August 13th Update Tier Changes

[Senile]

As most of you should have noticed by now, the Tier Council made some changes to the tiers shortly after the update this month launched. For the sake of clarity, here are the changes & the reasoning behind them:

 

Moving up from UU to BL:

 

• Chansey
• Darmanitan

 

With Eviolite working, Chansey is now effectively better than Blissey in most scenarios, a pokemon which is easily OU. Because of this, it is inevitable that Chansey will become OU by usage, and as a result, we have quickbanned it from UU.

 

Darmanitan is simply too powerful of a threat in UU now that Sheer Force is working. It was already one of the top UU pokemon despite effectively not having an ability, and getting a massive damage boost to pretty much all of it's best options is more than we think UU is capable of handling. As such, it was quickbanned from UU.

 

Moving up from NU to BL2:

 

• Porygon2
• Gligar

 

With Eviolite working, Porygon2 is an absurd defensive behemoth. 85/90/95 Bulk backed by Recover and Eviolite make it almost unkillable, while base 105 Special Attack and a broad movepool mean it isn't just a sitting duck. The mono-normal typing also means that the only thing that can reliably do 50%+ are especially strong fighting attacks. Anything other than the premier fighting types in NU effectively have no options to offensively break through Porygon2, and even then, threats like Primeape and Sawk can't really freely switchin on Porygon2's attacks. With all of this in mind, Porygon2 was quickbanned from NU.

 

Gligar was quickbanned from NU for reasons similar to Chansey was from UU. Not necessarily because of it's insane powerlevel in NU, although it would certainly be a respectable threat in NU, but moreso because of the expectation that it will inevitably go up to UU by usage. With this in mind, we would rather that it not warp the NU metagame around it in the meantime, and decided to quickban it from NU.

[Senile]

Moving up from UU to BL:

• Kingdra

With the most recent update, Kingdra has gained Draco Meteor. This in combination with Focus Energy & Scope Lens allows it to, after 1 boost, constantly fire off massively powerful, no drawback Draco Meteors, making it almost impossible to effectively defensively answer in UU. Not only that, but with it's good bulk, speed, and typing, it can easily find chances to setup and run through teams without much support or work needed. As a result, it has been quickbanned from UU.