Klefki seems really good due to the number of dark types (bisharp, t-tar, weaville) in the meta-game and the difficulty of hazard control. A lot of the pokemon used on offense to remove hazards (the latis, starmie) are psychics and the sheer number of dark type knock off and pursuit users makes their life difficult(though latios and latias are still very strong, they just have more trouble removing hazards from my experience). I wouldn't run more than one psychic mon on a team for sure. Balanced is really underrated because a lot of the same offensive threats (keldeo, bisharp, latios) are being run on every other team so a well-built balanced team with answers to those threats (as well as Landorus-i) can be very successful. Stall is almost non-existent from my experience (am top ten on ladder but haven't faced one) but over time I think people will build stall teams that can handle threats like Landorus-i and Terrakion efficiently while dealing with hazard control without mega-sableye.
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Introducing the OU (no Mega) Ladder
- Thread starter ryan
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I think that the greatest dangers of this ladder are Bisharp and latios, having no legs no knock off absorb, and latios no longer has enemies who make out speed, to go well in this ladder would recommend going well prepared for these two pokemon, tambien reomiendo lebar taunt , por que hay bastante stall , greetings (sorry my english es bad )
This is my first time posting, so I apologize if I mess up in advance. I have been laddering on OU (No Mega), and I have been having a great time. I have noticed a lot more knock off spam as many on this thread have already pointed out, Bisharp and Weavile in particular. The metagame is a bit warped right now due to how good knock off is, and there is not a ton of high level play, seeing as the highest rank is the mid 1400's. One thing that I have noticed is that outside of the knock off spam there is much greater diversity with teams that I have been running into. Pokemon like Volcarona, and others that have been overshadowed are making a come back. It seems to me that rain has gotten a lot stronger too, due to the fact that I have been using one and reached #7 on the ladder. Rain however does not seem to be broken, it is just really good with threats like Mega Venasaur, Mega Altaria, Mega Charizard Y, etc. not present. I have not seen sand that much, but it seems to have improved as well. I think that this metagame is very balanced/divers, and is merely warped in that it is new and the "standard" pokemon and knock off. I really look forward to how it will grow and evolve over time and what new trends will be made. I personally enjoy megas, but it is very nice to play in a metagame that has a significantly lower amount of power creep.
another bisharp with low kick. fight fire with fire m8
I`m not really sure what to think about this.
On one hand this could be an interesting new way to play, and it'll work almost like BW OU,
on the other hand I think ORAS OU is working quite well, although we see some pokémon that are a defining the metagame,
I don`t consider any of them broken, all have counters and can be handled, nothing insane or that would need a unque and specific counter for it.
At least for me, the OU metagame, as it is, is already balanced.
On one hand this could be an interesting new way to play, and it'll work almost like BW OU,
on the other hand I think ORAS OU is working quite well, although we see some pokémon that are a defining the metagame,
I don`t consider any of them broken, all have counters and can be handled, nothing insane or that would need a unque and specific counter for it.
At least for me, the OU metagame, as it is, is already balanced.
What I don't understand is why everything has to have a definitive purpose in order to be taken seriously by some people in this community. Why does everything have to be so serious? We're playing a game intended for young children and trying to turn it into something that more hardcore and competitive fans of the franchise will enjoy. In the end, it's all supposed to be for fun. So, what if, the sole purpose of this ladder was to just be for fun??? HOLY SHIT MIND BLOWN. I highly doubt the OU council is using this ladder as a way to convince the community to ban Mega evolutions in order to appease their own desires (like some jackass said earlier) but considering that the introduction of Mega evolutions was one of the biggest changes to the competitive scene, wouldn't it be interesting to see how 6th gen would have turned out if this meta defining mechanic was never introduced? Of course it would. What's wrong with being curious? Absolutely nothing. Obviously many of the people crying about this ladder were not around during late 5th gen when we had a no SR ladder and a Clear Skys meta. Did any bans result from that? No. Was it fun and interesting to play metas lacking a previously defining element? Absolutely. Obviously these ladders showed a thing or two about how dominating certain playstyles/Pokemon became without SR or weather, but all it did was give us a chance to see and play different OU metagames.
