Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

[CodeFour]

To be fair, Gliscor would get a potential Tera also.

Mid ladder gliscors don't get hit with enough tera blasts to see it coming. Gliscor should be the hardest pokemon to suprise kill though you're right since every other turn is protect. Have to hit em with a stone edge on their protect turn to make them feel safe go greedy with an extra layer of spikes or toxic on the following turn when you tera blast ice

 

[HunterNeverHere9]

I create an account just for say this
CAN YOU FUCKING BAN GLISCOR, THIS SHIT IS SO BROKEN,HE JUST WIN IN VS 2 WATER POKE IN MY LAST GAME, THIS CANCERSHIT MAKE THE GAME HORRIBLE CAN YOU FIX THIS SHIT PLS AND NEVER UNBAN HIM, HE JUST EXIST FOR MAKE WIN TRASH PLAYER WHO CANT WIN WITHOUT HIM. ty for reading me

How, just how. I don't find it particularly broken in the meta and instead find it like a glue Mon(like and ) and didn't get a sus? It wasn't banned

 

[Moyashi]

didn't get a sus? It wasn't banned

It was tested and banned during the Teal Mask metagame. It was dropped back in when the Indigo Disk dropped.

 

[Roshino]

View attachment 660845

 

[TurquoiseLink]

I like Gliscor but honestly just slapping on random ice coverage doesn't really answer it for physical mons. Gliscor can usually trade 1 hit for a toxic, protect, switch out at half hp and heal later. Although admittedly Lando-T's tera ice will usually ohko Gliscor.

252 Atk Great Tusk Ice Spinner vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 220-260 (62.5 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal

252+ Atk Dragonite Ice Spinner vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 244-288 (69.3 - 81.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal

252 Atk Zamazenta Ice Fang vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 168-200 (47.7 - 56.8%) -- 2% chance to 2HKO after Poison Heal

252+ Atk Iron Hands Ice Punch vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 236-280 (67 - 79.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal


On another note, I did not know that Scorching Sands thaws frozen off the user. Moltres just keeps racking up wins this gen.

 

[ShizuOsaka]

I like Gliscor but honestly just slapping on random ice coverage doesn't really answer it for physical mons. Gliscor can usually trade 1 hit for a toxic, protect, switch out at half hp and heal later. Although admittedly Lando-T's tera ice will usually ohko Gliscor.

252 Atk Great Tusk Ice Spinner vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 220-260 (62.5 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal

252+ Atk Dragonite Ice Spinner vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 244-288 (69.3 - 81.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal

252 Atk Zamazenta Ice Fang vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 168-200 (47.7 - 56.8%) -- 2% chance to 2HKO after Poison Heal

252+ Atk Iron Hands Ice Punch vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 236-280 (67 - 79.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal


On another note, I did not know that Scorching Sands thaws frozen off the user. Moltres just keeps racking up wins this gen.

The problem is Gliscor is extremely passive too.
I have tried using Glis. While it's great in landing a poison, usually it loses half of its health after a sequence of Toxic -> Protect -> Switch out, unless you tera.
Against slower teams, it may be troublesome, but against faster-pace teams, Gliscor finds it extremly hard to get some timeframe to do its things.

 

[HunterNeverHere9]

The problem is Gliscor is extremely passive too.
I have tried using Glis. While it's great in landing a poison, usually it loses half of its health after a sequence of Toxic -> Protect -> Switch out, unless you tera.
Against slower teams, it may be troublesome, but against faster-pace teams, Gliscor finds it extremly hard to get some timeframe to do its things.

Imo I disagree as a ton of fast paced teams can abuse gliscor to some extent and also have you tried sd gliscor or other gliscor sets? Maybe your using the wrong one

 

[P3DS]

We are likely going to survey those who qualified for the recent Official Ladder Tournament to help us determine the next tiering action we consider. Expect more in the coming week or two.

Would it just be what's the next suspect, or would the council be looking at harder action, say QBs with retests down the line (Like Melmetal and Cinderace last gen)? The community as a whole is split on which of the threats is the biggest issue, so a suspect would likely be DNB.

 

[Finchinator]

Would it just be what's the next suspect, or would the council be looking at harder action, say QBs with retests down the line (Like Melmetal and Cinderace last gen)? The community as a whole is split on which of the threats is the biggest issue, so a suspect would likely be DNB.

