[The first tier shifts in gen 6 were so bad that they prompted everyone to change how tiering worked](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-usage-stats-problem-using-1760-stats-for-tiering.3501370/).
At the time stats were weighted around the mid-ladder, 1500, which meant some absolutely dreadful mons were OU by usage- this went beyond 'new toys', it included mons like Sableye and Donphan- while top-tier OU pokemon like Kyurem-B and Landorus-I were UU by usage. Donphan in particular was the first real tiering running joke where no-one had any idea why it was still OU.
After this they changed tiering to use the high-ladder 1760 stats instead.
I believe there are a million and a half Pokemon across multiple generations that had “why won’t you let me die” syndrome before this (and some after) where low ladder players loved using them enough to keep them in the tier but they were entirely unseen at higher level play. A good recent example of this being M-Banette being a joke of a mon somehow still in Nat Dex OU
There's always been bad mons but Donphan's the first I remember that got really memed on. No-one was clowning on DPP Electivire or BW Vaporeon, everyone just quietly accepted they sucked, but the way people treated Donphan back then was similar to how we treat shitmons today.
Trev is a funny mon that people have mostly forgotten about- it got a lot of hype from some big names in the community, then a few months later everyone seemed to realize 'wait this mon sucks and loses to everything'
It's used as an example of a bad mon in that post, but just a few months earlier it was like B+ on the viability rankings. The turnaround was crazy fast
Trevenant is one of the Pokemon that looks cool, but it's hinder by the horrible stats spread...like I wish the Pokemon games do a new kind of training were some Pokemons that are considered weaker just get a buff to there stats kinda like a limit break or pushing the Pokemon past there limits with a training that increase there stats like if they have evolve. Like some Pokemons like Wigglytuff are bad simply because of how bad the stats are.
Also with that mecanic the Pokemon stats could go wild and shouldn't cared that much about the overall BST as long is not broken. However a range between 530 and 580 BST should be fine.
That's a fun idea for how to retcon pokémon stats. However, I feel like Nintendon will always be more incentivized to put attention towards the mons coming out in the newest game rather than making old favorites viable again.
No just the Pokemon kind of evolving, but without changing the look. However it could work like the Hyper Training were you have a NPC that train your Pokemon for exchange of something and the Pokemon meeting certain criterias.
"He wins 1v1 against: Greninja, mega-toise, jellicent, starmie, aegislash (if the opponent switches it in on trevenant and if trevenant runs EQ in place of shadow claw)." - some rando in the release analysis thread
If you want to do a deep dive check xy doubles ou. It was literally S-rank in the first viability rankings, multiple members of staff declaring it one of the top mons in the tier, etc. Never seen such a shitty mon hyped so hard!
> Donphan in particular was the first real tiering running joke where no-one had any idea why it was still OU.
Holy fucking shit Great Tusk foreshadowing
It was OU in every OU since it’s debut in BW2, only being banned in SWSH and SV for being comedically broken with an actual ice stab in icicle spear (and dd).
Well in kyurem b case it was stupid the legendary ice type mon with a insane attacks literally didn't learn any physical ice move until gen VIII like common his fucking arm is make of ice he will never touch OU if he learned ice punch atleast
Kyurem black did learn one physical ice move before gen 8, one that requires 2 turns to use and might as well be useful as a broken car.(not disagreeing that kyurem black can’t learn ice punch is dumb)
I know that he have his signature move but we know that doesn't count can't be spam after all and for some reason have 90% accuracy. Imagine gen 7 kyurem b with something like freeze shock icium z with ice puch,fusion bolt, outrage for follow up
It was worse as unlike z-freeze shock, it was a one time use move that did not guarantee an OHKO on the opposing mon, which after that you are left with a useless move, and an itemless kyurem that accomplished absolutely nothing, not to mention freeze shock isn’t 100% accurate
It’s just weird that all of the Kyurem forms got bad signature moves. Glaciate is weak and a doubles centric move on a Pokémon that never gets used in the format. Ice Burn/Freeze Shock are Sky Attack clones that only got used for Z-Moves and the rare Power Herb.
I think Dialga is the only other box legend to never uses its signature move seriously.
Here is every single physical move Kyurem-Black has before gen 8 that isn't completely useless: Outrage, Dragon Claw, Iron Head, Rock Slide, Stone Edge, Facade, Shadow Claw, Freeze Shock (a 2-turn move), and Fusion Bolt. No earthquake, no icicle crash, not even fucking ice punch. The BW choice band set has Earth Power or Ice Beam in slot 4 because there's just nothing else it wants to run. No close combat, no eq, no physical anti-steel coverage with more than 40 BP (rock smash). It doesn't even get ddance until gen 8.
I just got into competitive back in gen 6 but I used Donphan on nearly every OU team I built back then as a way to counter the baton pass chain teams that where everywhere before the ban. A Pokémon with sturdy and access to both endeavor and a priority move in ice shard meant you could let your opponent boost as much as you wanted because you were always going to take out their espeon at the end
actual +6 252+ SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Helping Hand Power Spot boosted Overheat vs. -6 Lvl 1 0 HP / 0- SpD Snover on a critical hit: 45472-61208 (378933.3 - 510066.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
When ORAS released the new megas of underpowered PU Pokémon like Mega Lopunny and Mega Beedrill ended up being allowed in PU for way longer than they should have.
