Hello!
I hope you've all been enjoying the wild ride that has been NU so far!
Getting right to the point, we've already seen some crazy things on this ride that needed to be taken care of, so we have our first wave of NU Quickbans coming in today! There may be one more wave of quickbans before the roomtour this weekend, but I'll have more on that later.
Quickbans
Silvally-Ghost
I've been waiting for the tier where the buffed Silvallies would finally find their place. Turns out, that place might be NU. Already, Silvally-Ground, Fairy, and Steel have been common sights, the former two being terrifying sweepers and the latter being a great Defogger and pivot. However, Silvally-Ghost stands above them all as an insanely powerful sweeper that can end games on a dime. This is mainly due to the addition of Download through Power of Alchemy and Superpower. Superpower gives it a nuclear coverage option against the Dark and Normal-types that could otherwise handle it, while the Download effect made it easy to snowball, often giving Silvally +1 Attack on switch-in, which would then be further boosted by Swords Dance. Many, MANY games over the last few days have ended in a Silvally-Ghost sweep, making Silvally-Ghost an obvious candidate for a quickban.
Gourgeist (Base Form)
We really thought we could run from our past. How foolish we were. The slower cousin of the once-menace of OU Gourgeist-Small, base Gourgeist fell all the way down to NU along with its other two forms, Large and Super, due to the massive power they suffered from losing Moonblast and 130 BP Deafening Shrieks. However, now that we're at such a low power level, the pumpkin demon of JolteMons' past once again found a place to terrify the entire metagame, destroying anything in its path with its double Special Attack, great offensive typing, and sufficient coverage in Focus Blast. Base Gourgeist was the best at this, with its workable Speed tier allowing it to effectively use both Choice Specs and Scarf sets. While Gourgeist does have a decent amount of counterplay in the form of ability negation from Wandering Spirit or Neutralizing Gas, bulky Normal-types like Snorlax, or faster Flying and Fire-types like Talonflame, Gourgeist was still oppressive as teams without these would just get run over and Gourgeist had ways around standard counterplay with good play. And this was shown in just 2 days, with further adaptation for Gourg being possible, like Nasty Plot sets. Not to mention, Gourgeist is pretty decent in RU and probably should've been tiered there anyway. Thus, we felt that it was best to ban Base Gourgeist now before it could cause more problems down the road. We'll keep a close eye on Gourgeist's Large and Super forms.
Turtonator
I knew that someone would get swept by Optimistic Shell Turtonator spamming drawbackless Overheats and Draco Meteors one day, but I didn't expect it to come so soon, much less getting to the point where it'd get banned from a tier. But alas, in the weaker tier of NU, a Pokemon with drawbackless Shell Smash and the aforementioned drawbackless STAB Overheat and Draco Meteor was bound to be broken, no matter its stats. Turtonator, simply put, was too easy to sweep with, especially since its bulk made it easy to setup and hard to revenge kill, requiring teams to have multiple Choice Scarf users, a Bonemerang Marowak, or the currently uncommon Aerodactyl or Swellow to beat it. Optimistic Turtonator was one of the funniest things I've ever added to JolteMons, but it's had its fun in NU and has to go, at least for now. Enjoy this replay of Turtonator getting an Ultra Soul Blade on the way out.
And that's all for now! But, if you've been playing NU for the last couple days, you may notice something missing from this list. About that....
On The Bubble
Magmortar
Magmortar was the very first Pokemon that people found to be broken in the tier, and, on paper, it's very easy to see why. Its STAB coverage in Fire and Fighting is extremely hard to handle, with the few viable things that resist both either getting destroyed by Thunderbolt (Mantine, Jellicent, Talonflame) or lacking recovery (Dragalge), while few others can stomach a neutral hit from one of its STABs enough to call itself a check (namely SpD Gastrodon, but also Diancie). Magmortar also has a decently flexible fourth moveslot, where it can use Vacuum Wave to get the jump on revenge kill attempts, Hidden Power Grass, Scorching Sands, or Psychic to handle its few counters, or Recover to out last bulkier teams. So, it's no shocker that Magmortar is right on the precipice of being banned. But why are we not banning it right now? Simply put, we do have a little hope that the metagame can adapt around it. Magmortar, as does every Pokemon, has plenty of weaknesses, mainly its meh Speed tier that's only slightly shored up by Vacuum Wave and awful bulk, which allows faster foes to always force it out, thus forcing the Magmortar user to find a way to get it in a again. Plus, with more time, we might be able to find some defensive counterplay to it. But, like I said, Magmortar is right on the precipice of getting banished to NUBL because of its current lack of defensive counterplay. We'll reevaluate it on Friday, along with anything else that pops up, to see if it needs to be quickbanned for the first roomtour this weekend.
That's all for now!
See you soon!
I hope you've all been enjoying the wild ride that has been NU so far!
