Hm, as I look at it as of right now, Tangela dropping to PU is unlikely for me, Tangela is such a great tank, access to Regenerator, and annoying healing moves. That's literally the reason it rose. I didnt care about PU then, but I assumed it rose for this reason, because I had played it and it is goooooood. It was even used alot in NU. Without Tangela, mons like Lycanroc, Bewear, Golurk and other physical mons that hit like a truck, becomes more troublesome for RU, so Tangela dropping from there, im pretty sure is unlikely, They need Tangela, we still got them mons that have enough bulk such as
and maybe 
- God rat!!!!; finally another good Steel-type in PU; checks alot of the potentially broken picks. - Great rocker; EdgeQuake coverage from a 130 Atk mon is nothing to sneeze at. - Another excellent pick for HO; could also run Boots Pivot or potentially an offensive Specs set. - Good? Seems outclassed by Rhydon at first glance, but you know that Glare is broken. - Shell Smash. - Another form of hazard removal, fares decently well against common setters. - Lovely Kiss is good, but will face competition against Mesprit. - Cleric Bird with Defog.
It gained Close Combat which is better than Superpower. With Knock Off, Play Rough/Iron Tail and Sucker Punch, it has an amazing coverage. Imo it's borderline for PU. it's a fine mon, it mainly absorbs status and can Defog well with Boots now. I think offensive sets are outclassed tho. he also got better with Boots + new Rapid Spin speed boost. 125 Atk is really nice too. Its bad speed means most of scarfers will outspeed it even at +2 with both Levitate and Boots you're not afraid by any entry hazards anymore. Reliable mon for sure and nice addition to the tier. It looks terrifying honestly. If you bring your Fairy mon, you can potentially eat its Poison/Steel Coverage. Even things like Ferroseed won't appreciate 120 BP Heat Crash. Probably borderline too. it's good but unfortunately it lost Z-Lovely Kiss. To summarise I'd say it's basically a faster and stronger Mr.Rime. excellent mon with plenty of options. Boots + Teleport will certainly be a fair one. Will we keep this tho? the emblem of last gen PU is back and it's surely better than before. It has so many sets it makes it unpredictable. I doubt it stays among us. cool mon to play with: all you have to do is spamming Head Smash with 0 recoil. Maybe defensive can now be a thing since it gained Body Press. it's the kind of mon I tend to ignore, I don't really see a reason to use it. Sorry! should be gone soon for obvious reasons. really nice for offense. We know what it does. Btw is Unburden + Throat Spray a thing? King Rock set is annoying to deal with while Choice Band can really hurt. I wouldn't quickban this now, please let us use this for a while! it's too strong for the tier imo even if we have answers (e.g. Magmortar/Magmar/Flareon). All you have to do is to get rid of Fire/Steel types. was banned last gen and I think it's going to be banned as well for the same reasons as before. so, NU emblem dropped. Well we know already know what it does. EQ/Stone Edge/Heat Crash hit hard everything. that's an interesting addition, plenty of options are possible. it will surely have some competition with Rhydon, but the fact it doesn't rely on Eviolite, has Glare and can get rid of status with Shed Skin is its advantage. Coil + Rest is usable as well. solid mon we already used. It's reliable although predictable.
