This line of thinking is incredibly singular and flawed. On hyper-offensive (HO) teams, Pokémon like Glimmora and Ting-Lu have multiple ways to seriously mess with the best remover in the tier. When they're backed by the #1 strongest mon in the team, sacking Great Tusk’s HP to get hazards off during turns 1-5 is just infeasible. Here’s the pitfall: early game, you commit Tusk to clear hazards, but it takes significant HP loss. This makes it vulnerable to powerful late-game threats like Kingambit. Even if you wanted to clear hazards, the HO player can easily sack Gholdengo on Tusk to maintain hazard presence. This forces you into a lose-lose situation where you either lose Tusk’s HP or momentum. Consequently, you can't relieve pressure from your team. The next turn, you’re at the mercy of threats like Moon, Zamazenta, Iron Valiant, and others.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
Isn't that also the case with most legendary mons in general? Like realistically, how could everyone's teams in certain gens have had a Lando-T on it when there is only supposed to be like 1 of them in a very specific region? Or Kyurem verse Kyurem? You yourself brought up Ogerpons on opposite teams. From a lore perspective, didn't Pokemon sort of answer this with their multiverse thing? I do still agree with you that it feels a bit bad. This has nothing to do with actual gameplay, though.
That's just a team building issue though, not a Gholdengo issue. Just because Great Tusk can either clear hazards or check Kingambit doesn't mean it can do both. Accidentally overloading a mon with roles is a common team building trap and avoiding it is part of the skill of Pokemon.
I mean I give Tusk Temper Flare for these exact scenarios. Either HR to try and snipe or Rapid Spin in case I misread the Ghold.
I mean, if you sit on the opposite side, you would also feel unfair if Great Tusk can spin AND deal with your Kingambit at the same time, so you would invest in a Pokemon to stop it from doing so. This boils down to team interaction between players and not the fault of a single Pokemon, this isn't mathematic, the outcome of a battle depends on making the play as well and not just hard, concrete result.
About different forms in the same team
I think that the Paradox forms and "Regional Fakes" like Wugtrio or Clodsire are a clear example that Game Freak wants to avoid the Species Clause they themselves added and making the new "forms" all viable to use alongside their kantonian/johtonian/hoennian etc counterparts.
And I think that the argument of editing the clause when the last three gens added a bunch of forms that are clearly different mons from each other in EVERYTHING excepting dex number is right.
Things like Golem and Golem-Alola that have clearly different niches for example are a testament that the clause could be edited in my opinion.
Before continuing I want to say that I am in the same boat as Heatranator. I don't really care about this clause being changed or not since I think we should first decide if we're suspecting any of the "Big Three" in OU (
,
, :Ogerpon-wellspring) or not. After that, and looking at other problematic mons that could potentially rise after a ban from those 3 (Zama, Garg, Gliscor, Alomomola, Gambit... All of these would get much better and imo could get problematic (or maybe not it's just theory)). After that we could look at this as a secondary matter but again; I don't think this is priority at all.
However, I don't agree with the arguments being made aganist it.
1. You could stack Sivally forms / Arceus Forms / Ogerpons etc etc
One of them has never been OU, the other one has never been OU either for a whole different reason.
As for "Arceus Stacking", Ubers has its own rules since there you can use Shed Tail for example. Or Sleep Clause.
I really like Ubers UU but they can also have their own ruleset and (unfortunetly) it's not an official metagame. So they can prevent the Arceus stacking as well.
As for "Silvally Stacking", thinking about the lower tiers in Silvally's case it's a bit silly in my opinion. Did the community think even once about idk, Toedscruel or Breloom when banning sleep? Or idk a potential niche for Trapinch with Arena Trap in lower tiers? No, since it's changing a rule for OU, so it should be looked as if it makes sense in OU. And if "Silvally stacking" gets problematic then ban some Silvallies from a tier. It's just that simple.
And as for Ogerpon, one might be banned (or at least suspected), the other two fill different niches and the other one is banned. And a simple mon shouldn't be the reason to not touch a rule. It's like banning megas because mega mawile was broken in gen 6. I don't think this is a good argument either.
