Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[Return to Zero]

Seriously though, the argument I made at first actually addressed this

my argument THERE was addressing how we shouldn't use a small unbroken minority as justification to not ban sleep/ohko moves.

In the quote you responded to I was responding to June Heat to prove that not every OHKO user is broken.

I understand your point. I just don't think it's equivalent. OHKO moves are 30% rolls on whether or not the opponent faints, and not accounting for immunities, the only thing in either player's control is who goes first that turn. It doesn't even matter what mon uses the OHKO move because both results never change. Sleep moves? Grass types are immune to the best one, there are items that cure sleep, there are abilities that prevent it like Putifying Salt, the mon can potentially wake up, the mon can potentially wake up early and ruin the attempt to set up. Sleep is not nearly as strong an effect as outright KOing the opponent and there's a whole lot more in your control that can prevent or mitigate it.

I am sorry about saying to feel bad, though. I wrote that post like right as I woke up and reading it back now it's way more aggro than I meant for it to be. I still like you, Lokix's Strongest Soldier.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

I understand your point. I just don't think it's equivalent. OHKO moves are 30% rolls on whether or not the opponent faints, and not accounting for immunities, the only thing in either player's control is who goes first that turn. It doesn't even matter what mon uses the OHKO move because both results never change. Sleep moves? Grass types are immune to the best one, there are items that cure sleep, there are abilities that prevent it like Putifying Salt, the mon can potentially wake up, the mon can potentially wake up early and ruin the attempt to set up. Sleep is not nearly as strong an effect as outright KOing the opponent and there's a whole lot more in your control that can prevent or mitigate it.

I am sorry about saying to feel bad, though. I wrote that post like right as I woke up and reading it back now it's way more aggro than I meant for it to be. I still like you, Lokix's Strongest Soldier.

OHKO moves? Flying types are immune to the most common one, Revival Blessing reverses fainting, there are abilities that can prevent it like Sturdy, and so on. You people will never win with a "ohko moves are different" argument because they really aren't. "You can wake up" not always! Sometimes 3 turns pass! You have no control over that!

 

[Divine Retribution]

Will edit this post to make it forum appropriate.

What is the council doing with Deoxys-S? This is failure to adapt to the metagame. If your game was lost by the first turn, council, Light Screen Deoxys-S should be the play.

Deo-S has been brought up multiple times by council members (literally just ctrl+f Deoxys in this thread to read some of the broader discussions about it). Currently the focus is on Darkrai and sleep moves broadly, once that is dealt with one way or another Deo-S and a few others will no doubt get a closer look.

That said, if you lost turn one to a Screens lead Deo-S, your team probably has other problems that need to be sorted out. Deo-S is a ridiculously versatile Pokemon that can be very hard to play around until you know its set. but there are dozens of other mons that can set screens just as well as it can. It's just one option of several that it can run.

 

[Conflux123]

There is not a single Normal Type in OU. That's kinda crazy when you think about it.

At least blissey is extremely used on stall teams.

 

[Heatranator]

Deo-S has been brought up multiple times by council members (literally just ctrl+f Deoxys in this thread to read some of the broader discussions about it). Currently the focus is on Darkrai and sleep moves broadly, once that is dealt with one way or another Deo-S and a few others will no doubt get a closer look.

That said, if you lost turn one to a Screens lead Deo-S, your team probably has other problems that need to be sorted out. Deo-S is a ridiculously versatile Pokemon that can be very hard to play around until you know its set. but there are dozens of other mons that can set screens just as well as it can. It's just one option of several that it can run.

Expanding on that, for most Deo-S once you see their first move, you most likely know the set. If they don't come out first, then you know it is most likely a sweeper set. If they click a screen, then they are dual screens. If they click spikes, then they are a hazard laying threat. Although Deo-S can do multiple things, it can't do it all at once. Due to its extreme fraility, 50/90/90 is quite frail, if you hit it really hard, it will most likely only get two turns.
Deo-S is great, but it can be predictable once it clicks a move, there may be some differences like future sight or superpower, but those are not too hard to work around. Mons with priority or multi-hit moves are good against it, so stuff like rillaboom, meowscarada, dragonite, weavile, and hamurott do well against it. If you can't deal with a lead mon effectively, you aren't really making a good team.