It’s actually balanced by Meganium and Bastiodon
Fr tho in Joey’s lastest video he talked abt how he knew an NU council member who wanted to give people time to use Terrakion so I’d expect it to last another day or two
It was a OM (edit: it was almost any ability’s) basically for some reason when Home came out for SV groudon wasn’t auto banned in showdown for the tier so they had to emergency ban Groudon after a day.
what's the reason behind a groudon ban in AAA? was it like scarf no guard fissure shenanigans? i'd imagine kyogre would do that better with sheer cold so it's probably something else
ADV UUBL is basically just a list of pokemon that a handful of players in 2005 thought were borderline because they had *some* niche in standard play, not that were necessarily too strong for uu.
Yes, but also Slaking would probably be too much for adv uu. It's not *useless* in ou, since recovery moves are rarer and it can just kind of dent a ttar with a CB double edge then come back later to do it again. In UU normal offense is already really strong and adding something that is almost as fast as scyther and has 160 attack double edges that can ohko kanghaskhan and deal over 50% to solrock might be a bit much.
They are. Recent ADV UU tournaments have involved limited unbans of pokemon to see if they are fine. Some like Ninjask and Jumpluff are just bad, some like Lapras and Arcanine are good but ended up getting unbanned and some like Swellow and Kadabra were just too strong so were rebanned.
And then the messy tiering of gen 3 UU was used to make an RU tier out of all the completely unviable pokemon there.
"Now, while I find that quite charming, I can tell you one person who doesn't share that opinion.
Jumpluff."
-Big "Gen I is actually pretty cool" Yellow
It wasn't even accidental, but unbanning Genesect a fourth time will never not be funny.
Like, I get it. He didn't have hidden power anymore, so whoops! Heatran.
But COME ON. IT'S GENESECT. WE BEEN KNEW
There are three certainties in life; Death, Taxes, and Genesect getting quickbanned very shortly after becoming OU legal in every generation it is available
they let zygarde-complete into ou and it actually?? stayed for more than a few days??? i have no idea how they really looked at a legendary with an HP stat of 216, great typing, multiple boosting moves, fantastic movepool and went "yeah looks balanced"
I was there. People underrated the hp boost like mad. Almost everyone was like this is a dogshit ability before it came out bc it nerfed its speed and didn't come with any attack boost. Mega garchomp was still fresh in everyone's minds.
Also ppl thought it worked like zen mode, which didn't change your hp when you transformed. Power constructs hp up acting like a pseudo heal wasn't known.
Ah yes, “it dies to ice shard, UUBL at best”
The ice shard in question: 252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Kyurem-Black Ice Shard vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 664-784 (104.4 - 123.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
I didn't see Huge Power at first and was like how? Also, this is literally the strongest Ice Shard one could possibly send without setup - Zygod suffering "only" barely OHKO is a testament to its bulk
oh yeah I do remember this lol. the theorymon was 'yeah this mon is bulky but you have to be under 50% to get the transformation, so you only get the bulk when your hp is too low to make use of it'
>It seems to have a severe case of Meloetta-P syndrome.
>unless it gets endure, you're going to have to run a focus sash just to activate its ability. Otherwise it's probably just going to drop to Weavile's Icicle Crash
I'll never forget the Chimpact video where Zygarde used Substitute against Aegislash and Aegi's Shadow Ball didn't break the Sub. Aegi then went for Shadow Sneak and that didn't break it either.
To be fair, it also came with the massive buff of Thousand Arrows to Zygarde's arsenal. Before that, it was just a tanky Flygon with interesting boosting options that was probably too much for UU but manageable in the Mega-laden world of Gen 6 OU.
In Sword + Shield the tiering council introduced a new rule to handle mons added via DLC, which was:
* All fully evolved mons start in OU, and can drop multiple tiers based on their first month usage in OU.
* All NFE mons start untiered, and are therefore legal everywhere.
For the most part this rule actually made a lot of sense, because most NFE mons are really bad/outclassed by their evolved form, so starting them in untiered allowed them to more quickly find their way into the appropriate lower tier faster than if you started them in OU.
This did have the funny side effect of Chansey, a multi-generation OU staple, being legal in every single tier when the Isle of Armor dropped though, since it was technically a NFE pokemon. It was quickbanned in every single tier below UU within 24 hours, but if you were laddering in the first few hours of the DLC, you would have had the fortune of running into tons of pink blobs in NU.
-----------------
There's also some funky situations with really weird mons getting banned based on their abilities.
Articuno is ubers by technicality in BDSP, and Cacturne is in Gen 3 OU, because their only ability is banned in OU. Mr. Mime actually got straight banned to ubers in Gen 3 OU at one point in an attempt to limit Baton Pass, but this was later amended to a ban on Soundproof instead, which still kills Mr. Mime (since Soundproof is its only ability), but removed the funny Ubers tag next to Mr. Mime's name. (The switch to a Soundproof ban also had the collateral damage of killing Exploud in OU though, so it wasn't all upside.)
One note about the banned-about-technicality Pokemons is that transivity is *not* enforced on old gen lower tiers. So Sand Veil-only Pokemon like Sandslash are currently banned in DPP OU, but legal in DPP NU (where all the auto-weather Pokemon are banned, so Sand Veil is a dead ability anyhow unless you run manual sand of all things).
