Metagame RU Stage 9: ENERGY (Iron Jugulis Suspect)

[EviGaro]

​

Hlelo, following the survey results - apologies for how overdue they were btw, did not expect to be knocked down with three different health things at the same time rip - the Council collectively decided on the next step decided to suspect Iron Jugulis. This isn't exactly a major surprise, as it was already on our voting slate to start the month of November and then scored very high on the playerbase's survey.

Iron Jugulis came back from RUBL and ended up doing fairly similar things it used to do prior to its first ban. Booster Energy with that speed is extremely threatening, as it proceeds to outspeed the entirety of the unboosted metagame and almost all the viable scarfers in the tier. This makes it an extremely dangerous tool against most offensive teams, who will struggle to find checks to its extremely good stab coverage paired with Earth Power - which will often becomes another stab due to tera ground being a strong option - while being bulky enough with a good enough typing to get more than enough opportunities to come in and sustain enough turns to break teams. It's not entirely useless versus more bulky teams either, as the coverage stays excellent, and access to taunt shuts down several wish passers especially, causing severe problems to teams relying on this as both a method of sustain and a way to deal with Jugulis. Charge Beam is also a decent last option, offering Jugulis a way to boost further and push its excellent coverage a notch further. Outside of the booster set, Boots with the Knock Off / U-turn combo has seen some play, but it would be a stretch to define this as truly game changing in the metagame. It is hard to punish with its very good speed and pivoting, but it doesn't take over games in the same way at all.

Booster Jugulis has, in effect, very little downsides, and its usage on several archetypes illustrates how useful it is to make progress and how difficult it is to clearly answer. But its inability to reliably setup further - only possible with the middling Charge Beam really - and reliance on taunt to guarantee success against defensive teams makes it a tiny bit unreliable for what you want it to do. Its weakness to rocks is not insignificant, nor is how difficult it can be to deal with all the priority in this metagame, with Slither Wing and Lycanroc-Dusk being strong options on the teams Jugulis wants to prey on. However, Booster Jugulis isn't necessarily this team cleaner and probably shouldn't be viewed as such primarily. It certainly can be, but it excels as a team player. For example, Yanmega scored fairly highly in the survey for a mon that was not a primary option offered. What you tend to see on ladder is Jugulis being able to effectively break Yanmega answers, be it with Earth Power, Taunting and chipping the bulky special wall or preventing rocks. Something like Yanmega thus gets a lot more leeway than it otherwise would, but we tend to believe the bigger culprit here is the more supportive option that doesn't need its partner anywhere near as much, and like we see Jugulis offers a lot more than simply breaking down for one specific mon.

Anyway, it's now up to the playerbase, tagging Kris and Marty to announce it on the RU ladder, thank you both as always!

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
78	50
78.2	49
78.4	48
78.6	47
78.8	46
79	45
79.2	44
79.4	43
79.6	42
79.8	41
80	40
80.2	39
80.4	38
80.6	37
80.8	36
81	35
81.2	34
81.4	33
81.6	32
81.8	31
82	30

Suspect information:

• There will be no draws allowed for any potential qualifiers. If you qualify with draws, your suspect requirements will not count, and you will not be allowed to vote. There is no way to actively enforce ties to prevent abuse, so they will be disallowed. Use stall at your own risk.
• All games must be played on the Pokémon Showdown! RU ladder on a new alt with the following format: "RUJ3 (nickname)”. For example, RUJ3 Booster or RUJ3 STOPFLINCHING.
• Do NOT impersonate other people in your ladder alt, do NOT use any usernames which are offensive, flame-baiting, or targeting specific users, and do NOT use usernames which could be interpreted as breaking any of the username rules on Pokémon Showdown! Failure to abide to this will result in you being barred from voting in this suspect, and potential infractions.
• The suspect test will last for two weeks, ending on Sunday, December 24th. 11:59pm - 5

/!\ NOTICE /!\ RU will not be tolerating any form of voting manipulation. Any attempt to manipulate votes can result in an infraction, loss of eligibility to vote in the current test, and loss of the Tiering Contributor badge. While we won't necessarily enforce super strict punishment, this won't be tolerated and will be handled accordingly. Voting manipulation can simply be described as attempting to get people to vote a way on the test in inappropriate manners. Bribing with teams to vote a certain way, directly messaging people to vote a certain way, publicly announcing "vote this way" all fall under voting manipulation. For more query, feel free to PM me or Feliburn .

