OU GSC OU Viability Rankings mk. 4

[Mr.E]

If you're gonna knock Ttar for not being able to switch into anything besides Snorlax, Rhydon's got a way bigger problem with that.

Nah, Rhydon switches into Electric. It's a pivot for Lax at the very least, but HP Ice is still more common than HP Water on our esteemed Electric legendaries.

given the recent ML + BP ban?

*sigh*

 

[asterat]

Alakazam top 20 2024. He is so much fun to use, and really does fairly well against lax/zap/cloy + normal resist + 2 offense mons teams especially if they have Nidoking/Gengar. If you can thief lefties and have spikes up even threatens big lax. Surprised to see Machamp drop, would have thought Tyranitar moving up would be good for him? I guess just the overall popularity of offense is bad because he is so slow?

 

[phosphor]

Surprised to see Machamp drop, would have thought Tyranitar moving up would be good for him? I guess just the overall popularity of offense is bad because he is so slow?

Sometimes correlations can work in interesting ways. Machamp is by no means a bad mon, and I'm speaking solely as an example of how blowback effects can sometimes happen, but in some metas I've seen is that when a strategy is dominant the best counters to those strategies end up having less viability... which TBH kind of makes sense.

In theory better counter to the best strategy is better, but often the dominant strategy is the dominant strategy BECAUSE it has the highest chance of beating it's supposed counters, or because it's in in an environment where its best counters are impractical (and often because of the very environment that dominant strategy fosters). Maybe said counter is just not considered optimal enough to the point that using it to beat the dominant strategy has the downside of... having to use it.

And yeah, solid Spikes games+ Jynx, Gengar, Nido running everywhere, Egg seeing a resurgence, Zap solidly being the better Elec now, and people even experimenting with Zam is not very nice to Machamp. Machamp remains incredibly poggers tho, it's one of those few mons that I can guarantee to make progress every single game with and is always doing something, since it doesn't have to rely on a boom that can whiff.

 

[Zokuru]

Looks like I'm first to submit a VR this year, basically here it is

 

[McMeghan]

While GSC isn't my main gen, it's one of my favorite when it comes to building and discussing, so I feel like posting my VRs with some extra explanation.

So a big theme of this VR is based on the fact that, yes, Lax Zap Gar Cloyster is the abc of GSC right now. Pretty much any team with these 4 stand a chance in every matchup. However, every Pokémon that can heavily disturb those teams from working is high in my book. Similary, any Pokémon that doesn't really influence a match-up against that team deep down is also lower in my book. What I just said also applies against the standard Stall team (Lax Raikou Skarm Mie Forry Ttar), as I think this team is extremely strong and pivotal in GSC right now (most used 6 in SPL with a 70%+ winrate by the way).


I dont like Restalk Lax that much because of how toothless it feels into Stall. Any Pokémon that is a good sleep absorber should be considered to enable Cool Snorlax Sets that can advance your position (or beat Stall) rather than the all-controlling RT Lax that everyone uses.


The goat, but becomes surprisingly toothless if Spikes aren't up (against both Lax and Raikou). Therefore, any approach against Spikes in general should be explored more as Zapdos is otherwise utterly broken. WW sets are insane pressure appliers by the way.


I think people underrate how the turn where everyone plays around Spikes can be used to generate a very strong kill (for example trapping Cloyster with Clamp HP Elec, or Snorlax with Clamp Boom, or hard booming on Zapdos).


Second best Pokémon in the tier with Spikes off the field (big if).


Best Pokémon to customize to your needs. Would like it more if it wasn't so reliant on Dpunch (/Hypnosis) sometimes.


Curse and Rest sets are where it's at. Also the best Pursuiter.


Can make pretty much any last work thanks to its ability to compress Zap/Lax checking (and removal) in one slot. Also good into Stall.


The best spinner, aka one of the biggest game influencer in my opinion. Really likes every Lax being RT too. Recover-less sets are very good on all out offenses.


Required to generate checkmate situations with Stall.


Very good breaker but your window to get a good nut out of it is small at times.


Golem.


I like the Toxic/Rest explorations to beat Snorlax without necessarily using Skarmory. Should never be a sole spinner imo.


Can wall everything. As Mean Look + BP got banned, a lot of teams are cheating with Phazers. Umbreon can definitely exploit them in some capacity.


One of the best Sleep absorber, which opens up Snorlax moveset. Also strong into Stall. Rarely sweeps like you'd want it to against most offenses though (too much to overcome between Lax, Zap, Cloy boom and Gengar). Technically has a vast toolkit that I haven't explored too much.


Imo very good against most Offense with the right support. The Starmie/Marowak/Tyranitar offense is one of the best neutral pick in the meta imo.


A pokémon that can turn the tides vs Snorlax offensively, even if it's only with a 80% accurate move, is too appealing to rank lower. Also can open up Stall, especially as most Starmie drop Psychic nowadays.


Quite low on this as I find it very mid into most meta calls right now, unless it goes with disruptive sets (Thief, Curse, Sandstorm) which cut into its wallbreaking in one way or another.


Bit annoying to pick between Sub or Rest, and to play around status but it's a genuine threat to every playstyle and also one of the best Pokémons into p.much every "last mon".


I think this Pokémon is bad unless it gets lucky. I respect the recent RT set that Fear used for its ability to take on Sleepers and open up the Lax moveset at least.


Very strong defensive typing, and can open up games vs Stall (or straight up sweep Offenses). Hard to use without being very passive though.


Quite bad imo but it shines into those dual ground/rock teams that a lot of people like to use atm so it's a worthy matchup pick. Also one of the few CurseTtar counter.


I like it a lot on wild teams for its fast Encore to soft check everything. I however dislike how it plays into RT Lax, Zap and Starmie/Ttar. Toxic is neat on it.


This Pokémon is mid but it's also much better into Spinners than Gengar, and I believe Spinners should be used more/differently, which means Misdreavus is worth it.


The Cow is very good in-practice imo but it's hard to make a 6 with it that doesn't play super passively. It's also pretty bad into Stall as the Heal Bell PPs go by very fast. One of the few Pokémon that enable Drummers though.


Kinda worse Alakazam.


Funky for ballsy offenses.


Pretty good sleep absorber.

And honestly don't have much to say about the other Pokémons that isn't obvious/known. Tentacruel stall farm some matchups I guess? Although the Offenses it aims to farm always run Gengar so it's never a Free matchup either.