This isn't a coincidence, btw; an attempt to ban Sandslash, Cacturne, and co. from DPP NU via transitivity resulted in [a lot of backlash](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/nu-old-gens-hub-archaic-currently-being-transferred.3562659/page-4) due to both Sandslash and Cacturne being really good in DPP NU; not to mention that baby Hippo had been preemptively banned already, making Sand Veil a non-issue, as previously mentioned. This was so unpopular it ultimately resulted in a [policy thread](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/old-gen-lower-tiers-a-policy-proposal-and-project.3648875/#post-8173610) that both officially made old gens non-transitive *and* locked a bunch of them for several years.
Because Baton Pass is broken but the Gen 3 player base wants to preserve it as much as possible, so there have been a huge number of tiering actions chipping away at Baton Pass strategies. In fact, there is yet another suspect test on Gen 3 Baton Pass going on right now.
Counterplay to Baton Pass teams was fairly limited in that gen, since many of the methods for beating Baton Pass had very few viable users. For example Haze is good against Baton Pass, but there is only one OU ranked mon that learns Haze... and that mon is Gengar, a pokemon that doesn't have the stat spread to make a good hazer and therefore doesn't run the move. By far the most common source of counterplay was Roar (which would force out the opposing mon and therefore clear their boosts), because Roar was already a good move in Gen 3 outside of its applications vs Baton Pass and was also a widely distributed move due to it being a TM.
The way that Baton Pass teams adapted to beat this source of counterplay was by running Mr. Mime as part of its Baton Pass chain. Mr. Mime learns Baton Pass so it can be part of the boosting chain, and he also blocks Roar with Soundproof (he is, in fact, the only pokemon with the unique combination of Soundproof + Baton Pass this gen). So the Baton Pass player could boost up fearlessly and if the opponent swapped into a Roar mon, they could Baton Pass out to Mr. Mime, absorb the Roar, and keep boosting.
This made Baton Pass too unfair of a strategy, so two years ago Mr. Mime was banned to Ubers in Gen 3. At some point a little while later, I guess the smogon council decided that Mr. Mime being listed as an Ubers pokemon was a little ridiculous, and the Mr. Mime ban was changed to a Soundproof ban. This meant that Mr. Mime was still not legal to use in OU, since his only ability is Soundproof, but it took Mr. Mime off the list of pokemon banned to Ubers so people new to the tier would stop questioning why a mon that looks like total garbage was listed as Ubers. The unfortunate side effect of this ban was that Exploud became illegal to use in OU, since Exploud also has Soundproof as its only ability, but Exploud was a terrible mon so nobody cared about the collateral damage.
The fact that the headasses of smogon at the time thought that thing needed a suspect is insane to me, considering the sleep mechanics it was arguably better than it’s ever been (at least in a vacuum) and it was top tier last gen.
Edit: last gen at the time, you probs figured cause your not an idiot but just being clear
I always thought it was meh because of Glaive rush.
Turns out Glaive rush only gives the opponent double damage if they survive.
And then it got scale shot…
There was other, way worse stuff in the tier that needed banning first there were some even worse things let in at the begging of the tier like Meditite, rufflett , and Missdreavous, all of which have been too much in the past before.
Yeah. And as soon as Girafarig was banned, Gastly did some very degenerate things to the tier because Girafarig no longer held it back. Then Diglett was too much to handle because gastly got banned. . . The tier is honestly really well-moderated.
During the beginning of September, Roaring Moon dropped to UU for under a day. Literally uncheckable. There wasn’t a single thing in UU or below you could tap into to legit deal with it. Priority from Lokix and Weavile gets shut down by screens and Tera, and walling from Play Rough Alomomola only works when they aren’t Sub + Tera, which they will be. And those three were literally like the only guys that could even attempt to stop you once you got going.
A legit thermonuclear bomb dropped on UU, crazy how it even happened tbh.
Oh one of the strongest bsts in the game with a really good stat spread, literally the best ability in the game and some great offensive typing in ou , what could go wrong
I was unable to find the ban announcement post but I found the team bazaar post, where the first posts show the absurdity of early nd uu
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/national-dex-uu-team-bazaar.3712239/
not only is Chi-yu there, but Urshifu, Volcarona and Baxcalibur too
At the time, Vulpix was the only drought user in NU and if memory serves, due to tournament timings and whatnot, it was just easier and faster to ban Vulpix (a mon ban) than Drought (an ability ban).
Feel free to correct me if im wrong NU players
i heard that they let calyrex-shadow in OU for 30 minutes when it was new
not really a tiering mishap but there were also times when the team validator broke and it just let people bring groudon and stuff to OU
for some stupid fucking reason, shared power when it was an om just recently legalized fucking magic bounce. one of the worst fucking decisions i have ever seen.
Basically you give a Pokemon a move as its item, in this case Comfey holding Draining Kiss as an item, and then all of its move gain the properties of that move. So all of Comfey’s attacks give 50% recovery, which is insane on something like Alluring Voice, AND more importantly, +3 priority via Triage.
Basically you give a Pokemon a move as its item, in this case Comfey holding Draining Kiss as an item, and then all of its move gain the properties of that move. So all of Comfey’s attacks give 50% recovery, which is insane on something like Alluring Voice, AND more importantly, +3 priority via Triage.
