Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Mega gyarados can do something heatran can't do and that is be a general offensive presence even outside of the stall matchup, I don't have any replays but gyarados is able to set up on plenty of metagame threats such as Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, unecro, pdon ect. And with dragon Dance and decent offensive stats it is able to achieve sweeps. Although heatran doesn't waste a mega slot it is often dead weight in some matchups where mega gyarados does very well
Mega bro definitely shouldn't be ur, with unecro being a major threat having mega bro as a check is very useful. It also has a massive defense stat and reliable recovery allowing it to check some of the metatames top physical attackers
I agree with the other two noms though, personally I prefer regular mewtwo over mmy and aero is a very solid lead with an amazing lead mu spread
Ok these are great points and I guess I semi-understand gyarados with offensive abilities i suppose however i still not seeing why you would use slowbro over say any dark mon? dark arc, msab even ttar, yve or other bulky checks that generally check other stuff as well such as other bulky arc forms. Theres not really anything i seeing how they do that bro does that extremely much better or anything really. If you can somehow show me it does good things the dark mons or other bulky checks cant then sure but until theres more elaboration i don't get it. I mean i see it tanks its just the mega slot is screaming at me to say no not to say its not a good check I just not seeing how its worth. (also should have put this in my nom about dark mons but whatever)
Finally getting around to some other random stuff
MMY to B-:
This mon just does less damage then regular mewtwo with life orb takes up mega slot and only works on very specific balances
The speed increase and other general boost does allow it to do some m2 can't by outpacing gar and such but generally is outclassed by mewtwo and really this mon in general feels weak maybe i just underrate it but it does not feel on the same level at m2 to me
I think MMY is fine at B, and potentially deserves to be B+: while yes, it is less powerful than LO, the extra bulk helps a lot, allowing CM Recover sets to switch-in and 1v1 pretty much all CM Arcs apart from Darkceus, something regular Mewtwo can't do:
MMY:
252 SpA Iron Plate Arceus-Steel Judgment vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mewtwo-Mega-Y: 159-187 (45 - 52.9%) -- 28.1% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Pixie Plate Arceus-Fairy Judgment vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mewtwo-Mega-Y: 129-153 (36.5 - 43.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO LO Mewtwo:
252 SpA Iron Plate Arceus-Steel Judgment vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mewtwo: 204-240 (57.7 - 67.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Pixie Plate Arceus-Fairy Judgment vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mewtwo: 165-195 (46.7 - 55.2%) -- 68% chance to 2HKO
You pretty much spam Recover until you get a lower roll vs max spattack Arcs, and can CM alongside them until you get enough boosts if they choose to stay in. Since it only needs +2 or +3 to 2HKO/OHKO, the chance of getting crit is still fairly low.
+2 252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-Y Psystrike vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Steel: 189-223 (49.6 - 58.5%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-Y Psystrike vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Arceus-Fairy: 469-553 (105.8 - 124.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
This allows it to slot in nicely on quite a few fatter balances, which appreciate its ability to handle CM Arcs alongside its wallbreaking prowess. However, it can still achieve most of the things LO Mewtwo can do as long as it has hazards, allowing its CM 3 Attacks set to also be viable on different offenses. These generally prevent hazard removal well, while the extra bulk and speed can help when setting up and revenge killing mons (such as gar, dd zyg, modest deo, etc.).
+1 252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-Y Psystrike vs. 248 HP / 244+ Def Arceus-Fairy: 211-250 (47.6 - 56.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+1 252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-Y Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Yveltal: 406-478 (89 - 104.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+1 252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-Y Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Dark: 454-536 (102.4 - 120.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-Y Fire Blast vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Celesteela: 324-382 (81.6 - 96.2%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+1 252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-Y Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 8 SpD Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 337-397 (100.5 - 118.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-Y Psystrike vs. 0 HP / 8 Def Xerneas: 343-405 (87.2 - 103%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+1 252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-Y Psystrike vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Kyogre-Primal: 361-426 (105.8 - 124.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
note: you obviously can't run cm with 4 attacks, any combination of ice beam/focus blast/fire blast can be run depending on the team
Ok these are great points and I guess I semi-understand gyarados with offensive abilities i suppose however i still not seeing why you would use slowbro over say any dark mon? dark arc, msab even ttar, yve or other bulky checks that generally check other stuff as well such as other bulky arc forms. Theres not really anything i seeing how they do that bro does that extremely much better or anything really. If you can somehow show me it does good things the dark mons or other bulky checks cant then sure but until theres more elaboration i don't get it. I mean i see it tanks its just the mega slot is screaming at me to say no not to say its not a good check I just not seeing how its worth. (also should have put this in my nom about dark mons but whatever)
While Mega Bro is quite hard to fit on teams, it possesses the capability to wall most common physical pokemon (SD Necrozma obv, but also DD Zyg, offensive Groudons, SD Arcs, and DD Ray to an extent). This can be extremely useful on the fat teams it appears on, providing some really nifty role compression and opening up slots for other members on teams instead of having to use 2-3 mons trying to counter the aforementioned threats.
So nobody has posted here in two months, and we're nearing the end of gen 7. I think it's a good idea for every body to make noms on anything they feel strongly about. This is more of a Kickstarter for a bit of a vr grind for the new gen, but I got one nom for you all: Alolan muk D --> UR
I know this Pokemon has its supporters, but straight up, this Pokemon is damn near useless. The only real niche it has over it's much better pursuit trapper is being a very good check for special fighting coverage. That's nice and all, but if muk isn't hitting you with super effective pursuit, it p much fails to check the shit it's supposed to anyway. Easily worn down by Yveltal and xerneas, and like I said, literally everything not weak to pursuit beats it because it's kind of a joke to switch into. It's nigh impossible to fit this poke on a good team, is easily worn down, dies to a light breeze from physical attackers, and struggles to even check the mons it's supposed to. Please delete this Mon from be, it's been on there way too long.
With the near conclusion of OMPL and AGPL being thoroughly underway, I wanted to give my thoughts as to what I think is super strong currently and what I think is not so hot. These are effectively just nominations but I did also want to highlight some meta trends as I go through each nom to support it. I've been building and playing a lot and honestly think I improved a lot across ompl, mostly building-wise so I feel in a strong position to give some good input and nominations.
Ho-Oh: A -> A+
Frankly, Ho-Oh is becoming meta defining. This is shown in particular by the increase in rock moves on don, with support stone edge sets and tomb eruption sets becoming more in favour over support overheat. In addition to this, Dusk Mane is largely falling out of favour which I would like to think is somewhat caused by Ho-Oh, though Waterceus and ultra necro being generally better are huge causes as well. Having access to tools such as Defog and Whirlwind are absolutely incredible for Ho-Oh, with it being one of if not the best Defogger in the game. There are very few Rockers that can keep rocks up against Ho-Oh and Ho-Oh is able to shrug off status with ease. Whirlwind let's it phase out so many set up sweepers and in particular geo xern, which very commonly runs psychic coverage over electric coverage which is especially beneficial to Ho-Oh. Hp rock Geo Xern is an option to get round Ho-Oh but even that it's not too common nor is it a guaranteed OHKO. The amount of things Ho-Oh counters and switches into when rocks aren't up is ridiculous; I've compiled a list here:
- Support Pdon (lacking Stone edge) and mixed don
- Dusk Mane
- Arceus-Fairy
- Support/CM Ground
- Marshadow (tomb Marsh is very uncommon)
- Xerneas
- Arceus-Dark
- Arceus-Steel
- Ferrothorn
- Lunala
- Yveltal
That's 11 mons from A- or higher which is just ridiculous, and with so many opportunities to switch in it can spread status with Toxic and Sacred Fire incredibly easily. In a supportceus based meta Ho-Oh thrives, and with status not being an issue for Ho-Oh it is unsurprising I hold this Pokémon in such high esteem.
With Zygarde and Tyranitar somewhat falling out of favour for the most part due to Draco Meteor Mega Rayquaza being everywhere, it makes Ho-Oh as prevalent as ever. The defensive set is not the only set it has, its got a lot more tricks up its sleeve that it can utilise. Ho-Oh can run Choice band, Choice Scarf and bulky Life Orb. Choice Band does some ridiculous damage, and if supportceus can be Toxiced Ho-Oh can easily take it down. Defensive Zygarde-C is its counter, which mentioned before is dropping out of favour. Tyranitar and Rockceus have to be wary of EQ and everything else struggles to switch into a Toxic or a monstrous BB/Sacred Fire. Choice scarf is a very nice revenge killing option and functions somewhat similar to Scarf Mega Rayquaza. Bulky LO lets you avoid being trapped by goth (though I believe ww sets do as well) and lets you run utility moves such as Substitute or a rare HP Ice tech. This also allows you to handle m ray a little easier and spdef mane has a much harder time keeping rocks up against defog Ho-Oh.
I don't think Stealth Rock is a sufficient argument against Ho-Oh's viability. In USM there are an incredible amount of defoggers, you can form strong defog cores relatively easily due to this. Ho-Oh + Giratina is probably one of the most aids defog cores to face ever, but other stuff like Ho-Oh + Groundceus and Mega Sableye + Groundceus works too.
Ho-Oh is applicable to multiple playstyles (balance and stall) and is effective against all playstyles taking into account all of its sets. Defensive Ho-Oh and Scarf Ho-Oh are somewhat effective against HO, rocks leads are annoying but if you can find a defog it'll probably have a hard time against Ho-Oh as it can spread burns and ww out set up sweepers. Web leads are at a loss against scarf Ho-Oh as usually keeping webs up is essential which it cannot do against scarf Ho-Oh. Ho-Oh's best MU is against balance as it is able to spread status so easily and wear down the opposing team relatively easily giving teammates a much easier time. Banded Ho-Oh is somewhat effective against stall as stall does not run Zygarde-C, meaning predictions with Toxic and spamming Brave Bird can be pretty difficult to handle. Defensive Ho-Oh can still be a nice cushion for status and can spread its own status forcing a heal bell or allowing other teammates to pressure the stall.
Ho-Oh is better than all the Pokémon ranked in A barring Marshadow (which should be A+) imo. Ekiller is extremely versatile but struggles somewhat in this bulky infested meta with Marshadow running free everywhere. It has many checks and counters which ekiller cannot cover all with one set, which means teams can run cores to deal with it (e.g. cele + tar). Fairyceus has some serious issues in that it gets trapped by m gar and is very one dimensional, not to mention the fact defog fairyceus struggles against almost all the rockers in the game. Groundceus is a big threat and a very good supportceus defogger. However, it falls a little short offensively due to having well defined checks and not the most impressive attacking stats, while the defensive set offers little important resistances, can be crippled by Toxic easily and is somewhat passive. Xerneas is too hit or miss to be A+ imo, it's very good but cannot hit all of its counters with 4 moves and is relatively weak to priority as it does not possess that much bulk, especially now that it is always ev'd to outspeed scarf Mega Rayquaza. While Ho-Oh is not perfect it is difficult to pinpoint any major flaws with this Pokémon; surprise Rock coverage and Stealth Rock are the major two weaknesses Ho-Oh has and even these can be played around efficiently through scouting and strong defog support. Is it on Pdon, Dusk's, Mega Gengar's level? Definitely not Pdon as that shit is broken, but it's definitely as good as mega gar (gar is overrated, talked a lil with skarph about this and while he may not 100% agree he at least understands which is good enough for me) and is much better than Dusk Mane (which I think should personally be A anyway). Overall Ho-Oh is just so good, it covers way too much and is a lifesaver for a lot of teams, it really deserves the bump imo.
