Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
~★LARGE POST ON BH UU AND SNAKE DRAFT EXPERIENCES (also free that post of the week thing my man did nothing wrong)★~
so now that the bh snake draft is over, there's no reason to keep all this stuff classified anymore. here we go
week 1
my team revealed that they would be putting me in the bh uu slot. i was kinda surprised by this because i had no experience in the meta, but no one else really did either lol. since there was no vr or anything, i went through all the mons on ps and made a bh uu setpedia, which i put in a cryptobin. super secret, i know.
this setpedia was really comprehensive, probably more than it needed to be. however, i'm pretty sure it did contribute to the 3 bh uu wins we got in total.
the team
for the tryouts i'd been most successful with a hyper offense team centered around surge mmy + illusion pheromosa + sheer force mmy. i tried to replicate that to use in a bh uu format, with scarf mega heracross used over pheromosa, normal mewtwo with psychic surge, and sheer force deoxys. shell smash prankster mega lopunny (a late-game sweeper) didn't end up doing much during the game but i'd still call it a good set. prankster mega altaria and celesteela were my last mons but celesteela was apparently banned. someone on my team was like "try jirachi" and i was like "ok"
ayy lmao (Deoxys) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Psychic
- Bolt Strike
- Moonblast
- Earth Power
space jam (Lopunny-Mega) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shell Smash
- Power Trip
- Taunt
- Close Combat
LL Alt #3 (Altaria-Mega) @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Destiny Bond
- Heal Order
- Moonblast
- U-turn
sure (Jirachi) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Circle Throw
- U-turn
- Rapid Spin
- Knock Off
the game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-656788789
on team preview, sedertz brought a mon that i thought was banned (foreshadowing): mega alakazam. this thing was a monster. specs moongeist beam could 2hko jirachi, psycho boost destroyed everything else, and it outsped my whole team. i needed a way around this mon. apart from that his team looked like some vanilla balance, with mega salamence and palkia as the breakers and a solid defensive core of celesteela + mega swampert + mega alt.
i decided to lead with my illusion mega heracross, hoping to take the zam out of the game turn 1. he led with zam but unfortunately for me, he switched to celesteela, giving me free momentum but denying me a kill on the big threat. i went to lopunny and tried to set up.
before this, i thought that the reason why he chose mega mence was because it outsped rayquaza and had comparable attacking stats. however, it turned out that he was actually running a defensive set with fur coat or unaware all along. i have no idea why he had brave bird, but he took 30% from power trip and knocked out lopunny. the score was 6-5 in his favor
since we both had so much firepower (i had 3 breakers and he had mega zam), it started turning into a fast-paced game of trades. mewtwo took out mega alt and mega zam came in. he actually turned out to be life orb instead of specs, so he just barely missed the 2hko on jirachi and had to switch out, giving me momentum.
i knew that unless celesteela was av, it would be taking a lot from psycho boost, so i used that and switched to heracross (as deoxys) on the recover. but he stayed in on the u-turn, losing me momentum but giving me the information that he wasn't scared of my deoxys. palkia came in against jirachi.
you guys might criticize the play i made there (staying in and clicking circle throw) but honestly i'd say that it was the best play in that situation. palkia didn't reveal primordial sea so i lived save for specs/a crit, and i thought that the reward of getting a u-turn wasn't worth the risk of shell smash palkia, which would necessitate me sacking prankster altaria even in a best-case scenario.
i was pretty sure u-turn from celesteela (the mon that got dragged out) would kill jirachi, but at the same time i didn't think letting it die was the right play. so i made the gambit of switching to altaria, hoping to take out his alakazam if he didn't know my set. the gambit worked, and mega zam was out of the game.
i had a free switchin, so with psychic terrain up deoxys looked like a good candidate. i was kinda worried it wouldn't ohko sedertz's full health celesteela, but it did. psychic ko'd mega swampert as terrain ran out, leaving only palkia and mence against my mewtwo/heracross/jirachi.
now apparently there were some conflicting banlists and stuff. i was kinda mad but there wasn't much i could do unfortunately besides play the second game. the offending mon was mega heracross so that's yet another thing to blame on low ladder (i know ztest likes this mon but it's really bad lol)
the team
i knew i couldn't just get away with using the same team again because not only would sedertz be better prepared for it, but there weren't really any good replacements for mega heracross. since sedertz seemed to bring balance teams, i figured i'd use a style with a good matchup against balance, stall.
this team is kinda silly because it's literally imposter+2 fairies+3 waters but i thought it had a decent matchup against everything in the cryptobin. volt absorb mega slowbro counters xurk and zekrom!!!