 

[Conflux123]

OHKO moves? Flying types are immune to the most common one, Revival Blessing reverses fainting, there are abilities that can prevent it like Sturdy, and so on. You people will never win with a "ohko moves are different" argument because they really aren't. "You can wake up" not always! Sometimes 3 turns pass! You have no control over that!

I just think that both should be banned. I do think that there is more counter play to sleep though. Stall has sleep absorbers and generally you can try to predict a sleep move. With OHKO moves the counterplay is limited because revival blessing is rare, and sturdy is basically unused.

 

[Conflux123]

Expanding on that, for most Deo-S once you see their first move, you most likely know the set. If they don't come out first, then you know it is most likely a sweeper set. If they click a screen, then they are dual screens. If they click spikes, then they are a hazard laying threat. Although Deo-S can do multiple things, it can't do it all at once. Due to its extreme fraility, 50/90/90 is quite frail, if you hit it really hard, it will most likely only get two turns.
Deo-S is great, but it can be predictable once it clicks a move, there may be some differences like future sight or superpower, but those are not too hard to work around. Mons with priority or multi-hit moves are good against it, so stuff like rillaboom, meowscarada, dragonite, weavile, and hamurott do well against it. If you can't deal with a lead mon effectively, you aren't really making a good team.

Yup. I completely agree. If someone is using a sash suicide lead deo and you have major problems with it, change up your team. Often many teams will have something that can anti lead deo with strong priority and setup moves since you can even prevent your opponent from setting up hazards if they are forced to taunt you first. Where it gets difficult is the first move. If they lead with it and you expect a suicide lead but it’s a nasty plot set, that can be really nasty to have to deal with. Most teams should only suffer checks being chipped though.

 

[Conflux123]

My own opinion on the OHKO moves and sleep moves ban are just that OHKO moves should be banned and that sleep moves banned on common abusers of it, just like shed tail on orthworm was. This way it lets things that use spore in a balanced way like amoonguss to keep using it and abusers that make the game less skill based lose it. I’m not saying sleep is overpowered on darkrai, I’m saying that it takes away from the skill component of the game when it comes down to rng, and we should be maximising the skill component of the game.

 

[Return to Zero]

OHKO moves? Flying types are immune to the most common one, Revival Blessing reverses fainting, there are abilities that can prevent it like Sturdy, and so on. You people will never win with a "ohko moves are different" argument because they really aren't. "You can wake up" not always! Sometimes 3 turns pass! You have no control over that!

Please make a real argument. What you're doing right now is coming up with every fringe example possible to try and equate things that are extremely different both in effect and how they can be countered. There is literally, objectively, genuinely no counterplay to the opponent using Fissure other than having a Flying type or someone with Sturdy/Damp on your team. You don't? Who wins or loses in RNG's hands because in that turn you and the opponent have absolutely zero control over the game. The most you can do is maybe go first if you're faster or switch out to something else you'd be willing to sack. This is why OHKO moves are uncompetitive and banned, they're a degenerate strategy that removes all interaction and skill from the game.

Sleep moves though? Not only are there multiple items and abilities that stop it as oppose to literally just one ability that has two names, there are ways to deal with it without them! Grass types block Spore, the best sleep move. Switch in something you don't need and have that roll the Hypnosis dice. Bring in a Rest Talk mon. Get creative. And if the opponent does put one of your mons to sleep? It's not fainted. It's in a bad position, but it's not straight up gone like Fissure would have done to it. You can wait out the sleep turns, bring it in against something that can't threaten it to do so. The opponent's as likely to get screwed over by you waking up early and ruining their setup as you are to wake up late and let them set up too much, so at bare minimum it's not overpowered and weighted in the opponent's favor. And honestly, if you're burning sleep turns in front of the Darkrai that just put you out and letting it get free Nasty Plots, you're kind of asking for a long sleep.

If I sound dismissive of what you're saying here, it's because I am. You're comparing two things that are extremely different in what they do, how they do it, and how much control each player has in the situation. OHKO counterplay is bringing a type immunity (which is a crapshoot since you need to bring an Ice, Ghost, and Flying mon to cover all your bases), Sturdy, and trying to go first. Sleep counterplay is bringing a Grass type for Spore, Lum/Chesto Berry, sets that already use Rest and Sleep Talk, an immune mon like Garganacl, strategically choosing which mon of yours you want put to sleep, burning sleep turns at safe intervals...

