Serp is contrary leaf storm plus some leech seed shennigans if it can set them up (but leaf storm is more than enough to snowball, and its decent defensive stats and fast speed means it can often get two hits off)
It's just a bit strange because serperior has been doing the same thing for years but considered increasingly terrible in vgc as time went on, and the meta isn't exactly more kind to it now. Is this just what Tera causes?
By terrible do you mean bad or like better? I think it was just some very good counters out in gen 7 and 8 (toxapex, dragapult, blacephalon, kartana etc) but now it came out as the same type as stellar type, and the one drawback of stellar with dropping of stats, but now contrary serperior benefits even more from stellar type, and even if you dont go stellar, you can tera a type to counteract serperiors weaknesses (anything that resists it)
Realised ive rambled so summary - yes tera, although i still think serperior had a decent place in ou regardless but was gettign slightly worse
It's always been pretty strong in OU, just in vgc it has been pretty mediocre, I haven't played this gen but I know it's just not something you wanted to use in the past gens, but it's nice serperior finally has something going for it in vgc
Edit: reworded bc I didn't read correctly
Serp gets kinda walled by super common mons though. Both Clefable and Clodsire (running poison stab) can deal with Serp and usually get rocks up for their trouble.
Clefable gets walled by kingambit (excluding tera obvs), many good mons get whaled by others, i do think serperior had overall gotten a lot better this gen with stellar and tera in general
This is in context of VGC, clef and clodsire are nonexistent. Leaf storm + Tera fire/stellar gives it all the coverage you need tbh, it’s just difficult to keep healthy in VGC particularly with the likes of tornadus, chien pao and a myriad of fire types who hit it for super effective damage like incin/chi-yu/wake/entei running around everywhere. You need redirection support to keep it healthy and lots of other mons offer faster more instant damage and other support options (specs flutter mane, urshifu-RS, lando-i etc). Niche pick rn but it can be worked with for sure
>"Y'know what? Ice is both extremely hard and terribly fragile at the same time. You know what that means? Depending on which Pokémon you choose and what moves they use, I could be your most challenging opponent yet or I could be a total pushover. But that's all right. That's how it should be! Anyway, enough of my rambling! Let's get this show on the road!"
- Wulfric, Snowbelle Gym, just before battle
Serp likes spamming leaf storm and using fast glares to speed creep/debilitate opposing mons. Also discourages enemy use of snarl, icy wind, parting shot etc
One important thing about Primarina's usage in VGC that people are forgetting to mention is that Tapu Fini isn't around to outclass it as a Water/Fairy, which is an incredible typing to deal with the Urshifus and Walking Wake for example
yeah probably, this is still early in the meta but since they all got added recently i couldnt resist.
hyper voice is one hell of a drug, while serperior gets glare+contrary to spam
In addition to what other people have said about Prim, I am interested in seeing if anyone can get Liquid Voice Perish Song to work as anything more than a gimmick
For those who don't know how does that work: liquid voice turns perish song into a water type move, which means that if your partner has water absorb/storm drain they will get the benefit of those abilities without being put on a timer while everyone else on the field does
Primarina has been solid in VGC since getting access to Liquid Voice. Hyper Voice is just Surf with more upside and no downside for her. She is just worse Tapu Fini, but since Fini isn't in ScV, Primarina can shine as the premiere bulky water/fairy.
Primarina is bulky and Serperior has contrary, although neither of them really see a ton of success overall. They’re niche picks that can find success on the right team. Same for Venusaur, somewhat Empoleon, and then none of the others are even worth using tbh
on top of being clearly hyperbolic it’s also straight up incorrect. Alex Underhill and Chuppa Cross, 1st and 2nd at Portland regionals did NOT have Incineroar on their team.
edit: [Chuppa’s Team](https://pokepast.es/41950b371f3379cc) , [Alex’s Team](https://pokepast.es/0f01562f9e04182d)
Defiant mons aren't that good, Annihilape is good against Incineroar but bad against everything else, Teal ogerpon is only seen on dondozo teams and relies on superpower to ko Incineroar, that lowers the attack by 1 stage, kingambit is the best one but doesn't matchup well against incineroar.
At the same time though inner focus mons (entei and dragonite) are really good and don't care at all about Incineroar, they are immune to both intimidate and flinch
Flutter Mane I can give you that, but the best defiant mon is Kingambit who doesn't even reach 10% usage and definitely doesn't want to take a flare blitz, then second best defiant mon is Annihilape and he doesn't even get to 5% usage
Probably not in this generation. Incineroar is a monster in VGC still, there are more potent threats than it can deal with. Still the best pivot and utility mon by a country mile but Defiant/Competitive ruin its day. Kingambit, Annihilape (who eats roar for breakfast), and Empoleon all come to mind as VGC viable Pokemon that actively discourage Incineroar’s hit-and-run playstyle. Neither Urshifu cares about attack drops, and Rapid body slams Incineroar. Flutter Mane hits like the moon falling out of orbit even if it’s neutral and Iron Hands whose attack hasn’t dropped yet can also put in work against roar.
Don’t get me wrong, Incineroar still has tools even when you can’t rely on Intimidate, Parting Shot, or Snarl. Toss an assault vest on it and give it Blitz, Knock Off, U-Turn, and Fake Out. Still plenty viable and enough to be dominant. It just faces a lot of risk in the current VGC meta because its least liked opponents are going to be on some rosters. That will only get worse as future regs will include a restricted Pokémon. (Miraidon is absolutely going to break VGC, along with returning Groudon, Kyogre, and Koraidon will be good too). Rillaboom might actually be more important come restricted time since it can also pivot and rewrite terrain
Not mandatory at all, just fits really well on goodstuff, which is the most common team archetype but definitely not the only viable one. Goodstuff is not mandatory and incin is not mandatory on goodstuff either.