Quickbans are not used to circumvent suspects; if a suspect wouldn’t lead to a ban, then a quickban would be an abuse of power and misuse of the system.

If something doesn’t have the support to be banned, it simply will remain in the tier. That’s how tiering is intended. The QB -> retest loop is grouped strictly with releases when there is more extreme sentiment (which we have data on), not situations like this.

 

[ShizuOsaka]

Imo I disagree as a ton of fast paced teams can abuse gliscor to some extent and also have you tried sd gliscor or other gliscor sets? Maybe your using the wrong one

I am currently using SD Gliscor.

On paper, it's good in punishing slow bulky team.
In reality, it cannot get pass any of the Body Presser in the tier against bulky teams. Not to mention Tusky and a lot of other mons try to run Ice coverage to minimalize its set up time also.
Against faster team, it struggles to find time to click Sword Dance. Lando-T is its best matchup but it also has Taunt to make Gliscor hit like wet paper. Darkrai packs Ice coverage, Kyurem exists, and fast Encore mons like Valiant can toy with it too.

 

[Alternator]

Would it just be what's the next suspect, or would the council be looking at harder action, say QBs with retests down the line (Like Melmetal and Cinderace last gen)? The community as a whole is split on which of the threats is the biggest issue, so a suspect would likely be DNB.

To add a missing detail to Finch's statement above, the primary purpose of a quickban is to remove something from the tier in a situation where the suspect test is a formality, and there is no question whether the thing in question would be banned. This is why the Volcarona quickban last summer was so controversial, there was no consensus that it needed to be removed.

In the current tier, there's a number of mons that might get banned if put to a suspect, but there's nothing that would have such overwhelming support as to make the suspect a forgone conclusion, and so nothing is a valid quickban target.

 

[pika pal]

To add a missing detail to Finch's statement above, the primary purpose of a quickban is to remove something from the tier in a situation where the suspect test is a formality, and there is no question whether the thing in question would be banned. This is why the Volcarona quickban last summer was so controversial, there was no consensus that it needed to be removed.

In the current tier, there's a number of mons that might get banned if put to a suspect, but there's nothing that would have such overwhelming support as to make the suspect a forgone conclusion, and so nothing is a valid quickban target.

Is this the case in general, or specifically for OU's policy? Kokoloko mass-removal aside, I know some tiers like UU or Ubers have erred towards removing things and testing them back in before (though in the latter case the ban stuck easily since it was Tera-Game Calyrex-Shadow).

I will be curious to see if any Policy re-evaluation is under consideration for Gen 10, given how much of a ride Gen 9 has been (not a dig at anyone, just crazy with the pool of stuff) for power creep and the survey usage.

The aspect that makes me wonder this the most is actually stuff like Kingambit, Kyurem, and Gouging Fire, as they are mons that all had Suspect Tests prior (the latter 2 within this DLC state even), survived it, but have continued to be very controversial mons that have hung around since the first test makes re-testing them, especially within a certain timeframe, a dicey action in and of itself. Like the question for me becomes if they were tested too soon, given their high survey scores but DNB verdicts, only for the controversy to re-emerge BECAUSE they stuck around (i.e. set-variety and continuing to exploit new Meta emergences shaped around them).

P.S. After the discourse for it last time I really hope GF gets more civil talk if tested again

 

[Alternator]

Is this the case in general, or specifically for OU's policy? Kokoloko mass-removal aside, I know some tiers like UU or Ubers have erred towards removing things and testing them back in before (though in the latter case the ban stuck easily since it was Tera-Game Calyrex-Shadow).

I will be curious to see if any Policy re-evaluation is under consideration for Gen 10, given how much of a ride Gen 9 has been (not a dig at anyone, just crazy with the pool of stuff) for power creep and the survey usage.

The aspect that makes me wonder this the most is actually stuff like Kingambit, Kyurem, and Gouging Fire, as they are mons that all had Suspect Tests prior (the latter 2 within this DLC state even), survived it, but have continued to be very controversial mons that have hung around since the first test makes re-testing them, especially within a certain timeframe, a dicey action in and of itself. Like the question for me becomes if they were tested too soon, given their high survey scores but DNB verdicts, only for the controversy to re-emerge BECAUSE they stuck around (i.e. set-variety and continuing to exploit new Meta emergences shaped around them).