 

[Gohankuten]

So I think we should stop talks of banning sleep moves for now and instead just suspect Darkrai and Valiant. Going the route of banning sleep moves means we have to ban multiple moves while going the route of Darkrai and Valiant means potentially banning 2 mons.

As for the Sleep Clause all we need to do is update it so it's no longer a mod and instead just have it where you CANNOT click a move that directly induces sleep(IE hypnosis, spore, sleep powder can't be clicked but yawn or dire claw could) while the opponent has a mon that is asleep UNLESS you were locked into the move via encore OR it is the the only move you can use on a pokemon that cannot be switched out. This way it becomes perfectly replicable on cart as a simple gentleman's agreement without the weird disparity of sim being able to spam a sleep inducing move without risk of sleeping another mon while cart can't do that. And just for fun we should allow multiple mons to be able to be slept by the indirect sleep causers like effect spore or even yawn and also encored direct sleep inducers just as a way to discourage encore.

 

[Bluwing]

Banning sleep moves is hilarious to me, what are we exactly trying to do? Forcing the game to become as skillful as possible by removing and manipulating people’s experience with rng to jump on the banwave? Rng is a part of pokemon, it’s what makes it exciting to watch, it is the charm of competitive pokemon.

If you wanna ban sleep moves then go ahead and ban para moves as well then, i’d argue that’s way less skill and rng based than sleep in and of itself.

Also:

I swear these banwaves of items, moves and strategies has no end in sight, there’s always something new, it’s obsessive behaviour and at some point we’ll just kill singles 6v6. In the end it’s gonna end up becoming 100-200+ turn games with absolutely no x factor, and considering how ou has been the last 10 years it’s annoying enough with 100+ turn games with rng at play due to suspects and bans favoring balance teams in general.

 

[Neosonic97]

I'm kind of baffled on why people have decided to discuss banning sleep moves now of all times.

It hasn't ever really been a problem until and started wreaking havoc, and with Hypnosis of all things.

That, to me, posits more that the Pokémon in question are problems rather than the entire mechanic. Things like Spore Amoonguss and Breloom have never been much of a problem before, so why are we suddenly going to punish a wide swathe of the metagame for the actions of two Pokémon? Why do Pokémon like , , , and so on, have to suffer for the crimes of and ?

The big problem here is that the two big sleep abusers in OU, the ones already mentioned, also have the capability to set up at a breakneck pace, and have a high baseline power to begin with.

tl;dr: leave sleep alone for now, suspect Darkrai and Iron Valiant.

 

[NotDaProGamer]

There is not a single Normal Type in OU. That's kinda crazy when you think about it.

Number of Mons per Type in OU​

Type​	Number of Mons in OU​
Bug​	1 (Volcarona)​
Dark​	7 (Darkrai, Gambit, Meowscarada, Roaring Moon, Samurott-Hisui, Ting-Lu, Weavile)​
Dragon​	8 (Archaludon, Dragapult, Dragonite, Gouging Fire, Kyruem, Raging Bolt, Roaring Moon, Walking Wake)​
Electric​	1 (Raging Bolt)​
Fairy​	5 (Clefable, Enamorus, Hatterene, Iron Valiant, Primarina)​
Fighting​	3 (Great Tusk, Iron Valiant, Zamazenta) ​
Fire​	6 (Cinderace, Gouging Fire, Heatran, Skeledirge, Torkoal, Volcarona)​
Flying​	7 (Corviknight, Dragonite, Enamorus, Gliscor, Landorus-Therian, Pelipper, Skarmory)​
Ghost​	4 (Dragapult, Gholdengo, Pecharunt (for now hehe), Skeledirge)​
Grass​	4 (Meowscarada, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Rillaboom, Serperior)​

Ground​	6 (Clodsire, Excadrill, Gliscor, Great Tusk, Landorus-Therian, Ting-Lu)​
Ice​	2 (Kyruem, Weavile)​
Normal​	1 (Dragonite) 0 LOL​
Poison​	5 (Clodsire, Glimmora, Pecharunt (for now hehe), Slowking-Galar, Toxapex)​
Psychic​	5 (Deoxys-Speed, Hatterene, Iron Boulder, Iron Crown, Slowking-Galar)​
Rock​	2 (Glimmora, Iron Boulder)​
Steel​	8 (Archaludon, Corviknight, Excadrill, Gholdengo, Heatran, Iron Crown, Kingambit, Skarmory)​
Water​	7 (Dondozo, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Pelipper, Primarina, Samurott-Hisui, Toxapex, Walking Wake)​

