np: SUMO UU Stage 1 - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards

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We are out of beta and starting with the retest for real now. However, we have decided to do a last batch of bans due to drops and new ladder trends, and this time we included the rotating council. Aquadext, Killintime and @Sacri are the first members of the rotating council.

The following Pokémon were nominated and voted on by the council



Azumarill, Drizzle and Thundurus-I are being sent to BL. Reasoning:

Azumarill has been a centralizing force of the meta for a while now. Its Choice Band set is nigh impossible to switch into safely, and on top of being a great wallbreaker, it boasts strong priority allowing it to revenge kill and potentially clean. Even though its speed is low, it has a good defensive typing and decent natural bulk, letting it put in work against any kind of team. In addition to the Choice Band set exists the Belly Drum set, with either Sitrus Berry or Normalium Z, which serves as a great lategame wincon. Even without a Choice Band, an unboosted Azumarill hits hard so it is not reliant on set-up, either. On top of all of this, dealing with both sets differs: while Choice Band sets can be walled by some Pokemon such as Amoonguss, Belly Drum sets are usually revenge killed, so guessing wrong between the two sets can open up holes in teams. For all of these reasons, Azumarill has been banned.


Just like Azumarill, it is impossible to take on Thundurus safely. Between its mixed set utilizing z-Fly and its several Nasty Plot sets featuring Life Orb, Electrium-Z or Fightinium-Z, there is no one safe method of dealing with this Pokemon. Although it relies on either Hidden Power Ice or Hidden Power Flying for many of its sets, either of those in addition to either Grass Knot or Focus Blast accounts for the entirety of the metagame. While Thundurus is weak to Stealth Rock and does not boast the greatest bulk, its speed tier more than makes up for that, as there are only 8 Pokemon in the entirety of UU that outspeed it. Between its great speed, raw power and stellar coverage, Thundurus has been deemed to be too much for UU.


With Kingdra dropping to UU, Rain-based teams received a large boost in viability. Rain has already been very strong, and with the addition of Kingdra, it became significantly better. Kingdra's typing has great offensive and defensive synergy while its stats allow it to run physical as well as special sets. This malleability allowed Kingdra to make up for the flaws Rain had before its drop, and a lot of teams just lose to Rain at team preview. However, Rain itself is not the issue. If a turn has to be given up to set up Rain via Rain Dance, that can either be prevented or exploited. There is no singular Swift Swim user that is broken. Lastly, Damp Rock is not in itself a problem, as it is not broken in conjunction with Rain Dance. As such, Drizzle has been identified to be the issue and will subsequently be banned.

dodmen - Ban
Hikari - Ban
Hogg - Ban
Pearl - Ban
King UU - Ban
Christo. - Ban
Bouff - Ban
Tony - Ban
killintime (rotating) - Ban
Sacri' (rotating) - Ban
Aquadext (rotating) - Ban
Amaroq (rotating) - Ban

Result: Ban (12/0)
dodmen: Ban
Hikari: Unban
Hogg: Unban
Pearl: Ban
King UU: Ban
Christo.: Ban
Bouff: Ban
Tony: Unban
Sacri': Ban
Lord Esche (rotating): Unban
CoolStoryBrobat (rotating): Unban
Ark (rotating): Unban

Result: Ban (6/6)
dodmen: Unban
Hikari: Unban
Hogg: Unban
Pearl: Ban
King UU: Ban
Christo: Ban
Bouff: Unban
Tony: Unban
Sacri': Ban
Highways (rotating): Ban
TSR (rotating): Unban
Eyan (rotating): Unban

Result: Ban (5/7)
Results:

Alakazam: Banned (7/5)
Clefable: Remains UU (5/7)
Sharpedonite: Remains UU (4/8)
dodmen: Unban
Hikari: Unban
Hogg: Ban
Pearl: Ban
King UU: Ban
Bouff: Ban
Tony: Ban
Sacri': Ban
Aquadext: Ban
pokemon sparrow (rotating): Ban
Accelgor (rotating): Ban
Manipulative (rotating): Ban

Result: Ban (10/2)
dodmen: Ban
Hikari: Ban
Hogg: Unban
Pearl: Ban
King UU: Ban
Bouff: Unban
Tony: Ban
Sacri': Ban
Aquadext: Ban
Kushalos (rotating): Ban
ProfessorMasterChief (rotating): Ban
killintime (rotating): Ban

