Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3

[RoyalDispenser]

Hazards and HDB have been a back and forth problem since gen 8, and they've been a problem all gen 9.

Way I see is even if gholdengo/gliscor are broken in a vacuum, getting rid of them doesn't suddenly fix hazards, it'd be the same outcome as banning scolipede instead of baton pass, you killed off the major contributor to it, but it still exist and requires the same amount of effort to deal with.

Problem is there's just no good hazard removal in the tier... Great Tusk borderline matches gholdengo as it threatens him, but otherwise there really isn't a lot in the tier that can rapid spin without making you look silly, cryagonel and lurantis aren't going to become viable removers when gholdengo leaves, tusk will still be the only good removal. Corv gets a little more viable, that's about it.

Idc about gholdengo cause his design is stupid and smogon can't even give him a surf board to look somewhat cool, but this does feel like we're trying the easy but not real solution out (common theme with the council this gen) of suspecting gholdengo instead of hazards which could be argued as a problem for years... I'd rather see we discussed hazards as a whole instead of point fingers.

Gliscor i'm only fine with cause I like seeing stall seethe, fuck you. Has nothing to do with hazards though.

 

[Welcome to mars]

most peaceful gen 9 ou discussion

 

[BobbyHill]

I agree that standalone Gholdengo is a big threat with NP sets and even Trick sets to a lesser degree. It is bolstered further by its ability that dictates team construction and gameplay a greater amount than I can really put into words. And it will 100% be included on tiering surveys.

But for the reasons I explain here, I much prefer suspecting Gliscor first. I intend to give it a 5 on the survey and Gholdengo probably a 3.

That’s fair, but the post makes it sound like Ghold is 5th or 6th on the list and I think it should be higher than that.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

I agree that standalone Gholdengo is a big threat with NP sets and even Trick sets to a lesser degree. It is bolstered further by its ability that dictates team construction and gameplay a greater amount than I can really put into words. And it will 100% be included on tiering surveys.

But for the reasons I explain here, I much prefer suspecting Gliscor first. I intend to give it a 5 on the survey and Gholdengo probably a 3.

Well said, honestly I'm getting more and more into the idea of a Ghold suspect after Gliscor is dealt with, specifically with these two sets you've mentioned here, the fact that they have completely opposite counterplay is really threatening, stall can't safely use Blissey (even with the option to Tera dark) out of fear of Trick, and Nasty Plot and Psyshock as well as the Trick threat mean you don't really have a realistic chance of scouting it out without Blissey getting a scarf since Blissey loses if it nasty plots on the turn you expect the trick onto someone else then nasty plots again on the switch into Blissey. In short you can't really scarf Ghold without it messing your team up badly. I was able to win this matchup this morning after Blissey got scarfed with very careful Clefable gameplay but it was very nerve wracking and i only succeeded because my opponent made a poorly timed shadow ball expecting a switch

Hazards and HDB have been a back and forth problem since gen 8, and they've been a problem all gen 9.

Way I see is even if gholdengo/gliscor are broken in a vacuum, getting rid of them doesn't suddenly fix hazards, it'd be the same outcome as banning scolipede instead of baton pass, you killed off the major contributor to it, but it still exist and requires the same amount of effort to deal with.

Problem is there's just no good hazard removal in the tier... Great Tusk borderline matches gholdengo as it threatens him, but otherwise there really isn't a lot in the tier that can rapid spin without making you look silly, cryagonel and lurantis aren't going to become viable removers when gholdengo leaves, tusk will still be the only good removal. Corv gets a little more viable, that's about it.

Idc about gholdengo cause his design is stupid and smogon can't even give him a surf board to look somewhat cool, but this does feel like we're trying the easy but not real solution out (common theme with the council this gen) of suspecting gholdengo instead of hazards which could be argued as a problem for years... I'd rather see we discussed hazards as a whole instead of point fingers.

Gliscor i'm only fine with cause I like seeing stall seethe, fuck you. Has nothing to do with hazards though.

