np: SV UU Stage 2.1 - HandClap

[Lily]

I don't really feel up to rebuttaling everything here but I just feel like you ignored half of what I said for the sake of making a point... like I understand you feel that the 3 mons you listed aren't enough but you kinda just ignored the other 10 mins I listed?? Obviously none of them are hard counters, neither are the "big 3" but it's strange to just disregard them.

I'm interested in the fact that most of the replays you listed showed teams that actually -don't- rely on Quagsire or Scream Tail. For example, in the last replay you linked, an Iron Hands build that even has what's essentially the perfect set for the matchup (Tera Ghost vs Tera Ghost Wo-Chien) and even faces the rare non-Encore Tinkaton (the only mon in the team that it can even set up on safely) still loses thanks to some effective in-game workarounds. And just skimming through the masters thread shows a similar trend; the mons that check hands are common bc they check hands, sure, but they also check other very relevant mons and would be strong choices regardless.

You're not forced into using 2-3 mons. See, for example, this game, where pif ensures pdt's Iron Hands makes minimal progress through hazard pressure and good play, or this one where it gets owned by udongirl's Tinkaton, or this one where psyterrain destroys it, or here where it loses to Tsareena, or here where it trades with a ttar and accomplishes nothing else, or here where another offense squad owns it, etc. There a few more games I didn't grab bc r realistically nobody is watching all of these anyway, but the point is that people have been finding their way around Iron Hands in game, despite these replays not involving any dedicated counters.

My message didn't come through accurately in my last post so I'm sorry for that. When I was saying that lazy building is frustrating me, I was largely referring to the "cookie cutter cores" that aim to just defensively beat everything and slap on an offensive mon to win faster. I mentioned the tinka talon gastro tsar code because that was the most common / popular one, not because I specifically meant that one. I mean even now you have people running their old teams that used that core, slapping on a quag > gastro and complaining that it's not good enough vs the hands... Idk. That's frustrating to me because I know there's a lot more room for fun in this tier. In fact, even in my own replays (the ones you chose not to link), I tried to use stuff that I felt was fun and/or creative, and those teams don't at all struggle with Iron Hands. I've laddered enough with both to say that with confidence.

Like I said before, still not disagreeing that it's possibly overly restricting or an unhealthy builder presence. Just disagreeing with the idea that you can only beat it with a miniscule number of mons. Plenty of games have shown otherwise. Offensively checking it isn't easy but it's clearly pretty doable. I'll probably lean ban anyway in the end solely off the potential of the lure sets but we'll see.

 

[skippergamez]

I haven’t gotten reqs (might not entirely) but I’ll give my two cents on the hands.

I would vote ban, but I would be sorta fine with it stayibg. It can run so many things, but my main reason for supporting ban is…

We banned Hydreigon

Hydreigon did a very similar thing as Iron Hands, it was a very clickable Mon, which was healthy, but what pushed it over the edge was it’s Sub Tera +2 Boosting set, which is EXACTLY the problem we are facing with Hands. Yes, Iron Hands can be dealt with, but you lose SO MUCH momentum when using Offense teams against it, forcing Balance onto many teams. Heck, I think Iron Hands is more banworthy than OU Chien-Pao, because at least Chien-Pao could be dealt with by all play styles. Anyways, thanks for listening to me repeat what every ban person has said, thank you

 

[Corporate Donkey]

I think it's time I finally give my two cents about iron hands, because the issue of it being in UU has been bothering me for a while.

First thing's first, I was unsure for a while what I would vote regarding iron hands if I participated in the suspect test, however after playing on the ladder and thinking about hands for a while, I am certain I would vote ban on iron hands, no questions asked.

To avoid sounding like a broken record of all of the complaints about iron hands recently, I'll keep my problems with it brief. While the offensive pressure iron hands exerts is part of the problem, the biggest issue is this offensive pressure combined with it being seemingly unkillable. This insane survivability when paired with tera definitely pushes iron hands over the edge in my eyes. And while there definitely is some counterplay to iron hands, both defensively and offensively, the pokemon itself is just very constricting to the meta, and feels like it currently has an overall negative impact on the metagame.

There is one thing I will disclose before I talk about what I think makes iron hands broken.
Iron Hands is far from an instant win condition, you still need to
However, I still think it is too strong for the current UU power level and is not a healthy pokemon to keep in the tier.

One of the biggest arguments I've seen for keeping iron hands is that it is a good from of centralization, however I strongly disagree with this argument. The major reason why I disagree with iron hands being a form of good centralization is that currently iron hands is warping the metagame around itself as opposed to keeping it together. Now at a glance, iron hands actually does look like a pokemon that could hold a tier together, being a splashable pokemon that checks some prominent offensive threats and can dish out good damage. However, now there's the problem of iron hands requiring a lot of work to be checked itself, since the same traits that on paper can be beneficial to the meta in turn start to cause multiple issues when it comes to answering iron hands. Defensively checking iron hands is not impossible, however it requires a lot, and while one of the biggest defensive answers to it in quagsire is very splashable on teams, iron hands can easily get around quag with the use of tera and substitute. Tera allows iron hands to get around most of if not all of its defensive checks, and if you're not running a super bulky team comp then you can easily get worn down by iron hands. Offensively checking iron hands is an even more daunting task, since it is arguably the best trade mon in the tier, with most of the trades it gets being very lopsided. With the combination of drain punch and swords dance, iron hands can easily 2hko every offensive pokemon that does not resist the move, while remaining pretty healthy thanks to its immense bulk and the recovery from drain punch, which can make trying to wear iron hands down with offense very difficult. Hazards can help wear down iron hands faster, but against most offense teams it is very easy for it to take out at least two pokemon before it goes down. With the absurd bulk, the offensive pressure it causes, and the ability to get around almost any check through the use of terastalization and multiple different sets, I don't see iron hands as a good form of centralization, and think it has a mostly negative impact on the tier.