These were the mons council pretty much immediately and unanimously considered uncounterable incredible breakers that had absolutely no place in PU. I'm also lumping them together because of the strong lack of anyone arguing in their favor. Magmortar is Heatmor on steroids and only really loses to what, SpDef Appletun or Corsola-G? Guzzlord's Dark/Dragon STAB is insane and does wonders versus pretty much all the good walls at the moment, it lacks some power but makes up for it by also having insane bulk. Absol kills everything, Liepard alone is quite good at the moment due to our poor Dark/Knock resists and Absol is way stronger, gets Close Combat in addition to Play Rough, and nearly 2HKOs offensive Alcremie without even predicting with Iron Tail because that's fair. Kingler hits Sheer Force Life Orb Liquidation on most of the tier and has X-Scissor or Ice Beam for everything else, plus Agility if you want to win offensively too. This had a bit more interest, 100 attack isn't crazy and 115 Speed isn't unheard of in PU. That's slower than Boltund with only 10 more attack and no useful offensive ability. We do have a decent few fat Grasses like Lurantis and Gourgeist, a number of fast or priority-using mons to abuse its low bulk, and several other Speed demons like Jolteon and new toy Accelgor to consider. However, Zydog still hits a much higher threat threshold than these mons. This wasn't considered so much an unfair breaker as much as an offense-invalidator, the immediate best revenge killer with crazy coverage and the ability to hit anything coming in with coverage moves like Crunch, Iron Tail, Superpower, Toxic, etc. And it goes without saying but Thousand Arrows is insane STAB. It's pretty clear that the meta would start warping around this one dog just forcing everything out with a huge threat level over and over, not to mention you'd have to run Gourgeist or a couple of other mons on every team. Its power, coverage, much better hazard matchup compared to other speed demons, and versatility gave us no qualms with voting it out. This was a unanimous council ban but there were some pro-Mesprit voices in the room and Discord. This one honestly didn't get much discussion among us, dual 105/105 offenses and the ability to nail everything in the tier was pretty much an instant killer. Everyone knows how versatile Mesprit is, just between Choice Specs and physically offensive sets running Drain or Fire Punch there's a complete lack of reasonable switchins and this is before we start talking about how it can fit Rocks, Healing Wish, Nasty Plot, SubCM, Scarf, and a half dozen other things into its repertoire. And to mitigate it, you've got sometimes losing to Ferroseed, not always 2HKOing Perrserker, being slightly slow, and having good but no longer insane bulk. Like I said, nobody on council really saw any merit in keeping this even though we would've loved to have been able to. If this is really disappointing, at least remember Mesprit (and definitely Zygarde too and maybe a few other bans) will be rising to NU or higher on the 15th anyway. These two stay in the tier by a margin of one vote. Cinccino has been insane every time its touched PU before but this time we do have Ferroseed, Qwilfish, Corsola-G, Gourgeist, and other fat contact punishers and Ghost-types to neuter it. More crucially PU is also faster than its ever been, Cinccino still stands out speed-wise but it's not as insane as it was in SM. Still very much unclear whether it'll stay, the obvious flipside to this is how devastating Tail Slap/Bullet Seed/imagination is plus King's Rock seems extremely effective at stealing games. Jynx seems a good bit stronger than GMime/Rime, both were already excellent but now imagine if Jynx had more firepower than Rime, a much better Speed tier, and the ability to outspeed and Lovely Kiss all our normal Ice-resists. Enough of the council wanted to give it a shot since it can no longer effectively Speed boost with Z-Lovely Kiss and we're already prepping for a good few strong Ices and Psychics (and Ice/Psychics) but don't be surprised if this one goes soon. Very strong QDer but accrued 0 ban votes due to the complete lack of coverage for Steel-types and abysmal speed. At +1 you do manage to beat out Boltund but still lose to all common scarfers, most of which can KO it fairly comfortably, as well as Jolteon and Accelgor. It does sport a really nice special attack stat but is hurt by hazards much worse than something like Mr. Rime if it tries to go Choice Specs. We're willing to give this a serious shot. There were some drops that still look extremely powerful but nobody thought might warrant an immediate ban. In particular Rhydon got a good bit of conversation while I personally think Accelgor is going to be extremely powerful in this new meta. Just know we are absolutely keeping an eye on these guys.