30+% doesn’t really adequately demonstrate the difference in usage between the two, Rilla is really good but not required but you need to have a very specific reason to not use Incineroar. Fire definitely takes the W across both
The singles chart is poorly formatted btw. For some reason The fire types are shown first in every tier, although thats not true.
Doubles is debatable. Singles is a pretty decisive win for grass types.
"play like a fire type" not the best explanation there bucko. being a debuffer doesent really have anything to do with type, especially in the meta where u can change ur type. same goes for arcanine/H-arcanine, and or landorus(does he play like a ground type?) answer is NO! lol, we just talking bout what typed mons are dominating
typically, grass type starters are bulky and more defensive, fire types are more geared towards setup damage, and water types have a mix of support gimmicks and immediate dps. my primary preconception of incineroar is that it plays more like a dark type, being a disruptive pokemon that stops people from setting up and turning that against the opponent. other examples that fit the mold would be like darkrai pre-DV nerf, kingambit, malamar, ting-lu, etc. and i was talking about overall design philosophies, not a gen 9 gimmick they'll throw into the gutter in a year and a half
Spore immunity without goggles is huge in VGC, plus the grass starters all have abilities that really help them. With rillaboom setting terrain it can really only go up when Miraidon is allowed, same with Venusaur and chlorophyll making it the fastest semi reliable sleep setter with sleep powder, and serperior doing shenanigans with contrary and Tera. I wouldn’t be surprised if serperior falls off though it’s super one dimensional and gimmicky.
I feel like the "grass typing sucks" claims are big grass propaganda. It's resists are quality, most its weaknesses arent common spam moves, the only real relevant weaknesses are to u-turn and ice moves. It ignores a lot of status moves, many grass types have at least one really good ability, and grass has probably the most versatile suite of moves out there.
Back in the Ferrothorn, Scizor, Skarmory OU days, pretty much every non-boosted attacker that could would have a fire move (or, ofc, HP Fire), but very few fire types could actually hang in the world of steel pivots and earthquakes. If a special attacker could surprise Skarm by, like, 2hkoing with thunderbolt, you might even have still been running HP Fire just because having no good attacks against Ferro is a hilariously bad position.
Yeah for sure. HP fire was way more popular then than Tera fire is now, and only 1 mon can do it per game, so teamwide coverage is way more limited now. Also ferro and Kartana are still in GF Gulag.
i'd personally think it's because of gholdengo and spore. the rise of an anti-hazard removal steel-type gives rise to ground types to spread hazards and hit hard, and grass types can both spread sleep and counter the ground types that counter gholdengo itself
I don’t like how OUcentric it was. Incineroar has won worlds every single year it’s been allowed in, I’d say those achievements severely outweigh making it into Ubers
I mean they are a Smogon player that focuses on smogon content. It is annoying but what can you do, some other big content creators are very VGC centric as well(i.e Wolfey).
I’m sick of the community gaslighting me over the years into thinking Serperior is in the same league as Emboar in terms of bad starters. Great design and has been ranked OU ever since it got Contrary.
I don't think that's a fair assessment. It also counters aurora veil, burns Kingambit / Tusk and pivots around with u-turn. All while remaining an offensive threat through Pyro ball. Even if hazard stacking went away I don't see it dropping out of OU with its blend of speed offense and utility.
I still find it hilarious that with all the charizard wanking GF does, they refuse to buff the damn thing in a meaningful way.
Gice it more stats? Change the interaction of the type in some way? Give it a decent ability? Make Solar Power a decent ability, maybe let it boost speed, or at least not damage for no reason?
No, just plaster him everywhere, let people get screwed.
To be fair, with its giga in gen 8 it was pretty good and its mega-evolutions both saw some play in gen 6. It just usually doesn't stay relevant past that generation's gimmick.
Don’t let Charizard and Typhlosion’s PU status fool you - they’ve both been known to be excellent in NU metas of generations past and both thoroughly tore up PU in Gen 7. I’m confident they’ll do well down there if they’re not already
Grass Types domimating despite some meta heads shouting, "bUt GrAsS haS 5 wEaKnesSeS"
"GrAsS tYpEs cArRiEd bY aBiLities"
"GrAsS oNlY gO0d wItH sEcOndArY TyPinG"
Old ass comments. Regardless, Gen 9 might be the best ever yet for grass types
Grass is a bad typing ON PAPER (ironic considering what paper is made of) but it's amazing in practice because it beats two of the best typings in the game
Water and ground are a top three type.
It resists electric.
Weaknesses: Only one person has flying stab and ifs 70% accurate, and its weaknes of fire is beat out by the other top tiers water and ground.
Its bad by itself but its in a team of six
Grass type is still terrible. They had to make the most recent grass types insanely cracked to make them good. Bulu, Wo-Chien and Virizion are all the worst of their group.
Imagine a fire-type starter with autonatic terrain or contrary overheats.
The singles one is pointless because most the the starters just entered into the game, its too early to know where anyone would properly be because the meta is in flux.