 

[Excal]

S: / /
A+: /
A: / /
A-: / / / /
B+: / / / / / /
B: / / / / /
B-: / / / /
C: / / / /

coinflip tier vr :flippoutou:

 

[Century Express]

Ranking

1) Snorlax
2) Zapdos
3) Cloyster
4) Gengar
5) Raikou
6) Tyranitar
7) Golem
8) Exeggutor
9) Nidoking
10) Starmie
11) Steelix
12) Skarmory
13) Machamp
14) Jynx
15) Forretress
16) Vaporeon
17) Marowak
18) Misdreavus
19) Suicune
20) Heracross
21) Umbreon
22) Smeargle
23) Porygon2
24) Rhydon
25) Miltank
26) Tentacruel
27) Blissey
28) Moltres
29) Alakazam
30) Quagsire
31) Espeon
32) Charizard
33) Jolteon
34) Dragonite
35) Houndoom
36) Piloswine
37) Scizor
38) Kingdra
39) Venusaur
40) Muk
41) Meganium

Tier List Visual

Snorlax: Snorlax is quintissential band-aid Pokémon of GSC - in an era where Sleep inducers are very powerful, Earthquake / Curse + Sleep Talk variants of Snorlax keep doing a great job, thanks to their ability to compress the role of a status absorber, Electric-type and momentum enabler in a single slot. However, the correct Curse variants will always be threatening against the right team structures - for example, the vast majority of non-Skarmory teams are often forced to play proactively as they can vs. Earthquake Snorlax, otherwise they will find themselves getting steamrolled by Snorlax if it gets too many Curse boosts; Skarmory teams have trouble at keeping momentum vs. FireLax (even when you pair Skarmory with a FireLax check), because Snorlax consistently finds itself denying Forretress' momentum as well, and so and on. I'm a big fan of Lovely Kiss' potential as well (it doesn't need to be always used with Curse, by the way!) - the current GSC metagame is not ready to find a true good Sleep absorbers vs. LK Snorlax, meaning you can ocasionally find yourself luring Cloyster / Forretress, consequently giving a great window of opportunity for many Rapid Spin users.

Zapdos: With the aid of Spikes, and anti-Spin measures, Zapdos teams have one of the most reliable ways of generating & keeping momentum in GSC. That's mainly because Zapdos has a very small range of reliable answers... with the exception of Snorlax and Raikou, pretty much every Zapdos answer suffers from: 1) lack of a true form of offensive presence (e: Steelix, Golem, Blissey), or 2) an inconsistency at taking too many Thunder(bolts) (e: non-ST Snorlax, Tyranitar, Jynx). Since Zapdos invites Snorlax and Raikou like magnets, many Zapdos teams flexible ways at controlling the momentum of the game, once you find a way of taking advantage of your opponent's Electric-type check / special wall switch-in pattern. Thunderbolt Zapdos deserves some love, otherwise it becomes very exploitable against anti-metagame Substitute users.

Cloyster: There are many situations where clicking Spikes ASAP might look tempting, but sometimes, it's very important to value the importance of your Spiker in short, and long-term games as well. Cloyster mirrors are extremely important, to the point where you shouldn't play in a greedy way with your own Spikes, otherwise a back-up Starmie / Golem might end up invalidating all of your progress. That being said, Cloyster teams are very momentum-friendly and flexible, meaning that you have a plethora of approaches of making progress with your gameplan, like using Cloyster's Explosion to remove Starmie for Machamp, using Spinblockers / Pursuit to break Rapid Spin cycles, not clicking Spikes, and instead using Toxic / Surf more often to cripple opposing Spikers, and so and on.

Gengar: Incredibly influental and useful, regardless of the playstyle you're facing - while its Spinblocking factor, coupled with its bait-kill potential vs. Raikou / Snorlax / Blissey / Umbreon always put defensive teams under a tricky spot, it's immunity to Explosion goes a long way vs. Explosion-oriented offensive teams as well. Gengar shouldn't be underestimated as an individual threat, though, especially because a lot of MonoLax teams have trouble at making progress vs. Hypnosis or DynamicPunch Gengar - if Tyranitar fails to do its job, for example. Even though Gengar doesn't have an immediate offensive presence, it has a very customizable toolkit to advantage of most of its common answers. Destiny Bond or HP Water for example, are excellent progress makers vs. Steelix / Golem (which sinergizes really well with any Snorlax), PerishTrap variants can checkmate greedy / lastmon Snorlax, Thief greatly limits Raikou / Umbreon / Snorlax's walling potential, and so and on.

Raikou: Arguably the best non-Snorlax answer against Special attackers of the whole metagame. The single fact that you have a good Speed tier, coupled with zero Special weaknesses means that you can not only have an excellent obstacle vs. Gengar / Zapdos / Jynx / Starmie / [insert special threat], but you can also remove some pressure from Snorlax's shoulders, meaning that Snorlax teams with Raikou usually have a lot of space to explore more offensive variants. I think RestTalk variants are excellent picks for offensive teams, but Roar variant are still solid, especially if you want to shuffle Spikes + keep the momentum in your side at Raikou mirrors.

Tyranitar: I still enjoy the Pursuit approach in some teams, but overall it has a very mediocre offensive presence, and unlike Phazers like Steelix or Golem, isn't not so reliable at keeping Snorlax at control. However, if you have another Pokémon to fulfill the traditional Phazer / anti-Snorlax role, Tyranitar estabilish itself as a very powerful threat, with a very small range of truly reliable checks. Alongside Gengar, I consider Tyranitar a vital part of the metagame vs. hazard-friendly plans, because you can always adjust your moveset to find edges against key targets (e: EQ + Pursuit is excellent at chipping Raikou for Zapdos, Crunch + Pursuit disrupts Misdreavus / Starmie's Rapid Spin cycles if you play patiently enough).

Golem: While I personally consider Starmie the most reliable Rapid Spin user of the GSC metagame, Golem on the other side, is a superior jack-of-all-trades, mainly because its typing compresses a plethora of utilities (Snorlax answer, Electric pivot, Tyranitar answer, Explosion user, Rapid Spin user) in a single slot. It requires some anti-Spikes support, otherwise Cloyster (and the sporadic Giga Drain Forretress) will keep denying Golem's momentum for a long time. However, Golem doesn't need to be completely hellbent into clicking Rapid Spin - there are a lot of scenarios where you can catch a lot of threats off-guard with a well-timed Earthquake / Explosion chip. Keeping the field Spikeless can force a lot of checkmate scenarios in GSC, and this element shouldn't ever be underestimated.

Exeggutor: Surprisingly reliable at making a straightforward gameplan, given how it draws Zapdos switch-ins like a magnet. One element that annoys me a little bit with Exeggutor, it's how it faces a dilemma, between clicking Explosion or not. I say that, because while removing Zapdos (or the occasional RT Snorlax / RT Umbreon) might feel tempting, it means that you can lose one of your best answers against a (potentially unrevealed) Machamp or Vaporeon, which can be heartbreaking if you don't have enough information about your opponent's team. That being said, Exeggutor is a sinergy-friendly, reliable metagame pick, and even if you don't click Explosion, spamming Sleep Powder / Psychic is a great way of enabling momentum for other teammates. HP Fire and Thief are very cool picks on teams where you can fit another Sleep inducer.

