RBY 4U (Under3U) Viability Rankings

The first thing that sticks out to me is Arcanine in C. I genuinely don't see why it should be there, Spin is a pretty big deal especially with Toise being as threatening as it is.

I haven't played enough matches to be able to say on other things yet

 

So....
I've played some games today with Peasounay and I really believe Abra should be B rank. Yes, it's frail but it is a threatening sweeper and very much capable of performing that role, ergo clean up after the place is dirty not much more to say, it's just good and B material in my mind.
Also I tried Omastar and it is good! it is only 4HKOed by Blastoises Surf and even though it cannot beat in 1v1 it can force the rest easily. Also it has the stronges Hydro Pump in the tier, guaranteeing the 2HKO on Porygon (so it cannot switch in). Its resistences vs normal type attacks are also very handy and it checks fire types obviously and does not hate para that much (It can rest anyway because it can afford to run it). This might seem high (and maybe it even is) but i would also recommend B rank for it. Kabutops is worse than Oma I think but certainly threatening with SD while haveing its defensive uses which makes me believe it should rise one rank too making it C...

Edit: Also I think Gastly could even go down to D, the metagame is not friendly to it with Abra, Venomoth, Nidoking etc around...

 

What's the set ur running on oma?
it still seems like maybe only c worthy tho idk. Fighting/Ground/Electric/Grass(4x) weakness and Water neutrality all hurt it quite a lot. It's the best fire/normal/flying answer though by the sound of it but I'm not sure how useful that all is. I guess it's sorta like 1u rhydon, 3u graveler, 2u poliwrath etc in that you run it to be super good vs a couple of other good things and it has good enough stats to function when they're not around, just not as well. I think C for now sounds p fair and it could be looking at moving up

 

Also some things that I can see happening and just want to put out there are Blastoise to A rank and maybe even Venomoth too, Porygon is beteer than them (at least from my experience for now). Also I'm not that cool with Poliwag in B, itcan be cool but Venomoth has the edge as a lead and thunderbolts are pretty common so u would not really wanna use it as a non-lead, so maybe one can make it a little more clear to me why those mons are placed there in comparison to other mons (I think Poliwag is not better than Tangela for example, and Toise and Moth I also said I don't see them quite as good as Pory...)

Edit: I'm not sure with those so I'm not requesting those changes just want to see if anyone else has a similar opinion/observation and if so we can still change it...

 

Rapidash is clearly the best fire type. Ninetales' attack sucks, and I don't think Fire Spin is worth the risk in most cases: to me, Arcanine and Ninetales are equally worth (less than Rapidash) because Ninetales can't go for the kill, especially vs Staryu.

Abra to B is okaysh, but it really prays for a CH vs Nidoking; once it's paralyzed, it sucks. Idk about Slowpoke and Omastar at the moment, they could do well and in that case Porygon would shine. At the moment Blastoise is a real pivot like Chansey or Hypno are in other tiers, and that makes it S (Porygon beats Blastoise, but Blastoise can get rid of paralysis and that's what makes it a pivot).
Venomoth is the best sleeper and that's auto S rank in every tier bar Ubers.
(noitce this is my self-taught heuristic, so èh)

We need to rank Graveler too, and it looks around D.

 

And 3U (venu's only A and clef can sleep but it's not the best at sleeping stuff)

 

Slowpoke looks like at least B material, and yeah, Tangela is good (better than Poliwag). Omastar doesn't beat Blastoise, I'd say C.

 

After my games with Marco, I would like to propose some changes to the rankings:
I think Nidoking can even rise to S rank, it's just so good, better than Slowpoke and Staryu for sure, which both I think we might have overrated, I would be fine with dropping them instead of putting Nido in S but they are definitely one rank below King...
Which brings me to his queen: Even though Nidqueen is worse than Nidoking it's still pretty cool to have alongside (kind of like Wigglytuff in 3U), so I would say rank it at least D, maybe even C but I wanna hear others on that...

 

I think it's more Nidoking deserving S than Staryu and Slowpoke not being worth of A.: we never dropped it.

Nidoqueen is either C or D: there are reasons to use Graveler over it (Explosion, walls Scyther), while Nidoqueen survives water moves, has better special moves vs Tangela, Blastoise (3HKO) and Slowpoke, outspeeds Porygon (and CH rate of course).
I don't think it would be worth of being 4U, and mainly I used it over Graveler because it does ok against waters (well, main difference with Nidoking is that Nidoqueen is slower than Blastoise, but it still 3HKOs).

 

I personally agree with Nidoking in S. Also I just want to question Gastly's spot, does it really deserve a C rank ? On paper it's horrible and I haven't seen it in practice enough.

 

Alright I just had like 10 games with marco, some thoughts:

Flareon has no use, there's no reason to pick it over any other fire type in the tier. It's way too slow compared to the 3 others. Its better offensive stats aren't enough to cover that up, you don't have room to do a proper para spread for it. Imo E or simply unranked, it's outclassed.

Suggesting Muk for D, it has a powerful explosion and a good bulk. Also even if a lot of Psychic and EQs are present in the tier, it can still check stuff like Tangela eventually weepinbell and can hit hard on some para stuff. It's actually not OHKO by anything, and it can OHKO abra with Hyper Beam, 2HKO Staryu with tbolt, it also has a chance to boom one on one vs stuff like Nidoking, Moth, etc and obv slowpoke which only OHKOs at +4. But obv its main viability comes from explosion. I think it just suits the D rank description.