There's one final issue I think needs addressing, a singular pokemon should not act as a stop gap to multiple team compositions, and to some extent even team styles.

 

[Peses222]

Just finished getting my reqs on time, and I must admit: This was quite the task to fulfill with hands around to annoy me at times.

Hands feels like one big threat, a mon that needs to be handled carefully or else you will just falter to repeated drain punches. My main issue with hands is the ability it naturally posseses to absorb strong attacks coming from opposing offense, not considering even those from defensive answers, that at times feel dissapointing and weak, which turns out, are not.

Here I will list my main reason to vote for ban on hands:

1 Why is it so bulky?: Hands has an insane amount of bulk guys. This guy can get 3hko by hippo's eq, but guess what, +2 drain punch + punching glove is enough to heal it all the way back, offsetting even sand cheap or hazards. We are not considering tera here, it is just naturally bulky, you can check on the calculator and witness the horror that 0/0 hands is simply fat. Defensive counterplay basically can be reduced to quagsire, scream tail and hippowdown, naturally. All this 3 mons have insane flaws individually, all of which can be exploited effortlesly by hands teammates or hands itself. If Quag is encorless, well, hands can just sub+drainpunch all the day until you terastalize. Scream is fine with encore, deterring hands from clicking sd, however, some nasty sets run mental herb + terablast ghost to stop scream on its tracks. Hippo is the best possible check, but should we really be forced to running hippo on every single team? Hell no, hippo is really good on this metagame, but even then hands can sit on roarless hippo sets (stone edge hippo for the win guys), click sd and drain punch you to death. However, if you are lucky or smart enough to run the good hippo set instead of the heat one, hippo actually becomes annoying for hands.

2:Unfair mon: This paradox form feels like a grown man visiting kindergarden and giving a beat up yo the small kids. No matter how hard the kids try to kick it, he just shruggs it off and continues with his life like nothing happened. At times, hands gives me magearna vibes: play like a monkey, click buttons with hands=claim victory. I've been several times on this situation where my hippo has been knocked, it's a 1v3 vs hands, hands comes in at 60%, tanks the eq, sd's and the punches me until it heals all the way up. There is no real counterplay when a mon just doesn't die and chooses what mon and which SPECIFIC set will counter it. So many games robbed to hands metal grasp...

Moving on from this well known fact, can we just mention how hands forces careful and almost passive play? When I see hands I just moan of pain, knowing that whatever I do, I must not get my hippo knocked or severely weakened, nor can I let my armarouge die to prevent silly drain punch spam. Hands trades itself for a defensive key on your team, and if you are running offense, then you might have to trade 1 or 2 offensive pieces only to take it down. Hands can do whatever it wants and there is nothing we can do to prevent this, besides stacking up 1 hard check +2 soft checks to barely cover up the mu.

hippo+arma quag+scream tail tera ghost wo chien+your own hands

It does not help that we still have gengar around, guys, can we also kick gengar of this tier? I despise having to run tink on every single one of my teams, tink is also set up fodder for hands as you can't eat any punch, can't twave it, can't risk taking cheap and trying to go all in with gigaton hammer might aswell just heal off the metal giant.

:/

 

[Amane Misa]

Haven't done this in a long time but I'll gladly jump into the discussion.

Being "weirdly" good doesn't necessarily make Iron Hands broken; the only Pokemon with a stats distribution close to Iron Hands' is Melmetal, and it was also thought to be initially broken, just to end up a legit OU Pokemon that survived a suspect test. I think that people are still new to this concept of a Pokemon in UU and that this is the reason they are struggling to deal with it. I believe that given enough time, Iron Hands will be nothing but a top 5 Pokemon that is widely agreed to not be broken.

From my experience, Iron Hands has the best matchup against Balance and Stall teams because dealing with it defensively is a bit rough due to the variety of sets and Terastalization. However, here's how I comfortably deal with it with my favorite balance team:

Quagsire beats non-Substitute Swords Dance and Tera Ghost Wo-Chien beats Choice Band. Substitute + Swords Dance is a bit rougher for this team to deal with. It generally depends on the scenario, but if Iron Hands is hard-switched into Tinkaton, which Iron Hand generally counters, I prioritize using Knock Off on it. From there, Tinkaton can take any hit and annoy every non-Choice Band set with Encore. Tinkaton also tanks an unboosted Drain Punch if healthy, which makes it a good pivot if I am convinced Iron Hands isn't carrying a Choice Band.