Nidoking: The current metagame isn't not too much kind to Nidoking (lots of team compositions have RT Snorlax + Zapdos), but I still believe that Nidoking is a very intimidating presence, especially against defensive teams. One approach that slightly solve this issue, is pairing Nidoking with another Sleep inducer, so Nidoking won't feel a dillema between picking its coverage against Cloyster / Skarmory, and having Thief to lure Snorlax / 3HKO Zapdos. Nidoking is one of the few Pokémon that can find edges vs. Raikou without losing momentum to status, thanks to its immunity to Toxic / Thunder Wave, which allows it to keep momentum against a lot of defensive teams.

Starmie: C/P'ing what I said in the GSC Discussion thread, I'm big fan of the elements that made Starmie estabilish itself as the new "flavor-of-the-year" in GSC - it has 32 PP Recover, and a reasonably fine bulk, allowing the starfish to achieve momentum shifts against non-Curse EQ Lax / FireLax (except if Double-Edge crits), and as it wasn't good enough, Starmie is blessed with great 1v1 match-ups vs. Cloyster and Gengar, thanks to its speed tier and coverage. In one hand, Nightmare transforms some of would-be Starmie answers (e: Thunder Zapdos, Exeggutor) into complete set-up fodders, but unfortunately, it really struggles to do a good job against Thunderbolt Electric-types, and defensive teams.

Steelix: Another band-aid pick in the current metagame, Steelix alleviates a lot of issues in the teambuilder. Unlike Golem / Tyranitar, you don't have so many typechart weaknesses, meaning that you can remove some pressure from Snorlax and Zapdos' shoulders, if you want a more reliable back-up plan vs. Gengar, non-FB Tyranitar and Snorlax. It suffers a lot from the "power dillema", meaning that it has issues to get past Zapdos and Cloyster, but with the aid of anti-Spikes plans, it becomes one of the most brutal Spikes shufflers against defensive teams, thanks to its immunity to many common status moves, and the natural ability to bait-kill Skarmory, if it accumulates enough Curse boosts.

Skarmory: Maybe i'm being a bit too harsh into Skarmory, but I'm not a big fan of Skarmory's value in this metagame - most of the successful Skarmory builds in the current metagame are reactive teams, which is never a good thing in my book. It heavily appreciates hazard-oriented support from Spikes / Rapid Spin users, otherwise it becomes a momentum sink vs. Zapdos, Raikou, and opposing Spikers and Spinners (if it drops Toxic). Despite these obstacles, it would be silly to not recognize Skarmory as a integral, nigh-irreplaceable ingredient of many defensive builds - Skarmory's titanic amount of resistances and immunities provides a great reward for players who are comfortable with playing a gamesense-oriented version of GSC.

Machamp: One of the most intimidating wallbreakers of the metagame, Machamp has a mixed bag of pros and cons. In one hand, Machamp does an excellent job punishing Snorlax under Rest cycles, it has a near-perfect sinergy with any Pursuit user, and match-ups well vs. teams that drop Exeggutor or Starmie (Cloyster's ability to bait-kill Starmie helps here a little bit, though), and preys beautifully on Tyranitar-centric teams. But as a proud member of the "accuracy church", I don't like to rely on hitting Cross Chops to make progress in the metagame, and sometimes, Machamp teams find themselves playing uphill battles to make progress against teams with solid Psychic-types, if Machamp doesn't pack the right coverage pick against them.

Jynx: Even though most players already respect Jynx as a legitimate threat in the current GSC metagame, it still does a great job at enabling momentum and suffocating your opponent, due to Jynx's constant probability of getting IB freezes / 5~6 LK sleep turns / consistant bad Sleep Talk rolls from the opposition. With the aid of Thief, Jynx is one of the strongest supporters to back-up special attackers (e: Zapdos and Gengar). Ironically, Jynx builds, who were previously the anti-meta zone, sort of became part of vanilla GSC, and thus, I see these Jynx team structures becoming prey of anti-metagamers - and that's a big reason why i'm seeing Starmie and offensive Tyranitar-esque teams finally shining in the current metagame.

Forretress: As much as I used to love to use Spin Forretress teams, there are way too many Gengars in the smashing majority of offensive teams, meaning that Spin Forretress teams find themselves needing to play near-perfect long-term games, if they want to find themselves in an advantage position - kinda the textbook definition of passivity, which I consider very undesirable, if you want to win games. C/P'ing what I said in the GSC Discussion threat + what Roro said, I think Forretress does a way better job when it's being paired with a back-up spinner... removing a bit of pressure of Forretress' shoulders does wonders in some match-ups.

Vaporeon: It struggles a lot against proactive teams that prevents it from getting free Growth / Acid Armor boosts (e: Double Electric, Zapdos + Exeggutor), but when Zapdos / Raikou is the only obstacle in Vaporeon's path, that's where it sinergizes beautifully with Exeggutor / Gengar, respectively, due to their abilites to lure Electric-types with relative ease. Roar + Baton Pass-oriented strats technically tools to scare / beat most of GSC's most common phazers... I can see some hidden potential, when paired with the proper set-up chain.

Marowak: Honestly, i'm not a big fan of the idea of that Marowak "requires" paralyze support - IMO Marowak shines best on teams that work on improving Marowak's conditions to switch-in safely, be it punishing Raikou / Zapdos' sleep cycles, or be it simply getting free switch-ins on Spikeless gamestates. SD + Fire-type coverage is one of the most oppresive threats for most of modern GSC defensive teams (especially given how Suicune has sort of fallen out of grace), but it still does a good job vs. any kind of playstyle with the proper reads. I've been enjoying RT Marowak as well, it's a very underrated offense enabler that doesn't let Cloyster and non-CurseLax recover their momentum so easily.

Misdreavus: Not a fan of RestTalk movesets at all, but I enjoy a lot the utility-friendly approach - I know Gengar is the main star of the show, but Misdreavus' lack of weakness against Starmie and Golem's STABs, and the recovery vs. Pursuit Umbreon is really handy if the extra comfort zone vs. Spinners is urgent. Thief and Destiny Bond can cripple at best, and force a trade at worst against a modest amount of Physical attackers, and in some special circumstances, the Mean Look can act as an ""pseudo-phazer"", discouraging not only free Snorlax set-ups, but forcing a neutral situation vs. opposing Misdreavus, ML Gengar and BP chains.

Suicune: Suicune is unfortunately quite passive, and unidimensional as well, but I feel like it get way more hate than it deserves. If we see a metagame shift where Rock- and Ground-types suddenly become more prevalent (especially Marowak, or Curse / MixTtar), maybe that's where Suicune might see an ressurgence. But for now, I think Suicune belongs in the slightly-above-average territory.

Heracross: Heavily appreciates plans against Skarmory, and Zapdos to a lesser extent. It has one of the most unique combination of typings for GSC standards - the simple fact that Heracross behaves like a near-invincible tank against the majority of Rock-, Ground- (especially Nidoking) and Fight-types in a single moveslot opens a lot of possibilies for Heracross' teammates, by taking a lot of pressure from Cloyster and Snorlax's shoulders. Heracross is one of the metagame's most lethal picks, if you manage to sucessfully bait-kill the Flying-types for him.