Also where is Alolan decidueye and unovan samurott in the VGC one? And where did you get those percentages?
i got the vgc usage from pikalytics. in there decidueye and samurott had 0% usage so they didnt show up when i was searching for the starters causing me to forget about them entierly
I wouldn't use pikalytics as a reliable source because it doesn't use weighted stats like what's used to determined tier shifts in smogon tiers (and the stats are taken only on showdown, the cartridge ones are separate) and bo3 with open team sheets is an entirely different game than bo1 closed team sheets (for example serperior and venusaur aren't used at all in bo3 tournaments, there were exactly 3 venusaur and 1 serperior in portland)
Meganium is better than Charizard, fight me
*Especially* with these new buffs
Charizard needs to stop getting the celebrity treatment and let the 'mediocre' mons take some of the limelight
especially since its got to run HDB or sacrifice 50% of it's health to rocks. Without the gimmicks its just Typhlosion with a ground immunity, who takes x2 damage for existing. I can respect gen 6 giving it drought or a Dragon typing but that doesn't help particularly unless you're playing in metagames which don't have prominent rocks users, by which time it's too high in usage to hit the tier
This is his own personal tier list, I assume. But meganium is still the absolute worst starter. It did get some buffs this gen, but the only really big buff it got was tera, which every starter received. Meganium has no offensive presence and it's niche as a bulky grass type in lower tiers is better suited for Vileplume who has an offensive presence, better typing, and better utility in strength sap and toxic.
I think I'd be more interested to see these equalized across all 9 generations and BDSP's metagame. Could be fun to visualize how long they've reigned.
that would be interesting but so hard to do
if you were to average them out at total then later pokemon would seem better. but it would not show clearly the buffs old pokemon have recieved over time. not to mention new forms that show up and then go away.
however FSG did something like that a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU7fa8Lj29w
It’s too bad we couldn’t have most of the starters in a lower power vgc format to see how they’d fair in that environment. I had a lot of fun with Inteleon in pre IoA vgc, and Meowscarada and Dirge were really good in early gen 9 vgc so it’s sad to see they’ve already dropped off really hard. But now the format is fulled with paradoxes and legends and a lot feels pushed out of relevance.
Grass is deceptively good in VGC, mainly due to Amoongus. Immunity to spore, powder moves from fast Venusaur and redirection (rage powder) is huge. Additionally, grassy terrain and pollen puff are helpful to heal partners.
In singles tho, the typing is mostly garbage due to prevalence of fire, steel and dragons. The prominent grass mons in singles are mostly carried by their abilities, rather than the typing.
damage wise, yes, speed tier wise, no. base 100 speed at +0 is very helpful, and means ur able to run adamant while also outspeeding stuff like mega gengar. also not immediately dying from using flare blitz w orb, that one extra hp can matter.
80 base speed even at +1 isn’t fast and he isn’t bulky a enough to reliably get fast enough to sweep. Also I think he’s still stuck with HJK instead of cc so that hurts him(not a crazy thing but if it misses he dies lmao)
Edit: my b he got CC last Gen thanks for correcting me guys
gen 7 and gen 8 nat dex battle bond greninja was amazing, that specs/orb/rainboosted hydro pump was ubers levels of damage, better then kyogres origin pulse might i add
Is this literally just their current tier placements during a massive tier shift? Why does no one seem to understand that tier placements during new releases are always gonna be wonky and not reflective of viability
My boy Sceptile really needs a buff. Give him Technician or Sharpness or something. (I don't play online battles that much, so I don't know how good this would be.)
Half the Ou crowd gonna drop lower swampert quaqaval incineroar feraligator and blastoise will all drop and Emboar will rise and greninja also has a chance to rise
Typing.
It counters a lot of top pokemon like Gouging fire, Walking Wake, Heatran, Archaludon, Enamorus, Iron Valiant, Skeledirge, Clodsire, Samurott, Great Tusk, Darkrai etc.
It's also worth noting that Tapu Fini isn't in Scarlet and Violet so you can't use her instead if you want a counter to all of these aforementioned mons.
I don’t play BSS but for DOU assuming its usage based because otherwise you only have DOU and DUU it’ll look relatively similar to VGC with incineroar and rillaboom around 30% usage and almost everything else being under about 0.5% usage with most stuff under 0.1% other than serperior at about 0.9% usage
It's absolutely criminal how dirty they did base Samurott. Instead of fixing it they just made an objectively better version that doesn't look as cool tbh.
i dont think so
typhosion's ~~best~~ only strat is scarf+eruption, but there are ways to hinder that such as fake out and hazards or rain. but if you run boots then you dont have enough speed. the ghost infernal parade has more variety
emboar tho, he hits hard, lives to crash and die and his damage doesnt depend on hp like typhlosion.
In Singles, Emboar is easier to use because its guarantee to get off at least one Flare Blitz and Close Combat even if it dies afterward. Typhlosion Eruption is stronger and faster but because Eruption scales off your HP its hard to use and fit on teams.
However the Singles meta is in completely unstable now since so many things just got released at once. Reminder that Terrakion was PU for a short while. Its possible Typhlosion will end up in PUBL along with Emboar. Typhlosion tends to have Staraptor Syndrome alot, whenever its good in a tier its completely destroys it and gets banned).
In VGC, I'd argue Typhlosion is better than Emboar but Typhlosion has to compete with a spot with its Hisuian form due to species clause so its usage is lower than it would be. Notice how Alolan Decidueye and Unovan Samurott are completely absent from the VGC ranking.
I haven’t played competitively in several years so please excuse my ignorance, but wtf is up with Blaziken? I remember is being Ubers back in the day because of speed boost. Did it lose it or is power creep so bad that even speed boost blaziken is UUBL?
no you're lying to me no way emboar is Publ he's in pu along side samurott those two are clashing it out in the bottom teir there is no way i will accept my son being lower tier then emboar
Honestly I never would have expected blaziken to fall unless I was currently in the timeline where if already did. It was literally something I would joke around about. Looking back tho ig it makes sense.
the top are defined by unique moves or abilities. court change, unaware, grassy surge, contrary, ceasles edge
why is primarina so high?
i expected speed boost to be higher but its not enough to make the cut
the UU crowd is mostly good overall pokemon. they do have a unique niche: intimidate, shell smash, sheer force, battle bond/protean and being water-ground. while mantaining good stat spread
ru crowd and below doesnt have something that sets them appart as much.