Most of this is pretty incoherent but I want to point out stall doesn't seethe due to Gliscor, in fact stall loves using Gliscor, the worst thing about Gliscor for stall is when you get locked into a Gliscor mirror because it's incredibly boring and pointless and takes forever, and that's really not the type of gamplay someone who "wants to see stall seethe" would ever want to be part of the game

 

[Alternator]

I do think one or both of Gliscor and Gholdengo has to go. However, I think the real problem this generation is the distribution of hazards vs the distribution of defog being incredibly skewed to the former, and to some extent that’s not something we can fix. All we can do is remove the most powerful setters and removal deterrents and hope it works out for the best unless Game Freak throws us a bone in DLC2 and gives us a Defog TM.

Ding ding ding.

Banning Gholdengo boosts Corviknight and that's it, it'll replace one centralizing mon with another. It's been asked before and brushed off with variations on "Corviknight is enough," but serious question:

What other removal is Gholdengor pushing out of OU?

Gliscor has made Great Tusk much worse at spinning because you're setup bait without Ice Spinner, which pushes Bulk Up, Fighting STAB, and Knock Off down - Ground STAB and Rapid Spin are mandatory, so now there's four moves for an offensive Tusk to pick from and only two slots to use. More defensive sets don't care about Bulk Up, but they like Stealth Rock, so still have problems fitting everything.

Gliscor laughs at Cinderace, just setting up more spikes in its face while casually healing off its damage and eventually clicking Earthquake.

Removing Gliscor actually improves variety in hazard removal more than removing Gholdengo.

 

[Welcome to mars]

Ding ding ding.

Banning Gholdengo boosts Corviknight and that's it, it'll replace one centralizing mon with another. It's been asked before and brushed off with variations on "Corviknight is enough," but serious question:

What other removal is Gholdengor pushing out of OU?

Gliscor has made Great Tusk much worse at spinning because you're setup bait without Ice Spinner, which pushes Bulk Up, Fighting STAB, and Knock Off down - Ground STAB and Rapid Spin are mandatory, so now there's four moves for an offensive Tusk to pick from and only two slots to use. More defensive sets don't care about Bulk Up, but they like Stealth Rock, so still have problems fitting everything.

Gliscor laughs at Cinderace, just setting up more spikes in its face while casually healing off its damage and eventually clicking Earthquake.

Removing Gliscor actually improves variety in hazard removal more than removing Gholdengo.

Not saying that gliscor is 100% fine but sashed ribombee + non choice item gholdengo make sticky web hard to get off the field since ribombee has traits that make it the central sticky web setter which is really bad for offensive teams in general , so i think Thats what people who say ban gholdengo mean

 

[Napoli Burns]

Hide

an attempt to contribute to the discussion

i contribuited to the discussion by explaining why voting 5 stars is stupid; as a community, i think we decided the real issues are spikes and hazard control: there is no reason to decide to vote 5 to every option without even knowing what the option will be: this is trying to manipulate the votes

for example voting 5 on manaphy makes no sense, even if it is really strong, even banning him won't solve the hazard problem

kissing up to the council

last 2 home suspects ended up in no bans (gambit, zama)
last 2 dlc suspects ended up with two bans (ursa, rm)

is really easy understand council listens to the community and they do what we ask since both bans got so much support. The ww suspect for example was made too early, same for the tera one. That's why is totally stupid sabotage a survey since they improved a lot. Same for the two quickbans, council smartly decided to save time and quick rather than do a suspect.

blatant trolling

i play rby adv bw2 xy ss and sv, i have no time to do tours imagine trying to troll in a forum like someone does

 

[Morkal]

Roaring Moon is banned: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-suspect-process-round-7-voting.3730358/#post-9839003

I remember people calling me a silly billy earlier in Gen 9 for wanting Roaring Moon to get the sussybaka test; this mon was always insane. Gliscor should be up next, lil' demon bat be wildin'

I'm still not sure how I feel about Gholdengo - on one hand, every one of its sets can easily be handled with the right team comp (including off-kilter Tera picks), but on the other hand, you can't prepare for every Gholdengo set on a single team build (and there are a LOT of viable Gholdengo sets). Personally, I think Gholdengo's interactions with the hazard metagame are arguably somewhat healthy, but I understand I'm in the minority on that. I still think Gholdengo is about a 3 or so - it might get a little worse with RM banished to the Uber realm, so I'm keepin' my eye out.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

i contribuited to the discussion by explaining why voting 5 stars is stupid; as a community, i think we decided the real issues are spikes and hazard control: there is no reason to decide to vote 5 to every option without even knowing what the option will be: this is trying to manipulate the votes

frankly, the survey should also ask people to rank the mons against each other. like, "out of these mons, which would you prioritize action against first, second, etc", which would prevent this sort of so-called "manipulation"