Arceus-Steel: A- -> B+
I stopped this from being A, now I'm convinced this Pokémon is bad and deserves to be dropped further. It did absolutely nothing of note throughout OMPL and was extremely unremarkable. Not sure how to feel about usage stats but they've completely fallen off a cliff for Steelceus, while I'm only able to use data for weeks 1 and 2 because somehow Chloe hasn't managed to update it past that when we're literally at finals, but in those two weeks it saw 2 uses in week 1 and 0 uses in week 2 which really shows a lot. This Pokémon has so many issues I'm surprised it's managed to stay so high for so long. Let's get into it:
Issues:
1. Building. Building with this Pokémon is really difficult because it's going to leave you weak to a lot; one of the following: Xerneas, Ho-Oh, Groundceus, Pdon, Marshadow. I think Xerneas in particular is the biggest issue here, as you have to run Steelceus + a xern check which frankly just sucks. Steelceus + roar don is really bad and leaves you weak to Mega Rayquaza, Steelceus + Poisonceus makes you super weak to Groundceus/Pdon and is just yuck overall, Steelceus + Dusk Mane is dual steel which means Mega rayquaza/groundceus/don will all be problematic. The obvious solution to this is to use Steelceus on HO, but the problem with this is that it allows Ho-Oh and Waterceus to defog, which is honestly so huge that it's hard to consider using it on HO. Steelceus on Stall? I've seen some successful stalls with it, for example a pex stall fardin made pre usm and lance stall to some extent, but it leaves you too weak to Bulk up Marshadow and DD Zygarde. It's a nice d ascent switch in for stall but can still be pressured by Mega Rayquaza and you may be forced to make predicts which is always risky.
2. Effectiveness. Off the bat Steelceus is doing pretty much nothing against HO and Stall for the most part; the only thing of note is being a non eq ekiller counter and outspeed ekiller and revenging it with Judgment after it has been chipped sufficiently. Stall has options such as Chansey and Ho-Oh which wall Steelceus outright. Steelceus is primarily a balance breaker, but even then it struggles and is honestly not worth using over other balance breakers in the tier which I think are more effective.
3. Checks and counters - Steelceus has a lot of checks and counters, seriously. Examples: Ho-Oh, Celesteela, Zygarde, Primal Groudon, Scarf Mega Rayquaza, Marshadow, Ultra necrozma, Chansey/blissey, Pogre. This gives balance a lot of options to play around Steelceus with ease. Even a team I would somewhat say is weak to Steelceus with just Zygarde/Pdon/band Mega Rayquaza can easily dance around a Steelceus with some solid predictions. On top of this it is extremely easy to revenge kill, so realistically speaking Steelceus has little chance of breaking balance. In addition to this it has to be wary of thunder wave from things it thinks it can set up on, such as Ferrothorn, Dusk Mane and scarf Xerneas.
4. One dimensional - yeah, CM steel is really the only set its got going for it. Any other set is suboptimum and not worth running over other Pokémon realistically. Not much to say here, but this makes playing around Steelceus that much easier.
I probably repeated myself a little on what I said before on why Steelceus isn't A but wanted to make sure I covered the most important points, have to keep it real and say this Pokémon really isn't much cop. It has its diehard fans but nah, if it showed it could do something in OMPL I wouldn't have made this nom but til then in my mind this Pokémon just isn't as good as top tier threats like Pogre and Lunala.
Mewtwo: B -> B+
MMY B -> B+
MMX C -> B-
yeah, all the mewtwo forms deserve a bump up imo. Mewtwo forms have been slept on for far too long and seeing kinda bad mons like goth and magearna as the same rank as Mewtwo and MMY I just don't think is accurate.
Mewtwo: The primary go to base mewtwo is stall2. Stall2 is stupidly good, it puts ridiculous amounts of pressure on balance and can put in some decent work against HO due to wisp and taunt. Dark types such as Yveltal and Darkceus are problematic but under hazard stack and if you can get those mons Toxiced it can be worked around. Ice beam on stall2 is also an option to make the yveltal mu easier but generally speaking psystrike is a lot better.
Replays of it in action: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-952812350
Stall2 randomly managed to 6-0 this, got a little lucky with the crit on Ho-Oh but shows how capable stall2 is at dismantling balance. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-961712224
while it technically didn't do anything here, it put me under a lot of pressure and had the potential to win the game. Had to make aggressive plays with marsh to force it out and utilise cm fairy to not lose to this.
There are other mewtwo sets that it can utilise, stall2 isn't the only thing it can do. Screens explosion is good for ho, with having explosion being its main niche over tapu koko. Life orb taunt variants are also good for webs that want to keep Mega Rayquaza, and with some coverage options can be a general pain sometimes. CM Firium Z and fightinium Z are other sets I've seen exploited to take advantage of Dusk Mane and Darkceus, which allows you to use a different mega while still doing being able to dent holes in the opposing team. Overall, base mewtwo is extremely versatile and can play multiple roles, which I think warrants B+ rank.
MMY: MMY is arguably one of the best balance breakers in the tier. It's way more dangerous than LO Mewtwo for the reasons above as mentioned by bacon but also because it's able to utilise a rest set with insomnia. This is a really nice tech imo, psystrike focus is really the only coverage you need and you can potentially have a +2 or even +3 mmy on your hands at full hp and not statused which is pretty insane. Yveltal isn't that wide spread with darkceus being the much more popular choice which mmy benefits from greatly. Marshadow is probably its biggest threat, but you can ev it to survive a shadow sneak from full as it doesn't need max speed, hitting 400 is a good speed tier. No life orb chip when attacking is also super underrated, LO chip allows the opponent to pivot around and make it wear itself down so that's in priority range of ray and marsh. It's also still pretty potent against stall as mega sableye stall is pretty off the radar partly due to high usage in outrage u necro, so tyranitar is the main dark type of choice which mmy takes advantage of easily with focus blast. imo this is a way better balance breaker than naganadel which is also in b tier, naga requires far more prediction and struggles against speedier threats like ultra necro and mewtwo way more. It's also way more frail and requires 50 50s at times to set up so MMY is way more consistent in that regard. naga is obviously a better stall breaker but mmy can still do the job. With recover and insomnia it also beats vivillon so that's a bonus too. Overall great mon, while it isn't quite as versa as base mewtwo it's much more of a threat to balance as it is able to eliminate darkceus.
Replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-938961928 misplayed a lil at the end, MMY put in some serious work removing Ho-Oh and forced skarph to keep his pdon healthy.
MMX: No clue how this ended up in C honestly, don't get me wrong MMX is super bad but C is a little harsh. Teams without Fairyceus are in for a pretty rough time, low kick 2hkos almost everything and the only other main fighting resists/immunities in ag are poison, flying and ghost; mmx can hit poison types and the only relevant ghost is lunala as marshadow and mega gengar can be hit by zen headbutt. Mega Rayquaza doesn't appreciate switching in too much as it takes about 35 from low kick, and while Ho-Oh is a hard counter for the most part but a possible niche set could be stone edge for Ho-Oh and to hit Yveltal a tiny bit harder. Fairyceus still doesn't appreciate the combination of tox taunt if that's the set you're going for, even without toxic (if you ran zen headbutt instead) hazards + taunt is still very annoying to deal with. MMX is a pretty good check to cm arcs such as Steel and Darkceus due to recovery and being able to outspeed and hit them with low kick which is super nice. partners such as muk a and ttar can remove the issue of gar trapping if you're running mono fighting mmx so it's not too big of a deal. Just think this mon was super overrated and now it's super underrated ;; think somewhere in-between would be the right way to go and B- is a perfect fit.
Replays: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-947954111 mmx just ended up 6-0ing here due to no fairyceus, seriously low kick + zen headbutt is some seriously decent coverage in this tier when low kick 2hkos everything https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-970798385-5kvlcjopxzzbfnz32y3bfphi5gvvsp9pw if mmx won the speedtie against mega gengar I think this loti would have won this game. Another team that lacks fairyceus that just has no switch ins for mmx whatsoever.
In regards to other nominations I support:
Zyg-C S- -> A+
This was a really close call last time with council only just voting in favour for zyg to remain in S- but I think this is a change that needs to happen. There was a time when I thought this was S but this Pokémon doesn't have as many things going for it as it used to. The defensive set feels really fragile honestly, the meta has adapted around zyg significantly and it puts it at a big disadvantage. Draco meteor/outrage Mega Rayquaza is practically everywhere over dragon dance and banded Earthquake, so really Zygarde isn't a Rayquaza switch in at all. Whenever Zygarde is in against Rayquaza it is forced to switch out which the opponent can take advantage of and simply land down an ascent instead on the incoming fairyceus which puts you in a pretty bad position, especially if it is mixed life orb. This is somewhat remedied by running Mega Gengar with Zygarde as it is able to trap band ray and mixed life orb, while max defence supportceus can wall scarf Mega Rayquaza, but this really narrows and limits your build. SD Z giga ekiller, life orb giga impact and life orb ice beam all take advantage of people trying to use zygarde c to the point where it just isn't an ekiller check anymore. Ultra necrozma also runs rampant which zygarde simply cannot deal with, its z move is way too strong and outrage and cm d pulse variants can OHKO it easily. The dragon dance set is still very good, but generally speaking using dd zyg will make your defensive backbone much weaker, and in addition to this zyg hits like a soddy wet blanket. Supportceus can deal with it relatively easily, and while the sub toxic set can take advantage of using supportceus phasing and defensive zyg can deal with this set extremely easily. In general, zyg has a lot of counterplay and is not up to the high standards that ultra necrozma has set in the ag metagame.
A+ -> A
Another close call on the council, but honestly shouldn't have been. Dusk Mane just really isn't that good and is definitely not on par with Pdon or Mega Gengar by a long shot. Offensive sets such as Double dance, tr and wp don't hold up too well, while wisp spam has calmed down somewhat it's still somewhat prevalent and there are a lot of hard checks such as waterceus, ho-oh, skarm, yveltal and pogre that shut it down almost completely. Offensive sets are largely overshadowed by ultra and are rarely worth running as they're relatively weak geo xern counters anyway unless it's on a relatively strong bo. The spdef set is... good, but it still has some pretty large issues. The main one being Mega Rayquaza coming in on hazards or toxic and being able to get a free v-create off, anything that gets threatened significantly by m ray is going to have a rough time staying at the top of the vr. It can't come in for free as it still has to be wary of it bombing the z move on it but generally speaking it's not too difficult and not all dusk mane's are z. The ones that are struggle to burns, as they will continuously be whittled down by the burn which is significant when morning sun only has 8 pp and can be affected by weather conditions such as sandstream and rain. Loads of other threats can take advantage of spdef mane such as Pogre, Pdon Ultra necrozma, steelceus, lunala etc. T wave can remedy being taken advantage of by steelceus and ultra necro but generally speaking thunder wave isn't that great due to the fact it can no longer touch groundceus or Pdon at all. it's a bit like ferrothorn in this regard, but ferrothorn has access to spikes and leech seed which is annoying and that's only A-, so I think A is pretty justified.