2. We should play by cartridge standards
Ok then make timer per turn just 60 seconds, add a 20 minute timer to the battle, remove percentage in HP and also force the player to look to some laggy ass animations everytime one of the player switches or uses Tera. And also unban OHKO and Evasion moves. And I'm not even gonna get into how a lot of old gens are edited in Showdown in order to be more competitive.
And I'm talking about both OHKO and Evasion since they've been relevant in VGC last year. Therefore they're "official" for Game Freak.
Are we gonna make any of these? No we're not, all of this things are either QoL or making the game objectively more competitive. We apply rules that change the game in order to be more competitive, and that's not a problem. This is not a solid argument either imo.
Therefore I think that Traininator made a solid argument.
About Gholdengo
I do think that Gholdengo (and Gambit) have shaped the tier since its introduction in way a single Pokémon shouldn't in a Modern Gen metagame, and I also think that both of them are not healthy for the tier and that, without them, the tier could get to a more balanced state. Gholdengo is an OU tier pokémon by stats, moves and typing, without counting the ability to block Defog or Taunt/Encore/TWave etcetera. But the fact that it can do it alongside being an OU tier pokémon is the problem in my opinion.
However most of the people have either adapted/ accepted to the pressence of Gholdengo in the tier, or just don't think about it anymore since there are other problematic Pokémon which are more important to tackle (which I agree with tho)
I think that the Paradox forms and "Regional Fakes" like Wugtrio or Clodsire are a clear example that Game Freak wants to avoid the Species Clause they themselves added and making the new "forms" all viable to use alongside their kantonian/johtonian/hoennian etc counterparts.
And I think that the argument of editing the clause when the last three gens added a bunch of forms that are clearly different mons from each other in EVERYTHING excepting dex number is right.
Things like Golem and Golem-Alola that have clearly different niches for example are a testament that the clause could be edited in my opinion.
Before continuing I want to say that I am in the same boat as Heatranator. I don't really care about this clause being changed or not since I think we should first decide if we're suspecting any of the "Big Three" in OU (
However, I don't agree with the arguments being made aganist it.
1. You could stack Sivally forms / Arceus Forms / Ogerpons etc etc
One of them has never been OU, the other one has never been OU either for a whole different reason.
As for "Arceus Stacking", Ubers has its own rules since there you can use Shed Tail for example. Or Sleep Clause.
I really like Ubers UU but they can also have their own ruleset and (unfortunetly) it's not an official metagame. So they can prevent the Arceus stacking as well.
As for "Silvally Stacking", thinking about the lower tiers in Silvally's case it's a bit silly in my opinion. Did the community think even once about idk, Toedscruel or Breloom when banning sleep? Or idk a potential niche for Trapinch with Arena Trap in lower tiers? No, since it's changing a rule for OU, so it should be looked as if it makes sense in OU. And if "Silvally stacking" gets problematic then ban some Silvallies from a tier. It's just that simple.
And as for Ogerpon, one might be banned (or at least suspected), the other two fill different niches and the other one is banned. And a simple mon shouldn't be the reason to not touch a rule. It's like banning megas because mega mawile was broken in gen 6. I don't think this is a good argument either.
2. We should play by cartridge standards
Ok then make timer per turn just 60 seconds, add a 20 minute timer to the battle, remove percentage in HP and also force the player to look to some laggy ass animations everytime one of the player switches or uses Tera. And also unban OHKO and Evasion moves. And I'm not even gonna get into how a lot of old gens are edited in Showdown in order to be more competitive.
And I'm talking about both OHKO and Evasion since they've been relevant in VGC last year. Therefore they're "official" for Game Freak.
Are we gonna make any of these? No we're not, all of this things are either QoL or making the game objectively more competitive. We apply rules that change the game in order to be more competitive, and that's not a problem. This is not a solid argument either imo.
Therefore I think that Traininator made a solid argument.
