Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

[Anchor9]

I don’t really understand why people keep saying stall is dead. I understand it’s extremely hard to build but there have been so many RMTs of users finding innovative ways for it to work. Stall will never die.

 

[Darkk]

TLDR: Keep everyone because more bans will skew the meta further. Free Volc and suspect test palafin
Also, this wouldnt have happened if you all listened to the SV herald in the first place and left volc alone

Volc was suspect and banned a month ago with 80% support. There is 0 shot the council going to unban it so this proposal is pointless anyway.

Better to address what’s broken rather than keep broken mon to check other broken mon. This could easily leads to argument to just bring other Ubers sweepers / fat / walls down to check current HO meta.

“Healthy” and “fun” meta is extremely subjective. Some people prefers GSC / ADV / SS style of having limited and predictable team composition, but there is less “bs” or “cheesy” strats. Some prefers SM / SV where Tera / Z moves makes the game extremely dynamic and there are more room for creativity in team builder, but prone to match up fishing and “cheese.” The only real objective measurement is if the meta game facilitates a more skill player to determine the result of a match the majority of the time (fuck Darkrai bs flinch freeze poison, i swear you all only unban this thing cuz it looks cool)



Also WCoP going on so don’t get baited by Daddy Buzzwole again, almost threw the SPL

 

[658Greninja]

1= fair and honest, 2 = not really an issue yet, 3 = concern for overcentralization, 4 = overcentralizing/unhealthy, 5 = blatant cancer in need of removal

3.5/5 -- Darkrai is now free into balance because volc leaving the tier opened up huge holes for mixed special attackers or special attackers with knock off/greedy coverage to wreak havok on unawares/special walls in general. Darkrai paired with other special/mixed special attackers which mostly have knock or another way of weakening special walls has caused the meta to obsolete special tanks like clod and dirge. Blissey faces the risk of getting tricked or eating psyshocks, and we often see 3-4 special setup guys on one team to overload the special side, with a mixed/physical valiant to accompany the crew. Darkrai by itself is not the broken threat that we must look into, but when paired with bolt, ghold, valiant, and a myriad other special attackers now that volc is free, it can overload many teams on the special side. Volc being gone also caused the decline of stall/very fat teams due to special mons being better breakers than physical mons outside of rare instances like roaring moon/gambit, and volc which itself acted like a special version of zamazenta as a deterrent for special setup being gone further weakened the metagame's defenses against special setup mons. This mon's rise is symptomatic of a unhealthy metagame that favors 3-4 setup mons every game due to how lackluster unawares and countermeasures to fat are, with most of them straight up losing to hazards + a mixed special attacker or simply knock off. This is not an issue with the mon itself, so I would not advocate banning more mons to fix the mistake of banning volc (removing darkrai takes away 1 of like maybe 3 good ice beamers in the tier and makes gliscor even more free). In addition to being so free this mon gets 0.5 tacked on for every move being rng based (dp/ib/sb/fb)

1/5 -- 4 att sets have declined since idef is so free into a lot of offense, not only offensively but having defensive utility. This mon holds back so many problematic setup sweepers and is akin to dondozo without being a momentum sap, and is healthy/essential for the metagame. However, I did like volc being in the meta forcing more edge zamas or tera fire usage, because this mon seems a bit too free as it stands. The darkrai/zama/ghold love triangle (often paired together too) is something volc would have broken up easily.

2/5 -- in volc meta this thing was at least forced to run wave or suffer the fate of being setup fodder. However, this mon as it currently stands, alongside rai and bolt, take huge advantage of the meta phasing out special walls that are hazard weak. Guess the wrong set and rai/ghold can trick a special wall for the other to sweep, and often 3-4 special setup teams are unpunished like 3-4 physical setup teams which have been mostly obsoleted by the presence of zama. Many games end in defensive ghold tera flip sweep, and the plague of 3-4 setup per team that is our current metagame not only discourages diversity but boxes styles in by eliminating stall and a lot of ho styles.

2/5 -- Very essential to the ecosystem to keep midrange fat teams in check and providing more outs for gliscor. This mon also holds back rain and sun sweepers from being brainlessly spammable with its unique body. Weakness to hazards and all statuses, a limited tera, and being mostly predictable does not hold this mon back from doing its job every game, but does ground it from taking off into broken territory.

2/5 -- Boots is manageable, specs weak to rocks, but volc leaving the tier has made mixed dd is one of the reasons stall is unviable because there is no defensive fire to curb this thing. Overall it is not a big threat by itself, but the lack of volc is allowing a lot of special attackers in the tier to get greedier in their set choices to break dedicated special walls, and this is a trend that has happened to mons like rai, val, kyu, and many more since volc's departure. Again, symptomatic of the metagame with a void left by volc

3/5 -- As much as it holds the meta together and curbs mindless ho spam, it is also a cheap mon at the end of the day and never wont be due to the nature of this mon's mechanics. Not much to be explained here but thankfully we have zama val lando tusk and co in the tier

2/5 -- another mon benefitting from volc's absence, as it vs volc is a matter of who sets up first. This mon like rai/ghold is not problematic by itself and holds back may skilless ho strats, while having a god tier body to trade. The mon just got better due to the meta straying away from stall and/or unaware mons that all eventually lose to hazards and knock, but it is essential for the meta

1/5 -- While all other special attackers got better, this guy who had the unique benefit of darts vs volc is left out of the spotlight. Not only is this mon not oppressive now, it fails to trade into many offensive mons making the boots mixed set a lot worse than before.

2/5 -- The mon is now free considering volc is gone, but ghold's rise in popularity keeps it in check. The speed is still essential in curbing many threats from rai to zama, and having an extra out vs gambit is also indispensible.

3/5 -- Due to the meta not having unawares or stalls, and ho lacking muscle to chew through its hp, alongside with a decline in offensive tusk, sd is now becoming more and more free over a utility set. sd is restrictive to check for many midrange styles, and while its utility is fine, we cannot afford to get rid of more ice move and water move users to make the sd set (normal facade eq invented by yours truly circa last scl) overblown.

3.5/5 -- On one hand the taunt bu set used to be cheap and swept many teams on release, on the other we now have many tools from alo, woger, zama, to bolt, kyurem, pult. Band will surely still be a menace but 100 speed makes this mon seem like a more immediate power having and less cheap urshifu rs imo. In addition to its momentum move being wallable by water absorb, I think this mon can be tested and become a great ou staple without being broken.

4.5/5 -- We can suspect this mon again but IMO it is the steroids that make this mon unbalanaced. Not only does scarf in rain have little counterplay in addition to having anti wogerpon measures, its access to sd further makes it cheap behind screens/under webs to blast through any fat not named dondozo, even critting through zama. I think this mon will eventually be too much for ou but theres no harm in testing it out if we see that palafin can be a good healthy fit for the meta.

