Why are these Pokemon good?

[Espinosa]

I just had another look at Smogon's new viability tiers to see what the metagame is like out of curiosity since I don't play anymore. I haven't been on Showdown for ages so it was a big surprise that I experienced.

Most of all, Clefable being the only S-tier mon scared me. It's one of the best mons in original RBY ingame, but it's never been good vs other mons in a competitive environment. It's a fairy-type, sure, but what really separates it from the dual fairies like Klefki (seems like a superior typing to me - who doesn't like steel?), Gardevoir, Mawile and the like? Its bulk isn't even that impressive - I bet a double Garchomp EQ or whatever is the pinnacle of offence nowadays (yeah...) can 2HKO it or something. So how does it live to do the things it does?

Medicham has always been underwhelming due to its defensive typing being crap. It's speedier and hits much harder as a Mega, but why does it work now, when so many better new Pokemon exist? iirc even Slaking was more viable in competitive RSE and Medicham's only gone in utility since then.

Weavile makes absolutely no sense. Does it counter anything specific? It never countered gen 4 Garchomp well enough, if memory serves me correctly.

Slowbro is really high up, and not the mega form.

idk what Alomomola is supposed to do...

A lot of other changes also terrify me. Conkeldurr and Mega Tyranitar under Pidgeot, Entei, Hawlucha, Beedrill and Scolipede? Just what exactly is going on?

Obviously, the viability thread offers no introduction to other confused people like me and extracting an answer would take a lot of work playing the thing and figuring it out. Could somebody with inside knowledge sum up the changes that occurred briefly? I recall Mega Altaria and Sableye being dominant forces last time I looked, but it's not the case any longer?

[Water Mage]

I'll explain some:

Clefabke has magic guard, high hp, good defenses, Wish and an amazing Fairy type.

It makes a scary good tank. Magic guard makes it immune to sandstorm, hail, poison, burn, curse, spikes and stealth rock. You can give Clefable a Poison Orb to poison it, and it makes Clefable immune to Status Effects. In other words, it's very hard to take down. Garchomp could 2HKO it but Clefable can 1HKO Garchomp with stab Moonblast.

Weavile hits fast and hard and has stab Ice moves.

Mega Pidgeot is predictable but hits incredibly hard.

Slowbro is a tank with Regenerator and Slack off.

Does this helps?

I'l explain the rest later.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Water Mage

[Nym]

Clefable also has Follow me for double battles.

[Water Mage]

More on Clefable, it has an amazing movepool.

It can learn Moonblast, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Psychic, Shadow Ball, Grass Knot, Focus Blast and more.

Which makes Clefable inceedibly hard to predict.

Alomomola had great hp and wish which makes it a great wishpasser.

Scolipede, like Weavile, hits fast and hard. Same goes for Mega Beedril.

[Magical Glace]

Scolipede has Speed Boost and a good support pool.

[Water Mage]

Scolipede has Speed Boost and a good support pool.

Forgot about it's support pool!

It's true, a Pokemon with Toxic Spikes, Speed Boost, Iron Defense and Baton Pass is pretty dangerous.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Water Mage

[twice]

Sniper Kingdra paired with focus energy is amazing

[Quintessence]

I once had a really good Clefable build, thanks to Alfred Kamon (if he reads this). It was an Unaware Clefable with Cosmic Power, Rest, Toxic and Fire Blast. She was a tank pretty much, she had to tank one or two hits to settle down with a pair of or three Cosmic Power. The enemy can buff offense with Swords Dancs or Nasty Plot and it'll be unnoticed with her Hidden Ability. Status ailments are a NO because there's Rest, and Cosmic Power will make her take a bunch of hits. Toxic is there to slowly kill enemies and Fire Blast is there for possible Taunts and to hit a few Steel types. The only hope is a Critical hit or fast sweeping.

[Ema Skye]

Clefable also has Follow me for double battles.

Smogon's list assumes single battles.

Clefable is the most flexible Pokemon in the game. It can go offensive, defensive and supportive, with each set having their own counters. It can also beat said counters by changing up its moveset, so it can always pick what beats it (or at least checks it). Every team benefits from having Clefable on it due to the many roles it can fill. Klefki can't go offensive; Gardevoir is too frail; regular Mawile is awful.

