Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

My quick 2 cents this morning: what good does gholdengo bring to the tier? The other awfully broken mons still in the tier at least check other busted stuff (oger keeps mola from flip turning for life, gambit/moon brutalize ghosts, kyurem…well kyurem brings nothing good either but I digress). Gholdengo does nothing but allow hazard stacking everywhere for free and enables the most braindead strategy of all (webs). I obviously want to ban the thing and have since day 1 of this gen just looking at all of its tools, but please somebody give me sound arguments for the GOOD it brings to OU. Also…you are all studs, have a great day!
 
somebody give me sound arguments

The main argument ghold boyz bring to the table is "BaNnIg GhOlD dOeS nOt CrEaTe MoRe DeFoGgErs". Then they try to prove the ability, which is designed like 3 normal abilities put together is balanced.

If u think ghold is broken, u just need to use the core cm tera dark blissey + unaware clodsire that can maybe shut down all the set he can have. Also the defensive + twave set somewhat check oger and force zama to run crunch, all totally healthy balanced pokemons.

Joke metagame
 
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I personally disagree with the sentiment if it checks x broken pokemon while also just being broken by itself that that makes it more healthy for the tier. Kingambit and moon get safe entry on common attacks in ghost moves to reverse sweep you and this is supposed to make them less oppressive? These mons both have the potential to sweep and be a strong defensive backbone if they dont sweep and that makes them healthy? People have such a weird view of offensive = unhealthy defensive = healthy. And i think being dark/normal isnt rare enough of a trait to make it a very good argument, the only one i kind of agree with is ogerpon w and alo, as water absorb is a pretty rare trait, but even then i think it would end up fine. The same argument was made with volc ban, and rilla is still a fine presence in the tier, as is valiant after the ban. Kyurem is broken but in the end the tier is better off if that thing goes anyways.
 
I personally disagree with the sentiment if it checks x broken pokemon while also just being broken by itself that that makes it more healthy for the tier. Kingambit and moon get safe entry on common attacks in ghost moves to reverse sweep you and this is supposed to make them less oppressive? These mons both have the potential to sweep and be a strong defensive backbone if they dont sweep and that makes them healthy? People have such a weird view of offensive = unhealthy defensive = healthy. And i think being dark/normal isnt rare enough of a trait to make it a very good argument, the only one i kind of agree with is ogerpon w and alo, as water absorb is a pretty rare trait, but even then i think it would end up fine. The same argument was made with volc ban, and rilla is still a fine presence in the tier, as is valiant after the ban. Kyurem is broken but in the end the tier is better off if that thing goes anyways.
Definitely not arguing to keep those broken mons, I think they should go as well. I was more using them to make my point on Gholdengo that at the absolute minimum those mons do something that could be argued as good for the tier. Gholdengo doesnt even do what those mons do. Its only effect is negative in my eyes. Thank you for pointing out that broken checks broken shouldnt keep mons around though because I totally agree with your point here.
 
My quick 2 cents this morning: what good does gholdengo bring to the tier? The other awfully broken mons still in the tier at least check other busted stuff (oger keeps mola from flip turning for life, gambit/moon brutalize ghosts, kyurem…well kyurem brings nothing good either but I digress). Gholdengo does nothing but allow hazard stacking everywhere for free and enables the most braindead strategy of all (webs). I obviously want to ban the thing and have since day 1 of this gen just looking at all of its tools, but please somebody give me sound arguments for the GOOD it brings to OU. Also…you are all studs, have a great day!
Here's some excerpts from the onsite analyses.
On wallbreaking: Thanks to its ability Good as Gold and excellent defensive typing that lets it set up on Pokemon like Enamorus, Galarian Slowking, and Clefable, Nasty Plot Gholdengo is a premier wallbreaker in SV OU.

On defensive synergy: Defensive Gholdengo can serve as a bulky spinblocker and powerful setup sweeper in long matches. Its bulk, typing, and access to reliable recovery give it multiple opportunities to pivot into various defensive Pokemon such as Skarmory, Corviknight, Galarian Slowking, and Clefable and make it a more reliable check to key offensive Pokemon such as Iron Valiant, Hatterene, and Zamazenta.