About Gholdengo
I do think that Gholdengo (and Gambit) have shaped the tier since its introduction in way a single Pokémon shouldn't in a Modern Gen metagame, and I also think that both of them are not healthy for the tier and that, without them, the tier could get to a more balanced state. Gholdengo is an OU tier pokémon by stats, moves and typing, without counting the ability to block Defog or Taunt/Encore/TWave etcetera. But the fact that it can do it alongside being an OU tier pokémon is the problem in my opinion.
However most of the people have either adapted/ accepted to the pressence of Gholdengo in the tier, or just don't think about it anymore since there are other problematic Pokémon which are more important to tackle (which I agree with tho)
why are you so sure that you know what game freak is doing and why they're doing it? they don't even know why they do what they do. if regional fakes and alternate evolutions are a workaround for species clause, why do they continue to also make regional forms? why did they make three new forms of tauros? why did they make a paldean wooper but not make wiglett "paldean diglett"? i saw someone mention perrserker as an example before, so what's the explanation for galarian forms? i suppose you could argue that galar was a transitional period or something, but the folks at game freak struggle with planning to exhale after they inhale, they couldn't envision a multi-generation process like that. why are we trying to ascribe reasoning to a company with the mental capacity of a particularly slow pigeon?
why are you weighing in if you don't care?
the original point was about regional forms, which none of the things you mentioned fall under. none of this is relevant to the argument and no one who's seriously discussing this on either side is actually talking about those forms except to compare and contrast them with regional forms
no one is making this argument. this is a strawman and not a particularly good one
can we get tiering administration in here to shut this argument down, please? i don't have the time to refute the same tired arguments over and over again and no one is coming up with real ones. especially since this isn't actually meta discussion at all, it's policy discussion. this argument should be had in a policy review thread and almost none of the people who have weighed in have any real right to be talking about it, including myself
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To be absolutely fair, the series has made it clear that even for mons like Kyurem, Dialga, Lando, etc that there are just multiple of them. See Kyurem, Zekrom and Reshiram being in Galar and Paldea despite storywise knowing they all were captured by the BW and BW2 trainers respectively lol
So at this point they are simply a species.
well it kinda makes sense. these are supposed to be, effectively, gods. a god isn't just some sort of especially powerful meat-being. gods aren't bound to something as petty and small as "physical form". they can manifest in many different places and many different times at once, all autonomous yet part of the same unified being. one bodily manifestation, or dozens, or hundreds, existing in the world and being captured and owned by different trainers doesn't really mean anything to something that far removed from normal space and time. it's all barely even a blip on their godly radar because they're more like living concepts than living creatures
(for the record, this isn't simple metaphysics rambling, legends arceus actually confirmed this)
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Yeah, PLA basically explained the idea of multiple Arceus blatantly. And Gen 4 showed us how more members of the CT can be born.
To keep this from going too far off of comp Pokemon. I am curious as I haven't kept up with the meta in months, I heard Iron Crown rose up and Iron Fraudler fell off. What exactly happened to cause such a shift for both?
If you are arguing that "a company with the mental capacity of a particularly slow pigeon", then doesn't it kinda imply that things they made like Species Clause being stupid? If you are asking the person why do they think that Gamefreak is moving away from regional formes, it is plenty evident that ALONGSIDE regional forms, they are making expy "not-quite-the-same" Pokemon. It doesn't mean they STOP making regional forms, it just means that there are variants that aren't neccessarily alts.
Because it's a public forum and the discussion is an interesting thought experiment. We don't care about the result doesn't mean we don't care about the conversation.
The point was expanded a few mini-arguments ago, and I'll have to say that the multiform thing was brought up by the people who were alongside anti-forme discussion sentiments.
There were clearly people saying that we shouldn't go against status quo because Species Clause were made by Gamefreak in official Pokemon tournaments, including you.
I think it's best if you don't engage in this discussion in the first place. Every post you made about this was overtly negative and that's what prompted neutral stances to speak up in the first place.
I got bored at work and I was reading forums, and I wanted to share my opinion:)
I mean both Clodsire and Wugtrio and different Pokémon than Quagsire and Dugtrio. Game Freak does not have an official format for unevolved babies like Wooper. As for Tauros, I think it's mostly due to "lore" setting because they're technically breeds from Tauros.
