The Current state of ORAS OU

[Niko]

As I promised some weeks ago while discussing with xray and BKC, I’m opening this thread to discuss the current state of ORAS OU. Some months ago there was a thread about a possible Sticky Webs’ ban, but after some interesting posts I invite you to read again, the thread died.

Substantially what happened during this SPL XII, and we had further proof about, is that the old metagame mainly dominated by unhealthy archetypes like Sticky Webs was outclassed by even more unhealthy archetypes, born just as an answer to Webs: Screens. Let’s start with a statistics:

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +

| Rank | Pokemon | Use | Usage % | Win % |

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +

| 1 | Serperior | 38 | 42.22% | 60.53% |

As it never happened in fairygens, at the peak of the usage we have an offensive/support Pokémon, paired with an absolutely WRONG win rate if we compare it with its usage.

If we also consider that after about 5-6 weeks the player base started trying to adapt to the metagame, and at the end of the tournament the win rate is still so high makes this even more extraordinary.

But what are the features that make this Pokémon so strong?

First, its capability to create a powerful snowball effect, dealing damages and boosting itself at the same time and punishing its faster offensive checks abusing Glare.

We all know this Serperior, and after all we could adapt to it for a long time with some cursing.

The problem arises when this Pokémon not only is a threat offensively, but it also has access to 2 of the most powerful support moves: Reflect and Light Screen.

Now, ORAS is a tier full of threats without real counters, just soft checks. It’s sustained on a delicate balance. Halving every damage suffered by those threats with this ease is extremely punitive for the opponent and intended to centralize the metagame for a long time, if not forever.

I think it’s fair to have a high number of strategies in a tier, but only if they don’t affect the metagame’s development heavily.

Currently, Screens give a negative contribution to the metagame and I think they need a revision.

Now let’s try to figure out how to do that.

It’s important to notice that the strength of Screens is determined mainly by Light Clay, which extends their durability from 5 to 8 turns (concretely 5 turns for the first Screen you setup and 6 turns for the second to abuse Screens with the rest of the team) making it difficult for the opponent to play around/stall them.

To prevent the use of this item can be a good move in order to limit Screens’ strength without removing them from the game.

When you ban something, it’s important to think at the consequences you can expect from the ban.

In the first part of the post I said that Screens were born as an answer/option to Webs, so you can expect that without Screens Webs will rise again in usage.

I think we waited enough, and we saw enough to decide to ban Sticky Webs too.

I will update this post later with replays comments to explain the situation better.

Meanwhile, referring to those who actually play/build in ORAS, I ask you to please share your opinion.

TL;DR BAN LIGHT CLAY AND STICKY WEBS.

thanks LUCK>SKILL for grammar checking

 

[Zokuru]

Well, this will be a short message, but what I have to say is painfully obvious. The ORAS balance was destroyed when Sableye, and then Dugtrio, got banned, you wouldn't have completely stupid teams like that if they had to pay attention to full force ORAS Stall, which was not at all broken or uncompetitive at the time it existed. Sableye was the crux that denied such stupid things to happen, so at least bring it back.
If you want to touch Sticky and/or Screens too why not, I don't think it really matters tho if Sableye came back to the tier, those teams would be what they should always have been, complete cheese.

 

[blank]

threat saturation has been the issue plaguing ORAS/XY for as long as i can remember. essentially, there's a lot of powercreep, and it is difficult to reasonably manage a significant majority of the viable threats in 1 build. it can be argued that every team will have weaknesses, but this goes beyond that, and it is largely due to generation 6 simply introducing many powerful pokemon and mechanics without sufficient distribution of support tools that keep those pokemon in check. power creep is not an issue unique to generation 6, but the way the tier has always lacked these tools mostly is. in reality, we had a broken checking broken metagame for a long time: mega sableye and arena trap (and shadow tag) are not the answers to the problems currently perceived in the tier. these simply polarize things even more. i also don't think the problem is solved by banning light clay/serperior or anything like that. so what is the solution then?