 

[Feliburn]

This was my song suggestion btw

​

I think Jugulis is more of an enabler mon than one of those overpowered breakers. It trades a lot of HP vs walls for other breakers to do their thing. Taunt is good vs mons like Hippo, Vaporeon and Fezandipiti so they dont heal vs it. I rarely see Work Up sets straight up sweep teams, but when paired with other breakers it's usually easy to get it over with. On fatter teams, Booster Jugulis usually ends up being the late game cleaner cause you plan the game for it to get past the last 2 or 3 weakened mons since its harder to revenge kill it after a speed boost.

While I don't personally think it's a straight-up broken mon, I do think the effect it has in actual battles is very awkward and could be categorized as unhealthy. I'd love to hear what other people have to say about it.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I clicked on this thread expecting to see this:

very disappoint

 

[Sneakyplanner]

I wrote about my problems with jugulis in the meta discussion thread but I'll expand on them here.

In my opinion, the thing that makes Jugulis 100% banworthy is that speed stat with booster energy. It is basically impossible to outplay it offensively, and it's a problem that will not get better with dlc drops, as mons faster than base 108 that want to run a scarf are not exactly common. Currently, scarfers are almost all garbage, and jugulis is at least half the reason why with the other half being maushold. You can't outspeed the important threats you want to be faster than, so why bother trying? With offensive counterplay seemingly being off limits, you either have to have two or three bulky mons that can live a hit and then get chip damage or win the rawest 50/50 with your own jugulis. My usual strategy involves having to sacrifice tinkaton and then use AV cyclizar to hit a draco meteor or slither wing first impression. That plan in the best case scenario requires sacrificing at least one mon

Jugulis is only made more problematic by how even defensive answers are shaky. Tinkaton, a-muk, and diancie all take hits well enough, but it only takes a bit of chip damage before they lose the matchup. And of course even if you do have one of those mons at full health, all it takes is a little bit of luck to win. Hurricane is the most toxic move in the game and dark pulse has the tendency to flinch you after you think "what do I do if it flinches me here?" Booster jugs games more often than not end with both players rolling the dice and hoping for the best.

I wanted jugulis to come back, but with booster energy it is just too much for the tier. And sadly I don't think that anything we could hope to get in the DLC would make it fine.

 

[Bice]

Sneakyplanner pretty much worded my thoughts better than I ever could. Outside of priority a speed-boosted Jugulis is nigh-impossible to check offensively, and even then outside of Lycanroc's Accelerock (which can be thwarted with Tera Ground) Jugulis has the bulk to take most forms of it. Defensively its checks lack reliable recovery (outside of Tera Rock Hippowdon; even then you'll have to give up a more reliable Tera type like Ghost) and are often pressured by having to check a whole lot of other threats which Jugulis is often paired with, such as Maushold and Fezandipiti. As someone who's used Jugulis on Hyper Offense, it's too good of a glue due to its access to Taunt and its unmatched Speed tier, letting my team muscle around bulkier threats that would otherwise send it packing. It's a big enabler for other arguably-broken threats like the aforementioned Maushold and Yanmega.
Once I get reqs I'm definitely voting Ban, get rid of this upscaled Rumble Hydreigon pls

 

[Iron Jugglenuts]

