 3, not calcing to see what killed the Nosepass to prevent Stealth Rocks AND me not calcing against the Torchic lost me the game. I know that I do not play this tier actively enough to accurately talk about it, but IMO Nymble is scarier to see on team preview half the mons in the Solid above it (see Joltage's tier list from last month). It is the poster child of getting your turns right and can "I'm the better player I'll bring standard and outplay" itself to a win lot of games. I'm hoping for the next tournament that has LCUU in it, that Nymble is given the usage it deserves. The bug is good.​
The Greedy_eb experience
image-30.png
 
Ah shit, I forgot to post here... Welcome Back, Wattrel!


Also, with month 2 of our quarterly shift cycle complete, let's take some time to speculate on what changes we might see come April
Bubble Watch for LC UU Q2 2024 (2-month stats) Threshold: 4.52%
:Chinchou:Chinchou | 8.867% Usage | Very Likely to Rise
:Grookey:Grookey | 6.3495 Usage | Likely to Rise
:Drifloon:Drifloon | 5.277% Usage | Unlikely to Drop
:Minccino:Minccino | 5.221% Usage | Unlikely to Drop
:MAgnemite:Magnemite | 4.861% Usage | Legit Threat to Drop
:Shellos:Shellos | 4.358% Usage | Legit Threat to Rise
:GRimer-Alola:Grimer-Alola | 4.299% Usage | Legit Threat to Drop
:Drilbur:Drilbur | 4.166% Usage | Legit Threat to Drop (and be outclassed by :Sandshrew:)
:Sandshrew-Alola:Sandshrew-Alola | 4.146 % Usage | Legit Threat to Rise
:MEowth:Meowth | 4.119% Usage | Legit Threat to Drop
:numel:Numel | 4.113% Usage | Legit Threat to Rise
:Snover:Snover | 3.796% Usage | Unlikely to Rise
:Buizel:Buizel | 3.753% Usage (???) | Unlikely to Rise
:Houndour:Houndour | 3.695% Usage | Unlikely to Rise
:Shroodle:Shroodle | 3.667% Usage | Likely to Drop
:Larvesta:Larvesta | 3.616% Usage | Unlikely to Rise
:Tentacool:Tentacool | 3.060% Usage | Likely to Drop
full stats can be found here


With that landscape set, here's my prediction on what will change for us come the end of March
Forecasted Shift
Lose: :Chinchou:Chinchou, :Grookey:Grookey, :Sandshrew-Alola:Sandshrew-Alola, :Shellos:Shellos
Gain: :Drilbur:Drilbur, :Grimer-Alola:Grimer-Alola, :Meowth:Meowth, :Shroodle:Shroodle, :tentacool:Tentacool

Let me know what you think might happen and how these changes might effect the meta!
 
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