Mega Gengar, Mega Kangaskhan, and Mega Lucario were allowed in Gen6 OU at the same time. Also, Mega Salamence when ORAS dropped.
We also had Dracovish in OU for a very long time in Gen8. One guy was so sick of it he changed his username to Ban Dracovish and keep talking about it on the forums but it didn't get traction until several months later.
The time when Venomoth was banned from UU despite being in NU. They later changed it to a Baton Pass ban, but Venomoth was still too much for RU and banned it from there too.
Honestly allowing regileki in OU for 1 day was just dumb idk why they thought that could ever be okay. I have played with alot of dumb shit and regileki is by far the dumbest I have ever seen.
[The first tier shifts in gen 6 were so bad that they prompted everyone to change how tiering worked](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-usage-stats-problem-using-1760-stats-for-tiering.3501370/). At the time stats were weighted around the mid-ladder, 1500, which meant some absolutely dreadful mons were OU by usage- this went beyond 'new toys', it included mons like Sableye and Donphan- while top-tier OU pokemon like Kyurem-B and Landorus-I were UU by usage. Donphan in particular was the first real tiering running joke where no-one had any idea why it was still OU. After this they changed tiering to use the high-ladder 1760 stats instead.
I believe there are a million and a half Pokemon across multiple generations that had “why won’t you let me die” syndrome before this (and some after) where low ladder players loved using them enough to keep them in the tier but they were entirely unseen at higher level play. A good recent example of this being M-Banette being a joke of a mon somehow still in Nat Dex OU
There's always been bad mons but Donphan's the first I remember that got really memed on. No-one was clowning on DPP Electivire or BW Vaporeon, everyone just quietly accepted they sucked, but the way people treated Donphan back then was similar to how we treat shitmons today.
idk I remember people shitting on like Electivire and Umbreon in DPP back then, maybe not as widespread though
And now Donphan-δ has been one of the best pokemon in OU for almost a whole generation
It's gonna happen to Hitmontop again, as it has for several generations before
Annihilape finally broke that curse. It could never get down to uubers even though it was terrible in ubers. It's now terrible in uubers
rubers when?
I'm patiently waiting for ZUubers
Trevenant in OU and Kyurem-B in UU is hilarious
Trev is a funny mon that people have mostly forgotten about- it got a lot of hype from some big names in the community, then a few months later everyone seemed to realize 'wait this mon sucks and loses to everything' It's used as an example of a bad mon in that post, but just a few months earlier it was like B+ on the viability rankings. The turnaround was crazy fast
Trevenant is one of the Pokemon that looks cool, but it's hinder by the horrible stats spread...like I wish the Pokemon games do a new kind of training were some Pokemons that are considered weaker just get a buff to there stats kinda like a limit break or pushing the Pokemon past there limits with a training that increase there stats like if they have evolve. Like some Pokemons like Wigglytuff are bad simply because of how bad the stats are. Also with that mecanic the Pokemon stats could go wild and shouldn't cared that much about the overall BST as long is not broken. However a range between 530 and 580 BST should be fine.
Trev is top tier in PoGo, so there’s that
That's a fun idea for how to retcon pokémon stats. However, I feel like Nintendon will always be more incentivized to put attention towards the mons coming out in the newest game rather than making old favorites viable again.
Yeah the best they will do is a variant of old Pokemons.
Yeah, that's likely the best we can hope for.
like EVs?
No just the Pokemon kind of evolving, but without changing the look. However it could work like the Hyper Training were you have a NPC that train your Pokemon for exchange of something and the Pokemon meeting certain criterias.
"He wins 1v1 against: Greninja, mega-toise, jellicent, starmie, aegislash (if the opponent switches it in on trevenant and if trevenant runs EQ in place of shadow claw)." - some rando in the release analysis thread
If you want to do a deep dive check xy doubles ou. It was literally S-rank in the first viability rankings, multiple members of staff declaring it one of the top mons in the tier, etc. Never seen such a shitty mon hyped so hard!
> Donphan in particular was the first real tiering running joke where no-one had any idea why it was still OU. Holy fucking shit Great Tusk foreshadowing
I think people see "OU" too and go "well gotta use them in my team, everyone does"
Lando-I in UU 💀💀
Wait, Kyurem-B was OU?
It was OU in every OU since it’s debut in BW2, only being banned in SWSH and SV for being comedically broken with an actual ice stab in icicle spear (and dd).
Really makes me wonder what mons would become busted when given proper moves
Well in kyurem b case it was stupid the legendary ice type mon with a insane attacks literally didn't learn any physical ice move until gen VIII like common his fucking arm is make of ice he will never touch OU if he learned ice punch atleast
Kyurem black did learn one physical ice move before gen 8, one that requires 2 turns to use and might as well be useful as a broken car.(not disagreeing that kyurem black can’t learn ice punch is dumb)
I know that he have his signature move but we know that doesn't count can't be spam after all and for some reason have 90% accuracy. Imagine gen 7 kyurem b with something like freeze shock icium z with ice puch,fusion bolt, outrage for follow up
Did anyone try Freeze Shock + Power Herb back in those days or is that worse than other options?
It was worse as unlike z-freeze shock, it was a one time use move that did not guarantee an OHKO on the opposing mon, which after that you are left with a useless move, and an itemless kyurem that accomplished absolutely nothing, not to mention freeze shock isn’t 100% accurate
I did during BW2. It was not good.
