Have you been using focus punch on that set? Jk, I used choice band weavile before weavile was cool and I slotted on focus punch because why not. Then one game, I predicted a switch and ko'd a gambit with focus punch. They quit afterwards, and I forever want to slot focus punch on a weavile set.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
I feel like I'm in the minority when i talk about Kingambit, but I feel like post-DLC it has become incredibly less problematic and a lot more manageable.
The return of Volcarona and Gliscor, the addition of Darkrai, Gouging Fire, Skarmory, Archaludon and the somewhat rise of Lando-T and Zamazenta all make it seem a lot more manageable than it ever was. Don't get me wrong, it's still an incredible glue mon that does tremendously well in the meta, it's just that it feels a lot... healthier?
I don't know, we have more ways than ever of dealing with it, more ID+BP pokemon, fast willos (cinderace, volc, heatran, moltres), and the surge of opposing dark types, which all commonly slot in fighting coverage makes Kingambit have competition.
I don't know, i guess I just don't get it for people that still think it's too much, counterplay clearly exists, and we have a lot more of it nowadays, there's even the niche Tera Blast Stellar which can act as a way to revenge kill it once tera'd, if you truly feel like you need it.
The return of Volcarona and Gliscor, the addition of Darkrai, Gouging Fire, Skarmory, Archaludon and the somewhat rise of Lando-T and Zamazenta all make it seem a lot more manageable than it ever was. Don't get me wrong, it's still an incredible glue mon that does tremendously well in the meta, it's just that it feels a lot... healthier?
I don't know, we have more ways than ever of dealing with it, more ID+BP pokemon, fast willos (cinderace, volc, heatran, moltres), and the surge of opposing dark types, which all commonly slot in fighting coverage makes Kingambit have competition.
I don't know, i guess I just don't get it for people that still think it's too much, counterplay clearly exists, and we have a lot more of it nowadays, there's even the niche Tera Blast Stellar which can act as a way to revenge kill it once tera'd, if you truly feel like you need it.
If your favorite pokémon isn't a solid OU/UU pick, you can either use them in higher tiers but acknowledge that it will be suboptimal/not ideal, or play them in lower tiers where they might be able to shine. You also don't have to only play one tier or anything, you can play OU and NU or whatever. Blastoise has historically been a lower-tier pokémon and I doubt it will shine in OU/UU in this gen despite its buffs, but you can still enjoy it.
Although there is more counterplay, I agree, and it is less of a priority now, it still is a problem simply because it can just force 50/50's that win games so easily. It's maybe like the 8th most problematic mon right now, and this is coming from one of the people who hates gambit so much I would sacrifice multiple mons to see it gone. Watchog would be the first sacrifice obviously.
as gambit's #1 anti pre-dlc2, i can understand both sides of this argument. it does seem quite a bit more manageable this dlc, but i can definitely see it getting out of hand in the future and would absolutely continue keeping an eye on it just in case. if the new-toy period ends and gambit starts ruining every endgame again, i think another test of it would be warranted
I think we're about to have a disagreement about who hates gambit more.
I don't think it's at all able to "force" 50/50's though, if you've put yourself into a situation where you're at a 50/50 chance of losing to a Kingambit, I'd argue that's more of a problem of poor positioning and not keeping your Kingambit answers at a sufficient amount of HP. Yes Tera makes it a lot harder to check, but then, you're also just fighting 5 mons that don't have access to it. Tusk is one of the most popular mons and beats variants that aren't Tera Flying or Fairy, which both still have many issues with the like of Encore, Fast Willos, Substitute, Strong resists that can revenge and faster ID+BP mons
You know, as someone that was pro Tera ban for a majority of SV existence I am now in the no action camp. I feel like there just exists far too many varied threats within the tier for any one core to handle. Because of this I believe that Tera is 100% needed just to patch up the inevitable holes in your team comps.
