Chloe
NUPL Champion
SM PU has been more or less the same over the last few years. The tier had a major departure right before the arrival of Sword & Shield in Mesprit, which drastically affected the metagame due to how prominent it was at the time. The few years since then have shown SM PU develop into a more or less balanced and enjoyable metagame without any action having been taken. There have been two major exceptions to this balance however, and they stick out like a sore thumb to anyone who's played a substantial amount of SM PU.
Drampa is mainly a Choice Specs wallbreaker with no real reliable answers. Its STAB Draco Meteor coming off 135 Special Attack is way too much for the defensive Pokemon present in the SM PU metagame, and hence most games using it come down to prediction, in the favour of the Drampa user. Without a Fairy-type, Drampa's best checks take upwards of 60% from Draco Meteor regardless, and hence get chipped down fairly easily. Pokemon like Clefairy, Cryogonal, Mr. Mime and specially defensive Jellicent are used in part to attempt to deal with it, but can all be overcome using coverage. Clefairy cannot live two presses of Hyper Voice; Cryogonal cannot take two subsequent Fire Blasts in a row even if it is using Recover in between, and the other Pokemon mentioned have issues in their own right. Overall, Drampa is an immensely powerful breaker, one that many believe is too much for the tier.
Simisear is another example of a prominent Fire-type that the pool of Pokemon in SM PU is unable to deal with. Over the few years when SM was the current generation, we saw Pokemon like Houndoom, Pyroar, Charizard and Typhlosion get banned due to our inability to handle such threats defensively in a Z-move oriented metagame. Simisear shares this problem. Using Nasty Plot it's able to overpower the majority of Pokemon with Fire Blast alone. If it wants to get past Pokemon like Jellicent and Lanturn, it can use Grassium Z Grass Knot. Many people run Dragon-types solely to deal with Simisear, but there isn't that large a selection. Drampa gets overwhelmed by optional Focus Blast, whereas Altaria loses to Hidden Power Ice, both of which have seen substantial usage. It is arguably too effective at what it does, and as of late, Hyper Offense and offensive playstyles in general have risen to the forefront of SM PU, in part due to many players wanting to abuse Simisear's offensive prowess in addition to not having to conjure up a middling defensive check to such an offensive powerhouse.
These Pokemon have been brought up repeatedly during the last few years as problems with SM PU, and many have as of late called for action to be taken on them.
Tagging people who have been involved with SM PU recently to invite them to give their thoughts (this is not a voting list by any means). Please feel free to contribute even if you have not been tagged here:
Hoping this can lead to healthy discussion pertaining to the two mentioned threats. Thank you for reading.
Drampa is mainly a Choice Specs wallbreaker with no real reliable answers. Its STAB Draco Meteor coming off 135 Special Attack is way too much for the defensive Pokemon present in the SM PU metagame, and hence most games using it come down to prediction, in the favour of the Drampa user. Without a Fairy-type, Drampa's best checks take upwards of 60% from Draco Meteor regardless, and hence get chipped down fairly easily. Pokemon like Clefairy, Cryogonal, Mr. Mime and specially defensive Jellicent are used in part to attempt to deal with it, but can all be overcome using coverage. Clefairy cannot live two presses of Hyper Voice; Cryogonal cannot take two subsequent Fire Blasts in a row even if it is using Recover in between, and the other Pokemon mentioned have issues in their own right. Overall, Drampa is an immensely powerful breaker, one that many believe is too much for the tier.
Simisear is another example of a prominent Fire-type that the pool of Pokemon in SM PU is unable to deal with. Over the few years when SM was the current generation, we saw Pokemon like Houndoom, Pyroar, Charizard and Typhlosion get banned due to our inability to handle such threats defensively in a Z-move oriented metagame. Simisear shares this problem. Using Nasty Plot it's able to overpower the majority of Pokemon with Fire Blast alone. If it wants to get past Pokemon like Jellicent and Lanturn, it can use Grassium Z Grass Knot. Many people run Dragon-types solely to deal with Simisear, but there isn't that large a selection. Drampa gets overwhelmed by optional Focus Blast, whereas Altaria loses to Hidden Power Ice, both of which have seen substantial usage. It is arguably too effective at what it does, and as of late, Hyper Offense and offensive playstyles in general have risen to the forefront of SM PU, in part due to many players wanting to abuse Simisear's offensive prowess in addition to not having to conjure up a middling defensive check to such an offensive powerhouse.
These Pokemon have been brought up repeatedly during the last few years as problems with SM PU, and many have as of late called for action to be taken on them.
Tagging people who have been involved with SM PU recently to invite them to give their thoughts (this is not a voting list by any means). Please feel free to contribute even if you have not been tagged here:
Hoping this can lead to healthy discussion pertaining to the two mentioned threats. Thank you for reading.