 

[Heatranator]

Number of Mons per Type in OU​

Type​	Number of Mons in OU​
Bug​	1 (Volcarona)​
Dark​	7 (Darkrai, Gambit, Meowscarada, Roaring Moon, Samurott-Hisui, Ting-Lu, Weavile)​
Dragon​	8 (Archaludon, Dragapult, Dragonite, Gouging Fire, Kyruem, Raging Bolt, Roaring Moon, Walking Wake)​
Electric​	1 (Raging Bolt)​
Fairy​	5 (Clefable, Enamorus, Hatterene, Iron Valiant, Primarina)​
Fighting​	3 (Great Tusk, Iron Valiant, Zamazenta) ​
Fire​	6 (Cinderace, Gouging Fire, Heatran, Skeledirge, Torkoal, Volcarona)​
Flying​	7 (Corviknight, Dragonite, Enamorus, Gliscor, Landorus-Therian, Pelipper, Skarmory)​
Ghost​	4 (Dragapult, Gholdengo, Pecharunt (for now hehe), Skeledirge)​
Grass​	4 (Meowscarada, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Rillaboom, Serperior)​

Ground​	6 (Clodsire, Excadrill, Gliscor, Great Tusk, Landorus-Therian, Ting-Lu)​
Ice​	2 (Kyruem, Weavile)​
Normal​	0 LOL​
Poison​	5 (Clodsire, Glimmora, Pecharunt (for now hehe), Slowking-Galar, Toxapex)​
Psychic​	5 (Deoxys-Speed, Hatterene, Iron Boulder, Iron Crown, Slowking-Galar)​
Rock​	2 (Glimmora, Iron Boulder)​
Steel​	8 (Archaludon, Corviknight, Excadrill, Gholdengo, Heatran, Iron Crown, Kingambit, Skarmory)​
Water​	7 (Dondozo, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Pelipper, Primarina, Samurott-Hisui, Toxapex, Walking Wake)​

The suprising ones for me were poison and psychic types are more common than something like fighting, ghost and especially electric. Like, how is there only one electric type in the tier? I know there are 6 ground types, one being one of the best mons in the tier in great tusk, but there should be more. Electric types have always had to deal with ground types basically being required on a team, but that still is suprising. Guess zapdos really made me think there were more electric types in the tier.

 

[mayisthebestfr]

I'm kind of baffled on why people have decided to discuss banning sleep moves now of all times.

It hasn't ever really been a problem until and started wreaking havoc, and with Hypnosis of all things.

That, to me, posits more that the Pokémon in question are problems rather than the entire mechanic. Things like Spore Amoonguss and Breloom have never been much of a problem before, so why are we suddenly going to punish a wide swathe of the metagame for the actions of two Pokémon? Why do Pokémon like , , , and so on, have to suffer for the crimes of and ?

The big problem here is that the two big sleep abusers in OU, the ones already mentioned, also have the capability to set up at a breakneck pace, and have a high baseline power to begin with.

tl;dr: leave sleep alone for now, suspect Darkrai and Iron Valiant.

As far as I know, sleep has always been a super controversial mechanic (and it even got banned in gen 5 because of how uniquely broken it was there) since sleep clause can't be replicated on cartridge. There was a huge discussion on sleep at the start of generation 8 that didn't rly go anywhere since nobody rly cared enough to change the status quo iirc?

 

[Heatranator]

The suprising ones for me were poison and psychic types are more common than something like fighting, ghost and especially electric. Like, how is there only one electric type in the tier? I know there are 6 ground types, one being one of the best mons in the tier in great tusk, but there should be more. Electric types have always had to deal with ground types basically being required on a team, but that still is suprising. Guess zapdos really made me think there were more electric types in the tier.

I want to expand on the zapdos bit because it went from #9 usage to dropping to UU in one month. It and ogerpon wellspring are quite suprising how far they dropped. I bet there are others, but damn, I didn't think zap was that bad.

 

[Local Dog]

I want to expand on the zapdos bit because it went from #9 usage to dropping to UU in one month. It and ogerpon wellspring are quite suprising how far they dropped. I bet there are others, but damn, I didn't think zap was that bad.

