Lunala is better than Necrozma-DW though, and so might be Terapagos.
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Metagame SV Ubers UU Metagame Discussion (Ditto, Lunala, Iron Treads and Terapagos Dropped)
- Thread starter KineSquared
- Start date
I've been thinking about that too. The problem is that there are a very few (more than one though) powerful abilities that increase shed tails utility by tenfold. Before NDW/Lunala/Terapagos it was basically just dragonite and lugia (lol), but now that we have good abusers of it, I'm curious which aspect of that combination becomes the most meta-warping
I think it's worth noting that Lunala and Terapagos both have good synergy with Cyclazar, but it wasn't great before them. It almost fell from the 4.52 usage, and it had fallen off severely. I think that it's possible that it will rise in usage. i do expect an increase on usage in roar as a result, along with maybe infiltrator Dragapult having a comeback.
I have some thoughts about the drops/unbans and how they will affect the metagame
- The spiritual successor to GSC Snorlax, it can fit on literally any team, and that's only a slight exaggeration. It has a wide movepool, a very useful ability, and can "mega evolve" through Terastalization.
- NDW is back but is outclassed by the moon bat without the RU Pokémon parasitizing it. Wouldn't be surprised if Lunala ends up getting banned.
- It was a great utility mon before it rose for a month, and while I think it will still be a solid choice, Terapagos and Lunala being great shed tail abusers is not welcoming news for it as 
will probably see much more usage.
- It's Ditto, it runs scarf imposter. That's what it does.
- Another Extreme Killer is back, and it's more impactful than 
. I wonder how long it stays in the tier.
- With 
and 
in the tier, more relevant stuff outspeeds it. Still, it is faster than a lot of the tier, and with a scarf can still get the jump on them, though that would make it reliant on a choice item. I could also see it start using Growth regardless of sun to potentially boost past some defensive checks like 
, assuming that the Skymin in question is on a team that has answers to Chien Pao and Mewtwo.
- With other great Tera options, notably Terapagos, in the tier, I think NDW might be a little healthier, but depending on how the other drops behave, notably Lunala and Terapagos, it might also get banned once more.
- It can be a good check to and , especially with potentially forcing Tera on the former, but it does not like having to compete for the Arceus slot with
- All the new ghosts are not a welcome sign to it, as they reduce its capability as a good defensive mon.
- This one is more of a mixed bag than Solgaleo since Giratina can somewhat threaten them back with wisp+hex, but being weak to their STABs means it can't reliably switch in on them.
- Zama-C hates that the new ghosts just blank body press and now it has to invest more into attack to do meaningful damage with Crunch, but it can actually 1v1 . You win some and lose some, I suppose.
More ghosts for the funny fish to do funny fish numbers on. Not a fan of Ghostceus's ESpeed tho.
Mold Breaker bypasses Tera Shell, and Ogerpon-H outspeeds the moon bats and (outside of Booster Energy but who uses BE!Treads lol). Things are looking up for it.
With most of the new toys focusing on the special side, Blissey likes having a second wind against the moon bats and to a lesser extent, Skymin.
- 2 of the new drops are great Shed Tail abusers meaning Cyclizar is back in the business. I guess this also retroactively applies to 
and 
to a lesser extent.
- Grassy Terrain can actually restore Tera Shell on Terapagos, and NDW is a great Terrain abuser. No idea on how long this sentiment lasts, especially with how 
's abillity clears away weather and terrain, albeit only once.
- The spiritual successor to GSC Snorlax, it can fit on literally any team, and that's only a slight exaggeration. It has a wide movepool, a very useful ability, and can "mega evolve" through Terastalization. - NDW is back but is outclassed by the moon bat without the RU Pokémon parasitizing it. Wouldn't be surprised if Lunala ends up getting banned. - It was a great utility mon before it rose for a month, and while I think it will still be a solid choice, Terapagos and Lunala being great shed tail abusers is not welcoming news for it as will probably see much more usage. - It's Ditto, it runs scarf imposter. That's what it does. - Another Extreme Killer is back, and it's more impactful than . I wonder how long it stays in the tier. - With and in the tier, more relevant stuff outspeeds it. Still, it is faster than a lot of the tier, and with a scarf can still get the jump on them, though that would make it reliant on a choice item. I could also see it start using Growth regardless of sun to potentially boost past some defensive checks like , assuming that the Skymin in question is on a team that has answers to Chien Pao and Mewtwo. - With other great Tera options, notably Terapagos, in the tier, I think NDW might be a little healthier, but depending on how the other drops behave, notably Lunala and Terapagos, it might also get banned once more. - It can be a good check to and , especially with potentially forcing Tera on the former, but it does not like having to compete for the Arceus slot with - All the new ghosts are not a welcome sign to it, as they reduce its capability as a good defensive mon. - This one is more of a mixed bag than Solgaleo since Giratina can somewhat threaten them back with wisp+hex, but being weak to their STABs means it can't reliably switch in on them. - Zama-C hates that the new ghosts just blank body press and now it has to invest more into attack to do meaningful damage with Crunch, but it can actually 1v1 . You win some and lose some, I suppose. More ghosts for the funny fish to do funny fish numbers on. Not a fan of Ghostceus's ESpeed tho. Mold Breaker bypasses Tera Shell, and Ogerpon-H outspeeds the moon bats and (outside of Booster Energy but who uses BE!Treads lol). Things are looking up for it. With most of the new toys focusing on the special side, Blissey likes having a second wind against the moon bats and to a lesser extent, Skymin. - 2 of the new drops are great Shed Tail abusers meaning Cyclizar is back in the business. I guess this also retroactively applies to and to a lesser extent. - Grassy Terrain can actually restore Tera Shell on Terapagos, and NDW is a great Terrain abuser. No idea on how long this sentiment lasts, especially with how 's abillity clears away weather and terrain, albeit only once.
Here are my thoughts on my decision to unban several Pokémon at once:
To preface, for those that don’t know, after this month’s shifts, we will be transitioning to a schedule where we receive tier shifts once every three months. Since the beginning of UUbers, our tier has gone through great changes, receiving many new and powerful offensive presences. I believe that the context from which many of these Pokémon have been banned has changed enough that they warrant a re-testing within our current meta. I also believe that it wouldn’t make sense to test each of these individually, as the context would be different for each test, and we could possibly come to different conclusions based on what Pokémon were unbanned first before others. Furthermore, with the change in schedule, with the three month wait between drops, we’re going to be entering a new period of UUbers, where the meta will be allowed to develop more slowly and have more of a long term identity. I think it’s most appropriate that we introduce all these new options now, to mark a new period of long term meta development. It would go against the purpose of the new schedule to wait a month or so before instating these unbans, we’d essentially be creating an artificial tier shift of sorts. I’m personally of the mind that these Pokémon at least have the potential to fit into our tier, which made the unbans only feel more appropriate given the special circumstances.