Marshadow A -> A+
This is pretty deserved, there's no playstyle that Marshadow does not shine against. Hyper offense is its best mu, and honestly a well played Marshadow can beat almost any offense. Late game, Marshadow is such a huge threat against balance due to support arcs being worn down and you often find yourself in a position where Marshadow simply 2hkos everything. Access to pursuit I think is absolutely huge and is why it deserves A+ more than anything, it is a 50 50 but if you get the pursuit off it can be devastating for m gar teams. Broken techs like sub bu can take advantage of would be checks like poisonceus and defensive coil zyg which is also just super strong. Bulk up z has a pretty good mu against stall, as fairyceus stall is not too common which means it can sometimes struggle to find answers to it. Generally requires predictions to bait the z which can be unreliable. Very strong mon which should stop being underrated because it feels weak sometimes.
pretty long vr post but as you all know I like speaking my mind and making it as detailed as possible. I actually quite like the position the meta is in rn and I hope usm ag will still continue after gen 8 drops. While I admit I am getting a little tired of building I still find the tier pretty enjoyable and competitive which is why I play the game in the first place. Now that everything has been explored quite a bit the meta has stabilised and there's a lot of cool techs you can exploit honestly. I'd also like to encourage ppl to make some vr posts, with all the ag games happening in agpl I'm sure ppl have some ideas about where things should be, but I will say overall I like the vr structure. And I feel like i'm the only one who bothers with vr sometimes ;_; I'm sure I can't be the only one. Looking forward to the rest of agpl, go skarms!
Wobbuffet : Unranked to D - The release of Custap berry rekindles Wobbuffet's earlier threat and makes this Pokemon one of the more efficient trappers in the game. Along with access to arguably the most broken ability in the game, Wobb has a specific niche in trapping Support Arceus forms to allow setup for teammates. Its movepool, while limited, consists of some of the most effective shadow tag sets, with access to charm/mirror coat/counter, as well as a late game destiny bond boosted by Custap Berry. It provides immense utility on offense teams where it differentiates itself from Gothitelle. Furthermore, it is a very viable one team counter for Xerneas, tanking +2 moonblast or encoring it into an ill-timed Geomancy. In particular, this set gives immense utility to setup sweepers like DD Life Orb Mega Rayquaza, Naganadel, Swords Dance Arceus forms, Xerneas or Dusk-Mane variations.
Some of the replays where Wobbuffet provided significant sweeping opportunities -
I was gonna wait until after AGPL because I'm still planning to mess with more weird things but if we've got the activity now I'll drop a few more nominations. For the record I'm down for all the new noms at the moment except MMX and MMY up and Ho-Oh to A+. I think Ho-Oh up still betrays the relative ease with which one isn't super weak to it and how it's relatively far harder to fit on teams than Pdon/Mgar/Marsh. It also helps A rank still has some similarly crazy good things like Groundceus to where I don't really think there's a lot of imperative for that rise. Besides if gun to my head you asked if I felt Ho-Oh is about on par with any of Zygarde-Complete, Marshadow, Mega Gengar, or Primal Groudon right now I'd still say no, which is 100% subjective but about the best reasoning I can give because this is just one of those really subjective noms.
Vivillon B+ to B: Obviously this thing's still stupid and can steal games and whatnot but it's really fallen out of favor for a reason. Like, I think all our Vivillon uses recently stem from that Cata HO team? Genuinely can't remember seeing it on anything else recently, which is because it's just become more of a pain to set up and get working. Vivillon is a tricky mon that works in inverses, the further it drops the less you'll prep for it and the scarier it'll become, but it's been out of favor for long enough to warrant the drop imo. Similarly to Zen's Steelceus nom, we don't have full OMPL/AGPL usage yet but I'm reasonably confident it would back this up. I would've gone through replays but there isn't even a replays thread that I can find so yeah.
Ditto C to B-: It's a niche scarfer but really major in facing stall, prevents enough setup in certain situations to be an effective deterrent, and is overall not quite as niche of a pick as C would suggest. I don't really think it's worse than scarf regular ogre at all which is currently in B-, I get that that can also run a specs set but eh. The rationale is really "Look at C, Ditto's kinda better than all of them. Look at B-, Ditto can more or less fit right in there".
These aren't full blown nominations yet but I'd like to see if these interest anyone else enough to support: Deo-A back up to B-, Arceus-Dragon to D, Excadrill to B-, Celesteela to B. They're like half-formed ideas I haven't played with enough yet but just throwing them out there in case someone really resonates with one of them. We could also definitely unrank Umbreon/Heatran/Mega Gyara/Slurpuff/Arceus-Fire so like, I'll get them on the voting sheet but I won't hold my breath.
All right so this thing is outright amazing as a rocks setter on webs, access to explosion pretty much gives it an amazing niche as a rocks setter that can just explode on anything that thinks it can get an easy defog off, EQ is just a strong STAB attack that can come off of the pretty decent 145 base attack stat, and then you get your choice between sd and rock tomb, sd can be used to punish opponents who try to just recover off an explosion and rock tomb can help teammates that require more speed control
B- to C
this one's pretty easy, here is what i think applies to blissey
should only be on stall/bulky teams with mray switch ins, using bliss on anything else is just bad
should only be used over chansey because of shed shells ability to escape trapping abilities and moves
is significantly worse than chansey when there are no trappers, yet bliss tries to play the same role as chans
here is why i think chansey is always the better route to take on stall
tanks hits WAY better both physically and special than blissey
does not get beaten by pursuit marsh or worn down by pursuit tyranitar
can actually check pogre and xerneas reliably lol
gothitelle will literally always trap important mons on stall, even if you have blissey it's just a lost matchup usually
ttar (often equipped with roar) is always partnered with chansey so mgar doesnt just beat it
if you really dont wanna get trapped by mgar and dont wanna use ttar, you can also run psychic chansey to 4hko mgar i guess.. not advised
blissey is completely outclassed by chansey and the only reason anyone should use it is if you're that terrified of mgar + cm refresh arcs, which, can be phazed out p easily with roar ttar or whirl ho oh. running blissey simply leaves you much weaker to pogre and xerneas. lets use that stall that loses to zygarde as an example. that stall that loses to zygarde does in fact use blissey but, it also needs giratina for better pogre support (which still isn't great! giratina takes like fucking around 50 from 252+ icebeam or water spout), as well as needing whirlwind ho-oh and arceus steel for secondary (and mandatory) xerneas checks. a huge problem with this is that you don't really know which one of your mons checks xerneas, and you also could need one of your mons to be alive so it can check another member of the xerneas users team. for example, if you have a xerneas at +2 spa and you go blissey.. psyshock! boom! dead! 100%. alright! now, onto plan 2.. what about ho oh? well, thunder typically doesn't ohko and you can whirlwind which IS pretty nice but if the xerneas is equipped with a handy hprock or has your ho oh chipped by even 10% and has thunder then...... well, bye ho-oh. then there's steelceus which obviously only beats xerneas if it is not focus blast. so basically, you risk 2/3 of your mons dying for nothing if their xerneas has the right coverage. what if the opponent has xerneas + swords dance dusk mane and the ho oh is gone? looks pretty bad. but yeah, that's the type of thing that bothers me with using blissey. chansey is just such a better and more consistent spd wall to the point where i think it outclasses it so much that blissey shouldn't even be ranked LOL, consistency is everything for stall. i seriously dont think anyone can make a stall team with blissey and not be weak to pogre, xerneas, or any big threat that's above B+
C to D
im sry but who the hell even uses this? it's way too slow and its stabs aren't good enough for it to be a big offensive threat. i dont see why this is out of D rank as it seems incredibly niche and should only be used on some weird type of webs or offense as a z move user. both its stabs have immunities to them and it is honestly just such a lost mon in the meta that makes very little sense to use. like i guess it's okay as a random offensive threat but idrk what else this thing does. kinda checks pogre but yeah, really not that good, its stats are too weak
Alolan muk D --> UR
I know this Pokemon has its supporters, but straight up, this Pokemon is damn near useless. The only real niche it has over it's much better pursuit trapper is being a very good check for special fighting coverage. That's nice and all, but if muk isn't hitting you with super effective pursuit, it p much fails to check the shit it's supposed to anyway. Easily worn down by Yveltal and xerneas, and like I said, literally everything not weak to pursuit beats it because it's kind of a joke to switch into. It's nigh impossible to fit this poke on a good team, is easily worn down, dies to a light breeze from physical attackers, and struggles to even check the mons it's supposed to. Please delete this Mon from be, it's been on there way too long.
disagree. Muk checks Yveltal, Gengar, Lunala, Fairyceus, Darkceus, Waterceus, some Xern sets, Special Unecro and is a great status spreader. Name another viable mon which does this and I'll consider unranking this. The building a team around it can be tricky point is fair, but you can make the same case for most of the other D rank mons. If you want a muk set with longevity, use this:
Muk-Alola @ Aguav Berry
Ability: Gluttony
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Pursuit
- Poison Fang
- Knock Off / Clear Smog
- Recycle
it's just as good as the AV set.
(but i feel like every other council member will agree with your nom so youre fine i guess.)
With the near conclusion of OMPL and AGPL being thoroughly underway, I wanted to give my thoughts as to what I think is super strong currently and what I think is not so hot. These are effectively just nominations but I did also want to highlight some meta trends as I go through each nom to support it. I've been building and playing a lot and honestly think I improved a lot across ompl, mostly building-wise so I feel in a strong position to give some good input and nominations.
Frankly, Ho-Oh is becoming meta defining. This is shown in particular by the increase in rock moves on don, with support stone edge sets and tomb eruption sets becoming more in favour over support overheat. In addition to this, Dusk Mane is largely falling out of favour which I would like to think is somewhat caused by Ho-Oh, though Waterceus and ultra necro being generally better are huge causes as well. Having access to tools such as Defog and Whirlwind are absolutely incredible for Ho-Oh, with it being one of if not the best Defogger in the game. There are very few Rockers that can keep rocks up against Ho-Oh and Ho-Oh is able to shrug off status with ease. Whirlwind let's it phase out so many set up sweepers and in particular geo xern, which very commonly runs psychic coverage over electric coverage which is especially beneficial to Ho-Oh. Hp rock Geo Xern is an option to get round Ho-Oh but even that it's not too common nor is it a guaranteed OHKO. The amount of things Ho-Oh counters and switches into when rocks aren't up is ridiculous; I've compiled a list here:
- Support Pdon (lacking Stone edge) and mixed don
- Dusk Mane
- Arceus-Fairy
- Support/CM Ground
- Marshadow (tomb Marsh is very uncommon)
- Xerneas
- Arceus-Dark
- Arceus-Steel
- Ferrothorn
- Lunala
- Yveltal
That's 11 mons from A- or higher which is just ridiculous, and with so many opportunities to switch in it can spread status with Toxic and Sacred Fire incredibly easily. In a supportceus based meta Ho-Oh thrives, and with status not being an issue for Ho-Oh it is unsurprising I hold this Pokémon in such high esteem.
With Zygarde and Tyranitar somewhat falling out of favour for the most part due to Draco Meteor Mega Rayquaza being everywhere, it makes Ho-Oh as prevalent as ever. The defensive set is not the only set it has, its got a lot more tricks up its sleeve that it can utilise. Ho-Oh can run Choice band, Choice Scarf and bulky Life Orb. Choice Band does some ridiculous damage, and if supportceus can be Toxiced Ho-Oh can easily take it down. Defensive Zygarde-C is its counter, which mentioned before is dropping out of favour. Tyranitar and Rockceus have to be wary of EQ and everything else struggles to switch into a Toxic or a monstrous BB/Sacred Fire. Choice scarf is a very nice revenge killing option and functions somewhat similar to Scarf Mega Rayquaza. Bulky LO lets you avoid being trapped by goth (though I believe ww sets do as well) and lets you run utility moves such as Substitute or a rare HP Ice tech. This also allows you to handle m ray a little easier and spdef mane has a much harder time keeping rocks up against defog Ho-Oh.