On a more serious note, I really hope we go through with reintroducing mega evolutions bit by bit instead of just removing them all together. I really like the idea of playing a meta where the "comeptition for a mega slot" argument is completely thrown out the window, which allows mega evolutions such as Mega Latios/Latias, Mega Zam, Mega Aggron, and Mega Doom to prove how amazing they are. It'd just be very interesting to see if a previously B rank mega such as Mega Latios sky rocket in viability when it is thrown into a metagame where it's practically a stand alone Pokemon and can be slapped onto a team without having to worry about restricting you from using other megas. Even though there are a shit ton of mega evolutions and it would take time to slowly introduce them, I guarantee it would show very interesting results and could potentially guide us to a better OU metagame. I for one, am all for this idea, and I think it needs to happen. If we go through with this though, I feel like first introducing the less prominent megas is a better idea, just to see if they turn out to be centralizing despite their lower viability in the actual OU meta.
On a more serious note, I really hope we go through with reintroducing mega evolutions bit by bit instead of just removing them all together. I really like the idea of playing a meta where the "comeptition for a mega slot" argument is completely thrown out the window, which allows mega evolutions such as Mega Latios/Latias, Mega Zam, Mega Aggron, and Mega Doom to prove how amazing they are. It'd just be very interesting to see if a previously B rank mega such as Mega Latios sky rocket in viability when it is thrown into a metagame where it's practically a stand alone Pokemon and can be slapped onto a team without having to worry about restricting you from using other megas. Even though there are a shit ton of mega evolutions and it would take time to slowly introduce them, I guarantee it would show very interesting results and could potentially guide us to a better OU metagame. I for one, am all for this idea, and I think it needs to happen. If we go through with this though, I feel like first introducing the less prominent megas is a better idea, just to see if they turn out to be centralizing despite their lower viability in the actual OU meta.
So, the reintroduction of Megas (if that's a thing that will definitely happen) will be in order of ascending viability? I admit, it would be pretty cool to see everyone having to worry about Mega Abomasnow and Mega Aggron.
So I started playing competitively in XY so I've always played with Megas. This seems like a really neat idea, and I was wondering for when you do add a few Megas: can you adjust the game mechanic? Instead of allowing only one mega, could you introduce some low viability ones and allow them all to have no opportunity cost and see how that meta shapes out? By this I mean allow unlimited Megas per team, but only after releasing low viability ones such as Aggron and Abomasnow. I'm doing a no mega teambuilding today and I was just thinking about the possibilities we can have.
No to unlimited Megas, because you can't do that in the original games. You may have multiple Pokemon with Mega Stones, but only Mega Evolve one Pokemon for each battle.
For unlimited Megas, you should check the Other Metagames forum, which I think has a thread with this premise.
the lesser amount of fairies seems to kick all dragon and dark types up to the forefront too, not only latios and bisharp
Go Coballion, no seriously he is a very good answer to Bisharp and actually benefits from knock off.
Actually I'd say Chesnaught is a better Knock Off because It doesn't lose to SD+Low Kick.
You know, it would be interesting to see dealing with Megas the same way as with Ubers (or potential Ubers) - in suspect tests. Most Megas have BSTs comparable to Uber behemots with similar power or bulk while also not dealing with some nasty repercusions (like Life Orb recoil) or Knock Off weakness. To be honest when you think about it - why it didn't happen in first place ? Why Megas are power, bulk and BST wise as strong as Ubers in many cases and not threatened the same way as them (and literally they have free ticket to OU unlike Ubers which officially must have official suspect tests to even get a chance to end up in OU). Just to be clear - I don't suggest it and I don't do it just to cause a ruckus (and I don't believe in this conspiracy bullcrap with introduction of this), so don't read it this way. But when you think about it... this kind of thought makes at least a bit of sense, for me at least. And would be a fun subject to discuss.
Megas also have a high opportunity cost and a certain degree of predictability due to their inability to run items, which is not the case with non-mega ubers.
While I admit this is true and I don't deny those facts, some of them are so good that running team without them puts you at clear disadvantage making your team far weaker without them, making that opportunity cost less significant IMO (but this is probably just my standalone opinion). And predictibility doesn't matter as much when you are already great at what you do.
I really like the idea that it's not going to replace the normal ladder, as it allows players to use both teams with Mega Evolutions and teams without, and I personally believe that this is a great idea. Honestly if this gets enough positive feedback, it'd be great to see this tier be kept alongside the standard OU one!