Here are my thoughts on the individual Pokémon I decided to vote ban on:
Shaymin-sky
To begin with, it’s important to note that Skymin was banned during November, a period where we lost Giratina, and didn’t have Solgaleo. Specially Defensive Giratina takes a negligible amount of damage from Skymin, and can even put “pressure” on the PP of Skymin’s moves with its ability, pressure. While Solgalei has seen a drop in viability, it still has its own unique and valuable traits. Full Metal Body prevents stat drops from Seed Flare, and Air Slash does a net 2% to Solgaleo after leftovers recovery. In addition to defensive presences, we’ve seen an increase in fast breakers that pass Skymin’s speed tier. Mewtwo, and particularly Chien Pao outspeed and OHKO Skymin. For these reasons, I believe that Skymin is worthy of being tested in this new meta
Necrozma Dawn-Wings
NDW was a fearsome Pokémon back in January, yet I believe that our current meta might be ready for more than it was previously. Chien Pao has been a significant factor in this, as Pao is an extremely powerful Dark Type breaker. NDW almost always abused tera to get out of it’s effective 3x dark weakness, yet choice band Chien Pao still deals an absolutely incredible amount of neutral damage with Icicle Crash. Furthermore, NDW is almost strictly worse than Lunala except for in trick room, hampering NDW’s viability. Lastly, we also received Terapagos, a fantastic Normal Type that can easily put pressure on both NDW and Lunala.
Arceus Flying
While Arceus Flying did not get enough votes to be unbanned, I still wish to share the reasons why I voted to unban it. The reason I thought Arceus Flying potentially permissible is quite similar to previous Pokémon. The presence of fast strong breakers in Mewtwo and Chien Pao pose an issue for Arc Flying, on top of its weakness to stealth rock.
Arceus-Ghost
Arceus Ghost was banned primarily for its ekiller set being incredibly difficult to handle. However, physdef Mag which has seen a very large uptick due to Pao, and Garganacl has also seen a rise in viability due to its ability to swap into status and Chi Yu. I believe that these Pokémon can provide enough of a defensive presence that Arceus-Ghost could function in UUbers.
Once again, it's because of the special circumstances that I've decided to be more liberal with the unbans; If there would ever be a time to retest options in the current meta, now is that time. For the pokemon I voted to unban, I believe that the combination of meta development since their ban in addition to this special transition to a three month wait warrants their unbanning so that we can foster the most amount of meta development in the coming months.
To preface, for those that don’t know, after this month’s shifts, we will be transitioning to a schedule where we receive tier shifts once every three months. Since the beginning of UUbers, our tier has gone through great changes, receiving many new and powerful offensive presences. I believe that the context from which many of these Pokémon have been banned has changed enough that they warrant a re-testing within our current meta. I also believe that it wouldn’t make sense to test each of these individually, as the context would be different for each test, and we could possibly come to different conclusions based on what Pokémon were unbanned first before others. Furthermore, with the change in schedule, with the three month wait between drops, we’re going to be entering a new period of UUbers, where the meta will be allowed to develop more slowly and have more of a long term identity. I think it’s most appropriate that we introduce all these new options now, to mark a new period of long term meta development. It would go against the purpose of the new schedule to wait a month or so before instating these unbans, we’d essentially be creating an artificial tier shift of sorts. I’m personally of the mind that these Pokémon at least have the potential to fit into our tier, which made the unbans only feel more appropriate given the special circumstances.
Here are my thoughts on the individual Pokémon I decided to vote ban on:
Shaymin-sky
To begin with, it’s important to note that Skymin was banned during November, a period where we lost Giratina, and didn’t have Solgaleo. Specially Defensive Giratina takes a negligible amount of damage from Skymin, and can even put “pressure” on the PP of Skymin’s moves with its ability, pressure. While Solgalei has seen a drop in viability, it still has its own unique and valuable traits. Full Metal Body prevents stat drops from Seed Flare, and Air Slash does a net 2% to Solgaleo after leftovers recovery. In addition to defensive presences, we’ve seen an increase in fast breakers that pass Skymin’s speed tier. Mewtwo, and particularly Chien Pao outspeed and OHKO Skymin. For these reasons, I believe that Skymin is worthy of being tested in this new meta
Necrozma Dawn-Wings
NDW was a fearsome Pokémon back in January, yet I believe that our current meta might be ready for more than it was previously. Chien Pao has been a significant factor in this, as Pao is an extremely powerful Dark Type breaker. NDW almost always abused tera to get out of it’s effective 3x dark weakness, yet choice band Chien Pao still deals an absolutely incredible amount of neutral damage with Icicle Crash. Furthermore, NDW is almost strictly worse than Lunala except for in trick room, hampering NDW’s viability. Lastly, we also received Terapagos, a fantastic Normal Type that can easily put pressure on both NDW and Lunala.
Arceus Flying
While Arceus Flying did not get enough votes to be unbanned, I still wish to share the reasons why I voted to unban it. The reason I thought Arceus Flying potentially permissible is quite similar to previous Pokémon. The presence of fast strong breakers in Mewtwo and Chien Pao pose an issue for Arc Flying, on top of its weakness to stealth rock.
Arceus-Ghost
Arceus Ghost was banned primarily for its ekiller set being incredibly difficult to handle. However, physdef Mag which has seen a very large uptick due to Pao, and Garganacl has also seen a rise in viability due to its ability to swap into status and Chi Yu. I believe that these Pokémon can provide enough of a defensive presence that Arceus-Ghost could function in UUbers.
Once again, it's because of the special circumstances that I've decided to be more liberal with the unbans; If there would ever be a time to retest options in the current meta, now is that time. For the pokemon I voted to unban, I believe that the combination of meta development since their ban in addition to this special transition to a three month wait warrants their unbanning so that we can foster the most amount of meta development in the coming months.
Are people unironically using ttar again? It's a massive special wall that can stand up to terapagos, lunala and eventually NDW. It has great utility in knock off (dark stab pog), roar/dtail, twave, and rocks. Sandstorm chip can break multiscale-esque abilities. Thoughts on the retired king of OU?