I don't think Stealth Rock is a sufficient argument against Ho-Oh's viability. In USM there are an incredible amount of defoggers, you can form strong defog cores relatively easily due to this. Ho-Oh + Giratina is probably one of the most aids defog cores to face ever, but other stuff like Ho-Oh + Groundceus and Mega Sableye + Groundceus works too.
Ho-Oh is applicable to multiple playstyles (balance and stall) and is effective against all playstyles taking into account all of its sets. Defensive Ho-Oh and Scarf Ho-Oh are somewhat effective against HO, rocks leads are annoying but if you can find a defog it'll probably have a hard time against Ho-Oh as it can spread burns and ww out set up sweepers. Web leads are at a loss against scarf Ho-Oh as usually keeping webs up is essential which it cannot do against scarf Ho-Oh. Ho-Oh's best MU is against balance as it is able to spread status so easily and wear down the opposing team relatively easily giving teammates a much easier time. Banded Ho-Oh is somewhat effective against stall as stall does not run Zygarde-C, meaning predictions with Toxic and spamming Brave Bird can be pretty difficult to handle. Defensive Ho-Oh can still be a nice cushion for status and can spread its own status forcing a heal bell or allowing other teammates to pressure the stall.
Ho-Oh is better than all the Pokémon ranked in A barring Marshadow (which should be A+) imo. Ekiller is extremely versatile but struggles somewhat in this bulky infested meta with Marshadow running free everywhere. It has many checks and counters which ekiller cannot cover all with one set, which means teams can run cores to deal with it (e.g. cele + tar). Fairyceus has some serious issues in that it gets trapped by m gar and is very one dimensional, not to mention the fact defog fairyceus struggles against almost all the rockers in the game. Groundceus is a big threat and a very good supportceus defogger. However, it falls a little short offensively due to having well defined checks and not the most impressive attacking stats, while the defensive set offers little important resistances, can be crippled by Toxic easily and is somewhat passive. Xerneas is too hit or miss to be A+ imo, it's very good but cannot hit all of its counters with 4 moves and is relatively weak to priority as it does not possess that much bulk, especially now that it is always ev'd to outspeed scarf Mega Rayquaza. While Ho-Oh is not perfect it is difficult to pinpoint any major flaws with this Pokémon; surprise Rock coverage and Stealth Rock are the major two weaknesses Ho-Oh has and even these can be played around efficiently through scouting and strong defog support. Is it on Pdon, Dusk's, Mega Gengar's level? Definitely not Pdon as that shit is broken, but it's definitely as good as mega gar (gar is overrated, talked a lil with skarph about this and while he may not 100% agree he at least understands which is good enough for me) and is much better than Dusk Mane (which I think should personally be A anyway). Overall Ho-Oh is just so good, it covers way too much and is a lifesaver for a lot of teams, it really deserves the bump imo.
I stopped this from being A, now I'm convinced this Pokémon is bad and deserves to be dropped further. It did absolutely nothing of note throughout OMPL and was extremely unremarkable. Not sure how to feel about usage stats but they've completely fallen off a cliff for Steelceus, while I'm only able to use data for weeks 1 and 2 because somehow Chloe hasn't managed to update it past that when we're literally at finals, but in those two weeks it saw 2 uses in week 1 and 0 uses in week 2 which really shows a lot. This Pokémon has so many issues I'm surprised it's managed to stay so high for so long. Let's get into it:
Issues:
1. Building. Building with this Pokémon is really difficult because it's going to leave you weak to a lot; one of the following: Xerneas, Ho-Oh, Groundceus, Pdon, Marshadow. I think Xerneas in particular is the biggest issue here, as you have to run Steelceus + a xern check which frankly just sucks. Steelceus + roar don is really bad and leaves you weak to Mega Rayquaza, Steelceus + Poisonceus makes you super weak to Groundceus/Pdon and is just yuck overall, Steelceus + Dusk Mane is dual steel which means Mega rayquaza/groundceus/don will all be problematic. The obvious solution to this is to use Steelceus on HO, but the problem with this is that it allows Ho-Oh and Waterceus to defog, which is honestly so huge that it's hard to consider using it on HO. Steelceus on Stall? I've seen some successful stalls with it, for example a pex stall fardin made pre usm and lance stall to some extent, but it leaves you too weak to Bulk up Marshadow and DD Zygarde. It's a nice d ascent switch in for stall but can still be pressured by Mega Rayquaza and you may be forced to make predicts which is always risky.
2. Effectiveness. Off the bat Steelceus is doing pretty much nothing against HO and Stall for the most part; the only thing of note is being a non eq ekiller counter and outspeed ekiller and revenging it with Judgment after it has been chipped sufficiently. Stall has options such as Chansey and Ho-Oh which wall Steelceus outright. Steelceus is primarily a balance breaker, but even then it struggles and is honestly not worth using over other balance breakers in the tier which I think are more effective.
3. Checks and counters - Steelceus has a lot of checks and counters, seriously. Examples: Ho-Oh, Celesteela, Zygarde, Primal Groudon, Scarf Mega Rayquaza, Marshadow, Ultra necrozma, Chansey/blissey, Pogre. This gives balance a lot of options to play around Steelceus with ease. Even a team I would somewhat say is weak to Steelceus with just Zygarde/Pdon/band Mega Rayquaza can easily dance around a Steelceus with some solid predictions. On top of this it is extremely easy to revenge kill, so realistically speaking Steelceus has little chance of breaking balance. In addition to this it has to be wary of thunder wave from things it thinks it can set up on, such as Ferrothorn, Dusk Mane and scarf Xerneas.
4. One dimensional - yeah, CM steel is really the only set its got going for it. Any other set is suboptimum and not worth running over other Pokémon realistically. Not much to say here, but this makes playing around Steelceus that much easier.
I probably repeated myself a little on what I said before on why Steelceus isn't A but wanted to make sure I covered the most important points, have to keep it real and say this Pokémon really isn't much cop. It has its diehard fans but nah, if it showed it could do something in OMPL I wouldn't have made this nom but til then in my mind this Pokémon just isn't as good as top tier threats like Pogre and Lunala.
yeah, all the mewtwo forms deserve a bump up imo. Mewtwo forms have been slept on for far too long and seeing kinda bad mons like goth and magearna as the same rank as Mewtwo and MMY I just don't think is accurate.
Mewtwo: The primary go to base mewtwo is stall2. Stall2 is stupidly good, it puts ridiculous amounts of pressure on balance and can put in some decent work against HO due to wisp and taunt. Dark types such as Yveltal and Darkceus are problematic but under hazard stack and if you can get those mons Toxiced it can be worked around. Ice beam on stall2 is also an option to make the yveltal mu easier but generally speaking psystrike is a lot better.
Replays of it in action: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-952812350
Stall2 randomly managed to 6-0 this, got a little lucky with the crit on Ho-Oh but shows how capable stall2 is at dismantling balance. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-961712224
while it technically didn't do anything here, it put me under a lot of pressure and had the potential to win the game. Had to make aggressive plays with marsh to force it out and utilise cm fairy to not lose to this.
There are other mewtwo sets that it can utilise, stall2 isn't the only thing it can do. Screens explosion is good for ho, with having explosion being its main niche over tapu koko. Life orb taunt variants are also good for webs that want to keep Mega Rayquaza, and with some coverage options can be a general pain sometimes. CM Firium Z and fightinium Z are other sets I've seen exploited to take advantage of Dusk Mane and Darkceus, which allows you to use a different mega while still doing being able to dent holes in the opposing team. Overall, base mewtwo is extremely versatile and can play multiple roles, which I think warrants B+ rank.
MMY: MMY is arguably one of the best balance breakers in the tier. It's way more dangerous than LO Mewtwo for the reasons above as mentioned by bacon but also because it's able to utilise a rest set with insomnia. This is a really nice tech imo, psystrike focus is really the only coverage you need and you can potentially have a +2 or even +3 mmy on your hands at full hp and not statused which is pretty insane. Yveltal isn't that wide spread with darkceus being the much more popular choice which mmy benefits from greatly. Marshadow is probably its biggest threat, but you can ev it to survive a shadow sneak from full as it doesn't need max speed, hitting 400 is a good speed tier. No life orb chip when attacking is also super underrated, LO chip allows the opponent to pivot around and make it wear itself down so that's in priority range of ray and marsh. It's also still pretty potent against stall as mega sableye stall is pretty off the radar partly due to high usage in outrage u necro, so tyranitar is the main dark type of choice which mmy takes advantage of easily with focus blast. imo this is a way better balance breaker than naganadel which is also in b tier, naga requires far more prediction and struggles against speedier threats like ultra necro and mewtwo way more. It's also way more frail and requires 50 50s at times to set up so MMY is way more consistent in that regard. naga is obviously a better stall breaker but mmy can still do the job. With recover and insomnia it also beats vivillon so that's a bonus too. Overall great mon, while it isn't quite as versa as base mewtwo it's much more of a threat to balance as it is able to eliminate darkceus.
Replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-938961928 misplayed a lil at the end, MMY put in some serious work removing Ho-Oh and forced skarph to keep his pdon healthy.
MMX: No clue how this ended up in C honestly, don't get me wrong MMX is super bad but C is a little harsh. Teams without Fairyceus are in for a pretty rough time, low kick 2hkos almost everything and the only other main fighting resists/immunities in ag are poison, flying and ghost; mmx can hit poison types and the only relevant ghost is lunala as marshadow and mega gengar can be hit by zen headbutt. Mega Rayquaza doesn't appreciate switching in too much as it takes about 35 from low kick, and while Ho-Oh is a hard counter for the most part but a possible niche set could be stone edge for Ho-Oh and to hit Yveltal a tiny bit harder. Fairyceus still doesn't appreciate the combination of tox taunt if that's the set you're going for, even without toxic (if you ran zen headbutt instead) hazards + taunt is still very annoying to deal with. MMX is a pretty good check to cm arcs such as Steel and Darkceus due to recovery and being able to outspeed and hit them with low kick which is super nice. partners such as muk a and ttar can remove the issue of gar trapping if you're running mono fighting mmx so it's not too big of a deal. Just think this mon was super overrated and now it's super underrated ;; think somewhere in-between would be the right way to go and B- is a perfect fit.
Replays: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-947954111 mmx just ended up 6-0ing here due to no fairyceus, seriously low kick + zen headbutt is some seriously decent coverage in this tier when low kick 2hkos everything https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-970798385-5kvlcjopxzzbfnz32y3bfphi5gvvsp9pw if mmx won the speedtie against mega gengar I think this loti would have won this game. Another team that lacks fairyceus that just has no switch ins for mmx whatsoever.