I've been running scarf adamant meow for a bit now, running a pretty standard flower trick/knock/triple axel/u-turn. Adamant adds a little bit more oomph behind those axels, and jolly doesn't outspeed anything too important. Scarf meow is also super unexpected for a lot of people; the amount of times i've immediately OHKOed a scarf enamorous from lead is funny.
unless you've also gone on a rant about it unprompted during a therapy session, i think i'm taking this particular trophy
it's a real shame that this post above and other posts with great analysis and arguments are swept under the rug by weirdos who insist on talking about dumb shit like lugia and skymin and solgaleo while mini-mods also do nothing and cry instead of just getting the topic back on track.Hey I wanted to start a discussion on Deoxys-Speed (and steer the discussion away from unbanning like Lugia), and why I think it's power level this gen is in line with the other top pokemon of this metagame and is not broken. First, some background. I usually lurk on Smogon, but I've been playing at high ladder (1800-1900s) quite a lot this gen, with many games since DLC2 dropped. I've played with a few different teams, with all the teams having counterplay to Deoxys-S. In fact, I think Deo-S is healthy for the meta, since IMO its best matchup is against HO.
First, the supporting sets, which include suicide lead and dual screens.
Deoxys-Speed @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Skill Swap/Psycho Boost
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Taunt
- Psycho Boost
This is the set that I think is the best on Deoxys-S and has the least counterplay. This set does best into opposing hyper-offense or hazard weak teams.
Before we get into each archetype though, the most important counterplay to deoxys-S is using team preview to your advantage. Is the opposing team an HO? The deoxys is most likely a support set. Otherwise? It could be an offensive set.
Counterplay to the support sets:
Hyper Offense:
Offense:
- Samurott-H lead can anti-lead Deo-S quite well, trading either rocks for spikes + being up an Samurott-H, or using ceaseless edge on the second turn and trading stealth rocks + spikes for 2 spikes + a 1 mon advantage, trades which are usually good for the Samurott player.
- Any setup threat like kyurem, DD roaring mon, gouging fire, etc forces the Deo-S player to make a 50-50 between taunting and setting up screens/hazards. Roaring moon is especially good at this since even if the deoxys is screens, its knock off cripples the Deo-S by knocking the light clay and doing like 80% through reflect.
- Grimmsnarl (on dual screens teams). Generally outclassed by Pult and Ninetales-A, but if your Deoxys matchup is weak as a screens team, consider using Grimmsnarl.
- If you really hate hazards/screens, you can use suicide lead iron treads to completely shit of Deo-S. Not only are you faster, you can spin the rocks away/knock the light clay off the Deo-S.
Balance/Stall:
- Cinderace. It can come in later in a game and court change
- Powerful priority like Rillaboom grassy glide and CB dragonite extreme speed can limit deo-S to 1 layer of hazards or 1 screen.
- Tusk can spin the hazards away
- Hatterene counters any lead set without skill swap and can nuzzle Deo-S, making it useless the rest of the game
- Scarfers like Enamorus outspeed and limit Deo-S to 1 turn of setup.
Offensive Deo-S:
- Let's be real, any competent balance team is prepared for hazard stack these days. You're essentially playing 6-5 against lead hazard Deo-S teams. Ting-Lu and Gliscor are way scarier for balance to face than Deo-S.
- Ting-Lu especially has a good matchup against screens teams
- IMO Deo-S is quite weak into fat.
