Resource SV OU Teal Mask Viability Ranking Thread

[TH1N3 H4MM3R]

why is ursaluna B? is it really as bad as some people make it out to be? why is torn-t B+?

 

[SandVeil10]

I was wondering about Azumarill being ranked C+. The recent meta shifts have overall been very harsh towards it, I feel like maybe C rank could have been more fitting.

Though its damage output and access to Encore can be very valuable, Azumarill having to deal with things Water Absorb Wellspring, or Rillaboom's Grassy Glide KO'ing it instantly, hurts its viability a lot in my opinion.
It can run Tera Dragon against the latter, but that would be at the cost of the extra power Tera Water would give to Aqua Jet in order to KO faster targets. Additionally, Gliscor with Tera Water/Dragon + SD + Facade is able to end Azumarill's attempt at sweeping almost immediately.

I must admit that I don't know much about a good number of the mons in C+ or C, but when I think of the likes of Hawlucha, Iron Hands, Kommo-o, or Lilligant-H, I feel like their current best sets don't get stopped as hard as Belly Drum Azumarill at the moment. But I could be mistaken.

 

[OmastarOmastar]

In my opinion Toxapex should be lower on the VR it's kinda just a sitting duck and doesn't really have good defensive pressure. reasons why I think this is that it Recovery moves being nerfed it losing access to Knock off and Scald was huge and it has nothing to do when it gets on field besides sit there press Infestation and then get at least 2hko'd by Roaring Moon after a DD and doing nothing in return. and there are simply other Pokemon who do the bulky water role better, and it does nothing to Gliscor who is at least Top 3 Pokemon in the tier. Which is why I think Toxapex should fall to UU

 

[viivian]

just cause I haven't seen anyone else ask, why did corv make it into B+ when it can't defog on things anymore thanks to ghold

im not a council member but i imagine its very reliable at checking threats like kingambit, sneasler, dragonite, roaring moon, ogerpon, etc. with iron defense sets and still functions well as a defensive pivot thanks to u-turn. even if it cant beat something, it can still pivot out and bring in another teammate safely, which is a very valuable trait for a defensive pokemon to have. being one of the most consistent switch-ins to gliscor is also huge for it

 

[RaikouLover]

This is a solid starting list. Certainly matches my play experience 99% thus far.

I do find Gliscor being alone in S tier is a stretch. I’d argue there is no way it is more splashable than Gambit. I think Gambit is easier to fit on teams, meta defining, and more useful overall than Gliscor.

Gambit alone in S. Gliscor can join his criminal friend Dhengo in S-.

 

[Mugenman88]

Why is Torterra ranked? Even if it does get Shell Smash it seems like it kinda can't really do much since it still get outrun by anything even remotely fast with scarf or basically any paradox mon with booster energy after a Smash unless it wants to lose a lot of power going Jolly

 

[VigilanteV8]

I would like to discuss about a forgotten OG that, in my opinion, is CRIMINALLY underrated in the current meta:
This boi over here

B --> A

Now when it lost knock off it obviously was a RUBL mon, there was no way this thing could be relevant with a 70 base power dark STAB. Now weavile got knock off back and let me tell you that saying I'm having success with it would be an understatement. On The ladder I am about 3 standard deviations above my mean (considering the logarithmic scale of the ladder). For the first time ever I am above 1900 and this statistically abnormal massive increase in elo happened exactly when I introduced weavile in my team (pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/dfd52976c2ab0852).

To complete the team I tried a number of fast hard hitting mons as this was the role I felt I needed to fill somehow. Among my experiments I tested some of the strongest folks including:

,

or

. I got decent results but nothing spectacular. With some of them I was able to get slightly better results but never anything close to the jump weavile allowed me to do. I'm gonna be 100% honest: I think it has little to nothing to do with my quality of plays, it's just that weavile is THAT good in the current meta.