This was a really close call last time with council only just voting in favour for zyg to remain in S- but I think this is a change that needs to happen. There was a time when I thought this was S but this Pokémon doesn't have as many things going for it as it used to. The defensive set feels really fragile honestly, the meta has adapted around zyg significantly and it puts it at a big disadvantage. Draco meteor/outrage Mega Rayquaza is practically everywhere over dragon dance and banded Earthquake, so really Zygarde isn't a Rayquaza switch in at all. Whenever Zygarde is in against Rayquaza it is forced to switch out which the opponent can take advantage of and simply land down an ascent instead on the incoming fairyceus which puts you in a pretty bad position, especially if it is mixed life orb. This is somewhat remedied by running Mega Gengar with Zygarde as it is able to trap band ray and mixed life orb, while max defence supportceus can wall scarf Mega Rayquaza, but this really narrows and limits your build. SD Z giga ekiller, life orb giga impact and life orb ice beam all take advantage of people trying to use zygarde c to the point where it just isn't an ekiller check anymore. Ultra necrozma also runs rampant which zygarde simply cannot deal with, its z move is way too strong and outrage and cm d pulse variants can OHKO it easily. The dragon dance set is still very good, but generally speaking using dd zyg will make your defensive backbone much weaker, and in addition to this zyg hits like a soddy wet blanket. Supportceus can deal with it relatively easily, and while the sub toxic set can take advantage of using supportceus phasing and defensive zyg can deal with this set extremely easily. In general, zyg has a lot of counterplay and is not up to the high standards that ultra necrozma has set in the ag metagame.
Another close call on the council, but honestly shouldn't have been. Dusk Mane just really isn't that good and is definitely not on par with Pdon or Mega Gengar by a long shot. Offensive sets such as Double dance, tr and wp don't hold up too well, while wisp spam has calmed down somewhat it's still somewhat prevalent and there are a lot of hard checks such as waterceus, ho-oh, skarm, yveltal and pogre that shut it down almost completely. Offensive sets are largely overshadowed by ultra and are rarely worth running as they're relatively weak geo xern counters anyway unless it's on a relatively strong bo. The spdef set is... good, but it still has some pretty large issues. The main one being Mega Rayquaza coming in on hazards or toxic and being able to get a free v-create off, anything that gets threatened significantly by m ray is going to have a rough time staying at the top of the vr. It can't come in for free as it still has to be wary of it bombing the z move on it but generally speaking it's not too difficult and not all dusk mane's are z. The ones that are struggle to burns, as they will continuously be whittled down by the burn which is significant when morning sun only has 8 pp and can be affected by weather conditions such as sandstream and rain. Loads of other threats can take advantage of spdef mane such as Pogre, Pdon Ultra necrozma, steelceus, lunala etc. T wave can remedy being taken advantage of by steelceus and ultra necro but generally speaking thunder wave isn't that great due to the fact it can no longer touch groundceus or Pdon at all. it's a bit like ferrothorn in this regard, but ferrothorn has access to spikes and leech seed which is annoying and that's only A-, so I think A is pretty justified.
This is pretty deserved, there's no playstyle that Marshadow does not shine against. Hyper offense is its best mu, and honestly a well played Marshadow can beat almost any offense. Late game, Marshadow is such a huge threat against balance due to support arcs being worn down and you often find yourself in a position where Marshadow simply 2hkos everything. Access to pursuit I think is absolutely huge and is why it deserves A+ more than anything, it is a 50 50 but if you get the pursuit off it can be devastating for m gar teams. Broken techs like sub bu can take advantage of would be checks like poisonceus and defensive coil zyg which is also just super strong. Bulk up z has a pretty good mu against stall, as fairyceus stall is not too common which means it can sometimes struggle to find answers to it. Generally requires predictions to bait the z which can be unreliable. Very strong mon which should stop being underrated because it feels weak sometimes.
pretty long vr post but as you all know I like speaking my mind and making it as detailed as possible. I actually quite like the position the meta is in rn and I hope usm ag will still continue after gen 8 drops. While I admit I am getting a little tired of building I still find the tier pretty enjoyable and competitive which is why I play the game in the first place. Now that everything has been explored quite a bit the meta has stabilised and there's a lot of cool techs you can exploit honestly. I'd also like to encourage ppl to make some vr posts, with all the ag games happening in agpl I'm sure ppl have some ideas about where things should be, but I will say overall I like the vr structure. And I feel like i'm the only one who bothers with vr sometimes ;_; I'm sure I can't be the only one. Looking forward to the rest of agpl, go skarms!
great post!! I agree with most of them, here are my thoughts on the noms:
Ho-Oh: Agree
Ho-Oh is insanely underrated/underused rn. I've never been a fan of this mon but I really like using it now bc of the amazing defensive+offensive utility it provides in every set. The current meta is really based on supportceus & ho-oh takes huge advantage of that. Defensive set is really good, Fog Toxic + WW and Regen is straight up broken. Xern rarely runs Thunder now since Psyshock is much better which rlly helps ho-oh. Life orb/Band is also ridiculously hard to wall. Another offensive Ho-Oh set which needs more attention is Curse Flyinium Z, you can just run the standard defensive evs on it and throw in Curse, its surprisingly really hard to beat and annoys tf out of Balance & even HO. You've covered most of the points tho so I dont think I wanna explain much. I agree with most of what you said except the zygarde & gEngaR is oVeRrAtEd part. Zygarde is still the most splashable mon in AG and defensive and offensive variants are still extrem- I'll talk about this in the Zygarde part later in the post.
regardless I feel like Ho-Oh has definitely proven to be an A+ mon given its consistent performance throughout OMPL and first half of AGPL.
Steelceus: Agree
CM Groundceus, Darkceus, Rockceus and Fairyceus straight up outclass this. It just doesnt provide the same offensive pressure which it used to 6ish months ago. Its really easy to wall and the increasing numbers of Marsh, Ho-oh, Zygarde and Rayquaza rlly isnt helping. Cant believe I nommed this for A rank at one point l o l.
Mewtwos: Agree, Agree and Agree
I wanna talk about MMX in specific here since its the worst among the 3 sisters and gets a lot of hate. I rlly dont remember how it fell down to C rank, I'm pretty sure it used to be B- at some point but yeah w/e.
Its monstrous ONE HUNDRED NINETY Attack stat and pretty decent speed tier = huge expectations, but the fact that it is unable to perform well on HO (it cannot break bulkier builds and other teams with its Bulk Up/Other set up sets due to prevalence of defensive threats like Rayquaza, Fairyceus & Ho-Oh) is pretty disappointing. However, MMX is a great mon to fit on balance and the reason is pretty simple: HO teams cannot afford to run a mon which gets hard walled by the mentioned threats, but Balances can. A toxic + recover + taunt set really pressurizes opposing balance builds and Low Kick 2hkos pretty much everything which makes it an amazing revenge killer. This thing completely shuts down every Ferro / Skarm / Steela based builds. Even if they do have a solid switch in, MMX can safely manage to status it, switch out and attack it later when they are chipped. It surprisingly has a pretty solid natural bulk (it tanks hex from gar, sneak from marsh, judge from arc and other stuff idr). Zen did not link the set in his post so ill do it:
I havent used this mon a lot but its def super underrated
Zygarde: HARD NO
Ya'll probably saw this coming but I swear this isnt because of personal bias. Zygarde is straight up broken even in the current meta. The possibilities with this mon are endless bcz theres easily 20+ viable sets you can run on this. It's arguably the most splashable mon in AG bc it needs minimal support (you literally just need a fairy resist lol). Even in the current meta, it is super hard to wall and balance teams rlly hate facing it.
Defensive set hasnt gotten any worse. The Draco/Outrage Ray point is fair but did we really ever use Zygarde as the Ray switch in? Life Orb and Scarf Draco has been extremely common since the start of gen. Its definitely getting more common but I still dont understand that the point of mentioning this lol, Zygarde was never the primary switch in to Ray. Its only supposed to switch into ray when you're 100% sure that the set doesnt run draco/outrage (this is literally how every other ray check works, celesteela and skarm have to scout for vcreate, rockceus has to scout for eq, lugia has to scout for band, unless they wanna die t1 ofcourse.). I mean, I kinda get it, the expectations from a S- Rank are really really high but here youre expecting it to check mons which it never used to, those mons which hit zygarde for super effective damage. Ig the prevalence of Outrage Ray & necrozma does bother zygarde but that doesnt make it any less viable. Zygarde is still able to wall the physical threats which it is supposed to- Primal Groudon, Ho-Oh, Ekiller, Marshadow, Dusk Mane and non outrage Unecro sometimes kinda. Glare / Toxic is still an amazing status combo, its natural bulk allows it to spread status vs pretty much everything (yes, even the random supportceus which click ice beam and do only 56 to zygarde). I still never hesitate to add a zygarde on my team bc its still a great status spreader and just an amazing teammate to run in general bc of the remarkable utility it provides.
DD zygarde is still super super good, it can run 7+ viable sets and most of them manage to beat all of its checks (toxic beats supportceus, dragon z / arrows z also beat supportceus, dtail is the best move to run which beats every team w/o fairyceus, glare heavily pressurizes the whole team.) Even when it is unable to sweep, it heavily dents the opposing team which makes way for other mons to finish. I'll add replays to support this later, but everyone knows that this still sweeps 5 teams daily with ease.
Zygarde is just one of those mons which guarantee a good performance every game and every matchup, its super consistent. I'll honestly be really annoyed if this is demoted to A+, This mon has been meta changing and deserves to stay in S- till the end of this gen.
Dusk Mane: Neutral (60:40 in favour of Agree)
Seeing DM in the same rank as EKiller and Groundceus is gonna be weird but its no secret that Dusk Mane is just not as good as it used to be. Defensive variant has better alternatives like Poison Ferro and Groudon. DD Mane is pretty meh as well, outclassed by the common setup sweepers like Rayquaza, Zygarde and Ekiller. I'll have to think about this before voting.
This is irrelevant but I feel like theres a set which doesnt get enough credit and deserves more attention. I've used it a ton but havent officially posted this set anywhere, so here we go!
Necrozma-Dusk-Mane @ Weakness Policy / Aguav Berry / Psychium Z
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 248 SpA / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power
- Heat Wave / Signal Beam
- Rock Polish
I completely did not forget to add the Ultra Necrozma Z crystal and I also didnt not accidentally mix DD DM and CM Ultra.
And I have replays to prove it:
It works pretty similarily to the DD WP DM set, except it has the surprise factor and doesnt get walled by literally EVERY supportceus and random Skarms/Celesteelas/Ferros/PDons/Pogre. It's super easy to use and its pretty much impossible to stop it if you dont have a dark type. Having Stored Power means that even confide Chansey cannot stop you since you still get the stats boost from RP and SpDef from CM. This set beats a number of threats which regular DD DM doesnt like Ho-Oh, Giratina, Celesteela/Skarm, Waterceus, every other supportceus except Dark (also Ground sometimes, if you mess up), but a few downsides of this set are -
1) You have a worse MU vs Xern, which most of the time doesn't affect you so much because your team probably has a solid priority core if youre using this set. (Most HO teams run Ray + Marsh/Ekiller, so its rlly never an issue)
2) You have 0 immediate power which means it can be a liability on offense sometimes. This can easily be fixed by running Psychium Z which helps you chip whatever tries to set up on you. Although tbf, I've never experienced this issue because its just too easy to set up. A CM gives a solid +40 boost per turn so its usually fine.
overall imo this is the superior offensive DM set in the current meta, everyone knows that SD RP gets walled by literally everything and thats uncool
These calcs are for WP set since its the standard one
vs Ho-Oh:
+3 248 SpA Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Stored Power (180 BP) vs. 252 HP / 52 SpD Ho-Oh: 439-517 (105.5 - 124.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO (cm on the turn it clicks sf)
0 Atk Ho-Oh Sacred Fire vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 163-195 (48.6 - 58.2%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO
vs Giratina:
+2 248 SpA Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 52 SpD Giratina: 337-397 (66.9 - 78.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (use RP on the turn it switches in, it's gonna stay in and wisp bc its definitely gonna be the DD dm. reveal CM and surprise!!)
vs Supportceus:
+2 248 SpA Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Ground: 354-417 (92.9 - 109.4%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
0 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 211-249 (62.9 - 74.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
vs Pogre:
+2 248 SpA Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Kyogre-Primal: 274-324 (80.3 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Kyogre-Primal Origin Pulse vs. +2 0 HP / 0 SpD Necrozma-Dusk-Mane in Heavy Rain: 177-208 (52.8 - 62%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
vs Pdon:
+2 248 SpA Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 200 SpD Groudon-Primal: 366-432 (90.5 - 106.9%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
vs Skarm:
248 SpA Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Skarmory: 250-296 (74.8 - 88.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (they wont stay in if you CM but its nice to catch them on the switch in)
vs ZyGOD
+2 248 SpA Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Zygarde: 429-505 (102.1 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Marshadow: Disagree
IK its great vs offense, I'm still not convinced that its a good balance/stall breaker. Z move sets are the only ones which have a chance but you gotta make predicts, this is not a mon which I'd A+ honestly. Sometimes its just never putting in work and its just not on the level of don ho-oh or gar. 100% better than every other A rank mon though so you can still convince me.
