Unfortunate Tiering in Competitive Pokémon (Gens 1 - 6)

[@BigYellowSilly]

Also it should be obvious but this vid is as far from a jab at the Smogon tiering system as you can get, it's an extremely cool system that a lot of very cool people work hard to maintain, and I'm a huge fan of it. These are just a handful funny quirks in an excellent system, so don't be mean to anyone just because your favourite 6/10 mon is currently out of work

[@Seinsmelled]

elon musk has failed us... elon... has gone... gay...

[@Maddyislicious]

​@@Seinsmelled hey jeff what the fuck does this mean

[@usernametaken017]

Reminds me of regigigas in zu because it sucks so fucking bad

[@zacharyjohnson9562]

Dude I thought BL stood for BorderLine not Ban List, thank you so much. I am also interested in Ban List Boy Love.

[@Seinsmelled]

@@Maddyislicious elon musk fell... hes gay. if you watched his old videos youd see him slowly turning to the dark side. ive been trying to let everyone know for the past year but everyone ignores me

[@SemiHypercube]

The fact that Ambipom got blacklisted from discussion of its viability is so funny to me, it feels like a "nobody want you fr" kind of Pokemon

[@DMSwordsmaster]

Oh yes, Ambipom. The Pokemon equivalent of a forced meme.

[@MusicoftheDamned]

​@@DMSwordsmasterThe fact Ambipom got released back into Gen 9 with the first DLC has me half-expecting it to happen again in like a month once Baxicalibur (good riddances) and other potentially ban worthy mons are maybe dealt with.

[@StarfieldDisarray]

Something similar happened with Golduck in ORAS Ubers. They would have to tell new players that "No, Golduck does not beat Primal Groudon" multiple times a day so Golduck got outright wordfiltered in the Ubers chatroom.

[@Sheepie_]

There are some very funny "blacklisted from discussion" mons like golduck in gen 6 ubers is a big one, but my favourite probably is mega beedrill in natdex uu Like, not only has it been blacklisted for as long as I can remember, but it's also one of the most popular mons in the tier, and this is not only a low ladder thing btw, on multiple occasions it has maintained high usage on high ladder as well. I can't blame natdex uu players tho, mega beedrill is cool as fuck

[@henriquepacheco7473]

@@Sheepie_ as a frequent nduu player, mbee isn't common on high ladder at all. You'll very rarely see it used by high ladder players. It is, however, common on mid ladder, and by far the biggest noob trap I have ever seen in pokemon.

[@TerminaBroTheFirst]

Quagsire being an NU mon but being crucified for stall's sins so it was banned in UU (because banning Blissey would be a bigger problem) was the biggest tiering bruh moment I've ever seen

[@BigYellowSilly]

Mr. Mime has a similar issue in ADV UU and OU due to Baton Pass sins it's so funny

[@DoodleWill]

It is sad how Quagsire is seen as a Stall coded Pokémon. I've unironically had multiple instances where me using Quagsire on a team has made the opponent forfeit before the match has even started. I was upset that I couldn't use Quag in NU once it got booted to UU (Was it Gen7 or Gen8). Curse Quag is fun.

[@saltinefromindiana]

Quagsire's tier is whatever it feels like being in that day

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

​@@saltinefromindianaYou could say Quagsire is Oblivious to tiers

[@saltinefromindiana]

@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 more like it's Unaware of them

[@PlaguevonKarma]

I think Ambipom is used a lot because it's a fast physical attacker whose name begins with A. It appears first in the builder and gets disproportionate amount of usage in every tier it appears in. I hate this thing so fucking much...

[@BigYellowSilly]

I never even considered that it's basically a carrot on a stick for new players

[@butteredsalmonella]

I’m maining Gen 9 UU rn and two of the best Pokemon in the tier at the moment is Hoopa-Unbound and Okidogi both A+ in the viability rankings and they’re tiered RUBL and RU respectively and I rarely ever see these two when I was still in low ladder.

[@abridge2]

as someone who saw staraptor as a child and went “thats cool as fuck” and tried to gel my hair to get the cool cowlick and failed miserably, the fact it was in BL hell for a decade and then got dexited makes me so sad.

[@jmcbango]

Happy ending though! Its back and finally able to have a place in UU proper!

[@aseriesofletters6346]

it is now reincarnated as flamigo

[@bpepsitropper8512]

​@@jmcbangois it good now?, nevew saw anything bellow OU

[@blargher5390]

​@@bpepsitropper8512He ended up dropping to RU. And then got banned to RUBL. Being Staraptor is suffering.

[@nightcorerj6024]

I think this whole concept is cringe af but you look like you like it so good on you m8

[@ubermaster1]

Watching the entire Smogon community freak out at Garchomp this gen was the equivalent of a stock market crash, glorious and terrifying in every way

[@BigYellowSilly]

The back to back of RU Tyranitar and UU Garchomp was nightmarish news for so many people

[@EmperorKim]

​@reggilad_9043 Tera is just really unkind to Tyranitar in particular since if it drops Rock, it loses the SpDef boost or can even DIE TO ITS OWN SAND

[@Magnoliaschnolia]

​@@EmperorKim just use tera steel/rock/ground tyrantitar to get around the sand damage smh my head these pokey man smorgus guys can't think of anything new for the life of them (/s)

[@gnostechnician]

Gothitelle is very funny. The Smogon analysis page by Caetano93 puts it best: "Behold, the biggest tiering nightmare in Smogon history. Gothitelle used to be a valuable Pokemon in OU until Shadow Tag got banned. However, because this happened after the tiers were locked, Gothitelle got stuck into a existential limbo in the OU metagame, as it doesn't have its niche as a trapper anymore. Because of its typing, movepool, and awful stats, Gothitelle is easily outclassed by other Psychic-types like Latios, Alakazam, and Reuniclus." Then in gen 6 it ended up going from ubers to untiered???

[@20D0D0]

I love Gothitelle! One of my fav mons.

[@someguy7582]

The cool factor is also why every Eeveelution is one tier higher than they should be in most metas

[@RoninofCrimsonMaple]

Poliwrath and Raichu being lower tier partners in crime with the occassional comic relief in Golduck showing up is something I never knew I wanted. Especially in UU where you can say they peaked as teens together and are still together now.

[@TheStickCollector]

We need a comedy comic about them or something

[@bastianleyton1951]

Historians might Say that poliwrath and raichu were roomates 😳

[@stefanarlio1579]

Golduck is that villain of the week that keeps popping up out of nowhere and just annoys everyone else

[@MK-yg2np]

Why are the two water types so much better than octillery though?