In defense of Iron Jugulis here is 5 reason to not ban him

1. He is cute :(
2. Jimothy Cool is voting ban anyway :(
3. Jugulis won't do his Christmas in RU and that would make him very sad :(
4. Walled by Tinkaton air balloon or Tera Flying :(
5. Jugulis have his Dark Types friends and he loves them and don't want to leave them :(

 

[Serviperhater]

In defense of Iron Jugulis here is 5 reason to not ban him

1. He is cute :(
2. Jimothy Cool is voting ban anyway :(
3. Jugulis won't do his Christmas in RU and that would make him very sad :(
4. Walled by Tinkaton air balloon or Tera Flying :(
5. Jugulis have his Dark Types friends and he loves them and don't want to leave them :(

That’s quite convincing ngl we wouldn’t want him to not be near his friends on Christmas

 

[Pepeduce]

I would expect Energy from Keri Hilson. I'm lil bit disappointed.

Whatever the demon Jugulis must leave.

 

[Feliburn]

Here are some teams that can be used for reqs:





s/o Bice



These are the ones I used to get them. A couple are tricky to use, but my overall recommendation is that Slither Wing is the goat vs this ladder. I especially like adamant sets with Earthquake but I didn't have a team I could pass with it.

 

[RyuSnowシ]

​

Hlelo, following the survey results - apologies for how overdue they were btw, did not expect to be knocked down with three different health things at the same time rip - the Council collectively decided on the next step decided to suspect Iron Jugulis. This isn't exactly a major surprise, as it was already on our voting slate to start the month of November and then scored very high on the playerbase's survey.

Iron Jugulis came back from RUBL and ended up doing fairly similar things it used to do prior to its first ban. Booster Energy with that speed is extremely threatening, as it proceeds to outspeed the entirety of the unboosted metagame and almost all the viable scarfers in the tier. This makes it an extremely dangerous tool against most offensive teams, who will struggle to find checks to its extremely good stab coverage paired with Earth Power - which will often becomes another stab due to tera ground being a strong option - while being bulky enough with a good enough typing to get more than enough opportunities to come in and sustain enough turns to break teams. It's not entirely useless versus more bulky teams either, as the coverage stays excellent, and access to taunt shuts down several wish passers especially, causing severe problems to teams relying on this as both a method of sustain and a way to deal with Jugulis. Charge Beam is also a decent last option, offering Jugulis a way to boost further and push its excellent coverage a notch further. Outside of the booster set, Boots with the Knock Off / U-turn combo has seen some play, but it would be a stretch to define this as truly game changing in the metagame. It is hard to punish with its very good speed and pivoting, but it doesn't take over games in the same way at all.

Booster Jugulis has, in effect, very little downsides, and its usage on several archetypes illustrates how useful it is to make progress and how difficult it is to clearly answer. But its inability to reliably setup further - only possible with the middling Charge Beam really - and reliance on taunt to guarantee success against defensive teams makes it a tiny bit unreliable for what you want it to do. Its weakness to rocks is not insignificant, nor is how difficult it can be to deal with all the priority in this metagame, with Slither Wing and Lycanroc-Dusk being strong options on the teams Jugulis wants to prey on. However, Booster Jugulis isn't necessarily this team cleaner and probably shouldn't be viewed as such primarily. It certainly can be, but it excels as a team player. For example, Yanmega scored fairly highly in the survey for a mon that was not a primary option offered. What you tend to see on ladder is Jugulis being able to effectively break Yanmega answers, be it with Earth Power, Taunting and chipping the bulky special wall or preventing rocks. Something like Yanmega thus gets a lot more leeway than it otherwise would, but we tend to believe the bigger culprit here is the more supportive option that doesn't need its partner anywhere near as much, and like we see Jugulis offers a lot more than simply breaking down for one specific mon.

Anyway, it's now up to the playerbase, tagging Kris and Marty to announce it on the RU ladder, thank you both as always!

