so ive finished 4 sets in pacinvitational, decided id post some things, even tho i likely still have more set(s) to play but also i think most players in the tourn know how i see a lot of the metagame anyway lol.
hypno and tent #1-2, apparently im the only player who sees hypno > tent but i think its close and i dont rly care about the order at this point
~ persian #3, kadabra and dugtrio #4-5:
i think persian > dug is now a view held by many players, tho idk if anyone else has persian above kadabra.
in terms of persian vs dug, slash both hits harder vs neutral targets, and resists/immunities j arent as common or as good. dodrio gyarados and dragonite (unordered) are all pretty common, all easily force duggy out esp if they switch into eq, and most importantly are all quite difficult to switch into, at best u have to rely on prediction and otherwise u are losing a mon.
on the other hand @ persian checks, omastar tends to be quite passive, if omastar misreads then either persian stays in on a weak body slam and gets an almost free tbolt on oma, or tent comes in on water or ice move which is harmless outside the freeze chance. and even with a correct read, persian can take safely take one hit from omastar, and oma is still relying on the para chance for bslamming a tent switchin. not to mention the tier’s other common water types (vap gong and to a lesser extent gyara) which fear very little from omastar.
golem doesnt have much usage rn anyway but it is 2hkoed/crit ohkod by bubblebeam and can only ohko persian with explosion, so it isnt massively in golem’s favor in the way that dodrio/gyara/dnite are favored vs dugtrio.
haunter is ofc the biggest persian counter, but in reality outside of hypnosis haunter doesnt actually threaten persian that much and isnt that hard to switch into either, especially considering that haunter exploding on eg a kadabra switchin would open up persian. persian giving haunter sleep chances can to some extent be avoided by not bringing out persian too early.
and persian’s ability to eg 3hko hypno means that it also can be used as a midgame breaker / rest breaker if needed, something dug really cannot do. and persian’s ability to take any one hit whenever needed, sometimes even two hits, is v useful as well.
rest haunter might be a bigger problem for persian, i havent seen rest haunter anytime recently so idw to speculate but i def think that is a tech to consider.
dugtrio has the twave and tbolt immunity, however the tier’s best twave users except kadabra do well vs dugtrio anyway so its pretty hard to actually take advantage of the former. the uu electric types arent very good, but electabuzz threatens body slam anyway while electrode outspeeds and kos with explosion after any chip damage; imo the tbolt immunity is most useful vs haunter on a dugtrio + persian team.
@ kadabra, kad is certainly very good in uu particularly as a tent response, i do think it sometimes looks better in the builder than it actually is tho, and ultimately its weakness to every physical attacker is almost always going to be a liability at some point in a game.
for example, even if kadabra gets the chance to freely click its strong and fast psychic, almost every team has a physical attacker faster than kad so sacing something against kadabra and then bringing in eg your persian is often a perfectly fine way to respond to it.
the fact that persian specifically does 78% minimum to kadabra with slash is an issue as if u dont run either haunter or a rock u will inevitably give persian free turn(s) to click slash, while if u run haunter or any non-aero rock alongside kadabra u start to open up a dugtrio weakness.
uu teams run out of the six pokémon slots very ‘quickly’ and as much as kad does offer, dedicating a slot to a mon that is weak to physical offense and also doesnt provide physical offense comes at a significant cost.
~ kangaskhan #6, articuno and dragonite #7-8, dodrio #9
i think almost every uu team should run either kang or dodrio (if not both), almost nothing matches their midgame breaking ability. (persian can potentially fill this role but using persian too early risks giving haunter a free turn to click hypnosis, and in general using a late game threat for this isnt great as some key defensive mons (hypno and dragonite) have thunder wave.
kang has had high usage for a while now, drio had high usage in lcq mostly from me and pokemonisfun. dodrio has its advantages tho due to speed and power. the tentacruel speed tie specifically is a big deal, a full health dodrio can threaten to ko tent from 60% with hyper beam even without winning the speed tie (tho dodrio often has better things to be doing.) even tho omastar walls dodrio on paper even omastar gets worn down sometimes without making much progress either due to its passivity, and honestly oma bothers kang as well (on hyper beams, as well as forcing kang to click earthquake).