[@powcow60floordayboi16]

​@@MK-yg2npthe tragic fate of bring a slow, pure water type 😔

[@sealeo5772]

My favourite weird lower tier ban anomaly is slurpuff. Due to having the combination of belly drum (immediately gives it +6 attack) and unburden (doubles its speed upon consuming an item), slurpuff is basically always a problem somewhere. It does nothing until it just wins the game on its own in a lame way, so it always ends up getting very little use until it hits a tier where it is overpowered and so it has been a bl mon in every generation. The best part is that in gen 6 it was in rubl when pokemon sun and moon came out, then this year uu players were getting really fed up with the state of the tier and saw slurpuff as the most problematic element, so it was banned from uu, meaning that slurpuff has been in 4 ban lists over 3 generations.

[@munchrai6396]

Slurpuff is also the only non-bug type to get Sticky Web in gen 8, which makes it probably the best Sticky Web setter along with Ribommbee

[@alolamao833]

When it isn’t dexited, Slurpuff is the bane of Random Battles teams across the globe. Slurpuff has become one of my favourite Pokémon cuz it’s just a silly little guy that ends the game

[@jerry3115]

Oh god, imagine slurpuff with tera access

[@leahcarson1822]

@@jerry3115dexit giveth and dexit taketh away

[@loopygordo]

​@@alolamao833there's something about seeing a cute little silly guy being a harbinger of doom.

[@pollysjustice]

Probably my favorite recent ban was Espathra. It dropped to UU early in gen 9, but afterward people started realizing how good it was in OU. People also quickly realized that Espathra was fucking broken in UU. Since everyone thought tier shifts would naturally bring it up to OU at the end of the month, they didn't bother banning it. So imagine everyone's surprise when tier shifts come around and Espathra stays in UU. This resulted in what is probably the quickest ban in Smogon history, with Espathra being banned in a whopping 40 minutes after the tier shifts. Don't worry, Espathra would later dominate OU and got banned from that as well. It was actually decent in Ubers until HOME support was released and now it's dogshit, godspeed Espathra

[@SomeAsian]

Baxcalibur went through a similar story, though it took Alolan Ninetales to finally push it out of OU.

[@weebcraft6829]

Im surprised it took that long considering Espartha's part of the "We broke the Tera Raids" gang along with the belly drummers and Slowbro

[@tree69420]

nah its actually banned because smogon made a policy where nothing could get banned for the first month of every tiers existence for some reason, and then NU rolled around and there were like 17 broken mons in the tier so they just gave up on that policy

[@NitroIndigo]

A lot of things got banned to ubers early in Gen 9, such as Cyclizar because of Shed Tail for a while.

[@VixstraLarge]

Which is wild that a mon with Speed Boost and Stored Power is just so bad. Sucker Punch is a cruel mistress.

[@layo1234]

my favourite tiering decision ever is probably gen 2 zu, where poliwag wasnt overpowered with a hypnosis bdrum set but everyone just thought it was really annoying and cheesy so banned it anyway lol

[@KahilaTheArtSlime]

I mean its also how people feel about Baton Pass innit? Just roar or spike or whatever and starts to stop them but its just unfun to play against, especially if they get lucky once or twice

[@henriquepacheco7473]

@@KahilaTheArtSlime not... quite? Raw, unlimited BP actually is kinda fucked in general, requiring very specific counterplay to stop. Of course, it's completely useless if you have said counterplay, but it just wins if you don't. Then you need to get into really arcane complex bans to get it to a limited viability level where it isn't too powerful and can be dealt with while not requiring some teambuilding choices that are very suboptimal in any other context, but it still ends up being an annoying coinflip machine and at that point, just ban the entire thing already.

[@dawn2955]

It was broken though. Poliwag also used Lovely Liss Belly Drum, not Hypnosis

[@beatsblack]

Poliwag was banned for a collection of reasons that made consistent counterplay vs it unreliable, among other things. It was annoying to deal with, yes, but Poliwag had the tools to be considered overpowered.

[@munchrai6396]

@@dawn2955 Yeah, Lovely Kiss could easily become a problem with how strong old gen sleep is

[@NeutralDrow]

"Jumpluff has one believer. And that's pretty cool." *starts staring curiously at JWitzz*

[@vtubermissingno]

I'm a jumpluff believer

[@jschmidty2332]

As someone who saw Fake Out Technician Ambipom added to gen 9 and thought, hmm this could be pretty good, then proceeded to get immediately clapped on ladder... I think your theory checks out

[@shirshobanerjee7751]

Same. Tried the fake out last resort set and it did not work

[@JaysonUbo]

Girlfriend in labour? Gotta tell her to hold that puppy in for 34 minutes its Big Yellow upload time

[@BigYellowSilly]

Babe hold on I need to make sure Hypno still has a niche somewhere

[@rachelthecool2880]

Hope things went well :) If you were semi-serious that is

[@JaysonUbo]

I am not serious at all but I do appreciate your concern! I promise you nobody who has ever cared about Ambipom's status in the RU metagame has ever been capable of reproducing. :)@@rachelthecool2880

[@browserjunior4707]

I still can’t believe the horror that was Mega Lopunny in PU when ORAS came out, tiering really is like fantasy sports where you just kinda hope Pokémon you like either get enough usage to go crazy in a tier or don’t get dropped to another tier

[@breloommaster12]

that was just a byproduct of what is essentially a new item being introduced for what is definitely a PU Pokemon that suddenly turned it into an OU-worthy monster. This was especially the case for Altaria, Beedrill, and Pidgeot.

[@browserjunior4707]

@@breloommaster12 and it’s hilarious all the time

[@spartacusthememelord6890]

ohhh, Mawile??