 

[Morkal]

frankly, the survey should also ask people to rank the mons against each other. like, "out of these mons, which would you prioritize action against first, second, etc", which would prevent this sort of so-called "manipulation"

Honestly, I think this could be an interesting idea to add onto tiering surveys - being able to 1-5 the Pokemon's metagame health individually while also being able to compare the mons to one another would provide additional metric data as to how people as a whole are feeling about certain Pokemon (for example - if the average of Gholdengo was a 3 and Manaphy was a 4, but Gholdengo was voted far more as a whole despite its lower rating, that might indicate the need to suspect Gholdengo first). The more data we have, the better, especially with how divisive Gen 9's competitive mechanics have been.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Honestly, I think this could be an interesting idea to add onto tiering surveys - being able to 1-5 the Pokemon's metagame health individually while also being able to compare the mons to one another would provide additional metric data as to how people as a whole are feeling about certain Pokemon (for example - if the average of Gholdengo was a 3 and Manaphy was a 4, but Gholdengo was voted far more as a whole despite its lower rating, that might indicate the need to suspect Gholdengo first). The more data we have, the better, especially with how divisive Gen 9's competitive mechanics have been.

especially if two mons are tied or within the margin of error of each other—several mons were close enough on the last survey that it would be difficult to say which one the community would want action against first, so adding a ranked-choice option could give a clearer answer in those cases

 

[Ihatestall]

Gliscor is more oppressive than gholdengo, change my mind

 

[Dhrabb]

Idc about gholdengo cause his design is stupid and smogon can't even give him a surf board to look somewhat cool,

Try turning the gen 5 sprites on and face a Ghold, you're in for a surprise :)

 

[Turtleye_]

I remember people calling me a silly billy earlier in Gen 9 for wanting Roaring Moon to get the sussybaka test; this mon was always insane. Gliscor should be up next, lil' demon bat be wildin'

English wasn't meant to construct these sentences man

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

cryagonel and lurantis aren't going to become viable removers when gholdengo leaves, tusk will still be the only good removal. Corv gets a little more viable, that's about it.

ok, this is just not right. corv would skyrocket in usage without ghold holding it back. scizor and mandibuzz might end up seeing more usage too—mandibuzz in particular is actually pretty good outside of her awful ghold matchup and has great bulk and lots of useful tools. also, glimmora will feel a lot more comfortable dedicating a slot to mortal spin, cinderace is already good removal (even though it doesn't actually remove things per se), and geezing would be able to more easily run levitate instead of neutralizing gas without the three biggest abusers of their abilities (ghold/gliscor/gambit) and has a good enough matchup spread that it could end up as a solid defogger in a more balanced meta

 

[RS25802580]

Ding ding ding.

Banning Gholdengo boosts Corviknight and that's it, it'll replace one centralizing mon with another. It's been asked before and brushed off with variations on "Corviknight is enough," but serious question:

What other removal is Gholdengor pushing out of OU?

Gliscor has made Great Tusk much worse at spinning because you're setup bait without Ice Spinner, which pushes Bulk Up, Fighting STAB, and Knock Off down - Ground STAB and Rapid Spin are mandatory, so now there's four moves for an offensive Tusk to pick from and only two slots to use. More defensive sets don't care about Bulk Up, but they like Stealth Rock, so still have problems fitting everything.

Gliscor laughs at Cinderace, just setting up more spikes in its face while casually healing off its damage and eventually clicking Earthquake.

Removing Gliscor actually improves variety in hazard removal more than removing Gholdengo.

Gholdengo is absolutely suppressing Tusk's ability to rapid spin freely. Some food for thought:

Say your opponent has a Ghold and has set max spikes up on you. You have a Great Tusk. You can’t click spin because Ghold can come in. So you click knock on the balloon Ghold switchin and it eats the hit for 45% because it’s physdef. You go to EQ the Ghold but Waterpon switches in. Or the Ghold stays in and teras Ghost and recovers. The spikes still stay up on your side!