golem however is a huge issue for dodrio, whereas kang doesnt care, if golem usage comes back dodrio can drop but as of now i cannot place it below #9.
and ofc dodrio also has its well known endgame use, as well as being a good lead but i dont want to focus on lead dodrio rn bc thats not rly the point @ why i rank it this high.
kang > dodrio largely bc of its great physical bulk, which gives kang favorable matchups vs basically every other physical attacker in the tier, but dodrio is very good (in all of lead, mid, and late-game) and there are plenty of teams where i will choose to run dodrio and drop kang for various reasons that arent about wanting an agility endgame. even putting aside lead dodrio, agility certainly is good but drio is already fast and i largely only click agility when there is a clear endgame sweep (or if im way behind and need to go crit fishing lol).
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-613884
this game is an example of dodrio doing ‘midgame’ things that kang cannot do nearly as well, bslam koing both hypno and kadabra from a higher range than kang could, and later the tent speed tie taking away the option that ‘would have existed’ vs a kang of taking damage on it to bring it into tentacruel range (tho this game was prob over by that point anyway but i j mean in general)
articuno varies a lot by matchup but normal spam is very good rn, and articuno is probably the single best counterpick to normal spam. dragonite checks both dug and persian, partly @ persian due to the agiliwrap threat lol, but even ignoring agiliwrap its a good defensive mon, nothing else remotely checks both dug and persian except tangela which is passive af, and kangaskhan and clefable but clef is v borderline as a dug check esp since clef doesnt 2hko dug with body slam. and ofc unstatused dragonite can wrap hypno.
this is where id end A rank. i will edit this post ‘in the future’ to add thoughts about B rank stuff
B ranks
~ vaporeon and gyarados #10-11
vaporeon has that amazing statline, only water never 2hkod by the (non-magneton) electrics and is even a roll to be 3hkod by haunter’s thunderbolt.
checks normals (and dug) pretty well, tho it lacks dewgong’s ohko on dodrio and guaranteed 2hko on kang, and ofc checks articuno. while it is checking normals clicking body slam is very high risk tho as it does almost nothing to them, while tent can come in on its special moves except for the blizz freeze chance and then wrap. even if theres no go-to matchup vs vap, tent pivoting at minimum lets the opponent freely choose which mon to let vap get damage on.
being slower than hypno, particularly hypnosis hypno, def matters early game, less so later on.
i think the vap vs gong gap is very small, honestly i could even see gong above vap but since i dont use either of them much and the consensus at least rn is clearly gong > vap i am sticking with that.
when using vap i think taking advantage of its ability to stay in and basically 1v1 electrics and haunter is very important, this something that other waters really cant do. it also means that (at least once sleep clause is active) vap can click body slam without worrying about haunter gaining momentum if it comes in for free.
i think gyarados is rly in a rough position right now, defensively it is not at all good vs persian, and its best chance to wallbreak is against opposing dugtrio which has dropped off in usage at least somewhat. it is also struggling a bit in teambuilding because running gyarados + persian ‘tends to be’ very haunter weak.
as a wallbreaker, it just isnt as good as kangaskhan or dodrio, it does have the ability to switch into vap and oma reasonably well, it doesnt switch into dewgong tho and kang being sm better vs persian honestly is worth more @ any defensive utility. so i dont think using gyara instead of kang is rly ever a good option.
then theres also that it cant fit all five moves, tho i do think dropping hyper beam is usually fine, and that its wallbreaking is much more dependent on prediction to the right moves compared to drio/kang which can mostly just click stabs.
id maybe consider dropping gyara even further tbh but thats prob premature.
also it is a reasonably good lead fwiw, blizz for venu, hydro for good damage on hyp, forces out lead kadabra with its good special bulk and strong bslam.