Umbreon: I find myself getting handicapped everytime I try to use Umbreon. I put in a very low ranking, because Umbreon is way too reactive, even for GSC standards. Yes, it walls the massive majority of non-set-up sweepers, there's is always an aspect that can be used to be abused against - for example, even though it's supposed to wall and trap Gengar or Exeggutor via Pursuit, sometimes you don't want to let your CurseLax answer getting removed by Explosion in the first place, and RT variants of Umbreon are extremely prone against momentum issues, giving free momentum to any Spiker / Spinner / set-up sweeper like no one else. I would rank it a little bit higher, if Mean Look + Baton Pass wasn't nerfed, but even ML feels very limited... so yeah.

Smeargle: Smeargle is another example of Pokémon that got significantly nerfed with the new BP patch, but unlike the aforementioned example, Smeargle is a very momentum-friendly Pokémon with some unique traits. I like a lot how Smeargle (the Spikes user) beats every single spinner short-term thanks to the constant threat of stat-passing and Spore. I think Smeargle does a fine job where it doesn't play as an autopilot lead - Smeargle is a great Pokémon to create momentum swings when it switches freely into predicted Rests, for example.

Porygon2: Unfortunately it's very hard to build a good team with Porygon2, given how it often stacks a lot of weaknesses between Snorlax. But on limited team structures it does an incredibly good job - just find a way of taking advantage of the opposing Cloyster / Forretress, and then you have one of the most resillient, non-passive Snorlax answers of the metagame. It's very advisable to be careful against status inducers, but other than that, it does a great at pivoting almost any move not called Cross Chop or DynamicPunch. 32 PP Recover is a blessing in lengthy matches.

Rhydon: I'm still a Rhydon believer, but I think it feels really hard to justify using it over the main metagame picks. For utility / walling purposes, Golem feels way more reliable, and as a wallbreaker, it kinda suffers competition with offensive Tyranitar. On the bright side, Rhydon preys on team structures with an excessive amount of Ground-type weaknesses, but even on these team structures, it's possible to see a lot of players (unintentionally or not) having good plans vs. Rhydon (the sporadic HP Water Raikou / Zapdos, or Destiny Bond Gengar are great examples).

Miltank: Fulfills a fundamental role in GSC, and Miltank teams have the benefit of being one of the few team structures where you can truly play more agressively with your hazard setters / removers, even if long-term PP management becomes a long-term issue. Seismic Toss Miltank is a very nice pick, to do a very generous amount of chip damage vs. Cloyster / Forretress.

Tentacruel: The SubSD variant sometimes does a great job against a fair amount of defensive teams, if Starmie / Raikou get crippled / removed by a well-timed Explosion, and the Toxic-immunity is incredibly useful sometimes - it's always nice to find free set-up opportunities against opposing Water-types (usually Cloyster), but you can find yourself getting beautiful gamestates against some Vaporeon, or Sub Starmie teams. I think Spin Tentacruel is high-risk / high-reward sometimes, given how the sole presence of a Spinblocker determinates the difficulty of your match-up.

Blissey: Excellent vs. Zapdos and Raikou, but very shaky otherwise. It kinda wants to behave like an occasional Gengar / Exeggutor pivot, but the Explosion threat really becomes a pain in the ass. Similiarly to Miltank, it fulfills an unique role in GSC that enables more agression in the hazard game, but it's very annoying to use Blissey in any kind of match-up where you need to face any kind of dedicated wallbreaker, or mixed attacker (at Softboiled loops, it gives free momentum to wallbreakers like FireLax, Rest Marowak or Quagsire, for example).

Moltres: Indredibly fun to use - the Spikes immunity, and the ability to punish the majority of Sleep-inducers gives Moltres a very unique role in the metagame, and the Fire-type STAB in the Sun does wonders against some Jynx- / Exeggutor-esque offensive teams - Cloyster is a fine teammate, if Starmie is the Moltres obstacle. Too bad it struggles a lot against bulkier Rock- and Water-types... it's nigh impossible to make progress vs. Vaporeon or Suicune, for example.

Alakazam: I've been enjoying the approach of pairing Thief / Toxic Alakazam, with other teammates that can take advantage of a crippled Snorlax / Tyranitar / Umbreon. Unfortunately it has a lot ot trouble at making progress vs. bulkier Snorlax variants and Starmie, but its access to a powerful and fast STAB Psychic gives it a lot of comfort and immediate offensive presence vs. Gengar + Nidoking, or Nidoking + Machamp team structures, sometimes. Encore is very nice to disrupt BP-oriented stats, and 32 PP Recover is really good, but I don't consider it 100% mandatory, if the extra coverage is needed.

Quagsire: Alongside Piloswine, Quagsire is the only Ground-type that truly makes a respectable progress against both Electric-type legends (except if HP Grass becomes a standard, of course). I kinda like how Quagsire actually feels very decent-ish (even without clicking Belly Drum) at answering Raikou / Gengar / Tyranitar. Quagsire appreciates a lot of support, but I've been liking the basic combination of Quagsire + Pursuit. Quagsire as a product of a AgiliPass chain has a very fun niche in some games as well.

Espeon: Espeon has been disappointing me a lot lately - unlike Alakazam, I feel like Espeon's Growth set-up / GrowthPass attempts are quite predictable, to the point where it's very hard to pull a successful set-up with the right combination of back-ups (e: Snorlax + Tyranitar, Snorlax + Exeggutor, Snorlax + Starmie). At least, HP Water Espeon does a very nice job at dissuating Tyranitar and Golem from removing its Growth boosts, but it's quite hard to make progress vs. Skarmory / Raikou combo, or any kind of CurseLax, really.

Charizard: I see Charizard as a moderately high-risk, high-reward Pokémon. It appreciates a straightforward, yet effective plan to remove its major obstacles - Cloyster has a very nice sinergy with Charizard, if Starmie becomes a pain in the ass, and in a similar vein, Exeggutor does a good job crippling Electric-types for Charizard. Curiously, its typing provides a very quirky niche - Charizard is one of the best Heracross / Moltres of the metagame in virtue of its typing and Speed tier, and the Ground-immunity does wonders, at getting free momentum vs. Steelix.

Jolteon: Even with the precious Electric-resistance vs. Zapdos, sometimes I feel like Jolteon actually doesn't want to set-up vs. Zapdos in the first place, at least, not when the possibility of Thunder Wave / Whirlwind is still in the equation. I'm not a big fan of Jolteon on AgiliPass squads, but it's quite dangerous as a Growth user, in some scenarios, especially because Jolteon is the only BPer that manages to scare Skarmory right off the bat.