well that's the thing. you can point in so many different directions. screens gained traction in response to webs, and webs were performing pretty similarly to screens a few months ago, so one might say webs are the root of the issue. some notable abusers on screens really limit balanced and bulky offensive teams, so one might say manaphy, volcarona, etc are the issues. the screens themselves enable these abusers, so one might say screens are the issue. going a step further, people could say that stall is a significant issue. even further than that, if we look at the metagame for the last ~3 or so years before the last stour season or so, one could say that by banning any of these significant threats, we just revert back to a meta dominated by clefable, gliscor, mega metagross, and spikes. this doesn't even begin to touch on more "fringe" threats that saw moderate success in SPL because of drawing excellent matchups.

having been actively involved in the tier since i joined smogon, i think i can safely say that the current metagame still finds the better player winning most of the time. the current metagame has a lot more room for innovation than previous iterations, which i would argue is a good trait too. while there are centralizing forces in the metagame (screens/serperior), i don't think those forces are overcentralizing. furthermore, looking at the last ~4 or 5 weeks of SPL and the start of the current stour season, i think we are starting to see those things calm down. they are still central threats, but we have seen more variety in team styles lately for sure.

the point: ORAS has a history of being a weird tier with broken checking broken. we had a period of a centralized metagame that looked like a "typical OU tier" when bulky offensive and spikes builds were the absolute most dominant, but people started to realize these teams get torn apart by the many very powerful (but not broken) threats that have always existed in the tier. it is really hard to pin down 1 specific element that causes these "issues," but i don't think that needs to be done. a metagame does not need to be centralized around bulky offenses and balances (clefable) to be healthy. the current metagame is very offensive, yes, but many playstyles are capable of flourishing.

i see the current complaints simply as an overreaction to a cheesy looking metagame. the tier is in a much better position now than it has been since it became an old generation. nothing really can or should be done.

 

[Adri]

This topic is interesting and legitimate considering what we have seen in ORAS this SPL. This being said, I don't agree with the conclusion of the OP, and I'll explain why in this post.
First of all, the post refers to the webs topic and, by extension, to the problem that a lot of people had with webs, saying that this screens archetype is an answer to the webs archetype... Well, I already don't really agree with that. While it's true that webs have an absolutely disastrous match-up against serperior, which has been the most used mon during this SPL by far, it is not actually against that set of Serp that webs struggle the most. This serp doesn't have any way to damage Scizor significantly, and the screen teams in general even have a pretty average match-up against Scizor. All in all, screens have a pretty good match-up against webs, mostly because it's able to be even more threatening than webs, making the opponent often unable to set-up himself and sweep. But as I said before, I really don't think that this playstyle is especially targeting webs. I think that this playstyle is rather targeting most of the meta that we observed then. And this is because of one thing imo: very few people actually build new things in ORAS. In my opinion, that's even one of the reasons why we have seen so many Serp screens this SPL: most people that played the tier saw that it worked, and decided to use it themselves, after changing maybe one or two mons. I can't really blame the players for doing so: if it worked, props on them in a sense. But now comes the question: does that ridiculously high usage of serperior warrant a suspect/ban of webs/light clay ? This is not the first time that we see a mon with an astounding high usage, and it by itself is not enough to make the mon, the item or the move banworthy. I personally think that adapting to screens is far from impossible in ORAS: putting Brick break on mons who like Fighting coverage anyway (like Gross-M for instance, which loses the power of Hammer Arm but doesn't get the pretty annoying -1 in speed, allowing it to still 2HKO Tran on the switch for instance), using fast taunt users (Talon or Azelf in HO) are possible counters to the playstyle.


Another solution to this could be to unban Sableye-M as Zokuru proposed it. What truly made Sableye-M broken in my opinion was his ability to reduce immensely the amount of passive damage that you could inflict upon its team, while most of his counterplays were trapped and eliminated by dugtrio. This was even more infuriating when Shedinja was there with Baton Pass too, to block even more things and trap them with Baton pass + Dug. But now, there aren't Dugtrio or Baton Pass anymore, and that wasn't the case when Sableye-M was banned as far as I remember. That's why I think that retesting Sableye-Mega might be a good way to partially reduce the influence of heavy offenses in ORAS: this would make sticky webs far more risky to bring, and would give a new breath to stall which, to be honest, could easily be the best counter to Screen HO (as they generally don't have much else than Manaphy Rain Dance to beat Unaware mons, knowing that this manaphy couldn't damage Shedinja, which would be viable again should Sableye-M be unbanned). I think that this could at least be discussed.

tldr: I'm not fully convinced that screen teams are broken per say as there are decently viable counterplays to it. That being said, unbanning Sableye-M could have some positive impacts on the tier, and should in my opinion be discussed considering that a lot of what made Sableye-M stalls broken in the past have been banned.