3/5 -- People cried about this mon having immediate sweeping power but are now opening their eyes to just how much 'immediate power' other special sweepers have such as darkrai/ghold/bolt and val. Those mons are not only faster but hit harder off the bat, and without volc to hold them back these +2 setup mons ravage balance and fat teams like volc never could dream of doing without multiple boosts or exhausting tera. Further, measures used to check volc such as clod, dirge, bliss, and a few more are ineffective vs rai, ghold, and val, who not only have access to super effective moves or mixed capabilities, in addition to the simplest solution to special walls: trick/knock. Volc was the special equivalent to zama and held the metagame together against special threat spam, and despite flame body being a cheap mechanic, it is still an overall honest mon that stopped 3-4 special setup spam + special knocker from ravaging any team with hopes of trying to wall anything. Its absence has lead to a steady decline in fat/full stall due to other special attackers held back by it being good into unwares, while volc itself had to rock the honest boots and has no access to cheap breaking moves for full special walls. This mon needs to come back to the meta asap so we once again have a balance of offense, balance, and stall, instead of this cesspool we call ou that is just 3-4 wincons mashed together next to a rocker and a knocker every single fucking game because it is unpunishable. Before, a poorly built team of wincon spams with a special bias is the recipe for volc countersweep, but now those types of skilless teams are unchecked. We absolutely need this mon back into the meta because no matter what kind of sweeping threat it poses, it has very clear cut and defined outs such as clod, bliss, dirge, rather than the current crop of special attackers who easily have the ability to overwhelm the supposed dedicated 'special walls'. Zama being used in a dondozo role is also reflective of how the metagame favors offensive checks to threats in order to preserve momentum. Special walls being terrible shows that we need an offensive check to the unmitigated threat that is special sweepers with breaking capabilities, because atm those mons are freer than America.

5/5 -- most likely still broken because of the limited amount of counterplay around this mon

5/5 -- Hybrid between weavile and gambit, this mon is likely still too powerful for ou

5/5 -- stored power on legs. If we do complex ban or ban stored entirely, this mon would make a fantastic addition to ou in checking key threats. As it stands, this mon is more toxic than the mons it checks

5/5 -- until the signature move is banned this thing is always going to be too cheap for ou

5/5 -- If we ban rage fist this goes to a 1/5 which, idk why we havent just banned fist and freed ape yet but complex banning is too complex for feeble minds in big 2024 ig

5/5 -- if we complex ban unburden maybe, otherwise 800 att 700 speed in one turn on terrain is inherently a broken concept

4.9/5 -- can prob suspect test this, but its coverage is insane and only checked by shit like bliss and empoleon. Freeze dry + water off blistering speed is nasty, but i can see a suspect (99% ending in ban still)

5/5 -- with a tera blast ban, this mon can become fair and honest in ou. Until then, it is always going to be too cheap due to volc + boltbeam on legs

In conclusion: volc's departure is essentially what caused the metagame to devolve into this multi setup spam bullshit due to walls no longer being sturdy enough for threats. This skewed dynamic in favor of offense is unhealthy for the metagame, and most fat teams are simply hazard based bo with wincons of their own rather than true fat with unawares and other specialized walls. we must free volc and restore the metagame to its diverse self with offense, balance, and fat all coexisting alongside one another (stall was underpowered by now its basically dead)

TLDR: Keep everyone because more bans will skew the meta further. Free Volc and suspect test palafin
Also, this wouldnt have happened if you all listened to the SV herald in the first place and left volc alone

Not to be that guy, but Volc was never a good Darkrai check. It was one Dpulse flinch away from becoming a sack. Darkrai is bullshit because not only are its pool of checks limited, but it can hax through said checks with a random flinch/poison/freeze. Darkrai’s speed tier makes that all the more apparent.

Volc was too much with Tera Blast imo, but if we ban Tera Blast, we’d be able to free Volcarona and Regieleki, the former giving us a sturdy Ice resist and Ghold check, the latter being a fast offensive spinner. Plus it’d reduce matchup fishing by a marginal amount. Tera Blast adds no benefit other than cheese/surprise factor. I agree we should retest Volc, but not until we deal with Tera Blast first.

The rest (minus Wogre) I agree with, including Gliscor who invalidates balance and is still an asshole towards offensive structures by being ridiculously fat and hard to rkill with Tera.

 

[AquiIo]

3/5 -- People cried about this mon having immediate sweeping power but are now opening their eyes to just how much 'immediate power' other special sweepers have such as darkrai/ghold/bolt and val. Those mons are not only faster but hit harder off the bat, and without volc to hold them back these +2 setup mons ravage balance and fat teams like volc never could dream of doing without multiple boosts or exhausting tera. Further, measures used to check volc such as clod, dirge, bliss, and a few more are ineffective vs rai, ghold, and val, who not only have access to super effective moves or mixed capabilities, in addition to the simplest solution to special walls: trick/knock. Volc was the special equivalent to zama and held the metagame together against special threat spam, and despite flame body being a cheap mechanic, it is still an overall honest mon that stopped 3-4 special setup spam + special knocker from ravaging any team with hopes of trying to wall anything. Its absence has lead to a steady decline in fat/full stall due to other special attackers held back by it being good into unwares, while volc itself had to rock the honest boots and has no access to cheap breaking moves for full special walls. This mon needs to come back to the meta asap so we once again have a balance of offense, balance, and stall, instead of this cesspool we call ou that is just 3-4 wincons mashed together next to a rocker and a knocker every single fucking game because it is unpunishable. Before, a poorly built team of wincon spams with a special bias is the recipe for volc countersweep, but now those types of skilless teams are unchecked. We absolutely need this mon back into the meta because no matter what kind of sweeping threat it poses, it has very clear cut and defined outs such as clod, bliss, dirge, rather than the current crop of special attackers who easily have the ability to overwhelm the supposed dedicated 'special walls'. Zama being used in a dondozo role is also reflective of how the metagame favors offensive checks to threats in order to preserve momentum. Special walls being terrible shows that we need an offensive check to the unmitigated threat that is special sweepers with breaking capabilities, because atm those mons are freer than America.

5/5 -- stored power on legs. If we do complex ban or ban stored entirely, this mon would make a fantastic addition to ou in checking key threats. As it stands, this mon is more toxic than the mons it checks

I do think banning stored power and tera blast and freeing volc and mage would have a positive impact on the metagame overall, without having considerable downsides - tera blast as mentioned is almost never healthy and just cheese, and all stored power users (mainly hatt and to a lesser extent clef) have a slew of other options for the same slot and would not see much of a downfall if sp was banned - psychic noise and psyshock for hatt, ft for clef, etc.

 

[MilkyWay]

I don’t really understand why people keep saying stall is dead. I understand it’s extremely hard to build but there have been so many RMTs of users finding innovative ways for it to work. Stall will never die.