[@darkness74185]

@@breloommaster12 that butterfly effect got especially hilarious in Gen 9 because of Terastilization throwing any semblance of traditional counterplay out of the window. Remember when Libero Cinderace got banned in Gen 8 OU because being able to switch out your type and get a new STAB mid-battle was kinda dumb? Well now everyone can do it now, including some mons with even dumber offensive movesets than Cinderace could ever dream of

[@MenwithHill]

Smogon tiering absolutely should be a thing in other games. It helps create room for suboptimal options, its heartening that at least something can be "decent in UU" instead of literally never being seen until they die. Also you look fab today 💅

[@1unar_eclipse]

I think there's some group that runs Splatoon UU tourneys, but it's pretty small

[@kevingriffith6011]

The only problem I would have with tierings in other games is that... honestly there just aren't enough characters to make that happen. That being said, something that works in a very specific niche, the team-based fighting game. In Marvel vs Capcom 2 Justin Wong and a couple of others assigned every member of the cast a point ranking between 1 and 5 based on their strength, and put a limit on how many points total your team could be worth, which gave a lot of characters a new chance at seeing play, it was a lot of fun although I don't know if anyone is still playing with it. Makes me wonder if you could do something like that in Pokemon, as well, but assigning a point value to every single pokemon sounds like a chore. (Edit: So point buy pokemon competition is actually a thing. Go figure)

[@sealeo5772]

It's difficult to do because most games just don't have the amount of building blocks as pokemon or low tiers are still good enough to hang out with the big boys. Like in pokemon outclassed pokemon just have absolutely nothing to do vs landorus and zapdos, but in a fighting game you can bring a low tier to a tournament and consistently win. TCGs often have a similar kind of formating, but they are usually based on new vs old cards rather than explicitly based on power level and different formats tend to play a whole lot diffrently than the difference between OU and UU.

[@paolastrasser]

@@kevingriffith6011 Pretty sure that's already a thing, they're called "Draft Leagues" or something of the likes, I didn't saw much into it but it sounds pretty cool tbh

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

​@@kevingriffith6011Not only you can, it was made more than once. JOL is the main one that come to mind, but there may have been other more or less successful trials (ki uta?).

[@Moon-nk3co]

Watching the tiering system flip out when Garchomp was getting ready to drop to UU in Gen 9…it was getting close

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

If not for the intervention of a few brave heroes, the Landsknecht would have fallen this time

[@glacierwolf2155]

Scale Shot is what literally saved it. Oh, and Roar was there as well.

[@Itisgoldtime]

"I got one more in me" - Garchomp BEATS the underused allegations

[@ThePika78]

At least it's not TyRUnitar

[@Gold_Gamer_100]

I'm going to say it, but I don't think people are willing to hear this; Garchomp only stayed in OU because it was popular. It was .102% off from dropping to UU, where it could have actually done something. Oh wait, we weren't able to test that because some players couldn't bear seeing it drop a tier and actually be useful. Garchomp in OU was good for it's "reputation", not Garchomp itself, since it did literally nothing of value in the tier due to everything it could do having Pokemon fill those niches. Electivire and Dusknoir languishing in DDP OU is seen as a dissapointment, yet Garchomp languishing in SV OU is seen as Chomp actually being a good pokemon when it wasn't. If you think that's a lie, answer me this; How many players were spamming Roaring Moon and Ursaluna on the ladder so they could stay in OU? Almost no one, cuz most people don't care about them. But they did for Garchomp. If it wasn't popular, it absolutely would have dropped to UU

[@DoodleWill]

It always hurts when you check Smogon for your little baby boy and the big men are going "If you use this Pokemon, you are doing yourself a disservice" My boy Falinks... I love you but lord in christ...

[@robinscompass5951]

Yo fellow falinks enjoyer, dab me up 🤝

[@limon16025]

I love it when the set just says "use x mon instead"

[@CommanderWiggins]

Trying to look up a Pokemon on Smogon to get some ideas for EV spreads and movesets in a casual playthrough and they're like "This Pokemon is an affront to nature and a disgrace. It is bad and you should feel bad for using it. There are no redeeming qualities to this Pokemon and it should remain forever in your PC box."

[@RivLabs]

​@@CommanderWigginsit's like asking someone what they think of your favourite show and they pull up a dissertation on its flaws. heartbreaking

[@undergroundmonorail]

i used to use falinks in PU and when asking for team advice in the showdown PU chat people basically went "unfortunately you should cut falinks". it was very very sad

[@isthatagamer8844]

I’m surprised you didn’t mention Mega Garchomp, who was worse than Regular Garchomp, but was still in OU due to requiring it’s better version

[@stardf29]

Honestly, that would be an interesting video concept of its own: which Megas practically required Mega Evolution to be viable (in OU), which could be used either as Mega or regular, and which ones you were better off using its regular version and saving your Mega slot for someone else.

[@Mepphy99]

​@@gnomefrompinkertoneven if we put like Mega Garchomp (like Mega Garchomp in itself without clicking Mega button) in ... who would check It?

[@BeanyBoi06]

@@Mepphy99me. I resist dragon and ground and am too agile to get hit by rock moves

[@henriquepacheco7473]

@@stardf29 lopunny, medicham and mawile for requiring (metagross too in gen 6 I guess), latis and ttar to either mega and regular (although generally base form latios and mega latias were by a significant margin the preferred ones), and Chomp for better off using regular. Those were just the ones that came to mind, of course, there were more megas related to OU

[@Kali_Krause]

Lots of players used Garchomp over Mega Garchomp because Mega Garchomp loses 10 points off its Speed stat at 92 compared to Garchomp's base 102 Speed

[@alexandercolefield9523]

For me Staraptor was always the best example of this, not good enough for OU, but too strong for UU.

[@MusicoftheDamned]

Poor Limbo Bird. Gen 9 is maybe the most "fortunate" it's ever been since despite being at the lowest it's ever been, it at least gets to sit in RU itself rather than in a limbo again.

[@glacierwolf2155]

Peaked in BDSP and hit its lowest point in SV. Poor bird never really had its true chance in the spotlight.

[@grain_death]

the true BL Knight, the legend

[@theflashfan3234]

Doesn't help that it hasn't had a single positive change, be it stats, ability or moveset since gen 6. I'm biased since it's my favorite little guy, but I really wish it was good 😢

[@Eltipoquevisteayer]

2COOL4UU

[@onwithmarie6769]

It's a small little thing but I love the little sprite edits you have edited in at some points, they're full of character even if they're just edits. They make me giggle.

[@weebcraft6829]

Featuring new sprite: God

[@penpad7261]

"the gsc uu vr ends at ariados" made me laugh out loud due to how golduck isnt even there

[@lasen_]

Hi! I run all things related to Ubers old gens on smogon and have been "the guy" for this sort of thing for a while. I wanted to touch upon your point @33:06 about Genesect being trash in SS Ubers. You see, I wholeheartedly agree! When it was current gen, I still agreed! The council obviously also agreed! But you know who didn't? A young user named ox04 who rolled out of fucking NOWHERE, got a super high placement in that year's Ubers Open (top 6!) and who firmly believes it's B+ at WORST! Unfortunately for him, his other hot techs (he's also a Reshiram lover), and his actually super solid SS Ubers tournament performances, no one else believes in the metal bug, not even the boomers like myself who played BW Ubers when the alternative Ubers format was Dream World Ubers. It just goes to show that even the trashiest Pokemon have fans. And sometimes, those fans end up clicking with such conviction and passion they make a name for themself.