Result: Ban (10/2)
dodmen: Unban
Hikari: Unban
Hogg: Unban
Pearl: Ban
King UU: Unban
Bouff: Unban
Tony: Unban
Sacri': Unban
Aquadext: Unban
pokemon sparrow (rotating): Unban
pokeisfun (rotating): Unban
Eyan (rotating): Unbn

Result: Unban (1/11)


The current UU banlist is:

Alakazam
Azumarill
Baton Pass
Breloom
Charizardite Y
Diggersby
Drizzle
Kyurem-B
Dragonite
Gyarados
Mewnium Z
Porygon-Z
Scolipede
Serperior
Slowbronite
Staraptor
Thundurus-I
Thundurus-T
Tornadus-T
Weavile
Victini


Current suspect: None

Suspects need a 2/3 supermajority to be unbanned (8/12 votes). For a more detailed version of the tiering process, read this thread.

Use this thread to discuss about the metagame, the current suspect and what should be suspected next.
 

G-Luke

Sugar, Spice and One For All
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Welp. While controversial, I do believe Victini shouldn't have been introduced just yet, what with three more quickbans that quite literally rattle the metagame, and the meta already has enough to adjust too. I will howev hold back on Victini's viability and brokeness for now. (Heads up, I think its even moar broken now than in beta)
 

HotFuzzBall

fuzzy-chan \(ㆁヮㆁ✿)
is an Artist
Well with these rounds of bans, I can see hyper offensive being a lot more popular now that rain and Azumarill are out of the picture. Thundurus-I gone most likely means the viability of Togekiss and Water-types (especially the passive ones such as CroCune and Mantine) will be a lot better with another check gone.

In all weirdness, I believe that it was Kingdra that warrants the ban rather than Drizzle since rain was fairly managable since we had the "mediocre/average" Swift Swimmers (Ludicolo, Kabutops, Seismitoad) even with Thundurus-I in the tier. With Thundurus-I and theoretically Kingdra, rain would have been a "meh-ish" play style I feel.

As for Victini, yeah I agree with G-Luke as well. The new drops along with the recent bans will shake the meta up quite a bit so I also believe it is wise to let the meta settle down a bit before we suspect Victini.

Now to address the other bans...

Primarina - This was an odd one for me since Primarina has kinda jumped out to me as "just a strong Pokemon" as opposed to overly centralizing and broken.
Bisharp - Indifferent on it, I think it is fine in UU but at the same time I think it may be too much for the tier.
Mega-Sharpedo - At first I wasn't sold on the suspect for it but, after playing against it and reading other people's thoughts on it, I can see how it would warrant a suspect due to all the buffs it received making it really s
Clefable - I think it's a bit early to figure out whether its centralizing or nah since we got it like a week ago.
 

G-Luke

Sugar, Spice and One For All
is a Community Contributoris a CAP Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
VicVenu Sun teams are gonna pounce on this pooor poor vunerable metagame. At least a quarter of my beta teams are now reusable! :-)
 
I see Victini being very good in the tier, but not broken that's for sure. The best assest Victini has is its movepool and variety of sets. It can dismantle most balanced cores, but definitely struggles against offense. This is in contrast to something like Mega Sharpedo, which can clean up most offense but has trouble breaking holes in well built BO or Balanced teams. Idk, I just feel with a tier with Bisharp, Keldeo, and Latias, there are plenty of ways to deal with the multitude of Victini sets. The lure set is nice, but honestly, things like Infernape gives Victini a run for its money with its own lure sets. I wouldn't be surprised if it does end up getting banned, but I personally had no trouble with it when it was unbanned in Alpha.
 

Kink

it's a thug life ¨̮
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Welp. While controversial, I do believe Victini shouldn't have been introduced just yet, what with three more quickbans that quite literally rattle the metagame, and the meta already has enough to adjust too. I will howev hold back on Victini's viability and brokeness for now. (Heads up, I think its even moar broken now than in beta)
The volatile nature of the tier is the reason we did these quickbans, and the group consensus on what was banned will most definitely influence the tier in a postive way. I don't speak for the council, but I'm of the opinion that we don't have the luxury of sitting on our asses when we have an obligation to the community to begin retests of Pokemon that have a chance to join our tier. We announced our procedures months ago, and we're sticking to it.
 