I do agree that they're stupid tho
I just answered to some arguments actually made by some people in this discussion because I found them quite poor, that's it. In fact while I'm not seeing a definitive, really solid "Pro-form" clause argument, I'm not seeing an "anti-Form" one either. Again, I just wanted to share my thoughts and I found two of the arguments a bit silly.
Iron Crown presents a very good pivot and check to certain Special attackers thanks to its Steel/Psychic typing and strong bulk (Specs Kyurem can't lock into EP for example). Future Sight and Psychic Noise are both very useful moves for a Pivot thanks to either pressuring the opponent two-fold (FS damage plus the brought-in mon to account for on damage) or shutting down healing so that Defensive Pokemon can't undo progress when Crown has to leave. It also benefits from several special attackers and pivots in the Meta that it can either answer fairly well such as Kyurem or work with by checking THEIR checks such as Glowking.
One other thing it does well, albeit I don't know how frequently it comes up at present, is it makes a very good Anti-Lead against several Offensive structures thanks to Tachyon Cutter being a 2-hit move that circumvents Focus Sash and doesn't make contact/deal Physical damage, making it very safe into things like Sticky Web or Glimmora to put them on the back foot with no/minimal Hazards.
As for Iron Boulder, I think it was just overhyped moreso than anything making it outright worse. The Metagame has a lot of Pokemon that are very hostile to its offensive options, it's very vulnerable to many prominent Priority options (Kingambit, Rillaboom, even Raging Bolt can 1-2 it with regular STAB -> Thunderclap while surviving Earthquake fine so it has to fear SD boosts or Bolt Tera), Booster Energy dependence limits its sweeping chances, and it struggles without a SD boost even against Bulkier Offense mons like Zamazenta and Great Tusk, much less full on defensive Stall/Balance options. All of these can make it very hard to position without being a Tera Hog, something that is very demanding in the current Meta.
even a blind squirrel can find an acorn once in a while. species clause is one of the few things game freak has done that actually works and has stood the test of time. let's not take one of their few tiny scraps of dignity away from them
yes, sure, cool, and none of that tells us anything about what game freak thinks of species clause, or whether they're actually moving away from regional forms, or whether what they think of species clause is even a valid thing to bring up. people are making the spurious claim that the low number of paldean forms means "game freak is moving away from regional forms because they realized they made a mistake with species clause" when they have exactly zero real evidence backing this up. and consider this: if game freak doesn't like the clause, why would they go for this half-assed workaround instead of simply changing the rule?
that's not what i said. that's nowhere near what i or anyone has ever said. what i said was that species clause isn't some arbitrary thing that we came up with in 2004, it's a rule that has grounding in the actual games and is in effect to this day. i said this in response to people calling the species clause archaic, arbitrary, or outdated, and in response to people praising vgc for being "more consistent" with its rules while complaining about species clause. i didn't say that this was the reason we should keep it. the reason we should keep it is because it fucking works and there's no reason to change it
oh no you don't. you don't get to pull that "i have no real arguments so please just stop talking" trick. if you want me to shut up, then give me literally any concrete proof at all that your point is right. i'm tossing you the softest softball ever here. go ahead. floor's yours
all right, this argument must have just gotten lost in all the walls of text people are posting, so let me make it more readable:
THE STATUS QUO DOES NOT NEED TO JUSTIFY ITSELF. THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THE PEOPLE DEMANDING CHANGE. IF THEY DO NOT HAVE A VALID ARGUMENT, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE OTHER SIDE'S ARGUMENT IS.