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I really don't get people's obsession with dropping Shaymin-Sky again, it's an extremely annoying cheese mon and while it is, of course, far from unbeatable, why would you even bother dropping this thing the meta is objectively better without at all?, as if the only move it has is Air Slash and that you'll have a 127+ Speed tier mon the entire time
Part of the reason why I would wish Shaymin-sky was balanced/healthy for the metagame is because of the fact that we lack any sort of good flying types that are not landorus. This defensive niche is really scarce, to the point where its the thing that gives Arceus-Bug a shot at being good in ground-weak teams. Out of the entirety of the usage stats (so 4.52 usage or more), there were 3 flying types, and 2 ground resistant pokemon. Which are both Landorus Forms, Skarmory (Which imo is incredibly overrated and rather mediocre), and then two different Arceus forms. Its super hard to find any sort of earthquake immunity without setting you back by using a mediocre mon that doesn't do much like Skarmory, spending your arceus form, or just running landorus and making the problem worse for the tier overall.
I can play devils advocate and say that Skymin has its checks and one counter (covert cloak lmao), but I obviously understand why everyone is not keen on it returning. Although I don't think that the fact that we lack flying types is the reason want Skymin back (They probably just like its design or want to cheese some wins/make their opponent mad).
With Ubers Ladder Tour playoffs coming up next week, in addition to more UUFPL games, I think this tier has fallen to a bit instability unfortunately and I am hoping the Council will do another QB slate before next week starts so we can get some of these problematic mons out of the tier. Just a few quick takes based on the tests I've done + games I've seen:
- This thing is stupid. Get it out immediately please, I'd rather this thing get lost than anything else in the tier atm. It doesn't make games fun, it doesn't add anything to the tier, it's just a lucky charm to try to cheese wins. Its typing is ass defensively until you tera - I've seen it straight sweep games with total BS Air Slash flinches - nevermind subseed sets. The presence of this mon has significantly dropped the quality of play of this tier and it needs to removed ASAP.
- It's broken for sure. I thought NDW was ok during the NDW suspect, but Lunala is NDW on crack. It doesn't even come with some of the great utility moves that NDW has (i.e. Stealth Rock, Knock, etc) - and yet it's near impossible to take down after a shed tail pass to Shadow Shield and it starts boosting. I think that there maybe a theory that Shed Tail is the bigger problem that enables it, which could be pursued, but I say this thing still needs to go regardless. There's no actual answer behind a Shed Tail sub other than sacking 1-3 things (and then it teras so the thing you were saving to answer it is now not an answer). Not as bad as Skymin, but still should probably go.
- I have no clue how this was even freed in the first place and yet something like Arc-Flying wasn't. Arceus-Ghost is omega lame, it has multiple sets despite what some people think (both special sets and EKiller sets with STAB Ghost), and the EKiller set in particular beats even Chien Pao which would otherwise be the primary answer. I'm not a fan of adding more Arceus forms to the tier anyways - I think the opposite should be done and we should be removing Arceus forms. If this is not quickbanned, I hope it's at least watched very carefully next week to see how it looks in tour games. At the very least it's not as quickbanworthy as the other two mons above this.
- It's honestly really hard to say if this is broken or not because Lunala does the broken stuff much better than this. However, at the very least NDW adds some cool utility options to the tier in a powerful offensive rocker if you need a rocker, and a knocker if you need a knocker, two things Lunala can't do. Lunala is definitely more broken though so I think this one needs more time in the tier after a Lunala ban to see if it's also busted or not. I wouldn't QB it right now.
- I don't think this mon is even that good, and definitely not banworthy at all. The only time it goes crazy is behind a Shed Tail, and even still it's not as bad as Lunala (and again, this might be a Shed Tail problem). It also offers some neat utility, and is a nice soft check for some of the ghosts (it's not a perfect check though so people need to stop pretending like it's solving all the ghost problems because it's not). Definitely don't ban it - I wouldn't even suspect it.
- In my opinion, I think the best course of action for the tier is to quickban Skymin/Lunala/Arc-Ghost and then suspect Shed Tail. There's a reason Shed Tail is banned in OU, and there's no reason that Ubers UU has to keep it just because Ubers has it (after all we've banned lots of Ubers pokemon). I think it's very easy to play HO in this tier without Shed Tail and that Shed Tail doesn't necessarily contribute anything positively to the tier. Additionally, we may have to ban way more stuff later just because of how Shed Tail enables certain mons. Stuff like Lunala I think is broken with or without Shed Tail, but there's probably a lot of others (Terapagos for example) where Shed Tail is the only reason they are in the conversation of banworthy. So, if we want to fix this tier atm, ban Skymin/Lunala/Arc-Ghost, suspect Shed Tail, and then re-evaluate the state of the tier afterwards.
Those are my thoughts, ty for reading.
- This thing is stupid. Get it out immediately please, I'd rather this thing get lost than anything else in the tier atm. It doesn't make games fun, it doesn't add anything to the tier, it's just a lucky charm to try to cheese wins. Its typing is ass defensively until you tera - I've seen it straight sweep games with total BS Air Slash flinches - nevermind subseed sets. The presence of this mon has significantly dropped the quality of play of this tier and it needs to removed ASAP. - It's broken for sure. I thought NDW was ok during the NDW suspect, but Lunala is NDW on crack. It doesn't even come with some of the great utility moves that NDW has (i.e. Stealth Rock, Knock, etc) - and yet it's near impossible to take down after a shed tail pass to Shadow Shield and it starts boosting. I think that there maybe a theory that Shed Tail is the bigger problem that enables it, which could be pursued, but I say this thing still needs to go regardless. There's no actual answer behind a Shed Tail sub other than sacking 1-3 things (and then it teras so the thing you were saving to answer it is now not an answer). Not as bad as Skymin, but still should probably go. - I have no clue how this was even freed in the first place and yet something like Arc-Flying wasn't. Arceus-Ghost is omega lame, it has multiple sets despite what some people think (both special sets and EKiller sets with STAB Ghost), and the EKiller set in particular beats even Chien Pao which would otherwise be the primary answer. I'm not a fan of adding more Arceus forms to the tier anyways - I think the opposite should be done and we should be removing Arceus forms. If this is not quickbanned, I hope it's at least watched very carefully next week to see how it looks in tour games. At the very least it's not as quickbanworthy as the other two mons above this. - It's honestly really hard to say if this is broken or not because Lunala does the broken stuff much better than this. However, at the very least NDW adds some cool utility options to the tier in a powerful offensive rocker if you need a rocker, and a knocker if you need a knocker, two things Lunala can't do. Lunala is definitely more broken though so I think this one needs more time in the tier after a Lunala ban to see if it's also busted or not. I wouldn't QB it right now. - I don't think this mon is even that good, and definitely not banworthy at all. The only time it goes crazy is behind a Shed Tail, and even still it's not as bad as Lunala (and again, this might be a Shed Tail problem). It also offers some neat utility, and is a nice soft check for some of the ghosts (it's not a perfect check though so people need to stop pretending like it's solving all the ghost problems because it's not). Definitely don't ban it - I wouldn't even suspect it. - In my opinion, I think the best course of action for the tier is to quickban Skymin/Lunala/Arc-Ghost and then suspect Shed Tail. There's a reason Shed Tail is banned in OU, and there's no reason that Ubers UU has to keep it just because Ubers has it (after all we've banned lots of Ubers pokemon). I think it's very easy to play HO in this tier without Shed Tail and that Shed Tail doesn't necessarily contribute anything positively to the tier. Additionally, we may have to ban way more stuff later just because of how Shed Tail enables certain mons. Stuff like Lunala I think is broken with or without Shed Tail, but there's probably a lot of others (Terapagos for example) where Shed Tail is the only reason they are in the conversation of banworthy. So, if we want to fix this tier atm, ban Skymin/Lunala/Arc-Ghost, suspect Shed Tail, and then re-evaluate the state of the tier afterwards.Those are my thoughts, ty for reading.