I'd complain about 'SUMO' being used rather than 'SM' to abbreviate Sun/Moon, but that's irrelevant nitpicking.

Onto the real comment: I decided to wait things out until the last bans were taken care of, but UU is definitely looking very fun. Victini seems dangerous to deal with due to its absurdly powerful moves, but there are powerful threats such as Mega Sharpedo and Mega Aerodactyl that could keep it in check. The power's the biggest deal, though. I'm thinking Victini will still be too much to handle, but who knows. Should be fun to see how this plays out.
 

6ft Torbjorn

formerly JoycapJoshST
Well here's something to kill the time while the Duggy OU suspect unlocks itself.

Anyway, Victini... hm... having it in UU would certainly be wacky, but with Salamence being rightfully quickbanned early in (alongside Gyarados/Dragonite, understandably), I can't say there's much stopping it from running rampant (banning ANY of the bulky DD abusers is an A-OK in my book).

My heart says yes, but my head says no. Victini has all the relevant coverage it needs to turn the tier on it's head, everything from Glaciate (which most sets may be forced to run if Flygon rises at any point) / Bolt Strike / Energy Ball / Focus Blast / U-turn / Dazzling Gleam and more (as well as support like Trick/Taunt/Will-O-Wisp). With that (and I don't know if this is a glitch or not) - Serebii.net says that Z V-create (Inferno Overdrive) is of 220BP, making it possibly the most powerful Z-move on paper alone. Sorry buddy... I think you'd do a little too much in this tier.

VictiniTired.gif
 

6ft Torbjorn

formerly JoycapJoshST
I don't think it's worth it considering it's only 40 BP more than V-Create itself.
Apart from in key situations, It gives you a nuke vs stallier / more defensive teams, and doesn't come at the cost of your bulk & speed, alas doesn't make you Pursuit fodder. That's one thing to consider, how many relevant Pursuit trappers does UU have? Krookodile / Zoroark / Honchkrow are the only ones I can think of. And remember what happened with Alakazam last gen, where Mega Aerodactyl was forced to run Pursuit supposedly?
 
You also cant run band if u want the z-move which is pretty meh

with victini back i feel like it'd be a huge dent to stall and fat teams in general, as current iterations of stall I've faced have no pursuit trappers, so all you need to do is bop the quagsire/fire resist once with energy ball/bolt strike and then u can v-create away free of charge.

it'd also be a solid check to scizor and clef, while being weak to bisharp. not to use the viability rankings as an argument, but it fairs rather well against many of the A and above threats, as none really counter/threaten all sets.

imo don't think victini will/should last long its still pretty broke, (especially with z-coverage moves)
 

6ft Torbjorn

formerly JoycapJoshST
You also cant run band if u want the z-move which is pretty meh

with victini back i feel like it'd be a huge dent to stall and fat teams in general, as current iterations of stall I've faced have no pursuit trappers, so all you need to do is bop the quagsire/fire resist once with energy ball/bolt strike and then u can v-create away free of charge.

it'd also be a solid check to scizor and clef, while being weak to bisharp. not to use the viability rankings as an argument, but it fairs rather well against many of the A and above threats, as none really counter/threaten all sets.

imo don't think victini will/should last long its still pretty broke, (especially with z-coverage moves)
I was about to say - could you not run Grassium Z / Electrium Z and break more things without warning? As I said, it has all the coverage it should need to thrive in this tier.

It's STAB also has amazing synergy with Faries, which might just shoot its potential of returning to UU in the foot (especially considering Clefable is definitely starting to put it's feet up and settle into UU). something like these three together:

VictiniGen6.gif


Victini @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Victory Star
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- V-create
- Zen Headbutt
- U-turn
- Trick

FlygonG6.gif

Flygon @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- Fire Punch
- Dragon Dance

comfey.gif


Comfey @ Big Root
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 248 HP / 156 Def / 8 SpA / 96 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Aromatherapy
- Leech Seed
- Synthesis
- Draining Kiss

Explanations later
 
I was about to say - could you not run Grassium Z / Electrium Z and break more things without warning? As I said, it has all the coverage it should need to thrive in this tier.