~ haunter #12, dewgong venusaur and aerodactyl #13-15, omastar #16
the lower B ranks are largely the matchup fishers, i tried to keep these all short lol.
haunter is *the* persian counter, but it also severely obstructs aerodactyl, gyarados, and venusaur, only the last of which is easy to check in other ways, ofc it comes at the cost of a big dug weakness, and a less severe kadabra weakness. it also in practice is weak to dodrio.
it is not really a good sleeper but its defensive utility can sometimes get it a free turn to click hypnosis, particularly the turn when it is first revealed so choose that turn carefully. its not exactly an offensive threat, but isnt passive either.
i could also see it above gyara, but ill put it here for now.
dewgong was discussed as a vaporeon alternative before. other than losing a few weird things like vap switches into kadabra better (esp on stoss), they are very close. vap can definitely burn rest turns better tho.
venusaur is the only serious 75% accurate sleeper faster than hypno, its ‘fast’ sleep combined with the threat of razor leaf means venu has the potential to get a significant edge early game if it can get sleep. however if venu doesnt get sleep ‘quickly’ it can get sleep blocked, and most teams will naturally have a grass resist so even assuming it gets sleep effectively it might not do as much beyond that as one would like. the dodrio and articuno mus are particularly important weaknesses that it brings.
aerodactyl is at its best vs dugtrio teams, dug is easily forced out by aero and even tho aero doesnt exactly hit hard, without haunter or a rock type it is not a mon u can j switch into over and over again, esp as rest has gotten harder to use / easier to punish.
but against teams without dugtrio (or also pinsir), aero can often find itself without anything it can rly force out, and then its lack of power rly is a problem. its persian mu is ~ok~ but not great. its needs kadabra below 50% to revenge it with dedge. u can still ‘find something for it to do’ eg against kang or dodrio, aero is completely crippled by para tho so these mus are generally coinflips at best. also, kang and dodrio often come out earlier than duggy, so it can be hard to figure out whether to bring aero in against them, or to preserve it for a potential dug in the back.
i think the best use of omastar is to try to switch into hyper beams and then get big damage on the recharge, all the hbeam users except potentially gyarados are rly threatened by omas attacks. ofc this requires some prediction.
otherwise, i think its j very passive, even if it gets matchups it is looking for like dodrio, dragonite, or aerodactyl it usually is a bit too easy to switch into and also depends on hitting a switchin with the right move. combined with that it is probably switching in on bslams itself (if it fails to switch into a hyper beam), the ‘reward’ of bringing oma against the mons it checks just isnt that much. while if it gets a bad matchup omastar can be struggling to find something to do (tho almost all teams rly should at least have a kangaskhan that omastar can annoy to some extent). oma is a matchup fish that truly does cover a number of matchups, but it j doesnt actually help ~that much~ when it gets its mus, except ig an agiliwrap dragonite that successfully setup. also, tho to a lesser extent than haunter, it adds an additional dug weakness. so while i think it is solidly uu, it is at the bottom of the tier for me.
C ranks
#17 clefable, #18-19 electrode and electabuzz, #20 tangela
(idk if this is rly the right place to draw the tier line, not going to focus on that).
clef is another mon i rank very highly compared to other players, certainly it is a step below the other normals but its very effective and there are a number of good reasons for using a teamslot for it. its excellent special bulk allows it to trade hits with special attackers quite well, and is a solid switchin to weaker special attackers such as electrics if needed. unlike kang which can j be 2hkod/crit ohkod by tent’s surf, clef even at half health forces tent to lock into wrap and risk taking a twave if wrap misses, same as hypno. it 2hkos kadabra with bslam and again doesnt rly fear psychic crits or drops due to its special bulk. it doesnt 2hko dug with bslam but still has a very good dug matchup, allowing it to generally be able to click twave freely. as the only viable bulky mon with access to both twave and counter other than hypno, it can come in on persian and threaten either to do huge damage to a switchin with counter or to cripple persian with paralysis if it stays in.
it should not be used as a team’s sole normal type, its physical attacks fall between gyara’s and dnite’s in power level which isnt rly enough to be a team’s primary wallbreaker, but it can ‘back up’ kang and/or dodrio, or maybe persian.