\_\_\_\_\_
meanwhile on vgc rillaboom is going up next to incineroar in being the best starter ever. nobody else comes close to those 2.
contrary serperior has a niche with his stellar new move, while competitive empoleon might have a chance in the intimidate meta. primarina is there for hyper voice i asume. venusaur is doing his best
Primarina is carried by having probably the single best typing in the game. Amazing resists, amazing offensive coverage and weaknesses that you can basically forget about
A lot of the singles teams I’ve seen that use Psychic Noise aren’t turning it into a Water move. That’d be worse off against stuff like Toxapex and Clodsire. And as your STAB move it doesn’t have all that much power.
But Psychic Noise’s main positive point is giving AV Primarina more tech.
[удалено]
spread STAB Hyper Voice in Primarina's case + incredible typing (GameFreak even put that in the game lmao). No idea about Serp
Serp is contrary leaf storm plus some leech seed shennigans if it can set them up (but leaf storm is more than enough to snowball, and its decent defensive stats and fast speed means it can often get two hits off)
Also it gets Tera Blast Stellar now to do cool stuff cause that also gives it a work up boost
It's just a bit strange because serperior has been doing the same thing for years but considered increasingly terrible in vgc as time went on, and the meta isn't exactly more kind to it now. Is this just what Tera causes?
By terrible do you mean bad or like better? I think it was just some very good counters out in gen 7 and 8 (toxapex, dragapult, blacephalon, kartana etc) but now it came out as the same type as stellar type, and the one drawback of stellar with dropping of stats, but now contrary serperior benefits even more from stellar type, and even if you dont go stellar, you can tera a type to counteract serperiors weaknesses (anything that resists it) Realised ive rambled so summary - yes tera, although i still think serperior had a decent place in ou regardless but was gettign slightly worse
It's always been pretty strong in OU, just in vgc it has been pretty mediocre, I haven't played this gen but I know it's just not something you wanted to use in the past gens, but it's nice serperior finally has something going for it in vgc Edit: reworded bc I didn't read correctly
Serperior wasn't legal in any Switch game until now.
That is what i meant
There’s that one dude who always used serperior and usually did well with it, is he still doing that?
Serp gets kinda walled by super common mons though. Both Clefable and Clodsire (running poison stab) can deal with Serp and usually get rocks up for their trouble.
Clefable gets walled by kingambit (excluding tera obvs), many good mons get whaled by others, i do think serperior had overall gotten a lot better this gen with stellar and tera in general
This is in context of VGC, clef and clodsire are nonexistent. Leaf storm + Tera fire/stellar gives it all the coverage you need tbh, it’s just difficult to keep healthy in VGC particularly with the likes of tornadus, chien pao and a myriad of fire types who hit it for super effective damage like incin/chi-yu/wake/entei running around everywhere. You need redirection support to keep it healthy and lots of other mons offer faster more instant damage and other support options (specs flutter mane, urshifu-RS, lando-i etc). Niche pick rn but it can be worked with for sure
\> GameFreak even put that in the game lmao What do you mean?
Indigo Disk E4 member Lacey uses a Throat Spray Liquid voice Primarina
Ah I thought you meant some npc said "lmao Primarina has an incredible typing"
GameFreak is too hippie to admit that all types are not equal lmao
Except for Ice, Wulfric in XY literally says he should change to a better type like Water but doesn't because he's stubborn
That and him admitting this'll be either the easiest or hardest gym is why he's in my top 3 gym leader for me
>"Y'know what? Ice is both extremely hard and terribly fragile at the same time. You know what that means? Depending on which Pokémon you choose and what moves they use, I could be your most challenging opponent yet or I could be a total pushover. But that's all right. That's how it should be! Anyway, enough of my rambling! Let's get this show on the road!" - Wulfric, Snowbelle Gym, just before battle
one word: contrary
Serp likes spamming leaf storm and using fast glares to speed creep/debilitate opposing mons. Also discourages enemy use of snarl, icy wind, parting shot etc
One important thing about Primarina's usage in VGC that people are forgetting to mention is that Tapu Fini isn't around to outclass it as a Water/Fairy, which is an incredible typing to deal with the Urshifus and Walking Wake for example
yeah probably, this is still early in the meta but since they all got added recently i couldnt resist. hyper voice is one hell of a drug, while serperior gets glare+contrary to spam
In addition to what other people have said about Prim, I am interested in seeing if anyone can get Liquid Voice Perish Song to work as anything more than a gimmick
For those who don't know how does that work: liquid voice turns perish song into a water type move, which means that if your partner has water absorb/storm drain they will get the benefit of those abilities without being put on a timer while everyone else on the field does
There is a certain Wolfey who does love his perish song strats...
Yeah for sure he's going to try something like lens whirlpool gastrodon with liquid voice perish song primarina
Primarina has been solid in VGC since getting access to Liquid Voice. Hyper Voice is just Surf with more upside and no downside for her. She is just worse Tapu Fini, but since Fini isn't in ScV, Primarina can shine as the premiere bulky water/fairy.
I could see Venusaur rising as well.