I think that calling shed tail banworthy because terapagos and Lunala really synergize with it is not the way to go. If anything, it's those mons being broken and thus they should be banned.
Those are my thoughts, ty for reading.
Shed tail has been fine for a long time, and it was even going in a sharp decline as more options were introduced to the tier. Cyclazar in particular barely got 4.52 usage last month which is insane considering it was once a top 3 usage Mon.
Overall, if terapagos is broken under shed tail (i don't think it is even under shed tail), terapagos should be the one to go. Shed tail might be banworthy in OU but here you'd be running either cyclazar (a mon that the more pokemon that get introduced the more it's outsped and it's too frail to be swapping in to anything), orthworm (where you only get 1 shed tail and you have a dead weight Mon) or Sceptile (you're running Sceptile)
Here is a list of pokemon shed tail enables:
(any form)
(gross)Just because it's been fine for a while, doesn't mean it's fine now. Usage is a pretty bad argument at all as to whether something is problematic, especially usage from last month before we got all this new stuff. I'm not saying to quickban it, but I think it should be looked at more closely and I think the community should probably decide if they want to be playing a shed tail metagame. It's an inherently uncompetitive move, akin to Baton Pass, and probably doesn't belong in competitive play. That doesn't mean it's great to use on all your teams - it's just something I feel we shouldn't have to deal with in a competitive tier. If you read my post, you'd notice I said Lunala is broken with or without Shed Tail anyways, and I don't think Terapagos is broken with or without Shed Tail either. But that doesn't mean Shed Tail should be off the hook. The rise in Shed Tail shenanigans is pretty significant from this week alone compared to any other period of this meta I've seen, and it doesn't look good. I think it's fair to gauge interest on how the community wants to deal with it at the very least, even if it results with no action on it.
If Terapagos does turn out broken ONLY with Shed Tail, would banning Shed Tail be acceptable? As Terapagos is a great presence for the tier checking important threats and being a splashable Spinner. While Shed Tail isn't anything valuable enough to miss, if anything just helps make more threats unbearable. Since Shed Tail becomes broken with multiple Pokemon (Assuming Lunala is gone, all of this is very hypothetical.), and banning it instead of Terapagos would be best for the tier, would you be allowed to do that?
I'm not quite sure to be completely honest. It's not the move itself the problem, but the synergy with one specific pokemon.
Cyclazar is another valuable spinner. If you kill shed tail you kill it instead of terapagos. And I'm honestly not too sure about Terapagos' splashability once shed tail is gone. we might just need to start looking to ban cyclazar first and then orthworm if it comes down to it.
One spinner is bulky and works as a Ghost check, the other is made of paper and makes the Ghosts more broken !
I could be using something sub optimal but Terapagos has felt nice on Balance without Shed Tail. Easy to find set up opportunities and makes hazards a lot less of a problem. Can't go that wrong with those stats and unresisted STAB, love this Pokemon and what it provides so far, would be a huge shame to lose it and keep something silly and arguably unhealthy like Shed Tail instead.
Have there been situations in other metagames where a previously underpowered/normal pokemon (cyclizar for us) became part of a deadly combination (shed tail+terapagos), but we feel like both elements on their own were fine? It's almost like we want a clause for "no shed tail to terapagos (maybe lunala too), everything else is fine". I'm not saying we should break tiering standards by doing this, just opening the question
Wasn't this like DrizzleSwim/ChloroDrought/StreamRush in Gen 5 OU? But back to Shed Tail discourse, I agree with Manits that there are quite a good number of mons even before the drops and unbans enabled by Shed Tail. It's just that now we have 2 mons in
and which take it to the next level.
Shaymin Sky is completely uncompetitive, you must use covert cloak if you just want to use 1 move. Seriously, this thing destroys everything with just flinch luck and great speed. It also has earth power for coverage, and seed flare to double spdef drop the target and deal great damage. I tried sub sets with T-wave support from its teammates, and it just destroyed everything with luck. (10 on survey, off course)
Lunala, Terapagos, Zacian, Pao and every offensive mons (except Arceus Ghost and Shaymin-Sky) aren't broken except if you use shed tail support.
I believe that shed tail is an uncompetitive move which permits to get free setup turns and should be banned. (10)
Tera Blast is not as broken as shed tail, but it's uncompetitive because it is unpredictable, you can litteraly choose your counters, that's not healthy in any metagame. (10)
Lunala, Terapagos, Zacian, Pao and every offensive mons (except Arceus Ghost and Shaymin-Sky) aren't broken except if you use shed tail support.
I believe that shed tail is an uncompetitive move which permits to get free setup turns and should be banned. (10)
Tera Blast is not as broken as shed tail, but it's uncompetitive because it is unpredictable, you can litteraly choose your counters, that's not healthy in any metagame. (10)
Since the introduction of Ubers UU into UUFPL, I've been playing this tier a lot, as well as discussing it with my teammates and I wanted to write up a post to discuss a lot of things I've noticed in the metagame and general community.