So, PUBL stuff. Currently none of the mons previously in PUBL look like they'd be suddenly balanced in the new meta. We're always watching to see if things like Orbeetle or Rotom-Frost can get retested, but none of what we got seems like it would be a significant game changer for anything that we have the potential to reintroduce, meaning it's just not a high priority right now to try them out. There are still Silvallies that seem like they might be ok, we got way too many questions today about if we were going to be unbanning types like Grass or Fighting. Not right now. First of all, people in general are hard underrating the kind of threat Silvally-Poison is. Bug hasn't really popped off because it's much harder to use with that hazard weakness, but it's important to recognize that the first decently typed Silvally we've reintroduced has already been pretty nuts with powerful SD and Work Up sets. Any type we could reintroduce seems like it would be even more powerful than Poison. Also, while the new mons put us at a bit of a higher power level, it's a bit of a reach to immediately suggest they'll be able to nerf a stronger Silvally form's presence that much. Most of them are hit by the same simple coverage, lack recovery, aren't dying to tank a +2 Multi Attack, etc. 
is something we've been discussing more recently. With perfect coverage, a fast enough speed tier, not having to worry about the weakness to rocks, and sleep, it is something we are worried might be too good of a breaker. Being able to potentially break every single defensive answer with either sleep or one prediction is something we believe could be overbearing. However Jynx is not without its flaws. Even with boots, it struggles to get in consistently because of its frail (borderline non-existent) bulk, sometimes only being able to get in on a predicted water move or a very weak hit. We would love to hear some more thoughts on this throughout the week! Is something that I personally think could be a bit much for the tier, and some other council members share the same sentiment. With access to boots + sturdy, stopping Costa from setting up can be quite tough, and when it does find its way to +2 it can be tough to stop it. With versatility in items moves and move sets it can choose what it wants to beat (in most cases). Faster scarfers and very bulky mons that won't be hit super effectively can usually eat a hit and take it out, however this can be circumvented with little chip damage because of +2 Aqua Jet, and other times just needing Stealth Rocks up. The usage stats aren't a very good look for Carracosta though, as seen here it only won 2 games out of 6 that it was seen in. Again, the communities thoughts would be appreciated! has been a hot topic ever since it dropped here for another generation! With the wide move pool, fast speed, and the ability to cheese through otherwise checks with Kings Rock, the council is keeping a close eye on it. There hasn't been as much said on Cinccino as opposed to the other mons here, but I'm not sure there needs to be. I personally want to wait and see what happens this week, and that seems to be the vibe from the rest of the council too. It can be overbearing, so lets wait and see if it happens.
is an old friend that continues to come back into the conversation of being too much. Some council members pointed out that it is tough to fit a hard resist to most of Liepards sets right now. Its Knock Offs do a ton to most builds, it can bluff choiced sets and Knock Off into Gunk Shot your Alcremie for a lot, or U-turn chip your generally bulky mons until they're eventually in range. It is a tough mon to maneuver around, but might need some more hard evidence from actual games before a decision is made. hasn't been doing as hot as we thought it would. When looking at it on paper, it has a ton going for it. Solid bulk on one side which will help it set up, it is strong with a good offensive typing for builds that consistent of grass + ground types, and even some techs like reflect u turn and rest talk sets. However it does struggle to get through steels like Togedemaru which saw a lot of usage this week in PUWC, and others like Perrserker. Faster physical scarfers also put an end to it if it can only get up to +1. It could get out of hand, but this just feels like a very threatening but managable mon in the meta.
(poison) has seen a big up-tick in use recently, specifically with Work Up Mixed sets. Remember those common Grass + Ground builds that were referenced earlier? Silvally-Poison does well vs those as well because of +1 Grass Pledge/Surf. With Sandaconda being the premiere Stealth Rocker right now over Runerigus, it makes Silvally-Poison even tougher to stop. I don't think the council has a definitive opinion yet on its healthiness but this is a very notable trend going on right now, so I figured it was worth mentioning!
