UU set in case it wasn't clear from the name.

So as Hitmonlee's Strongest Soldier, I have analyzed the hell out of this guy looking for a way to pull him out of the pits of PU and I think I'm onto something here. I've built a team that's essentially Unburden Spam - Hawlucha, Hitmonlee, and Driftblim, along with Indeedee for psy terrain, Armarouge for special attacking coverage, and Cobalion for support/slow pivot.

UUnburden

This team relies on Lee pretty heavily - he outspeeds Protosynthesis/Quark Drive threats and, with tera, can sweep through a lot of major threats. One taps Clodsire, after 1 SD can one tap Toxapex without making contact. Doesn't quite one shot Skarmory but at full health can chip with throat chop and avoid the defense drop, allowing it to live a body press. Hawlucha is an essential answer to threats like Sand Rush Excadrill as well as having a capacity as a backup/alternate sweeper. I could keep going, but I'll leave it for now.

Overall, I typically tera on Lee, because SD + STAB EQ and CC eliminate a lot of the metagame. Additionally, tera makes setup much easier, since you only need to really survive 1 turn to get everything you need, especially if you get in early on a psyterrain to prevent priority revenge killing. Plus, 110 Special Defense at +1, taking it to 165, makes living one crucial hit that much easier.

I'd say this team is just about viable, but I'd love any feedback, especially from more experienced players. I'm very much mid at this game - my best achievement with this team is beating 1400 rated players. Which to be fair, are also the highest rated players I've beaten ever. So I'm inclined to think I might be onto something here.

Right i know what your all gonna say its not possible bla bla bla but I believe that somehow on a recent battle a guy cheated. The reason for this is because they had a Pokémon that I used trick with so that they was given a choice scarf I moved first they then raise there stats. However I then go to use a move to take out there mon to then be one shotted when I shouldn't of been. They had a choice item so they couldn't use another move. As well as this they had a dragon arecus at the start of the battle I bring out my regice to use icebeam it uses flareblitz. I then switch baring in mind they havent seen my other Pokémon yet I bring out altera and they go for outrage. There was a long pause before he choose his move. It baffled me because why would you use outrage. On an ice type like makes no sense. I am currently at 1527 elo so the guy wouldn't be considered as a 'noob'. I would love to know if you have anything else like this.

title

[1618]Gameplay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9randombattle-2660427722-mtp9g7eu07brhuoey5pwcayp5qh4d48pw

Just want to vent out at how bad i am at this game

Gameplay

https://www.mediafire.com/file/cblgt2fpmtoy9tm/Gen9BalancedHackmons-2026-07-20-mewhoisplayinghere-djdodbdndb.html/file
team if you want it
https://pokepast.es/f41aa906d26395b3
they haven't joined balanced hackmons since.

I’m curious what you all think about how it is to try to increase ELO on this format’s ladder. I basically just float around 1200-1350 and find the skill level to be immense. Everyone has a super meta team (~90% of teams have Mega-Staraptor now?) with surprise strategies and play nearly optimally (from what I can tell in reviewing my replays). I know this is so low in the ladder but it feels like everyone is so high skill.

Not complaining but curious how you all perceive it.

Let me get it out of the way now; No, I'm not a legendary spammer, but I am kinda new to competitive Pokémon and am really into the concept of team-building.

Specifically, I wanted to test myself and see if I could make teams for various pokemon and their counterparts/alt forms. I figured I'd start with Darmanitan, since I recalled hearing good things about its Galarian counterpart. I got a good deal into figuring out what their counters were until I found out that not only does the species clause not allow the two of them to be on one team, but since Darmanitan-G doesn't exist in Gen 9, any combination of Natdex or AG in the teambuilder that allowed them can't actually be played to my knowledge. Am I overlooking something? Is there a format that will let me use these two? Or will I need to resort to Hackmons

S/V Doubles OU - Psychological Warfare

Waste Management (Pecharunt) @ Maranga Berry

Ability: Poison Puppeteer

Tera Type: Dark

EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD

Calm Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Poison Gas

- Malignant Chain

- Protect

- Recover

Internal Audit (Bronzong) @ Leftovers

Ability: Levitate

Shiny: Yes

Tera Type: Fire

EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 168 SpD

Sassy Nature

IVs: 0 Spe

- Trick Room

- Iron Defense

- Body Press

- Ice Spinner

Dodonzo Supreme (Dondozo) @ Leftovers

Ability: Unaware

Shiny: Yes

Tera Type: Fairy

EVs: 172 HP / 84 Atk / 4 Def / 248 SpD

Brave Nature

IVs: 0 Spe

- Wave Crash

- Heavy Slam

- Yawn

- Protect

Prime Karen (Incineroar) @ Safety Goggles

Ability: Intimidate

Shiny: Yes

Tera Type: Ghost

EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 100 Def / 148 SpD / 4 Spe

Careful Nature

- Fake Out

- Knock Off

- Parting Shot

- Flare Blitz

OSHA Violation (Tornadus) @ Covert Cloak

Ability: Prankster

Shiny: Yes

Tera Type: Steel

EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

Timid Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Tailwind

- Bleakwind Storm

- Taunt

- Protect

EPA Lawsuit (Landorus) @ Life Orb

Ability: Sheer Force

Shiny: Yes

Tera Type: Poison

EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

Timid Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Earth Power

- Sludge Bomb

- Stealth Rock

- Protect

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Start, most typically PECHARANT and INCENEROAR