since i know teambuilding with clefable has been a question for some players (when/where do u use it), i typically use clef on physically offensive teams, where its special bulk is very useful, but without giving up offensive presence or momentum like eg vaporeon does, and without the type weaknesses of either dragonite or gyarados which an offensive team doesnt want to have to deal with as they lead to a loss of momentum. clef for example does not have the weakness to articuno that basically every other uu physical attacker has.
trode is probably just the best electric in uu rn but it doesnt have enough usage for me to put it higher than this. as far as the dugtrio mu goes, take down into explosion kos, but obv trode is fishing for groundless mu. even grasses can only take so many tbolts, pair it with a razor resistance to not repeatedly lose momentum vs venu. tangela is passive af so giving it free turns doesnt matter lol, also tangela cant pivot anymore if it takes twave.
the rest of the tier rly doesnt like taking stab tbolts esp from that crit rate, and revenge killing trode is obv not possible. electrode + dodrio is horrible into golem but have good synergy vs pretty much everything else in terms of what trode offense can look like.
buzz is kind of bad, has to click body slam a lot vs dug teams, so its just about as prediction reliant vs dug as trode is, and vs dugless trode is basically just better. being slower than persian and physically frail sucks (tho buzz is not as frail as kadabra lol). still there arent that many electrics and buzz sees enough success and usage.
tangela is another mon i rly dont think is good, yea on paper its a great dug check and ok v persian, however this plus its low speed means that unlike venu itd usually rather wait a bit to get sleep, after coming in on a physical attacker. but by then it can often be sleep blocked, and yea bind means it doesnt lose momentum from being sleep blocked, but it cant actually make progress either bc once tangela is bind locked opponent can do whatever they want lol so there is no real pivot advantage. i see this in game after game and even if like tangela predicts the sleep block it can… click mega drain for 5% recovery or double switch lol. to be fair stopping dug’s momentum several times is worth something, but not ~that much~ lol, esp when other dug checks have sm offensive presence. and its obv weak to ice anyway, most tangela teams would be better off with dnite instead and j deal with relying on (restless) hypno for sleep.
#21-22 poliwrath and golem #23-24 raichu and pinsir #25 charizard #26 moltres #27 magneton
golem can be explored more, after haunter its prob the biggest mu fish in the tier, dodrio and to a lesser extent aero teams can be quite weak to it, tho its ofc crippled by burn from aero and rly doesnt want to switch into a paraslam from drio either. kang is everywhere rn tho and can switch into golem pretty well which limits its ‘ceiling’ at least somewhat. like aero it has the issue that if opponent hasnt revealed a drio or aero yet, u have to evaluate whether to bring golem into say a paralyzed hypno’s twave which effectively means giving up on the potential matchup it was fishing for to begin with.
poliwrath is a water type w hypnosis, outside of hypnosis its outclassed even by blastoise honestly lol. there are some things it rly doesnt do well enough as a water imo, the persian mu is rly a problem unless u run submission which is hard to fit and tbh is mediocre anyway, kang mu isnt great either and submission doesnt even help there, both issues are bc of polis bad special stat, these are not mons u want a bulky water to struggle against bc theyre among the biggest offensive threats in the tier. then its also weak to drio’s drill peck lol. basically the only offensive mons its good against are dug and aero, in the current meta that is not that useful. the only thing sort of interesting to me is being able to switch into omastar or dewgong from a dodrio lead or something which hypnosis hypno cant do very well, this mon is j not worth it.
raichu is j worse than electrode in any matchup except vs golem teams, which are likely to be very weak to raichu lol. if golem gets significant usage raichu can rise, but its kind of stuck being ranked under golem since that mu is the only real resson to use it. (tbc raichu can still be effective outside of that mu, its j outclassed).
i used to like pinsir before aero’s rise on phys offense, but rn the aero weakness is generally a bigger issue for normal spam than the benefit of pinsir’s ability to check dug.