It’s never been dead. That’s just the narrative Big Stall™ wants to push. Those of us that see through the smoke screen have noticed abundant stall RMTs have peaked #1 in every iteration of this gen’s metagame. They’ve even infiltrated the VR council to sandbag Blissey’s viability to make stall appear worse than it is (we all know Blissey shouldn’t be ranked below excadrill, blaziken, etc.).

It’s unclear to me what the motive of Big Stall™ is. My personal guess is they want to intimidate gamefreak into giving toxapex scald and knock off back. Regardless, I’d advise you to lay low with the anti-stall rhetoric because you never know where they’re lurking

 

[Cheryl.]

1 Respect the people who voted No Ban on this for the one time
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I will respect them when they give an argument that doesn't amount to denying that the metagame has had clear changes since the Kyurem test MONTHS ago including a check being banned and multiple Kyurem sets being innovated and used making the mon even worse to deal with. Just because you voted DNB last time does not give you any special rights.

 

[CTC]

I will address Darkk and 658Greninja here.
'Volc was suspect and banned a month ago with 80% support. There is 0 shot the council going to unban it so this proposal is pointless anyway.
Better to address what’s broken rather than keep broken mon to check other broken mon. This could easily leads to argument to just bring other Ubers sweepers / fat / walls down to check current HO meta.'

counterpoint: the gouging ban was looking like it would have 200% support before my vocal posting brought the truth to the attention of many tour players. Not only had the metagame not adapted to gouging then, it was clear that the 'on paper' view of gouging was straight up misconstrued and people over-exaggerated the sweeping prowess of that mon, as the bulky sets dont hit hard enough and the hard hitting sets dont last long enough. Sound similar to another fire type that only got banned due to the vacuum created by my absence?
better to address whats broken is a misguided concept because banning more shit shifts the meta further, and many mons have irreplaceable niches that cannot be replicated by other mons. Banning a mon can have ripple effects that cause many metagame changes that simply banning other mons cannot fix. For example, banning volc made the greedy special setup breakers, or nasty plotters as a whole, a lot more broken. Do we ban all the other special setup? no. This is like how zama held back all the physical setup, we dont ban zama then ban gambit then ban gouging then ban roaring etc, just like how we cant ban volc and then ban rai, ghold, bolt, val etc.

this segues me into 658greninja's point:
'Not to be that guy, but Volc was never a good Darkrai check. It was one Dpulse flinch away from becoming a sack. Darkrai is bullshit because not only are its pool of checks limited, but it can hax through said checks with a random flinch/poison/freeze. Darkrai’s speed tier makes that all the more apparent.'
people often confuse a mon holding back another's usage as 'directly countering', but that is not how things work. Using rai has the drawback of it being useless in the event of a volc sweep, volc may not directly come into rai but at any point if volc is in first or it doubles on rai or comes in on any non np move, it has the upper hand. rai + 2 special attackers like ghold bolt or val is very common as a backrow on teams in current meta, but such special stacking greed would be heavily punished in volc meta because that backrow would be paper if u are on the wrong end of a volc setup. therefore, although volc does not directly counter these mons (besides like ghold/val), it is enough of a deterrent to prevent centralization, and deters greedy sets from being used such as forcing knock on val and forcing wave on ghold to weaken breaking potential on certain special setup mons.
notice darkrai had been fair and balanced for months but only saw popularity boom right now? its not cuz the mon all of a sudden got so much better, but the environment just got better for it. Hard stall is nerfed to the ground and theres no punishment for running special breakers + rai or even using shock rai as the special breaker, with no fear of volc being in the back to reverse sweep. Rai also benefits from the meta having fewer pults because gliscor is everywhere, the sd set walling most pults.

Further, 'Volc was too much with Tera Blast imo, but if we ban Tera Blast, we’d be able to free Volcarona and Regieleki, the former giving us a sturdy Ice resist and Ghold check, the latter being a fast offensive spinner. Plus it’d reduce matchup fishing by a marginal amount. Tera Blast adds no benefit other than cheese/surprise factor. I agree we should retest Volc, but not until we deal with Tera Blast first.' this I can agree with, as without tb volc is not even a factor in teambuilding constraint, at least compared to a toolbox like rai with its insane coverage and utility arsenal.

Lastly, banning rai would only make scor even better, and takes away another setup guy taht punishes scor/gking and general bo. This may force the meta to turn into what was the olt meta last year, which is a meta where boots spam was so much better than the extreme styles that diluted offense and stall to marginal usage rate niche strats. We are currently on the path to a gking gliscor spam fest unabated by the previous gliscor ban. If the solution to this is more bans such as rai, scor, bolt, or any other undeserving mon, we will simply skew the metagame further. During spl meta, we had a good mix of offense, balance, and stall, and the winning team tyrants displayed that diversity by winning with a myriad different strats. currently the meta has squeezed out fat for the most part and rewards 3/4 setup spam stack, as that seems to be the safest bet vs the field. This centralization has taken rai from an ok threat with ok usage to the most spammed mon at least in terms of wcop usage, and is causing centralization that is readily evident in the usage/winrate department which anyone can confirm for themselves.

Therefore, in order to curb this centralization, we must bring volc back to punish the greedy setup spam that punishes any fat structure, we must bring back mons that beat setup and lose to unaware in order to balance the scales and restore fat as a viable playstyle in order to restore diversity.
Even though there is no consensus as to what makes a meta balanced, I feel that its fair to say a diverse meta with no centralizing threats w absurd usage/winrate, and in which offense/balance/fat can all co-exist with appropriate niches can be considered a good and stable meta, which is what we had before the volc ban. I will consult statistics to back up my claims, feel free to challenge any of the claims I made here
Cheers and free volc/palafin

 

[burstslinky]

enjoyment: 3
competitiveness: 4
super matchup fish gen is really boring to play imo

ogerpon-wellspring: 2, I think its an amazing mon that can definitely be a major threat to many structures, but I think that it being one of the few physical attackers who actually punishes mola is really important to keep around. banning this guy just puts us into a state of mola walling every single physical attacker not named rilla and forcing offense to just be special attackers getting spammed. there is 0 skill in clicking wish+flip turn 30 million times a game im sorry. also this thing gets fried by any form of hazards and has no recovery outside of horn leech, which loses out on a lot of major calcs

kyurem: 3, again similar reasoning, but can actually sweep entire teams with dd/scale, but it still gets fried by rocks and the other sets are pretty manageable. mixed dd is def my favorite set atm bc it can just farm a lot of people that dont expect it and gives a good matchup into stall.

zama: 2, I think idbp is still brainless/skillless cheese but its not overwhelming, keeps a lot of physical attackers in check, including and especially gambit

darkrai: 3.5, absolute goated breaker with np +coverage, but im a bit on the hesitant side when it comes to banning it. alone its pretty manageable, but it can force a lot of damage+tera usage for its teammates to just clean up everything. scarf/specs sets are good against stall with trick, but imo are not that bad to deal with

gambit: 3.5, I hate this thing and what it has done to the meta by forcing every team to carry at minimum 2-3 checks, or else be deemed unviable. however, ever since the dlcs have come out, the absolute menace of a complete gambit reverse sweep has definitely gone down, due to things like encore zama lando tusk etc. still a perpetually cheap mon that is extremely stupid in every metagame its in

gliscor: 2.5, really hate how many balance matches end up in a gliscor vs gliscor face off, and spikes are cheap as hell due to the complete lack of removal in the tier. both sd and utility can be annoying as hell depending on the team, but it does kind of hold a lot of the metagame together. however, like our lord and savior CTC said, if any more big waters/ice guys (kyurem and ogerpon) go then this thing is just going to be a nightmare with sd nonsense.