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Ghost/Psychic/Ice/Electric/Stellar
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Psycho Boost
- Ice Beam
- Superpower/Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball/Thunderbolt/Energy Ball/whatever you want
- Mix and match the coverage you like, its still coming off of a base 95 (lol) Spa stat
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Psychic/Ghost/Electric/Stellar
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Psycho Boost
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Mix and match the coverage you like, its still coming off of a base 95 (lol) Spa stat
Now let's talk about Offensive deoxys-S, which I think is a B+ tier set and is outclassed by other actually good special attackers in the tier, like Iron valiant, darkrai, and enamorus. It mostly acts as an anti-offense mon, similar to Dnite or 4a Zamazenta. 95 offenses just don't cut it anymore in this meta, and Deo-S's bulk is so bad it kinda just dies to every faster mon and priority move in the game. Again, I will go over the various archetypes' counterplay to offensive Deo-S:
HO: Offensive Deo-S is just a revenge killer against HO that doesn't even work against Gambit and Dnite, given that at it's too weak to OHKO anything other than Zamazenta and Booster Tusk. This is a healthy contribution to the metagame. I never found myself struggling against offensive Deo-S when playing HO.
Offense: Offense should use its Booster Energy mons/scarfers and its priority to beat Deoxys. If Deo-S is life orb, it will chip itself into priority range quite quickly, and it sure as hell can't switch into anything on offense, so you should be able to outtrade it. If its boots, Deoxys is just really weak and doesn't threaten anything besides like Great Tusk and zamazenta, which poses a threat with tera steel Heavy Slam anyways.
Another problem that Deo-S faces is that it is way too prediction reliant for how hard it is to switch in safely. You can outpredict the Deoxys most of the time for how hard it is to switch in. And if you mispredict, its not too bad, since they had to sack a mon to get it in safely. Or, they used a pivoting move, but every wallbreaker can abuse teammates pivoting moves.
Balance/Fat: Into balance, it's even worse. You are completely hard walled by Ting-Lu, can't touch glowking, struggle against Heatran etc. For a mon that doesn't break balance and has 0 safe switch in opportunities, it is not a mon that I would consider putting on most teams.
In conclusion, Deo-S is a healthy part of the metagame and should settle as a versatile top-tier staple, but not anything overbearing for the metagame. SV players already know how to deal with hazard stack, such as with Bootspam, and Deo-S is not much better of a screens setter than Pult or Grimmsnarl or Ninetales-A. The 4 attacks or NP sets are kinda ass in my opinion, maybe they need more exploration. I've been loving DLC2 and think it's been the best meta of Gen 9 yet.
anyways, the above post is a great read and i invite yall to read it. Deo-S will more than likely be suspected and this post will be referenced multiple times on the anti-ban side when the time comes
Yeah, but the main issue as always is that it can just need one turn to destroy anything. Tusk can't ko it easily and gambit can still do great damage to it.
+2 252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Great Tusk: 114-135 (26.2 - 31.1%) -- 11.5% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Tusk isn't going to be at great health because it can be overloaded by threats and not hit it too hard.
+2 252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Great Tusk: 262-310 (60.3 - 71.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 Atk Great Tusk Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Kingambit: 234-276 (68.6 - 80.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Sure, it is easier than ever to counter gambit, but you have to have a mon that is used against a large amount of the metagame at nearly full health.
Have you had nightmares about gambit and also started ranting about it in a family dinner when someone mentions the word king?
If you're using non CC no attack EQ tusk as your Kingambit answer, that's on you. All those calcs prove is that yeah, you killed all of the opposing team, but also haven't positioned yourself for the endgame Kingambit sweep. You don't need to have Tusk at full health to deal with Kingambit, trading is probably going to have to happen, but your tusk is going to get important damage in on it for your final mon (or mons) to revenge it. I mentioned a ton of potential Kingambit answers, but you seem to be focused specifically on "having" to use Tusk, when it's just not the case.
I really hate when people say "you don't make progress against teams with Kingambit" or always mention it at +5 allies fainted, because at that point, yeah you should be winning that game, and if you don't, it's because you didn't properly prepare for the obvious endgame threat.