From there, I generally try to counter Iron Hands with Quagsire if it's non-Substitute Swords Dance, and in case it is, or in case it's Choice Band, I might consider Terastalizing Wo-Chien into a Ghost-type.

Obviously, this team doesn't have a good matchup against very specific counter-teaming Iron Hands sets like Substitute + Tera Ghost, but that's the reality of Terastalization we live in. This team can deal with almost every Iron Hands set, despite being a Balance team, and this team doesn't even have other very good Iron Hands checks like Scream Tail, Donphan, Hippowdon, Palossand, and the list goes on.

Regarding Stall teams; I am feeling like Stall is underexplored, and once people discover it it's going to be one of the best playstyles. However, because this is an Iron Hands discussion, I will focus on this.

Stall easily deals with most sets, barring Substitute + SD + Tera Ghost, which probably 6-0es most Stall teams. However, this set is a very specific and counter-teaming set. You're likely going to want to Terastalize other Pokemon and not always Iron Hands, and in case you do, your Iron Hands only has Fighting-coverage, which sucks.

Stall teams have faced worse and less-niche enemies in the past like Heracross, Lucario, and Infernape in SM (Stall's best generation,
probably), and Conkeldurr and Azelf in SS.

I have actually found the least problems with Iron Hands using Offense or Hyper Offense. Between the cheesy Special Attackers in the tier, Mimikyu, Tera Ground DD Tyranitar, and Haxorus with its monstrous Attack stat, while Iron Hands was a force to be reckoned with, it was never too problematic.

tl;dr: Iron Hands has some specific sets that are good against certain playstyles but so does every top Pokemon in every tier. I find Iron Hands, despite being really good, generally manageable with every playstyle, and I say we have to wait until the metagame develops (after UUPL) with deciding if it's too broken for the tier. I will vote Do Not Ban.

 

[mark6870]

Also I would like to come back on something :
I don't really know from where you took that 30% but that's straight up fake. Even if you're running max HP Iron Hands (which is something you shouldn't ever do considering how high its HPs are already), you still recovering more than 41% (and up to 47.4% if 0 EVs in HPs).

[/hide]

recovering 30% was hyperbole, i thought that was obvious. mb

 

[pomfpomfpluff]

I wanted to wait a bit after my reqs before sharing my personal thoughts regarding Iron Hands but it seems like pretty much all of my opinions have been echoed by others multiple times at this point.

It's suffocating from a builder standpoint, often forcinga response through 2 mons and maybe even a defensive Tera as an answer and while it's a lot less dangerous in practice, it still has a lot of matchup specific gimmicks it can throw out to catch would be counters off guard. Defensive counters are rare and often need backup in the form of other Iron Hands checks to be reliable, meanwhile Offensive answers are even rarer and usually come in the form of more flawed mons. It's not impossible to handle both teambuilding wise and in practice, but it does heavily restrict what teams can get away with these days. Whether or not this can be seen as "broken" is at the end of the day up to the playerbase to decide, but it's definitely a very defining mon in UU at the moment,

However one thing that I feel is worth expanding on is how I find that the Ladder kind off gives off a skewed perception of how good Hands can be since most people really aren't making use of the set variety Hands has to offer. Throughout my kind of short run I only saw SD variants with 1 exception, that being AV on a sort of Balance/SemiStall esque team (which ironically ended up giving me the most amount of trouble lol). In general a lot of the ladder players were also extremely predictable, like I kid you not I ended up with my Grafaiai in on SD Iron Hands on multiple occasions and every time they clicked hard SD, got Toxic'd and then Encore'd into SD. No one tried mixing up their playstyle in this regard whatsoever and every time it was attempted it was against the correct set, which just goes to show how uncreative the average ladder player is with this highly customizable mon. This coupled with the fact that a lot of people are borderline matchup fishing against it leads to the perception of how good Hands really is kind of being bias, to the point where if I were basing my opinion on Iron Hands solely on what I saw on the ladder I'd vote Do Not Ban in a heart beat because I only really struggled against a team using it once.

Anyway that's really it for my takes that haven't been repeated to death already. In the voting stage I will be voting BAN on Iron Hands since I don't like how it affects the tier.

I would also like to echo what Scrimzn said earlier since I'm curious as to why Hands gets suspected ASAP while Gar has been terrorizing the tier since the Alpha period. I assume it's because Hands is more broken than Gar which......... fair lol.

Can I ask why Hands has been suspected first even though to me it seems more people are complaining about Gengar atm? I'm honestly curious

 

[BigFatMantis]

The Iron Hands suspect test of 2023 was in my opinion the perfect example, at least from my experience, of how a suspect process should work and actually does its job. This is because at the start of the suspect test I thought that Iron Hands, like most everything else in UU history, was perfectly fine in the tier and that all of the outcry was very overblown. However there is one very specific set that pushes it over the edge and into banworthy territory, and that's the Sub/SD/Tera Ghost set. No other sets are overbearing for SV UU imo, any other Iron Hands is actually quite fine in the tier. But this set is just too much and has almost no reasonable counterplay whatsoever.