 

[Leman123]

The idea that if we ban Kyurem and Ogerpon-W and Darkrai will make Slowking-G/Gliscor cores too good doesn't super make sense to me? There are a lot of Pokemon that can take advantage of that core that are not quite as potent as Kyurem, Ogerpon-W, and Darkrai that are viable like Weavile, Meowscarada, or Greninja? Or stuff like Walking Wake and Ogerpon-C that can fill similar breaker roles. These Pokemon are all obviously not as good as the three up for discussion but I feel like can have similar positive effects on the metagame without the negative impacts that Ogerpon-W, Kyurem, and Darkrai have.

 

[besudo]

To give my two sense on the discussion and to drop some more spicier takes. Of the three most hot button pokemon atm, the order in which I'd place them based on how problematic they are it's Kyrum > Darkrai >>> Wellspring and I'll elaborate.

Kyrum I can see why it should rightfully deserve a 3 or higher rating for most, im 40:60 on it myself. I can see it being banned and the Meta as a whole be better off but I can also see a gambit situation where it's obviously dummy strong but we call kinda learn to live and adapt to it existence.
If kyrum was just it's special sets it would be no higher then a 2 and not worth stressing. But its those crafty mix sets, the mere threat of being to attack decently hard on the physical side even if it's subpar most of the time, but most important of all is its dd option in combination with the potential Tera ice. This set is particularly deadly mainly do to how it buffs its speed tier against the common revenge killer, exploiting kyrum base speed tier was one of the more reliable ways to keep it in check. A lot of teams lose that punish window if the kyrum user dd's on the swap that they force easily.


Darkrai is like a 2.5 to me, definitely a strong top tier mon but I'm not sure if it reaches that ban worthy threshold for me. It's biggest strength is that nasty special attack+ ratio in combination with its good enough mix bulk. I've found the best way to deal with it is to smartly pick who your gonna gonna trade hp on to take it down since not many true counters to the mon exist. This strategy usually works well enough since darkrai unboosted attack power is just low enough to where it can reliably neutral hit one shot things. Only problem with this strat is the game swinging secondary effects on all its common moves. An ice beam freeze or a lucky dark pulse flinch ruining your 3 hit ko check can allow Darkrai to bypass its counterplay and cause you to take way more damage getting rid of it then you were accounting for. So in that sense I can see why it could deserve a lot higher. There are a lot of scary tip tiers you got to worry about this gen and so having one thst you have to worry about it and dancing around rng rolls, I can see how that would be too restrictive feeling for some.

Finally there's Orgepon Wellspring the mon that I'd give a 1.5 to at most but really a hard one. When I see so many 5's for this thing all I see within the subtext is ; tell me that you'd prefer if bulky balence was a more dominant playstyle without saying it. Cause yes if you are running comps with 4 or more slow bulky mons and one of them isnt like a sinisha or some other specialized Wellspring check. If you have the type or comp to where orgepon can find multiple switch in opportunities and get chances to hit your team over and over, and especially If she can get off an unpunished SD against slower teams. Your going to get cooked and that's that. Orgepon is bulky balences biggest Op.At least with hard stall knows how these street works and they are adapt or die chads but bulky balence hasn't seemed to adjust yet. Heck I'd go as far as to say both masked orgepons are bulky balence greatest threats. I be getting real tired of the cornerstone downplaying as if they aren't side grades of each other with 80% of their benefits being the same with their offensive checks flipped and their defensive ones not really mattering cause neither pokemon ideally wants to take more then one hit , but I digress, the main point I wanted to get to is this.

The more leaning into the offense playstyle you go the more and more easier your orgepon match up becomes. Base 110 is rather easily to account for this gen and It's not too hard to find ways to run 2 or more pokemon that can creep 110 so you have revenge killer while not sacrificing to much on the teams bulk or other match ups elsewhere. A faster more offense leaning balence has a significantly easier match up against orgepon vs slower bulkier varrients. Not to mention that ones we leave the balnce and stall side and look more at how offense teams handle orgerpon it'd night and day. Like Hyper offense and all of its varrients absolutely dog walks orgerpon. Whether it's because the orgerpon user never gets to play the game because booster spam is too fast and strong. Or she gets crippled by webs or glimora cheese because she can't join in the boots spam. Or even just veil making you miss kills and you forgot to fit encore onto you set. Like non of these playstyles are un common or un viable. So since Orgerpon is such a feast or famine mon based on what playstyle it's fighting against , it balences out to being a fine and healthy top tier imo.

 

[Eeveeto]

I currently don't support unbanning any Uber Mon but if the argument to Unban them is to check currently borderline broken threats,the most suitable one is certainly neither Volc, nor something dumb like Urshifu or Palafin, but Zamazenta Crowned, Lugia and Giratina.

Zamazenta Crowned: soft checks Waterpon, forces Darkrai to always run either Focus Blast or Wow and Gambit to run Low Kick 90% of the time, switches into Draco Meteor (this means soft checking Kyurem and Raging Bolt) , immune to Gliscor's Toxic and Absorbs Knock. On the flip side, can't run items (so, weak to Spikes and any chip), still 4 move syndrome, massively weak тр Sun teams and almost never can break bulky teams.

Lugia: soft checks Waterpon, has Whirlwind to fuck Booster Energy users early game, can be a win condition with CM + Psyshock, threatens Gliscor with IB, checks almost everything when has Multiscale. On the flip , terrible typing, does almost no progress by itself, relies on Boots too much and has an even worse 4 slots syndrome than Zamazenta Crowned.

Giratina-A: Can be an offensive Defogger that forces Gholdengo to Tera, soft checks Waterpon, can be a spinblocker for bulkier teams or an offensive threats. On the flip side, no Recovery outside of Rest and weak to many top OU threats, but can solve that with Tera.

I repeat, I don't want these Mons in OU right now, but they make way more sense than Volcarona, Palafin and Urshifu.

 

[Venuesaur]

Survey opinions:

Enjoyment: 5
Competitive: 4
Too much cheese. Offense centric meta can be okay but to be honest there's just too much bullshit right now and I don't think its conducive to a healthy meta. I like SV and it has cool stuff there but I think there's also a lot of silliness right now.