It's STAB also has amazing synergy with Faries, which might just shoot its potential of returning to UU in the foot (especially considering Clefable is definitely starting to put it's feet up and settle into UU). something like these three together:

View attachment 77948

Victini @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Victory Star
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- V-create
- Zen Headbutt
- U-turn
- Trick

View attachment 77947
Flygon @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- Fire Punch
- Dragon Dance

View attachment 77949

Comfey @ Big Root
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 248 HP / 156 Def / 8 SpA / 96 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Aromatherapy
- Leech Seed
- Synthesis
- Draining Kiss

Explanations later
Why not Triage on Comfey?

Also, you should try Iron Tail/U-Turn over Fire Punch on Flygon. You miss out on hitting Forretress, but can pop fairies in the mouth for the surprise KO with IT, or you can pivot out to bluff scarf. Ypu have VC already on Tini, so that alone is a deterrent for steels.
 

CoolStoryBrobat

The hero Smogon needs, but not the one it deserves
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On paper, Victini definitely seems way more powerful in the current meta than in previous ones...Victini lost so many offensive checks that either outsped it, reliably trapped it with Pursuit, or had priority to answer it, and is now being re-introduced in a meta that previously had barely any major Fire-types to worry about besides Volcanion, Infernape, and the occasional Chandelure...meaning prepping for Victini is going to be a pretty big adjustment for a lot of teams, especially bulkier ones, because you're looking at the most dangerous Fire-type in the tier, one that can choose all of its checks and counters by moveset. I would anticipate Pursuit being used a LOT more in the coming meta, especially on offensive/balanced teams that rely on bulky pivots, and possibly even Stall in some cases. Stuff like Mega Absol, Mega Aerodactyl, Scarf Krookodile, and even Sneasel naturally outspeed Victini and can make short work of it after it's used a V-Create, or threaten to kill it before it can even attack in a 1v1 scenario. The main sets I'd probably expect from Victini are:

Choice Band
Choice Scarf
Life Orb Special w/V-Create
Charcoal/Expert Belt Mixed
Z-Move
(special mention to Taunt + WoW Victini just because it has the potential to become a thing)

While every set excels at something different (Band, Life Orb, and Mixed work better against slower, defensive teams, while Scarf is a huge issue for Offense) and checks such as Latias, Bisharp, Mega Aerodactyl, Keldeo, Raikou, etc. exist, it goes without saying that Victini will be far from impossible for most teams to deal with. The real issue is that its insane power and versatility will allow Victini to shore up whatever shortcomings it has with good team support, and once Victini has broken a hole in a defensive core for its teammates, or blown out a dangerous offensive threat to its own team, it's already done its job.
 
Just wondering, isn't Searing Shot on Victini not a thing? It is a 100 base power Lava Plume if I remember correctly.
Merely beacuse Blue Flare exists, which is far more powerful and still maintains a good 20% chance of burning. It's accuracy is not perfect, but Victini needs all the power it can get since base 100 SpA is not something you can call high.
 
My question is, what things check standard Victini sets? More specifically, what things check standard Victini sets without being weird niche things? Because yes something with a weird set might work, but that means it could be dead weight or suboptimal against non-Victini teams.

I ask because depending on how limited that list is, it could say a lot about Victini's impact on the overall health of the meta. I know UU is different than OU, but it was this same logic that was a big part of Genesect getting banned in OU. If teambuilding ends up woefully limited and constrained, where you have to have mon x or y or you're already behind the 8-ball in most matchups, then that says a lot about whether Victini should be banned or not.

So the question is, what standard things check standard Victini sets? From there, does the size or makeup of that list mean that a Victini meta is too limiting?

For the sake of transparency, I'm more of an analyst and studier than an active battler in Gen VII. I won't ever make reqs, and at this point I'm decidedly undecided on my feelings towards Victini in UU.
 

Amaroq

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I'll preface this by stating that I'm aware that the council usually subscribes to a wait-and-see approach for new drops in the hopes that the meta can adapt to them and that I normally agree with such an approach on principle. However, I think that Clefable represents a significant edge case where an element newly introduced to the tier is clearly broken in UU and unhealthy for the meta and that it should've been quickbanned.



Clefable is one of the best Pokemon in the meta right now. I (and many others) consider it broken. Clefable is incredibly versatile and can fit on any playstyle (it's least useful on hyper offense, but even there lure sets can have their merit). It can provide a bulky win condition, lure a large number of prominent Pokemon, serve as an answer to a huge number of boosting sweepers, and provide its team with Wish and Cleric support.

