Tier List Update March 2018

[Senile]

For the first time since the Unova update, tiers are going to be updated. Usage based changes are made based on the usage gathered from February, found in this thread:

 

Notably, the way we're going to do usage based movements is different now. Usage will now be done in 3 month cycles, with normal usage movements (4.36% cutoff point) at the end of a cycle, combining the usage from the prior 3 months into 1 large aggregation of usage. Notably, the older months in the cycle, 1 & 2, are weighted significantly less than the last month, having a weight of 1 and 3 respectively, with the last month having a weighting of 20.

 

This also means that during these cycles, pokemon will not move according to the ordinary 4.36% cutoff. Instead, there are quick drop/rise cutoff %'s that, when reached, will move pokemon even mid-cycle. The quick drop value is 1.7%, and quick rise is 6.7%.

 

The purpose of the 3 month cycle is to make tiers more stable, instead of constantly monthly usage. The quick change %'s serve the purpose of ensuring that this increased consistency does not also result in wildly inaccurate tiers, as bans or new additions can cause massive changes to tiers. The quick %'s should account for this, moving pokemon that suddenly spike in usage or drop significantly mid cycle.

 

For the month of February, we will dictate our usage movements using the quick drop and rise %'s, instead of the ordinary 4.36% cutoff.

 

Moving up from UU/NU to OU:

 

• Milotic
• Mantine
• Tentacruel
• Arcanine
• Swampert

 

All of these pokemon were above the 6.7% cutoff for usage in OU.

 

Moving up from UU to BL:

 

Porygon-Z:

Porygon-Z has been terrorizing UU for the past couple of months with it's absurd strength. With Adaptability, it's STAB of choice, Tri-Attack, becomes an absurd threat fired off from it's base 135 special attack. If you opted to run Download instead, you could sacrifice the consistent STAB boost for a chance at a +1 boost to all of your attacks. In either case, Porygon-Z was an incredibly difficult to handle behemoth.

 

Not only was it difficult to switch in with much of anything, but there were also multiple different sets to look out for, even for things that could answer it. Life Orb or Specs made any sort of defensive switchin even less viable, whereas something like Scarf or Agility could be used to outright sweep a team. Nasty Plot was also an option to guarantee a KO on basically anything that isn't outright faster than it.

 

Ultimately, when Porygon-Z came out, it usually resulted in a pokemon getting sacced in order to check it, since dealing with any other way was somewhere between very difficult, risky, and unreliable. Because of this, : Porygon-Z is *Porygone from UU."

 

Moving up from NU to UU:

 

• Venusaur
• Weezing
• Mandibuzz
• Gigalith

 

All of these pokemon were above the 6.7% cutoff for usage in UU.

 

Moving down from BL to UU:

 

• Bisharp
• Torkoal

 

Both of these pokemon were initially placed into BL for fear of them being too overwhelming to be allowed in UU. However, that was assuming that everything, abilities, items, etc. works as intended.

 

Unfortunately, that has not turned out to be the case, and as such, these 2 pokemon are being moved down until they end up actually receiving what would make them overwhelming.

 

Bisharp was placed into BL for fear that it's high attack power along with Defiant and the lack of team preview makes it too punishing of a threat against Defog, with minimal counterplay until it's revealed. As a result, it was placed into BL until Team Preview was added, at the very least. However, with the lack of a properly working Defiant, it was decided that Bisharp would not be problematic in UU, and has been moved down.

 

Torkoal is more controversial, however, with the lack of Heat Rock, it was ultimately determined that sun may not necessarily be too much for the UU tier to handle, and as such, is being Suspect Tested in UU. Expect a discussion thread for Torkoal in UU to be posted soon, and a decision on it's continued status in UU should be decided by next month.

 

Moving down from UU to NU:

 

• Frosslass
• Honchkrow
• Whimsicott

 

All of these pokemon were below the 1.7% cutoff for usage in UU, and were dropped.

[Senile]

Dugtrio & Wobbuffet are banned from OU to Ubers.

 

Dugtrio & Wobbuffet have both been banned due to their uncompetitive nature as versatile, obnoxious trapping threats. The amount of things they can successfully trap and kill is higher than it should be. Beyond that, having 2 broadly threatening trappers in the metagame at the same time, with no team preview, means it's effectively impossible to play around them at all.

 

In the case of Wobbuffet, it's ability to indiscriminately trap everything, barring the small amount of ghost types, meant it was unusually effective at discouraging most choiced pokemon. In particular, Choice Scarfers could be picked off with no trouble at all by Wobbuffet, barring specific threats like Hydreigon, due to being immune to Mirror Coat. Even non-choiced pokemon could get Encored, turning them into setup bait.

 

Ultimately, even though the TC decided to test Wobbuffet out in OU, it has still been shown to be a bit too effective in it's role as a trapper, something fundamentally uncompetitive. As a result, Wobbuffet is banned to Ubers.

 

In the case of Dugtrio, the buff from 80 -> 100 Base attack has given it the ability to trap and successfully kill way too many threats. While it would ordinarily still be an effective trapper, the buff makes it way less niche than it should be. As a result, whenever the next update occurs, Dugtrio's base attack will be reverted from base 100 to base 80. However, until the attack nerf is implemented, Dugtrio is banned to Ubers.