i do not agree at all that pinsir is outclassed by dnite and should only be used alongside it, pinsir hits much harder w slash, and lacks the 4x weakness which as noted before offensive teams dont want to have to deal with esp since they already tend to be weak to cuno. however it is very hard to justify over kang, and certainly i would never use it insted of persian, the speed tier and paraslam immunity are way more valuable than bind.
however, the mon can work, unlike raticate which rly has no purpose with all the better normals present it does have a niche of some better matchups than eg dodrio due to bind, i think probably it should j be limited to ‘mu fishing’ against players who dont rly use aero / hope u guessed correctly that they dont bring aero. @ moveset personally i prefer dropping sd in order to fit stoss to trade with haunter as well as to run both bslam and slash bc para fishing can still be useful in many situations even tho pinsir’s bslam isnt very strong (same power as gyara’s), but i know many/most players prefer the swords dance set.
others can comment on zard better. as for moltres, its rly hard to justify over cuno, while using both opens u up to weaknesses. molt does have the speed tie with kang and ofc the burn chance so even for rs kang that is way more uncomfortable than the cuno mu, eg if kang loses the speed tie and gets burned its rly bad and molt can even setup on it at that point if it wants. molt also has the higher attack vs cuno but that is undermined by being weak to water and ice, also isnt walled by dewgong which is more important. so i dont think molt should be unranked but it def struggles.
magneton isnt exactly bad but the problem is if u are matchup fishing for dug-less then u have better options, haunter and electrode. offensively, trode is generally a bigger threat to dugless, tho magneton does have some advantages such as grasses checking it poorly, while if u are choosing magneton for its bulk allowing it to take on normal types, u likely may choose haunter instead, since it walls persian and outspeeds kang, tho magneton is obv far better vs dodrio. and ofc if u dont get the mu fish, trode and haunter will do much better. mag is just barely rankable for me and i def get why some ppl wouldnt rank it.
other (weird) stuff like poliwhirl or golduck, and prob one or two other mons i cant remember, im not going to bother with here.
(butterfree and venomoth are dumb and i will never rank them lol)
PvK cancels Vaporeon, return to Big Momma Kangaskhan
Dewgong to B- is the wave
C- Rank
D Rank
E Rank
Lusch used this once and its niche is basically "Ground-immune sleeper". You switch it in on Dugtrio's shitty ass, sleep something, sack for the opponent's sleep later and/or use it as death fodder. In my opinion, it's a worse Venomoth, especially in the Speed department, but apparently, its bulk is just enough to give it a better Hypno matchup too. I don't know enough about this, but hey, it's somehow not choking on air. Plus, sleep is really, really stupid in this tier, so that's another point in its favour.
Sevi 7 wrote an analysis on this and proved this Pokemon can somehow exist in this tier, which is ungodly to think about, especially after reading that Butterfree isn't screaming for death. For some horrific reason, Seaking can set up on Dugtrio while pressuring Tentacruel more effectively than its competitor, Articuno, can. Yes, you are reading this, Seaking can do that. What else can it do? Jack shit. Well, I guess it can fish for a freeze...
Worse Dodrio, use it alongside it and it works though. Oh, and you can switch in on Earthquake or Sleep Powder and Mirror Move it if you're based.
Eh...Volk used it and it was ok. The main issue is that it's a worse Persian outside of the sacred Swords Dance + Hyper Beam combo I will continue to meme into relevance. It's one of those Pokemon that really wishes Dragonite was banned, as it's setup fodder and almost forced to run Toxic as a result. It's faster than Tentacruel though, which I believe makes it the only SD+HB user in the tier with that trait. 
It's almost viable, being another one of those Pokemon that wishes Dragonite would fuck off. Again, forced to run Toxic, but it's got a nuclear Thunderbolt, which is cool in a tier strapped for strong Electric-type attacks. One of the big problems is that while it's forced to run Toxic, it's also slower than Dragonite, which means it'll have to take some Wraps before it can even land the Toxic in the first place. Joy! Worse still, if you're going to run a paraspam team to make this botched resurrection work, why aren't you using Golem or Pinsir?
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