Reasoning:

I) Power: In most of my matchups on the high ladder I feel like weavile just has little to no switchins. Seriously Dark/Ice STAB is incredibly tough to deal with. Furthermore weavile got access to lowkick making it able to OKHO

and deal massive damage to mons that wall ice/dark that you can occasionally see like

. Now think about it: what OU mon is switching to band weavile? Other than corv there isn't really anything that can switch in without being severely punished.

can take hits very well from but it is going to lose heavy-duty-boots which is a huge loss for that mon.

II) Speed: Weavile speed tier has not been powercrept this gen. 125 base speed remains insanely good even in gen 9 as the faster mons were (rightfully) banned. Weavile also got access to a great priority that massively helps to deal with its speed rival

and finish weakened booster ,

. These are the only faster mons than weavile and they have a very bad time taking its hits. Furthermore a popular strong priority user

happens to be weak to ice shard and will be unable in most cases to use its own priority, being KOed before it can do anything else. The speed and priority make weavile arguably one of the best late game cleaners of the current OU metagame. Weavile speed combined with its power also create very nice situations like being able to OKHO with a high chance

with a band knock off (over 100% chance with tera dark). This can of course be extremely useful if you have an hazard intesive team.

Flaws: Weavile has no forms of bulk. Furthermore Ice/Dark is as good offensively as it is terrible defensively. Tons of weaknesses and hazards absolutely ruin your day, especially in this meta hazard weakness is deffinitely a limiting factor. The only good defensive property of weavile is that it is able to not get folded in half by a kingambit sucker punch, which is something interesting that can be useful but lets be honest: bro is made out of paper.

Considering the pros and cons I think weavile should at least get to A- tier. Considering my experience I would even propose A tier but I'm certainly biased towards it. Still looking at it objectively I think it is better than some of the folks that are in A- tier.





Below you can find some screenshots of recent matches were weavile was absolutely essential to the vicotry, most of the times it fills the role of late game cleaner. You can see it standing proudly in front of the teams he knock offed/ice sharded to oblivion:

 

[Avant Heim]

why is ursaluna B? is it really as bad as some people make it out to be? why is torn-t B+?

regarding Ursaluna: While yes, it does have good damage output and bulk, it needs way too much support from its team and lacks durability due to having to be burned and not having a recovery move

 

[ianlazerbeem]

This is a solid starting list. Certainly matches my play experience 99% thus far.

I do find Gliscor being alone in S tier is a stretch. I’d argue there is no way it is more splashable than Gambit. I think Gambit is easier to fit on teams, meta defining, and more useful overall than Gliscor.

Gambit alone in S. Gliscor can join his criminal friend Dhengo in S-.

I disagree, I'd say there's a big difference in rate of success between Gambit and Gliscor. Gambit frequently fails to get its reverse sweep between the sheer number of Pokémon in the tier it matches poorly against and how much people prepare for it now, but there's absolutely zilch stopping Gliscor from getting its spikes up. I would also dispute it being more difficult to fit on teams- how can a Pokémon with almost no weaknesses, that is immune to chip, knock off, status, and 2 types be remotely challenging to fit onto a team?

 

[OvertoneSeries]

What's the logic behind Dozo in B+? Is tera reliance vs grass types pushing it down too much?

 

[Annomous_89]

Is Maushold B- rank becaus of tidy up?

Basically yes it’s the only way to hazard remove in front of a ghold also it’s just better dragon dance
But technician bite on defensive ghold is 252 Atk Technician Maushold Bite vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gholdengo: 102-122 (26.9 - 32.2%) -- 51.5% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252 Atk Technician Maushold Bite vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gholdengo: 152-180 (40.2 - 47.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
This might not seem like much but it literally can’t touch the Maushold
It doesn’t fare well against kingambit
+1 252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Great Tusk: 420-490 (113.2 - 132%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Does great against non defensive great tusk
+1 252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 330-390 (93.7 - 110.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
The best Pokémon according to the vr crumbles to popbomb
+1 252 Atk Technician Maushold Bite vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Dragapult: 260-306 (68.4 - 80.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Only banded drag which doesn’t have a guarantee to survive the pop bomb;+1 252 Atk Technician Maushold Bite vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dragapult: 260-306 (82 - 96.5%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock; can kill it
Iron valiant actually can threaten it
4 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Maushold: 438-516 (151.5 - 178.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 600-720 (199.3 - 239.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
This is overkill
+1 252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zamazenta: 460-550 (141.5 - 169.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Same with Zam
+1 252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 0 HP / 124 Def Iron Moth: 660-780 (219.2 - 259.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Iron moth don’t you mean iron dead