On revenge killing: Choice Scarf Gholdengo is a great speed control option in the tier capable of outrunning and revenge killing premier offensive threats like Dragapult, Choice Specs Enamorus, and Kyurem.

I would reccomend Gholdengo for any of these roles as it performs them very well and in some cases better than anything else in the meta
 
I was more using them to make my point on Gholdengo that at the absolute minimum those mons do something that could be argued as good for the tier. Gholdengo doesnt even do what those mons do. Its only effect is negative in my eyes.
I guess i was just arguing that in my eyes the fact that a mon doesnt have defensive utility against anything "broken" makes it feel less oppressive. But even then it is a pretty consistent zama check, (crunch on body press sets does nothing).
 
The main argument ghold boyz bring to the table is "BaNnIg GhOlD dOeS nOt CrEaTe MoRe DeFoGgErs". Then they try to prove the ability, which is designed like 3 normal abilities put together is balanced.

If u think ghold is broken, u just need to use the core cm tera dark blissey + unaware clodsire that can maybe shut down all the set he can have. Also the defensive + twave set somewhat check oger and force zama to run crunch, all totally healthy balanced pokemons.

Joke metagame

Good as Gold is a sidegrade Magic Bounce. It's a terrific ability but acting like it's broken is silly. And yeah, banning Ghold won't create more removal tools. The best removal in the tier has ways to beat it consistently when played well, and Corv isn't made entirely useless like some people believe (plus Ghold is hardly on every single team). Answering Ghold for balance teams can be more challenging, and there would be the best argument of it possibly being a problem but even then teams do have ways around it just well enough. Teams have adapted to its presence.

It's not really a broken pokemon at this point in time, and I'm saying that as someone who once wanted it gone.
 
Good as Gold is a sidegrade Magic Bounce. It's a terrific ability but acting like it's broken is silly. And yeah, banning Ghold won't create more removal tools. The best removal in the tier has ways to beat it consistently when played well, and Corv isn't made entirely useless like some people believe (plus Ghold is hardly on every single team). Answering Ghold for balance teams can be more challenging, and there would be the best argument of it possibly being a problem but even then teams do have ways around it just well enough. Teams have adapted to its presence.

It's not really a broken pokemon at this point in time, and I'm saying that as someone who once wanted it gone.

You can Defog on Magic Bounce, you can't Defog on Good as Gold
 
You can Defog on Magic Bounce, you can't Defog on Good as Gold

Yeah. This is what makes 'Good as Gold' really infuriating. It's one thing to a be a Ghost type and blank Rapid Spin, a Steel type to blank Glim's Mortal Spin, but blanking Defog is just reaching too far into the proverbial cookie jar. Granted Ghold's removal won't fully fix the critical mass of hazzards + low amount of viable removal, it would feel alot nicer to click Defog on Corv and not worry about that bungus blocking every removal option known to man (sans Tidy Up though good luck fitting such 'mons on your team) or not being forced to run Geezing with Neutralizing Gas (unless you want to watch Gliscor die of poisoning which is really, really funny).

Edit: I forgot Court Change, but that option becomes worse if you want to wield hazzards yourself vs undoing and trying again using Defog.
 
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I just want to point out that there are a lot of things that hit Gholdengo and its base 84 speed tier super effectively. We have a ton of Dark, Fire, and Ground types in the tier. Seriously, we have something like 5 Fire types, 6 Ground types, and 7 Dark types and this doesn't even get into lower tier niche options such as Garchomp, Skeledirge, or Sandy Shocks. Basically, there is no excuse for your team to not be able to hit Gholdengo hard unless you are a stall team. And if you force a Tera, they no longer spin block.

Aside from Corv, which can U-turn into something that beats Ghold anyways, blocking Defog literally doesn't effect anything in OU. Niche Defog options like Talonflame beat Ghold. Geezing defogs despite Ghold's ability. Even a lot of the rapid spinners we have get a Fire or Ground STAB move. It is to the point where Ghold needs to run Air Balloon or it can't adequately spin block. And even then, a single U-Turn or other move pops the balloon. There are hazard stack teams that don't even run Ghold because they can just pressure in other ways. Getting rid off Ghold would not actually change the hazard problem much.