I disagree with most of the pro-ban arguments here, as people toss out words like "unhealthy" and "constraining" to the builder way too often and that shouldn't be primary reasons to ban anything. "Unhealthy" is supposed to be a term used as a last resort in banning something and I feel we have grown too accustomed to banning something that makes it "hard" to build and this kind of mentality is actually in itself "unhealthy" if you are ignoring creative ways to counteract major threats. That's why I was anti-ban to start the suspect test. Iron Hands is not really "unhealthy", there are clear ways to identify dealing with the majority of its sets (Encore mons, Scream Tail, Talonflame, Your own better Hands, defensive tera mons like Ghost Wo Chien, etc.). The counterplay exists for any Choice Band or Sub/SD variant that isn't Tera Ghost.

The problem is when you face the abominable Tera Ghost set with Sub/SD/Drain/Tera Blast (or sometimes it doesn't even need Tera Blast). Many of the usual counters now disappear, including most of the ones mentioned in Amane Misa's post. If it gets a sub up you will likely just lose to it unless you have both a Gengar and a Jugulis in the back (and even still it will tank those hits with the right EVs, even if you are Specs). You can probably kill it after trading like 3-4 mons but at that point you've lost. Defensively there's no answer whatsoever - there is not a single pokemon in the entire SV UU Metagame that can handle both a +2 Drain Punch and a +2 Ghost Tera Blast without being nearly obliterated. It's not totally impossible sure (you can try to use eject button regen mon on the correct predict to pivot to an offensive check), but it's an extraordinary ask to consistently be able to take it down, and it's just something that is way too strong for the tier to reasonably handle. It has nothing to do with being "unhealthy" either. It's just simply too strong. In other words, it's broken:

III.) Broken - elements that are too good relative to the rest of the metagame such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

Iron Hands with this specific sub/sd/tera ghost set is too good relative to the rest of the metagame. I don't think the metagame will be able to adapt accordingly and I think it will eventually suffocate the tier if it isn't banned.

-
-

With regard to other mons in the tier, I think the Gengar panic is super overblown. I have not had any major problems dealing with Gengar. It's not quite fast enough to overrun most teams, not quite strong enough with a scarf so you can defensively answer it with multiple things like Tink, Graf, Goodra, or correct predicts on things like Bisharp, TTar, etc. And it's frail enough that many offensive mons will revenge it without much of an issue. It's simply a very good Special Attacker in the tier that fits well on a lot of teams.

The only other single pokemon in the tier that I think should be looked at is Polteageist, as there's been an uptick in Tera Fire builds and it's kind of a very silly thing to be running around the tier. We might lose terrain anyways next month and then it won't be as much of an issue, but if there was ever a mon that may for once in my opinion fit the "unhealthy" description, it's the teapot. It's the ultimate fishy mon that requires you to have dedicated checks so you don't auto-lose to it, and these days you don't know if you are able to check with a Dark type (Tera Fight Tea) or with Tink (Tera Fire Tea). I'd prob vote to ban it and it totally baffles my mind that people think something like Gengar is too much but look the other way on the teapot like they owe it some sort of favor or something.

Happy late Valentine's Day

 

[Sneakyplanner]

Now that I got reqs I can give my opinion with credibility. Currently I am still pro-ban but am definitely less pro-ban than I was before doing my suspect run.

It's a bit hard to describe my exact experience with hands, since I rarely saw it on my opponent's side, but I used it every game and Iron Hands is basically impossible to trade evenly with. Even without tera you will most likely have to sacrifice something to knock it out, and with tera it becomes even harder. There were multiple situations where I had it in range for a revenge kill from Gardevoir, but didn't dare send it out because the threat of tera would make that exchange a losing one.

Adding to its potential to just take something down while only going to 25% hp at most is its set diversity. It's impossible to tell on team preview if it is SD 3 attacks, sub SD, choice band or any of the variants of these sets, and what beats one can easily lose to another. If you send in quagsire then they set up a sub and tera flying, you just get drain punched until you run out of recovers then lose the game. Hippowdon can take a +2 drain punch and whirlwind out the sub SD variants but does not like taking a +2 ice punch and so on.

However, it is not completely unbeatable, it is probably one of the most skill-reliant mons in the tier since it has a roughly even matchup against so many other threats it can be played around with smart double switches or hazard pressure and the encore users of the tier can keep it from setting up while wearing it down.

I definitely think that Iron Hands creates a style of play that I enjoy and creates a more skill-testing format, but I still think its stats and set variety are just too much for the tier. If you have a good counter for the correct iron hands set then you have a chance, but it's still likely you'll get forced to trade 1.5 pokemon to bring it down, and if you don't have the right counter then it can just sweep your entire team with one or two good predictions.

The biggest thing I realized during my suspect run though is that Iron Hands isn't even the biggest problem in the tier. All the stuff I said about a pokemon with many viable sets with different counters is also true for Gengar, but in an even more extreme way.

 

[AstilCodex]

I'm writing this while being drowzy since my sleep schedule sucks so don't mind. But when I saw Iron Hands dropped I was like lol qb that shit. So when suspect happened I got into playing UU again which I haven't since Bax ban or so. So I got a dead run first but my second run was very good and now I can vote.