One of the biggest things I've noticed is a general lack of consensus about what the power level of this should actually be like. The way it's been tiered since I've been actively paying attention, around the start of the NDW suspect test, it feels like there's a big split about what really classifies as "broken." Should this metagame be treated more like Ubers or more like UU? Currently, it feels like tiering is more similar to UU than it is to Ubers. The Chien-Pao suspect test is a fantastic example of this. By all metrics of standard play, Chien would be considered broken. It's fast, strong, amazing stabs, abuses tera, etc. The biggest complaint I saw was that Chien restricted building so much because you could only use Magearna to reliably check it, and even this could be broken by Tera Blast sets. In the context of a tier like UU, this would completely warrant a ban... however, this is an Ubers based metagame at the end of the day, and I think it should be treated as such. The standard for banning something from an Ubers based metagame like this should be much higher. We've seen in the past in Ubers proper that having only 1 real consistent check is alright when that mon is undoubtably a top mon own its own, especially when there are other viable options for counterplay (ex: SS Calyrex-Shadow). Chien definitely had more counterplay too. Mons like Darkceus, Fightceus, Poisonceus, Toxapax, Zamazenta-Crowned/Hero, Zacian-Hero, and faster scarfers like Palkia, and even Landorus-Therian could all reasonably deal with Pao when paired with Magearna (at least reasonably in an Ubers context). Was Pao strong? Absolutely, but I don't think it met the requirements to banned within an Ubers metagame. This isn't to say nothing should ever be banned from this tier, in fact I think several things need to be banned currently because they surpass the reasonable counterplay options we currently have. I think there needs to be a long and thorough discussion within the community about how this metagame should be tiered moving forward. Should it be tiered more like a standard metagame where everything with relatively limited counterplay gets suspected, or more similar to Ubers where the standard of brokenness is much higher. Either way is a completely viable option, but there needs to be agreement between both the community and the council on this moving forward. Personally, I hope this is treated more as an extension of Ubers rather than "OUBL" style of tier, since there is going to be a lot of broken pokemon in this metagame. The power level will be a lot higher than standard metagames purely by the nature of the mons we have access to. And to me, that's part of what makes this fun. Having to ban so many different mons to get the meta in line with more standard metagames just doesn't sit right with me. This is Ubers UU after all.
Something I haven't seen talked about enough is how broken hazards are in this metagame. Part of it boils down to how SV functions are a generation with the lack of hazard control available, but in a metagame where everything seems to hold on by a thread, they become even more insane. There is no shortage of viable hazard setters in this tier. The best glue in the metagame, Magearna, gets so many opportunities to come in a spike up. Other options like Deo-S/N, both Landorus forms, Dialga, Great Tusk, and Garg are all fantastic at getting hazards onto the field with relatively low risk. This issue has only been further exasperated by the addition of 3 new, potentially broken ghosts to the metagame. It feels like removing hazards is absolutely impossible, even more so than before. Before the drops, at least Giratina-A and Tusk could pretend to keep hazards off the field, but now that's just not the case. Even with the additions of Terapagos and Iron Treads, removing hazards just doesn't seem doable in most games. The only way to deal with hazard feel like Heavy Duty Boots, but most pokemon don't want to waste their item slot on this. Now, I don't think anything can really be done to limit hazards impact on the metagame as it currently stands, but I did want to bring this topic up because I don't see enough people talk about it.
Since this is a metagame discussion post, now is probably a good time to move onto my views on the metagame at large currently. Lunala is absolutely unequivocally broken and needs to be removed from the tier as fast as possible. It warps teambuilding and playing in the game to an insane degree with both CM and Agility sets having different counterplay. Sure, you know the tera type it's gonna be, but that doesn't stop Lunala from clicking tera fairy and running over entire teams thanks to flipping its type match up. There really isn't reliable counterplay to this mon outside of maybe CM Terapagos with Dark Pulse, but even then that's kinda mediocre because of the lack of recovery Pagos has. Ghostceus is the next biggest offender of brokenness currently. While it's much less potent and consistent than Lunala, Ghostceus is still an absolute nightmare to face in the builder and in game. Why this thing was freed and Flyceus wasn't is beyond me... The only saving grace is that physical sets have to rely on Shadow Claw, which is a terrible move, so it can't break as well. CM Ghost is super under explored rn and is definitely broken as well, but people are focusing on Ekiller Ghost which is kinda mediocre. Ghostceus can be checked by Darkceus mainly with physdef sets beating Ekiller and CM beating CM Ghost, along with stuff like Pao, Zacian-Hero, and emergency answers like Garg, Toxapax, and Terapagos. Even with these, I find Ghostceus to be unreasonable to deal with because of the 2 completely different sets with different counterplay. Ideally, both of these mons would be removed immediately as they are definitely past the standard of brokenness, even for Ubers. I don't think Skymin is broken, but to quote Fc when we were prepping this week, "It's just cringe." Removing it would probably benefit the tier, but I'm pretty indifferent about it.