And where do you suggest people discuss policy review if not here? The thread dedicated to policy discussion is a closed group with no alternative (as far as i'm aware) for the "casual" folk. The current implementation of the posting process for "non-qualified" users is as useful as a solar-powered flashlight. I attempted to start a thread and it was like posting into a void - 0 notifications, 0 feedback 0 response. I would expect the decency to at least tell me why it wouldn't be approved.
gee, looking back at the last few pages of this thread i don't have the slightest idea why they don't let the general public weigh in on policy review discussion
Its time to cook
One percent tusk (Donphan) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sturdy
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Endeavor
- Ice Shard
everyone wishes that they could run both rattata and great tusk on the same team, but what is a game without the possibility of loss?
that is a question gamefreak did not DARE to ask, for the answer is kingambit sun, and so they restricted us to a mere 6 pokemon which means which cannot use the rattata+great tusk core without burdening our team, but that doesn’t mean we can’t ways around this!
this functions as a tusk AND rattata, it can spin against physical attackers and troll against special attackers
the meta may never be the same
One percent tusk (Donphan) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sturdy
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Endeavor
- Ice Shard
everyone wishes that they could run both rattata and great tusk on the same team, but what is a game without the possibility of loss?
that is a question gamefreak did not DARE to ask, for the answer is kingambit sun, and so they restricted us to a mere 6 pokemon which means which cannot use the rattata+great tusk core without burdening our team, but that doesn’t mean we can’t ways around this!
this functions as a tusk AND rattata, it can spin against physical attackers and troll against special attackers
the meta may never be the same
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If your team is especially weak to Gholdengo hazard stack, you can tech Temper Flare on Great Tusk and carry a backup removal option. A 150 BP Temper Flare will OHKO offensive Gholdengo sets, and Knock Off will finish off the defensive set; the latter is why you need a secondary removal option. If you want to be cheeky and can afford it, Tera Fire Temper Flare is also an OHKO versus bulky Ghold after it blocks Rapid Spin; as a minor perk, it's also good into the rare Hex spam thanks to the Wisp immunity.
It does come at the cost of needing a second Kingambit answer, obviously, since Tusk will either tera out of his Sucker Punch resistance or take a heavy hit versus bulky Ghold sets, but it's a viable option. You'll also need a good answer to Gliscor, because Ice Spinner is the obvious move to swap out for Temper Flare, giving a pretty free switch in.
I have made the offer before, but I'll repeat it: if you send me something that is written well enough for Policy Review, I'm willing to post it on your behalf.
Better to have a place to discuss uninformed takes than no place at all - that's why we're here isn't it?
Appreciate you offering and I will dm you on it but it shouldn't be up to you volunteering for that to happen.
It wouldn’t be an ou thread without daddybuzzwole arguing for 10 pages and then telling people to stop arguing.
Just so this isn’t a one liner, is anyone else really really big on hatterene right now or just me? Mystical fire cm sets just seem to 1v1 everything and having something that isn’t a ghost that can come in on Zama and also can’t be roared is so clutch. It’s just such a good glue mon that fits so many good styles. I find myself putting hat on so many teams now
Just so this isn’t a one liner, is anyone else really really big on hatterene right now or just me? Mystical fire cm sets just seem to 1v1 everything and having something that isn’t a ghost that can come in on Zama and also can’t be roared is so clutch. It’s just such a good glue mon that fits so many good styles. I find myself putting hat on so many teams now
Hatterene feels like a top 25-20 mon in the meta rn imo, really good and can be used with a lot of sets (TR setter with Healing Wish, Sun pivot, CM on Grassy Terrain / BO / Balance Teams, AV…) and as you said is really good aganist not only Zama but also stuff like Tusk, Darkrai if using Tera, Dragon spam etc…
I do think tho that most of the time Prim is better, imo
you can request access to policy review here
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/policy-review-faq-posting-guidelines.3742327/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/policy-review-access-request/
my latest post explicitly said "go ahead, floor's yours" but go off i guess
hatterene's a very solid mon. magic bounce being one of the only forms of hazard control that isn't fake is really, really nice. she's definitely top 20 in my opinion and there are a ton of ways to fit her on teams. the thing keeping her out of top 10, i think, is how good glowking and primarina are. her defensive typing isn't as good as either of theirs and they can just do her job better in a lot of cases
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Yeah, after you begged administration to put a stop to the entire thing. Don't be intentionally obtuse.
Appreciate you trying to point me in the right direction but this is what I already used.