In past gens, hazard stack teams would often run a bulky ghost type to block rapid spin and a defiant/competitive mon to punish defog. For the first time, Gholdengo compresses both of these roles. This frees up an extra slot on hazard stack teams to run another one of the many sweepers this gen has to offer, making them far more overwhelming than in a Gholdless meta.

Freeing up Corviknight as a defogger is not such a small deal. Not counting niche picks, past gens tend to feature only a handful (3-5) viable/splashable hazard removers. In a Gholdless meta, this "core" would be Corviknight, Tusk, and Cinderace. Ghold suppresses hazard removal from 2/3 of these mons.

With Ghold banned, Corv would see massive use as a Defogger with Pressure to outlast Gliscor's spikes. Corv is already seeing no small usage as a slow pivot into Gliscor. With unblocked Defog, it will singlehandedly become the splashable Gliscor answer that the tier lacks right now.

The effects of banning Ghold go beyond making Glisc easier to manage via Corviknight. In isolation, a Gliscor ban does nothing to address potent Ghold + Web teams. Also, let's keep in mind that people were complaining about hazards even before DC1. In the wake of a Gliscor ban, it'll just be replaced by Ting Lu as a bulky setter and Hamurott as an offensive one. While I think a Gliscor ban will make things better, I don't think it will move the needle as much as people hope when it comes to the hazards game.

I believe that both Gliscor and Ghold merit a suspect. I would personally prefer Ghold to be suspected first for some of the reasons elaborated above. But given the recent poll, for the better or worse it seems that Glisc will be the first suspect.

In the long game, if/when Gambit is banned, Gholdengo will be under even more scrutiny and will probably be banned at that point. So on the bright side, I see a healthy hazards meta evolving in the wake of DC2.

 

[Morkal]

English wasn't meant to construct these sentences man

I'm mentally unhinged and ready to cringe.

I have to say though, I've been enjoying how Tusk has been on the back burner as of late; one of the few benefits to this wild meta - Tusk is having to become more specialized in order to handle Gholdengo. Assault Vest Tusk is quite a bit of fun, especially when paired with Gholdengo itself - they both threaten each other while also complimenting each other.

 

[Blaze_101392]

especially if two mons are tied or within the margin of error of each other—several mons were close enough on the last survey that it would be difficult to say which one the community would want action against first, so adding a ranked-choice option could give a clearer answer in those cases

The numbers for people that don't remember them.

• Roaring Moon was a 3.68 / 5
• Gliscor was a 3.39 / 5
• Manaphy was a 3.37 / 5
• Kingambit was a 3.28 / 5
• Ogerpon-Wellspring was a 3.22 / 5
• Gholdengo was a 3.11 / 5
• Sneasler was a 2.22 / 5

Yea, Gli and Manaphy were in a virtual tie and King and Well weren't that far behind. The fact that the viability of certain Pokemon will change with Mence 3.0 now banned means while Gli is the current focus the priority could change depending on if its removal lets other problematic elements become more popular. We probably have at least a week before the next suspect happens just to let the meta develop a little and it will probably end up being Gli, but something to keep in mind.

 

[Deathbringer7]

ok, this is just not right. corv would skyrocket in usage without ghold holding it back. scizor and mandibuzz might end up seeing more usage too—mandibuzz in particular is actually pretty good outside of her awful ghold matchup and has great bulk and lots of useful tools. also, glimmora will feel a lot more comfortable dedicating a slot to mortal spin, cinderace is already good removal (even though it doesn't actually remove things per se), and geezing would be able to more easily run levitate instead of neutralizing gas without the three biggest abusers of their abilities (ghold/gliscor/gambit) and has a good enough matchup spread that it could end up as a solid defogger in a more balanced meta

Assuming this post is taking just Ghold being banned and not Gliscor, I disagree. Gliscor just runs Taunt + Toxic variants that beat all defoggers, Tusk and Cinder would still struggle into Glisc. And asking Glimm to Mortal Spin more than once a game is asking too much of it. Honestly this just illustrates the problem that BOTH NEED to be banned.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Assuming this post is taking just Ghold being banned and not Gliscor, I disagree. Gliscor just runs Taunt + Toxic variants that beat all defoggers, Tusk and Cinder would still struggle into Glisc. And asking Glimm to Mortal Spin more than once a game is asking too much of it. Honestly this just illustrates the problem that BOTH NEED to be banned.