I'm glad it dropped because it's good for my Trick Room team. It can also pair well with Tangela as a regecore. It might be compared with Lickylicky who is naturally immunised to Taunt/Encore and have some offensive presence. same as Audino, it's imo the best lead for TR. It gained Body Press to be less Passive and Misty Explosion seems nice to bring your ideal sweeper under TR. cool addition for defensive/stallish teams. It's a classic mon we all know but don't forget it can Teleport now. you guys won't believe what Ditto gained this gen! Nah I'm kidding it's still the same mon. eh it's borderline for this tier I guess. What can really switch safely against Specs Drampa? And remember it has Glare, Roost or CM as well. It's also already in my TR team! I really like this mon, it chips physical attackers and support the team with spikes/t-spikes. It also has Haze to prevent set-up and Stomping Tantrum/Grass Bomb for extra coverage to hit opposite Garbodor/Rhydon. I expected NU to keep this. Anyway welcome to PU! that's an excellent suicide lead for hyper offense but Sand Rush set should be mentioned too. another Fire type mon is always a good thing. It can hit other Fire types with Scorching Sand and has interesting options (SubNasty, Specs...) and I look forward to play with it! cool addition as well. Either pivot or special sweeper will be fine. my #1 favourite drop. It reminds me old PU <3 basically the same reaction as Ninetales. SD + Blitz/HH/Wild Charge looks very cool. it's going to be fine for defensive teams. my #2nd favourite drop but I couldn't tell if it's banworthy or not now. another symbolic mon of SM PU here. Bring back Gurdurr and Mesprit and we'll be back in the future. It also lost Pursuit but gained Poltergeist. What I like with this mon is the several set you can run, either physical or special (CM + RestTalk set was annoying before) which makes it pretty unpredictable. Nice one too. welcome back dude. it's also back but I honestly think Gourgeist is better because faster + Shadow Sneak. Let's see what it can do. a bulky Water type which have slow U-Turn and offensive presence should fit perfectly in PU.
Before new drops happened, soulgazer brought up Protective Pads Cinccino as a tech that allows it to bypass contact-based items and abilities like Sandaconda's and Qwilfish's Rocky Helmet, as well as Ferroseed's and Togedemaru's Iron Barbs.
I was tinkering with sets for some of the NFEs that had previously dropped (Metang, Magmar, Combusken, and Gabite being the most usable of the bunch, but these were pretty niche in this last meta imo), and I mentioned Specs Teleport Magmar and Heavy-Duty Boots Vital Spirit Teleport+Wisp Magmar as potential sets for it. Mz said his team had used CS Magmar in PUWC, but it was more or less lackluster, and HJAD talked briefly about having used Eviolite 3 attacks + Teleport, but no one was really impressed by Magmar (just something fun to use).Specs offered his position on the meta - the most threatening Pokemon to him (pre 11/15 drops) were Carracosta, Frosmoth, and Jynx. For him, Carracosta and Jynx were just the sort of Pokemon that are very effective in practice and difficult to stop post-setup (as evidenced by what we've seen in PUWC). Specs felt Frosmoth was threatening in a different sort of way; it's something that's not super obviously broken at first glance, but the more he played against it, the more worried he became about how balanced it is. HJAD also agreed with regard to Specs' stance on Carracosta; this is a threat that sets up very reliably, especially if Sturdy and Heavy-Duty Boots are used in tandem. If it were difficult to set up with, this would've been a balancing factor for it, but for HJAD, this was not the case in this meta. Luckily, there were new drops on 11/15 to help make Carracosta much more palatable, ex. Poliwrath and Tangela (if physical sets). Similarly, there are a lot of drops that check Jynx nicely, ex. Spiritomb, Alolan-Persian, Skuntank, fat Wishiwashi, etc., and this assuaged many of the council members' fears that Jynx would still be too much for the meta. (we lost to RU and we banned (Dragon)).