Actually, it's perfectly viable to run a mega-less team in the normal OU ladder. It's just that the megas fill so many different roles, it causes that the majority of teams will welcome one, and the ones where megas do not fit in are so specific they are almost never seen. My own team is an example of this (and it's the reason it's going up so quickly on the new tier, being designed to beat behemoths like megagross, and now being able to go wild free, turns it pretty dangerous atm).
Since I never played this, I'm gonna post my initial thoughts and then edit my thoughts after I played the ladder.
Initial Thoughts:
It wont be that similar to the BW ladder. from what I heard, people are just rehashing BW teams. With no Megas, however, the meta will not be centered around one mon. We will not need to run checks and counters to other Megas, obviously. I do feel like the meta at first will seem really bad because people will have no innovation whatsoever. However, the meta has developed enough to make it actually hard to ladder. Now, a few pokemon that I know will be decently overpowered will probably include Excadrill, just rips through everything in general, Lando I, Mega Scizor isnt useable, and a few other Megas that threaten it, Knock Off obviously will wreak havoc, with great users like Bisharp and such. With this being said, Stall will probably get the best outcome because they dont have to worry about things like Gardevoir and the likes, but it will still need to worry about Gengar and such. Still, Stall will seem as a semi bigger threat. Balance and HO will be much better because they dont have to worry about powerful mega evolutions and really can do things much easier. Fairies will see more usage, even though HO lost all their good fairies. a MMeta less meta will be interesting for HO too, and that will change the odds of the meta. I'll edit this later.
I have been laddering for 4 days i think and i got to #1. Tbh the ladder is really bad atm with stuff like scizor holding no item or perhaps its mega stone idk. I feel like i cant say much about this ladder because it needs more time and more people to play on it. But from what i have seen, knock off is just really strong, since there are no mega venusaur, sableye etc that can totally absorve it. Its great for HO because no mega diancie or sableye means you can have your dedicated lead azelf with taunt sr explosion and, in my case, knock off and not having to run skill swap and predict around the mega evo. I think terrakion could be a good mon in this type of environment due to the lost of some checks. A lure for gliscor, landorus or tank garchomp with hp ice its cool and can allow talonflame to potentially sweep, since terak also smacks heatran, severely weakens rotom-W and there is no mega man or diancie to stop tflame. At the same time, it acts like a pseudo knock off absorber, loosing its item, but getting a boost in atk. Also, this meta shoudnt be gen 5 at all, due to the weather nerf, the dark and ghost boost and the addition of fairies. All in all, i think the idea of an ou ladder without megas is cool and takes a lot of pressure from teambuilding, not having to worry about common stuff like zard x at plus 1 or mega metagross.
This thread is still a general No Mega ladder discussion right?
The ease in speed creep is actually pretty noticable. While it is easier to look at Zard-X, Gard, Gross and the like being gone and looking at the ease in teambuilding from that perspective, the loss of the 135+ group, and even Pidgeot and the 115s to an extent, have impacted building. In past generations, to get to a level where you are above the whole meta speed tier wise, you were either weak strength-wise (see, Crobat and Jolteon), locked into a move by Choice Scarf, relied on external factors (ie weather sweepers, most of whom were given the boot in gen 5), or they had to get rid of coverage for the sake of a speed boosting move (example, AgiliCross). Now, in XY? You've got Manectric, Sceptile, Lopunny and others running wild. These things have great speed tiers, decent power, and usually great coverage. Not that these things are even close to broken perse, and hard stall can handle them pretty well and they all have viable hard counters. But balanced and bulky offense? Those builds often have to bend in some pretty interesting ways to even check all that fast stuff in addition to other straight up wallbreakers. It's pretty frustrating that once you've built a squad that can check all the big bashers in OU, you go out and run into Mega Zam, Mega Houndoom or Mega Sceptile and it rips this supposedly well-built squad wide open. Any balanced player knows this feeling all to well. None of these Megas are themselves remotely close to broken but the combination of the fast, wide coverage Megas, combined with the insanely powerful wallbreaking Megas, further combined with powerful Legendaries like Keldeo and Landrous starts to paint a picture of the so called "match-up problem" that exists today.
In a related note, the Weaviles and Torn-Ts of the world are doing pretty well. LO Zam is a pretty great cleaner as well. Offensive Starmie and Raikou look more effective than they are on the real ladder, and that's saying something with how good they are on there. Overall I'm really liking this ladder, and this experiment has some real potential to learn more about what exactly the general stat creep does to the metagame.