Other noms:
Wobbuffet to D: agree
i was actually gonna nom this myself, this is reallyyyyy underused and super annoying to face. Im pretty sure it was unranked only bc of custap's late release but i think we can add this back now.
Vivillon to B: disagree
I thought usage =/= viability? people just dislike using vivi in general from what ive seen, since its kinda 'uncompetitive' and all. Other than roar ttar getting a bit of usage, i cant think of any other reason why this should be dropped? This meta kinda revolves around support arceus which makes viv even better. Ive never been a fan of this mon myself but it still consistently sweeps teams and I think B+ is fair.
Ditto to B-: agree
sureee, its great vs HO and stall
Lando T to D: nah
rlly inconsistent imo, cant do much on its own and only works when paired with some web setter (look at your own replays). 0 reason to use this over don exca or deo. rocks boom is fun but its almost never worth running a specific rock setter on webs bc vs some matchups its going to be a 4 vs 6.
Blissey to B-: disagree
look dont get me wrong here, I too hate using blissey and I know that its outclassed by chansey but C rank is a bit too harsh imo. We've already dropped blissey from B to B- for this exact same reason. C rank drop is just disrespectful especially when u look at the other C rank mons. I 100% agree with your nom and everything you typed but I rlly dont think another drop is necessary for the same reason.
Zekrom to D: agreee
zekrom is indeed one of my favorite mons but ive just never used it myself bc its outclassed by so many other things on webs (like yveltal xerneas etc etc) and you cant rlly fit this on any other type of team. sorry zekrom :((
my own noms:
Slurpuff, Fireceus and Mega Gyara to UR:
these mons are just garbage.
Stall isnt great rn and I dont need a specific niche mega to break it when I have these 180atk/180spatk or 170 spatk/130spe dudes on my team, slurpuff is a pretty meh web setter now and i didnt even know that fireceus existed but its time to say goodbye anyway.
Shuckle to B
Webs is actually a really good playstyle rn and shuckle is easily the best webs setter because z solganium dusk manes are pretty much non existent. shuckle can consistently get webs up and annoys lead arcs and all so i guess B rank is reasonable. I'll add replays soon.
A couple of more possible changes are Darkceus and Poisonceus to A
I think both of them have proven to be the staple arceus of the metagame but a downside is that they are just not as versatile as the other A rank mons i guess. I still believe that a raise is possible for both. I'm unsure on these 2 myself so id like to see what other people think about this nom.
expect a VR update when AGPL ends, im really liking these noms and activity on this thread. Id also love to see more discussion here, especially on the Ho-Oh, Marsh, Zygarde and Poison Dark noms. And lets not nom more random D rank mons please -_-
where my nephew gliscor at he should be C+ or something, C at least
- great fogger; pretty much all rocks setters use toxic nowadays, and this is the only one with a proper status immunity. Fogs on exca, supportarcs without ib, ferro, skarm, overheat pdon without spa investment, dusk mane, dialga, chansey/blissey and only really loses out to deoxys really.
- great defensive wall; this bad boy can take on a plethora of pokemon. thanks to poison heal, it flat out walls many defensive options like ho-oh, supportarcs, ttar, and doesnt drop to goth with the right moveset. It takes on lo marsh without hp ice, and it can even handle vivi and zygarde specifically with ice fang should you need a check that handles both. doesnt have the best splashability but it aint that hard to fit on your team. Works best on balance and stall.
- baton pass viable; its already in the baton pass rank but it is easily viable outside of it, being more viable outside than inside bp imo + the vr post states that mons viable on either are ranked above the bp rank.
- this mon is probably the only viable ohko move abuser (alongside ogre maybe) should you choose to opt for it, generates many free turns (and guillotine should only be used on a free turn) and is scary to switch into, ghosts arent too prevelant anymore and even a mon like marsh and gar can't switch in too easily, as toxic and earthquake are other viable options, and as previously mentioned, marsh cant take on gliscor too well.
- versatile pick; it can run many moves that are useful. uturn/guillotine are the main attacking moves as they escape gothitelle and have great utility outside goth matchups. earthquake, knock off and ice fang are usable options for specific matchups, should you be weak to like zygarde or vivillon. Other useable attacks range from sand tomb to trap, sr or tailwind for team support, or even moves like sd/hone claws/agility or sub + bp alongside defog + roost to generate pressure.
- it has weaknesses in mons like erupt pdon/ray/xern that hit hard, ice attacks like groundceus or waterceus (tho you will still tank hits from full), taunt is hard to deal with so mons like gengar and yve can toy with you, tho gar should be wary of eq or a possible uturn to pursuit trapper.
- it's been a mon that has some tour usage as of recent and doesn't have the worst results. People find him particularily annoying in matchups in which they bring balance or stall themselves as its a tough cookie to break without the right tools.
I wholeheartedly believe that Zygarde Complete should remain at S-. It walls all of the main offensive threats in ag, barring those wierd hp ice marsh sets and dpulse unecro. While caution should be taken with scarf ray, once you’re complete, I’m pretty sure a zygc can take a meteor from full health. While I don’t think it can take that from a mixed lo ray, it still destroys dd and band ray sets. Additionally, since it forces out a ton of ray and marsh and ultra sets, zygarde complete is a great paralysis spreader. It can just fill so many different roles, including a defensive wall and a trapping setup sweeper. Leave zygarde complete as S-. There’s just no reason to drop it.
where my nephew gliscor at he should be C+ or something, C at least
- great fogger; pretty much all rocks setters use toxic nowadays, and this is the only one with a proper status immunity. Fogs on exca, supportarcs without ib, ferro, skarm, overheat pdon without spa investment, dusk mane, dialga, chansey/blissey and only really loses out to deoxys really.
- great defensive wall; this bad boy can take on a plethora of pokemon. thanks to poison heal, it flat out walls many defensive options like ho-oh, supportarcs, ttar, and doesnt drop to goth with the right moveset. It takes on lo marsh without hp ice, and it can even handle vivi and zygarde specifically with ice fang should you need a check that handles both. doesnt have the best splashability but it aint that hard to fit on your team. Works best on balance and stall.
- baton pass viable; its already in the baton pass rank but it is easily viable outside of it, being more viable outside than inside bp imo + the vr post states that mons viable on either are ranked above the bp rank.
- this mon is probably the only viable ohko move abuser (alongside ogre maybe) should you choose to opt for it, generates many free turns (and guillotine should only be used on a free turn) and is scary to switch into, ghosts arent too prevelant anymore and even a mon like marsh and gar can't switch in too easily, as toxic and earthquake are other viable options, and as previously mentioned, marsh cant take on gliscor too well.
- versatile pick; it can run many moves that are useful. uturn/guillotine are the main attacking moves as they escape gothitelle and have great utility outside goth matchups. earthquake, knock off and ice fang are usable options for specific matchups, should you be weak to like zygarde or vivillon. Other useable attacks range from sand tomb to trap, sr or tailwind for team support, or even moves like sd/hone claws/agility or sub + bp alongside defog + roost to generate pressure.
- it has weaknesses in mons like erupt pdon/ray/xern that hit hard, ice attacks like groundceus or waterceus (tho you will still tank hits from full), taunt is hard to deal with so mons like gengar and yve can toy with you, tho gar should be wary of eq or a possible uturn to pursuit trapper.
- it's been a mon that has some tour usage as of recent and doesn't have the worst results. People find him particularily annoying in matchups in which they bring balance or stall themselves as its a tough cookie to break without the right tools.
i used gliscor in agcc and he actually sucks alot, about fog in pdon without spa evs well he only survive to 1 hit in the second he dies even with full spd evs so fblast or lava plume just eat gliscor,cadrill can just still using rocks on gliscor and just put after die he need just put pogre or yvel lorb taunt (he can just put yvel turn 1 instead cadrill)
just to finish clefable, mttar, heatran and umbreon are better at stall than gliscor, it's no use having defog if you can't use in front of pdon without suffering, so much better than gloke that if he went to C most pokes in D would go up to B (seriously tapu lele scarf is more useful than that) can you send some replays or teams if possible? I can't see gliscor being useful even on mid ladder
well, I'll take a moment to mention the hooh that deserves to be ranked A + he is easily the best ranking A pokemon which is good at stall, good at BO and can be used at HO with more offensive sets, its only problem is its double weakness for rocks that makes you use 2 defog (including ho-oh), but it has a regenerator ie just leaves the field and recovers about 30% of the hp, hooh can be counter to several mons in the metagame as for example xerneas, marshadow lorb without rock tomb, can burn and whirlwind in ghost and normal ekiller, with nature-speed + toxic can beat pdon without leaving rocks in the field, can toxic on all arceus except poisonous arc , steel and rock (because rockarc only kills him, he can only use sacred fire on steel arc to), I forgot to mention but he doesn't need much investment in SpD to stop xerneas just enough to stop thunder and psyshock (in lele terrain) check and kill iron, ca only you use a defensive set, maybe you use leftovers, but hooh it's so versatile that even life orb bb, sacred fire, defog, toxic serves as a defensive set (obviously, you'll have a bit more trouble with xerneas but it's worth it ) and if you ever have problems with smashpass or smeargle, you can use safety googles (no kidding I got good results with it)
no replays but this is the team if anyone wants to try; )
we still have offensive sets (which are less used but equally good)
can be scarf, band, z celebrate, curse z fly (broken set), and subsroostlorb
Threats to hooh:
Mega Ray = wow what news! mray is broken and few things come in without losing soul basically nothing goes well in lorb adamant except = lugia, magnemite and ttar shuca berry foulp
Primal Kyogre: Obviously Water extinguishes fire, never leave a hooh in front of pogre and unless you predicate with toxic basically you must run full spd iron or full spd arc grass for that
Marshadow: Only rock tomb and z move sets after volume up is a problem
Arceus Ground / Rock: Both with stone edge cause htko
same thing, x-scissor allows you to kill sub lefties zyg as well. 252+ breaks sub when not in complete form
fully counters xerneas unless hpfire ( <- not a thing) or hprock. shed should always be partnered with 248 HP +56 SpD Whirlwind Ho-Oh or Magearna in order to deal with hprock. toxic xerneas is always going to be a support or scarf set
almost every mmy runs focus blast > fire blast which makes shed a p good check. if your stall utilizes shed + ttar then you wall all sets besides the distinguished shadow ball mmy
beats non toxic/will-o/sedge
walls cm/sd steel
walls cm/defog beam judg recover. have to scout for sd or status. would not recommend toxic killing yourself vs a mcoat set
might as well put this in here since tapu koko can be a real nuisance vs stall (bad mon tho). shed walls any viable set
not a primary check but most ekillers run shadow claw or eq and not both. just like mmy, this allows shed + ttar to wall
These are hardly worth mentioning but, there really are a bunch of other random crap that shed is completely immune to
The biggest advantage of using shed on stall is probably not losing to MGar/Goth + Zyg and POgre. Pretty good deal in my opinion since plenty of teams rely on those mons as stall breakers. Any stall vs specs or cm water spout pogre is kinda completely screwed without shed or awful stall pdon
Very tough to get rocks up with so many fantastic defoggers so saying "stealth rock exists" isn't a great argument for shedinjas viability as well
That's all I think, Shed plays a very unique and useful role on stall so D seems ok to me
This thing does not deserve to be in the same rank as POgre or Yveltal. Waterceus is just not really that good. As a Supportceus it gets stopped cold by PDon, POgre, Ferro, Steelceus etc. Unless it hits SE, it does absolutely nothing to mons with decent enough SpDef. Supportceus are on virtually every non-HO, and on HO people run stuff like PDon which just ends Waterceus. You could argue that other Supportceus also have equal amounts of presence, except they don't because of Judgment type being a very important factor. Stuff like Fairyceus and Groundceus are good because of their good Judgment types, allowing them to wear down the opponent. Water is not a good Judgment type and therefore Waterceus has to run Ice Beam so it doesn't just get walled by Water resists. This creates an unnecessary case of 4MSS where it wants to run Judgment/Ice Beam/Recover/Defog/Toxic, and you have to give up one of these moves to make space. I've seen Waterceus without Judgment. That is a statement of how much this 4MSS affects Waterceus. It's bulky and all but there are usually better options.
