Hariyama Unban Reasoning

There were several factors that contributed to the PU councils reasoning behind the retest of Hariyama, of which the primary reason was the metagame. The metagame at the time was being centralised by Fire -Type threats such as Pyroar and Magmortar and other special wallbreakers such as Exeggutor-Alola, Drampa and Guzzlord, which has since risen to NU through usage. With these Pokemon influencing the balance archetype heavily, it was seen that the balance archetype was too difficult to pull off reasonably within the realms of the metagame and have checks to the afformentioned Pokemon. Hariyama solved this issue courtesy of its Assault Vest Thick Fat set which allowed for a very popular, reliable and aggressive switch-in for these Pokemon which have plagued balance.

Another important argument is that after Hariyama departed the tier after a council vote in PU Beta, the PU metagame has since been updated with some drops from NU, which include Mesprit and Qwilfish, 2 premier Hariyama switch ins. Both of these Pokemon have been seen as excellent meta fits, sitting at S Rank and A+ Rank on the PU Viability Rankings, with Mesprit seeing the most usage in all but Week 5 of PUPL.

Finally, it was common knowledge that the council had banned Hariyama, not because of its Assault Vest Thick Fat set, but more so because the limitations a Guts set with Flame Orb introduced into teambuilding. The argument being put forward by users on the Unban perspective of the Hariyama retest is that the PU council acted in haste, and had not let the meta to properly settle with Hariyama in the tier before quickbanning it. The idea was that, the PU tier has many menacing wallbreakers that are similar to Hariyama in ways such as Ursaring and Zangoose. It can be argued that if Hariyama were to have 4-5 checks with half of those being able to recover reliably under pressure from Hariyama, that from a pure teambuilding standpoint, it cannot be more centralising to build around as either of the afformentioned wallbreakers which arguably have no checks at all.

Therefore, with an abudance of offensive checks as well as a fair few defensive checks that could recover reliably on Hariyama, it was theorised by the PU council that Hariyama could in theory be reintroduced into the tier with little to no instability caused in the metagame, and would as a result  add teambuilding variety to the balance archetype to increase its viability within the tier.

Hariyama Proban Reasoning

However, there were clear differences that seperated Hariyama from the rest of the wallbreakers in the tier. Unlike the afformention Ursaring and Zangoose, Hariyama had much more defensive impetus and as a result, finding opportunities to wallbreak was seldom and issue, whereas finding a free turn for the likes of Ursaring and Zangoose came almost exclusively from momentum gaining moves such as Volt Switch and U-Turn or Double Switches. In both scenarios, its very possible that the ensuing matchup was not in the favour of the wallbreaker thus leading to a momentum loss. Its needless to say that, should there be a misprediction by either wallbreaker or should they not happen to pick up a KO, the consequences more often than not lead to that Pokemon fainting due to the lack of resists their typing gives as well as a lack of general bulk too. Hariyama added a different dimension to wallbreaking where it, for example, would be able to hard switch into the likes of a Regirock, Defensive Carracosta or Ferroseed with little or no consequences. If the opponent sets up his Stealth Rocks or even predicts the switch to Hariyama with an attack, the net result is almost always a free turn for Hariyama to pound the switch in, with either no HP loss or a very little net HP loss as a consequence of this. Should this have been an Ursaring or a Zangoose and it have come in on an attack, it often means then Pokemons use has essentially evaporated. This was one of the key arguments in the proban perspective, that the sheer amount of oppurtuinities that Hariyama had to wallbreak as well as the comparative power that it had to the likes of Ursaring and Zangoose was too much for the PU tier to handle.

Another pillar to the proban argument was that Hariyama technically had the devices to KO every single one of its checks and counters within reasonable means. What this meant is that the Hariyama user could essentially pick what Pokemon did and didn’t check it based on its moveset. For example, Gourgeist-Super was one of the most popular Hariyama checks in the meta thanks to its typing allowing it to wall Hariyamas coverage set as well as having reliable recovery to heal off its attacks. It also didn’t relieve momentum as easily as other Hariyama switchins thanks to a plethora of support moves such as Leech Seed and Will-O-Wisp. However, when people started realising this, they began to chop and change the Hariyama set accordingly. They would run Bulk Up over Bullet Punch on the standard set, which would allow for the 2HKO with Heavy Slam in the following turns in sacrifice for making Hariyama worse in a straight offense matchup.  Other techs were used too, for example Earthquake was used to hit Qwilfish or Palossand on the switch for big damage or Knock Off to remove the items from Pokemon that enjoyed switching in on Hariyama should the user require it to support the team more than out and out wallbreaking. As a result of these niche but useful technicalities, it was argued that even without the pure wallbreaking abilities of its counterparts in Ursaring and Zangoose, that it still had more than enough wallbreaking potential for it to be more of a hinderence on teambuilding rather than an asset, with builders constantly fretting over which Hariyama set that always matches up versus theit team.

These two points together provided the structure needed for a proban argument, which they felt that the sheer oppurtuinities it gets to wallbreak in addition to its sheer wallbreaking potential was too much for the PU tier to handle.