Dragonite: I think Dragonite is kinda ass in the current GSC metagame. The offensive variants play uphill battles in a lot of match-ups, and there's a lot of common team structures (Double Electric, Gengar + Zapdos, Gengar + Jynx, Gengar + Nidoking) where Dragonite barely gets momentum, let alone pull a wallbreaking attempt (especially because its main form of offensive presence is generated by low accuracy moves). But, I like Dragonite's potential as a paralyze spreader especially if you can pair it with something that preys on paralyzed Zapdos / Raikou. Haze variants are surprisingly solid at neutralizing Vaporeon, Heracross and Sunny Day users.

Houndoom: Arguably the most reliable Pursuit user in the right circumstance - it has the the perfect combination STAB moves, and resistances / immunities to pull a Pursuit attempt against Exeggutor, Jynx, Misdreavus and Gengar, and in the worst case, a Sleep Talk (non-Rest) approach can be used, taking a lot pressure from Snorlax's shoulders. Machamp, and Ground-types have a legitimate good sinergy with Pursuit Houndoom. I don't like the SunnyBeam variants though - I think Moltres fulfill this role more reliably.

Piloswine: Alongside Quagsire, Piloswine is the only Ground-type that consistently makes progress vs. Zapdos and Raikou, without being excessively passive. RT variants are very nice into Gengar and Nidoking, especially because Piloswine doesn't need to worry with Ice Beam / Ice Punch freezes. These traits should be good enough for Piloswine to succeed, but with the exception of the Electric-immunity, Piloswine is unfortunately plagued with a massive amount of common weaknesses / lack of important resistances in its typechart.

Scizor: I've been thinking of Sleep Talk scizor, as a direct answer against Jynx and Exeggutor, but I think it kinda sucked at the end of the day. It does a decent-ish job as a SD / Agility passer though, as long as Scizor doesn't face too many threats with Fire-type coverage. Non-BP Swords Dance movesets (in a similar vein to Heracross), have a legitimate potential, with the help of the right Zapdos / Skarmory lures.

Kingdra: At first glance, it shoudn't exist a reason to use Kingdra over Suicune or Vaporeon, but the Kingdra's pseudo-absence of typechart weaknesses allows it to hard check Sleep-inducers incredibly well (especially Nidoking and Hypnosis Gengar), Steelix, Tyranitar, and the 4x resistance against Fire-type moves does wonders against the sporadic Moltres / Charizard appearance as well. I'm a big fan of how Kingdra sinergizes with a decent amount of Forretress builds overall.

Venusaur: IMO it plays a little bit differently from Meganium, although both 'mons fulfill similar roles. Venusaur's access to Sleep Powder, and Roar allows it to play in a more proactive pace. Not being weak against Pursuit (unlike Exeggutor) allows Venusaur to act as a extremely resillient Vaporeon / Machamp / HP Water Electrics answer.

Muk: Muk does a surprising good job as a Curser, in match-ups where the Explosion-resistance is a Steel-type. Otherwise, I think the approach of trading Muk for a FireLax check is a straightforward and acceptable option too. Too bad Muk's main weaknesses are widely spammed in the current GSC metagame... because Muk has a very nice stat distribution, especially after a few Curse boosts.

Meganium: Natural bulk, Ground-type resistance coupled with the absence of Pursuit weakness allows Meganium to do be surprisingly resillient sometimes. Certain would-be wallbreakers / stallbreakers (Rest Marowak, Quagsire, MixTtar) suddenly become completely meaningless in some match-ups when Meganium shows up. Unfortunately 8 PP Synthesis isn't good enough for Meganium to leave its mark in lenghty games.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------​

Actually, there are a few fringe picks that could be techically viable against very specific team structures (i'm thinking about Kangaskhan, Clefable, or obscure Sunny Day users) - but I don't think these picks reflect, or inspire any kind of "anti-metagame" potential, to handle the main strategies of the current GSC metagame. I mean, what's the point of trying to get an advantage against an outdated style of team that you're going to face once in a blue moon? Behind these reasons, I tried to not rank overly specific picks (Shuckle, Gligar, Qwilfish, etc.) that you make you handicap yourself in 90%+ of your games, even though they are not completely useless.

 

[Chiles Habaneros]

Welp, everyone is sharing their VRs so I'll share a bit of mine aswell. I'm probably the less experienced player to vote, but I've played a lot of this meta, I built a lot of teams and I think I have a decent glance of the metagame. I'll try to give my thoughts in specific mons I consider interesting among my picks.

3- Gengar, 4- Cloyster:
The actual chances I'm crazy and this makes no sense are probably high, but I think gengar is EXTREMELY influential in current metagame. It has an extreme amount of impact, Explosion and toxic inmunity, always threatens explosion to remove key pieces of opposing teams, a lot of moveset options to threaten a lot of switch ins, hypnosis, thief utility, mean look sets even without perish song that might work. Cloyster is definitely great and spikes are the strongest tool that both offensive and defensive teams have to win games, and the potential cloyster has outside of spikes is also massive. This two are the undisputed 3 and 4 for me, but gengar is something you have to think about with every team and situation you play, can force a lot of progress and even if it doesn't hit like a zapdos' thunder, it's always extremely dangerous, a lot of things to scout for a pokemon that gets this easily on the field. Also use rest cloyster more (only if my opinion matters for you xd)

6- Golem:
What puts golem this high in my list is its role compression. only 1 slot and you get a lax check, phazer, spinner, one of the strongest booms and a nice attacker in some cases. This allows golem to be very flexible and fulfill different roles in your gamplans. You can aim to pick a zapdos with boom sacking the spin, you can just play it defensive or you can even try to force progress with spikes up. It also has access to fire blast which is someone you have to scout for. Curse opens up for more sets and it has cool tools like rest and counter. This mon gives a lot of chances to your games and it's really good at everything so I think it deserves the place I gave it.

7- Tyranitar:
Offensive capabilities of tyranitar are underrated. tyranitar alone is able to destroy a lot of common cores with the right moves. When my friends ask me what to play vs player who use a lot of jynx teams or nidogar, I just tell them to use surf tyranitar :P (use surftar more), the normal pursuit roar sets are very powerful, ttar can use its utility and still have a threatening firepower. Ttar has infinite tools, every coverage move you want, surf (broken), thunderbolt, fire coverage. EQ. crunch, dpunch and more. Screech is very good making progress and winning endgames and curse tyranitar forces a lot of wins and can become impossible to lost against easily. The downside of cursetar in my opinion is 16 rock slide PP vs defensive teams, but those can be more than enough especially considering 500+ turn games that can be sealed out by struggle.

TL;DR: imagine you have jynx, golem, cloyster, lax, zapdos and gengar, what do you do vs a surf tyranitar? this applies for more teams that you might thing. Dpunch exist too and can be used with these 2 moves '-'

8- Nidoking:
I'm getting tired. Nidoking breaks stuff so easily overwhelming its checks, has interesting options to surprise opponents in dpunch, roar, fire coverage and curse morning sun. The normal sets everyone knows are still very effective in the metagame.