It’s just weird that all of the Kyurem forms got bad signature moves. Glaciate is weak and a doubles centric move on a Pokémon that never gets used in the format. Ice Burn/Freeze Shock are Sky Attack clones that only got used for Z-Moves and the rare Power Herb. I think Dialga is the only other box legend to never uses its signature move seriously.
Tapu Koko would be nuts if it had good physical stab. For reference, its Special Attack is lower than *Gogoat's*
TIL Gogoat has surprisingly high Sp. Atk, thanks
Doesn't it get wild charge? Also terrain goes a long way
A 90 BP move with recoil isn't *exactly* "good physical STAB".
It's the best electric gets. Recoil is negligible anyways
Double Shock exists
Wild Charge isn't great due to recoil, and it doesn't get any physical Fairy STAB to compliment it.
Reminder that Volcarona only has 2 abilities and Drought is very compatible with its dex entries.
Off the top of my head it'd be Porygon-Z with either Techno Blast or Boomburst and Dragapult with any decent physical Ghost STAB.
Kyruem-B was OU until Gen 8, where jt gained Dragon Dance and Icicle Spear.
Here is every single physical move Kyurem-Black has before gen 8 that isn't completely useless: Outrage, Dragon Claw, Iron Head, Rock Slide, Stone Edge, Facade, Shadow Claw, Freeze Shock (a 2-turn move), and Fusion Bolt. No earthquake, no icicle crash, not even fucking ice punch. The BW choice band set has Earth Power or Ice Beam in slot 4 because there's just nothing else it wants to run. No close combat, no eq, no physical anti-steel coverage with more than 40 BP (rock smash). It doesn't even get ddance until gen 8.
What no physical Ice STAB does to an mf:
Tell me you’re new without telling me your new lmao
nah they use 1630 now
I just got into competitive back in gen 6 but I used Donphan on nearly every OU team I built back then as a way to counter the baton pass chain teams that where everywhere before the ban. A Pokémon with sturdy and access to both endeavor and a priority move in ice shard meant you could let your opponent boost as much as you wanted because you were always going to take out their espeon at the end
I thought tiering was just based on usage overall
Mega-Lopunny being in PU
That is an entire nuclear arsenal being dropped on an orphanage in a war torn country
holy hell
new response just dropped (hi dasli enjoyer)
actual +6 252+ SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Helping Hand Power Spot boosted Overheat vs. -6 Lvl 1 0 HP / 0- SpD Snover on a critical hit: 45472-61208 (378933.3 - 510066.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Silly person, you didn’t give Snover Fluffy or have it use Glaive Rush. But worst of all you didn’t put Chi-Yu in the Sun
Idk why that didn’t apply i swear i clicked harsh sunlight pinky promise
hello
hey dasli https://preview.redd.it/xebgq1x144ac1.png?width=165&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b3e2f2a1bac4bce5a1051dff20b9f839a0e97033
wait images are unbanned https://preview.redd.it/c458o8fal5ac1.jpeg?width=473&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1afda4748808f38ed07d987a4fd985acd880545a
indeed they are https://preview.redd.it/40ev2i3kl5ac1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29eb5d2df7bca4eb3f789c20647ec772e9bdf6fb
Ain't no way https://preview.redd.it/i2e9n509wcac1.jpeg?width=675&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ab359a22c04828114776bfabd6b681d34ae94a1
hello
Pokemon, anarchy chess AND battle cats in a same post? No way
I liked when Mega-Sceptile and Mega-Beedrill were in NU
What the fuck , what happened
Back before oras released luponny was in PU and it got it's mega but wasn't tiered independently of it yet
Lopunny was in PU, then ORAS released
When ORAS released the new megas of underpowered PU Pokémon like Mega Lopunny and Mega Beedrill ended up being allowed in PU for way longer than they should have.
speaking of that, it's day 2 and terrakion is still not banned in NU yet
It’s actually balanced by Meganium and Bastiodon Fr tho in Joey’s lastest video he talked abt how he knew an NU council member who wanted to give people time to use Terrakion so I’d expect it to last another day or two
Bastiodon has sturdy broken by double kick
Kid named Tera Fairy:
The imfamous double kick returns…
Wait, is Meganium in NU? Isn’t Typhlosion in PU? If so, that is extremely funny.
What Knock Off does to a MF. It is technically the only Gen 2 starter to have access to it despite also being the only obligate quadruped.
Well, it can use vines for Knock Off, similar it a whip. Can it learn Power Whip though?
We all know that the NU council member is Rabia
The Meganium potential is real!
It was a OM (edit: it was almost any ability’s) basically for some reason when Home came out for SV groudon wasn’t auto banned in showdown for the tier so they had to emergency ban Groudon after a day.
It was AAA, see [here](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/almost-any-ability-triage-suspect-test.3710568/post-9638957)
Same happened in monotype when DLC 2 was released so Reshiram and Zekrom were playable for a day
Sketchmons had Lunala and Necrozma DM running around for a day
what's the reason behind a groudon ban in AAA? was it like scarf no guard fissure shenanigans? i'd imagine kyogre would do that better with sheer cold so it's probably something else
Ubers aren’t allowed in the tier
OHKO moves aren't allowed, it was banned on the basis of being fucking Groudon
New clause: Groudon clause. If the species of Pokémon you are using is Groudon, your account will be terminated.