The ease in speed creep is actually pretty noticable. While it is easier to look at Zard-X, Gard, Gross and the like being gone and looking at the ease in teambuilding from that perspective, the loss of the 135+ group, and even Pidgeot and the 115s to an extent, have impacted building. In past generations, to get to a level where you are above the whole meta speed tier wise, you were either weak strength-wise (see, Crobat and Jolteon), locked into a move by Choice Scarf, relied on external factors (ie weather sweepers, most of whom were given the boot in gen 5), or they had to get rid of coverage for the sake of a speed boosting move (example, AgiliCross). Now, in XY? You've got Manectric, Sceptile, Lopunny and others running wild. These things have great speed tiers, decent power, and usually great coverage. Not that these things are even close to broken perse, and hard stall can handle them pretty well and they all have viable hard counters. But balanced and bulky offense? Those builds often have to bend in some pretty interesting ways to even check all that fast stuff in addition to other straight up wallbreakers. It's pretty frustrating that once you've built a squad that can check all the big bashers in OU, you go out and run into Mega Zam, Mega Houndoom or Mega Sceptile and it rips this supposedly well-built squad wide open. Any balanced player knows this feeling all to well. None of these Megas are themselves remotely close to broken but the combination of the fast, wide coverage Megas, combined with the insanely powerful wallbreaking Megas, further combined with powerful Legendaries like Keldeo and Landrous starts to paint a picture of the so called "match-up problem" that exists today.
In a related note, the Weaviles and Torn-Ts of the world are doing pretty well. LO Zam is a pretty great cleaner as well. Offensive Starmie and Raikou look more effective than they are on the real ladder, and that's saying something with how good they are on there. Overall I'm really liking this ladder, and this experiment has some real potential to learn more about what exactly the general stat creep does to the metagame.
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I really love this meta I'm addicted already. I love how crazy good Bisharp is right now. The large majority of my sweeps come from Bisharp. I have to say though I haven't really seen that many teams I'm all that impressed with. I figured I would see with the team I'm using how forretress could fit into the meta because I love using it as a hazard setter/remover. I'm iffy on it right now, but it seems like it could be usable.
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The thing is, the point of the OU(NO MEGA) ladder is to have ou with NO MEGAS. Reintroducing megas makes it feel like certain mega's are being stealth banned and it is also a very slippery slope. For the reintroduction to work well, there would need to be a set limit to the amount of megas that can be reintroduced at all and it would ruin the whole point of this experimental ladder. Maybe there could be OU(Less Megas) if that's what y'all really want. However that would still very much feel like(and basically be) stealth banning controversial megas that aren't banned.
Reintroducing the mega evolutions makes this less of a stand-alone ladder and makes it seem more like a way of testing the UU suspect procedure at the OU level. Right now the ladder isn't that popular and reintroducing the mega evolutions will defeat the purpose for people who do play on this ladder. I think people would be more open to playing on this ladder if the powers that be would just shoot down the possibility of reintroducing mega evolutions and end the conspiracy theories.
But it doesn't defeat the purpose of the ladder, considering that in the OP itself it states that Mega evolutions may be re introduced back into the metagame but not all at once. Obviously if the intent of the ladder was to see be a completely stand alone ladder with zero megas, then the possibility of bringing back some megas wouldn't have been mentioned at all in the OP. That's not just some random idea I came up with lol. I'm assuming by slowly adding back megas, we can get a better idea on how restrictive/megas are when they're brought into a metagame that lacks competition for a mega slot, which could potentially give us an idea on potential suspect/bans in the future.
Just saying...
Putting megas in a no mega latter defeats the point.
We wanted to see a meta with no megas. Even if you put in Mega Banette it defeats the point.
However, if they do decide to ignore the (No Megas) title and put in megas to see how it affects the mega less meta would be interesting.
But still, if you're putting in meh megas like Zam and Aero, they probably wont impact the meta that much as they dont really promote over centralization...
I'm interested in the idea.
Putting megas in a no mega latter defeats the point.
We wanted to see a meta with no megas. Even if you put in Mega Banette it defeats the point.
However, if they do decide to ignore the (No Megas) title and put in megas to see how it affects the mega less meta would be interesting.
But still, if you're putting in meh megas like Zam and Aero, they probably wont impact the meta that much as they dont really promote over centralization...
I'm interested in the idea.
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