Calm Mind sets can choose from a plethora of coverage and utility moves (such as Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Stored Power, Knock Off, Thunder Wave, and Toxic, just to name a few) and defeat pretty much anything they want, depending on the choice. Flamethrower lures Steel-types such as Scizor and Bisharp (Scizor and Jolly Life Orb Bisharp cannot OHKO with their STAB moves without a boost and +1 Flamethrower has a very high chance to KO both back. Scizor needs to invest heavily in Special Defense to have a chance of surviving from full and still dies after Stealth Rock damage). Knock Off enables Clefable to beat special walls like Blissey and bulky boosting sweepers like Suicune. Ice Beam lures Gliscor. Psychic-type coverage allows Clefable to defeat Poison-types that would normally wall its STAB moves. Thunder Wave allows Clefable to support its team while also serving as a self-supporting win condition and enables it to win matchups it would normally lose with fortunate RNG. While most Calm Mind sets use Magic Guard, Clefable can also utilize Unaware and Heal Bell to serve as a stop to setup sweepers and a win condition at the same time.

Clefable can also run defensive utility sets with Wish and Heal Bell. Fairy-type support Pokemon were a staple of ORAS, and Clefable fills the same role, except with better physical bulk than Sylveon and Florges ever had (it lacks their special bulk, but compensates with an enormous amount of utility options). Clefable's other utility options allow it to set up Stealth Rock, spread status, and remove the items from opposing Pokemon. Clefable possesses an enormous number of ways to support the rest of its team on top of incredible defensive typing (Fairy is arguably the single best type in the game).

While the above statements should be sufficient to demonstrate Clefable's versatility, it can also run offensive Life Orb sets that leverage its expansive coverage options to lure and remove particular threats that would ordinarily stop the Calm Mind sets or pressure the utility sets. Flamethrower/Fire Blast, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, and Psychic/Psyshock can all remove key members of opposing teams to open up opportunities for Clefable's teammates to close out the game.

This replay demonstrates a common scenario in the current meta: games between two players that both have a Clefable often come down to a Calm Mind war where the winner is the one who crits first. Over the course of this match, both players exhausted their Clefable checks very easily and were forced to enter into a Calm Mind war and hope for a crit.

In summary, Clefable does too many things too well and should be Banned.


Ninetales-Alola @ Choice Specs
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Blizzard
- Moonblast
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Freeze-Dry

Lots of people have been making use of the Aurora Veil set, but I wanted to take a moment to point out that Ninetales-Alola's Choice Specs set is also pretty cool. Ice/Fairy is a good offensive typing and Alolan Ninetales has access to Hidden Power to pressure some of the Steel-types that would ordinarily wall it. 81 base Special Attack isn't anywhere close to impressive, but 100% accurate Blizzards help make up for Ninetales-Alola's lack of inherent power. Moonblast is a solid secondary STAB option, the Hidden Power of choice threatens Scizor or other Steel-types (Hidden Power Fire is the preferred option, but Hidden Power Fighting or Ground can also hit some targets like Bisharp), and Freeze-Dry covers Water-types that can tank Blizzards with ease. Ninetales-Alola has a good speed tier and can threaten a lot of fast, frail Pokemon. Hail is also nice for some residual damage. This set isn't amazing, but it's a nice way to give Ninetales-Alola a bit more offensive presence if you don't feel like focusing on the utility aspects of the Pokemon by using Aurora Veil.

Edit: 200th post hype, I didn't even notice at first.
 
An an esteemed rotating council member, I guess I should give my opinion on the current suspected Pokemon, Victini. I don't like writing huge walls of text though so I'll try to be concise.

From my personal experience on ladder in the last days and after watching other people, I've come to the conclusion that Victini... is still broken as hell. Not much has changed for it since it was quickbanned last month, and Victini is still a huge problem for every possible team. Aside from its good defensive capabilities for such an offensive threat, being a decent check to things like Scizor, Clefable or Cobalion by virtue of its good bulk and typing, it is a formidable offensive threat with its STAB V-create and excellent movepool, having coverage moves to hit almost everything in the tier. It doesn't help that Victini has many effective sets (band, scarf, specs, mixed...), with each of them having different checks and "counters". When playing against Victini, you often end up in these situations where you make weird predictions and switches, taking good chunks of damage in the process, to try to figure out what its set is, so that you can answer to it accordingly. And it can always U-turn safely anyway and bring a teammate with a better matchup, putting you in trouble. For all these reasons, and probably some others that I forgot to list here, I don't think Victini is a healthy Pokemon for the UU metagame.
 