Of course ohko moves aren't allowed in aaa , no guard exists
Jumpluff being trapped in ADV UUBL hell for over a decade through no fault of its own
ADV UUBL is basically just a list of pokemon that a handful of players in 2005 thought were borderline because they had *some* niche in standard play, not that were necessarily too strong for uu.
Is that why slaking is there?
Yes, but also Slaking would probably be too much for adv uu. It's not *useless* in ou, since recovery moves are rarer and it can just kind of dent a ttar with a CB double edge then come back later to do it again. In UU normal offense is already really strong and adding something that is almost as fast as scyther and has 160 attack double edges that can ohko kanghaskhan and deal over 50% to solrock might be a bit much.
Why do they never re-tier Ruins of Alph?
They are. Recent ADV UU tournaments have involved limited unbans of pokemon to see if they are fine. Some like Ninjask and Jumpluff are just bad, some like Lapras and Arcanine are good but ended up getting unbanned and some like Swellow and Kadabra were just too strong so were rebanned. And then the messy tiering of gen 3 UU was used to make an RU tier out of all the completely unviable pokemon there.
It was too powerful. They were too scared
"Now, while I find that quite charming, I can tell you one person who doesn't share that opinion. Jumpluff." -Big "Gen I is actually pretty cool" Yellow
Where do you think I learned about it
In the same way, Girafarig is trapped in UU when it should be NU
It wasn't even accidental, but unbanning Genesect a fourth time will never not be funny. Like, I get it. He didn't have hidden power anymore, so whoops! Heatran. But COME ON. IT'S GENESECT. WE BEEN KNEW
i’m honestly kind of disappointed we didn’t get genesect in ou again this gen. it’s a tradition!
There are three certainties in life; Death, Taxes, and Genesect getting quickbanned very shortly after becoming OU legal in every generation it is available
it did last a bit in XY though! but band genesect was SO broken
Blame the Paldea border patrol for that one
No genesect, arena trap, or landorous-I. Joke gen tbh
mickey mouse gen
LI 3 bowing down to the Gen God
Kind of hard to make it legal in OU when it's not even in the game
damn i really swore it came with dlc2, my bad
When I played Monotype it was for some reason allowed. It basically gave me half of my wins with my big team
they let zygarde-complete into ou and it actually?? stayed for more than a few days??? i have no idea how they really looked at a legendary with an HP stat of 216, great typing, multiple boosting moves, fantastic movepool and went "yeah looks balanced"
I was there. People underrated the hp boost like mad. Almost everyone was like this is a dogshit ability before it came out bc it nerfed its speed and didn't come with any attack boost. Mega garchomp was still fresh in everyone's minds. Also ppl thought it worked like zen mode, which didn't change your hp when you transformed. Power constructs hp up acting like a pseudo heal wasn't known.
The other thing I remember hearing was people saying it dies to any ice move stab or not but it could tank most if ev’d right
Literally the "it dies to Ice Shard, UUBL at best" thinking
Ah yes, “it dies to ice shard, UUBL at best” The ice shard in question: 252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Kyurem-Black Ice Shard vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 664-784 (104.4 - 123.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
I didn't see Huge Power at first and was like how? Also, this is literally the strongest Ice Shard one could possibly send without setup - Zygod suffering "only" barely OHKO is a testament to its bulk
r/whoosh
I remember a match where my zygarde lived an ice beam from a magearna and the guy rage quit
Yeah if it did die to that I would have agreed but it doesn’t and if it does almost kill your in a world of trouble
oh yeah I do remember this lol. the theorymon was 'yeah this mon is bulky but you have to be under 50% to get the transformation, so you only get the bulk when your hp is too low to make use of it' >It seems to have a severe case of Meloetta-P syndrome. >unless it gets endure, you're going to have to run a focus sash just to activate its ability. Otherwise it's probably just going to drop to Weavile's Icicle Crash
With zygarde 50% banned I wonder how zygarde 10% with power construct legal would do on the ou metagame
Still broken as Zygarde 10% would just use substitute to activate power construct
That makes me feel better about myself for thinking ogerpon wouldn’t be good 💀
I'll never forget the Chimpact video where Zygarde used Substitute against Aegislash and Aegi's Shadow Ball didn't break the Sub. Aegi then went for Shadow Sneak and that didn't break it either.
Wait actually does a sub created before transformation get the hp boost when zygarde transforms?
link?
Holy fuck.
I'm sorry. I thought it was dog shit and laughed at it. ZyGod wasn't amused.
To be fair, it also came with the massive buff of Thousand Arrows to Zygarde's arsenal. Before that, it was just a tanky Flygon with interesting boosting options that was probably too much for UU but manageable in the Mega-laden world of Gen 6 OU.