Context out, I gotta say I found Iron Hands a lot more balanced and manageable than my mind thought if would be, and not becuase haha Quag (which I know Quag can lose 1v1 but Im getting into that). Iron Hands its a potent mon that can run a multiple variety of viable sets, which makes him scary on paper. But in practice, I noticed that it actually needs to run a proper set in each MU to be a nuisance for the opponent, and most of the time it has to commit to Tera do accomplish this. Which is different from other past tera abusers (cough espathra uber broken anyway), Im saying Iron Hands needs to Tera in order to be game-changing which, if you make your opp force the tera its still manageable right after.

I'd say Iron Hands will always force some hard switch-ins and will take a kill no matter what since its so strong and bulky and can blanket SE hits, still tho. Not convinced that its banworthy. I don't think its S at all either. I know this mon would be annoying af to build against in high tourneys like PL and stuff, but realistically I dont care lmao. I dont find this broken atm and I'll be voting No Ban, as neither my suspect run or these previous posts has convinced me otherwise. Peace out

 

[pokemonisfun]

Some great content in this thread that interested me. I'll do three things in this post: 1) talk about some of the posts that interested me, 2) talk about my experience with Iron Hands and a couple replays, 3) Show one more set that I think is very very broken.

Other posts

Stall easily deals with most sets, barring Substitute + SD + Tera Ghost, which probably 6-0es most Stall teams. However, this set is a very specific and counter-teaming set. You're likely going to want to Terastalize other Pokemon and not always Iron Hands, and in case you do, your Iron Hands only has Fighting-coverage, which sucks.

I'm writing this while being drowzy since my sleep schedule sucks so don't mind. But when I saw Iron Hands dropped I was like lol qb that shit. So when suspect happened I got into playing UU again which I haven't since Bax ban or so. So I got a dead run first but my second run was very good and now I can vote.

Context out, I gotta say I found Iron Hands a lot more balanced and manageable than my mind thought if would be, and not becuase haha Quag (which I know Quag can lose 1v1 but Im getting into that). Iron Hands its a potent mon that can run a multiple variety of viable sets, which makes him scary on paper. But in practice, I noticed that it actually needs to run a proper set in each MU to be a nuisance for the opponent, and most of the time it has to commit to Tera do accomplish this. Which is different from other past tera abusers (cough espathra uber broken anyway), Im saying Iron Hands needs to Tera in order to be game-changing which, if you make your opp force the tera its still manageable right after.

You can read Astil's and Misa's full post themselves (they talk about some other things as well), but overall they clearly make the point that Iron Hands in some contexts is reliant on Tera in order to do it's job effectively and that's a reason (but not the only) they are going to not ban Iron Hands.

My experience with Iron Hands is different, I see it often do work even without the Tera Ghost simply because it's so strong and bulky, it doesn't need the Tera to bulldoze through some of it's checks.

Specifically which ones?

Hippowdon, Tera anything Slowking, Altaria, most Salamence, and Talonflame. These Pokemon you literally don't need the third move for, if they switch in on SD, they all lose to SD/Drain Punch/Sub alone because Hands can just SD again and then crush them, even if it gets burned. This isn't a huge list but I just disagree with the sentiment that Iron Hands Tera Ghost sets are useless without the Tera. They are significantly worse, but not always useless.

My experience with Iron Hands is that it makes for too many gamebreaking sweeps:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1791936434

Starting on turn 35, I'm down a mon and have to deal with max spikes. My opponent theoretically has multiple Iron Hands checks that are healthy - Leech Bramble, Slowking with tera, Donphan with Tera, Gyarados with tera. A single free turn that I planned out completely turns the table and not only is my position playable, I just steamroll and flip the script. That's something maybe a mon like Polteageist should be able to do because it's supposed to get sweeps like that but Iron Hands did the exact thing Polteageist does except it still has insanely high bulk and power.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1798068345

Starting on turn 16, the Iron Hand is perfectly teched to destroy an opposing team and it gets 2.5 kills giving basically an easy position to win from there - it would have got more kills if it wasn't haxed. It's defeating some of it's best so called checks - Donphan, Scream Tails, Talon/WoChien with tera still - and it didn't even need prior damage on them. These things can obviously happen in a game like Pokemon, the questions we ask though are how frequently, how reliable was this, how convincing was this? Well you can't tell how frequently it is from a couple of replays, we need hundreds to get a good answer.

But it was extremely convincing and reliable to me - Iron Hands literally destroying it's best checks and it didn't need any hax or anything like that to do so, if anything, the opponent was outplaying me prior to Iron Hands throwing hands.

Another set I think that might be amazing by the way: Facade, Drain Punch, Tera Blast Ghost, SD. I think only Quagsire beats this? Literally almost nothing else can as far as I know, and trading your Altaria/Talonflame for a burn becomes a meme now. Haven't used it but hey I didn't use the Tera Ghost Sub SD set before I posted about it and now people generally recognize it as one of the standard sets so...

I'll be voting ban on Iron Hands.