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
78	50
78.2	49
78.4	48
78.6	47
78.8	46
79	45
79.2	44
79.4	43
79.6	42
79.8	41
80	40
80.2	39
80.4	38
80.6	37
80.8	36
81	35
81.2	34
81.4	33
81.6	32
81.8	31
82	30

Suspect information:

• There will be no draws allowed for any potential qualifiers. If you qualify with draws, your suspect requirements will not count, and you will not be allowed to vote. There is no way to actively enforce ties to prevent abuse, so they will be disallowed. Use stall at your own risk.
• All games must be played on the Pokémon Showdown! RU ladder on a new alt with the following format: "RUJ3 (nickname)”. For example, RUJ3 Booster or RUJ3 STOPFLINCHING.
• Do NOT impersonate other people in your ladder alt, do NOT use any usernames which are offensive, flame-baiting, or targeting specific users, and do NOT use usernames which could be interpreted as breaking any of the username rules on Pokémon Showdown! Failure to abide to this will result in you being barred from voting in this suspect, and potential infractions.
• The suspect test will last for two weeks, ending on Sunday, December 24th. 11:59pm - 5

/!\ NOTICE /!\ RU will not be tolerating any form of voting manipulation. Any attempt to manipulate votes can result in an infraction, loss of eligibility to vote in the current test, and loss of the Tiering Contributor badge. While we won't necessarily enforce super strict punishment, this won't be tolerated and will be handled accordingly. Voting manipulation can simply be described as attempting to get people to vote a way on the test in inappropriate manners. Bribing with teams to vote a certain way, directly messaging people to vote a certain way, publicly announcing "vote this way" all fall under voting manipulation. For more query, feel free to PM me or Feliburn .

Iron Jugulis isn't exactly broken, but I HATE the amount of 50/50 coinflips that this pokemon causes, it and yanmega are two extremely problematic pokemon for tier health, simply you can get flinch with a game practically won, or you can dodge hurricane and win a match in which you were losing, Also, it has a good variety of sets, I just hate that kind of pokemon.

 

[GoldenCyber]

Jugulis is really good mon. Good SpAtk and Dual STABs hits the meta hard and can blow past the seemingly few checks being Fez, Tink, Diancie, Ttar and Muk-A with Tera Ground EP. Booster is such a good tool for Jug to outspeed everything, so revenging is not really an option without priority and/or trading 1-2 mons for chip. Taunt can shut down recovery on certain walls like Vape, Milo and Fez to trade chip and enable progress for your other mons. I say ban the juggy!!

my advice; simply dodge canes and dont get flinched lol

 

[THE_CHUNGLER]

What all of the pro bans have said is true, jug isn’t crazy strong, but the jug user is going to force progress on your special wall and you can’t do much about it. It’s almost impossible to play around, so you just have to suck up the damage somehow.

The best you can do is attack with your jug check on a turn it’s going to taunt to weaken it without taking damage, but jug is bulky enough to take 2-3 hits from its defensive checks unless rocks are up. It’s not going to lock itself into a move so you can pivot around, it’s fairly sturdy against priority because of its good bulk, and flinches/confusion/spdef drops can bail it out in the worst cases against the things that are supposed to beat it, because again, it’s probably getting multiple chances to flinch due to its good bulk. It turns a 30% flinch into potentially a 49% chance if it just needs 1/2.

One thing that does work is blowing Tera on a mon like magnezone to kill it, but the jug user is probably pretty happy with that trade if they still have tera and can use it freely on, for example, their yanmega or whatever’s the next best sweeper on their team.

Jug is of course a great abuser of Tera. Forcing an opponent to stay in with their special checks means you can be fairly sure of what they’re going to do on any given turn: they’re going to keep whacking jug until it dies, or heal if they haven’t been taunted.

Jug creates game states where even if you know what it’s going to do, you can’t stop it from weakening your team, which makes it too easy for other offensive threats to sweep. I think this leads to very linear games that aren’t fun to play in/against. I’ll be voting ban.

 

[Feliburn]

Iron Jugulis is now banned from SV RU. See the votes here.