- 4 or 5. Frankly I think it's too powerful and has been for a while. It breaks fat like nothing else. I've posted about this ad nauseum so I won't go too far into it, but its just too strong, even with being tera locked. It has essentially no defensive switchins without tera, and while its hazard weak it can often just output so much damage while its out. Switchins like Pult and Grasspon hate knock off.

- 4 or 5. Freeze is really stupid, and this thing hits hard as hell anyways. It can run dd and abuse tera blast, although I think specs is just the worst to play against because it does so much damage with ice stab and then can freeze on top of that anyways, which can just be an instant win. This provides nothing to the tier outside of a gliscor check that fits on offense, of which we have many. Should've been banned months ago (and almost was - 58-9% is extremely contentious) but wasn't thanks to some really bad reasoning.

- 4. Very strong, requires specific checks on fatter structures to really stop, and then it can NP and scare the shit out of you anyways.

- 2 or 3. Theoretically problematic in the future and can snowball, but has a sufficient amount of counterplay in my opinion.

+ - 2. Raging Bolt is the more problematic of the two but I don't necessarily care about action on either right now.

My own write-in: Booster energy. I think people against bans of this should really question as to why they are. The problem of SV is that there are too many offensive threats to check and that tiering is difficult because a lot of these aren't individually broken; this, not coincidentally, is exactly what booster energy does. Offense is very prevalent now and its because booster energy is disproportionately beneficial to it. Booster energy takes mons that would be fine otherwise and makes them borderline - its extremely strong as an item, especially for offense. +1 speed once upon entry is of course awful on anything balance but on offense its fine, and has virtually no drawbacks on HO/cheese considering you'll probably sack the mon anyways. That's a ridiculously powerful effect considering choice scarf has the same effect but locks you into a move, and if you go +offenses instead, life orb has the same effect but with a much worse drawback. If the main problem of SV is offensive threats, this is one of the prime reasons why; the amount you need to deal with in the builder is now much more constrained because you need to worry about multiple setup mons with either a free life orb boost like Roaring Moon or over 530 speed for no drawback like Iron Valiant. I think its silly and even if it doesnt break any individual mon, the pressure in the builder it creates and contribution to the amount of offensive threats means it just does not fit in any healthy singles metagame.

TLDR - ban Waterpon + Kyu (and hopefully booster at some point down the line), suspect Darkrai

 

[RS25802580]

I’ve yet to hear a compelling argument for Kyurem DNB. Loaded Dice Mixed DD or Mixed AoA exerts so much strain on bulky styles like Balance and Stall. It genuinely feels that the meta would be much better off without this mon.

The kinds of DNB arguments I’m seeing, paraphrased:
“Gets 6-0d by rocks” (removal exists)
“Glowking is everywhere” (not a real check for the problematic sets)
“It sucks” (that’s just like, your opinion man)
“Shoutout my Kyurembros for voting DNB!” (???)

If you have a legitimate DNB argument for Kyurem free to reply.

 

[BobbyHill]

enjoyment: 3
competitiveness: 4
super matchup fish gen is really boring to play imo

ogerpon-wellspring: 2, I think its an amazing mon that can definitely be a major threat to many structures, but I think that it being one of the few physical attackers who actually punishes mola is really important to keep around. banning this guy just puts us into a state of mola walling every single physical attacker not named rilla and forcing offense to just be special attackers getting spammed. there is 0 skill in clicking wish+flip turn 30 million times a game im sorry. also this thing gets fried by any form of hazards and has no recovery outside of horn leech, which loses out on a lot of major calcs

kyurem: 3, again similar reasoning, but can actually sweep entire teams with dd/scale, but it still gets fried by rocks and the other sets are pretty manageable. mixed dd is def my favorite set atm bc it can just farm a lot of people that dont expect it and gives a good matchup into stall.

zama: 2, I think idbp is still brainless/skillless cheese but its not overwhelming, keeps a lot of physical attackers in check, including and especially gambit

darkrai: 3.5, absolute goated breaker with np +coverage, but im a bit on the hesitant side when it comes to banning it. alone its pretty manageable, but it can force a lot of damage+tera usage for its teammates to just clean up everything. scarf/specs sets are good against stall with trick, but imo are not that bad to deal with

gambit: 3.5, I hate this thing and what it has done to the meta by forcing every team to carry at minimum 2-3 checks, or else be deemed unviable. however, ever since the dlcs have come out, the absolute menace of a complete gambit reverse sweep has definitely gone down, due to things like encore zama lando tusk etc. still a perpetually cheap mon that is extremely stupid in every metagame its in

gliscor: 2.5, really hate how many balance matches end up in a gliscor vs gliscor face off, and spikes are cheap as hell due to the complete lack of removal in the tier. both sd and utility can be annoying as hell depending on the team, but it does kind of hold a lot of the metagame together. however, like our lord and savior CTC said, if any more big waters/ice guys (kyurem and ogerpon) go then this thing is just going to be a nightmare with sd nonsense.

So you don’t want any bans, but you don’t like the meta?

 

[Avira]

I currently don't support unbanning any Uber Mon but if the argument to Unban them is to check currently borderline broken threats,the most suitable one is certainly neither Volc, nor something dumb like Urshifu or Palafin, but Zamazenta Crowned, Lugia and Giratina.

Zamazenta Crowned: soft checks Waterpon, forces Darkrai to always run either Focus Blast or Wow and Gambit to run Low Kick 90% of the time, switches into Draco Meteor (this means soft checking Kyurem and Raging Bolt) , immune to Gliscor's Toxic and Absorbs Knock. On the flip side, can't run items (so, weak to Spikes and any chip), still 4 move syndrome, massively weak тр Sun teams and almost never can break bulky teams.

Lugia: soft checks Waterpon, has Whirlwind to fuck Booster Energy users early game, can be a win condition with CM + Psyshock, threatens Gliscor with IB, checks almost everything when has Multiscale. On the flip , terrible typing, does almost no progress by itself, relies on Boots too much and has an even worse 4 slots syndrome than Zamazenta Crowned.

Giratina-A: Can be an offensive Defogger that forces Gholdengo to Tera, soft checks Waterpon, can be a spinblocker for bulkier teams or an offensive threats. On the flip side, no Recovery outside of Rest and weak to many top OU threats, but can solve that with Tera.

I repeat, I don't want these Mons in OU right now, but they make way more sense than Volcarona, Palafin and Urshifu.

I think Giratina-Altered would be extremely centralizing as a defensive presence. It may have slightly less bulk than Ting-Lu, but it has Will-o-Wisp to cripple switch-ins. Even though Rest is its only recovery move, this thing would be a huge bitch to kill despite its weaknesses to common types such as Ghost, Dark, Fairy, Dragon, and Ice. I can't see this being healthy for OU even though we'd have another defogger considering how effectively it functions as a spin blocker.

