For some reason, i thought it wouldn't recoil if something was immune. Good to know!
Maybe? It can’t switch into a lot of knock off users for fear of getting blown up or poisoned (in the case of mandibuzz and okidogi) but it can switch into some of them, namely crawdaunt, lokix, quaquaval, ogerpon and most meowscarada (I haven’t seen a single one with triple axel and I doubt I’ll see anymore in the future).
It functions like Jump Kick/Axe Kick/High Jump Kick too because those moves also cause crash damage if you target a Ghost-type
Piggybacking off this, I think it is really beneficial if one can slot Brick Break/Psychic Fangs (or Raging Bull) for screen clearing somewhere on your team + Ice Spinner (probably on Iron Treads) for Terrain clearing. There is a lot of HO spam on the ladder rn and I think running at least one of the above moves somewhere on your team can help quite a bit. While Brick Break is trash, Grimmsnarl is immune to Psychic Fangs and thus can set screens against you. I think banning light clay would probably just instantly improve the tier but that's another topic.so after a 6 year hiatus, i finally came back to my uu roots. and before the new mons drop in the next days and the meta shifts render our teams outdated, i wanted to do a RMT of my most successful team as of now. but rmts take so much time to make and the rmt forum is dead (it used to be so full of life in 2015) so ima post it here like amane misa did
no special attackers needed pokepaste
scarf reckless HJK mienshao
life orb 4 atks weavile
life orb 4 atks lycanrock
sub dd tera flying gyara
life orb sd trailblaze rotom-w lure scizor
shuca berry iron treads
this team is really fun as it explores some underdogs in shao, lycanrock and, surprisingly, gyarados (why is that thing RUBL and not UU????) and also was born right after the last metagame updates when iron hands, amoongus and skele left UU and the demon of alolan ninetales dropped down. without skele and amoongus (2 prominent fighting-type walls), i figured out good old and forgotten reckless HJK tera fighting mienshao would be a monster. the team started with him. weavile was added to be the strong knock off that kills sinitscha, slowking, slowbro and other switchins to mienshao.
as i hate making standard teams, i explored lower tiers in the search of hidden gems. that's when lycanrock caught my eye. it is a REALLY good mon right now but NOBODY uses it. psychic fangs to break the newly spammed aurora veil teams and send okidogis to hell. rock typing to check omnipresent tornadus-t. priority accelerock to revenge torn, weavile, scarf thund and sometimes barraskweda. good 110 base speed and access to close combat so that iron treads is NOT a check (it comes into a stone edge and then what? lol). rock typing allows it to check banded h-arcanine's extremespeed (which often obliterates offense). and on top of that, tough claws as ability makes all of its attacks extra strong. really good mon in today's meta. give it a shot. demanded. or better not and let me be the only cool guy around haha.
with shao, weavile and lycan, the team was destroyed by scizor. so what do you do when all your team members lure scizor in? you slap in a scizor abuser: gyarados. sub dd gyara is INCREDIBLE right now. you'll see the replays. sets up on clodsire, gastrodon and slowking, as most of the time all they can do is status it. tera flying is super strong. the only thing that reliably takes on it is rotom-w, so that's why trailblaze scizor was added as it is an eaaaasy lure and also a cool dragon and fairy check the team needed. and lastly, iron treads was slapped because rocks, spin, and because, well, it's freaking treads. shuca berry has proven to be amazing right now with all the protosynthesis lead sandyshocks.
even tho the team started with mienshao as the star, subdd gyara quickly stole the spotlight. lycanrock usually doesn't work as a sweeper, but as an amazing glue, revenge killer, pressure-putter and progress making mon.
sub gyara setting on cress and turning tables around: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2020638767
subdd gyara winning turn 1 (battle that got me to 1600): https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2020797450
subdd gyara setting vs slowking (idk why opp didnt revenge with weavile): https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2020825387
shuca treads and gyara vs standard protosynthesis sandy shocks offense: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2014326603
mienshao pressuring A LOT: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2021258566
shao is cool: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2020790314
all in all, i decided to post this because overlooked threats like mienshao, subdd gyara and lycanrock are really good in today's meta (december 2023). idk if it will change with the new january 2024 drops, but i really hope not because this team is so freaking fun.
Reckless hjk mien is a monsterso after a 6 year hiatus, i finally came back to my uu roots. and before the new mons drop in the next days and the meta shifts render our teams outdated, i wanted to do a RMT of my most successful team as of now. but rmts take so much time to make and the rmt forum is dead (it used to be so full of life in 2015) so ima post it here like amane misa did
no special attackers needed pokepaste
scarf reckless HJK mienshao
life orb 4 atks weavile
life orb 4 atks lycanrock
sub dd tera flying gyara
life orb sd trailblaze rotom-w lure scizor
shuca berry iron treads
this team is really fun as it explores some underdogs in shao, lycanrock and, surprisingly, gyarados (why is that thing RUBL and not UU????) and also was born right after the last metagame updates when iron hands, amoongus and skele left UU and the demon of alolan ninetales dropped down. without skele and amoongus (2 prominent fighting-type walls), i figured out good old and forgotten reckless HJK tera fighting mienshao would be a monster. the team started with him. weavile was added to be the strong knock off that kills sinitscha, slowking, slowbro and other switchins to mienshao.