 

[Estarossa]

Hmm how do you guys beat Polteageist?
Been using apparently built by Mimilucha and had a v tough time if they didn’t try to set up on King
https://pokepast.es/63130150790d5b4c

for the record, in general these sort of simple questions are better suited to the SQSA (simple questions simple answers) thread unless you want to expand more on talking about Polteageist by talking about its general place in the metagame, teams you've liked it on, or whether you think its broken and too overpowered etc.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/simple-questions-simple-answers-thread.3714351/

I'll move your post over this time for you but i'm gonna keep this announcement here just for future record.

 

[Queen of Bean]

​

hiya people, i just wanted to share my thoughts on sandy shocks, which has become a really opressive threat in the meta that i think there is some merit to banning.

sandy shocks has amazing stab coverage thats further enhanced by tera blast grass to hit gastrodon at the expense of missing out on hitting grasses or tera ice for bolt beam coverage, this mon doesnt really have many good checks that cant be beaten by the right tera type. to list a few, hippowdon and wo chien get 2hkoed by terablast with a spike up and gastrodon gets bopped by terablast grass. sandy shocks can come in easily on alot of meta pokemon like talonflame and tinkaton if it hasnt terad and generate momentum with volt switch or get up a hazard. theres very little defensive counterplay to sandy shocks currently with alot of the blanket special walls like chansey being not very well suited to the fast paced meta with their passive presence on teams which makes sandy shocks in my opinion, quite overbearing.

tldr: sandy shocks has coverage for the whole meta with the right teratype and is almost impossble to switch into as well as being very fast, very strong and providing good utility with hazards and a volt immunity. i think this should probably be suspect tested ?

 

[Moutemoute]

For those who didn't pay attention, Iron Hands has been banned from UU (39 people out of 41 eligible voters already voted for a ~77% ban).
Looking forward to see how the metagame will change and shape itself after this massive change.

 

[Mossy Sandwich]

​

hiya people, i just wanted to share my thoughts on sandy shocks, which has become a really opressive threat in the meta that i think there is some merit to banning.

sandy shocks has amazing stab coverage thats further enhanced by tera blast grass to hit gastrodon at the expense of missing out on hitting grasses or tera ice for bolt beam coverage, this mon doesnt really have many good checks that cant be beaten by the right tera type. to list a few, hippowdon and wo chien get 2hkoed by terablast with a spike up and gastrodon gets bopped by terablast grass. sandy shocks can come in easily on alot of meta pokemon like talonflame and tinkaton if it hasnt terad and generate momentum with volt switch or get up a hazard. theres very little defensive counterplay to sandy shocks currently with alot of the blanket special walls like chansey being not very well suited to the fast paced meta with their passive presence on teams which makes sandy shocks in my opinion, quite overbearing.

tldr: sandy shocks has coverage for the whole meta with the right teratype and is almost impossble to switch into as well as being very fast, very strong and providing good utility with hazards and a volt immunity. i think this should probably be suspect tested ?

This is a very interesting post I'd say, I don't think Sandy Shocks is broken for reasons I'll highlight later in the post, but Shocks does show the power of Tera Blast which is just as scary on something like Polteageist for example. Anyway I guess I'll address a couple of weaknesses that come with Tera Blast Sandy Shocks and why I don't think it's a big issue.

First of all is that obviously, Shocks has to dedicate its Tera slot to Ice or Grass and a moveslot to Tera Blast. The Tera Slot isn't a big deal, but the moveslot can be a decent problem. For Tera Blast, you're either dropping Thunderbolt or Hazards. Hazards are very important to Shocks' playstyle and dropping them can be a huge blow to the rest of your team since it's so good at stacking Spikes. Thunderbolt at a glance may seem less important, since you still have Volt Switch as an Electric moves, but the extra damage and ability to stay in can be extremely valuable against certain Flying types, especially if you don't want to Tera or are Tera Grass. Notably, Thunderbolt gives you the ability to outright 2HKO Salamence and Noivern which you would otherwise not only miss the kill on, but also be switching out of, potentially putting you at a disadvantage. It also KOs Talonflame unlike Volt Switch and puts more pressure on Oricorio-Pom-Pom which might find itself forced to Tera due to Thunderbolt and further 50/50s with Earth Power and Roost. In general, while Tera Blast can be very useful while Tera'd, if you find yourself in a matchup where you want to Tera something else, you might be missing a crucial move.

Another issue that pops up with Tera'd Sandy Shocks is just how bad it becomes defensively. Electric/Ground has some decent defensive utility, letting it take hits from Pawmot, Tinkaton or Talonflame, often forcing them to switch out and getting you a momentum or hazard advantage. However, if you Tera to Grass or Ice, you suddenly lose a lot of resists and may even gain rough weaknesses. Grass becomes threatened by Talonflame despite being an Electric type and becomes forced out by Slither Wing instead of being able to get chip on the way out with Volt Switch. Ice has it even worse, becoming fully unable to go up against Pawmot and failing to properly switch into previously resisted moves from Tinkaton, Bisharp or Tyranitar. Keep in mind those are all pokemon Shocks would usually be able to check or somewhat switch-into to apply pressure, but the much worse defensive typing makes it so much more difficult for it to properly perform its job, even if Tera Blast may have allowed it an extra KO earlier in the game. I think as far as Tera abusers go, there is much more threatening than Sandy Shocks as pokemon like Gardevoir or Lycanroc-Dusk generally don't have more trouble getting on the field and threatening out certain targets after the Tera since they don't rely as much on their defensive utility or don't lose much of it to begin with.