As such, I believe, Lugia, Solgaleo, and Zamazenta-Crowned would all serve as better drops than Giratina-Altered, not that I'm currently advocating for any of the three to drop.

 

[burstslinky]

So you don’t want any bans, but you don’t like the meta?

dont like the meta, dont know what to do with it

even with bans i think the meta will stay defined as a pretty matchup based tier and i just dont like it, and found other thing i can occupy myself with

edit: i think meta benefits more from bringing stuff down than it does banning stuff. i still am interested in seeing how the tier goes forward even if i am unlikely to play much going forward

 

[Roshino]

Quick reminder that dropping Ubers is what got us in this mess in the first place. 3 out of the 6 controversial mons mentioned are Ubers who have been dropped in gen 9 - fuel added to the fire

 

[zioziotrip]

to preface this post, i am usually a big fan of sv ou but this is its lowest point in recent memory. The randomly free uber pokemon bully most attempts at teambuilding that doesn’t include them. Darkrai and Zamazenta have such incredibly versatility that even if you (wrongly) believe that they aren’t broken they should be on pretty much every team due to their statgap with the rest of the tier. Their incredible speed tiers and immediate power also allow broken nonsense like Waterpon, Kyurem, and Raging Bolt to fly under the radar because apparently we’re fine just playing broken vs broken. It is of course possible to build consistent teams and play competitive games but the opportunity to build teams that aren’t offense variants are becoming increasingly smaller. Below are my survey votes (to my memory).

enjoyability + competiveness 6/10 - i still enjoy this meta more than i dislike it and i dont think matchup plays a very large role in the tier but building feels so incredibly stifiled and the frequency of ho dittos just leading to nonsense is higher than ever.

5/5 - i really dont see the argument for this mon staying at all if im being honest. the two solid defensive responses, ting and tinkaton, are pretty much locked to offense due to their total lack of consistent recovery and frequency to trade down for progress. the list of mons good into rai after this pretty much begin and end at zamazenta (another randomly free uber woohoo) which doesnt survive the stress test against rai sets w twave/wisp or tera poison. lily vs hellom is a pretty good showcase of rai just totally getting out of hand with set/rng luck despite lily having 2 solid dark resists, a weav to (attempt to), rk, and a gking as a stopgap. darkrai is an absolutely nightmarish (heh) building presence for anything that isnt offense as the counterplay is just praying its coverage is wrong to beat responses or stupid shit like going pult hard on focus. this mon at minimum is a really terrible presence for the tier with a massive amount of variance but i think that it is just blatantly broken and has no place in the tier.

5/5 - im just gonna repeat what i have for eons atp which is that the responses off offense are completely nonexistient. amogus and serp r massive concessions and do very little outside of checking this dickhead. it's pretty good into offense too with trailblaze lol and spdef boost allows it to 1v1 a lot of shit. not really sure what the argument against a ban here is besides just run zama/pult on every team.

5/5 - i have progressively gotten less accepting of kyurem as people experiment with dd/mixed sets. i will agree that boots and specs are closer to bad than broken but you shouldnt be running those sets. dice, dd, and mixed nmi all easily dismantle gking while still getting to spam broken ice stab which in combination w freeze dry there are very few solid resists. the rock weakness does very little to slow kyurem down considering it needs to get in only once to start forcing serious damage. this is another mon that u just throw random offense counterplay on a team and pray it handles kyurem, there are no good singular mon responses.

3/5 - i think in a lot of ways zama is pretty limiting in the builder, building physical threat stacking offense is pretty much impossible solely because of zama, but it is somewhat of a necessary evil for the moment. in an ideal world, everything above is banned as fuck and then this is gone too as it has similar random uber pokemon issues w rai where it has way too much versatility and way too little consistent counterplay (zapdos woohoo).

+ 2/5 - for the moment these arent even on my radar but i can see bolt specifically getting out of control pretty easily.

overall i think this tier needs a lot of action and i dont know if the solution is more frequent suspect tests or council slates but this is not an acceptable place for the meta to be in. i think suggesting that we should free more ubers instead of taking action on the ubers we already have running around ruining the tier is ridicilous. these ubers probably shouldnt have been freed to begin with and the proposed solution is to just double down and make this tier ubers bl instead of fixing the mistake. it's frustrating to see people and just give up on tiering what we have then to suggest radical tiering like freeing more ubers randomly or banning booster/spikes (??). this meta is still very salvageable, we just need to actually take the action instead of being antagonistic about proper tiering.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

1= fair and honest, 2 = not really an issue yet, 3 = concern for overcentralization, 4 = overcentralizing/unhealthy, 5 = blatant cancer in need of removal

3.5/5 -- Darkrai is now free into balance because volc leaving the tier opened up huge holes for mixed special attackers or special attackers with knock off/greedy coverage to wreak havok on unawares/special walls in general. Darkrai paired with other special/mixed special attackers which mostly have knock or another way of weakening special walls has caused the meta to obsolete special tanks like clod and dirge. Blissey faces the risk of getting tricked or eating psyshocks, and we often see 3-4 special setup guys on one team to overload the special side, with a mixed/physical valiant to accompany the crew. Darkrai by itself is not the broken threat that we must look into, but when paired with bolt, ghold, valiant, and a myriad other special attackers now that volc is free, it can overload many teams on the special side. Volc being gone also caused the decline of stall/very fat teams due to special mons being better breakers than physical mons outside of rare instances like roaring moon/gambit, and volc which itself acted like a special version of zamazenta as a deterrent for special setup being gone further weakened the metagame's defenses against special setup mons. This mon's rise is symptomatic of a unhealthy metagame that favors 3-4 setup mons every game due to how lackluster unawares and countermeasures to fat are, with most of them straight up losing to hazards + a mixed special attacker or simply knock off. This is not an issue with the mon itself, so I would not advocate banning more mons to fix the mistake of banning volc (removing darkrai takes away 1 of like maybe 3 good ice beamers in the tier and makes gliscor even more free). In addition to being so free this mon gets 0.5 tacked on for every move being rng based (dp/ib/sb/fb)

1/5 -- 4 att sets have declined since idef is so free into a lot of offense, not only offensively but having defensive utility. This mon holds back so many problematic setup sweepers and is akin to dondozo without being a momentum sap, and is healthy/essential for the metagame. However, I did like volc being in the meta forcing more edge zamas or tera fire usage, because this mon seems a bit too free as it stands. The darkrai/zama/ghold love triangle (often paired together too) is something volc would have broken up easily.