 

[Finchinator]

ORAS OU underwent unprecedented shifts during SPL. We witnessed new standards form and archetypes evolve at a rapid pace, especially for an old generation. I view this as a positive because the playerbase is active and willing to challenge previous norms with their own strategies. I believe that we are still many metagame shifts away from ORAS settling down as a result of this, too, which means controversial topics right now may not be similarly problematic down the road.

The OP brings up some legitimate grievances and I believe we should be discussing these things, but banning right now when the tier is still evolving and we are mid-STour seems like a knee jerk response to me personally. The metagame has potential to adapt or phase in/out specific Pokemon and strategies. You typically need a longer time and/or overwhelming support to get a ban in an older generation as is, but couple this with the fact that it’s harder to pinpoint the specific problem here, with some potential solutions being to ban items like Light Clay or moves like Sticky Web, and it gets even messier. If there was a larger sample size or a universally accepted solution, I think we would have an easier time acting on this.

I would think the appprorpaite line of action would be for the ORAS council to pinpoint if they deem anything problematic and then potentially conduct a vote after STour, but that’s up to them of course. Rushing would be a clear mistake, especially when not everyone sees this metagame as a bad thing.

 

[Niko]

threat saturation has been the issue plaguing ORAS/XY for as long as i can remember. essentially, there's a lot of powercreep, and it is difficult to reasonably manage a significant majority of the viable threats in 1 build. it can be argued that every team will have weaknesses, but this goes beyond that, and it is largely due to generation 6 simply introducing many powerful pokemon and mechanics without sufficient distribution of support tools that keep those pokemon in check. power creep is not an issue unique to generation 6, but the way the tier has always lacked these tools mostly is. in reality, we had a broken checking broken metagame for a long time: mega sableye and arena trap (and shadow tag) are not the answers to the problems currently perceived in the tier. these simply polarize things even more. i also don't think the problem is solved by banning light clay/serperior or anything like that. so what is the solution then?

well that's the thing. you can point in so many different directions. screens gained traction in response to webs, and webs were performing pretty similarly to screens a few months ago, so one might say webs are the root of the issue. some notable abusers on screens really limit balanced and bulky offensive teams, so one might say manaphy, volcarona, etc are the issues. the screens themselves enable these abusers, so one might say screens are the issue. going a step further, people could say that stall is a significant issue. even further than that, if we look at the metagame for the last ~3 or so years before the last stour season or so, one could say that by banning any of these significant threats, we just revert back to a meta dominated by clefable, gliscor, mega metagross, and spikes. this doesn't even begin to touch on more "fringe" threats that saw moderate success in SPL because of drawing excellent matchups.

having been actively involved in the tier since i joined smogon, i think i can safely say that the current metagame still finds the better player winning most of the time. the current metagame has a lot more room for innovation than previous iterations, which i would argue is a good trait too. while there are centralizing forces in the metagame (screens/serperior), i don't think those forces are overcentralizing. furthermore, looking at the last ~4 or 5 weeks of SPL and the start of the current stour season, i think we are starting to see those things calm down. they are still central threats, but we have seen more variety in team styles lately for sure.

the point: ORAS has a history of being a weird tier with broken checking broken. we had a period of a centralized metagame that looked like a "typical OU tier" when bulky offensive and spikes builds were the absolute most dominant, but people started to realize these teams get torn apart by the many very powerful (but not broken) threats that have always existed in the tier. it is really hard to pin down 1 specific element that causes these "issues," but i don't think that needs to be done. a metagame does not need to be centralized around bulky offenses and balances (clefable) to be healthy. the current metagame is very offensive, yes, but many playstyles are capable of flourishing.

i see the current complaints simply as an overreaction to a cheesy looking metagame. the tier is in a much better position now than it has been since it became an old generation. nothing really can or should be done.

I appreciate this post a lot and agree about every premise you made here about how ORAS works and his past. That being said, I don't agree with your conclusions. It's not true that actually many playstyles are capable of flourishing. I only saw Screens, specific counterbuilds for Screens and sometimes Rain (with poor results).