9- Exeggutor:
Egg is the king of boom offense and can enable a lot of threats you might hide in the back, one of the most reliable mons to trade zapdos and its potential to break through with psychic + random moves is often underestimated.

10- Steelix:
Lix closes my top 10. Being the top 10 mon means you're good, but lix imo has fallen a bit behind the other rock types (if you resist normal you're a rock type) It's a bit passive and it doesn't have a lot of great traits other than lax check and being a monster in long games if kept healthy, lix can have very good performances in super long games vs stall aswell. Another thing I kinda dislike is the fact that steelix's attack is not huge, and boom might fail to kill some stuff you maybe expected to.
Steelix Explosion vs. Miltank: 316-372 (80.4 - 94.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Steelix Explosion vs. Exeggutor: 364-428 (92.6 - 108.9%) -- 53.8% chance to OHKO
Steelix Explosion vs. Zapdos: 364-428 (95 - 111.7%) -- 69.2% chance to OHKO
Steelix Explosion vs. Vaporeon: 445-523 (96.1 - 112.9%) -- 76.9% chance to OHKO
Maybe I'm just weird (terribly bad at the game) but in my games I've felt scared to click the boom button knowing it might not kill and this has forced me to do weird decisions to close up games.

11, 12, 13. Skarm, Forretress and Starmie:
Skarm is necessary for stall in my opinion. I'm aware earthworm and other top players have used skarmless stall with things such as reflect foretress or umbreon and miltank stalls but skarm is just so necessary to have in my opinion. With those things considered, skarm is key on stall, but stall itself might not be as strong as it used to be some years ago. When you discuss a top GSC playstyle it always ends up being split into different offenses, skarm is super passive and even if it's great, it's a momentum bomb for you opponent and this often ends up in sad positions. Alsoyou become a hax magnet. I used to be a crybaby when getting crit in key moments and sometimes I still are (terrybly bad at the game) but it's a reality you have to accept when using this kind of teams. Minimizing the hax risks is for sure something good stall players can do.

Forretress is a pick that I've liked a lot recently, it's bulk and ability to hold for a bit longer vs lax is something offense values a lot, also toxic inmunity, you know, the classic things why it's preferred over cloyster sometimes. Imo this guy has more uses than cloy and the moves it has allow you to focus it on different roles, HP fire is a requirement if you want to win spieks war vs stall, and you have a lot of interesting options. Starmie is one of the winners from this years VR in general. It has seen a lot of usage in offense and it's still the best spinner avaliable. The gameplan vs starmie stalls is usually wear down this mon so you can haave some chance to lay your spikes and start biting.

16, 17. Vap and Heracross:
Vaporeon's bulk makes it really good in late games, best growth user, and hard to take down with rest talk. Great into stall and able to wear down it's checks thorugh time.

If anyone has ever played gsc with me in a teamtour, or just hast talked to me about the meta, you're gonna know I absolutely love heracross. I tried to make this think objective because if not heracross might have entered in my top 10 ('-'), heracross feels the little bug fellow of fairygens volcarona, If it's checks are alive, it can't do much other than holding defensively (what hera is great at, excellent machamp, nidoking and marowak check), but if your team is correctly focused into deleting opposing hera checks, heracross enabled is a beast that tanks eternally and boosts to oblivion into WWWWWWWWWWW. His best friends are egg, curse boom lax and par spreaders to a lesser extent. Sadly it can have some tough matchups you don't expect. If you hace some sort of moltres, dnite, rest steelix (yes, someone loaded this into me), hera can be like playing with 5, so kinda matchup mon, but hera deserves a little bit more recognition in my opinion.

Feel free to reach me if you wanna discuss a bit more. I ranked a lot of pokemon because I think this could be interesting for newer players who want to use some weird stuff and maybe make it work, as CE said, some of this mons may not be considered influential but I just felt like putting them here. Anyways, I just tried to order them based in how strong I feel them to be in current meta and I hope my imput can help someone or make something in the VRs happen '-'

 

[Siatam]

The 2023 VR update is here. Thank you to the following 29 players who took part. ABR Zokuru choolio Hyogafodex Fear M Dragon D4 Repertoire Century Express Agentkeval Siatam false ziloXX vani sulcata Estarossa Nael222 McMeghan Revenge Killer Nalorium skimmythegod Mr.378 Raichy RealJester Chiles Habaneros Rubyblood TLTK Conflict airfare hellpowna


Special thanks to Earthworm and vapicuno whos' work over the previous years has made this project much easier.

Collection of data
- Players who placed in the top 24 of the 2022 circuit standings or played at least 5 games in the past 3 editions of SPL were invited to submit their rankings.
- Submitters could rank any Pokemon on their list.
- No Pokemon were mandatory to rank.
- It was possible for players to make edits to their rankings after submitting the survey.
- The survey was left open for about two weeks.

Formation of rankings
- Cutoffs for the ranks and subranks were determined using vapicuno's method
- The order was determined by an outlier-compensated mean ranking.
- Pokemon had to be ranked by at least five players to be included. The end result of this was that the same set of Pokemon remained on the VR.

Flaws
- Most submitters opted to use tierlist programs to submit their VR. This limited new additions to the VR and promoted Pokemon that were ranked last year. Only one person ranked a mon not an last years VR. (me) Due to this finding I will probably change the data collection method for next year's VR update.

Link to raw data in spreadsheet form

Link to Jupyter notebook I used to make this VR as a zipped folder.

S1 Rank

01 Snorlax​

S2 Rank

02 Zapdos​

03 Cloyster​

A Rank

04 Raikou​

05 Gengar​

06 Tyranitar​

B1 Rank

07 Starmie​

08 Exeggutor​

09 Golem​

10 Skarmory​

11 Steelix​

B2 Rank

12 Nidoking​

13 Forretress​

14 Jynx​

B3 Rank

15 Machamp​

16 Vaporeon​

B4 Rank

17 Marowak​

18 Umbreon​

C1 Rank

19 Heracross​

20 miltank​

21 Alakazam:​

22 Jolteon​

23 Misdreavus​

24 Suicune​

C2 Rank

25 Espeon​

26 Rhydon​

27 Quagsire​

28 Blissey​

29 Tentacruel​

30 Moltres​

​

C3 Rank

31 Smeargle​

32 Porygon2​

33 Charizard​

34 Dragonite​

35 Houndoom​

D1 Rank

36 Kangaskhan​

37 Scizor​

38 Venusaur​

39 Kingdra​

​

D2 Rank

40 Clefable​

41 Meganium​

42 Piloswine​

43 Donphan​

44 Entei​

45 Muk​

46 Articuno​

47 Ursaring​

48 Aerodactyl​

49 Tauros​

50 Shuckle​

51 Sandslash​

52 Typhlosion​

E Rank

53 Nidoqueen​

54 Jumpluff​

55 Ampharos​

56 Hitmonlee​

57 Omastar​

58 Gligar​

59 Qwilfish​

60 Pikachu​

​

Visualization of results and individual rankings
As with last year, all the rankings are assembled into a single image. In the New VR column, I have formatted it so that green indicates a rise and red indicates a fall when compared to the old VR. Blue indicates no movement. The pale green and red in everyone's rankings indicate what they ranked higher (green) and lower (red) than the new VR.