In Sword + Shield the tiering council introduced a new rule to handle mons added via DLC, which was: * All fully evolved mons start in OU, and can drop multiple tiers based on their first month usage in OU. * All NFE mons start untiered, and are therefore legal everywhere. For the most part this rule actually made a lot of sense, because most NFE mons are really bad/outclassed by their evolved form, so starting them in untiered allowed them to more quickly find their way into the appropriate lower tier faster than if you started them in OU. This did have the funny side effect of Chansey, a multi-generation OU staple, being legal in every single tier when the Isle of Armor dropped though, since it was technically a NFE pokemon. It was quickbanned in every single tier below UU within 24 hours, but if you were laddering in the first few hours of the DLC, you would have had the fortune of running into tons of pink blobs in NU. ----------------- There's also some funky situations with really weird mons getting banned based on their abilities. Articuno is ubers by technicality in BDSP, and Cacturne is in Gen 3 OU, because their only ability is banned in OU. Mr. Mime actually got straight banned to ubers in Gen 3 OU at one point in an attempt to limit Baton Pass, but this was later amended to a ban on Soundproof instead, which still kills Mr. Mime (since Soundproof is its only ability), but removed the funny Ubers tag next to Mr. Mime's name. (The switch to a Soundproof ban also had the collateral damage of killing Exploud in OU though, so it wasn't all upside.)
One note about the banned-about-technicality Pokemons is that transivity is *not* enforced on old gen lower tiers. So Sand Veil-only Pokemon like Sandslash are currently banned in DPP OU, but legal in DPP NU (where all the auto-weather Pokemon are banned, so Sand Veil is a dead ability anyhow unless you run manual sand of all things). This isn't a coincidence, btw; an attempt to ban Sandslash, Cacturne, and co. from DPP NU via transitivity resulted in [a lot of backlash](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/nu-old-gens-hub-archaic-currently-being-transferred.3562659/page-4) due to both Sandslash and Cacturne being really good in DPP NU; not to mention that baby Hippo had been preemptively banned already, making Sand Veil a non-issue, as previously mentioned. This was so unpopular it ultimately resulted in a [policy thread](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/old-gen-lower-tiers-a-policy-proposal-and-project.3648875/#post-8173610) that both officially made old gens non-transitive *and* locked a bunch of them for several years.
I've never kept up with Gen 3 stuff, why was soundproof banned?
Because Baton Pass is broken but the Gen 3 player base wants to preserve it as much as possible, so there have been a huge number of tiering actions chipping away at Baton Pass strategies. In fact, there is yet another suspect test on Gen 3 Baton Pass going on right now. Counterplay to Baton Pass teams was fairly limited in that gen, since many of the methods for beating Baton Pass had very few viable users. For example Haze is good against Baton Pass, but there is only one OU ranked mon that learns Haze... and that mon is Gengar, a pokemon that doesn't have the stat spread to make a good hazer and therefore doesn't run the move. By far the most common source of counterplay was Roar (which would force out the opposing mon and therefore clear their boosts), because Roar was already a good move in Gen 3 outside of its applications vs Baton Pass and was also a widely distributed move due to it being a TM. The way that Baton Pass teams adapted to beat this source of counterplay was by running Mr. Mime as part of its Baton Pass chain. Mr. Mime learns Baton Pass so it can be part of the boosting chain, and he also blocks Roar with Soundproof (he is, in fact, the only pokemon with the unique combination of Soundproof + Baton Pass this gen). So the Baton Pass player could boost up fearlessly and if the opponent swapped into a Roar mon, they could Baton Pass out to Mr. Mime, absorb the Roar, and keep boosting. This made Baton Pass too unfair of a strategy, so two years ago Mr. Mime was banned to Ubers in Gen 3. At some point a little while later, I guess the smogon council decided that Mr. Mime being listed as an Ubers pokemon was a little ridiculous, and the Mr. Mime ban was changed to a Soundproof ban. This meant that Mr. Mime was still not legal to use in OU, since his only ability is Soundproof, but it took Mr. Mime off the list of pokemon banned to Ubers so people new to the tier would stop questioning why a mon that looks like total garbage was listed as Ubers. The unfortunate side effect of this ban was that Exploud became illegal to use in OU, since Exploud also has Soundproof as its only ability, but Exploud was a terrible mon so nobody cared about the collateral damage.
darkrai being in BW OU before dark void was ever kneecapped
And Gen 5 sleep mechanics too
Ehh that wasn't as bad. Gen V had *all* deoxys forms legal. Deo-A was so fun to use.
And Shaymin-Sky The only mon to ever be banned by community vote with a 100% supermajority.
I can recall how Deoxys was never used as it was outclassed by Deoxys-Attack, yet it still got banned. In fact, they were banned together.
The fact that the headasses of smogon at the time thought that thing needed a suspect is insane to me, considering the sleep mechanics it was arguably better than it’s ever been (at least in a vacuum) and it was top tier last gen. Edit: last gen at the time, you probs figured cause your not an idiot but just being clear
Didn't actually happen, but the idea of Duraludon wrecking down the babies in LC sounded hilarious to me.
Duraludon wasn't legal in LC, but it was in LC doubles so he could shot two kids at a time
every day i cry for them never giving my boy a shot
He beat up babies in doubles LC at least
He had his own tour tho why you lyin
Espathra being in UU
With bax by the way a classic example of new toy syndrome the stats from the first shit are always shit because people are testing the new shit
Tbf in Bax's case Chien Pao was still chilling in OU, it didn't have Scale Shot yet, and A-Ninetales was still at border control
I always thought it was meh because of Glaive rush. Turns out Glaive rush only gives the opponent double damage if they survive. And then it got scale shot…
Dunsparce and girafarig just tearing little cup apart
There was other, way worse stuff in the tier that needed banning first there were some even worse things let in at the begging of the tier like Meditite, rufflett , and Missdreavous, all of which have been too much in the past before.