[@BigYellowSilly]

That's so awesome you gotta respect the grind to try and break the curse of Genesect, thanks so much for your work!

[@Nadid_Dhrabb]

That's so cool

[@NeoGraena]

Genesect's Strongest Warrior

[@clash_king1025]

UUBL is quite unfortunate for hypno But sounds like justice for attempting to dethrone tentacruel

[@glitchedoom]

He's not 50% cruel for no reason.

[@ultimapower6950]

That’s what Hypno gets for trying to pull an upheaval of the natural order

[@mystrenula3911]

Nothing will ever be stronger than Tentacruel in uu because the definition of uubl is stronger than Tentacruel

[@topazpikmin9810]

Honestly, he has no one to blame but himself. If these videos have taught me anything, the number one rule of UU is you don't fuck with Tentacruel.

[@teslobo]

Funny you mention dusknoir suffering from a lack of recovery, the man literally just got leech life in the new DLC. 20 years too late but you gotta take your victories where you can get em.

[@nsbathome]

Terra Bug Dusknoir, coming to a low ladder OU match near you.

[@usernametaken017]

​@@nsbathomeice punch dusknoir

[@CaptainObliviousV]

I was actually that Ambipom kid lol. I didn’t know about online battle simulators at the time, but I had an official ORAS National Dex book and I liked making sticky notes of sets I thought were interesting. You got my general thought process when I saw Ambipom’s info down to a tee, only I was more interested in Skill Link!😂

[@BigYellowSilly]

I was part of the Ambipom Army as a kid too we fought the good fight fr

[@Rdotmop]

I just got done rewatching the Porygon video you did like a year ago and all the stream talk about ‘pre-yassification’ Big Yellow was right, I got five nights of freddy jumpscared that almost looks like a different person

[@wraitsoth]

Gothitelle in BW OU is so sad to me. It was put there because of Shadow Tag, and it made for an interesting niche because of that. It really didn't do much outside of that, but it was good enough to get it decent usage. Later on, the tiers were locked to where no more changes would be made... and then they banned Shadow Tag AFTER that. Gothitelle was left stranded, unable to do anything because its poor stats and movepool, and it was outclassed by almost every Psychic type. Now it rots away in UUBL, never to be used anywhere. It's not even on the viability rankings.

[@henriquepacheco7473]

BW OU is so sad to me.

[@Gold_Gamer_100]

​@@henriquepacheco7473For what reasons in particular?

[@kiz5562]

@@Gold_Gamer_100 it had the worst power creep we have ever seen in pokemon history. The metagame is completely chaotic and 100% matchup reliant. Too much rock/paper/scissors and so much broken shit in the tier. QD volc, specs keldeo and lati, terrakion, reuniclus, etc. Gen4 and 6 were far superior and more balanced.

[@palestjade]

one of my favorite tiering quirks was in gen 8 where arctozolt was untiered but got banned in nu, then pu, then uu. (yes it was legal in ru still.) while still untiered. now it's stuck in uubl and pops up whenever someone cooks up hail

[@usernametaken017]

what did blud do

[@a-s-greig]

​@@usernametaken017 STAB BoltBeam is just that good.

[@stefanarlio1579]

Guy got banned from 8 different counties yet the government still considers him not a threat to society

[@MusicoftheDamned]

​@@usernametaken017Hail sweeper with STAB "Boltbeam" (read: Electric & Ice) coverage that has a physical Electric move that *doubles* in power if it moves before its opponent(s) that turn...and an ability that doubles speed in Hail. It _wasn't_ outright broken, like Dracovish, if only because a) Electric has an innate immunity...that Ice hits super-effectively and b) there's no weather that boosts Electric, "only" a Terrain that Hail teams generally don't use. Still, a lesser Dracovish is a pretty good threat given its coverage even if you know it's coming, especially since Ice/Electric is a weirdly decent defensive typing for as infamously awful as Ice unfortunately still is defensively. EDIT: Damn typos of omission. I meant "wasn't", not "was". Fixed.

[@limon16025]

Also shoutout to Alolan Sandslash and Sandshrew for being banned to NUBL becasue of their abilities)

[@terrortaste6389]

I think my favorite Funny Tiering Moment is Gen 8 Mienshao. It fell to NU towards the beginning of the gen and stayed there for almost *2 years.* But at some point in the middle of Gen 8's lifespan someone decided to run it as a pivot with knock off, u-turn and regenerator which got it banned to RU. And then to UU. And finally to UUBL. Pokemon rising 1 tier at a time over and over again is super rare since if a pokemon is good in a tier it usually jumps to that tier immediately, skipping any in between. But for whatever reason everyone just collectively slept on Mienshao and saw it's best set as underwhelming for like two thirds of Gen 8's lifespan until it decided to get banned from 3 tiers in a row.

[@skellydanecromancer1343]

I've used Mienshao on a gen 8 regenerator only team

[@MrOofio64]

Eggy being nicknamed Herr Forehead made me chuckle

[@MrOofio64]

Also "Rai Kiske" is a great one

[@sideways5153]

“Polifingered” was FOUL lol

[@bradfjord]

Zamn! She's RUBL?

[@Maddyislicious]

love to see the first video a youtuber makes after they get way into ace attorney

[@RivLabs]

I WAS TRYING TO PLACE THAT BACKGROUND MUSIC THANK YOU FOR JOGGING MY MEMORY

[@Diembee]

Imagine how epic this tiering system would be in Melee. “Did you hear Ness dropped to NU?” “Yeah bro it’s insane! He’s way too much for the tier, he even hard counters my Pichu!”

[@JB-bc2ry]

Pichu and Bowser just chilling out in ZU would be kinda fire honestly

[@Rarest26]

@@JB-bc2ryAnd Kirby still sucks ass even there

[@juannaym8488]

@@JB-bc2ry Pichu isn't as bad as Bowser, Kirby, Zelda and Ness are. He's not even bottom tier, rather the bottom of low tier in my humble opinion

[@SomeAsian]

Does that make Pyra/Mythra in Ultimate the game's Lando-T or...

[@slimestudios9748]

​@@SomeAsianhero dittos are just metronome battles

[@Cassapphic]

Completely stone faced when realising PU is meant to be a joke but losing it as soon as I realise "BL" is going to be said throughout the whole video what is my sense of humour.