Screens are a good tech for dealing with the old centralizing archetypes you mentioned, this is part of the reason why I proposed the Light Clay ban instead of banning the moves. I would like it to stay as a niche tech and I'm sure that now that it showed up his power people will be able to make it work, in a healthier way, even without Light Clay.

 

[Niko]

I would think the appprorpaite line of action would be for the ORAS council to pinpoint if they deem anything problematic and then potentially conduct a vote after STour, but that’s up to them of course. Rushing would be a clear mistake, especially when not everyone sees this metagame as a bad thing.

I grew tired waiting for a council that doesn't express on these matters if not only in some Discord channel where the discussion looks like an orgy. And I'm only talking about xray and Luigi, half the council seems to be dead. This is not an efficent way to run a tier.

???

 

[kumiko]

screens have been given way too much credit the past little bit. idt screens are too successful in a metagame where people have been given time to take into account how to handle it and such, and it's really not that outlandish to fit counterplay. oras is definitely very threat driven at the moment, but i don't think screens, specifically light clay, are what pushes these threats over the edge.

let's take a look at the screens games from this spl

Hide

W1 Gondra vs Sjneider - the only thing screens did this game was let serperior 1v1 a bisharp
W2 Gondra vs Luigi - the only thing screens did was let gondra's serperior live a shadow ball instead of just glaring it before setting up a screen to guarantee a win
W2 Dragon Claw vs Isza - manaphy could have been able to thrive with screens up in this game, but was going to collect at least two without it. screens were definitely useful this game but got unlucky in the long run
W2 Santu vs jonfilch - screens did not really make a difference here and light clay was totally irrelevant.
W2 Sjneider vs ElectricityCat - screens mirror lol. i think this game was quite sloppy but there's not really much pt in talking about it
W3 CBB vs Vulpix03 - Vulpix was insanely weak to Serperior in general. Screens were definitely clutch here but like... Serperior can very easily win this game on its own without running screens. Serp + Pursuit is a near autowin for example, and also Manaphy goes to town, on top of the fact there's HW.
W3 Sjneider vs Santu - screens were useful for beating lopunny in this matchup, but also volc + hw seems insurmountable for santu's squad regardless. light clay also changed nothing.
W4 Gondra vs Dragon Claw - screens were dismantled here
W4 London Beats vs Vulpix03 - Reflect from Jirachi was used and useful to help vs SD Talonflame
W4 CBB vs Dragon Claw - screens were not set
W5 CBB vs Luigi - screens were dismantled here
W5 xray vs Eternal Spirit - screens barely mattered here
W5 London Beats vs Frania - the screens got obscenely lucky this game in a matchup where a subglare serp could've wreaked havoc
W5 BK vs Gondra - screens made no difference
W6 Sjneider vs Luigi - volt crit sucked, screens wouldve been relevant here otherwise
W6 xray vs CBB - volc swept without screens, but did it easier with them and did not need light clay
W6 Santu vs Eternal Spirit - this was the most confusing game of spl. screens didnt matter here cuz of a crit.
W7 London Beats vs Sjneider - both used screens. this game was won without screens if London DD'd t2.
W8 ElectricityCat vs Dragon Claw - screens were dismanteled
W8 BK vs xray - screens were dismantled
W8 Sjneider vs CBB - game was ended when a garchomp w sdef investment was crit by a volc w/o reflect up
W9 Corckscrew vs jonfilch - jonfilch choked a win vs screens by pumping the thund at the end instead of volting. Scarf volt cleaned this game
W9 Santu vs CBB - confuse on sr kinda sucked but santu wasnt favored in this mu regardless

very few of these games had gamechanging impact from screens. the point is: the threats in this tier are incredible with or without screens. i really don't think screens are what pushes them over the edge. it's the same thing as people freaking out about webs last year; very good offensive pokemon receive minimal support and people lose their mind. the thing is, these pokemon are good without them too. look at past examples of teams dominating in a metagame. xray's mmeta + thund team comes to mind. that team saw very high usage and won a lot, and had no form of screens or anything of the sort.