but it has a lot of drawbacks aka every fighting type move user
Basically it’s off meta and you’re kinda cooking with it

 

[Annomous_89]

I would like to discuss about a forgotten OG that, in my opinion, is CRIMINALLY underrated in the current meta:
This boi over here

B --> A

Now when it lost knock off it obviously was a RUBL mon, there was no way this thing could be relevant with a 70 base power dark STAB. Now weavile got knock off back and let me tell you that saying I'm having success with it would be an understatement. On The ladder I am about 3 standard deviations above my mean (considering the logarithmic scale of the ladder). For the first time ever I am above 1900 and this statistically abnormal massive increase in elo happened exactly when I introduced weavile in my team (pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/dfd52976c2ab0852).

To complete the team I tried a number of fast hard hitting mons as this was the role I felt I needed to fill somehow. Among my experiments I tested some of the strongest folks including:

,

or

. I got decent results but nothing spectacular. With some of them I was able to get slightly better results but never anything close to the jump weavile allowed me to do. I'm gonna be 100% honest: I think it has little to nothing to do with my quality of plays, it's just that weavile is THAT good in the current meta.

Reasoning:

I) Power: In most of my matchups on the high ladder I feel like weavile just has little to no switchins. Seriously Dark/Ice STAB is incredibly tough to deal with. Furthermore weavile got access to lowkick making it able to OKHO

and deal massive damage to mons that wall ice/dark that you can occasionally see like

. Now think about it: what OU mon is switching to band weavile? Other than corv there isn't really anything that can switch in without being severely punished.

can take hits very well from but it is going to lose heavy-duty-boots which is a huge loss for that mon.

II) Speed: Weavile speed tier has not been powercrept this gen. 125 base speed remains insanely good even in gen 9 as the faster mons were (rightfully) banned. Weavile also got access to a great priority that massively helps to deal with its speed rival

and finish weakened booster ,

. These are the only faster mons than weavile and they have a very bad time taking its hits. Furthermore a popular strong priority user

happens to be weak to ice shard and will be unable in most cases to use its own priority, being KOed before it can do anything else. The speed and priority make weavile arguably one of the best late game cleaners of the current OU metagame. Weavile speed combined with its power also create very nice situations like being able to OKHO with a high chance

with a band knock off (over 100% chance with tera dark). This can of course be extremely useful if you have an hazard intesive team.

Flaws: Weavile has no forms of bulk. Furthermore Ice/Dark is as good offensively as it is terrible defensively. Tons of weaknesses and hazards absolutely ruin your day, especially in this meta hazard weakness is deffinitely a limiting factor. The only good defensive property of weavile is that it is able to not get folded in half by a kingambit sucker punch, which is something interesting that can be useful but lets be honest: bro is made out of paper.

Considering the pros and cons I think weavile should at least get to A- tier. Considering my experience I would even propose A tier but I'm certainly biased towards it. Still looking at it objectively I think it is better than some of the folks that are in A- tier.