Council talked a fair bit about which Pokemon could be unbanned; I mentioned Basculin, given that Poliwrath and Tangela just dropped and the fact it hasn't had overlap with other strong checks to Water-types like Ferroseed, Qwilfish, Appletun, Lurantis, etc. this gen. Thievul was another Pokemon in PUBL that Mz, termi, and soulgazer talked about being balanced potentially due to Clefairy's presence in the meta. Noctowl was another - while it does have Heat Wave, Togedemaru being near-ubiquitous and the meta just being a lot faster and stronger now plays into Noctowl not being as threatening as it once was. Lastly, tlenit brought up Silvally-Grass, -Psychic, -Electric, and -Ground as potential unbans. I agreed that Silvally-Psychic really doesn't look that threatening when you consider we now have Pokemon like Spiritomb, Alolan Persian, Ferroseed, Togedemaru, Accelgor, etc. to help keep it in check. Silvally-Dragon was banned unanimously with there not being a whole lot of counterplay that can answer both physically offensive and specially offensive sets - it places too much pressure on you at builder, and it is just really tough to find reliable answers for this. Drampa narrowly avoided a ban; those who voted to keep it (MZ, Specs, termi, and I) talked about it being very strong, but reasonable to pressure offensively with many of its checks being faster than it. Additionally, some new drops that landed like Carbink, Clefairy, Audino, etc. have a workable match-up against it. Anyone who plays SM though will remember this calc: 252+ SpA Choice Specs Drampa Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Clefairy: 157-186 (45.6 - 54%) -- guaranteed 2HKO and that Drampa has access to Energy Ball / Hydro Pump (Surf) along with CM for potentially breaking Carbink. In reverse, Carbink also got Body Press, so match-ups between these Pokemon aren't really one-sided in either direction. I anticipate Teleport Clefairy will be relatively common this meta, as will Drampa if it stays.
Current Metagame Threats Drampa : Lycanroc : Other Threats :
Stall : Conclusion :
Alright, when Drampa dropped my first initial thought was to get this as far as I ever can get of PU (hehe, so to PUBL), because the tier reminded a lot of early NUPL meta that I played a lot. There Drampa was magnificent and Mr. TonyFlygon abused literally the F out of it. First of all, I have not seen Tony using it in current meta, so I'm still bit scared. Jokes aside tho, what earlier NU meta game lacked was steels, fairies and ghost types. Now PU has all three thanks to DLC drops and not to mention of generally fatter backbones like Audino.1-
Drampa is a pure nuisance in the current SS PU metagame, with a monstrous base 135 spa and access to high-base power STAB moves in Draco Meteor and Hyper Voice paired to his excellent special movepool. As soon as it dropped to PU, I was pretty skeptical about its presence in the tier and thought it would maybe be too much of a threat, but since it was manageable in sm and the Metagames is sort of close to how sm was, I thought it might be balanced. However, what made me come here today and write this post is the fact that I realized SM PU Metagame was a lot more offensive than SS, which is super beneficial for Drampa. He doesn't have any sort of defensive counterplay just as it was in SM but the Metagame isn't bulky enough to handle drampa and isn't strong enough to prevent Drampa from coming too often and risk losing momentum or giving free turns to huge offensive threats by using Draco Meteor. But Drampa's affect on the Metagame isn't only about Ingame, It's even worse in the Builder. I've seen a lot of people saying "yeah you shouldn't try to check drampa defensively, play around it in order to not let it in" or "Drampa is easy to play around, just use fairy + normal resist / av hitmonchan and you'll be fine" I'm sorry but, I don't consider using a hole core in order to beat 1 mon healthy at all but that's not what I want to point out. First, checking Drampa offensively UNLESS you have Frosmoth or Av Hitmon is a pure joke, and Frosmoth isn't a reliable switch-in since it can't recover properly and dies to Fire Blast more often than not (I'll take in count the Avedo argument of "it can miss"). Add that to the fact that Drampa actually pairs well with a lot of pivots and every other offensive mon drops to either Draco Meteor or Hyper Voice. I know that it is slow as balls so it seems to be manageable, but I really think this thing is too much of an offensive threat to take its speed into consideration here.
To sum up a little what I just said, Drampa is a pure nuisance and has no counterplay. It brings nothing to the current metagame apart from the fact that it forces huge reflections in the teambuilder and ingame to know how to manage it. I sincerely believe that it should be banned.