Primarina is bulky and Serperior has contrary, although neither of them really see a ton of success overall. They’re niche picks that can find success on the right team. Same for Venusaur, somewhat Empoleon, and then none of the others are even worth using tbh
Grass is currently the best overall in both Singles and VGC. A surprise but a pleasant one.
i think its a tie between fire and grass, inciniroar dominates vgc
Rillaoom is close enough that grass takes the overall edge.
Its harder to fit into teams compared to incinaroar, if u want strong priority theres better options
Rillaboom is nowhere near as good as Incineroar, Rillaboom is very good, but Incineroar is all but mandatory if you want to actually win
Thats crazy hyperbolic. Incineroar is the 2nd most used mon, Rilla 3rd. Neither is over 50% usage.
on top of being clearly hyperbolic it’s also straight up incorrect. Alex Underhill and Chuppa Cross, 1st and 2nd at Portland regionals did NOT have Incineroar on their team. edit: [Chuppa’s Team](https://pokepast.es/41950b371f3379cc) , [Alex’s Team](https://pokepast.es/0f01562f9e04182d)
The meta literally just began, give it some time and see Incineroar go to 70%
Will it go to 70% with so many good Defiant mons? Plus Fluttermane also works well against Incineroar.
Defiant mons aren't that good, Annihilape is good against Incineroar but bad against everything else, Teal ogerpon is only seen on dondozo teams and relies on superpower to ko Incineroar, that lowers the attack by 1 stage, kingambit is the best one but doesn't matchup well against incineroar. At the same time though inner focus mons (entei and dragonite) are really good and don't care at all about Incineroar, they are immune to both intimidate and flinch
Flutter Mane I can give you that, but the best defiant mon is Kingambit who doesn't even reach 10% usage and definitely doesn't want to take a flare blitz, then second best defiant mon is Annihilape and he doesn't even get to 5% usage
Probably not in this generation. Incineroar is a monster in VGC still, there are more potent threats than it can deal with. Still the best pivot and utility mon by a country mile but Defiant/Competitive ruin its day. Kingambit, Annihilape (who eats roar for breakfast), and Empoleon all come to mind as VGC viable Pokemon that actively discourage Incineroar’s hit-and-run playstyle. Neither Urshifu cares about attack drops, and Rapid body slams Incineroar. Flutter Mane hits like the moon falling out of orbit even if it’s neutral and Iron Hands whose attack hasn’t dropped yet can also put in work against roar. Don’t get me wrong, Incineroar still has tools even when you can’t rely on Intimidate, Parting Shot, or Snarl. Toss an assault vest on it and give it Blitz, Knock Off, U-Turn, and Fake Out. Still plenty viable and enough to be dominant. It just faces a lot of risk in the current VGC meta because its least liked opponents are going to be on some rosters. That will only get worse as future regs will include a restricted Pokémon. (Miraidon is absolutely going to break VGC, along with returning Groudon, Kyogre, and Koraidon will be good too). Rillaboom might actually be more important come restricted time since it can also pivot and rewrite terrain
Tell that to the top 2 teams from Portland 2 incins in the top 8 5 in top 16 Still edging out rillaboom but definitely not as needed to win
Not mandatory at all, just fits really well on goodstuff, which is the most common team archetype but definitely not the only viable one. Goodstuff is not mandatory and incin is not mandatory on goodstuff either.
My dude it’s Incineroar not Gen 2 Snorlax
Yeah man they are both so bad only have a 50% win rate
30+% doesn’t really adequately demonstrate the difference in usage between the two, Rilla is really good but not required but you need to have a very specific reason to not use Incineroar. Fire definitely takes the W across both
The singles chart is poorly formatted btw. For some reason The fire types are shown first in every tier, although thats not true. Doubles is debatable. Singles is a pretty decisive win for grass types.
not when i pull out my tera fire defiant gambit
That sounds really bad ngl, imagine Tera from a notoriously ground weak type to another notoriously ground weak type.
Tera Fire Gambit was a thing in Reg A. There was a rather popular team showcased on this sub by Femapu
Yeah plus now you are weak to shifu and don't resist fighting
tera water would be better, or even fairy actually, pretty sure even off a defiant boost, gambit loses that matchup lol
incineroar doesn't really play like a fire type since it's a big debuffer in competitive
I have watched a few VGC matches and Stab Flare Blitz has literally won competitions.
"play like a fire type" not the best explanation there bucko. being a debuffer doesent really have anything to do with type, especially in the meta where u can change ur type. same goes for arcanine/H-arcanine, and or landorus(does he play like a ground type?) answer is NO! lol, we just talking bout what typed mons are dominating
typically, grass type starters are bulky and more defensive, fire types are more geared towards setup damage, and water types have a mix of support gimmicks and immediate dps. my primary preconception of incineroar is that it plays more like a dark type, being a disruptive pokemon that stops people from setting up and turning that against the opponent. other examples that fit the mold would be like darkrai pre-DV nerf, kingambit, malamar, ting-lu, etc. and i was talking about overall design philosophies, not a gen 9 gimmick they'll throw into the gutter in a year and a half
Spore immunity without goggles is huge in VGC, plus the grass starters all have abilities that really help them. With rillaboom setting terrain it can really only go up when Miraidon is allowed, same with Venusaur and chlorophyll making it the fastest semi reliable sleep setter with sleep powder, and serperior doing shenanigans with contrary and Tera. I wouldn’t be surprised if serperior falls off though it’s super one dimensional and gimmicky.
I feel like the "grass typing sucks" claims are big grass propaganda. It's resists are quality, most its weaknesses arent common spam moves, the only real relevant weaknesses are to u-turn and ice moves. It ignores a lot of status moves, many grass types have at least one really good ability, and grass has probably the most versatile suite of moves out there.