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-658764080
sedertz brought another balance team to this battle. aerilate specs zard y and tinted lens palkia were his main breakers, and neither of them could really break through empoleon. his defog user was ff celesteela so i couldn't burn it or poison it, but at the same time he couldn't consistently keep hazards off because of insufficient pp.
not much to say about the battle really, i almost let empoleon die to mega alt which was really stupid but i'm lucky n bad and got the roll
week 2
this week, my team decided to sub me out and move ztest into bh uu to let highlord play gen 6 bh. i honestly didn't mind that much because this tournament was kinda stressful. tasked with helping ztest with his bh uu team, i approached him with this set:
Archeops @ Stone Plate
Ability: Triage
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tail Glow
- Judgment
- Oblivion Wing
- Earth Power / Blue Flare
this set seemed really good on paper. a triage mon that imposter-proofed itself and accomplished feats like ohkoing magearna at +3. what wasn't to love? however, the more i tested against z, the more i realized that this thing was really underperforming. +3 judgment didn't ohko offensive mons like palkia, and it accomplished nothing if there was a psychic surge user because it had no bulk.
after i told him this, he suggested that a fighting resist might be better in the last slot. so i spammed him with all the fighting resists in the cryptobin, and he decided to add the best bug.
week 3
so this time i was subbed back in, and my next opponent was jeran. now for some reason even though both sedertz and jeran were good tournament players who didn't (to my knowledge) main bh, everyone was hyping up jeran a lot more than sedertz like idgi man
the team
i looked in the cryptobin for some cool offensive mons to build around and my eye fell on adaptability landorus-t. paired with aerilate ray, it could eliminate all flying resists with cb stab thousand arrows. i posted it in the chat asking for thoughts. ztest responded by suggesting this set:
the set looked decent to me, but it reminded me way too much of the mediocre archeops set from week 2—it had good coverage, but unimpressive special attack and move power so it missed kos.
however, unlike in archeops's case, there was a way to fix this problem: the premier flying-type in the tier, rayquaza, could perform the same role at the cost of a slightly weaker earth power.
ztest also suggested cb teravolt mega chomp which i agree is one of the dumber mons in the tier. i think he hyped it up a bit too much but it was a good mon so i added it to complement ray.
after that i just added a bunch of blanket checks that i used before as a defensive core. umbreon was basically mega gyarados, so i decided to add it as a 6th mon.
Umbreon @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Haze
- Heal Order
- Knock Off
- U-turn
the game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-665763161
jeran brought balance. what was annoying was that he had a bunch of mons that could've been either offensive or defensive (groudon, alt, metagross, giratina-o) so i couldn't tell what mons i'd need to hold on to. umbreon looked kind of worthless so i led with it
one turn in and the battle was already looking bad. i knocked off ferrothorn's leftovers but he u-turned into the dreaded ph mega alt. i realized that my only way to stop it from sweeping was the specially frail (why was it +def) mega slowbro. thanks to a 50/50 in my favor i managed to prevent the altaria from breaking slowbro, but it would be back.
as he went to his ferrothorn on the recover, i knew i had to stop him from u-turning into mega altaria again. so i went into my own mega alt to draw in mega metagross instead of altaria.
he revealed that he was a contrary set with anchor shot/superpower/roost/filler. interesting. i went to umbreon, which took an attack or two but couldn't accomplish much before it got ko'd.
he was presumably trying to imposter-proof his mega metagross by trapping imposter, then preventing it from killing metagross because of roost + high defense, then making it out of the encounter with numerous boosts. the final move that i inferred was ice hammer, because it raised metagross's speed (preventing foes from revenge killing), provided coverage vs giratina o etc, and was resisted by metagross itself. so i went to slowbro, clicked u turn on the ferrothorn switchin, and had control of the battle for the first time.
at this point, i didn't really see a way out of the battle. but through some fluke, rayquaza was able to sweep even with my bad playing (shoutouts to setting up a second tail glow on ferro, was expecting prankster destiny bond). i'm pretty sure jeran just didn't expect me to bring setup.
finals
i really don't want to talk about this week because literally everything went wrong. but you can't just make a post like this and ignore the L like man that stuff doesn't work. also i'm hoping i can show you guys what not to do in important tournaments lol
the team
so being the type of mans to stay up playing mons and then complain about not getting enough sleep, that's exactly what i did. ph darkrai was a pretty cool mon from the cryptobin so i paired it with cb illusion mega gallade and some celesteela altaria cress defensive core.