Lastly, I'd like to mention that, regardless of which Tera it picks, Sandy will still have holes in its coverage. It will always have issues fully getting through general special walls like Scream Tail and Blissey, but it also misses certain targets depending on whether it goes Grass or Ice, since Gastrodon isn't hit by Ice and Grass and Dragon types aren't hit by Grass. This is small, but again, certain Tera abusers are much more well-rounded and can always go with the same Tera Type as it will always be effective. Pawmot and Gengar are free to go with a Tera Type boosting their STAB moves to as they already carry all the coverage they need and can simply focus on wallbreaking more efficiently.

Anyway, while I do think Sandy Shocks can be annoying and threatening with Tera Blast, it's more of a good offensive pokemon rather than one that renders certain teams helpless, which is why I don't think action should be taken on it.

 

[sanguine]

For those who didn't pay attention, Iron Hands has been banned from UU (39 people out of 41 eligible voters already voted for a ~77% ban).
Looking forward to see how the metagame will change and shape itself after this massive change.

you could say the hands got clapped…

i’ll leave now.

 

[Gondre19Wedj]

Wanted to quickly make you aware that the ban has not been implemented on Showdown and IH is still legal for use in Gen 9 UU. I don't know what to do to get this fixed so thought I would just say so here.

 

[Sulo]

Wanted to quickly make you aware that the ban has not been implemented on Showdown and IH is still legal for use in Gen 9 UU. I don't know what to do to get this fixed so thought I would just say so here.

it takes time for programmers to implement the ban; the UU leaders are not responsible for this unless it is taking longer than intended, in which case they would probably ask Kris / Marty (they're both people with a lot on their plate already, but this doesn't happen often). just be patient!

 

[Miguling]

With Hands out, Pawmot is going to see a rise in popularity again methinks. Can likely run Tera Flying Volt Absorb again to bait Shocks and Close Combat everything to oblivion afterwards.

Justice for the Pikaclones.

 

[pokemonisfun]

it takes time for programmers to implement the ban; the UU leaders are not responsible for this unless it is taking longer than intended, in which case they would probably ask Kris / Marty (they're both people with a lot on their plate already, but this doesn't happen often). just be patient!

I don't know if it's taking longer than usual but I was surprised when the server restarted last night like 14 or so hours ago but Iron Hands was still around. not my problem though who even ladders in 2023 lol...

With Hands out, Pawmot is going to see a rise in popularity again methinks. Can likely run Tera Flying Volt Absorb again to bait Shocks and Close Combat everything to oblivion afterwards.

Justice for the Pikaclones.

true but tera electric is just SO GOOD with the double shock synergy. I don't think I can give that up.

 

[sleestacks]

Today, I'd like to bring attention to Pawmot. Or, more specifically, a specific item on Pawmot. Evert time I bring this item up, people just tell me to run Heavy Duty Boots or Life Orb or one of the other common picks, but after looking in deeper, I've realized that this item may be the solution to one of Pawmot's biggest problems.


Pawmot @ Air Balloon
Ability: Natural Cure / Volt Absorb
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Double Shock
- Seed Bomb / Mach Punch / Ice Punch
- Revival Blessing / Mach Punch

Air Balloon is awesome on this thing. Or, more specifically, Air Ballon in conjunction with two of its abilities is awesome. Let's take a closer look:

Natural Cure is made fun of on Pawmot, but is actually incredible in conjunction with Air Balloon for the sole ability to safely switch into all of Quagsire and Hippowdon's common moves. Being able to switch into a Quagsire, threaten a seed bomb, and heal off a Toxic in a meta deprived of status absorbers is immensely useful. In addition, Natural Cure lets you switch into a Hippowdon without fear of Yawn, but that finds less overall usage. Outside of the synergy with Air Balloon, Natural Cure lets you take on Talonflame without fear of getting crippled by a burn, which is great.

Volt Absorb has one big purpose with Air Balloon, and it's switching in to Sandy Shocks. The fact that the most common hazard stacker in the meta who previously threatened you out becomes a 100% free switchin with its most common set is absolutely perfect for giving Pawmot more attack opportunities. Resisting both of Magnezone's STABs is also nice, but not really that impactful considering that you still take a hefty chunk from Flash Cannon.

Finally, I'd like to mention that Air Ballon just has some nice utility against the various Ground-types in the meta. On a good prediction, you can switch into any random Earthquake and probably threaten something out (and these predictions are made easier since your opponent probably won't expect an air balloon). You can also try using Iron Fist with Air Balloon, but I'd just go for Life Orb or Choice Band if you need the power.

 

[Miguling]

<dope idea>

Oh man, that's actually pretty rad because it removes the dilemma of either wanting to run Tera-Flying to dodge Shocks or wanting to keep an offensive presence with Tera-Electric Double Shock synergy.