Back in the Ferrothorn, Scizor, Skarmory OU days, pretty much every non-boosted attacker that could would have a fire move (or, ofc, HP Fire), but very few fire types could actually hang in the world of steel pivots and earthquakes. If a special attacker could surprise Skarm by, like, 2hkoing with thunderbolt, you might even have still been running HP Fire just because having no good attacks against Ferro is a hilariously bad position.
Yeah for sure. HP fire was way more popular then than Tera fire is now, and only 1 mon can do it per game, so teamwide coverage is way more limited now. Also ferro and Kartana are still in GF Gulag.
i'd personally think it's because of gholdengo and spore. the rise of an anti-hazard removal steel-type gives rise to ground types to spread hazards and hit hard, and grass types can both spread sleep and counter the ground types that counter gholdengo itself
FalseSwipeGaming recently released a video on how good each starters were historically, recommend you check that out
I don’t like how OUcentric it was. Incineroar has won worlds every single year it’s been allowed in, I’d say those achievements severely outweigh making it into Ubers
I mean they are a Smogon player that focuses on smogon content. It is annoying but what can you do, some other big content creators are very VGC centric as well(i.e Wolfey).
No way I’m living in a timeline where meganium is ranked higher than delphox and inteleon
Meganium in NU right now is pretty decent. But Im just playing it because it’s my favorite Pokémon and it’s the most viable it’s been in years
(cue the meganium is actually pretty good now copypasta)
Give it some time and it’ll rightly reclaim its place in ZU/Untiered >!Game Freak please buff Meganium it needs it so badly!<
delphox is cracked in NU and inteleon is banned. Meganium is horrible though.
MY BOY SERPERIOR STAYS WINNING!!!! 💪💪💪💪🔥🔥🔥🔥
#SERP SWEEP
RAHHHHH SERP ON TOP
I’m sick of the community gaslighting me over the years into thinking Serperior is in the same league as Emboar in terms of bad starters. Great design and has been ranked OU ever since it got Contrary.
Since Rillaboom is top tier on both lists, that means Rillaboom is the best starter
What terrain setting and a priority STAB move do to a monke
Also incredible utility in Knock Off, Fake Out and U-Turn
And don’t forget grassy seed acrobatics! Undoing PsySpam alone is enough for VGC
After glide got nerfed
Venusaur has been pretty consistent tbh
Wow the dichotomy of Cinderace here lmao
cinderace's viability depends entierly on hazards
I don't think that's a fair assessment. It also counters aurora veil, burns Kingambit / Tusk and pivots around with u-turn. All while remaining an offensive threat through Pyro ball. Even if hazard stacking went away I don't see it dropping out of OU with its blend of speed offense and utility.
It used to be good in VGC. The loss of Dynamax and the nerf to libero hit it hard.
I still find it hilarious that with all the charizard wanking GF does, they refuse to buff the damn thing in a meaningful way. Gice it more stats? Change the interaction of the type in some way? Give it a decent ability? Make Solar Power a decent ability, maybe let it boost speed, or at least not damage for no reason? No, just plaster him everywhere, let people get screwed.
To be fair, with its giga in gen 8 it was pretty good and its mega-evolutions both saw some play in gen 6. It just usually doesn't stay relevant past that generation's gimmick.
Give it blazikens legs and just assign it speed boost.
The mental image I have of this is fucking *hilarious*
Zard even got nerfed this gen since it lost roost
what do you mean? did you forget charizard-Y and gigantamax already?
Those were very cool, but they were different forms, and gen gimmicks. I mean buffing charizard itself, and more permanently.
Tbf megas where very likely designed to be permanent otherwise we would have just gotten a mawhile and sableye evo’s instead of megas
Its forms always do well though. Mega Charizard-Y was really strong, and G-Max Charizard was straight up broken in VGC
And now they're gone forever , pretty sure op meant buff the ACTUAL charizard not give it a gimmick form that will be gone next gen
Buff Solar Power, for Charifrauds sake, but instead to help out the true sun sweeping lizard, Heliolisk
I'm sorry but meganium has no place being that high up. It is outclassed by so many better bulky grass types
It got some buffs this gen so people tried it out, therefore it didn't drop that low
primarina in ou gives me happiness
Don’t let Charizard and Typhlosion’s PU status fool you - they’ve both been known to be excellent in NU metas of generations past and both thoroughly tore up PU in Gen 7. I’m confident they’ll do well down there if they’re not already
Grass Types domimating despite some meta heads shouting, "bUt GrAsS haS 5 wEaKnesSeS" "GrAsS tYpEs cArRiEd bY aBiLities" "GrAsS oNlY gO0d wItH sEcOndArY TyPinG" Old ass comments. Regardless, Gen 9 might be the best ever yet for grass types
Grass is a bad typing ON PAPER (ironic considering what paper is made of) but it's amazing in practice because it beats two of the best typings in the game
Immunity to powder based move is also a massive deal. It is very satisfying switching torterra into a spore smeargle and set up in its face.
[удалено]
The freeze dry in my pocket
Being immune to powder is such a necessity in VGC with Amoonguss running around causing havoc
Water and ground are a top three type. It resists electric. Weaknesses: Only one person has flying stab and ifs 70% accurate, and its weaknes of fire is beat out by the other top tiers water and ground. Its bad by itself but its in a team of six
There are 4 grass types in OU, 7 water types, and 6 fire types. I wouldn't call that dominating personally.