screens are obviously good and better at making these good offensive pokemon excel, but i think these pokemon like volcarona, manaphy, etc are insanely good with or without screens. there are also plenty of ways to prepare for screens that we've seen as SPL went on and people adapted to the metagame. brick break, phasing moves, scarf rotoms, more taunts, etc. these things are not ridiculously tough to fit and not absurdly specific, like when people ran shed shell or mail on their manaphy and togekiss to counteract goth stall years ago. brick break is obviously only used due to the existence of screens, but i don't think this is a sign of a really unhealthy presence to the metagame. these mons appreciate fighting coverage for a multitude of reasons, and it practically completely shuts down screens.

i see the current complaints simply as an overreaction to a cheesy looking metagame. the tier is in a much better position now than it has been since it became an old generation. nothing really can or should be done.

i entirely agree with this. i think the tier is way more enjoyable than it's been in a while. i don't understand how people can go from complaining about how boring oras is when gliscor / clefable / spikes ran the metagame and now games are much more offensive and exciting. we've had so many innovative sets and such this spl that actually do work and people are acting like the metagame is insanely restricted and awful.

as an aside can someone explain to me how the immediate reaction to wanting to ban light clay is to free mega sableye btw???

 

[Niko]

]W1 Gondra vs Sjneider - the only thing screens did this game was let serperior 1v1 a bisharp
you force me to say obvious stuff, but if screens influence what your opponent do just by the fact that he sees them up and he makes different switches, they are already doing something
W2 Gondra vs Luigi - the only thing screens did was let gondra's serperior live a shadow ball instead of just glaring it before setting up a screen to guarantee a win
this is what light screen did. without reflect luigi could sack gengar vs victini and try to win with scizor for example. but again you are missing the fact that you're not only forced to face screens, but if you have bad MU against them you're forced to AVOID them from being setted up
W2 Dragon Claw vs Isza - manaphy could have been able to thrive with screens up in this game, but was going to collect at least two without it. screens were definitely useful this game but got unlucky in the long run
W2 Santu vs jonfilch - screens did not really make a difference here and light clay was totally irrelevant.
wait so they aren't broken if the team wins without them? lol
W2 Sjneider vs ElectricityCat - screens mirror lol. i think this game was quite sloppy but there's not really much pt in talking about it
W3 CBB vs Vulpix03 - Vulpix was insanely weak to Serperior in general. Screens were definitely clutch here but like... Serperior can very easily win this game on its own without running screens. Serp + Pursuit is a near autowin for example, and also Manaphy goes to town, on top of the fact there's HW.
same as before, they're not broken if they aren't the reason why the team wins? i would be even more worried.
W3 Sjneider vs Santu - screens were useful for beating lopunny in this matchup, but also volc + hw seems insurmountable for santu's squad regardless. light clay also changed nothing.
we talked a lot about this game after it finished and santu made some unoptimal play. he could def win without screens. also i wonder how can't you figure out that the light clay, even when it doesnt so anything, it still forces the opponent to play around 3 turns more of screens and so influences their plays? only someone who doesnt ever plan a game couldnt think of it
W4 Gondra vs Dragon Claw - screens were dismantled here
another game i commented, gondra could win easily with Bisharp setupping it on screens.
W4 London Beats vs Vulpix03 - Reflect from Jirachi was used and useful to help vs SD Talonflame
W4 CBB vs Dragon Claw - screens were not set
every time someone wins with screens without setting them up this is supporting my argument, not yours.
W5 CBB vs Luigi - screens were dismantled here
no offense to cbb but the screens team was a troll here lol
W5 xray vs Eternal Spirit - screens barely mattered here
10 points to gryffindor! i'm gryffindor.
W5 London Beats vs Frania - the screens got obscenely lucky this game in a matchup where a subglare serp could've wreaked havoc
lucky yes but not so much, without full para on volc medi was dead
W5 BK vs Gondra - screens made no difference
20 points to gryffindor!
W6 Sjneider vs Luigi - volt crit sucked, screens wouldve been relevant here otherwise
W6 xray vs CBB - volc swept without screens, but did it easier with them and did not need light clay
30 points to gryffindor!
W6 Santu vs Eternal Spirit - this was the most confusing game of spl. screens didnt matter here cuz of a crit.
yeah this was an easy win for santu thanks to screens
W7 London Beats vs Sjneider - both used screens. this game was won without screens if London DD'd t2.
W8 ElectricityCat vs Dragon Claw - screens were dismanteled
one of the few times we really saw a screens cteam during spl
W8 BK vs xray - screens were dismantled
second time we saw a screens cteam during spl. and still there was a relevant 5050 on the turn alakazam switchins.
W8 Sjneider vs CBB - game was ended when a garchomp w sdef investment was crit by a volc w/o reflect up
unfort game for cbb, but it wasnt over for neider without crit
W9 Corckscrew vs jonfilch - jonfilch choked a win vs screens by pumping the thund at the end instead of volting. Scarf volt cleaned this game
this is the actual team built by xray supposed to cteam screens. in this rock paper scissors metagame, he made a decent job building the paper. he can still easily gets cteammed by hp rock volcarona, not a meme considering heatran usage dropped hard and talon usage grew.
W9 Santu vs CBB - confuse on sr kinda sucked but santu wasnt favored in this mu regardless
santu could win with rocks and playing better around the latias, sacking only one mon. still difficult for him yeah, but many screens run megattar.