oh yeah, it's definitely both, not just ghold, that need to go. the original post claimed that if both went hazards would still be a problem, and i disagree with that. i just want to dispel of this narrative that banning both gliscor and ghold is somehow not the correct move

 

[bhkg]

So after hitting 1900s again on the ladder and starting to do better in tours I'd like to state why I think gliscor is so problematic it basically has to much constraint on the builder when you think of all gliscor does amd what answers it nothing really gliscor vs gliscor is mostly a stalemate unless your sd overall it still leads to games being who built to handle the war of attrition better. I have seen people use worry seed amonguss to get gliscor off the field which still loses to knock +spikes in the long run but hey atleast it forces it out I've been testing things like taunt rillaboom corvknight weezing g with gas and they did alright but it felt like the team suffered overall and when im building anything new it feels the lengths im trying to go to slow gliscor down is unreasonable.


As for ghold I really never thought this mon was unhealthy I dont doubt its Impact but before gliscor dropped you could get away with running tusk +ace or tusk +torkoal or glim +tusk, corv+tusk and corv+ace etc but thats much harder to do these days since gliscor puts to much pressure on these builds. Look back before dlc with ting lu and samurott the reason they were much easier to remove on and deal with is because they lacked longevity and were vunerable to being crippled by knock, status and spikes unlike gliscor the difference with how much they set up in game is night and day. Anyway for people who complain about how ghold blocking hazard removal its not really stopping much outside of two defoggers corv and mandi one of those is bad most of the spinners that will ever touch ou can already touch it unless quaquaval or tsareena is gonna rise but yeah tork, tusk, glim, toed and treads already touch it so the only thing you get with this gone is a slightly easier spin and defog. through ppl will just start using rockers that beat mandi and corv anyway.

 

[Soiramio3000]

So roaring moon got the banhammer.
I am cool with that.
I just wish we voted something else instead.
don't get me wrong, I am not trying to defend moon but I just get the feeling that it could wait a little since there are other pokemon that seem more problematic.

how long until the next voting?

I just want the forums to stop being on fire.

 

[MattC (Banned)]

Oh hey guys whats up with OU-

 

[Weirdhamster]

With a lot of stuff going around and getting banned recently, I’d like to talk about a contender to get unbanned from Ubers. Volcarona has always been a pick to get dropped from Ubers, it was quickbanned right before wcop, and started a lot of controversy around the community at the time. However, with DLC 1 being a good way into its release, we have a whole new metagame where Volcarona might not be that broken.

A lot of pokemom that people have been complaining about are often checked by Volcarona. Gambit can no longer fire off free kowtow cleaves unless it opts for tera fire, in which case it would be sacrificing the Great Tusk matchup. Iron Valiant has a harder time to steamroll teams, and Gholdengo can be argued to be checked, but it still doesn’t solve the root issue of blocking defog, so you can’t really count that.

Even though it may seem like Volcarona would be a good drop for the tier, you still have to take in consideration how it would fare offensively. Arguably the biggest reason Volcarona was broken was tera. By picking and choosing teras, it could virtually beat anything. Question is if this is as bad right now. Looking at the roster of pokemon right now, it wouldn’t be crazy to drop Volcarona. With stuff like Heatran, Dragonite, Dragapult, Gliscor, and Toxapex running around, it doesn’t seem too crazy to unban Volcarona. While tera is still an argument for keeping it banned, it can still be an argument to not have it banned. After all, both sides can use tera. Even though Volcarona can use tera water tera blast to shred through Heatran and Gliscor, they can also in return tera fire or fairy respectively, and heavily crippling Volcarona.

I’m keeping this briefer than usual, but with so many set up sweepers getting banned, or being on the radar, I would heavily encourage the council to take a look at Volcarona. If Volcarona isn’t broken, but checks big threats in the tier, it should be considered to be unbanned rather than banning everything else instead.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I just want the forums to stop being on fire.

see, this is why the volcarona argument doesn't work. letting ghold and gliscor and gambit stay in the tier for this long has generated more outrage and toxicity than it would if they'd quickbanned them all two weeks ago