Mega Medicham is the hardest hitting Pokemon in OU and because their metagame is shifting towards more defensive play, Mega Medicham (as well as Mega Heracross) stand out for their ability to destroy pretty much every wall in the game.

Weavile is a staple on offense due to beating Garchomp, Landorus-T, Latias, Latios, Thundurus and Tornadus-T, as well as providing Pursuit support.

Alomomola is a solid stall Pokemon. It's mainly there for role compression, being a bulky Water with Wish support (it's bulkier than Vaporeon). It's not actually that good though.

The metagame loves Flying and Fairy types, and Conkeldurr suffers greatly as a result. It's also not bulky enough or fast enough to have any viable niche in the metagame.

Mega Tyranitar doesn't provide enough advantages over the regular Tyranitar to warrant much, if any, use, especially considering the opportunity cost of being a Mega evolution.

[Jedi]

Wow, Clefable sure has jumped in the ranks, I haven't competitive played in awhile but geez.

[Reality]

The V5 thread only came out yesterday. There are good reasons to use these pokemon, but it's still a little controversial, and imho they overplay sand-meta and anti-sand meta, and obviously shoot down m-alt and sableye for not being good against sand.

It's okay. I prefer the old viability thread. Most ORAS teams can still do well in all honesty. In fact, if you took this threads word as law, you'd probably make a CM keldeo weak team lol.

[Espinosa]

So sandstorm has been dominant again? Any particular reason why?

[X-Naut]

Mainly because it has the most exploitable effect (passive damage vs type-specific boosts), two solid setters with poor secondary abilities, Tyranitar checks Mega Zard Y, and Excadrill being a solid utility attacker in or out of sand.

[twice]

Sniper Kingdra paired with focus energy is amazing

Forgot to mention, equip Kingdra with the scope lens as well.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Jin

[Espinosa]

Kingdra doesn't seem too viable... Scope Lens + Focus Energy is only 50% crit, right? And you waste a turn setting up as well as foregoing Swift Swim. It's in B-tier apparently somehow? Not sure if it's for rain teams or critting.

[twice]

Which is why you get a Kingdra with sniper ability.

[Espinosa]

And what are you going to sweep with 85 base speed when you use Focus Energy as something switches in?

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Clefable is there mostly because its very versatile being able to do offense and utility, and also one of the strongest win con with Calm Mind and Cosmic Power set. Also Magic Guard and Unaware is such a strong ability.

Some team just somewhat instant lose to Clefable since they had no answer to it. Its kinda that good right now

Also for the smogon higher level players, Clefable Yellow Color Magic(Aka Thunder Wave) is such a meme right now. If you paid attention to the list often, Clef is the only Yellow Color who frequent S Rank(The ussual S Rank is: Keldeo, Clefable, Manaphy and Clef iirc)

Compared to other Fairy you listed, they just didn't have the same usage scope as Clef. Klefki is a good support and a yellow color, but its not a good win condition because of EQ weak. Gardevoir is mostly used just for Wall Breaking

Actually can i just simply say Thunder Wave is broken and Clef is the best user of Thunder Wave?

Altaria drops off because of 4 movepool syndrome. Also Mega Scizor being popular didn't help it at all.

Sableye has been dropping after the Shadow Tag ban iirc.

Weavile destroyed Offense, checks Garchomp and Defensive Garchomp is the name of the game for balance. For Stall Choice Band Weavile is one of the face of Stall team. Weavile in general is carried by Dark being such a broken typing in Gen 6. Weavile is also pretty anti meta - Landorus, Tornadus, Garchomp, Latis, all loses to Weavile to an extent.

Garchomp is just much weaker in Gen 6. Back in Gen 4, Garchomp 102 Speed is such a big deal because the big names all had 100 speed, and the ones above him is soft checked by Yache. Starmie is check trapped by Tyranitar who is a common pair to Garchomp. Granted currently Garchomp is mostly used as a defensive mon. Defensive Garchomp is probably Top 5 mon in the meta right now.

Mega Pidgeot and a lot of the seemingly weird Mega is there mostly due to their speed tier.

Scolipede is only there for Spikes.

Edited May 11, 2016 by JSND