very few of these games had gamechanging impact from screens. the point is: the threats in this tier are incredible with or without screens. i really don't think screens are what pushes them over the edge. it's the same thing as people freaking out about webs last year; very good offensive pokemon receive minimal support and people lose their mind.
nah man, im the one using screens and i lose my mind seeing what my team can do and how poor chances are for people using old meta stuff (meaning anything except screens themselves and cteams for screens).

the thing is, these pokemon are good without them too. look at past examples of teams dominating in a metagame. xray's mmeta + thund team comes to mind. that team saw very high usage and won a lot, and had no form of screens or anything of the sort.

screens are obviously good and better at making these good offensive pokemon excel, but i think these pokemon like volcarona, manaphy, etc are insanely good with or without screens. there are also plenty of ways to prepare for screens that we've seen as SPL went on and people adapted to the metagame. brick break, phasing moves, scarf rotoms, more taunts, etc. these things are not ridiculously tough to fit and not absurdly specific, like when people ran shed shell or mail on their manaphy and togekiss to counteract goth stall years ago. brick break is obviously only used due to the existence of screens, but i don't think this is a sign of a really unhealthy presence to the metagame. these mons appreciate fighting coverage for a multitude of reasons, and it practically completely shuts down screens.

let's see what happens when people will use versions having a ghost, that happens pretty commonly now as well.

i entirely agree with this. i think the tier is way more enjoyable than it's been in a while. i don't understand how people can go from complaining about how boring oras is when gliscor / clefable / spikes ran the metagame and now games are much more offensive and exciting. we've had so many innovative sets and such this spl that actually do work and people are acting like the metagame is insanely restricted and awful.

as an aside can someone explain to me how the immediate reaction to wanting to ban light clay is to free mega sableye btw???

 

[Colonel M]

Understanding that I don't play, build, or really care about ORAS - I do have a question that I think the OP should address while arguing the [current] issues with ORAS.

In the OP of the post, we see many of the playstyles on the wheel having Serperior on it. While this is due to being a Screener that takes offensive advantage of Defog, it's also a common staple to these teams for its potential offensive and other utility presence as well (Glare, and sometimes Leech Seed).

While I share the sentiments on some of the other users in the thread (other than unbanning Dugtrio, lmao at that suggestion and Mega Sableye doesn't really solve the screen issue), one particular question comes to mind - why is Serperior ban off the table? It shares a common pattern with the majority of the teams and compounds a lot of their issues. Hell, I think Sticky Web teams sometimes use Serperior just because it's still a good mon that is easy to snowball with Contrary.

This isn't me stating we need to ban Serperior. Ultimately I don't think it's the solution, but I find the lack of a counterargument on this and focusing on Light Clay and Sticky Web first to be running before crawling. I think it's important to state why Serperior itself isn't the problem, but the focal mechanics with screens lasting longer with Light Clay on [other] Pokemon and Sticky Web are.

It's Devil's Advocate, but I think it's a necessary Devil's Advocate to prevent others from bandwagonning and saying Serperior is the problem with these teams.

 

[Niko]

why is Serperior ban off the table? It shares a common pattern with the majority of the teams and compounds a lot of their issues.

