Approved OU Viability Rankings: The Best of the Best

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DarkNostalgia

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Introduction:

  • ou viability rankings are a representation of the viability of certain pokemon in the metagame
  • divided into certain ranks - s, a, b, c, d, and e
  • s rank represents the top-tier threats, i.e the most influential and centralizing pokemon in the metagame
  • in this article, i will delve into the various influences of each pokemon and why they are s rank

Mega Metagross:
Why it's S Rank
  • a top-tier threat that was once suspect tested but was not banned
  • possess great all-around stats;
  • stellar attack stat in conjunction with tough claws to boost its physical moves and grass knot
  • quite a wide movepool, including gems such as pursuit, ice punch, grass knot, hammer arm, earthqkae to get past checks, for example grass knot for hippowdon and slowbro, ice punch for garchomp and landorus-t, pursuit for nice support to get rid of bulky psychic-types, hammer arm for problematic steel-types such as ferrothorn, heatran, and skarmory, and earthquake deals with fire-types such as victini and charizard x more effectively
  • main all-out attacking set has very few counters, other sets include pursuit, rock polish, hone claws, and substitute + power-up punch
  • great 80 / 150 / 110 bulk allowing metagross to take on numerous pokemon such as clefable, mega altaria, azumarill, latios, mega diancie, and alakazam, and survive power hits such as +6 azumarill's aqua jet, +1 mega altaria's earthquake, and choice scarf landorus-t's earthquake
  • solid speed tier, speed tying with the likes of gengar, latios, and mega diancie and outpacing the likes of keldeo, garchomp, and manaphy
Flaws that prevent it from being broken:
  • rise in usage of mega scizor, defensive garchomp, slowbro with spdef investment, and slowking, to combat mega metagross
  • quite slow before mega evolving
  • prone to residual damage such as repeated switch-ins into fairy- and dragon-types, entry hazards, and status
Mega Altaria:

Why it's S Rank
  • jack of all trades - sets include offensive d-dance, defensive d-dance, special attacker, support
  • extremely hard to counter, considering all its options. the only hard counter is probably mega venusaur.
  • checks include talonflame, mega metagross, and heatran, but all lose to coverage moves (talonflame is 2hkoed by +1 return, mega metagross is hurt by fire blast and earthquake and repeated switches into altaria, and heatran loses to earthquake and air balloon sets can't directly switch in for fear of balloon popping and getting koed by earthquake)
  • awesome typing both defensively and offensively - defensively altaria checks the likes of mega lopunny, manaphy lacking ice beam, garchomp etc, due to its large amount of resistances
  • offensive d-dance is probably most well-known, possessing great power and speed after one d-dance, capable of demolishing weakened teams. coverage options include earthquake and fire blast to hit steel-types, and roost for longevity
  • pixilate-boosted attacks are extremely powerful, and altaria can hit both physically and specially
  • access to roost for longevity and refresh/heal bell to beat stall and balance more easily, making defensive d-dance and support sets all the more viable
Flaws that prevent it from being broken:
  • quite a low base 80 speed stat, leaving it outpaced by the likes of weavile, mega metagross, and tornadus-t prior to using d-dance, and non d-dance sets are easily revenge killed as well
  • can be plagued by 4mss, and if running a certain move is checked by certain mons - for example running return + earthquake on offensive d-dance variants leaves it checked by skarmory and ferrothorn

Clefable:

Why it's S rank:

  • clefable was an extremely controversial pokemon when it came to moving up to s rank or staying a+
  • very splashable, and fits on many archetypes, and is a great glue thanks to its ability to provide good utility, a defensive win-con, and a check to numerous dangerous threats
  • great utility in moves such as thunder wave, knock off, stealth rock, and encore
  • awesome typing and decent defenses to check a lot of the metagame, such as latios, garchomp, mega lopunny, kyurem-b, manaphy, mega manectric, thundurus, weavile, mega diancie, mega sableye, mega alakazam, latias, slowbro etc.
  • like altaria, extremely versatile, capable of muscling past checks and counters with coverage and utility options
  • many different sets, including but not limited to: calm mind + magic guard, stealth rock, defensive unaware, calm mind + unaware, and life orb + 3 attacks
  • extremely wide movepool - coverage options include flamethrower for steel-types such as scizor, excadrill, and ferrothorn, thunder wave to cripple the likes of heatran, gengar, and talonflame, ice beam for gliscor and landorus-t, knock off to cripple talonflame, gengar, and heatran on the switch etc.
  • possesses two stellar abilities; magic guard to render it immune to status, entry hazard, and sand damage, making it a great calm mind-user not crippled by toxic, and unaware to check setup sweepers such as sd garchomp, sd gallade, and double dance landorus-t
  • on stall, clefable fits in with a mixed defensive spread with unaware to combat manaphy, an extremely dangerous stallbreaker.
  • unaware + calm mind gives clefable leverage over special attackers such as mega manectric, manaphy, and mega latias while providing a good defensive win-con able to set up on setup attackers
  • life orb + 3 attacks is unexpected and quite powerful, capable of beating common checks such as talonflame, gliscor, and tentacruel with respective coverage moves

Flaws that stop it from being broken:
  • quite slow, meaning it has to take a hit then retaliate
  • relies on being at full health to check the likes of mega manectric, latios, and mega lopunny reliably, as it only narrowly avoids 2hkoes
  • checked by the likes of talonflame, mega metagross, reuniclus, and gliscor
  • stats are quite low on paper which means it can be overwhelmed easily
  • defensive unaware sets have the tendency to become overloaded

Conclusion:

  • so there you have an in-depth explanation of why each s rank pokemon is metagame-defining
  • ou is an extremely diverse tier, but these are just a few pokemon that you should always prepare for when teambuilding!
 

TGMD

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Approved. Sounds like an interesting idea you've obviously put a lot of thought into :]
 

antemortem

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aight Jellicent should be able to give you access to the workshop soon where you can start your thread. please keep unreleased articles hush hush and if you want to chat with other contributors live, you can join us in #thesmog!
 
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