With the brokens out of the way, time to give some rapid fire takes on other things. I think Chien Pao is the best mon currently because of its ability to threaten all the broken ghosts with just its stabs and the occasional Sacred Sword for Ekiller Ghostceus. The counterplay to Chien is still around, but much harder to fit with Lunala and Ghostceus warping everything around them. Likewise, Zacian-Hero seems to have only gotten stronger as Arcs that reliably checked it have fallen out of favor for Ghost and Dark, while Magearna is completely overloaded. Magearna is the only pokemon I think is required for any viable team currently, mostly for it's ability to deal with the two aforementioned pokemon as well as set broken spikes. Set up Magearna took a huge hit in viability, only really being usable on Shed Tail... which I'll get to in a bit. NDW is very good, both as a TR mon and as support with knock and rocks, definitely needs to be explored further. Both Zamazentas, yes even Hero, are quite good rn and definitely need to be messed around with more as dealing with Pao and Magearna are great qualities to have. Gira has definitely fell from grace a bit with the introduction of all the new ghosts, but is still a nice defense piece. Arceus-Dark is phemoninal and needs more usage. It just fits on every team... I love this mon. Terapagos is extremely fraud. Defensive sets lack recovery to check things like Lunala long term... and thats about all it checks anyways. Because of all the ghosts, it can't really spin reliably either, which isn't fantastic. CM sets take too long to get going except on Shed Tail, but even then, Pagos' naturally low speed still tends to bite it in the ass. In my opinion, Shed Tail isn't broken outside of Lunala. Every other mon that is typically seen on Shed Tail HO is manageable, even with the free subpass. I wouldn't really look at Shed Tail until after Lunala is banned from the tier. HO in general is extremely strong right now with all the broken offensive threats, especially webs and trick room teams. Most balance or bulky offense teams simply cannot withstand the assault brought on by HO, with usually their only out being whatever scarfer they have or Pao putting in a ton of work. Balance is definitely in an okay spot because Lunala and Terapagos are workable defensive pieces, but I'm not entirely sold on it currently. Speaking of Scarfers, there are a lot of good ones: Lando-T/I, Palkia, Dialga, Solgaleo, Great Tusk, and Chi-Yu just to name a few I've tried personally. Each provide a lot of value to non HO teams and I'm sure there's a lot more that I'm missing from the list. Arceus outside of Dark and Ghost are in a bit of a weird spot because they are wholly outclassed by the other two. Arc is still extremely strong but the opportunity cost of using something other than Dark or Ghost right now is too high to really consider. The next best option is probably Grassceus or Poisonceus for their defensive niches, but a lot of the time Darkceus can do those better. I hope we can preserve as many Arceus forms as possible in this metagame because they are very fun to use, even if they are a bit on the stronger side... but that's part of the fun of Ubers UU. Dropping my personal VR as well so people can get an idea of what my other thoughts are (as it stands now, subject to change very fast):
To wrap up this post, I want to circle back around to the community really quick. I've found it quite difficult to get attuned to this metagame because it feels like what is discussed in the Discord is nowhere near to what the metagame actually is. When I've been prepping with my team for UUFPL, we've found a lot of discrepancies in what we feel is strong compared to what happens in the Discord (Ex: Terapagos being more mediocre, Shed Tail being reasonable, etc), and I know other UUFPL players feel the same way. This isn't a bad thing, but coupled with a very dead and non representative ladder (Ubers ladder is the same way though) and a dead room, I've found it quite difficult to talk about the metagame. Most of my discussion has been in DMs or within my UUFPL server. The quality of discussion in the Discord isn't bad either... it's just completely different from what I'm seeing within the tour I'm playing, and it's something I've never really seen before in any tier I've played. I don't know if there is a way to deal with this, but it definitely strikes me as odd. With that being said, I wish the ladder was a lot more active because I have a really difficult time finding games to test teams since the room is dead and that only leaves the Discord for finding friendlies. For full transparency, originally when I planned out this post, I was gonna recommend expanding the council to an odd number to avoid potential ties as well as potentially bring in newer perspectives with some of the tour players; but since then the council application from was posted and I think that is a fantastic way to deal with this recommendation.
I've really enjoyed this metagame a lot, and intend to keep playing it in the future. The blend of unique and fun Ubers mons with a funny power level makes this tier really enjoyable as someone who comes from Ubers proper. Big shoutout to BFM for putting this fun af tier in UUFPL and discussing it with me a lot, and to Fc, Taka, and LBN for making it a lot of fun to prep in. I hope everyone enjoys reading this post and it can open up some more discussion about the power level and maybe even create some more activity. If anyone would like to discuss anything I've said here, feel free to ping me on Discord or reply here. Tagging Imperial Leo Justice and Finchely as requested.
Free Arc-Flying
One of the biggest things I've noticed is a general lack of consensus about what the power level of this should actually be like. The way it's been tiered since I've been actively paying attention, around the start of the NDW suspect test, it feels like there's a big split about what really classifies as "broken." Should this metagame be treated more like Ubers or more like UU? Currently, it feels like tiering is more similar to UU than it is to Ubers. The Chien-Pao suspect test is a fantastic example of this. By all metrics of standard play, Chien would be considered broken. It's fast, strong, amazing stabs, abuses tera, etc. The biggest complaint I saw was that Chien restricted building so much because you could only use Magearna to reliably check it, and even this could be broken by Tera Blast sets. In the context of a tier like UU, this would completely warrant a ban... however, this is an Ubers based metagame at the end of the day, and I think it should be treated as such. The standard for banning something from an Ubers based metagame like this should be much higher. We've seen in the past in Ubers proper that having only 1 real consistent check is alright when that mon is undoubtably a top mon own its own, especially when there are other viable options for counterplay (ex: SS Calyrex-Shadow). Chien definitely had more counterplay too. Mons like Darkceus, Fightceus, Poisonceus, Toxapax, Zamazenta-Crowned/Hero, Zacian-Hero, and faster scarfers like Palkia, and even Landorus-Therian could all reasonably deal with Pao when paired with Magearna (at least reasonably in an Ubers context). Was Pao strong? Absolutely, but I don't think it met the requirements to banned within an Ubers metagame. This isn't to say nothing should ever be banned from this tier, in fact I think several things need to be banned currently because they surpass the reasonable counterplay options we currently have. I think there needs to be a long and thorough discussion within the community about how this metagame should be tiered moving forward. Should it be tiered more like a standard metagame where everything with relatively limited counterplay gets suspected, or more similar to Ubers where the standard of brokenness is much higher. Either way is a completely viable option, but there needs to be agreement between both the community and the council on this moving forward. Personally, I hope this is treated more as an extension of Ubers rather than "OUBL" style of tier, since there is going to be a lot of broken pokemon in this metagame. The power level will be a lot higher than standard metagames purely by the nature of the mons we have access to. And to me, that's part of what makes this fun. Having to ban so many different mons to get the meta in line with more standard metagames just doesn't sit right with me. This is Ubers UU after all.
Something I haven't seen talked about enough is how broken hazards are in this metagame. Part of it boils down to how SV functions are a generation with the lack of hazard control available, but in a metagame where everything seems to hold on by a thread, they become even more insane. There is no shortage of viable hazard setters in this tier. The best glue in the metagame, Magearna, gets so many opportunities to come in a spike up. Other options like Deo-S/N, both Landorus forms, Dialga, Great Tusk, and Garg are all fantastic at getting hazards onto the field with relatively low risk. This issue has only been further exasperated by the addition of 3 new, potentially broken ghosts to the metagame. It feels like removing hazards is absolutely impossible, even more so than before. Before the drops, at least Giratina-A and Tusk could pretend to keep hazards off the field, but now that's just not the case. Even with the additions of Terapagos and Iron Treads, removing hazards just doesn't seem doable in most games. The only way to deal with hazard feel like Heavy Duty Boots, but most pokemon don't want to waste their item slot on this. Now, I don't think anything can really be done to limit hazards impact on the metagame as it currently stands, but I did want to bring this topic up because I don't see enough people talk about it.