I'm having weird thoughts about Staryu, maybe I don't use correctly but each time I saw it it didn't do a lot (non lead because I realised today how bad it is at leading). I feel like Abra does much more than Staryu in general. Not saying it should drop or anything I'm just sharing thoughts, maybe I'm wrong it's just an impression.

Also Imo go E/unrank Graveler. What's the point of using it ? It does very very bad against A LOT of the tier. Pure fire and scyther wall ? Go Omastar/Kabutops. Booming ? Go Muk

I also haven't tried Gastly/Seadra/Primeape/Pidgeot and I'm quite unsure of how they can be useful compared to other things, but that's just me having a lack of experience, maybe some of you have played them ?

 

Abra suffers OHKOs while Staryu don't (Scyther's Slash is pretty bad); Abra is a (better) lead and way harder to switch into.
Staryu has a decent movepool and can Recover, while Abra's only real counter is Surf Slowpoke. All in all, they're pretty even, Staryu has the advantage of being less crippled by paralysis.
Abra shined early in the evolution of 4U against Mega Drain Venomoth: I think Double Edge is the move to go now.

All in all, Slowpoke feels a bit more threatening than both Abra and Staryu; we have an almost empty A rank, and I feel Blastoise could drop.

Playing more games, it's noticeable how Nidoqueen does significantly well vs Porygon. I think that could earn it the C rank; Graveler is worse than Nidoqueen suffering against waters, but it does really well against Psychic Porygon (Psychic fails to 3HKO unless drops happen), it booms, walls the types you mentioned (and the occasional boom)- so all in all it's far from being outclassed, just low rank.

Pidgeot is a worse Scyther: it's not manhandled by fire types, but Scyther's faster than them- and that's what really matters. It's the most outclassed pokemon on the list, but I think it's still worth a rank.
Seadra is a more offensive Blastoise (85 base speed, speed tying stuff, lower bulk, more special) that doesn't learn Body Slam. It's decent, two waters are possible.

Primeape is just a faster Machamp that doesn't learn Earthquake (main Machamp's selling point is that EQ vs Nidoking...). I didn't test it so I don't know whether it can KO a paralyzed Blastoise or not; Body Slamming Nidoking is praying for a couple of 30%s while putting it into your own Nidoking's EQ range.
Don't know about Weezing, Muk, Gastly- need to play with and against them more, and they depend on the metagame: leave Gastly/fossils out of the arena and they have a chance.

 

Done playing Enigami

Ivysaur is bad, don't use it. F rank imo (or unranked, whatever floats your boat)

Butterfree is not unviable imo. It's got dual powder and Psychic, so it can fill a similar role to Moth. The difference here it the overall worse BST, particularly in speed (slower than Nido), but on the flip side its typing is quite distinct, being ground immune and not Psychic weak (more notable). Probably D rank is fine, I'm not sure yet.

Dash put in solid work for me, it was a 255 away from winning me a match. Seriously though, it's faster than almost everything in the tier and sports solid attacking power on both ends of the spectrum and wrap. Obviously its issues are Toise and Oma. Idk what rank I'd put it, but it's really good.

Idk about Oma/Wag. Oma's typing is a mixed bag, but overall I think it's worse than Toise, simply because that's a slot you'd normally be wanting to check Nido with and obviously Oma can't do that. Wag is one Slowpoke away from being a beastly lead, but if Poke is there it's practically useless, so idk.

I'm not sure what else yet, but although I was concerned about the tier before and I am less so now, the fact that the rankings are so sparse around the mid ranks is bothering me

 

In practice what difference does this make though? Versus Nidoking - where the Ground immune could help - Venomoth outspeeds whereas Butterfree doesn't which is often although not always crucial, and the lower bulk makes it take fire blast worse, so it's not much of an advantage, and it's less powerful. Venomoth, Abra, and Slowpoke are the only opponent where a lack of psychic weakness is at all helpful. However, it can't 2HKO abra with double edge unlike moth I imagine, it's still not doing much vs poke, and whilst it's better when sleep's burnt vs moth i'm not sure how much of an edge that gives it.

 

It doesn't need to 2HKO Abra when it can cripple it with status, but yeah the Moth matchup is the big draw to Butterfree

 

It does.

Abra's liable to getting paralyzed anyway (often just because it likes to switch into moth, but certainly not exclusively because of this - stuff like Porygon, Slowpoke and Staryu, as well as other Abra, often do this) and once it's paralyzed then not having your sleep blocked is important, and double edge helps venomoth achieve just that. Practical experience tells me this is so.

 

Nidoqueen can definitely rise: I'd say C at very worst. It's like using 2 Nidoking, even though it's worse against unparalyzed Blastoise (that is not so common)- and obviously outsped by Nidoking.

I tried Butterfree a bit: it's far from groundbreaking and Tangela is a better bacukp sleeper, but I think E rank to be enough of a punishment.

Weezing is similar to Muk, I think it should end up being ranked at some point. Same for Lickitung imo.