My opinion is that the ability to block Defog is actually healthy from a game design perspective because it creates a series of counterplay chains. Instead of mindlessly clicking Defog with Corv like you did in gen 8, you actually need to think about it and be strategic. Things like Ribombee can be counter led. The real problem with hazards this gen is Spikes and potentially the way Hamurott bypasses Taunt to set them. Otherwise, you could just run fast Taunt anti-leads like we did in past gens.
 
Adding on to Bold School's point, there's also techs like running Temper Flare on Great Tusk; if Gholdengo switches in to block the Rapid Spin, a 150BP Temper Flare will OHKO the offensive sets:

252 Atk Great Tusk Temper Flare [150 BP] vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gholdengo: 344-406 (109.2 - 128.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Defensive sets survive with heavy damage, but also don't OHKO Great Tusk back, and need to switch out because Great Tusk outspeeds and will finish them off. Temper Flare also gives SE coverage on the steel birds, and does heavy damage if they switch in on a ground move, so it's not a dead slot outside dealing with Gholdengo.

To cover the obligatory shout out, you can run my favorite, Maushold, and not care about Gholdengo while also threatening to clean with +1 Population Bomb, and with some chip beforehand or Tera Dark, +1 Bite removes the ghosts.
 
since denying hazard removal is more powerful than blocking hazards from being set.

That's really debatable. They control different aspects of the hazard game, but I'd argue keeping hazards off your side while simultaneously pushing them onto the opponent is more useful at once than denying defog. Sure you also block skill swap but that is such a specific and niche interaction that really doesn't impact Good as Gold since... what mon are you pulling that off with that doesn't die to Gholdengo?
 
Good as Gold is a sidegrade Magic Bounce. It's a terrific ability but acting like it's broken is silly. And yeah, banning Ghold won't create more removal tools. The best removal in the tier has ways to beat it consistently when played well, and Corv isn't made entirely useless like some people believe (plus Ghold is hardly on every single team). Answering Ghold for balance teams can be more challenging, and there would be the best argument of it possibly being a problem but even then teams do have ways around it just well enough. Teams have adapted to its presence.

It's not really a broken pokemon at this point in time, and I'm saying that as someone who once wanted it gone.
Ghold is a case of being unhealthy but at the same time not being broken so arguing it to go is a bit awkward due to the nature of ghold's place in the meta at the moment. Even if you think ghold is still banworthy, it definitely isn't in the traditional sense, as while not broken is arguably pretty unhealthy so there is an argument for it being banworthy despite not being broken, and that is the funny thing with Gholdengo really, it's not broken, but its unhealthy so that creates some very interesting discussions regarding it in the OU tier
 
Ghold is a case of being unhealthy but at the same time not being broken so arguing it to go is a bit awkward due to the nature of ghold's place in the meta at the moment. Even if you think ghold is still banworthy, it definitely isn't in the traditional sense, as while not broken is arguably pretty unhealthy so there is an argument for it being banworthy despite not being broken, and that is the funny thing with Gholdengo really, it's not broken, but its unhealthy so that creates some very interesting discussions regarding it in the OU tier

No disrespect bc I know you know more than me and I semi-agree with your point, but you kinda said the same sentence 4 times. To me Ghold is not really unhealthy but I could see why it could be considered as such. The thing with Ghold is that it is metadefining. It's Ttar in ADV, Lax in GSC, Lando-T in every gen it's legal. I don't want to repeat FSG's points and preach em as gospel, but Gambit Ghold and Tusk feel like Tauros Chansey and Lax in RBY. Not that you need em in every team, but they define the pace of the tier. If you were to take one of em out, yeah things might be more pallatable, but the whole tier would crumble as much of it is based upon them. So my point about Ghold is that it encourages Boots spam, yes, it makes hazard removal nigh impossible, yes, it is a fantastic mon on its own right, yes, but that's the level of power we're allowing in SV OU. Anything above that is Ubers, anything below that has to adapt. It's hard for me to believe that the meta Ghold's existence forces is an unreasonable one when so much stuff gets Knock and runs it, you know?
 