all the other guys in my team were offline a lot so i was only able to get one test battle in against z. he told me that celesteela was banned, and that illusion on gallade was unnecessary because this mon had no switchins anyway lol. doublade looked (key word: looked) like a good replacement that imposter-proofed gallade so i slapped it on
Avarice (Darkrai) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Dark Pulse
- Sludge Wave
- Lovely Kiss
Eternal Flame (Gallade-Mega) @ Choice Band
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Photon Geyser
- Spectral Thief
- U-turn
in all honesty tho the team wasn't that bad. my only real mistake was using doublade as my worry seed mon, apparently without having learned anything from week 3. the rest of my team lost after that too which kinda sucked
just get sleep ok guys? if you don't then dumb things happen
the metagame
i'm gonna tell you guys what mons are good in bh uu judging from snake draft. there's no ladder but i think i can make a pretty fair estimate here.
mega altaria: this is the landorus-t of bh uu. although it's easy to wear down over the course of the game, it checks all the really dangerous guys, like reshiram, zekrom, and palkia. soundproof is my favorite variant because most -ate users can't touch it, but ph and stuff is probably decent too.
ferrothorn: this mon is really good. i didn't use it but i should have. worry seed checks all the common ph users if you run flash fire.
mewtwo/zam/deoxys: very good mons. i think that zam is broken but the others are balanced, like you need a resist for specs surge variants but they can't just pull out a coverage move and kill it
ate: interestingly, i didn't see this used in the tour, but i think that it has potential. kyurem in particular is really good. z brought it against me in a test game and it 2hkod all my mons but it had scarf when i tried to revenge kill it. rayquaza is the more "meta" one but don't sleep on kyurem. idk about xurk but it's probably really good with scarf too.
zekrom: this is stupid. it bypasses alt with sunsteel and kills everything else. please suspect this mon
poison healers: ogre and alt were the main one i saw, but other variants like curselax and reshiram are probably good too. requires preparation
shoutouts TheBurgerKing99jrm115 thanks for having bad enough judgment to draft me Ztest you're a cool guy, was nice to be on your team CROW'S BANE i think you have potential man, don't give up aki0s @_@ ^_^ sugarhigh man it was nice having you on my team. still need to 1v1 me tho Highlord you seem pretty cool, wish i'd gotten to know you better GmU pokeboss9 GOATMU GOATBOSS9 ScarfWynaut thanks for hosting man sedertzAkashiCatalystic thanks for the battles, gg guys Duckymomo Senior i think it was really cool that you supported your brother. keep doin that stuff man
@hotmons ppl (rng zovrah klang luckyboy and you other scrubs) git gud imo Isotonex the antagonist i deserved, if not the one i needed Snoop dogg for making the masterpiece that is mac & devin go to high school
ok i don't know if stars can be formatted so this could either be a row of normal stars or something more resembling life. whichever one it is see you guys later
Here's a break down for the nasty UU BH team I brought to snake. I am a huge advocate for playing for fun, winning is secondary, but this week was different because I asked to be subbed in for SL, so I couldn't disappoint. As a result, this was the only match I really tried hard and prepared for (no offense opps/team, very fun matches all around :] ). I ended with a very solid team that I am proud of. I feel unstoppable with it, so I will be providing a break down of each mon and giving it an arbitrary rating of 1-5 in terms of fun, viability, and overall goodness. Enjoy.
BIG Z (Alakazam-Mega) @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Teravolt
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tail Glow
- Judgment
- Psystrike
- Overheat
This mon takes advantage of Zam being broken, it picks off lots of the things Garchomp struggles with and is good late or early game. Behind a sub from Cress, a guaranteed TG makes it a machine. For a glass cannon, it lives a surprising amount of hits. 5/5.
BIG BLUE (Tyranitar) @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- U-turn
- Shore Up
- Knock Off
- Rapid Spin
TTar is stupid bulky, and sets sand. With no relevant ghosts except tina origin in the tier, rapid spin is a good choice. I believe to be the best mon on the team by far in terms of utility. It clears hazards, checks zam, sets sand, takes almost any hit, and provides the juicy shore ups. I would recommend keeping this mon alive at all costs, but it honestly keeps itself alive with no problem. 5/5.
Cress was the original mon the team was created around. The set is pretty self-explanatory, albeit very nasty. Reason for Cress was it's crazy bulk and amazing typing, also a good fighting resist for TTar, and a magic speed tier for subpassing. Unfortunately, it was little underwhelming and not too fun to use. 3/5.
BIG BLUE (Garchomp-Mega) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Fusion Bolt
- Draco Meteor
- Sunsteel Strike
Another broken mon, Chomper really pulls through every match. His massive attack stats let it pick off pretty much all mons in the tier in two hits, with sand giving it a major buff to its shit speed as well providing chip. Draco is for Slowbro, and other FCs that would trouble it. Life orb helps with matchup and clearing for Zam, but a Z crystal on any of his moves would also work. 5/5.