Since this is a metagame discussion post, now is probably a good time to move onto my views on the metagame at large currently. Lunala is absolutely unequivocally broken and needs to be removed from the tier as fast as possible. It warps teambuilding and playing in the game to an insane degree with both CM and Agility sets having different counterplay. Sure, you know the tera type it's gonna be, but that doesn't stop Lunala from clicking tera fairy and running over entire teams thanks to flipping its type match up. There really isn't reliable counterplay to this mon outside of maybe CM Terapagos with Dark Pulse, but even then that's kinda mediocre because of the lack of recovery Pagos has. Ghostceus is the next biggest offender of brokenness currently. While it's much less potent and consistent than Lunala, Ghostceus is still an absolute nightmare to face in the builder and in game. Why this thing was freed and Flyceus wasn't is beyond me... The only saving grace is that physical sets have to rely on Shadow Claw, which is a terrible move, so it can't break as well. CM Ghost is super under explored rn and is definitely broken as well, but people are focusing on Ekiller Ghost which is kinda mediocre. Ghostceus can be checked by Darkceus mainly with physdef sets beating Ekiller and CM beating CM Ghost, along with stuff like Pao, Zacian-Hero, and emergency answers like Garg, Toxapax, and Terapagos. Even with these, I find Ghostceus to be unreasonable to deal with because of the 2 completely different sets with different counterplay. Ideally, both of these mons would be removed immediately as they are definitely past the standard of brokenness, even for Ubers. I don't think Skymin is broken, but to quote Fc when we were prepping this week, "It's just cringe." Removing it would probably benefit the tier, but I'm pretty indifferent about it.
With the brokens out of the way, time to give some rapid fire takes on other things. I think Chien Pao is the best mon currently because of its ability to threaten all the broken ghosts with just its stabs and the occasional Sacred Sword for Ekiller Ghostceus. The counterplay to Chien is still around, but much harder to fit with Lunala and Ghostceus warping everything around them. Likewise, Zacian-Hero seems to have only gotten stronger as Arcs that reliably checked it have fallen out of favor for Ghost and Dark, while Magearna is completely overloaded. Magearna is the only pokemon I think is required for any viable team currently, mostly for it's ability to deal with the two aforementioned pokemon as well as set broken spikes. Set up Magearna took a huge hit in viability, only really being usable on Shed Tail... which I'll get to in a bit. NDW is very good, both as a TR mon and as support with knock and rocks, definitely needs to be explored further. Both Zamazentas, yes even Hero, are quite good rn and definitely need to be messed around with more as dealing with Pao and Magearna are great qualities to have. Gira has definitely fell from grace a bit with the introduction of all the new ghosts, but is still a nice defense piece. Arceus-Dark is phemoninal and needs more usage. It just fits on every team... I love this mon. Terapagos is extremely fraud. Defensive sets lack recovery to check things like Lunala long term... and thats about all it checks anyways. Because of all the ghosts, it can't really spin reliably either, which isn't fantastic. CM sets take too long to get going except on Shed Tail, but even then, Pagos' naturally low speed still tends to bite it in the ass. In my opinion, Shed Tail isn't broken outside of Lunala. Every other mon that is typically seen on Shed Tail HO is manageable, even with the free subpass. I wouldn't really look at Shed Tail until after Lunala is banned from the tier. HO in general is extremely strong right now with all the broken offensive threats, especially webs and trick room teams. Most balance or bulky offense teams simply cannot withstand the assault brought on by HO, with usually their only out being whatever scarfer they have or Pao putting in a ton of work. Balance is definitely in an okay spot because Lunala and Terapagos are workable defensive pieces, but I'm not entirely sold on it currently. Speaking of Scarfers, there are a lot of good ones: Lando-T/I, Palkia, Dialga, Solgaleo, Great Tusk, and Chi-Yu just to name a few I've tried personally. Each provide a lot of value to non HO teams and I'm sure there's a lot more that I'm missing from the list. Arceus outside of Dark and Ghost are in a bit of a weird spot because they are wholly outclassed by the other two. Arc is still extremely strong but the opportunity cost of using something other than Dark or Ghost right now is too high to really consider. The next best option is probably Grassceus or Poisonceus for their defensive niches, but a lot of the time Darkceus can do those better. I hope we can preserve as many Arceus forms as possible in this metagame because they are very fun to use, even if they are a bit on the stronger side... but that's part of the fun of Ubers UU. Dropping my personal VR as well so people can get an idea of what my other thoughts are (as it stands now, subject to change very fast):
To wrap up this post, I want to circle back around to the community really quick. I've found it quite difficult to get attuned to this metagame because it feels like what is discussed in the Discord is nowhere near to what the metagame actually is. When I've been prepping with my team for UUFPL, we've found a lot of discrepancies in what we feel is strong compared to what happens in the Discord (Ex: Terapagos being more mediocre, Shed Tail being reasonable, etc), and I know other UUFPL players feel the same way. This isn't a bad thing, but coupled with a very dead and non representative ladder (Ubers ladder is the same way though) and a dead room, I've found it quite difficult to talk about the metagame. Most of my discussion has been in DMs or within my UUFPL server. The quality of discussion in the Discord isn't bad either... it's just completely different from what I'm seeing within the tour I'm playing, and it's something I've never really seen before in any tier I've played. I don't know if there is a way to deal with this, but it definitely strikes me as odd. With that being said, I wish the ladder was a lot more active because I have a really difficult time finding games to test teams since the room is dead and that only leaves the Discord for finding friendlies. For full transparency, originally when I planned out this post, I was gonna recommend expanding the council to an odd number to avoid potential ties as well as potentially bring in newer perspectives with some of the tour players; but since then the council application from was posted and I think that is a fantastic way to deal with this recommendation.
I've really enjoyed this metagame a lot, and intend to keep playing it in the future. The blend of unique and fun Ubers mons with a funny power level makes this tier really enjoyable as someone who comes from Ubers proper. Big shoutout to BFM for putting this fun af tier in UUFPL and discussing it with me a lot, and to Fc, Taka, and LBN for making it a lot of fun to prep in. I hope everyone enjoys reading this post and it can open up some more discussion about the power level and maybe even create some more activity. If anyone would like to discuss anything I've said here, feel free to ping me on Discord or reply here. Tagging Imperial Leo Justice and Finchely as requested.
I see the sentiment that arc flying couldn't be broken due its stealth rock weakness, its lack of stab outside of judgement, ect, however, as far as the brokenness of banned/previously banned arc forms go, arc flying is the second most broken for a good reason. The Set (calm mind, taunt, judgement, recover & tera fairy) would destroy any pokemon slower than it and set arc up for a sweep. the 3 best mons for this, water, flying, and steel were banned quite soon after the meta started due to the sheer power the set put on every team, causing many a game to end with an arc speed-tie. The Set from the three forms had no real defensive counterplay, and limited offensive counterplay.