The set I used was a defensive set, so I probably should have set it to tera fire to show that even that set is not immune to taking a hit and dishing it back out. That was meant to show that if defensive tusk can take that much damage, any other tusk is going to be destroyed. The thing is that gambit should be bad, you literally are playing 5v6, but the gambit player is always on top so they can force you to play very messy plays they can take advantage of. Plus, not many other mons want to take +5 allies fainted sucker apart from valiant, which is forcing you to have a specific mon. You should be able to not have to play ridiculously safe when facing a gambit team to prevent a sweep. I'm not saying that gambit should be on the chopping block right now, I'm saying that it still is problematic, but not as much as before.
No Tusk is dying to +2 sucker punch unless you're below 50% and aren't running bulk up, and yeah, dying is fine as long as you deal 40+ percent so you can safely revenge kill it.
What does this mean, kingambit doesn't do this, sure it has a presence on how you make plays, every pokemon does that. Kingambit itself isn't "forcing" anything, by that you mean supporting pokemon, which in that case it seems like you don't have proper answers for those ones.
*cough cough*
These are a ton of serviceable Kingambit checks, that do a lot more than just checking it as well, a lot of them outspeed and tank a sucker punch too! While there are also some frailer resists, they don't need that many defense ev's to properly tank sucker from full.
, Tera Fighting 
, 
, 
, Willo 
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, Multiscale 
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, Willo 
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, 
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, Tera 
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, :salamance:, 
, willo 
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.and these are just the ones from the VR, if you truly want to get crazy with it, there's a ton of lower tier options as well.
Now this is something that personally helped me deal with Kingambit, and I can understand if it seems much, because most teams don't do this for a lot of threats. Run multiple Kingambit checks per team, this isn't necessarily demanding, there's a ton of viable ones, for a ton of different team structures, that absolutely aren't constrained in a role of Checking or Countering Kingambit, they offer a ton of utility to a team on their own.
Now what I think is a valid question is "is having to run multiple checks healthy?", and to that, I don't know. But at least it certainly isn't hard to do, and these are all very strong meta relevant pokemon that aren't constrained into their role.
Me with Gholdengo
Running bulk up on a great tusk, while great, shouldn't be neccessary. Plus, as you said before, tera flying and fairy are great against tusk, so it can flip it's matchups.
By that I mean by that you have to keep your checks in almost pristine condition. Tusk has to be above 50%, which realistically is not happening. No mon should instantly win the game if the check is chipped to 50%, it would be reasonable when they are say below 30%.
Okay, let's look through them.*cough cough*
These are a ton of serviceable Kingambit checks, that do a lot more than just checking it as well, a lot of them outspeed and tank a sucker punch too! While there are also some frailer resists, they don't need that many defense ev's to properly tank sucker from full.
and these are just the ones from the VR, if you truly want to get crazy with it, there's a ton of lower tier options as well.
1. Enamourus is killed by iron head and is not really going to threaten it outside superpower, which gambit can tera out.
2. Iron boulder is forced to tera itself, so that isn't really a great thing.
3. Dakrai is probably the best so far, but still takes massive damage from sucker and doesn't hit gambit too hard outside focus miss. Which can miss, shocker.
4. Roaring moon, yeah a good mon. I overlooked this so you are right on that.
5. Willo Volcarona is one set of a mon that most of the time would run offensive sets.
6. Zamazenta, another one I missed, it is great against it so you are right on that.
7. Dondozo, fits only onto stall so although it counters gambit, it is on only one playstyle.
8. Gouging fire is not too reliable and has to play the 50/50's, so alright but not the best.
9. Meowscarada is quite frail and is potentially ohko'd by plus two sucker.
10. Samurott is more of an early game pokemon but it is decent against gambit. It is two-hit ko'd by sucker.
11. Skarmory is great against gambit, so I missed it.
12. Archaludon is another one I missed, I guess I thought about pre-DLC2 mons only huh.
13. Blaziken is decent but unspectacular.
14. Corviknight can check gambit, but isn't the best as it is 2 hit ko'd by gambit
15. Dragonite has to keep multiscale, which is unlikely.
Imma just stop there because I realised it was getting long. You are right, gambit has many checks, but lots are 2 hit ko'd by it and others aren't prevelant in OU. I did exaggerate the amount of counters, so I am sorry about that.