BIG SL42 (Golisopod) @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Volt Absorb
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Spectral Thief
- U-turn
- Shore Up
- Entrainment
The last minute addition, Goli performs alright and is needed to imposter proof the Chomp. For a defensive pivot, the attack stat is great and low speed makes for an effective U turner. It proved itself during my match, being pretty much the best counter to PH swamp in the game, which otherwise crushed my team. The design is also cool and only second to M-Hera. 4/5.
BIG BLUE (Swampert-Mega) @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Destiny Bond
- Shore Up
- Spectral Thief
I used Swamp for this slot because of the awesome typing and design. The tspikes are amazing for providing chip alongside sand, and crippling mons that the team struggles with. Sadly, pretty much any mon can do what this one does, and I can see lots of things doing what it does just as well or better (ie. M-Venu). 3/5.
Big shout outs to SL42 for being a cool guy
Shout outs to Halliday for letting me play this round on a whim
Shout outs all my Nice Natus for pulling through
I didn't post changes last month because the usage stats for the previous month were missing but I did silent edit the updated banlist in the OP so these are the changes from that
skarmory and manaphy are going to make the power level of MMUU much higher skarmory is going to do what it does, and manaphy is going to run its normal absolite, diancite, or sceptilite. I know 100% It runs absolute pretty commonly but that was in a pre diancite meta after that I never really saw it so...
celesteela in BHUU sounds fun marshadow gets access to a better ability maybe?
why is gyrados in AAAUU again? this thing is a monster its not broken I don't think but from what I can tell its pretty powerful.
Bringing up a cursed topic here: An Ubers UU unofficial metagame has been installed on ROM using the January usage stats for a banlist. Everything in the gray cells, Ditto and higher, are banned. No longer does anyone have to submit it as an OM proposal. Go hog wild!
Mix UU with Mega
Mix and UU
Mix and Mega with some good bans of overused pokemon but also a lot of random ones as well thrown in there product of the usage of mid-low ladder
UU and Mega
Pdonless Mix and Mega
Mix and Mega but it's UU
Mix and Mega but everytime you click "battle" it invalidates your team because you can't have marshadow, so you complain at whoever was the noob who made the banlist and rage quit
MUUx and Mega
Incredibly enough, Ditto has been unbanned from Ubers UU with the February usage stats. Amazing! How will it change the face of this ever-popular and real metagame?
Raikou dropped wow but losing buzzwole and keldeo sucks or at least tit would if buzzwole was not the best in mnm uu that I found anyway it shines better in mnm ou also raikou finally will be used more in the uu meta as you had no reason to run any red orb users cause pdon did it a million times better no matter what it was.
The Immortal can the 1v1 UU banlist be weighted off the 1630 usage? Potential threats like Dragonite and Landorus-T stay unbanned in the 1500s. It was discussed in the 1v1 Discord and the users said that it should be 1630. We do have an additional banlist of our own in which Dragonite is banned but the 1500 usage would often get these Pokemon to be banned every month. It used to be 1630s before this so that'd keep consistency and furthermore it'll be helpful for the upcoming 1v1PL.
The Immortal can the 1v1 UU banlist be weighted off the 1630 usage? Potential threats like Dragonite and Landorus-T stay unbanned in the 1500s. It was discussed in the 1v1 Discord and the users said that it should be 1630. We do have an additional banlist of our own in which Dragonite is banned but the 1500 usage would often get these Pokemon to be banned every month. It used to be 1630s before this so that'd keep consistency and furthermore it'll be helpful for the upcoming 1v1PL.
Definitely not. If we use 1630, UU is essentially decided by 25 people (currently that many people above 1630). As opposed to OU which has like 1000 people above 1630. Tiers shouldn't be decided by 25 people.
i mean you clearly dont have a problem with a low amount of people influencing the shit out of a tier :P 25 is the amount of people who vote in suspect tests, i dont see the problem
i mean you clearly dont have a problem with a low amount of people influencing the shit out of a tier :P 25 is the amount of people who vote in suspect tests, i dont see the problem
what the heck is with all the banned stuff in mnm moving up? are people really using base darkrai shaymin sky and marshadow? and explain the primal groudon thing in bh?
While I can’t explain Marshadow’s moving up, and am forced to attribute that to lower ladder things, Shaymin-Sky and Darkrai have been unbanned from holding stones. As such, their surge in usage can be attributed to the fact that they’re able to hold stones now.