D > UR
Does this even do anything? On paper it sounds like a strong stall breaker but in practice it falls flat because outside the stall matchup it has no real chance to set up a DD and even in the stall matchup is still walled post-DD by stuff like Fairyceus and ends up being a worse MRay. MRay is also a strong stall breaker as well due to the large offensive pressure it puts on the opponent. It is basically a worse MRay. If someone wants to give me a good reason why I should forfeit a large opportunity cost to run Mega Gyarados then go ahead. But I fully support the unranking of it.
I thought I would make a couple noms and this time I think they are more educated than the rest lol
Aerodactyl ur-> d/c
This thing is an amazing suicide lead that is amazing at both keeping rocks off the field and getting them on, this pokemon has access to amazing tools such as rock tomb to prevent faster pokemon like deo-s from setting up, taunt to prevent opposing setup, defog to remove hazards if they do get on the field, and finally pressure to easily win defog and sr wars. this mon is basically able to reliably set up on anything that isn't magic coat/magic bounce or excadrill
Arceus Grass c-> b-
This mon got lowered by the vr council to some community backlash, this thing is an incredibly consistent kyogre check and also can do much more such as semi-check xern by living moonblast and using roar
Excadrill b -> b-
I don't think this is very good tbh, the main appeal of this thing is being able to set up rocks against magic bouce but most teams with magic bounce has something that beats exca, also rapid spin is usually not enough to prevent rocks from getting on the field
This thing does not deserve to be in the same rank as POgre or Yveltal. Waterceus is just not really that good. As a Supportceus it gets stopped cold by PDon, POgre, Ferro, Steelceus etc. Unless it hits SE, it does absolutely nothing to mons with decent enough SpDef. Supportceus are on virtually every non-HO, and on HO people run stuff like PDon which just ends Waterceus. You could argue that other Supportceus also have equal amounts of presence, except they don't because of Judgment type being a very important factor. Stuff like Fairyceus and Groundceus are good because of their good Judgment types, allowing them to wear down the opponent. Water is not a good Judgment type and therefore Waterceus has to run Ice Beam so it doesn't just get walled by Water resists. This creates an unnecessary case of 4MSS where it wants to run Judgment/Ice Beam/Recover/Defog/Toxic, and you have to give up one of these moves to make space. I've seen Waterceus without Judgment. That is a statement of how much this 4MSS affects Waterceus. It's bulky and all but there are usually better options.
So I felt I needed to address this because I'd rather this not stand here uncorrected on the forums so new players take this as fact. Put simply, this post is completely wrong. In fact, I'm going to one up you and say waterceus 100% belongs in A. The first two pokemon you mention are it being worse than pogre and yve, which are in the same rank as it. Frankly, waterceus is easily more splashable than both of them in the current meta. The only set I'd really consider on non webs/ some ho is defensive because scarf doesn't do anything for me. Pogre can be really annoying to fit on teams due to how much dead weight it can be vs offense. Waterceus fits on p much every balance team, and Skarph has clearly shown it has a very good slot on stall (most support ar s can fit on stall, but that's still a valuable niche). There's even more niche offensive sets which can find roles on ho.
Those mons that supposedly wall it? That's their job; to beat support arcs. I don't see how that's especially relevant, and I can even make a case that two of the four you mentioned are beaten by common waterceus sets. Steelceus is beaten by defensive liquidation as long as your not absurdly unlucky, and p much every toxic variant beats non sd or rest sets. Refresh sets straight up counter it.
The fact that arceus water does NOT NEED judgment as a support arc is absolutely a plus in my book, it shows that it is a much more diverse support arc than others. Judg Beam isn't even really necessary since you can usually choose based on team composition. waterceus rarely suffers from 4MSS, it just has plain diversity.
Overall this is an incredibly uninformed post that personally offends me due to how incredible water is in the current meta. (the rise of ho-oh it easily adapted to, running judg and liquid way more often.) Waterceus A- to A
Before I end, there's been some talk of unranking Heatran, and ofc you're gonna expect me to say hard no lol. This is a support arc meta which tran just absolutely loves, obv stall isn't the only good mu for it. I think I've proved by now why heatran is so good, in the right hands it's much better than D, but nobody really puts in the time to try and use it properly.
Anyway, I'm out, make ur noms before gen 8 ruins ag guys.
We started a new VR update before the 3 above posts by supreeee, AnythingGoesLegend and MDB so your noms weren't voted on. Everything else is here though! I will also edit the actual sheet here so you can see how individual people voted... but not until Cata gets back and freezes it so people can't edit it.
e: here is the sheet of our votes!
Code:
Marshadow A to A+
Ho-Oh A to A+
Mewtwo B to B+
Mega-Mewtwo-X C to B-
Ditto C to B-
Gliscor Unranked to D
Shedinja Unranked to D
Wobbuffet Unranked to D
Zygarde-Complete S- to A+
Necrozma-Dusk-Mane A+ to A
Arceus-Steel A- to B+
Vivillon B+ to B
Blissey B- to C
Zekrom C to D
Slurpuff D to Unranked
Mega Gyarados D to Unranked
Arceus-Fire D to Unranked
Mega Gengar A+ to S
Yveltal A- to A
Arceus-Dark A- to A
Arceus-Poison A- to A
Tyranitar B+ to A-
Mega-Mewtwo-Y B to B+
Shuckle B- to B
Toxapex C to B-
Arceus-Grass C to B-
Alolan Muk D to Unranked
Magnemite Unranked to D
Landorus-Therian Unranked to D
Aerodactyl Unranked to D
Krookodile Unranked to D
Darkrai Unranked to D
Zoroark Unranked to D
Mega Mawile Unranked to D
If any particular result rankles you, feel free to ask a council member about it around discord/the room/meta discussion thread/whatever, I'm always open to giving some explanations. There's just a lot here to cover but with regards to most of the D/Unranked stuff: we're trying to find the fine line between "this did ok but realistically you'd never really need/want to use it" and "this found a unique niche that we want to rank". Obviously something like Aerodactyl is a passable suicide lead, how could it not be, but in order to not have a 70-mon D rank we need to find that division and I at least think we're getting closer to meeting it. The higher rank stuff at least all should have a nomination you can look back to for reasoning.
Sword and Shield come out in 5 weeks so based on our past schedule this is probably the 2nd to last VR update? If you've still got any lingering annoyances about placements, now is the time to get them out there! Personally I at least want Unecro back to A+ and Umbreon unranked to get on the final slate.
I think this is quite an interesting debate about waterceus so I'll give my two cents.
I agree and disagree with points made in both posts, though while I do agree more with what mdb said I think A- is still the best fit for waterceus.
I think 4mss is the most common thing brought up about waterceus so I guess I'll start here. I think if you don't try to make waterceus do too much, it doesn't necessarily have 4mss issues. I think it's somewhat about expectations, if you expect waterceus to be able to hit zyg, ho-oh, toxic pdon, defog and wisp mane and m ray it's just not going to happen. I think for balance in particular if you just don't allocate it as your defogger you'll have a much better time using waterceus. HOWEVER that doesn't change the fact waterceus doesn't give you the option to run utility moves; something fairyceus and darkceus can do. I disagree in that waterceus's judge is bad because it's not, however it does require other moves to compliment it while darkceus and fairyceus do not. Fairyceus hits everything it wants to with judgment, zyg ray marsh yve which gives it so many options like cm refresh, defog, sr, p song or just quirky stuff like double status tox t wave. This is a lesser extent with darkceus because it sometimes wants beam for zyg and yve but otherwise it's the same principle. I would argue judge/liquidation is necessary for balance though, I think saying it doesn't need it is a little disingenuous; without it you get trapped by gar and can no longer hit ho-oh and groundceus which should be the main reasons to use it in the first place. I think stall gives it MUCH more flexibility though; it doesn't necessarily need judge or tox, giving you a lot more freedom. Ice beam and recover are really the only moves that are necessary and then you can use what you want which is very nice.
I would also like to point out that if you're running z liquidation and beam you're forced to use -speed nature, which isn't inherently bad perse but it means you can no longer soft check stuff like pogre and even eruption pdon if rocks are up which kindaaa sucks (though eruption don is normally ran on webs so your speed will be lower anyway, so I guess it's not as big a deal). Other stuff could include being slower than band ho-oh and offensive yve, but again waterceus normally runs 280 so offensive would be faster anyway but, even if you wanted to outspeed this you can't bc you need -speed. In addition to this running z liquidation means, y'know, taking up the z slot; this is actually pretty huge considering stuff like ultra necro and poisonceus really want the z move so you might have a little bit of a dilemna. z liquidation is really important for ho-oh and definitely cm ground, if you're not running the z move you may as well stick with judge. This is kinda a minor thing honestly but thought I might as well bring it up anyway.
Honestly I think waterceus being almost 100% essential on stall is probably the most compelling argument for waterceus to A, it's simply too important for pdon as it's like, the only tomb eruption don check in the game lol. ho-oh + gira isn't anywhere near as solid as checking this set as eruption is doing way too much to gira, but if you play around it smart you could probably beat it but nowhere near as easily. I don't think stall is the most potent or best playstyle by any means though, which is probably the biggest counterargument to this. Stall had a really rough time in ompl and agpl and I imagine lost more games than it won ( or should have w.o hax or misplays or w.e).