2/5 -- in volc meta this thing was at least forced to run wave or suffer the fate of being setup fodder. However, this mon as it currently stands, alongside rai and bolt, take huge advantage of the meta phasing out special walls that are hazard weak. Guess the wrong set and rai/ghold can trick a special wall for the other to sweep, and often 3-4 special setup teams are unpunished like 3-4 physical setup teams which have been mostly obsoleted by the presence of zama. Many games end in defensive ghold tera flip sweep, and the plague of 3-4 setup per team that is our current metagame not only discourages diversity but boxes styles in by eliminating stall and a lot of ho styles.

2/5 -- Very essential to the ecosystem to keep midrange fat teams in check and providing more outs for gliscor. This mon also holds back rain and sun sweepers from being brainlessly spammable with its unique body. Weakness to hazards and all statuses, a limited tera, and being mostly predictable does not hold this mon back from doing its job every game, but does ground it from taking off into broken territory.

2/5 -- Boots is manageable, specs weak to rocks, but volc leaving the tier has made mixed dd is one of the reasons stall is unviable because there is no defensive fire to curb this thing. Overall it is not a big threat by itself, but the lack of volc is allowing a lot of special attackers in the tier to get greedier in their set choices to break dedicated special walls, and this is a trend that has happened to mons like rai, val, kyu, and many more since volc's departure. Again, symptomatic of the metagame with a void left by volc

3/5 -- As much as it holds the meta together and curbs mindless ho spam, it is also a cheap mon at the end of the day and never wont be due to the nature of this mon's mechanics. Not much to be explained here but thankfully we have zama val lando tusk and co in the tier

2/5 -- another mon benefitting from volc's absence, as it vs volc is a matter of who sets up first. This mon like rai/ghold is not problematic by itself and holds back may skilless ho strats, while having a god tier body to trade. The mon just got better due to the meta straying away from stall and/or unaware mons that all eventually lose to hazards and knock, but it is essential for the meta

1/5 -- While all other special attackers got better, this guy who had the unique benefit of darts vs volc is left out of the spotlight. Not only is this mon not oppressive now, it fails to trade into many offensive mons making the boots mixed set a lot worse than before.

2/5 -- The mon is now free considering volc is gone, but ghold's rise in popularity keeps it in check. The speed is still essential in curbing many threats from rai to zama, and having an extra out vs gambit is also indispensible.

3/5 -- Due to the meta not having unawares or stalls, and ho lacking muscle to chew through its hp, alongside with a decline in offensive tusk, sd is now becoming more and more free over a utility set. sd is restrictive to check for many midrange styles, and while its utility is fine, we cannot afford to get rid of more ice move and water move users to make the sd set (normal facade eq invented by yours truly circa last scl) overblown.

3.5/5 -- On one hand the taunt bu set used to be cheap and swept many teams on release, on the other we now have many tools from alo, woger, zama, to bolt, kyurem, pult. Band will surely still be a menace but 100 speed makes this mon seem like a more immediate power having and less cheap urshifu rs imo. In addition to its momentum move being wallable by water absorb, I think this mon can be tested and become a great ou staple without being broken.

4.5/5 -- We can suspect this mon again but IMO it is the steroids that make this mon unbalanaced. Not only does scarf in rain have little counterplay in addition to having anti wogerpon measures, its access to sd further makes it cheap behind screens/under webs to blast through any fat not named dondozo, even critting through zama. I think this mon will eventually be too much for ou but theres no harm in testing it out if we see that palafin can be a good healthy fit for the meta.

3/5 -- People cried about this mon having immediate sweeping power but are now opening their eyes to just how much 'immediate power' other special sweepers have such as darkrai/ghold/bolt and val. Those mons are not only faster but hit harder off the bat, and without volc to hold them back these +2 setup mons ravage balance and fat teams like volc never could dream of doing without multiple boosts or exhausting tera. Further, measures used to check volc such as clod, dirge, bliss, and a few more are ineffective vs rai, ghold, and val, who not only have access to super effective moves or mixed capabilities, in addition to the simplest solution to special walls: trick/knock. Volc was the special equivalent to zama and held the metagame together against special threat spam, and despite flame body being a cheap mechanic, it is still an overall honest mon that stopped 3-4 special setup spam + special knocker from ravaging any team with hopes of trying to wall anything. Its absence has lead to a steady decline in fat/full stall due to other special attackers held back by it being good into unwares, while volc itself had to rock the honest boots and has no access to cheap breaking moves for full special walls. This mon needs to come back to the meta asap so we once again have a balance of offense, balance, and stall, instead of this cesspool we call ou that is just 3-4 wincons mashed together next to a rocker and a knocker every single fucking game because it is unpunishable. Before, a poorly built team of wincon spams with a special bias is the recipe for volc countersweep, but now those types of skilless teams are unchecked. We absolutely need this mon back into the meta because no matter what kind of sweeping threat it poses, it has very clear cut and defined outs such as clod, bliss, dirge, rather than the current crop of special attackers who easily have the ability to overwhelm the supposed dedicated 'special walls'. Zama being used in a dondozo role is also reflective of how the metagame favors offensive checks to threats in order to preserve momentum. Special walls being terrible shows that we need an offensive check to the unmitigated threat that is special sweepers with breaking capabilities, because atm those mons are freer than America.

5/5 -- most likely still broken because of the limited amount of counterplay around this mon

5/5 -- Hybrid between weavile and gambit, this mon is likely still too powerful for ou

5/5 -- stored power on legs. If we do complex ban or ban stored entirely, this mon would make a fantastic addition to ou in checking key threats. As it stands, this mon is more toxic than the mons it checks

5/5 -- until the signature move is banned this thing is always going to be too cheap for ou

5/5 -- If we ban rage fist this goes to a 1/5 which, idk why we havent just banned fist and freed ape yet but complex banning is too complex for feeble minds in big 2024 ig

5/5 -- if we complex ban unburden maybe, otherwise 800 att 700 speed in one turn on terrain is inherently a broken concept

4.9/5 -- can prob suspect test this, but its coverage is insane and only checked by shit like bliss and empoleon. Freeze dry + water off blistering speed is nasty, but i can see a suspect (99% ending in ban still)

5/5 -- with a tera blast ban, this mon can become fair and honest in ou. Until then, it is always going to be too cheap due to volc + boltbeam on legs

In conclusion: volc's departure is essentially what caused the metagame to devolve into this multi setup spam bullshit due to walls no longer being sturdy enough for threats. This skewed dynamic in favor of offense is unhealthy for the metagame, and most fat teams are simply hazard based bo with wincons of their own rather than true fat with unawares and other specialized walls. we must free volc and restore the metagame to its diverse self with offense, balance, and fat all coexisting alongside one another (stall was underpowered by now its basically dead)

TLDR: Keep everyone because more bans will skew the meta further. Free Volc and suspect test palafin
Also, this wouldnt have happened if you all listened to the SV herald in the first place and left volc alone