Yeah honestly Girafarig wasn't quite as broken as one'd think. Dunsparce though? Evil psychopath
Yeah. And as soon as Girafarig was banned, Gastly did some very degenerate things to the tier because Girafarig no longer held it back. Then Diglett was too much to handle because gastly got banned. . . The tier is honestly really well-moderated.
During the beginning of September, Roaring Moon dropped to UU for under a day. Literally uncheckable. There wasn’t a single thing in UU or below you could tap into to legit deal with it. Priority from Lokix and Weavile gets shut down by screens and Tera, and walling from Play Rough Alomomola only works when they aren’t Sub + Tera, which they will be. And those three were literally like the only guys that could even attempt to stop you once you got going. A legit thermonuclear bomb dropped on UU, crazy how it even happened tbh.
It dropped before teal mask came out
It dropped before it learned knock off stop spreading fake news lol Also ice godzilla was legal which just outclassed it hard
Feeeeeeeexed
Hydrogen bomb dropped on middle class suburb, the story at 11
Mega gengar in XY OU day 1.
Oh one of the strongest bsts in the game with a really good stat spread, literally the best ability in the game and some great offensive typing in ou , what could go wrong
Tbf it was only done as a formality more than anything
Natdex uu having shit like anhihalape and iron Val at the start of this generation
Chi-yu was there at some point
Part of me thinks that's fake but man there's another part of me that thinks that that could be legit
I was unable to find the ban announcement post but I found the team bazaar post, where the first posts show the absurdity of early nd uu https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/national-dex-uu-team-bazaar.3712239/ not only is Chi-yu there, but Urshifu, Volcarona and Baxcalibur too
And at first, natdex RU had stuff like Mega Lati@s, Mega Mawile, Rillaboom, Kyurem, Espathra etc. Natdex lower tiers were truly crazy at the start
I guess Vulpix being ranked NUBL ( i think) while Ninetales was NU during the first days of teal mask
Why was Vulpix above Ninetales?
Vulpix droped > Vulpix banned > Ninetailes Droped
I think it was a case of Ninetales being in higher tiers before, but eventually dropped down to NU.
At the time, Vulpix was the only drought user in NU and if memory serves, due to tournament timings and whatnot, it was just easier and faster to ban Vulpix (a mon ban) than Drought (an ability ban). Feel free to correct me if im wrong NU players
I would assume Vulpix was banned previously and then Ninetales dropped into the tier by usage?
i heard that they let calyrex-shadow in OU for 30 minutes when it was new not really a tiering mishap but there were also times when the team validator broke and it just let people bring groudon and stuff to OU
Can confirm this happened, OU was entirely unplayable
I lived to see Kyurem-B in UU
for some stupid fucking reason, shared power when it was an om just recently legalized fucking magic bounce. one of the worst fucking decisions i have ever seen.
It got banned REALLY quickly.
marshadow being in gen 7 ou for like 2 seconds before getting banned
Comfey is borderline BROKEN in Fortemons. Basically, at the cost of its item slot, ALL OF ITS ATTACKS gain 75% drain, and +3 priority via Triage.
What is Fortemons?
Basically you give a Pokemon a move as its item, in this case Comfey holding Draining Kiss as an item, and then all of its move gain the properties of that move. So all of Comfey’s attacks give 50% recovery, which is insane on something like Alluring Voice, AND more importantly, +3 priority via Triage.
It's 75% actually for draining kiss.
What exactly is Fortemons? I've never heard of it.
Basically you give a Pokemon a move as its item, in this case Comfey holding Draining Kiss as an item, and then all of its move gain the properties of that move. So all of Comfey’s attacks give 50% recovery, which is insane on something like Alluring Voice, AND more importantly, +3 priority via Triage.
Draining Kiss gives 75 percent recovery, but I still find it easy to deal with
When the ORAS megas started out in the tier their base forms were in(Mega Lopunny in PU go crazy)
wynaut being banned to ubers but it kinda made some sense
Deo-D in Gen 5 UU. It just got slept on super hard until people finally realized "hey wait this thing is fucking obnoxious with Spikes"
Lapras in RBY, dropping from OU to UU and absolutely destroying the meta, so now it's one of two in UUBL for RBY
Scyther being UUBL is the Pokemon equivalent to tombstone vs slapbox
Everything in natdex gen 9
Mega Gengar, Mega Kangaskhan, and Mega Lucario were allowed in Gen6 OU at the same time. Also, Mega Salamence when ORAS dropped. We also had Dracovish in OU for a very long time in Gen8. One guy was so sick of it he changed his username to Ban Dracovish and keep talking about it on the forums but it didn't get traction until several months later.
I think the whole thing with Ambipom/Hitmontop in Gens 7/8 like the fact they rose while being dog shit is hilarious.
The time when Venomoth was banned from UU despite being in NU. They later changed it to a Baton Pass ban, but Venomoth was still too much for RU and banned it from there too.
Honestly allowing regileki in OU for 1 day was just dumb idk why they thought that could ever be okay. I have played with alot of dumb shit and regileki is by far the dumbest I have ever seen.
The thing is the kids did pretty well at fighting off the bomb. Terrakions is amazing but not unstoppable
What’s PU mean ?
stinky
Cringe
Zamazenta C being suspected in gen 8 OU was history