It's a terrific ability but acting like it's broken is silly.
hmm, let me just check something real quick
IMG_0083.jpeg
huh, that's odd, it's banned in aaa. what a strange thing to do to an ability that isn't broken! i'd better go and tell the om people that they made a mistake and that good as gold is a fine and dandy ability to have around. can't have people removing hazards in any meta ever this gen, now can we?
 
hmm, let me just check something real quick
View attachment 636562huh, that's odd, it's banned in aaa. what a strange thing to do to an ability that isn't broken! i'd better go and tell the om people that they made a mistake and that good as gold is a fine and dandy ability to have around. can't have people removing hazards in any meta ever this gen, now can we?
And in the same meta, stakeout, innards out and neutralising gas are also banned. It may seem like comparing an om to SV OU is a little bit silly because they are completely different metas that only share a few traits with each other.
Good as gold is a really amazing ability, and potentially (and that's a big potentially) broken, but let's not act like it's stopping people from removing hazards. The derth of removal options is what is stopping people from removing them, as we have 4 options total (5 if you count glim, but that dies so fast so I don't count it). Banning ghold will only make corv better and even then not by a whole lot. The other defogger are either trash (like Scizor trying to defog is insane) or already bypass ghold (like talon or geezing).
 
hmm, let me just check something real quick
View attachment 636562huh, that's odd, it's banned in aaa. what a strange thing to do to an ability that isn't broken! i'd better go and tell the om people that they made a mistake and that good as gold is a fine and dandy ability to have around. can't have people removing hazards in any meta ever this gen, now can we?

You know how terribly disingenuous it is to go to an OM which has wildly different metagame and power levels and go "see X is banned here. Clearly broken!!!" is? And as was pointed out above me, other abilities that are normally meager in standard metagames are also banned there. S0 please if you're gonna argue, make an argument with points that is actually relevant to this tier.
 
Random Mon of the Week

Hi everyone! Sorry for the late post. Life has been a hassle lately and I didn't post as seen as I wanted to before due to finals at college. Thanks for understanding and now time forrrrrrrrr for the winner of the last poll. A Pokemon who peaked in gen 5 during the era of permanent rain. A Pokemon who laughs at the face of Blissey. A Pokemon whose worst nightmare is a Primarina in the team preview screen

dhg8u6m-a6e7df65-ecb7-437c-85ae-72a441d4e3e3.png

Substitute, Calm Mind Keldeo
Discussion: To put it simply, Gen 9 OU has been a rough generation for Keldeo. Keldeo isn't bad in any regard. Keldeo typing is naturally able to match up really well against unboosted kambit and win in a 1v1 or force a tera. Although not the best, its speed tier is still decent out speeding :Great Tusk: and :Gholdengo: . Keldeo great traits though are typically just outclassed and not good enough to keep up with the OU tier. Want a fast specs water type user? :Walking Wake: is typically your dino. Want a sub calm mind mon (ironic I know)? :Primarina: is your gal. Keldeo also doesn't appreciate :roaring moon: , :Iron valiant: , :raging bolt: , :primarina: ,:dragonite:, :Slowking-Galar: at all in any regards. What niche does Keldo possibly have? I believed it to be the stall match-up. With your natural typing/ stabs , you can easily deal with the core of :Blissey: and :Clodsire: and make them run home to or force a tera to become the BULLSHIT ghost type, and with your faster speed, you can still be a strong offensive threat against likes of :Great Tusk: :gHOLDENGO: :Samurott-Hisui: and more unlike prim due to it's natural speed.With calm mind, you are able to become an endgame sweeper that prays against slower bulkier teams. Substitute is also here to laugh at the face of all Glowking as you become a steel type and calm mind and use them as fodder.