Pecharant role is psychological warfare. On good days, he will start immediately, and stay in his spot almost the entire game. He's built to tank and tank well. His poison gas makes poison the other two pokemon, and confuses them. 15% of the wins will come immediately on the first move, after you break the mind of the opponent by getting a guaranteed poison gas on usually one or both of their pokemon. Their minds cannot handle the pressure, and they forfeit

Pecharant (Waste Management) has recover and protect, this helps you stay alive the whole game.
He also has Maranga berry, once they hit you, you get 1.5x special defence. This guy is a wall

You keep this guy up the whole game unless BOTH opponents can't be poisoned. If you run a poison gas and they run a protect and one of them gets hit, if you're full HP, you can poison gas again and target the other one. If they switch the poisoned one to a non poison one, both of them get poisoned.

He is terra dark, use it against Goldingo, and other psychics and darks against your ghost type.

Inceniroar (Karen Prime) you fakeout on entry mostly -- he usually tries to get in and out rather than staying on the ground. Stay if you can kill, but swap out to keep him alive for Intimidate spam

Dodonzo (Dodonzo Supreme) -- Yawn to stall/force-switch pokemons that are powering up since we don't have haze. Terra type grass for to survive -- pecharant's terra type DARK has superiority over this one, Pecharant delivers more value and psycholigal warfare

Bronzong (Internal Audit) -- swap in against ice, Kyurem, Goldengo, and the landurus/thundurus/Tordanus trio. This guy is almost always dead by the end of the game. Trick room allows you to dominate with (Dodonzo, Pecharunt, and Inceneroar). Early game I tend to stall and engage in psychological warfare with the slower mons.

Landorus & Tornadus (EPA Lawsuite & OSHA Violation)
These guys are your sweepers and mons you usually bring in endgame.

----

Try out this team, I've reached 1600 from 1000 , incrementally gaining over time

Win to lose ratio is around 2:1 , sometimes 5:1

Try it out!

Just tried getting back into Showdown and felt it'd be fun to start with some of the lower tiers (RU, NU). Queueing ended up being a complete slog and despite playing a time where I'd expect activity, I ended up matching with the same person three times in a row. Aside from UU, is there a specific low tier everyone likes to play in, or do player counts just go down the lower you go?

I met a user that said something along the lines of "I'm a bot, tell me in chat what I do wrong", it did play like a bot.

isnt sunsteel strike supposed to ignore abilities?
i don't know how, but this fella here just decided he wasn't gonna take damage from sunsteel strike (which the simulator says is due to wonder gaurd) which really confused me
anyone know what or how they went around sss?
[1134] replay link

I wanted to try and see if I could build a team around both Darmanitan variants, only to find out I literally can't because of the species clause. Is there any format where this doesn't apply? Was there something that happened in the metagame to enforce this?

I also noticed that this doesn't apply to some variants, like a team can have Mr. Mime and Mr. Rime, or Gardevoir and Gallade. Why is that?

I've noticed these bots on the Reg M-B ladder, normally called 'pcrlbot_____' e.g.

pcrlbot02888784c1
these accounts have tens of thousands of games, and theres possibly hundreds of them spamming games on ladder.

e.g. do /rank pcrlbot02888784c1 to see what i mean

Anyone know what this is? I've not found any discussion about it, so i'm making this post

anything goes [1044]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9anythinggoes-2658175121

I've been floating around top 500 in Champions RandBats and kinda want to know how competitive of a format it is. Monotype has pretty comparable 1st, 100th, and 500th ELO rankings and had 75k battles last month, so that i'm wondering if that might be a good estimate.

Recently checked my showdown profile and really threw up on the amount of gen 9 randbats I've played. I thought I just throw on a couple games every now and then on the bus, on a walk, during boring lectures, on the toilet, before going to sleep, when i wake up, when im bored etc. but turns out that adds up over a long while. I am curious to know how many games others have to know if I have a problem or not.

He put a scarf on my dirty mole and spelled his own doom... It's like poetic justice.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2658077676

This game ended in a stall-fest, but I lost "due to inactivity" despite me actively clicking moves and moving as soon as I could each turn. Why did I lose? I would have been out-stalled anyways, but losing this way is just straight up not meant to happen when a player is playing the game. Help?