• i don't think that darkrai is necessarily a symptom of a wider problem besides the problem of threat saturation, which banning more mons is the way to deal with. as others have said, dropping ubers like darkrai and zama is how we got into this situation in the first place, even though zama has ultimately turned out to be a healthy presence. i think undoing many of these drops is the first step to making this meta less fucked and the volc ban was a step in the right direction
• you're right about zama. my philosophy is that nothing is "too valuable" to ban if it's broken, but if there was one exception, zamazenta would be it. the mon holds the meta together. for now, at least—if we can get rid of some of the other threats that zama checks, that opinion is subject to change
• i'm glad you're pointing out that ghold is still something that people should be looking at. whenever i say it people don't believe me
• i don't think sun or rain teams would turn problematic in the absence of waterpon, nor would alomomola. that's besides the point, though, because waterpon is stupid anyway and should go
• kyurem isn't "symptomatic of the void left by volc". volc was a thing during the previous kyurem suspect (even though the most dominant playstyle at the time clowned on it) and kyurem was still dumb enough to only barely avoid a ban for stupid reasons. the mon's just broken
• agreed, fuck gambit
• i don't think raging bolt is essential to the meta, but i don't think banning it would really accomplish anything at this juncture
• not sure whether valiant will ever grow into a genuine problem again but yeah it's kinda a little too strong right now and volc's ban was definitely the cause of that
• i think gliscor is kinda getting to that point where we should be talking about it, but i think that the discussion can wait until after one or more of darkrai/kyurem/waterpon goes
• palafin's still bullshit, especially if waterpon and/or kyurem bite the dust. it was banned so quickly that we didn't have the opportunity to fully explore it, so i have no doubt that if it dropped, someone (probably you) would eventually discover a set that's even more broken than what got it kicked out in the first place and we'd have to kill it a second time. i don't think it's worth the risk
• unbanning volc would be a terrible idea, especially after how much support the ban got and how many times we've rejected it from the tier. theoretically, if tera blast were to be banned i could get behind it, but i don't see that happening anytime soon. but as things stand, dropping more ubers is going to create more problems than it solves
• i agree that all the shit you said should stay banned should stay banned
• i also agree that annihilape and regieleki would be perfectly allowable in a meta with their wacky moves banned (archaludon too), but not bloodmoon or magearna. bloodmoon turned out to not even need its signature move—a lot of sets towards the end of the suspect were running hyper voice instead. as for magearna, it still does way too much stuff to be healthy even without stored power, and putting another spikes setter into this meta is never, ever a good idea
• even with a complex ban on unburden, unbanning sneasler would be apocalyptic, but for an entirely different reason: since the sleep clause mod is gone, we'd have to deal with dire claw at its full power

tl;dr i think the volc ban was good and disagree on how we should solve the meta's problems, but i do agree that some potentially healthy and meta-improving things could be freed with a couple strategic move bans

 

[Rekka's Backend]

The only thing I'll say as a whole for the current discourse flow is that a lot of people feel like something is 'wrong' with the meta. whether you agree with the aspect of what is, it's better to at least entertain the idea that one of the listed threats is giving enough people issue that the consideration of removal is at least a necessary action. There is forms of counterplay to mons like Kyurem, Darkrai, etc the fact remains there is also counter-counter play to someone trying to play against them too lol.

Sure specs Kyurem might be "6-0'd by rocks" but the enemy team isn't just going to often drop it in without removing hazards or trying to prevent you from using them either. This is a bit of a silly argument, especially when more often than not you'll be playing against players who have contingency plans for this exact scenario and won't just mindlessly bring in their ice cannon to die, especially with how valuable it is.

With that that being said, I genuinely do like the idea of making a series of bans before dropping in select things to test how they impact it; My issue isn't necessarily with centrializing threats, but rather the ones we have now and how many there are in practice. Team building feels rigid due to how many of these guys you gotta play around with, and I think that's where the feeling of "oversaturation" comes from. Which I think should slowly, but surely, be reduced so teambuilding and a few more styles that aren't HO or hazard stack are the sole optimal styles.

That, and a lot of high ladder is still stall due to the sheer abundance of HO and so on.

 

[Anchor9]

After hearing some recent blasphemy from user autumn on locked analysis about how, “Ampharos is not viable in OU”, it’s about time to begin Ampharos for OU again. It’s time to prove its rank as C+ on the viability rankings!

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2143432733-cu42igohuth1yxlvn05ut996r6ki5f3pw (SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU UNDERESTIMATE THE AMPHAROS?!!!)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2143436319-91j5f6azezilhlm3dab0uwyxus37wcbpw (Even in this loss, you see the amazing firepower of Ampharos, as it grabs 3 KOs and would have gotten a forth if it wasn’t slower than Alomomola [Which is dumb]. You can see it snipes the Lokix on the switch and suprises the Great Tusk expecting it to switch out. It has the bulk to easily tank the Shadow Ball from Dragapult)

 

[Insolence]

I don’t really understand why people keep saying stall is dead. I understand it’s extremely hard to build but there have been so many RMTs of users finding innovative ways for it to work. Stall will never die.

That, and a lot of high ladder is still stall due to the sheer abundance of HO and so on.

Looking at usage statistics, we can see that Blissey drops from almost 9% usage in April to not even making 5% in May. Even if you consider that the Volc suspect inflated the use of hard stall, it still maintained 7.5%+ in February and March. Even with the high concentration of HO it's clear people are finding stall less consistent than it was in previous metagames. Other players have already made excellent posts detailing why, so I'll just point out that individual players finding success with the playstyle is more indicative of personal skill than it is evidence of the archetype's viability.

 

[June Heat]

On God the tier would be so much better with Zama and Gambit gone. They’ve set such an unhealthy precedent of what should/can be allowed in SV OU that we’ve reached this juncture where no one can fully agree on how to tackle the tier, and there just isn’t anything that’s blatantly broken left that isn’t used as a team building crutch. Let’s just rip the bandaid off, and be happy we do it now rather than at the very end of this tiers life.

 

[Rekka's Backend]

Looking at usage statistics, we can see that Blissey drops from almost 9% usage in April to not even making 5% in May. Even if you consider that the Volc suspect inflated the use of hard stall, it still maintained 7.5%+ in February and March. Even with the high concentration of HO it's clear people are finding stall less consistent than it was in previous metagames. Other players have already made excellent posts detailing why, so I'll just point out that individual players finding success with the playstyle is more indicative of personal skill than it is evidence of the archetype's viability.

Thanks for the clarification. Self admittedly while I am not the top 1% of players Yet (job and life priorities etc usual excuses) most commentary I've visibly seen was referencing how the upper end of players were having an alright to successful time. Very interesting! We're all fucking suffering

 

[Avira]

I am vehemently against Zamazenta going as I believe that it is healthy for the meta with clear weaknesses and counterplay and that it makes teambuilding a lot easier.

Its lack of reliable recovery usually means any chip you get on it is permanent, making its role to stat check strong physical attackers limited by time if your opponent has some Zama answers. I don't see what is broken about this.