My Use/ Opinions of it
Screenshot 2024-05-27 at 11.12.01 PM.png

Discussion: When going with this very offensive mon, I decided to try it on a playstyle I had long not touched since the days of Iron Boulder actually being good : Hyper Offense. Keldeo has a standard set and mainly runs leftovers over other items like boots or ... for extra longevity when using a substitute. Now when building i found one flaw in Keldeo attempt to make every stall team cry, Alo and Dondozo. Due to them resisting water and having insane physical bulk against secret sword, I wanted a Pokemon who could destroy there hopes. A Pokemon who both appreciated the special walls gone and destroyed. Raging Bolt
Screenshot 2024-05-27 at 11.16.39 PM.png

I decided to stay more normal and stuck with this standard set meant to have much power and speed creep certain OU mons. This solves the issue of water types with the stall I was so worried about and benefited offensively with Keldo. From there I had moon, tusk, gambit, and glimmora for hazards

Overall Thoughts: While using Keldeo, it was fun and did perform decently well. There were many games won just by surprising glowing or even prims with a surprise tera steel sub and using them as set up fodder. Keldeo speed tier didn't even feel that bad, since I always had roaring moon or tusk to help me out. I do honestly think Keldo is alot better than thought and will be interested to see if people will explore it themselves



Voting:
I want you guys to choose my next pokemon :D
Just some things I wanna say.
1. These sets are considered to change but the main idea will remain. Meaning I may replace Ice spinner on tusk with temper flare but still keep it banded.
2. To vote each pokemon will be assigned an emote (wow, haha, sad, etc.) said right after there title with a colon. You will emote with the one you want next on the post next week. By the end of tomorrow of this time, whoever receives the most, will become a team and I will make a post like this one once again like.


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- Heavy Duty Boots Utility Walking Wake
: Emote Wow
Screenshot 2024-05-19 at 10.12.55 PM.png










Screenshot 2024-05-19 at 10.03.22 PM.png

- Choice Band Break Great Tusk
: Emote Sad
Screenshot 2024-05-19 at 10.13.08 PM.png








Screenshot 2024-05-28 at 12.35.08 AM.png

- Offensive Nasty Plot Hydregion
: Emote Angry
Screenshot 2024-05-19 at 10.13.13 PM.png


Thank you for all reading this far and let me know what I can do to make this any better for next time :D.
 
Evening, I had something on my mind for a while and I wanted to know what you ppl think
I have said many times that I believe firmly that Garganacl is absolutely busted if people build around it considering it is a Tera hog, and recently I got vindicated by the turtle man posting a 2k+ rating team centered around salty kong.

My question: what are some other pokemon that work MUCH BETTER assuming it will hog tera?

Gambit is a no-brainer, of course, but what are some other ideas? Ghold doesn't count much because it will function well Teraless. Thundurus-T Tera Flying is a fuckin menace, for example. Latias Levitate Tera Steel is another as a setup wincon. What are some obvious ones I missed? Some underrated perhaps?
 
got vindicated by the turtle man posting a 2k+ rating team centered around salty kong.

Got uh... got a link to that? Would love to see it (big salty kong fan here)

Also speaking of Garganacl, wow it feels like it's been on fire lately. It's been surging in prevalence and usage, and it feels like it's only possibly gonna get to be more so if people keep exploring it as they have been. Anyone got any unusual sets for Garg, or just any general sets you think are the best right now?
 
Got uh... got a link to that? Would love to see it (big salty kong fan here)

Also speaking of Garganacl, wow it feels like it's been on fire lately. It's been surging in prevalence and usage, and it feels like it's only possibly gonna get to be more so if people keep exploring it as they have been. Anyone got any unusual sets for Garg, or just any general sets you think are the best right now?

There you go my man

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/garganacl-semistall-peaked-1-2066-elo.3743956/
 
Got uh... got a link to that? Would love to see it (big salty kong fan here)

Also speaking of Garganacl, wow it feels like it's been on fire lately. It's been surging in prevalence and usage, and it feels like it's only possibly gonna get to be more so if people keep exploring it as they have been. Anyone got any unusual sets for Garg, or just any general sets you think are the best right now?
Mental herb raging bolt on sun teams to stop waterpon and valiant from ruining your sweep with encore.
 
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