Because when I proposed to ban Serperior and Manaphy in order to make easier for fat stuff to deal with Screens they laughed hard at me so I gave up

 

[Vulpix03]

I'm on break at work so might as well give my two cents.

First, I just wanna say the sableye argument is irrelevant. Unbanning sableye does not "help with cheese" in any way; in fact it would most likely promote the use of screens. For example, sableye is a pokemon that allows balance and stall teams to thrive, what beats balance and stall? Pokemon such as manaphy. What is manaphy good on? Screens. The idea of unbanning something in order to beat a current meta threat is just ridiculous.
Also, hoopa-u should be looked into before sableye is even discussed.

On to the meta itself.

I know I was the ban webs guy. I will be the first to admit that I was overreacting a bit, and I no longer consider them banworthy. That being said, I still believe webs are more restricting in the builder than screens. It doesn't take much to account for screens in the builder, and people have already adapted since screens saw their official tournament debut in spl. Moves such as brick break are seeing high usage, especially on pokemon such as tangrowth. Talonflame and Pinsir are rising in usage. Pokemon such as lopunny and medicham are everywhere, etc. These are all very viable pokemon that are able to deal with screens. 2015 is back in style again, as some would say. This is not a bad thing at all, it's just the meta coming full circle.

People often label serperior, manaphy and volcarona as the "big 3" on screens. I for one don't have a problem with any of them.

Volcarona: I've said this many times, if a volcarona wins under screens, then 90% of the time it wins without screens. I think this was showed many times during spl when people would win with their volcaronas before screens were ever set. This happened in my game vs cbb.

Serperior: It's a good mon, sure, but i personally don't even believe it's the best screens setter. I find momento users such as latios and uxie to be way more annoying, as momento usually forces you into a reactionary state. That being said most screens setters are easy to take advantage of and it's not hard to put yourself in a position to deny set up to whatever sweeper they are setting screens for.

Manaphy: Probably the only thing i would consider anywhere close to broken under screens. The shit is fat as fuck, and once it gets a tail glow off it's hits like a truck. That being said, I still don't find it that hard to deal with. It's quite slow, and on screens teams it doesn't have webs to support it (gunna make a webs + screens tonight, lul) so you are usually able to revenge kill it. The only times i really see manaphy sweep is when someone misplays and gives it free set up

This was probably a jumbled mess but i gotta get back to work lol. In conclusion i think this meta is very diverse and has lots of room for creativity. Screens are the current trend however that will probably change in the near future, and they aren't even hard to deal with. People should go in their builders and pull out some 2015 bird spam and they'll be fine.

Ps. Unban hoopa-u, lol.

 

[kumiko]

Niko if u want to operate under the assumption that pokemon winning without screens disproves my point that said pokemon are good without screens, but rather that it proves the point that screens are broken, then have at it i guess lol

also it's quite asinine to just think every team that doesn't lose to setup pokemon is a screens ct. like if u see bb on tang and call it a screens ct i mean like ok thats one thing, but how is xray's team a screens ct when he's so weak to volc that isn't sitrus?

 

[dice]

It is incoherent to suggest that screens are broken if they aren’t employed in a game. Either they are broken with replays to suggest as such, or they are not broken and make marginal impact in game. Niko I completely understand your upset with the tier—I find it to be a drag, too—however, you cannot reasonably make two posts in a thread to argue that a move is broken because a team won without using it. 20 points to logical fallacies!

I believe TDK had an excellent assessment of screens if you read his posts.

 

[Niko]

I think you misunderstood what I meant. I meant that screens not doing anything/not being setupped in games where the Screens owner still wins makes me realize that they doesn't necessarily need a specific team made for them, but they perfectly works in teams able to win even without them, giving another huge boost. Sure thing is that the fact that they aren't setted up doesn't mean that they aren't broken!

P.S: I'd like to specify another thing to make my opinion clear. In his analysis TDK said screens only had a big impact in some games. Now, if I'm using a good team I'm expecting to get a 55/60/65% winrate in (high) ladder long term. This is +/- what those teams are achieving without abusing Screens too much. If we add to it the boost given by the Screens and the consequent increase of the winrate (referring to SPL Replays where the decisive role of Screens was underlined by TDK himself) we get a winrate totally unacceptable for a competitive metagame.