[@christopherballero866]

I find the idea of Jumpluff getting banned at any time except for absurdly low tiers is pretty funny to me

[@hammdogporkington3058]

Don't let the fact that Big Yellow gets cuter every video distract you from the fact that Eggy and the Rocks have not dropped a new EP in 25 years

[@imaginaryboy2000]

Their latest single Aloha Alola was pretty good too, kinda weird there was no follow-up or anything

[@ChillavaKirby]

@@dickchan1175 Would that be a problem? How else was he supposed to evolve?

[@mr.dudley3484]

@@imaginaryboy2000 pretty sure rhydon fell off the bus and had to attend rehab, dunno why though

[@glitchedoom]

​@@mr.dudley3484Plus that famous royalties dispute that caused Golem to drop out of the band. Sad times.

[@Soulraven2735]

​@@glitchedoom"He F**KING LEFT THE BAND!" -Eggy Ulric

[@perladel95]

In Gen 8, Spectrier being banned in OU and ending up in a tier where you have Calyrex-Shadow

[@nsbathome]

Thankfully Caly got banned on gen 9 ubers, so it can now roam freely. Which is what I would have said if Giratina didn't completely outclass it.

[@Kali_Krause]

​​@@nsbathomeYeah, Calyrex is in AG tier now

[@nigeltimothycruz244]

​@@nsbathome*Flutter Mane Giratina is basically the "Fuck everyone and anyone using arceus ground" pokemon + defogger and status spreader

[@nigeltimothycruz244]

Giratina Origin specifically. Giratina normal just sucks ass

[@justinwiebe8327]

Staraptor in gens 4-7 will always be that one friend in smash who is too bad to play in tournaments but too good to play with casuals.

[@allthingsgaming6]

So me then

[@nockcone]

I am here, i am queer, and i will hear about tiers

[@SophieSnerp]

this is the ideal mindset to have for a big yellow video

[@Ivy64_]

Yo same

[@LloydTheZephyrian]

And we won't have fear, because Big Yellow is someone that can make us cheer.

[@lottiye]

ear

[@abridge2]

yo same!

[@HawkBreland]

each time I rewatch this, the Aqua Teen Regice bit never fails to get a laugh out of me

[@fatyoshi696]

I actually do wonder what some fighting games would look like with a smogon-type tiering system, especially in older fighting games where the power gap can be so huge that some low tier characters are completely invalidated by the top tiers. I remember hearing someone once say that in marvel 2, which is notoriously dominated by a small group of top tiers, there's no point in banning characters because the ones right below them in power will just rise up, which sounds like something tailor-made for a tiering system

[@KahilaTheArtSlime]

Don't some MVC players do something like this in pointbuy?

[@fatyoshi696]

@@KahilaTheArtSlime ratio is a different thing, by making some characters more expensive than others it does shake up the meta quite a bit but there still end up being a few characters who are everywhere and others that never see play

[@henriquepacheco7473]

@@fatyoshi696 me omw to make roll meta by making it the only 0 cost character in ratio

[@arachnofiend2859]

@@KahilaTheArtSlime Many years ago there were actual "low tier tournaments" for Marvel that banned all the top tiers but the idea didn't really catch on the way ratio has. The BB Hood/Juggernaut team was good in this format

[@trolleymouse]

I have to wonder if there's ever been a case of a mon being bumped down a tier that turns out to be a check for a mon in that tier's banlist, leading to an unban.

[@thehayze259]

I love how Big Yellow's hair just gets gradually more glorious every video

[@hankboog462]

I honestly think every game with an adequately large roster should have a smogon-like system, even if its not the main format

[@otttimon5654]

Yeah. The problem is that there is really no game with a roster like that

[@hankboog462]

@otttimon5654 yeah, true. I think smash ultimate could maybe pull off a UU, I know someone's tried it, but I can't think of any other competitive game with a big enough roster

[@RivLabs]

alternatively: a game with an extremely small roster makes tiers as a joke, and all the characters are just in one tier

[@therealbuttsmcgee]

​@@RivLabsI would like to suggest Mario Kart, lmao

[@glacierwolf2155]

Hello, I am from SV Smogon singles metagames. Snow is stupid broken now and we have just banned Baxcalibur from OU for its sins with Scale Shot and Snow.

[@nebby9751]

Wait, PU genuinely doesn't stand for anything? All this time I genuinely thought it stood for "Practically Unusable" 😅

[@LakituAl]

I thought it was poorly used

[@RockyPixel]

I thought it was "Please Use"

[@TheZett]

I thought it was Personal Usage, as in „I know it is trash, but I use it anyway“.

[@Blue_EmeraldX]

​@@LakituAlSame. That, or like, "poor usability." I just thought it was like card-grading where "poor" is the lowest.

[@robertlupa8273]

I thought it was "Practically Useless".

[@NimbusAlamaa]

To me some of the saddest mons tier-wise are the really bad ubers mons. You've said that basically every pokemon is good in some tier in some generation, but things like Deoxys-Normal or Arceus Bug are just doomed to eternal uselessness in every single generation, and it's really sad. Some of the strongest pokemon in the series, and they just sit in a funny corner collecting dust. Like, even Genesect had a short span of time where it was good like you said but some ubers just have had nothing ever since they were made

[@somebodyuknow2507]

Deoxys Normal had a good place in the DPP Ubers lead metagame due to having a good matchup into deoxys-speed (the meta defining lead)

[@black7594]

Ill have you know that arceus bug is a great tera water user

[@Time_looper]

There are some oms that try to give bad Ubers a tier . It’s named oubl

[@usernametaken017]

D-N is just D-A but bad I will never understand why they did that

[@Garvant_]

​​@@usernametaken017like its supposed to be normal but it doesnt have balanced stats at all its still a glass canon with 50s in both defenses but less attack than attack form. Like why bother it still serves the same function but worse you arent surviving anything with 30 more in its defenses its just a less optimized attack mode they should have made it 100s across the board

[@mewtationssb]

Dude that Regice bit made me laugh so hard. Subbed only a couple months ago and I’m so glad I did. Keep being you Big Yellow. :)

[@chilln0648]

There’s also the opposite effect, where a Pokémon is really good in a tier that it isn’t ranked in. You have ridiculous things like Clefable being top 5 in DPP OU, and Gastrodon and Rotom-W being amazing A rank Pokémon in SS OU.