Last edited:

HotFuzzBall

fuzzy-chan \(ㆁヮㆁ✿)
is an Artist
did not realize that this will be the new metagame discussion thread o.o

anyways...

Victini has got to go. Victini does put a strain in team building since you require some way to scout for which set it is using (and it has a lot of sets alongside really random, but solid, coverage). Its very hard to switch into Victini initially since, as mentioned before, it is pretty hard to gauge which set it is running. Kinda like what Aquadext said, Pokemon that can check its Specs set (Blissey, Mantine, Mega-Blastoise) are blown back by its physical or mixed sets. The same can also be said about checks to its physical/mixed sets are blown back by its special set. Also, the most annoying thing (I feel) about Victini is how safe it can be. Similarly to our good friend Pheromosa during the early stages of OU, it would just spam U-turn until it got a good matchup. There are very few checks to all variants of Victini at the moment (Mega Aerodactyl and Bisharp come to mind) which is also pretty dumb. I would also argue that Victini is a whole lot better now that UU just lost both Azumarill and Rain since those are 2 less things Victini has to worry about.

I think the tier will be better without Victini.

Really random but I know back in the VR ranking that I said Gastrodon sucked, mainly because I was using its outdated Curse set. But, SpDef Gastrodon is pretty good in this current meta.


Gastrodon @ Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Mirror Coat
- Recover

Basically SpDef Gastrodon is able to tank hits from special attackers such as Alakazam and Gengar pretty decently. I opted for Earthquake instead of Earth Power since Earthquake secures the KO onto Gengar while dealing more damage to Empoleon, Tentacruel, Klefki, Alakazam, etc. but, obviously Earth Power is still pretty viable since it gets the Storm Drain boost. Ideally, you would want Toxic or Ice Beam over Mirror Coat but, I used Gastrodon to scout Victini since it has a pretty decent chance to live a Specs Energy Ball and knock it out. It also lures in Amoonguss and HP Grass Volcanions that try to knock out Gastrodon.
 
Well from building a lot of different teams and playing them all, I believe that Victini is still absolutely broken.

In fact, I believe it's even more broken than it was when we tested it in ORAS, even though the metagame is vastly more offensive now than it was then. This is because it always has at least one Pokemon it can switch in relatively safely on, against anything but pure HO (and even sometimes then). In the S/A ranks alone of the viability thread, you've got: Scizor, Clefable, Cobalion, (non-Knock Off) Mew, Klefki, and Celebi which Victini comes in on with very little risk, especially if the former two are pressured enough to recover that turn. From there, as a defending player, it's absolutely ridiculous to try to deal with it, and the more offensive nature of the metagame means that common Fire resists are nowhere near reliable at dealing with it. Between V-Create and U-turn alone, Victini is already stupidly hard to try to switch into, and when you throw in Bolt Strike and all the coverage moves it can run with a mixed set, it becomes truly impossible.

Amaroq's replay above (this one) was shown to highlight Clefable, but I mean look at how much work Victini did. Manipulative's opponent had a bulky offense team that actually seems to deal well with Victini at first glance - he's got two solid offensive Fire resists (one with recovery) and only one Pokemon that Victini can switch in safely on (Clefable, and even that could've had Knock Off or Thunder Wave). However, Manipulative is still able to switch Victini in easily 5 times, and he literally clicked V-create all but once without even trying to predict, and killed Empoleon and Gliscor and got Latias Pursuit trapped. This is fucking stupid and shouldn't be allowed.

I've used Pursuit Aerodactyl on several teams while laddering and knowing that a Victini is gonna live if it stays in, even at -1, and kill me is absurd. I've led with Scarf Krookodile to purposely try to catch Victini, and I know that no attack is gonna kill it, but oh well might as well Knock Off its Band and take like 65% in the process because that's literally the best case scenario for me (hope it's not Scarf either!). I have a Spikes stack balance team with Slowbro, Hippo, Keldeo, and Pursuit Aero and I still feel fucked whenever Victini comes in on my Klefki.

Even though Victini was one of the closest votes in beta, I feel that's it's truly among the stupidest Pokemon to face that we've seen in UU so far. I'm voting ban.
 
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