Below you can find some screenshots of recent matches were weavile was absolutely essential to the vicotry, most of the times it fills the role of late game cleaner. You can see it standing proudly in front of the teams he knock offed/ice sharded to oblivion:

View attachment 563441

View attachment 563442

View attachment 563444

Using weavile is kinda cooking and three results doesn’t equal an a

 

[That_Dwayneee]

I suggest Shaymin goes into C tier

I second this notion I tried it it genuinely isn't terrible

 

[Annomous_89]

I second this notion I tried it it genuinely isn't terrible

I second as well

 

[658Greninja]

I would like to discuss about a forgotten OG that, in my opinion, is CRIMINALLY underrated in the current meta:
This boi over here

B --> A

Now when it lost knock off it obviously was a RUBL mon, there was no way this thing could be relevant with a 70 base power dark STAB. Now weavile got knock off back and let me tell you that saying I'm having success with it would be an understatement. On The ladder I am about 3 standard deviations above my mean (considering the logarithmic scale of the ladder). For the first time ever I am above 1900 and this statistically abnormal massive increase in elo happened exactly when I introduced weavile in my team (pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/dfd52976c2ab0852).

To complete the team I tried a number of fast hard hitting mons as this was the role I felt I needed to fill somehow. Among my experiments I tested some of the strongest folks including:

,

or

. I got decent results but nothing spectacular. With some of them I was able to get slightly better results but never anything close to the jump weavile allowed me to do. I'm gonna be 100% honest: I think it has little to nothing to do with my quality of plays, it's just that weavile is THAT good in the current meta.

Reasoning:

I) Power: In most of my matchups on the high ladder I feel like weavile just has little to no switchins. Seriously Dark/Ice STAB is incredibly tough to deal with. Furthermore weavile got access to lowkick making it able to OKHO

and deal massive damage to mons that wall ice/dark that you can occasionally see like

. Now think about it: what OU mon is switching to band weavile? Other than corv there isn't really anything that can switch in without being severely punished.

can take hits very well from but it is going to lose heavy-duty-boots which is a huge loss for that mon.

II) Speed: Weavile speed tier has not been powercrept this gen. 125 base speed remains insanely good even in gen 9 as the faster mons were (rightfully) banned. Weavile also got access to a great priority that massively helps to deal with its speed rival

and finish weakened booster ,

. These are the only faster mons than weavile and they have a very bad time taking its hits. Furthermore a popular strong priority user

happens to be weak to ice shard and will be unable in most cases to use its own priority, being KOed before it can do anything else. The speed and priority make weavile arguably one of the best late game cleaners of the current OU metagame. Weavile speed combined with its power also create very nice situations like being able to OKHO with a high chance

with a band knock off (over 100% chance with tera dark). This can of course be extremely useful if you have an hazard intesive team.

Flaws: Weavile has no forms of bulk. Furthermore Ice/Dark is as good offensively as it is terrible defensively. Tons of weaknesses and hazards absolutely ruin your day, especially in this meta hazard weakness is deffinitely a limiting factor. The only good defensive property of weavile is that it is able to not get folded in half by a kingambit sucker punch, which is something interesting that can be useful but lets be honest: bro is made out of paper.

Considering the pros and cons I think weavile should at least get to A- tier. Considering my experience I would even propose A tier but I'm certainly biased towards it. Still looking at it objectively I think it is better than some of the folks that are in A- tier.





Below you can find some screenshots of recent matches were weavile was absolutely essential to the vicotry, most of the times it fills the role of late game cleaner. You can see it standing proudly in front of the teams he knock offed/ice sharded to oblivion:

View attachment 563441

View attachment 563442

View attachment 563444

I’m surprised you got to the 1900s with 0 Boots and your only form of hazard removal being Corv (and we all know how great Corv is as a Defogger, right?)

 

[Roshino]

I would argue that Vaporeon is really underrated and should be somewhere on the list. It has the same merits Milotic has (Haze, Scald, Flip Turn, high hp/spdef), but with Wish as well (the same idea and speed behind the Alomomola slow Wishpass peak #1 posted the other day around here).

I'm also glad that my bro Hawlucha is on the list - mold breaker defog, 118 base encore and STAB brave bird/acro is too good to completely ignore in this meta

Tusk and Ting-Lu should fall like a brick. Gliscor forces Tusk to run Spinner, which in turn limits its sets really hard, and just does Ting-Lu's job better.

