u/Getter_from_Mercury

What are Pokémon that are used to a point they reside in a higher tier but should be on a lower tier even if they're good on high tier level play because they restore balance? One example I could think of is Ttar in gen 9, it's currently in OU and is good there, but it rising to OU had consequences for the lower tiers, resulting in Hippowdon rising to UU and depriving RU of a bulky ground.

With the advent of Raichu Y's ability being released, everyone has been losing their minds over the sheer terror of never-miss Zap Cannon. This post seeks to speculate the theoretical viability of Raichu Y in Ubers, assuming it's a tier with both megas and primals(e.g: Natdex Ubers), will Ychu have it's first genuine shot at Uber stardom or will it be another OUBL mouse who was too big for the small cage that is OU.

Mega Raichu Y's advantages:

• No guard allows the aforementioned never-miss Zap Cannon, a 100 BP move with 50% accuracy and a 100% chance to paralyze, frying any target vulnerable to it or paralyzing anything fortunate enough to tank it
• 160 attack and 130 speed making it one of the faster mons in the tier, coupled with near Calyrex-Shadow levels of SpAtk
• Overall fantastic coverage that allows it to fry most would-be switch ins to it's Zap Cannon (e.g: Focus Blast for Ferrothorn, Alluring Voice for the various Uber dragons, Surf in the case of landorus-therian)
• Nasty Plot allows it to wallbreak and sweep, Volt Switch allows for offensive pivoting

Mega Raichu Y's disadvantages:

• Takes up the Mega slot, which prevents you from using other megas while also being unable to run an item
• Very frail, especially on the physical side, making it extremely vulnerable to strong physical priority(e.g Arceus' /Zygarde's Extremespeed, Marshadow's Shadow Sneak, Yveltal's Sucker Punch)

1. always take your time:

checking what your opponent's hand can make the difference between life and death, I often had long lose streaks thanks to monkey-brained plays that put me in unwinnable positions early or choke winning positions, that usually happens when I get tilted(more on tip 2), by taking your time, you can figure out what plays you should or shouldn't make by checking what you and your opponent has(more on rule 3) and checking the damage calculator, the calculator allows you to know what possible options your opponents have in moves, abilities, and tera, and checking the calculator allows you to understand what moves your opponents can threaten you with and what moves you can use to threaten your opponent.

2. don't play when you're tilted:

getting tilted often means your mind can't think clearly amidst all the frustration you're feeling, that can cost you games and eventually result in you losing repeatedly to the point you drop down by 100, 200, or even 300 elo, so the best way to prevent this sort of cyclic despair is to stop playing whenever you're feeling bad and only play again once you've calmed down again.

3. pay attention to you and your opponent's hand:

expanding further from rule 1, it's important to see what you have and what your opponent has, sometimes you have a very good lineup against your opponent, sometimes your opponent's line up has a big advantage over yours, you encounter a pokemon that puts itself as a threat but has different abilities and/or items(eg: is the fast wallbreaker a choice item, life orb, or boots? is it ability 1 or ability 2 in the designated abilities within the calculator?), uncertainty is always a factor within pokemon battling and it's especially a deciding factor in randbats where the wrong guess can make or break you, but by checking what you have and what has been revealed by your opponent, you minimize the threat of uncertainty by going into an option that adequately puts you out of disadvantage, maintains your advantage, or at least minimizes your disadvantageous state.

4. when to tera:

it's usually best to tera after your opponent consumed your tera, that way you punish their lack of ability to tera and get a winning position, but sometimes, early tera can work, though preferably when you have no other options against a giant threat that can end you if you don't tera to the pokemon that can save you, early tera can also ravage your opponent's team through sweeps, but this is risky, especially when the opponent hasn't revealed more than half of their team.

5. guessing your opponent's tera:

guessing your opponent's tera can often prove to be advantageous, as it causes them to waste their tera and allow you to punish it accordingly, but this is very difficult to do, you have no idea if the opponent would tera or not and you don't even know what the opponent's tera type is, but there are two things that can help, one is the damage calculator, it shows the potential tera types your opponent's pokemon in front of you has(as mentioned in rule 1), two is noticing these positions where your opponent is most likely to tera:

• you send out a revenge killer/wall against a threatening sweeper, the opponent will likely tera to avoid the revenge kill and/or break through with coverage and continue their destructive sweep
• your opponent is backed against the wall and will usually use a pokemon normally weak to your offensive threat to tera their way out to prevent you from killing whatever is left of their team.

there is a risk element to this however, even in these kinds of situations, the threat of uncertainty still looms, often a wrong guess could mean that you actually further their advantage, lose your own advantage, or worse, potentially lose the game outright, so don't try to recklessly guess your opponent's moment to tera, sometimes they will do something else instead of teraing and that could potentially hard punish your attempt to guess.

What are Pokémon that actually get better in higher tier metagames compared to how they perform in their own tier(usually a lower tier), such as Mega Swampert in Natdex UU, who I recently found is absolutely garbage there while having a solidified niche in OU rain teams.