[@LordBeau]

My favorite thing about gen 8 Gastrodon is the sheer amount of analyses it has

[@limon16025]

And there's also things like Vivillon, who's good in NU, AG, and nowhere else, jsut because of how chaotic of a metagame AG is

[@carucath97]

My man Quag in Gen 8 PU and AG

[@grunkleg.2934]

Starmie in Gen 8/SS. Ranked NU and was good in the tier, but was a really good Pokemon in RU and UU

[@DennisPragerIsGodUWU]

Gen 8 Hitmontop was in a tier that fitted it for 1 and a half years. But 1 maybe 2 ladder players spammed Hitmontop so much it left PU for NU. Its tourney stats and top ladder stats had it at 0.

[@LeleGameplays71]

it happened in gen 7 too if i remember idk

[@ocarina5996]

I remember this vividly. loved using that little fella in pu

[@glacierwolf2155]

I loved Hitmontop's climb to OU before the Smogon council changed the rules for usage-based tiering in its entirety.

[@UGMD]

It was on its way to RU as well, until smogon implemented an unrelated rule that stopped it

[@CaptainObliviousV]

I remember the OU Hitmontop movement well lmao

[@EllingtonReborn]

Hi I helped contribute to the gen 3 UU viability rankings so i got stuff to say about Pluff!!!! So, at the point in time that we were making the VR Jumpluff was extremely fresh in the tier with its only real usage being ALTPL where yes it did struggle to do stuff. A lot of our votes were based on pure theory but judging by the fact that its absurdly weak without SD and SubSeed can't make a lot of progress (and checked by Tentacruel, who is one of the best pokemon in the tier) most of us did decide it was worse than things like Hitmonlee and Clef. I ranked it 48 even under stuff like Aggron and Fearow, I don't see huge potential outside fast Encore but honestly that's most of the mons that are C+ and under in this tier. FORTUNATELY though some of us in the Gen 3 UU community formed a community-made tier with said bad mons and made our own "RU", featuring UU's bad mons plus the pokemon ranked in NU! It's a really cool tier and we've been having a LOT of fun with it, I see potential for it to grow better than current UU in my humble opinion. And while Jumpluff isn't in because it's extremely new and there's not an incredible foundation for it's placing we might be able to suspect test it in the future so it can trickle down into "RU".

[@BigYellowSilly]

This is extremely cool to hear, thanks so much for your input! I'm very curious how all of that works out tbh the idea of a sort of pseudo RU is a really interesting development

[@RivLabs]

i love that yall basically made an underground fight club for misfits amazing

[@usernametaken017]

any updates?

[@usernametaken017]

any updates?

[@petrie911]

I played the hell out of DPP UU when it was current gen, and man we were always hoping OU would finally come to its senses and stop using Electivire. It would have fit right in and would have had a unique role. Dusknoir would probably have been fine too, but probably plays a lot like Spiritomb. Maybe they should give them a shot in UU.

[@bettyunicorn6132]

Teir locking shouldn’t be a thing

[@Hnui03]

This is a real 2024 January Terrakion in PU moment

[@dawn2955]

Hey, I play GSC UU extremely often. Golduck is very bad in this metagame, and only has a tiny, usually meme niche. It’s a Water type with Light Screen and decentish stats. It can support Pokemon like Granbull with Light Screen. It faces a lot of competition from Mr. Mime and Electrode in this role though. I would rank Golduck around D tier, its a really bad pick.

[@primaster9360]

Well I'm glad we got an answer to that, leaving a reply to bump you up

[@hankboog462]

So glad to see big yellow has entered their ace attorney arc given the many references in this video. KZbin would be a better platform if like 50% more videos contained fragrance of dark coffee

[@TheStickCollector]

I seem to be a "Bitter taste of truth" connoisseur myself, but it's still good

[@hankboog462]

@TheStickCollector that songs great too but dark coffee is better background music for a youtube video

[@saltinefromindiana]

Gen 9 tiers are also going crazy. Like Tyranitar is finally UU now after being RU with Blissey.

[@goGothitaLOL]

And the craziest thing is that Blissey isn’t even in RU now, it’s NU with Chansey retiring in PU

[@saltinefromindiana]

@@goGothitaLOL remember when Murkrow was OU

[@AshZucchini8168]

0:12 That reminds me, me and my brother have tried out my own idea of “Smash Ultimate UU” a few times. I say “my” idea because the main reason he agreed to play it w/ me at all is because all his mains happen to be in C+ Tier or lower, so as long as they’re allowed, he has no notes regarding legality. I should note for the record that neither of us have the level of knowledge or skill with the game that would be required for a tier list to be even remotely relevant, so the cutoff point is kinda arbitrary, but it is sorta fun learning characters I’m not used to.

[@flatfacefumo]

There's probably other comments about this that I just haven't seen so forgive me if you already know, but MvC has a thing called "ratio tournaments" where you're given an amount of points to build your team out of. High tiers cost more points than low tiers so teambuilding is usually based around finding synergy between mid tiers or sandwiching a high tier between two low tiers. It's the closest thing to smogon tiering that I can think of

[@StarfieldDisarray]

The most common complaint I've seen about the tiering system is "oh i want to use my favorites but some of them are trashy nu mons and some of them are ou mons" which is an unsolvable problem short of having a point-buy system which would be its own format entirely and a nightmare to manage with the massive amount of Pokemon we have now. (lol i typed up a bunch about g6ru ambipom in the first 15 minutes before you got to it) So I'll talk about its sister shitmon Hitmonchan. In Gen 5 RU (and for a while in Gen 6 RU), it was really really bad and very popular among new and inexperience players. Very similar to Ambipom. So you had a bunch of people in RU wanting Hitmonchan to fuck off (alongside Ambipom) so they wouldn't have to discuss it anymore *and* you had NU players desperately wanting it to drop so they'd have another Spinner in the tier. Those fuckers were so desperate for Spinners they were running *Eviolite Staryu*. Despite the perma-hazards of Gen 5 NU, Charizard was still a top threat though. Oops. Fortunately late in Gen 6 Hitmonchan *finally* dropped to NU, unfortunately leaving Ambipom behind.

[@shadowtitanx3962]

Sad thing is that Gen 5 NU REALLY killed for a good Spinner, cus the only Spinner you only see commonly is Wartortle. And Torkoal is very niche.

[@StarfieldDisarray]

@@shadowtitanx3962 Your spinner options were Armaldo and Torkoal and then Eviolite Wartortle and Staryu. I personally always held the opinion that the Eviolite spinners were a meme that couldn't ever contribute more than a Scald burn.

