Zymogen

I think the tournament usage statistics posted by Munya are fairly representative of the viability of the checks you named - Drapion goes without saying because it's one of the best pokemon in the tier at the moment, but as Titinn mentioned it is shaky as a defensive check to Roserade as the timid life orb set has a chance to 2hko Drapion with sludge bomb without rocks, and in order to kill Roserade back Drapion has to rely on hitting a crit with night slash. Additionally, it is grounded so is weak to both spikes and stealth rocks, and it typically has no leftovers recovery. Golbat is great against choiced Roserade sets. Not so much against life orb. So far I've seen one Careful Golbat but imo running a SpDef nature removes most of Golbat's better qualities, including its speed, because it is much better suited as a physical wall than a special one. Not to mention it's also still 2hko'd by LO extrasensory with rocks on the field. Mantine is also one of the more viable pokemon at the moment so I will agree with this in its entirety, seeing as you also acknowledged that it's not perfect due to its susceptibility to hazards and sludge bomb poison. I'm in two minds about Bronzor as it is a mon that either walls your opponent's entire team, or is a sitting duck for setup; its ability to check Roserade can't be ignored, but I feel like Bronzor's viability is entirely match up dependent given that it only has Psywave and Toxic to punish switches in a meta that is saturated with poison and dark types. It also doesn't punish Roserade itself at all. Vullaby has the highest usage out of the more niche checks you mentioned, at 2.07%. Defensively it isn't terrible as it has a decent typing and respectable bulk, but its weakness to hazards, sludge bomb poison and lack of leftovers recovery really hinder it. I accept that it is less of a sitting duck than some of Roserade's other checks as it has access to strong stab in Brave Bird, and also Foul Play which can cripple a lot of physically attacking threats which would be inclined to switch in on it. I guess its real niche is on sand teams, but imo that's about it. I know you and other SIA players personally like it, but imo Drifblim really doesn't have much viability outside of sub/acro/bp/wow, which it isn't exactly a stellar moveset. There are a lot of rotoms/rhydons/spiritombs/gigaliths/golems/eels/manecs in this meta, it has no viable recovery and again is susceptible to stealth rocks, and I think that this is reflected in the statistics. Feel free to enlighten me here though, as I haven't really looked into what Drifblim can even do. Skuntank I personally like as a method of hazard control, and I previously have used it a lot as my main check to roserade and ghosts in particular. It punishes roserade well if you choose to use pursuit, and has access to nice support moves such as haze, defog, taunt, and sucker punch, but honestly it doesn't do much more than that. Not to mention it is grounded and lacks recovery outside of black sludge. In terms of overall viability, I wouldn't go as far as saying that it's not viable, but it certainly is very pressured. It is probably one of the best examples of 4 move slot syndrome and therefore, much like Bronzor, its success is very match up dependent. Additionally many mons such as Drapion, Rhydon, Toxicroak, Golem, Steelix, Gigalith and Spiritomb (and more) resist either one or both of its stab typings and can easily offensively pressure it. I'm personally not a fan of Metang. It's bulky and can pursuit trap Roserades and Ghosts, but I just don't think it really has a place in this meta. Just my 2 cents.

I agree. Roserade was a problem when it first dropped, it has proven to be a problem after the implementation of Sinnoh, Drapion, Skuntank and every NU meta shift that has occurred since then; and clearly it will continue to do so going forward. The counterarguments for keeping it in the tier so far have been superficial at best and the lack of a formal response, despite all of the discussions surrounding this topic, has been nothing short of disappointing. That being said, props to Gb for being the only TC member willing to actively participate in most of the tiering discussions proposed on these threads.

yessir

Whimsi down and Rhyp up will be good for NU for sure. Also would like to echo Life’s question about seasonals

i lied cogeid vs me in 10

[NU] Cogeid vs myself at 1 or 2pm BST tomorrow (TBD)

Ok Bouffalant suddenly doesn’t seem so bad

Sigh

ok this is the real hype content

either remove them entirely or make it so that there is an entry message for quick claw similar to air balloon

XD

I would like to buy Zymogen for 69,420 credits

The shiny market was decimated by the horde update so that literally can’t be an argument anymore

Take care of yourself bb

IGN: Zymogen Reason: XD Preferred Tiers: NU Competitive accolades (optional, although it certainly increases your chances of getting picked/having an higher salary): XD Discord contact (optional): Zymo#9930 Other random stuff: XD

Yoo Lotus got fucking scammed LOL

Agreed, Durant has no place in NU

NU gets it pretty bad too - if you’re unlucky you can wait for 30+ min for a battle and get matched with a Novice when you finally find one. I understand that this system was probably implemented for the benefit of the lower tiers which have a smaller population of players, but I think having upper and lower limits would be an improvement in terms of competition at least

Yes because he’s always in jail

Bump

This calc is surprising yeah.

Yeah good point, I didn't calc CB, but I think this set is inferior because any well-built team would have the capacity to outplay the CB set. SD is more problematic, especially with Sub. It still lives a +2 so it counts as a check, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find any viable mon that confidently counters Rhyperior

quagsire

But, considering this isn’t OU and therefore the weird “no Ubers” policy doesn’t apply, is it not a questionable tiering decision to keep an unhealthy Pokemon in a tier just to check another unhealthy Pokemon?

I agree with what you say about NU being inherently unstable, but within that instability there is (or was, before the movepool update) a central meta that stays roughly the same despite usage movements; there are Pokemon that you can bet your bottom dollar on staying in the tier providing there are no significant meta-changing updates. E.g. Steelix, Golbat, Clefable, Manectric, etc. My problem lies in the idea that "there is no point banning Pokemon because things are always moving" because it is a blanket statement that doesn't take into account that, with usage movements and broken Pokemon, there are two different scenarios that need to be considered in different ways: Firstly, when a Pokemon gets shifted down to a lower tier through usage. Here, there is often a lot of theorising done as to whether or not a new Pokemon (e.g. Rhyperior) will be immediately problematic. In this scenario I think your philosophy applies, because we need to be patient and allow an opportunity for the meta to shift and adapt to the new Pokemon coming in, before we can solidly cast judgement as to its overall viability. The second scenario is when a Pokemon is well-established within its respective tier, and is already widely considered to be bannable (for argument's sake let's take Roserade and Drapion). In this case, we need to consider whether or not the usage movements each month are likely to have any impact whatsoever on the viability of the Pokemon in question. And I think that it's fair to say that the usage movements down from UU to NU for the last several months have had absolutely no impact on the viability of either Roserade or Drapion. Additionally, we need to consider whether the movements up from NU to UU are likely to buff these Pokemon. In Roserade's case I think not, but with Gligar moving up we are losing Drapion's primary check, and it is obvious that none of the 3 mons moving down into NU will be able to patch the hole that is being left. In this scenario I don't think your philosophy applies because it is obvious that not every usage movement will directly impact the viability of every Pokemon in the meta, and therefore there is not always a need to wait for a substantial amount of time before doing anything about it. Having said all this, if we wait for months to label something as ban-worthy because "it may not be true later", where do we draw the line? At what point do we say that enough is enough and commit to banning something?