Observations
Differences when compared to the old VR that I found particularly notable include:

- Raikou (+1)
In a surprising reversal of trends, Raikou has overtaken Gengar to reclaim the #4 spot it held in 2021. This ranking is hotly contested however, with Raikou narrowly edging out Gengar with an average rank of 4.90 vs 5.00. Raikou has seen a surge in usage on double electric offenses, especially in the most recent edition of SPL, SPL XIV. While I suspect some recency bias is at play, Raikou has proven it is still a force to be reckoned with in the metagame as a consistent offensive and defensive presence, enabling a variety of offense and stall structures. This consistency in on full display in its rankings. Outside of Raichy's stray 12th place ranking, no one ranked Raikou outside the top 6.

- Starmie (+5)
Starmie has been dutifully performing its roles for years, but is just now seeing recognition in the viability rankings. With an incredible surge of 5 places, Starmie breaks into the top 10 for the first time in GSC VR. Winning the Spikes game has become a very important part of playing stall in modern GSC, with defensive teams commonly running 2 Rapid Spinners. Starmie excels as the tier's paramount spinner with access to Recover, excellent speed, a solid defensive profile, and ability to further support its teammates with Thunder Wave sets. Starmie's offensive Nightmare set is also not to be forgotten. While teams have started to adapt to this set with more Tbolt electrics, just this change shows Starmie's influence on the playerbase. Though Starmie's final ranking of 7th outperforms its average ranking of 9.43, I don't expect it to move much - general opinion is remarkably consistent on Mie.

- Nidoking (-4)
With the continued usage of Sleep Talk Snorlax and the near ubiquitous Sleep Talk Zapdos, Nidoking is struggling to showcase its fearsome mixed attacking abilities of yesteryear. Slipping to 12th place, the proliferation of speedy mons on offense teams such as Starmie, Alakazam, and Jolteon has also made Nidoking's job that much more difficult. Not all is doom and gloom for Nidoking however, its combination of Lovely Kiss + Earthquake is still very much respected in the builder. Perhaps we will see Nidoking's viability continue to fluctuate as teams slowly start to take liberties in their Nidoking matchup and non-Sleep Talk Snorlax returns in usage.

- Alakazam (+6)
Alakazam continues to impress in modern GSC. Last year its boost in popularity was easily explained by the popularity of NidoGar structures, but this year its reasons for rising are a little more enigmatic. It seems that offense becomes even more common in the GSC metagame, players are valuing faster offensive threats like Alakazam, Starmie and Jolteon to outpace the slower breakers of old offenses like as Nidoking, Machamp and Vaporeon. Putting aside metagame trends, Alakazam is still a fantastic mon to clean up late game or force progress with its Psychic/Toxic/Fire Punch set. Alakazam's great matchup against Gengar is also valuable along with the utility it can provide with Encore. While Alakazam's usage in official tournaments remains sparse, perhaps its current ranking is a course correction to where it should have been all along now that players have had another year to warm up to it.

- Espeon (-3)
With the current appreciation for Alakazam, it is unsurprising that opinions have soured on Espeon. While Espeon has the advantage of Growth + Baton Pass over Alakazam, Jolteon has surpassed Espeon as the premiere speedy Growther and SpAtk passer. With that niche taken away, Alakazam improves on Espeon's formula of a fast special attacker with recovery, being harder, better, faster, stronger with the surperior recovery option. I don't see much hope for Espeon to regain its lost rankings in the future. It's barely hanging onto the top 25 as is, with Century Express, vani, sulcata, Nalorium, Raichy, RealJester, Chiles Habaneros, and TLTK ranking at or worse than 30th.

- Quagsire (+5)
Thunder is on the forecast with double electric teams on the rise. Time to bust out the Quag. Aside from its obvious advantages against electric types, Quagsire has also seen exploration in the role of a mixed wall, helping teams shore up weaknesses to Gengar and Tyranitar. While Quagsire doesn't mop up games the turn it hits the field, its solid matchups against the metagame's top threats ensures its niche for the foreseeable future. Only Zokuru, false, McMeghan, and Nalorium rank it within their top 20's, but jumping 5 places shows that Quagsire is respected by the general public. Up from #37 only a few years ago, Quagsire continues its deliberate progress up the GSC VR arriving at #27 in 2023.

- Smeargle (-12)
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. After the largest ever jump in last year's VR of 12 places, Smeargle comes crashing back down to right where it started with the largest fall from grace in a single year. With the banning of Trap Pass just after the 2022 VR was published, it is no surprise that Smeargle returns to mediocrity as a gimmicky but not quite cheesy pick. Surprisingly its partner in crime, Umbreon, has not seen a major drop in rankings, despite its Mean Look + Baton Pass set frequently cited as the reasoning for its high ranking last year. But more on that next.

- Forretress (+0) , Umbreon (-1) , Porygon2 (+1)
Despite the lack of overall movement in the rankings this year, the underlying data shows that public opinion has changed in regards to Forretress, Umbreon, and Porygon2. As shown in the z-score chart in the next post, the changes in average rankings for these mons are some of the most statistically significant. As a consequences of the movement of mons around them, these changes in average ranking did not correlate into major shifts in overall ranking. Time will tell if these trends continue, but perhaps there is more to explore with Forretress and Porygon2 while Umbreon's one trick is overvalued.

 

[Siatam]

IMPORTANT: Please use the Smogon classic or festive theme instead of Smogon Dark to view this post (link to profile settings here for convenience). This provides a white background necessary to view the graphs in this post because of the png transparency.

And here's the post with all the charts.

I have used vapicuno's original methodology described here to assemble the VR and tiers. Huge thank you and props for supplying the code used to generate these graphics. I will also be copying his format and explanations, no need to reinvent the wheel and I personally cannot explain all the formulas used to create these charts. I've opted to exclude the "Analysis of Camps" again because I do not feel confident I can present worthwhile analyses.

If anyone has feedback, please let me know.