Seeing Gliscor in S+ makes me believe that most people agree that Gliscor is busted and constricts teambuilding, which I will refuse to elaborate for now bc it's a topic that is already beaten to death and just seeing it in team preview flares up my anxiety

 

[ausma]

why is ursaluna B? is it really as bad as some people make it out to be? why is torn-t B+?

it’s not that luna is bad, far from it. the main issue with it is its speed and general proneness to being overwhelmed between flame orb chip, hazards, and a general lack of resists to switch in with and properly capitalize on its ability to take one or two important neutral hits. so in practice it doesn’t wind up being as bulky as you want it to be for taking trades, but if you support it well though it is a beast and easily capable of taking 2-3 mons with it. imo trailblaze sets r really solid on webs, and trick room is as good as ever with it.

torn retrieving knock off gives it a really important tool that it has been missing this gen, letting utility sets shine far more since it now has a splashable, easy-progress making option that they often need to be consistent. it isn’t quite at the heights it’s had in past gens since it lost defog and toxic, but regaining knock has made it far easier to put on teams and it’s seen high ladder success on bulky offense, balance, and stall even without those tools

Why is Torterra ranked? Even if it does get Shell Smash it seems like it kinda can't really do much since it still get outrun by anything even remotely fast with scarf or basically any paradox mon with booster energy after a Smash unless it wants to lose a lot of power going Jolly

those flaws are extremely debilitating and are why it’s not any higher. but loaded dice with webs support is legitimately threatening, and it helps that it’s a mon that can be self sufficient as a breaker/potential cleaner without webs since webs are being adapted to. still very structure reliant and it hates balloon dengo always being in your walls but it’s seen some fringe success on a widespread archetype to carve out a d-tier niche.

 

[Baloor]

Greninja

S-

Finchinator i need answers regarding your vr slate

 

[Finchinator]

Greninja

S-

Finchinator i need answers regarding your vr slate

Was intended to be A-; Greninja isn’t a top 5-10 Pokémon lol

 

[VigilanteV8]

+

I’m surprised you got to the 1900s with 0 Boots and your only form of hazard removal being Corv (and we all know how great Corv is as a Defogger, right?)

it's mainly due to the extremely effective defensive core.

all have traits that are able to mitigate hazard damage. Garg has insane recovery and status immunity, clod resists rocks and with sludge + recover it really doesn't have many issues even when rocks + spikes are on the filed and Corv is ofc immune to spike + roost.

By the way:

C+ ---> B+. Ain't no way clod is worse than

or

. Like not even close, clod brings extreme utility having access to all 3 hazards depending on your needs, insane special bulk, typing and ability,. Brother walls Gholdengo, walking wake, rotom, Moltres and, most importantly,

and

. Zapdos and moth, for good reasons, have very high usage and clod is just a great answer to them. Clod ain't no C+ rank mon idk why that rating is so low, especially lower than milotic that, in all honesty, I have never seen on the ladder and for good reasons. Then clod also has a great matchup against

as if it doesn't have psyhock it is walled by the sludgy boi. If it does have psyshock It doesn't OKHO (not even after +1) leaving clod the chance to leave a toxic or force it out permanently loosing the booster speed boost.

B+ ---> A-. Corv B+rating ain't that far from what I consider its real rating but helemet + press corv is incredibly helpful against many of the most dangerous mons running around like

,

,

,

,

. Of course you also have the insane pivotting provided by U turn and utility of Defog. Yes Gholdengo is in the tier but corv is not completely helpless against that, you don't know how many times I popped that baloon with U turn pivotting out to clod/garg. Not saying corv is good against it but U turn is a tool that helps to mitigate that weakness. Corv matchup overall is too good to be B+, thing is not on the same lavel of

(that is also walled to oblivion with most of its sets).