I think Volt Absorb is better than Natural Cure because you want to minimize chances of the balloon popping and Shocks can still Volt Switch out in a pinch. Otherwise super solid-sounding set, definitely testing it out the next time I have the chance.

 

[StarFalcon555]

For those of you who might have missed it, tier shifts are out!

Baxcalibur moved from UUBL to OU
Hydreigon moved from UUBL to OU
Armarouge moved from UU to OU
Torkoal moved from UU to OU

Grimmsnarl moved from OU to UU
Scizor moved from OU to UU

Lycanroc-Dusk moved from RUBL to UU
Espeon moved from RU to UU

Barraskewda moved from UU to RU
Floatzel moved from UU to RU
Kilowattrel moved from UU to RU
Tauros-Paldea-Aqua moved from UU to RU

Some pretty substantial changes here. Former UU king Scizor has returned to fuck shit up, and though the loss of Roost and Knock Off is a major blow for it, the long-awaited addition of Close Combat to its movepool should hopefully make up for it. The other new drop is Grimmsnarl, to the joy of HO ladder spammers and the horror of everyone else. Grimm also got another incredible new moveset option that buffs it tremendously in Parting Shot, so we shall see how that affects it. In terms of rises, losing Torkoal shouldn't have come as that much of a surprise due to certain new releases *coughWalkingWakecough*, but what is coming as a surprise to many is the loss of Armarouge. Though its ID + CM + Weak Armor sets will not be missed by some people, the rise of Armarouge also signals the loss of the tier's only offensive Fire-type, which should have some sharp ramifications. For the mons that rose to UU from RU, Lycanroc-Dusk seems to finally be getting more recognition from the playerbase, which is entirely deserved due to its incredible power... and Espeon is also here for some reason. I genuinely have no idea why this rose, it's literally C+ on the viability rankings, were we really coping that hard for Hatterene? And finally, the mons that fell to RU, the Rainy Day Quartet, Barraskewda, Floatzel, Kilowattrel, and Aqua Paldean Tauros. The former two aren't surprising in the slightest, but the latter two kind of are - Kilowattrel is one of the better hazard stack mons in the tier thanks to Competitive and its typing scaring out common removers, and Aqua Tauros is insanely powerful with the STAB combo of Close Combat and Wave Crash, and also got an indirect buff with these shifts thanks to its signature move, Raging Bull, being able to remove screens. Curious to see what you guys think about the tier shakeups!

 

[MasterPlayer]

I honestly think that Scizor might be on almost every team now that it's allowed in the tier

 

[Queen of Bean]

kilowattrel moving to ru is pretty surprising to me, ive been using it alot and its really excellent. the fast speed tier and great coverage aswell as competitive letting you switch into all the parting shots and intimidates in this for mat and get special attack boosts is just a really valuable trait. i think it probably fell to ru due to the loss of rain but it definitely has alot of potential outside of rain teams

kilowattrel

Kilowattrel @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Competitive
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Hurricane
- Tera Blast
- Roost

scizor former tier king scizor dropping to uu is kinda coool, although it lost some of the moves that made it great like knock off and roost, without roost its defensive utility is gonna be pretty limited, no more max defense bulky scizor D: i do still think itll be a pretty good pokemon in uu with banded bullet punch still being incredibly strong aswell as the addition of close combat instead of superpower

grimmsnarl this guys annoying and is gonna make screens ho alot more popular, or maybe itll be outclassed as a screener by scream tail and espeon who have other good traits, who knows.

lycanroc-dusk this pokemon has been really good in uu for a while, with life orb choice band and swords dance sets being able to break through alot of the tier if played well, nice that its getting more use. i think a well played lycan is one of the scariest mons to face in the tier

lycanroc

Lycanroc-Dusk @ Choice Band
Ability: Tough Claws
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Accelerock
- Stone Edge
- Close Combat
- Crunch

to finish off i wanted to talk about some ru pokemon that are really good in uu and porbably need more usage. tatsugiri has been popping up alot more recently on offensive teams, if tatsu gets +1 speed and a nasty plot boost its a really scary mon to switch into with its great water dragon coverage and 120 base spatck, it also has some good defensive utility. tauros-paldea-blaze this mon has incredible defenisve utility right now aswell is being decently fast with its base 100 speed and quite strong, it also has coverage for almost everything in this meta apart from the slowtwins with stone edge close combat and raging bulll, but even the slowtwins can get willowisped on the switchin. weavile the former titan of gen8ou is now in ru due to knock off and triple axel being removed from its movepool, but i still think its a really good pokemon despite that with choice banded icicle crashes being able to break through pretty much the whole tier.some of the few crash switchins are tinkaton which has sad physical defense (takes almost 40%) and slowking which gets bopped by night slash and the aforementioned tauros paldea which does wall this mon. but i think its one of the scareist mons to switchin to.

tauros paldea

Tauros-Paldea-Blaze @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 80 HP / 176 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Raging Bull
- Will-O-Wisp

tatsugiri

Tatsugiri @ Leftovers
Ability: Commander
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Nasty Plot
- Rapid Spin

weavile

Weavile @ Choice Band
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Icicle Crash
- Night Slash
- Ice Shard
- Low Kick

thanks for reading n__n