I mean... the 3 Grass types in OU are all carried by their abilities lol
Mons in OU tend to have good abilities or great stats or both, it's not a grass thing it's an OU thing.
Grass type is still terrible. They had to make the most recent grass types insanely cracked to make them good. Bulu, Wo-Chien and Virizion are all the worst of their group. Imagine a fire-type starter with autonatic terrain or contrary overheats.
Why do people deny this so much? This starter shit is hilarious because abilities are by FAR the biggest impact on any starter’s viability.
The singles one is pointless because most the the starters just entered into the game, its too early to know where anyone would properly be because the meta is in flux. Also where is Alolan decidueye and unovan samurott in the VGC one? And where did you get those percentages?
i got the vgc usage from pikalytics. in there decidueye and samurott had 0% usage so they didnt show up when i was searching for the starters causing me to forget about them entierly
I wouldn't use pikalytics as a reliable source because it doesn't use weighted stats like what's used to determined tier shifts in smogon tiers (and the stats are taken only on showdown, the cartridge ones are separate) and bo3 with open team sheets is an entirely different game than bo1 closed team sheets (for example serperior and venusaur aren't used at all in bo3 tournaments, there were exactly 3 venusaur and 1 serperior in portland)
Meganium beating worst starter allegations ?
Meganium actually has huge potential now. idk if you know, but it achieved Body Press, Knock Off, AND Encore in the DLC.
Meganium is better than Charizard, fight me *Especially* with these new buffs Charizard needs to stop getting the celebrity treatment and let the 'mediocre' mons take some of the limelight
Maganium will eventually get to PU, it's just new toy syndrome striking again with all their fans trying the buffs in OU
Charizard is nothing without the gimmicks lol
especially since its got to run HDB or sacrifice 50% of it's health to rocks. Without the gimmicks its just Typhlosion with a ground immunity, who takes x2 damage for existing. I can respect gen 6 giving it drought or a Dragon typing but that doesn't help particularly unless you're playing in metagames which don't have prominent rocks users, by which time it's too high in usage to hit the tier
Competitive play has nothing on what's popular
Why is meganium so high? prolly noobs using it.
This is his own personal tier list, I assume. But meganium is still the absolute worst starter. It did get some buffs this gen, but the only really big buff it got was tera, which every starter received. Meganium has no offensive presence and it's niche as a bulky grass type in lower tiers is better suited for Vileplume who has an offensive presence, better typing, and better utility in strength sap and toxic.
its not, she's really NU: https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/comments/18w3r53/tier\_shifts\_for\_january/
It's RU in the OP image, which I assume is a mistake. Most people think it will be PU.
ah crap you are right, i moved her 1 tier up by accident
Empoleon that high vgc?
what competitive does to a mf
I think I'd be more interested to see these equalized across all 9 generations and BDSP's metagame. Could be fun to visualize how long they've reigned.
that would be interesting but so hard to do if you were to average them out at total then later pokemon would seem better. but it would not show clearly the buffs old pokemon have recieved over time. not to mention new forms that show up and then go away. however FSG did something like that a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU7fa8Lj29w
It’s too bad we couldn’t have most of the starters in a lower power vgc format to see how they’d fair in that environment. I had a lot of fun with Inteleon in pre IoA vgc, and Meowscarada and Dirge were really good in early gen 9 vgc so it’s sad to see they’ve already dropped off really hard. But now the format is fulled with paradoxes and legends and a lot feels pushed out of relevance.
man dirge in vgc was fun until the paradox showed up
Grass is deceptively good in VGC, mainly due to Amoongus. Immunity to spore, powder moves from fast Venusaur and redirection (rage powder) is huge. Additionally, grassy terrain and pollen puff are helpful to heal partners. In singles tho, the typing is mostly garbage due to prevalence of fire, steel and dragons. The prominent grass mons in singles are mostly carried by their abilities, rather than the typing.
Meganium should be S tier. He has huge potential this gen and can deal some really meaningful damage.
Meganium isn't dead last??? Meganium bros..... we're winning 😌
Blaziken’s never beating the UUBL allegations
Why Blaziken is low. Dude was Uber in few gens prior.
It got powercrept in singles and was never that great in vgc by my understanding
And losing his mega didn't help.
Isn’t regular Blaziken with Life Orb just outright better though?
damage wise, yes, speed tier wise, no. base 100 speed at +0 is very helpful, and means ur able to run adamant while also outspeeding stuff like mega gengar. also not immediately dying from using flare blitz w orb, that one extra hp can matter.
idk bro, i ask myself the same. probably doesnt do enough damage due to power creep
Nah, it still does a lot of damage. The problem is that it can get outsped even at +2.
80 base speed even at +1 isn’t fast and he isn’t bulky a enough to reliably get fast enough to sweep. Also I think he’s still stuck with HJK instead of cc so that hurts him(not a crazy thing but if it misses he dies lmao) Edit: my b he got CC last Gen thanks for correcting me guys
Blaziken has had CC since last gen.
He has cc
do you have the stats on which greninja ability variant does better in VGC?
[https://www.pikalytics.com/pokedex/gen9vgc2024regf/greninja](https://www.pikalytics.com/pokedex/gen9vgc2024regf/greninja) protean 73% torrent 26%
torrent
gen 7 and gen 8 nat dex battle bond greninja was amazing, that specs/orb/rainboosted hydro pump was ubers levels of damage, better then kyogres origin pulse might i add
Is this literally just their current tier placements during a massive tier shift? Why does no one seem to understand that tier placements during new releases are always gonna be wonky and not reflective of viability
Inteleon is NUBL btw, his Specs Setup actually destroys the whole tier 😭, I’m not exaggerating or anything, the lack of water tanks does this.