PS: Corv also helps as it can PP stall things like

. Now this is the topic for another discussion but I am pretty confident in saying that Gliscor should be banned as it forces extremely unhealthy stalemate scenarios. I think overally it has a negative impact on the meta and corv is at least able to switch on it, drain its PP and pivot out to some other mon (but scor has protect + poison heal so it will just regenerate all of its HP and go away, very skill intensive mon indeed).

 

[Firer4]

Just to clarify on the explanations regarding Clefable since thats already been touched on: Did I get it right that there isnt a specific Clefable set that stands out right now but its rather the mix of the plethora of sets such as magic guard + rocks or unaware set-up that justify its current ranking? Personally I feel like it gets 2hkod by a lot more stuff than it used to in past gens which makes its job a lot more difficult (eg. Moon Acrobatics, Ivy Cudgel, Gambit with a few dead allies and Unburden Sneasler even if you tera out of the stab weakness etc.)

Could you also elaborate a bit on Garganacl in B+? The utility Garg set feels kinda dead due to the prevalence of Magic Guard Clefable and Gliscsor but I feel like the setup sets might be a bit overlooked rn, since the aforementioned mons are complete set up fodder and will lose in the long run unless they run set up of their own. Garganacl kinda always gets stronger the less common it is cause fewer teams are prepared for it. Covert Cloak is basically gone and a lot less mons run Substitute nowadays than they used to during the Garg high time. This allows it to break through defensive cores while also providing an answer to stuff like Dnite, Pult, Moth unless it teras etc.

Also thanks to Finch for all the hard and thankless work so far

 

[1LDK]

Okay so 24 hours have passed since the creation of the thread, therefore, I can officially make a nomination to start things hot, I have said this before, this vr is extremely accurate, and it was an excellent job by the council, but I do have a pair of complaints, that I'm gonna do in the form of rankings

From A+ ------> S

I have the belief that this meta is largely summarized in 2 metas, Ogerpon HO and Gliscor Balance, and both can be interchangeable in the discussion of "who is the most annoying wetless sack of shit". What ogerpon brings to the debate, is her high speed, nice damage and incredible movepool, starting from her speed, 110 is great, (on the OU tier) speed ties with moth and loses to valiant, moon, ace, sneasler, greninja, ribombee, zamazenta and dragapult, which means most of the unboosted meta is getting outsped. Her damage output is great, Ivy Cudgel has a nasty crit rate that helps ogerpon potentially brute forcing its targets and 120 damage on a 100 water move is huge as well, it also has sword dance, but you already knew that for the sweeps. Her movepool is great, horn leech, knock off, trailblaze, encore, substitute, low kick, play rough, spikes, U-turn. So she also has access to role compression utility. She and gliscor are in a constant game of cat and mouse where who can catch the other off guard and the lack of item is a bit tough to build, remember you're using her mostly in HO or fast-paced offensive teams, meaning you either don't care or you will have offensive/Booster Tusk. This is not to say you cannot partner with her on more bulky or balanced teams tho, U-turn + support utility means she can keep momentum and/or sweep, residual damage from spikes and toxic, both that gliscor can set also help her up by putting things on the backfoot easily

I do understand that SCL has moved more into gliscor balance, but I do believe that Oger requires almost as much preparation, just wait until people start running some dumb shit like grassy glide alongside support rilla, she still has some surprises to give, and I do think that a rise is deserved

From B+ -------> B

On the other side of the coin, Corvi got an indirect buff in being able to block gliscor and tanking rillaboom quite nicely, but I do still find her to be incredibly unspectacular and more times than not, a hindrance in the builder, Gliscor balance is one of the main 2 play styles in this meta, and while corv sounds incredible against literally 1 half of the meta, most of these teams pack gholdengo, which nullifies her entirely, I am aware that the best around is ID + BP + U-turn + Roost, but this set is incredible passive and reactive instead of proactive, and thanks to tera, things that should be scared can quickly turn the tides, 2 particular cases are Roaring Moon and Kingambit.