So I guess we should also compare waterceus to other pokemon in A- and A rank. Straight up, waterceus isn't on fairyceus and groundceus level. While fairyceus can get trapped, which is probably its biggest issue, you can still run pursuit support like marsh/tyranitar if you really want to. Every team has at least one or two of ray zyg yve marsh darkceus tar, so it's always pressuring stuff out which means you can make play offs that. Also there are just some times where if you can wear down don and remove poisonceus/dusk it's just clicking judge for free and getting kills. I'd argue waterceus doesn't quite have the same presence and can't force stuff out in the same way fairyceus does. grounceus is just wayyyy to versatile for waterceus to compete, it can run cm, sd and support all competently, while waterceus's offensive sets are way too gimmicky and are outclassed for the most part by other offensive threats. I also don't think it's fair to say it's better than the other stuff in A-, support darkceus is still really good and offers important resistances just like waterceus while still being versatile enough to run cm refresh, defog and p song.
tldr; waterceus only has a support set due to offensive sets being outclassed, and in its support role its movepool is extremely limited due to not being able to run utility moves such as defog, sr and perish song. However, it is extremely unique and the meta suits it right now due to high amounts of ho-oh and (from what I can see) mixed/eruption don. Still a really good mon but not on fairyceus/groundceus level
Not sure who was talking about tran being ur, I think tran being D is fine personally. it has similar problems with other stuff in D but is annoying enough to specific balances and stalls to make it somewhat worth using. It's only D rank anyway no one's asking it to put it next to m ray so it's pretty w.e
I'm pretty happy with the vr changes, there's a few changes I would have liked but I would rather suggest changes that didn't happen than have a change happen that I don't agree with at all. I think MMY not being moved up to B+ is probably the thing I feel strongest about, it was tied 4-4 votes-wise so I think it's definitely a change that could happen. It has its issues such as using up a mega slot, being hard to fit on teams, relying on focus miss and being weak to priority, but damn so many balances just drop to this mon, and even some stalls could struggle. Muk actually op?? might do some more analysis on this and post some replays about mmy if I have some other noms I feel like making as well before usm ends. Would also like to encourage other people to make noms! Would be nice to see less d rank stuff though lol. pce
So I felt I needed to address this because I'd rather this not stand here uncorrected on the forums so new players take this as fact. Put simply, this post is completely wrong. In fact, I'm going to one up you and say waterceus 100% belongs in A. The first two pokemon you mention are it being worse than pogre and yve, which are in the same rank as it. Frankly, waterceus is easily more splashable than both of them in the current meta. The only set I'd really consider on non webs/ some ho is defensive because scarf doesn't do anything for me. Pogre can be really annoying to fit on teams due to how much dead weight it can be vs offense. Waterceus fits on p much every balance team, and Skarph has clearly shown it has a very good slot on stall (most support ar s can fit on stall, but that's still a valuable niche). There's even more niche offensive sets which can find roles on ho.
Those mons that supposedly wall it? That's their job; to beat support arcs. I don't see how that's especially relevant, and I can even make a case that two of the four you mentioned are beaten by common waterceus sets. Steelceus is beaten by defensive liquidation as long as your not absurdly unlucky, and p much every toxic variant beats non sd or rest sets. Refresh sets straight up counter it.
The fact that arceus water does NOT NEED judgment as a support arc is absolutely a plus in my book, it shows that it is a much more diverse support arc than others. Judg Beam isn't even really necessary since you can usually choose based on team composition. waterceus rarely suffers from 4MSS, it just has plain diversity.
Overall this is an incredibly uninformed post that personally offends me due to how incredible water is in the current meta. (the rise of ho-oh it easily adapted to, running judg and liquid way more often.) Waterceus A- to A
Before I end, there's been some talk of unranking Heatran, and ofc you're gonna expect me to say hard no lol. This is a support arc meta which tran just absolutely loves, obv stall isn't the only good mu for it. I think I've proved by now why heatran is so good, in the right hands it's much better than D, but nobody really puts in the time to try and use it properly.
Anyway, I'm out, make ur noms before gen 8 ruins ag guys.
yeah my waterceus nom was pretty bad you guys should ignore it, sorry for the low quality post. still should not rise tho not on the level of other A ranks
one thing that was neglected here is magnet rise, which has been used on occasion.
Now, there are three aspects that I haven't previously brought up but will now:
a) Defensive sets
b) why use it over tr ndm?
c) good/bad matchups
I'll address b) first since i know it best:
More physical bulk, allowing for easier setup on some opponents (seriously 211 defense is mad man)
Snowballing possibilities due to Beast Boost
More powerful moves (gyro ball vs sunsteel strike) & more room for coverage (and arguably better coverage w/ superpower/eq/edge for example)
Options to avoid ground moves: e.g. Magnet Rise+Air balloon
slower
Rock typing, allowing it to serve as a check to mray
Not weak to ghost moves - very good versus mgengar
Ndm has prism armor which can be very helpful
ndm has more special bulk
ndm has boosting options
can bluff other sets
As you can see, both have pros and cons.
In my opinion, both are fine, and in fact, they work great together!
wait mblaze isnt ranked?...neither in bp rank...something is clearly wrong!
mega blaze should be in minimun C rank, ok obviously it's not worth using mega blaze when you have mray, mengar and maybe mm2y, but that's no excuse! until mega slowbro is ranked! so lets talk about calcs :
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde: 342-403 (81.4 - 95.9%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
yep zygarde still alive after a adamant after sd hjk but its a roll so after ship damage he just die (or you miss and die)
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 342-403 (53.7 - 63.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
well zyg complete is god tank, but still 2 htko this is more damage than band mray :
252+ Atk Choice Band Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 261-307 (41 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftover
but obviously lorb dd does more damage
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 339-399 (53.3 - 62.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
so why use mblaze instead mray? simple :
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 270-318 (76.9 - 90.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 248 HP / 236+ Def Kyogre-Primal: 424-501 (105.2 - 124.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 56+ Def Groudon-Primal: 315-372 (77.9 - 92%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
<put zyg calc here>
252 Atk Life Orb Technician Marshadow Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Blaziken-Mega: 149-177 (49.5 - 58.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock ( if you got free setup sd+speed boost marsh cant htko with sneak after rocks and mblaze revenge kill)
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega: 195-229 (64.1 - 75.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (oh thats sucks flare blitz ko mbleye but recoil sucks cuz mblze is glass cannon)
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Ho-Oh: 219-258 (52.6 - 62%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
[more calcs if i edit later]
ok...but how the f i will free setup with mblaze!? let me show :
well, I did not save many replays since the account is old and I did not plan to save many replays, so I created an account especially for this so I will post the best replays of this account in the future
wait mblaze isnt ranked?...neither in bp rank...something is clearly wrong!
mega blaze should be in minimun C rank, ok obviously it's not worth using mega blaze when you have mray, mengar and maybe mm2y, but that's no excuse! until mega slowbro is ranked! so lets talk about calcs :
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde: 342-403 (81.4 - 95.9%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
yep zygarde still alive after a adamant after sd hjk but its a roll so after ship damage he just die (or you miss and die)
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 342-403 (53.7 - 63.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
well zyg complete is god tank, but still 2 htko this is more damage than band mray :
252+ Atk Choice Band Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 261-307 (41 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftover
but obviously lorb dd does more damage
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 339-399 (53.3 - 62.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
so why use mblaze instead mray? simple :
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 270-318 (76.9 - 90.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 248 HP / 236+ Def Kyogre-Primal: 424-501 (105.2 - 124.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 56+ Def Groudon-Primal: 315-372 (77.9 - 92%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
<put zyg calc here>
252 Atk Life Orb Technician Marshadow Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Blaziken-Mega: 149-177 (49.5 - 58.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock ( if you got free setup sd+speed boost marsh cant htko with sneak after rocks and mblaze revenge kill)
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega: 195-229 (64.1 - 75.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (oh thats sucks flare blitz ko mbleye but recoil sucks cuz mblze is glass cannon)
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Ho-Oh: 219-258 (52.6 - 62%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
[more calcs if i edit later]
ok...but how the f i will free setup with mblaze!? let me show :
well, I did not save many replays since the account is old and I did not plan to save many replays, so I created an account especially for this so I will post the best replays of this account in the future
so...what's the point of using this over mray? you blatantly say that lo dd does more damage than sd and then show off stuff that mray already does. it doesn't switch in on anything because frankly it has no defensive utility whatsoever unlike mray because its typing and defensive stats are trash. you mention how it beats the primals but mray also does this. you seriously need like memento lead to get this thing in safely. no point of using it.
wait mblaze isnt ranked?...neither in bp rank...something is clearly wrong!
mega blaze should be in minimun C rank, ok obviously it's not worth using mega blaze when you have mray, mengar and maybe mm2y, but that's no excuse! until mega slowbro is ranked! so lets talk about calcs :
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde: 342-403 (81.4 - 95.9%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
yep zygarde still alive after a adamant after sd hjk but its a roll so after ship damage he just die (or you miss and die)
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 342-403 (53.7 - 63.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
well zyg complete is god tank, but still 2 htko this is more damage than band mray :
252+ Atk Choice Band Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 261-307 (41 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftover
but obviously lorb dd does more damage
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 339-399 (53.3 - 62.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
so why use mblaze instead mray? simple :
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 270-318 (76.9 - 90.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 248 HP / 236+ Def Kyogre-Primal: 424-501 (105.2 - 124.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 56+ Def Groudon-Primal: 315-372 (77.9 - 92%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
<put zyg calc here>
252 Atk Life Orb Technician Marshadow Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Blaziken-Mega: 149-177 (49.5 - 58.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock ( if you got free setup sd+speed boost marsh cant htko with sneak after rocks and mblaze revenge kill)
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega: 195-229 (64.1 - 75.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (oh thats sucks flare blitz ko mbleye but recoil sucks cuz mblze is glass cannon)
+2 252+ Atk Blaziken-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Ho-Oh: 219-258 (52.6 - 62%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
[more calcs if i edit later]
ok...but how the f i will free setup with mblaze!? let me show :
well, I did not save many replays since the account is old and I did not plan to save many replays, so I created an account especially for this so I will post the best replays of this account in the future
I feel like blaziken is better as a baton passer, rather than as a sweeper. If you insist on using it offensively, regular blaziken is better (because you can run mray too). It's better was a wallbreaker than a sweeper, which allows it to run flare blitz and devastate stuff like sableye-mega. also worth noting it has roost for whatever that counts for
I feel like blaziken is better as a baton passer, rather than as a sweeper. If you insist on using it offensively, regular blaziken is better (because you can run mray too). It's better was a wallbreaker than a sweeper, which allows it to run flare blitz and devastate stuff like sableye-mega. also worth noting it has roost for whatever that counts for
still not worthy of any rank. as a baton passer scolipede is better and as an offensive threat there is no real reason to run it over stuff like pdon besides speed. and even if you want speed you can use marsh or unecro or like literally any other fast threat
Vivillon B+ to B: Obviously this thing's still stupid and can steal games and whatnot but it's really fallen out of favor for a reason. Like, I think all our Vivillon uses recently stem from that Cata HO team? Genuinely can't remember seeing it on anything else recently, which is because it's just become more of a pain to set up and get working. Vivillon is a tricky mon that works in inverses, the further it drops the less you'll prep for it and the scarier it'll become, but it's been out of favor for long enough to warrant the drop imo. Similarly to Zen's Steelceus nom, we don't have full OMPL/AGPL usage yet but I'm reasonably confident it would back this up. I would've gone through replays but there isn't even a replays thread that I can find so yeah.
Ditto C to B-: It's a niche scarfer but really major in facing stall, prevents enough setup in certain situations to be an effective deterrent, and is overall not quite as niche of a pick as C would suggest. I don't really think it's worse than scarf regular ogre at all which is currently in B-, I get that that can also run a specs set but eh. The rationale is really "Look at C, Ditto's kinda better than all of them. Look at B-, Ditto can more or less fit right in there".
