Tier Shift

[cbd98]

Tier Shift is a tier found on on Pokemon Showdown which boosts the stats of lower tier Pokemon while keeping Pokemon in higher tiers around the same stats. The small boost in base stats (+5 to UU, +10 to RU, +15 to NU) is enough to make some (but not all) Pokemon usable or more effective, such as Durant, Cresselia, Victreebell, Swanna, and Jynx. However, many Pokemon that work in OU are still useful and powerful in Tier Shift, such as weather inducers, Ferrothorn, Skarmory, and Heatran. It has more variety than most OU teams in my experience, and if you're looking to try a new style of battling, it's something new and fun to learn.

Have you heard of Tier Shift in the past? Have you tried it before? What are some Pokemon that you use or would like to try?

 

[Boilurn]

A rather interesting idea for a metagame and therefore I should give this a try sometime. I'd utilize Pokemon that can really help from these stats, such as Shedinja, Azumarill, Quagsire and Jumpluff, as they all have great abilities. Smeargle will also see a rise in popularity because of the valuable increase in speed to Spore faster threats such as the Rotom-W and Toxicroak. Pokemon such as Regigigas and Slaking will see no competitive play at all because of negative abilities, despite having the highest modified base stat total (If my math is right, I think it's 760, which is even more than Arceus)

 

[Shrew]

Tier shift is one of the best ideas for a metagame, ever!

Problem is, with restrictions to only having 6 pokemon on a team, pokemon are still going to outclass others. Here are the statistics, and here's an article explaining how tier shift does not mean equality.

Despite all this, I feel as though tier shift is a nice way for people who are aware of competitive mechanics, yet still like to have fun, to throw in a team of many of their favorite pokemon. Yet unlike "mix tier", without having deadweight.

Although Gamefreak would never recognize tiers as smogon see it, they without a doubt recognize that certain things are overpowered (hence why Mewtwo, Darkrai etc are banned from the Battle Tower, but not Articuno), and they also have access to wifi statistics (which they frequently publish.) I feel as though Gamefreak could implement a flexible version of tier shift in the actual games, in which the shift-amount varied by the statistics in non-tiershift battles.

Alas, because mix tier cannot be replicated in the official games but only simulators, tier shift will likely never become something memorable or well known.

 

[paraz]

e only allowed to post URLs to other siteDespite all this, I feel as though tier shift is a nice way for people who are aware of competitive mechanics, yet still like to have fun, to throw in a team