This is from a meta from a long time ago though, and I think this is all theorymonning at this point as to what the counterplay is here. If we're gonna do a reset of the tier, it makes sense to unban Arc-Flying. What makes 0 sense is unbanning Ghost and keeping Flying banned because as much as we want to theorymon the effectiveness of Arc-Flying, Arc-Ghost is much easier to theorymon into being too oppressive. For one, Chien Pao, a Top 3 mon in the tier, destroys both forms anyways. Also, the set you just described is stopped by Arc-Electric which wasn't in the tier at the time Arc-Flying was there. So, there's no reason it should have stayed banned with all the other unbans. I agree with Frito in this regard and have already made that clear in my discussions with people.
I agree with the overall sentiment of Arceus-Flying potentially not being broken. It's one of the things I wanted to test out because (this is my personal opinion) I feel like the ground type attackers are too oppressive due to their lack of answers outside of themselves. Like genuinely, nothing swaps into a Landorus outside of another Landorus. They aren't broken, but they seriously feel super bad to play against unless you're playing one landorus. I hate using Skarmory and Corviknight feels like a dead slot. I've said this before but i want Skymin to be balanced because I want it to have a switch in that doesn't necessarily completely counter the ground types due to coverage. It makes Arceus-Bug valuable, yes, but having to spend your Arceus form in something that is generally suboptimal and doesn't let you run a Pokemon like Arceus-Dark which helps out a lot of teams stall break is just not worth for most teams.
We did vote on it and it didn't pass the voting requirements (don't ask me why Arceus-Ghost did and it didn't I have no idea). Some of the arguments I've heard is the fact that it's immune to a lot of the passive damage. Passive damage is the best way to deal with Arceus, and being immune to all of until it decides to tera and win the game in the spot is fundamentally broken for an Arceus form.
Don't get me wrong, there are definitely points for and against it (it's immunity to toxic spikes is a huge problem for a lot of balance teams and Stall teams just will get 6-0'd) it's also an Arceus set that doesn't lose to any physical attackers like Darkceus does (Chien Pao can be tera'd out of). I'd have loved to test it out, and I'm willing to do it if it gets support in the future (once we've solved the issues of this metagame)
I have more things to say but this concludes my thoughts on Arceus-Flying. I'll post more thoughts later
We did vote on it and it didn't pass the voting requirements (don't ask me why Arceus-Ghost did and it didn't I have no idea). Some of the arguments I've heard is the fact that it's immune to a lot of the passive damage. Passive damage is the best way to deal with Arceus, and being immune to all of until it decides to tera and win the game in the spot is fundamentally broken for an Arceus form.
Don't get me wrong, there are definitely points for and against it (it's immunity to toxic spikes is a huge problem for a lot of balance teams and Stall teams just will get 6-0'd) it's also an Arceus set that doesn't lose to any physical attackers like Darkceus does (Chien Pao can be tera'd out of). I'd have loved to test it out, and I'm willing to do it if it gets support in the future (once we've solved the issues of this metagame)
I have more things to say but this concludes my thoughts on Arceus-Flying. I'll post more thoughts later
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I do want to say that Chien Pao isn't really a real 'counter' to it, as its frail and can be easily played around with tera. A +1 Judgement will kill it. It also needs to be choice band or else it just doesn't get the KO most of the time even with rocks. Choice band sets can't really swap in if there are rocks up as Judgement has an almost guaranteed KO
252 Atk Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Icicle Crash vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Flying: 300-354 (67.7 - 79.9%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Icicle Crash vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Flying: 450-530 (101.5 - 119.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
8 SpA Sky Plate Arceus-Flying Judgment vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Chien-Pao: 216-255 (71.7 - 84.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Icicle Crash vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Flying: 450-530 (101.5 - 119.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
8 SpA Sky Plate Arceus-Flying Judgment vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Chien-Pao: 216-255 (71.7 - 84.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Additionally, Arceus Electric was in the tier at the same time that Arceus-water, -Steel and -Flying were, and even though it 'countered' all the three broken Arceus Forms at the time, it did not see much usage. Mainly because using Arceus Electric made your matchup into everything else significantly worse than just running one of the other three, since its opportunity cost was really high. Arceus-Electric also shouldn't be used as an argument in my opinion because it means that the 'best' way to deal with it is an arceus mirror (which Arceus-Electric can still lose due to it not being able to use Taunt if its special, thus not even all Arceus-Electric sets work), it is not healthy for the tier overall. I don't think anyone wants the tier to devolve into Arceus matchups where which form and which set with which form determines if you win or lose.
That just isn't what the playerbase who made the tier made it for.
The goal was never to make Ubers Jr., as in a tier tiered like Ubers but lesser, it was to make a tier between OU and Ubers where Pokemon not good enough for Ubers and way too good for OU would have a home.
That is 99% of the reason the idea of the tier got traction in the first place, and why you can play a UUbers ladder right now.
I disagree with this, but I do not (and should not!) represent the entire community. Yes the original idea was to make something balanced and fun where mons in between could be used. I made the tier primarily because I wanted Dialga to have a tier in gen 9, but it fits so well alongside landorus-I, palafin, and other "OUBL" threats. I think its okay for us to be in between, and the Ubers mindset is a valuable one to me. If X pokemon (arceus ghost/lunala/chien-pao/whatever) is nowhere near banworthy in a ubers context but obviously overpowered in a "balanced metagame" OU context, I think that's kind of our sweet spot. There's a quote by chaos about how "[OU] is defined by removing Pokemon from the metagame until the metagame is "not overcentralized" (where the threshold for centralized is kinda arbitrary)". I've always thought UUbers it attempt to re-orient smogon tiering towards this mindset. If we can create balanced metagames with box legendaries and "OUBLs", why arbitrarily throw them out?
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I think the issue is that some UU Ubers Mon, are still very much Ubers but just outclassed by another Uber, and isn't necessarily bad in itself. For example, if certain Uber didnt exist, that Mon might have been a top pick, but now could be strictly worse than the top Uber despite not being bad. A good example would be Zekrom. Without the bike duo around, tera Zekrom would be quite a scary prospect in Ubers (Electric/Dragon with DD becoming tera fairy/flying/dragon etc). The distinction lies in outclassed vs underpowered. Ogerpon Hearthflame is quite underpowered statewise by Ubers standard, but Arceus-Fire is just outclassed by better Arceus formed since it has worse niche. One is a shitty Uber, and another is OUBL (do note that my analogy for certain mons might not be precise, but trying to get the point across)