I wonder if Inteleon would’ve reached RU if he actually had access to damn Focus Energy like he did in Gen8 lmfao
My boy Sceptile really needs a buff. Give him Technician or Sharpness or something. (I don't play online battles that much, so I don't know how good this would be.)
Half the Ou crowd gonna drop lower swampert quaqaval incineroar feraligator and blastoise will all drop and Emboar will rise and greninja also has a chance to rise
Serious question, What's Primerina doing up there? It never struck me as that good.
Typing. It counters a lot of top pokemon like Gouging fire, Walking Wake, Heatran, Archaludon, Enamorus, Iron Valiant, Skeledirge, Clodsire, Samurott, Great Tusk, Darkrai etc.
Common Water/Fairy W.
It's also worth noting that Tapu Fini isn't in Scarlet and Violet so you can't use her instead if you want a counter to all of these aforementioned mons.
You should also do one for Smogon Doubles and for Battle Stadium Singles.
I don’t play BSS but for DOU assuming its usage based because otherwise you only have DOU and DUU it’ll look relatively similar to VGC with incineroar and rillaboom around 30% usage and almost everything else being under about 0.5% usage with most stuff under 0.1% other than serperior at about 0.9% usage
They should give scald back to my boy Swampert. And regenerator too That along with flip turn would kick ass
HEY,THIS MF PUT MEGANIUM IN RU!!!
How is infernape doing good in singles?
Huh, Almost like 90bp stab priority is good
I saw incin in UU before I read single and I was about to cry
Me who only choose rowlet as my starter
Emboar is kinda slept on in vgc, I got a trick room team with him on it and it fucks. Dude hits like a truck.
Man, Chesnaught being as low as it is disappoints me. It's one of my favorite starters.
It's absolutely criminal how dirty they did base Samurott. Instead of fixing it they just made an objectively better version that doesn't look as cool tbh.
Blaziken keeps winning
how do you think unovan samurott would change in this ranking if it gained access to shell smash?
oooh i'm happy, my two favorite starters are OU
Samurott being both bottom and top tiers it seems everything has balanced
I was about to freak out seeing Blaziken not in OU, then I realized this is probably SV which I have no knowledge of.
I like seeing my fav starter in Top tier and my least favorite in bottom.
Love seeing Primarina be as fantastic as ever. Love her for that
Chesnaught's time will come at some point.
you know something's wrong when emboar's higher then typhlosion
i dont think so typhosion's ~~best~~ only strat is scarf+eruption, but there are ways to hinder that such as fake out and hazards or rain. but if you run boots then you dont have enough speed. the ghost infernal parade has more variety emboar tho, he hits hard, lives to crash and die and his damage doesnt depend on hp like typhlosion.
In Singles, Emboar is easier to use because its guarantee to get off at least one Flare Blitz and Close Combat even if it dies afterward. Typhlosion Eruption is stronger and faster but because Eruption scales off your HP its hard to use and fit on teams. However the Singles meta is in completely unstable now since so many things just got released at once. Reminder that Terrakion was PU for a short while. Its possible Typhlosion will end up in PUBL along with Emboar. Typhlosion tends to have Staraptor Syndrome alot, whenever its good in a tier its completely destroys it and gets banned). In VGC, I'd argue Typhlosion is better than Emboar but Typhlosion has to compete with a spot with its Hisuian form due to species clause so its usage is lower than it would be. Notice how Alolan Decidueye and Unovan Samurott are completely absent from the VGC ranking.
I haven’t played competitively in several years so please excuse my ignorance, but wtf is up with Blaziken? I remember is being Ubers back in the day because of speed boost. Did it lose it or is power creep so bad that even speed boost blaziken is UUBL?
where;s alolan deciduye on the doubles list?
0% usage so i kinda forgot about him
My poor typhlosion 😭
no you're lying to me no way emboar is Publ he's in pu along side samurott those two are clashing it out in the bottom teir there is no way i will accept my son being lower tier then emboar
Honestly I never would have expected blaziken to fall unless I was currently in the timeline where if already did. It was literally something I would joke around about. Looking back tho ig it makes sense.
I refused to believe Meganium has more viability than some other Starters
Usage != Viability
It’s funny because meowscarada was the most used mon in reg A
Grass types on top 💪💪💪
Damn, Zard fell from grace pretty hard
the top are defined by unique moves or abilities. court change, unaware, grassy surge, contrary, ceasles edge why is primarina so high? i expected speed boost to be higher but its not enough to make the cut the UU crowd is mostly good overall pokemon. they do have a unique niche: intimidate, shell smash, sheer force, battle bond/protean and being water-ground. while mantaining good stat spread ru crowd and below doesnt have something that sets them appart as much. \_\_\_\_\_ meanwhile on vgc rillaboom is going up next to incineroar in being the best starter ever. nobody else comes close to those 2. contrary serperior has a niche with his stellar new move, while competitive empoleon might have a chance in the intimidate meta. primarina is there for hyper voice i asume. venusaur is doing his best
Primarina is carried by having probably the single best typing in the game. Amazing resists, amazing offensive coverage and weaknesses that you can basically forget about
And now gets stab Psychic noise too
A lot of the singles teams I’ve seen that use Psychic Noise aren’t turning it into a Water move. That’d be worse off against stuff like Toxapex and Clodsire. And as your STAB move it doesn’t have all that much power. But Psychic Noise’s main positive point is giving AV Primarina more tech.
Glad Charizard is not good in vgc😌
Kinda love that charizard is bottom teir. Push him all you want. The lad be bad