If you have to run multiple checks to a mon, potentially. However, gambit isn't a mon that you have to run multiple checks, you have to run multiple checks and counters.
My baseline for a mon being broken is: 1 counter per team is reasonable, 2 counters is showing signs it might be a problem, 3 counters is broken territory.
Gambit you have to run 2 minimum, which for me is signs it is broken.
I have been liking Banded Meowscarada.
Insanely good on Hazard Stacking teams because HDB spam teams' default Knock Off absorbers hate taking STAB Triple Axel. Even things like Skarmory/Corviknight packing a Rocky Helmet can just get Knocked Off and then switching into Banded Triple Axels becomes something tricky to do with Rocks support. Ice coverage is just so good. Band boosted STAB U-turns are also nice and Sucker Punch can be pretty good speed control too. There's also Flower Trick to beat Dondozo and Alomomola.
Don't know about Scarf though. I imagine it could catch a ton of people off guard, and it might be solid due to how offensive the meta is, but I have yet to experiment it.
As for Gambit, I think it's very annoying to deal with and will beat your team depending on the Tera (I have seen Ghost Tera Gambit, which at first thought didn't made sense, but then I realized it beats Skarmory/Corvinkight+Archaludon while giving an immunity to Fighting). It could be argued that Gambit is manageable if Tera is not around, but I prefer to not go in depth into this.
I've tried bulky speed booster Gouging on 1 squad and only like 4 games so not exactly qualified to answer here, but in that very limited scope speed booster felt a tad superfluous as it was pretty easy to get multiple DDs. It really only kinda came up exactly once against a Boulder that had burnt it's booster and swapped but it wasn't really game-altering since I still had tera to pop.
Ngl it's been hard for me to explore different Gouging sets because the basic bulky DD boots set is just so fucking good in most scenarios that my 2 braincells can't strive to innovate further lol.
I think DD sets are just okay at the moment. Too hard to get boosts with a thousand Scale Shot/Triple Axel/Icicle Shard users running around and Iron Boulder pushing the speed ceiling even higher while resisting ESpeed.
Band Dragonite, though, has put in massive work for me. The immediate power lets it clean so many things that, even with its rocks weakness, it can pop in and out and reliably make progress.
i've been trying an unga bunga sun tera fire band set and literally nothing is capable of safely switching into it. it's a physical chi-yu and that isn't an exaggeration. here are the calcs:
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Tera Fire Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Ting-Lu in Sun: 634-746 (123.3 - 145.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Tera Fire Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Protosynthesis Great Tusk in Sun: 352-416 (81.1 - 95.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Tera Fire Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 192+ Def Toxapex in Sun: 214-252 (70.3 - 82.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Tera Fire Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 156+ Def Garganacl in Sun: 247-291 (61.1 - 72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Tera Fire Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola in Sun: 319-376 (59.7 - 70.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Tera Fire Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo in Sun: 252-297 (50 - 58.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
slightly more sun-dependent for the damage output than chi-yu was, but the fact that it can 2hko dondozo with a resisted physical attack makes me think that there might be a problem here
Considering it
-Requires an Adamant nature which leaves you outsped by offensive Tusk and Hamu.
-The Sun to be up.
-Rocks to be out of the field.
-And to burn Tera.
I think it justifies the massive reward of claiming a kill. Its like CB Darm or Victini in Sun but bulkier.
but the thing is, couldn't all this be said about chi-yu too? to get all of the most nightmarish calcs people were posting about it (like the blissey 2hko), it also had to burn tera, have sun up, run modest, and forgo boots as a fire-type. the fact of the matter is, it has literally zero defensive answers when sun is up, which seems at the very least unhealthy, especially considering that this isn't even gouging fire's only set
hell, even burning it with the first flare blitz will do it