And with that, week 3 has come and gone. Congratulations to @ , who, as of writing this, has the highest ladder ranking of anyone who shared their results, and will have their name added to the SMUU Hall of Fame!

After an initial few days of silence (hence the lack of a midweek update), week 3's selection of Healing Wish Alomomola, Taunt Bisharp, Double Powder Amoonguss, and Volt Switch / U-turn Mew was met with mixed results. Alomomola, despite being even more passive than normal with Scald as its only form of damage, allows for extremely aggressive play with nasty wallbreakers that lack recovery, such as Specs Hydreigon and CM Z-Move Keldeo, by pivoting into a huge amount of the tier and Regenerating it back. It also allowed Pokemon that typically want a recovery move, such as Latias, to forgo it in exchange for coverage.

Taunt Bisharp turned out to be a mixed bag. While a well-timed Taunt, especially if the opponent switched into Knock Off, proved quite potent versus teams that rely on the likes of Hippowdon and Mandibuzz to blanket check the tier, Taunting at the wrong time can quite punishing, often resulting in Bisharp taking unnecessary damage or being KOed outright. All in all, a high-risk, high-reward Pokemon that relies heavily on proper prediction, but as such is not always as consistent as, say, SD or Pursuit.

Double Powder Amoonguss sings a similar tune. Spore forces opponents to play rather predictably, allowing the Amoonguss user to get off surprise paralysis as the opponent attempts to regain momentum after sleep foddering something. A resistance Berry, as @Kreme demonstrated, allowed you to be a little more reckless versus fast threats like Alakazam and make them nonentities for the rest of the game, which is a very nice asset for offensive teams weak to such threats. And while crippling two mons in two turns can be very powerful, it comes at the high cost of losing out on HP Fire, the only thing keeping Amoonguss from being complete setup fodder for Scizor and Bisharp once something has been put to sleep. Again, a nice sidegrade from the standard fare, but quite risky.

And lastly, pivot Mew proved to be quite a letdown. Defensive / utility sets, as @Bouff discovered, since U-turn and Volt Switch U-turn are far less consistent at punishing switches than Knock Off or Will-O-Wisp. An offensive set, @Kalalokki showed, can be an interesting lure, but its effectiveness compared to a simple Nasty Plot set is questionable, especially considering the plethora of other options out there for an all-out attacker. Surprising Hydreigon with Volt Switch or Gliscor with Ice Beam is nice, but not necessarily as reliable as something more straightforward.

And that's week 3! We aren't going to have as much of a set theme this week, and are instead going to explore some options that we felt might deserve more attention. That said, here is cycle 4's selection:

[hide=Cresselia]
Cresselia (F) @ filler item
Ability: Levitate
EVs:
filler nature
-
-
-
-
[/hide]
[hide=Curse Gastrodon]
Gastrodon @
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs:
filler nature
- Curse
- Recover
-
-
[/hide]
[hide=Dual Chop Haxorus]
Haxorus @ filler item
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs:
filler nature
- Dual Chop
-
-
-
[/hide]

Thank you again to everyone who has participated! You should all know the drill by now: sign up with a fresh RW alt, and post replays to demonstrate your findings. Again, don't worry about making a new post for your research, as you can always edit your sign up post and add it in there. The deadline is Friday, March 10th, at 11:59 pm, at which point either my co-host @Ark or I will decide the winner. Best of luck to you all, and have fun!