Corviknight most of the games I have watched doesn't do much if at all, sets up ID, gets forced out or U-turns out, and doesn't come back until 3 years later to either do it again or to be sacked, her defensive utility is mostly an "on paper" thing and the value she brings to the battle does not scream "B+" to me, and unless Gholdengo and or tera gets banned, this will be probably the peak of this thing

 

[Exotic64]

A+ ---> S-
With the increased usage of gliscor and wellspring, and the prevalence of 6 boots teams, one of Dragapult's primary checks, Ting-Lu, has dropped a good bit in usage. Dragapult's specs sets are extremely powerful; modest dracos and shadow balls do big damage, and there are not many switchins to either - the emergency checks that do come in such as Kingambit are subjected to chip overtime, and if hit by a flamethrower it will drop the mon to under 10%. Other checks include Milotic and Empoleon, which are probably the best checks to Dragapult rn, however they are forced to burn recovery against the very common boots wisp-hex set right now, which offers heaps of value thanks to its great job at spreading status.
Being able to force tera vs the very common gholdengo, or destroy webs with the clear body specs set, Dragapult is great into the meta rn; it can run many sets from a high damage specs set which is sure to create gaps in the opponent's team, or spread status and offer amazing utility on a balance team with a boots set. I strongly believe its versability, great utility and damage, and amazing matchup to the majority of the tier right now makes it worthy of a S- mon.

A+ ---> S
I have personally found this mon extremely hard to play into. It's amazing attack and speed completely destroys balance teams and often forces a tera on Gliscor or some sort. There are barely any mons that can switch into this long term except for Amoonguss - Wellspring both restricts team building and has an amazing ability and STAB options that I believe it should be S for sure. I would have personally vouched for this mon to be suspected instead of Roaring Moon but yeah very good rn. Amazing matchups every single archetype rn, insane movepool and great utility options too such as knock, encore and synthesis - makes Ogerpon-Wellspring very easy to fit into any archetype right now whilst offering great value to the team at the same time.
Since DLC1 has dropped I have always said that Ogerpon-Wellspring has been better than Hearthflame. Personally I do not mind the hearthflame ban because it was singlehandedly making both balance and stall unplayable thanks to mold breaker and but it had a terrible rocks weakness so i never had issues with it lmfao, but frankly Wellspring offers so much more outside of raw damage and its value is seriously underlooked rn imo, instead of completely overwhelming stall and balance (it kind of does ngl still) it is forcing out Teras at the very least instead of its fire counterpart which just clicked Ivy 6 times whenever it played against a non-HO team rofl

Everything else looks good right now, maybe I would move Dragonite up to A+ just because of how good it is at shitting on both Balance and HO if neglected (DD Ice Spinner EQ Espeed is amazing)

 

[ausma]

Just to clarify on the explanations regarding Clefable since thats already been touched on: Did I get it right that there isnt a specific Clefable set that stands out right now but its rather the mix of the plethora of sets such as magic guard + rocks or unaware set-up that justify its current ranking? Personally I feel like it gets 2hkod by a lot more stuff than it used to in past gens which makes its job a lot more difficult (eg. Moon Acrobatics, Ivy Cudgel, Gambit with a few dead allies and Unburden Sneasler even if you tera out of the stab weakness etc.)

yes you are correct

Could you also elaborate a bit on Garganacl in B+? The utility Garg set feels kinda dead due to the prevalence of Magic Guard Clefable and Gliscsor but I feel like the setup sets might be a bit overlooked rn, since the aforementioned mons are complete set up fodder and will lose in the long run unless they run set up of their own. Garganacl kinda always gets stronger the less common it is cause fewer teams are prepared for it. Covert Cloak is basically gone and a lot less mons run Substitute nowadays than they used to during the Garg high time. This allows it to break through defensive cores while also providing an answer to stuff like Dnite, Pult, Moth unless it teras etc.

to put it in a nutshell, it’s still a garganacl. it’s a very consistent rocker since it doesn’t care about toxic, accrues damage rly easily, and has iron defense to allow teams to react to stuff like rm and ogerpon. it’s defo become a tera sink again but it’s not bad at all