as i hate making standard teams, i explored lower tiers in the search of hidden gems. that's when lycanrock caught my eye. it is a REALLY good mon right now but NOBODY uses it. psychic fangs to break the newly spammed aurora veil teams and send okidogis to hell. rock typing to check omnipresent tornadus-t. priority accelerock to revenge torn, weavile, scarf thund and sometimes barraskweda. good 110 base speed and access to close combat so that iron treads is NOT a check (it comes into a stone edge and then what? lol). rock typing allows it to check banded h-arcanine's extremespeed (which often obliterates offense). and on top of that, tough claws as ability makes all of its attacks extra strong. really good mon in today's meta. give it a shot. demanded. or better not and let me be the only cool guy around haha.
with shao, weavile and lycan, the team was destroyed by scizor. so what do you do when all your team members lure scizor in? you slap in a scizor abuser: gyarados. sub dd gyara is INCREDIBLE right now. you'll see the replays. sets up on clodsire, gastrodon and slowking, as most of the time all they can do is status it. tera flying is super strong. the only thing that reliably takes on it is rotom-w, so that's why trailblaze scizor was added as it is an eaaaasy lure and also a cool dragon and fairy check the team needed. and lastly, iron treads was slapped because rocks, spin, and because, well, it's freaking treads. shuca berry has proven to be amazing right now with all the protosynthesis lead sandyshocks.
even tho the team started with mienshao as the star, subdd gyara quickly stole the spotlight. lycanrock usually doesn't work as a sweeper, but as an amazing glue, revenge killer, pressure-putter and progress making mon.
sub gyara setting on cress and turning tables around: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2020638767
subdd gyara winning turn 1 (battle that got me to 1600): https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2020797450
subdd gyara setting vs slowking (idk why opp didnt revenge with weavile): https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2020825387
shuca treads and gyara vs standard protosynthesis sandy shocks offense: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2014326603
mienshao pressuring A LOT: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2021258566
shao is cool: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2020790314
all in all, i decided to post this because overlooked threats like mienshao, subdd gyara and lycanrock are really good in today's meta (december 2023). idk if it will change with the new january 2024 drops, but i really hope not because this team is so freaking fun.
this thing, should at least rise to C+ or preferably B-
and 
are nowhere to be seen, which means our current favoured dark types and ghost resists are the very frail 
and 
, which can only take so much resisted shadow balls before dropping to it.
anymore and actually threatning improves its viability slightly. As does being able to threaten with super effective stab.
and 
, rise of 
and banning of 
, gengar is currently tied for 5th fastest UU ranked mon, which means with scarf it actually out speeds all of the competition, which leads to my preferable Gengar set: Choice scarf is not going to make miracles for you in a match, in fact don't even expect it to come out before the mid-to-late game, but it has a number of qualities that allow it to compete with other common scarfers in the tier, firstly, its the fastest one of the them, period, it outspeeds and nails modest +2, jolly +1 
and jolly +1 after chip. He makes good use of hazards, because against scarf gengar, not only non-assault vest , and dont want to switch in to take 12% and a shadow ball, but theyre also heavily threatened by Shadow ball, Thunderbolt, Focus Blast and Sludge Wave respectively. Scarf also has beautiful synergy with 
who have priority to increase chip damage, allowing Gengar to clean up, and 
who just has semi-perfect type synergy with , AND, and if Gengar really is useless in a match, at least you still have fringe options like tricking your scarf away or the even fringier scarf-destiny bond. Now, talking about its competition for its role as an offensive ghost type:
Ok trust me, does basculegions adaptability shadow balls hit hard coming from 100 Sp atk? Yes, absolutely, but so does a tera-ghost-basically-adaptability shadow ball coming from 130 sp atk, late game its more than enough to keep an offensive pressure, with a much better speed stat, making better use of choice scarf in general in exchange from much more horrid bulk, but its not like you'll use Basc as a wall either, and as for basculegions other set, its only usable in rain so it doesn't compete with gengar in any shape or form.
completely different uses of ghost types, one is a fast sweeper and the other is a slow sweeper and dedicated spinblocker, i'd even say that these two could co-exist in a hazard-centric team without causing much issues aside from stacking a terrible dark weakness. this thing is only viable in HO and even then it still loses to scarf gengar if you dont tera.