It's not bad, it's worse than before but it still performs well, it was squeezed out the fire from the new toys we got. It will get back to ou sooner or later

 

[Conflux123]

Is dragapult still viable right now? If you can't tell from the pfp I'm a huge dragapult fan but I gave up getting it to work in the DLC1 format. There were too many booster energy users back then for it to really work well. Is it useful right now? And with what sets? Specs?

 

[1LDK]

Is dragapult still viable right now? If you can't tell from the pfp I'm a huge dragapult fan but I gave up getting it to work in the DLC1 format. There were too many booster energy users back then for it to really work well. Is it useful right now? And with what sets? Specs?

Dragapult, even in the DLC1, was always a top Pokémon to look out for due to its speed, power and overall utility, and while you can never go wrong with specs, there's a set that you might wanna look into

Dragapult @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 76 Atk / 180 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Dragon Darts / Draco Meteor
- Hex
- Will-O-Wisp / Thunder Wave / U-turn
- U-turn / Will-o-Wisp / Thunder Wave

It's a pivot set, you spread status with it to support your teammates, you pivot out with U-turn and with boots you can get in on hazards. There are variations of this set too. You can max special attack and use draco or stay mixed in case you encounter a blissey. You can forgo U-turn and go double status if you're skilled enough to do so. And of course, Thunder Wave over Will-o-Wisp is a side grade for mons that don't care about attack, like special attackers or other speed checks

 

[Conflux123]

Dragapult, even in the DLC1, was always a top Pokémon to look out for due to its speed, power and overall utility, and while you can never go wrong with specs, there's a set that you might wanna look into

Dragapult @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 76 Atk / 180 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Dragon Darts / Draco Meteor
- Hex
- Will-O-Wisp / Thunder Wave / U-turn
- U-turn / Will-o-Wisp / Thunder Wave

It's a pivot set, you spread status with it to support your teammates, you pivot out with U-turn and with boots you can get in on hazards. There are variations of this set too. You can max special attack and use draco or stay mixed in case you encounter a blissey. You can forgo U-turn and go double status if you're skilled enough to do so. And of course, Thunder Wave over Will-o-Wisp is a side grade for mons that don't care about attack, like special attackers or other speed checks

You should def do that RMT lol. I've been aware of the pivot sets for a long time now, but I've always kind of doubted how good they are compared to other options given how frail dragapult is. I'll definitely check this out.

 

[Cuddly]

Number of Mons per Type in OU​

Type​	Number of Mons in OU​

Normal​

0 LOL​

You forgot about Dragonite.

 

[Neosonic97]

As far as I know, sleep has always been a super controversial mechanic (and it even got banned in gen 5 because of how uniquely broken it was there) since sleep clause can't be replicated on cartridge. There was a huge discussion on sleep at the start of generation 8 that didn't rly go anywhere since nobody rly cared enough to change the status quo iirc?

I think it's more to do with the fact that Sleep's abusers weren't really the best in Gen 8 OU. There, the mons who could feasibly inflict sleep in OU would be Slowbro, A9 and Glowking, plus perhaps Amoonguss and Venusaur if we dip into UU.

Of course, Gen 5 also has the most horribly crippling sleep mechanics in all of Pokémon (your sleep turns would reset if you switched out), so it's not a good equivalency to the current state of Sleep.

I'd argue, again, that we really should consider suspecting Valiant and Darkrai before moving onto sleep as a whole.

 

[Eeveeto]

You forgot about Dragonite.

And legendary SD + Double Edge Cinderace too!

 

[Anchor9]

You forgot about Dragonite.

I think Choice Band Tera Normal Deoxys-S Extreme Speed is a thing too.

 

[NotDaProGamer]

I want to expand on the zapdos bit because it went from #9 usage to dropping to UU in one month. It and ogerpon wellspring are quite suprising how far they dropped. I bet there are others, but damn, I didn't think zap was that bad.

Manaphy dropped from 22nd to 82nd, below the best bois MINIOR at 80th (probably new toy syndrome but eh, MINIOR SUPREMACY)
Blissey died (38th to 63rd)
Greninja dropped from 31st to 61st
Iron Mugulis dropped from 62nd to 116th
Tinkaton dropped from 70th to 145th
Some more, I'll probably update this post.