[@louc.6735]

To point at your first complaint, the solution there is Draft Leagues. It is an alternate metagame that players have already thought up. Just gotta find the rules for the gen you wanna play in and then draft mons. Also god I remember the dark days of gen 5 nu rocks. It was hell.

[@TheBlueWizzrobe]

While Hypno may not have much presence in the primary RBY OU metagame, at least it's having a good time absolutely tearing it up in tradebacks.

[@flowersnek1010]

Hypno running Meditate and Headbutt in RBY OU is pretty funny. Things like that are part of why I don't like the move cuts from gen 8 and later - the ridiculously niche removed moves are just gone, so there's no chance for some random Pokémon which learns them to have a viable set that uses them. Also, it's funny that Sceptile is lower than Roselia in ADV OU.

[@hppern3971]

One interesting thing about the weirdness that was the historic Gen 3 UUBL (& it often goes udnerstated that UU iirc started with Gen 3, and NU with Gen 4, iirc), is that Gen 4 UU started with a very similar "we think it would be busted" BL list. When people discuss tiering history & important decisions, they often discount just how consequential the decision early in DP to unban all of the BL Pokemon & do a formal series of UU suspect tests was. One of the Smog articles around the HGSS era does a pretty good recap of the previous stages of DPP UU up to that point, including that early early stage with the massive UUBL. Gen 4, between the first formal suspect tests, the first non-legendary & non-Shadow Tag ban, the first actual usage-based tiers, the opening of BL, and the importance of wifi-battling, really was the start of most of what is associated with competitive singles these days.

[@MoxieBoosted]

I cant beat your thumbnails

[@BigYellowSilly]

Silly ideas I get 75% of the way though editing the vid make unmatched thumbnails fr

[@KungFuCutbug]

Gen 9 is the only gen where you can unironically say there's a version of Delibird in Ubers (or at least there was, I don't know if Iron Bundle's viability has changed recently) and I think that's beautiful

[@nsbathome]

Not only that, but it's actually solid up there. Biggest glow up in pokemon history if only by proxy.

[@carucath97]

The fact that the best future Paradox form is Delibird while the worst is Tyranitar is hilarious to me (though I think it’s because its stats are more minmaxed)

[@SomeAsian]

​@@carucath97 What's more wild is I think Iron Thorns and Scream Tail (both NU right now) are considered the worst Paradoxes of all. ...Tyranitar is on JIGGLYPUFF'S level. Oof.

[@JB-bc2ry]

The Genesect section of this reminds me of some talk on the forums about a hypothetical OUBL tier, where it and other shit Ubers like Reshiram could have spotlight. It could be a neat idea but I also kinda get why it doesn't exist, cause it'd probably just be OU with a lot of Hyper Offense demons that have no business there.

[@KeshavKrishnan]

OU but good

[@limon16025]

Last gen some people made an OM for Ubers in the low end of the VR and it was quite fun. Funny enough, Genesect was still bad.

[@louc.6735]

I mean you'd probably have Lugia and Necrozma Dawn Wings as defensive options, so it'd be interesting at least.

[@luxtenax9175]

I just wanted to thank you for making these videos. I've always wanted to get into competitive pokemon because it looks like a lot of fun but all the tiers systems, mechanics and updates are hard to understand and keep track of as an outsider with 0 knowledge of them and not a lot of people can explain them in such a detailed way like you do. Now I wish the smogon tiering system was a thing in yugioh, it'd be a lot easier to find ppl to play with in a competitive way but without using the expensive top tier decks of the current meta.

[@KeshavKrishnan]

Imagine playing an NU metal in yugioh. God I'd love it. I've been playing a progression draft and the rotation format but man

[@MilleMarteaux]

i hate that i hear about double hit and think "oh, that could break substitutes" before remembering it's ambipom and that's exactly how you get tricked into trying to use it

[@HarveyVolodarskii]

okay but Dusknoir is extremely viable in the “made me cry in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon” tier “Did I shine?”

[@FrostGhidorahEX]

This is way way wayyyyyy after the fact. But Gen 9 currently has my favorite just....sheer baffling instance of tiering Which is that Terrakion, a menace of Gen 5 and overall a decent pokemon, somehow through I guess the worst luck ever fell down the tiering ladder and ended up in PU of all places Where I kid you not he lasted for all of 3 hours before he was banned from the tier and ended up in NU Where he then proceeded to I guess cause trouble and got banned from NU in a week He's now happily in RU but it is hilarious that Terrakion fell so far then quickly reminded people that was a bad idea

[@stupidflandrs4856]

My favorite example of whacky tiering that you didn't get to was in gen 8, when Arctozolt was NU or PU before suddenly getting banned from UU because hail teams were better there than in any other tier😂

[@b6oy1004]

24:53 GREAT DUSK man the nicknames in these videos are always on point

[@Qaos]

You should do a video about funny Smogon analyses. Kakuna's DPP OU entry is especially golden.

[@BigYellowSilly]

I've actually wanted to do this for a while but wasn't sure how to go about it, the BW Delibird analysis is a personal favourite of mine

[@Yomasi]

It's kinda hilarious to note that BOTH Electivire and Dusknoir's niches in DPP OU are both completely outclassed by the same pokemon, being Rotom It's kinda sad but also kinda funny, and such is the way of competitive pokemon sometimes.

[@matthewbrown6573]

Dude I'm such a fan of all the customer sprites you use in the videos. That bit where hypno was sneaking up on tentacruel was hilarious

[@ori_bori]

pls never stop putting this stupid silly little explosion in your videos it brings me much joy 25:32 29:12 31:09

[@RivLabs]

related if anyone knows where i could get my hands on that effect please let me know i need it

[@ori_bori]

​@@RivLabslook up "deltarune explosion gif" on google :]

[@characookie241]

​@@RivLabsI'm pretty sure it's somewhere in the Deltarune page in Spriter's resource

[@miamira1856]

my favourite bit of tiering weirdness is Torterra somehow being the best Pokemon in SM PU but also never managing to get enough usage for it to be a part of the tier officially

[@kayla_eevee]

I've been bingeing a ton of Pokémon content over the last month or so and this is the first video I've watched that actually explains what the tier abbreviations mean. It hasn't bothered me too much since listening to people talk about this stuff is interesting even if I don't understand a word they're saying but at least now I can maybe do more than just smile and nod lol

[@primaster9360]

When you think about it, people using Electivire and Dusknoir in DPP is the same logic of people using Charizard in RBY OU "But is so freaking cool, it has to do something" nope

[@endless_havoc123]

Big yellow is slowly becoming more bedazzled

[@Carlitonsp1]

Slowly?