I dont believe Lycanrock is actually tricky at all. It's good addition to our metagame with very predictable moveset(s) (altho it probs moves to NU due sand being one of the most common playstyles there rn), but as additional defensive checks: Sableye, Sandslash, Metang (access to prio too), Tangela (yes there was mention of bulky grass types, but to be more precise), Lefeon (works as offensive check with scarf), Runerigus, Quagsire, Gourgeist and Corsola-G. Pretty much all of them are sitting on Lycanrock and giving hard time for it. Offensively we have for example (that are not annoyed by accelerock): Togedemaru, Persian-A, Qwilfish (works definsively fine too), scarf Dugtrio-A and Gourgeist.2-
Lycanroc is a little bit tricky, it can overwhelm easily a lot of teams and Swords Dance + Stone Edge + Close Combat + Priority might be a little bit too much for our tier, but for Lycan, I think I need to see more before I can tell whether or not it should get banned. It's obviously a big threat, but the defensive counterplay is there. Sandaconda, Stunfisk, def Carbink, or even the various defensive fights and bulky grasses check it or even counter it quite easily. The offensive counterplay is a little more restricted because this Pokemon is mine of nothing very fast and has a fairly high attack stat which coupled with its powerful moves can be very devastating.
As I said, I think we should until the evidence is provided that Lycan is dumb broken, which I don't think it is. It can be hard to deal with if played accordingly but that's about it from my experience at least.
I believe Rapidash's one of better if not the best shot is to be defensive supporter than a breaker. It definitely lacks good movepool and if you end up clicking the main core of flare blitz/wild charge/high horsepower you end up trading urself due to recoil as two of the aforementioned moves includes it. It's support set cripples physical mons and especially steels with flame body and morning sun lets it heal taken chip or you can get toxic off against plausable waters eg. Quagsire that hard walls it otherwise (unless we use the niche set of power herb + solar blade). Offensively Rapidash can't really pass through Runerigus, Quagsire, Altaria, Sandaconda, Appletun and Corsola-G for example. Offensively there is lot of faster things to revenge kill this thing. I believe Rapidash ends up being as overrated as it was in NU when it first dropped.3-
Rapidash quickly established itself as one of the biggest threats of the tier and I think this is for two main reasons: Rapidash is a fire type, and it is an offensive type that has always been extremely strong in PU because we are sorely lacking in fire resists. The second reason is its coverage and speed, already that the number of fire resists is low, if Rapidash's movepool allows it to break through a large part of them it becomes really hard to deal with. Wild Charge for bulky waters, High Horsepower for other Rapidash, a recovery move with Morning Sun, Rapidash has everything it needs. We can regret the lack of a powerful grass type move other than Solar Blade, but it wouldn't have been PU at first so I can't complain.
Jynx is another Pokemon that had quickly established itself as one of the most powerful breakers and sweepers of the post-dlc2 PU, victim of many rather mixed opinions, separating the pro-bans and those who were against. I sincerely think that Jynx has just gone from borderline to very strong in my eyes. Its ice type is still extremely strong offensively and it stilll has an unresisted coverage but the presence of the new fire-type threats such as Ninetales and Rapidash and the threat I mentioned earlier in Lycanroc make it much less free than it was before. Moreover, Stall's rise in popularity does not help it at all to do what he would like to do and I think that's what made it go from almost broken to just a powerful wallbreaker.
I think this is interesting topic, because of our lack of defensive mons through this gen. Stall is coming strongly through right now and I have seen lot of experimenting with it as of late. How do we tackle stall tho outside of strong breakers? The very forgotten move called taunt I guess should be introduced, yup, its still there to give a struggle for stalls. We have also gotten lot of good taunters with latest drops eg. Sableye, Qwilfish, Golbat, Persian-A to name few.4-
Stall is an archetype that has never been very popular in SS PU as we have always lacked "Stall mons". But since the recent shifts, we have gained back a lot of great stall pillars. After having one-on-one additions such as Flareon, Ferroseed, Corsola-Galar, Quagsire, Tangela, Audino, Sableye, Clefairy, Ditto, Carbink have really brought the stall up to its peak. I sincerely think this is one of the most effective playstyles atm and I look forward to seeing how the players will adapt to this metagame.