Getting right to the point, we've already seen some crazy things on this ride that needed to be taken care of, so we have our first wave of NU Quickbans coming in today! There may be one more wave of quickbans before the roomtour this weekend, but I'll have more on that later.
Quickbans
Silvally-Ghost
I've been waiting for the tier where the buffed Silvallies would finally find their place. Turns out, that place might be NU. Already, Silvally-Ground, Fairy, and Steel have been common sights, the former two being terrifying sweepers and the latter being a great Defogger and pivot. However, Silvally-Ghost stands above them all as an insanely powerful sweeper that can end games on a dime. This is mainly due to the addition of Download through Power of Alchemy and Superpower. Superpower gives it a nuclear coverage option against the Dark and Normal-types that could otherwise handle it, while the Download effect made it easy to snowball, often giving Silvally +1 Attack on switch-in, which would then be further boosted by Swords Dance. Many, MANY games over the last few days have ended in a Silvally-Ghost sweep, making Silvally-Ghost an obvious candidate for a quickban.
Gourgeist (Base Form)
We really thought we could run from our past. How foolish we were. The slower cousin of the once-menace of OU Gourgeist-Small, base Gourgeist fell all the way down to NU along with its other two forms, Large and Super, due to the massive power they suffered from losing Moonblast and 130 BP Deafening Shrieks. However, now that we're at such a low power level, the pumpkin demon of JolteMons' past once again found a place to terrify the entire metagame, destroying anything in its path with its double Special Attack, great offensive typing, and sufficient coverage in Focus Blast. Base Gourgeist was the best at this, with its workable Speed tier allowing it to effectively use both Choice Specs and Scarf sets. While Gourgeist does have a decent amount of counterplay in the form of ability negation from Wandering Spirit or Neutralizing Gas, bulky Normal-types like Snorlax, or faster Flying and Fire-types like Talonflame, Gourgeist was still oppressive as teams without these would just get run over and Gourgeist had ways around standard counterplay with good play. And this was shown in just 2 days, with further adaptation for Gourg being possible, like Nasty Plot sets. Not to mention, Gourgeist is pretty decent in RU and probably should've been tiered there anyway. Thus, we felt that it was best to ban Base Gourgeist now before it could cause more problems down the road. We'll keep a close eye on Gourgeist's Large and Super forms.
Turtonator
I knew that someone would get swept by Optimistic Shell Turtonator spamming drawbackless Overheats and Draco Meteors one day, but I didn't expect it to come so soon, much less getting to the point where it'd get banned from a tier. But alas, in the weaker tier of NU, a Pokemon with drawbackless Shell Smash and the aforementioned drawbackless STAB Overheat and Draco Meteor was bound to be broken, no matter its stats. Turtonator, simply put, was too easy to sweep with, especially since its bulk made it easy to setup and hard to revenge kill, requiring teams to have multiple Choice Scarf users, a Bonemerang Marowak, or the currently uncommon Aerodactyl or Swellow to beat it. Optimistic Turtonator was one of the funniest things I've ever added to JolteMons, but it's had its fun in NU and has to go, at least for now. Enjoy this replay of Turtonator getting an Ultra Soul Blade on the way out.
And that's all for now! But, if you've been playing NU for the last couple days, you may notice something missing from this list. About that....
On The Bubble
Magmortar
Magmortar was the very first Pokemon that people found to be broken in the tier, and, on paper, it's very easy to see why. Its STAB coverage in Fire and Fighting is extremely hard to handle, with the few viable things that resist both either getting destroyed by Thunderbolt (Mantine, Jellicent, Talonflame) or lacking recovery (Dragalge), while few others can stomach a neutral hit from one of its STABs enough to call itself a check (namely SpD Gastrodon, but also Diancie). Magmortar also has a decently flexible fourth moveslot, where it can use Vacuum Wave to get the jump on revenge kill attempts, Hidden Power Grass, Scorching Sands, or Psychic to handle its few counters, or Recover to out last bulkier teams. So, it's no shocker that Magmortar is right on the precipice of being banned. But why are we not banning it right now? Simply put, we do have a little hope that the metagame can adapt around it. Magmortar, as does every Pokemon, has plenty of weaknesses, mainly its meh Speed tier that's only slightly shored up by Vacuum Wave and awful bulk, which allows faster foes to always force it out, thus forcing the Magmortar user to find a way to get it in a again. Plus, with more time, we might be able to find some defensive counterplay to it. But, like I said, Magmortar is right on the precipice of getting banished to NUBL because of its current lack of defensive counterplay. We'll reevaluate it on Friday, along with anything else that pops up, to see if it needs to be quickbanned for the first roomtour this weekend.
That's all for now!
See you soon!
(6.8)
(6.8)
(6.8)
(6.7)
(6.5)
(6.3)
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(6.3)