[@fortnitesexman]

a fall from grace really 💀

[@saffronst3612]

​@@fortnitesexmanCope They are slaying 💅✨

[@CommanderWiggins]

​@@fortnitesexmanWhat, needs more fortnite sex?

[@LuigiMan-ig4ty]

The yassification is real

[@Glockenspheal]

Sunkern being in Anything Goes BL in RBY is still crazy to me.

[@ultimapower6950]

I’m not sure what’s funnier Sunkern being Anything Goes in Gen 1 or Anything Goes Having a Banlist.

[@maxhadanidea]

wtf does this mean

[@waluigiisthebest2802]

@@maxhadanideaSunkern is a gen 2 Pokémon, so it cannot be used in gen 1 at all, meaning it’s effectively banned in every tier since it doesn’t exist.

[@ultimapower6950]

@@waluigiisthebest2802 and if did exist it would be in NoU/LolU and push Either Metapod, Caterpie or Ditto out of the Meta.

[@mattguy1773]

big yellow and competitive stuff makes me feel happier

[@genblinko7801]

real

[@deathpigeon2]

One of the funnier versions of being in a tier by technicality is when a non-mega form of a pokémon is used a lot in a tier, but not the mega form, but the mega form can't drop because you could just run the pokémon in the lower tier carrying the mega stone and simply choose not to mega evolve and be fine, so it ends up in the tier its non-mega form is in by technicality.

[@nift36]

Garchomp

[@benro6564]

I appreciate this because my zoomer brain can only evaluate the quality of things via tier list. It is seriously impairing my ability to do things on a daily basis

[@yserareborn]

Seeing "NU" above Mewtwo sent me into a panic for a second. Like, I know Ubers has been rough for the guy, but I'd freak if the guy fell out of his own tier and kept falling all the way to NU.

[@DSaC_]

Tf do you mean rough? Mewtwo's not as good as his glory days of Gen 1, but the dude's still flexing a solid statline and one of the best movepools in the series. Shitters like Reshiram will drop long before Mewtwo does.

[@dlp6567]

​​@@DSaC_Do not do my boy Reshi like that, the Kuyrem gang is infinite times better then modern lazy ass DLC legendaries (not counting Ogerpon but still)

[@juannaym8488]

@@DSaC_ its movepool is so goated. Even when there were better offensive psychic types, Mewtwo still always maintained some niche because of its mad versatility

[@usernametaken017]

Gen 13 is wild fr

[@Alex-mq6qi]

The Gen 10 Mewtwo drop from Ubers on May 5th, 2026 will hit crazy

[@KR_Kosmik]

Something i never see people point out but i love the nicknames that are given to the pokemon in the footage

[@Daniel.of.Catarina]

I just watched the rby bug type video and the yassification gave me whiplash, love you sm

[@grrgrrgrr0202]

Another funny thing is that Gamefreak keeps neglecting the move pools of Dusknoir and Evire nowadays. Dusknoir still cannot learn Drain Punch and Knock Off. Evire is the only Mon with Cross Chop but no Close Combat, and misses a gazillion of other things too.

[@p1nh3dlarry72]

Staraptor is my favorite flying type, I’ve known nothing but pain for years

[@SpearMKW]

im actually kinda interested in a full history of Borderline (BL before it was changed to Banlist) over the course of Smogon's existance. Im pretty certain it wasnt always used as a banlist, since BL (now UUBL) has always been massive in some of the earlier gens, where to a lot of people it even felt like its own tier with the exception that it wasnt a playable format, from what i remember from 15 years ago.

[@henriquepacheco7473]

it has always been used as a banlist, and it's still called borderline. Kinda boring, but it is what it is.

[@allenkeettikkal3149]

Interestingly enough, Most of the pokemon in BL for Gens 2-3 weren’t actually tested in UU, but were assumed to be too strong for the tier but too weak for OU. Yet this would end up in those tier having enough mons to be their own seperate metagame.

[@stoic_rose]

your sprite edits and visual gags were on point this video, always love to see the fun things you do with that :]

[@kay_sou]

Shoutout to Gen 8 Hitmontop, who is stuck in NU because a small group of players conspired to all artificially raise its usage, stealing it from PU, and being a large part of the reason Smogon put a freeze on pokemon rising in tiers for the last few tiering shifts of the generation.

[@Carlitonsp1]

Seeing Mewtwo with "NU" under it is so weird.

[@ultimapower6950]

It’s a prediction of Gen 11’s Metagame where Gen 11’s NU is equivalent to Gen 1 Ubers

[@emme0731]

The video leading with Ace Attoney Investigations music is already a massive Big Yellow W.

[@BigYellowSilly]

I'm on the second case rn my AA brainrot is unmatched

[@emme0731]

@BigYellowSilly It's my favorite game series! Glad you're enjoying it.

[@skortyspice]

this is your best pokemon video yet. the more weird and obscure the knowledge gets the more i want to hear you talk about it.

[@MishKoz]

That "Eggy & The Rocks" image got me good

[@michaeltate6367]

Hypno may be stuck in UUBL for RBY, but it is my understanding that they are a very real mon in RBY Tradebacks. I would love to see a video about Tradebacks, I think it's a very interesting format

[@voraminfantes5264]

When I first watched this video, Jumpluff being bad Sceptile didn't really mean much, but having watched a bunch of Gen 3 because of your FGC to Pokemon pipeline, on this rewatch I went "But Sceptile's just bad Venusaur which is just mediocre Celebi" and realized exactly what tier of bad in OU we're dealing with.

[@KingTwelveSixteen]

Hypno getting MORE POWERFUL when one of its main strats gets removed reminds me of early Hearthstone. The Hunter class had this really strong combo where you used Starving Buzzard (draws a card when you summon a beast) and stuff like Unleash The Hounds (summons a weak beast for each enemy minion on the board) to draw like 5 cards in one turn and completely refill your hand. And then they nerfed Starving Buzzard into the ground, and Hunter got STRONGER. Suddenly nobody was running a 5 mana combo that drew cards, they were just focusing in on what Hunter was actually good at: face damage. Just go full aggro, run a bunch of charge minions, and kill the opponent before they could do anything. Value combos that only start working at turn 5 are worthless since turn 5 is when you end the game.

[@MotherCelevrus]

I love the idea of tentacruel just banning anything that even gets close to beating it