Also thanks to Finch for all the hard and thankless work so far

no problem

with that last question answered i will formally be opening the vr for nominations, though it seems i’ve been beaten the punch already lol. consider this a formal announcement to send questions to me in dms if you have any further questions! happy nomming/discussing

 

[Magcargo]

I would like to discuss about a forgotten OG that, in my opinion, is CRIMINALLY underrated in the current meta:
This boi over here

B --> A

Now when it lost knock off it obviously was a RUBL mon, there was no way this thing could be relevant with a 70 base power dark STAB. Now weavile got knock off back and let me tell you that saying I'm having success with it would be an understatement. On The ladder I am about 3 standard deviations above my mean (considering the logarithmic scale of the ladder). For the first time ever I am above 1900 and this statistically abnormal massive increase in elo happened exactly when I introduced weavile in my team (pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/dfd52976c2ab0852).

To complete the team I tried a number of fast hard hitting mons as this was the role I felt I needed to fill somehow. Among my experiments I tested some of the strongest folks including:

,

or

. I got decent results but nothing spectacular. With some of them I was able to get slightly better results but never anything close to the jump weavile allowed me to do. I'm gonna be 100% honest: I think it has little to nothing to do with my quality of plays, it's just that weavile is THAT good in the current meta.

Reasoning:

I) Power: In most of my matchups on the high ladder I feel like weavile just has little to no switchins. Seriously Dark/Ice STAB is incredibly tough to deal with. Furthermore weavile got access to lowkick making it able to OKHO

and deal massive damage to mons that wall ice/dark that you can occasionally see like

. Now think about it: what OU mon is switching to band weavile? Other than corv there isn't really anything that can switch in without being severely punished.

can take hits very well from but it is going to lose heavy-duty-boots which is a huge loss for that mon.

II) Speed: Weavile speed tier has not been powercrept this gen. 125 base speed remains insanely good even in gen 9 as the faster mons were (rightfully) banned. Weavile also got access to a great priority that massively helps to deal with its speed rival

and finish weakened booster ,

. These are the only faster mons than weavile and they have a very bad time taking its hits. Furthermore a popular strong priority user

happens to be weak to ice shard and will be unable in most cases to use its own priority, being KOed before it can do anything else. The speed and priority make weavile arguably one of the best late game cleaners of the current OU metagame. Weavile speed combined with its power also create very nice situations like being able to OKHO with a high chance

with a band knock off (over 100% chance with tera dark). This can of course be extremely useful if you have an hazard intesive team.

Flaws: Weavile has no forms of bulk. Furthermore Ice/Dark is as good offensively as it is terrible defensively. Tons of weaknesses and hazards absolutely ruin your day, especially in this meta hazard weakness is deffinitely a limiting factor. The only good defensive property of weavile is that it is able to not get folded in half by a kingambit sucker punch, which is something interesting that can be useful but lets be honest: bro is made out of paper.

Considering the pros and cons I think weavile should at least get to A- tier. Considering my experience I would even propose A tier but I'm certainly biased towards it. Still looking at it objectively I think it is better than some of the folks that are in A- tier.





Below you can find some screenshots of recent matches were weavile was absolutely essential to the vicotry, most of the times it fills the role of late game cleaner. You can see it standing proudly in front of the teams he knock offed/ice sharded to oblivion:

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I've ran Weavile on similar structures, and while it is decent, I feel that CB Roaring Moon always provides more due to its better power, lack of Stealth Rock weakness and better movepool (which includes key options like U-Turn. Its certainly feels much easier to play since it has less risk in switching in due to the better bulk and taking less chip damage from hazards. It can also emergency check stuff like non-Tera Kingambit better due to the better bulk. I will admit, the Ice STAB on weavile is extremely nice. I could see a rise to B+, but A rank seems too high, especially since Roaring Moon feels drastically better than Weavile to me due to having more spots it can safely switch in.