Could we stop saying this thing is the cooler Gengar already? I mean yeah its a better user of nasty plot than gengar, who cares? Good luck using nasty plot around in Weavile's and Meowscarada's town. Its lower sp attack stat and slightly lower power complementaly stab that doesn't hit anything for super effective damage ultimately make it a worse scarfer than Gengar, with no access to thunderbolt too, not to mention its much noticeable lower sp defense stat. its sp defense is so bad you literally dont even have to run coverage for it, resisted sludge wave will still take care of the job:
for the title MAYBE. C tier in the VR is described as "pokemon that are outclassed in its role by better pokemon", and i dont think Gengar is currently outclassed by any other ghost really, it has a unique nique that it can fulfill very well.
and 
are more consistent? I've seen talks about 
rising to C+ in the rankings and if that were to happen Gengar should rise too because it does everything Gardevoir does better aside from the cool but inconsistent trace and not having healing wish.deo-d, corviknight hope, maybe cornerstone/wellspring, lati twins, skeledirge is bakc baby, maybe gren
- Considering the at least decent likelihood we get stuff like Excadrill, Lando-T, a buffed Metagross, the Lati twins, and Terrakion, I'd love to have a bulky catch-all to help with them. Corviknight also gives us a nice removal option since it wouldn't be super owned by Gholdengo down here, and is a cool pivot otherwise. Just seems like a decently likely drop that'd become a quick defensive staple.
- Been using this a lot in OU and with Loaded Dice Technician sets and the obvious Tidy Up buff, it's really fun to play around with and is much more powerful than it ever was before. Not expecting this to be defining but I'm very excited to play with it.
- Ol Reliable, seems like it'll do what it always did and should do it pretty well considering its matchup into removal is great and it's still pretty fast all things considered. Great defensive value too, and might be a good user of Tera Blast.
- Probably just gonna be mediocre honestly, 8 PP recover is rough for this guy. But hey, it spikes and it walls things, and it has a cool utility movepool. Will be interesting to see what it gets done.
- Puts Treads out of a job. Should be absolutely incredible with SD sets and is a great remover. Expecting a tier staple out of this one.
- Tera is a really nice buff for this guy, hits like a truck with DD sets. 
- Should be fine now and is a great offensive Ground option with tons of utility and breaking potential.
- I wouldn't say this is SUPER likely to drop but it's possible and I think it'll be fun to play with if it does. Lead sets will obviously be fine but I'm more interested in what it can do offensively with that meaty SpA and movepool.
- I dunno if this will drop but Regen Grass is a proven formula and this one hits like a truck on top of that.
- Gonna be honest, no clue what this thing does, but it's a stat stick with good typing and good setup options too.
- If it drops it'll be good probs. Might need Tera to break things but it's so strong and fast and Vacuum Wave is a crazy buff.
- I think the breaker sets will be more than fine, but CM + Tera Steel/Poison seems a bit nuts. We'll have to see how these two do, but I'm hopeful that they can be okay.
- Almost definitely busted but maybe?
- Not good, but I wanna click Shell Smash -> Meteor Beam, so.
- Prism Armour + Tera has cool interactions. That's about it though, it's still just Necro at the end of the day.
- Cornerstone is all but guaranteed, Wellspring is a maybe. I think these two will be very fun additions. Both are very realistic ban candidates, but I'm excited to see them tear up the tier.
- Gets decent OU usage so no clue if it drops but Psychic Noise is a fun buff (esp with Liquid Voice potential) and otherwise it'll still do Prim stuff which is always handy.
- The Garg Counter. It seems cool with Tera but 8 PP recover might be too much of a blow.
- he is him
- Can't see Webs being any good without Gholdengo but Ribombee itself might be okay as a QDer tbh.
- Same as always. Alluring Voice is overrated and hard to fit.
- This guy knocks now, so that's cool. I imagine he'll be good.
- Seems ass even with Flip Turn unfortunately but maybe?
- oh boy
- Hella not happening but IF IT DOES it's gonna be so hype TRUST
- Zapdos: BANIt has 3 really good sets: Calm Mind Booster Speed Expanding Force on Psyspam teams, Stored Power sets with Calm Mind and either Iron Defense or Agility, & Future Sight + Volt Switch pivot. I think it’ll be kind of a demon in a UU context.
This might be inverted because Cornerstone is arguably the better of the two in OU atm due to all the new Dragons that dropped in the DLC who make Wellspring’s life miserable if it doesn’t run Play Rough, limiting its ability to run options like Spikes, Encore, Knock Off, etc. But I don’t know if ladder usage reflects this yet.
As much of an excadrill fanboy as I am (you have no idea how hard I popped off when I saw it was back) I don’t think it will completely outclass treads, considering that treads beats stealth rock excadrill with a little attack investment (8 evs) and will still likely be ok since it’s iron treads at the end of the day. It can also emergency check sand rush sets since it takes a +0 earthquake (without crit). It’s niche may be that it’s a utility excadrill that beats excadrill.
AH, THIS. yes.
Probably and definitely, respectively. Both are kind of demons in OU, but they compete with each other for a slot a bit, so I could see that holding Weavile’s usage back a tiny bit. My money is on them both rising though.
I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say battle bond gren isn't gonna last long down here, but it will be so much fun to rip apart everything with it. I am grateful it rose after people figured out battle bond was still really good, because the moment people figured that out, it was really stupid down here. Also BB Gren is one of the few mons helped by stellar since it can use stellar to grab a quick okho it normally would just miss out on, allowing it to grab boosts more easily
oh no, its pokemon home all over again isnt it