Without further adieu:
The average outlier-compensated ranks from everyone are

Aggregate Rankings

01 Snorlax
02 Zapdos
03 Cloyster
04 Raikou
05 Gengar
06 Tyranitar
07 Starmie
08 Exeggutor
09 Golem
10 Skarmory
11 Steelix
12 Nidoking
13 Forretress
14 Jynx
15 Machamp
16 Vaporeon
17 Marowak
18 Umbreon
19 Heracross
20 Miltank
21 Alakazam
22 Jolteon
23 Misdreavus
24 Suicune
25 Espeon
26 Rhydon
27 Quagsire
28 Blissey
29 Tentacruel
30 Moltres
31 Smeargle
32 Porygon2
33 Charizard
34 Dragonite
35 Houndoom
36 Kangaskhan
37 Scizor
38 Venusaur
39 Kingdra
40 Clefable
41 Meganium
42 Piloswine
43 Donphan
44 Entei
45 Muk
46 Articuno
47 Ursaring
48 Electabuzz
49 Aerodactyl
50 Tauros
51 Shuckle
52 Sandslash
53 Typhlosion
54 Nidoqueen
55 Jumpluff
56 Ampharos
57 Hitmonlee
58 Omastar
59 Gligar
60 Qwilfish
61 Pikachu

and considering only pokemon that were ranked by 5 or more players, we get the reduced list and final version of the VR,

Reduced Aggregate Rankings

01 Snorlax
02 Zapdos
03 Cloyster
04 Raikou
05 Gengar
06 Tyranitar
07 Starmie
08 Exeggutor
09 Golem
10 Skarmory
11 Steelix
12 Nidoking
13 Forretress
14 Jynx
15 Machamp
16 Vaporeon
17 Marowak
18 Umbreon
19 Heracross
20 Miltank
21 Alakazam
22 Jolteon
23 Misdreavus
24 Suicune
25 Espeon
26 Rhydon
27 Quagsire
28 Blissey
29 Tentacruel
30 Moltres
31 Smeargle
32 Porygon2
33 Charizard
34 Dragonite
35 Houndoom
36 Kangaskhan
37 Scizor
38 Venusaur
39 Kingdra
40 Clefable
41 Meganium
42 Piloswine
43 Donphan
44 Entei
45 Muk
46 Articuno
47 Ursaring
48 Aerodactyl
49 Tauros
50 Shuckle
51 Sandslash
52 Typhlosion
53 Nidoqueen
54 Jumpluff
55 Ampharos
56 Hitmonlee
57 Omastar
58 Gligar
59 Qwilfish
60 Pikachu

Final Aggregate VR

S1:
S2:
A:
B1:
B2:
B3:
B4:
C1:
C2:
C3:
D1:
D2:
E:

Let's go through the whole process.

First the data is cleaned by compensating outliers 1 standard deviation away from the edge of the percentiles expected to contain +/- 1 standard deviation of a normal distribution. This is a modification of the conventional interquartile range (IQR), which I have not chosen to use because 50% of the sample doesn't capture the full variation from what I've seen. The compensation is done by bringing these points to the edge of this extended range. This results in mostly zero, but sometimes one or two outlier corrections. We then plot the outlier-removed data as a function of the integer rank to obtain this graph.

VR Tiering Decisions

Full VR Ranking Plot

and we can zoom in to the top 35 mons where tiering decisions are expected to make more sense,

To read this chart: the x-axis "Integer Ranking" denotes the final ordered ranking the mons received on the VR. The y-axis "ranking with deviation" indicates the average the mon received from votes. The blue vertical lines show the deviation, roughly the highest and lowest placements, the mon received. (Adjusted for outliers)

The colored horizontal lines show how I have constructed the tiers, while the black diagonal line is a 1:1 plot of Integer Ranking vs Ranking with Deviation. A mon placed above the black line received a boost to its final ranking compared to its average rank by virtue of a slightly lower average than its peers. A mon under the black line is under "represented" when it came to the final ranking. Example: Starmie is ranked 7th despite recieving votes averaging 9.43.Steelix is ranked 11th despite receiving votes averaging 9.93.

Up to Steelix the tiers are pretty well defined, but after that there are lots of overlaps between tiers and looking for jumps in the mean ranking is possible but not obvious to the eye. We turn to hierarchical clustering to help obtain the tiers. We form a dissimilarity matrix where the distances between Pokemon X and Y are given by the following: Take the rate at which voters ranked Pokemon X over Pokemon Y, take the logit transform as is done in logistic regression of a Bernoulli-distributed variable, and take the absolute value. Performing what we call a Ward linkage, this yields a dendrogram of the following sort, where the clusters (what we are going to call tiers) formed by setting a reasonable threshold are represented by different colors, and the dissimilarity between each cluster can be thought of as the vertical height of the nearest branch that connects the two clusters.

In other words, the Tyranitar-Gengar tier is a lot closer to the Snorlax-Cloyster tiers (connecting height ~10, note the log scale) than the Machamp cluster (connecting height 20). Note that the order is not preserved by the algorithm, and hierarchical clustering throws away information, so this is just a rough guide to defining the tiers. I have added tier labels to help readers understand how I labelled each cluster.

Dendogram across Snorlax to Houndoom

We want to verify the validity of the clusters obtained from the dendrogram, so we next plot the dissimilarity matrix and draw out the tiers specified.

To read the dissimilarity matrix, note that zero (the darkest value) corresponds to equal number of people voting in favor and against the Pokemon on the Y axis > X axis, and the higher the value, the more one-sided the voting becomes. In other words, the darker, the more indistinguishable the Pokemon on the X and Y axis become, and a well-defined tier would be a fully dark square (read vapicuno's methodology thread for explanations).

This yields the following subdivision which I have decided on:

S1:
S2:
A:
B1:
B2:
B3:
B4:
C1:
C2:
C3:
D1:
D2:
E:

Numerical ranks represent partial tiers, whereas letter ranks represent a more complete separation. I choose to follow precedent and adopt numerical subranks.

Metagame Shifts

This chart shows the difference between this and last year's VRs, together with the uncertainties in the means (not the standard deviation, but the standard deviations divided by sqrt(N-1)).

Rank Improvements from 2022 to 2023

A better way to understand how significant these changes are so as not to mistake changes occurring as due to pure chance is to plot the z-score,

In this chart we can see the large fall offs of Nidoking and Smeargle and newfound viability of Quagsire, Starmie, and Alakazam.
Something of note here is that Forretress's improvement in average ranking was the 7th most statistically significant. Despite this, its final ranking did not change from 2022 to 2023. Similarly Umbreon's decrease in average ranking was very significant, but only dropped one place in the overall VR.

Individual Analyses

For those who are interested to see whose S to C rankings are closest to theirs, you can refer to the chart below. The numbers inside the box go from -100% (full anticorrelation) to 100% (full correlation). They are sorted by the S1 to C1 dendrogram order (and the light squares represent the camps).

And finally, these are the relative ranks of everyone. Blue = disfavor, Red = favor. Cyan lines demarcate tier cutoffs.

Individual Ranking Graphic

Closing Remarks

The large number of graphs may seem daunting, and to people who aren't quantitatively trained, this may be really confusing. I recommend just glancing over the spoilers on the first read, only thoroughly analyzing them after you've gone through the more important graphs that have been left unhidden. I'm interested to know what you can infer from these trends, I hope we can keep of the good discussion this year!

Once again thank you everyone who participated in this project!

 

[Silhouettes]

unrelated to meta but clef-aero are written in black text in the dark theme so it’s very hard to read, not a big deal but figured it was worth mentioning