P.S. After the discourse for it last time I really hope GF gets more civil talk if tested again

It's from the original introduction of modern quickban policy, which I believe is this thread: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/meet-the-overused-tiering-council.3492786/#post-6225947

I) Quick bans will be made when a certain aspect (be it a Pokémon, an ability, a move, an item or a combination of the aforementioned) of the metagame becomes so blatantly broken that passing it through a formal suspect test would be a waste of time and effort for everyone.

The policy has evolved since then, and there's quite a bit of leeway given for "new" things, but the main purpose is to simplify removing elements when there's no real debate about whether they should go.

As far as I can find, there's no official policy against re-suspecting something, but does seem to be an unofficial rule not to test until "enough" time has passed or something about the tier meaningfully changes. My subjective belief is that Kyurem will be tested first due to Volcarona's ban meaning there has been an important change to the tier, as one of the few mons that can exploit special Kyurem sets was lost.

 

[Finchinator]

Is this the case in general, or specifically for OU's policy?

In general — it undermines the suspect process otherwise. Imagine having a vote on something people ladder up to qualify for and then determine isn’t broken only to have a small group of people ban it nevertheless a few months later. That would make the entire tiering system pointless sadly.

I know some tiers like UU or Ubers have erred towards removing things and testing them back in before (though in the latter case the ban stuck easily since it was Tera-Game Calyrex-Shadow).

You won’t find an example of this if a pokemon was recently suspected and nothing fundamental has changed. You’ll find various approaches to new releases with a lot of variables in lower tiers though, but that isn’t apples-for-apples like this, that would very much be apples-to-oranges as we aren’t near a release and we had a suspect on Kyu, Goug, etc.

Ubers is also incredibly cautious with tiering in recent years in all honestly and they use a different playbook than usage based tiers typically.

 

[Finchinator]

As far as I can find, there's no official policy against re-suspecting something, but does seem to be an unofficial rule not to test until "enough" time has passed or something about the tier meaningfully changes. My subjective belief is that Kyurem will be tested first due to Volcarona's ban meaning there has been an important change to the tier, as one of the few mons that can exploit special Kyurem sets was lost.

Both Pokemon are on the table.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Both Pokemon are on the table.

me serving a two-course meal of glowking chowder and ting-lu bordelaise

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Both Pokemon are on the table.

I feel as if the suspect is leaning heavily towards kyurem though

Just my guess because I feel while gouging is seen as an issue by some it feels more divisive than kyurem and Kyurem’s set innovations have put it over the edge for many who previously voted ban. Just my guess though

 

[Finchinator]

I don’t know if there will be a suspect and, if we have one, what it will be. I can confirm we aim to have a survey this upcoming week, but internal discussion is far from complete and we don’t have the data set from that, so stay tuned.

I’ve been enjoying the metagame a lot personally, but there are some restrictions to team construction that we have to acknowledge. I think what is really cool is how the set mix of dynamic Pokemon like Kyurem, Gouging Fire, Zamazenta, etc. continues to adapt, even staying a step ahead of the metagame around it. I think this is something to monitor, but also cause to not act too aggressively or prematurely as our metagame has cycles of innovation and counteracting responses.

The last Gouging Fire suspect had to happen with overwhelming support, but then the metagame responded to it using Breaking Swipes variants pretty quickly — this leads to a high survey score followed up by a low suspect ban %. This is why being patient is good and also part of why we are focusing this survey on OLT players, who are up to date with trends and ahead of some less current players.

We are excited to do what’s best for the current metagame and for the tier to continue evolving.

 

[Bold School]

I wanted to take the time to briefly highlight a couple sets I have been playing around with. First, Porygon Z.


Porygon-Z @ Choice Specs
Ability: Adaptability
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Tera Blast
- Trick
- Psyshock
- Tri Attack

As one of the few powerful Normal special attackers, it was a candidate to test the limits of Tera Blast. As most people familiar with this mon know, its main STAB is often the 80 BP Tri Attack. Tera Blast is the same base power, but you can trade hax for the ability to switch STAB types while choice locked. Ghost Tera on Normal is also useful defensively since the types cover for each other's weaknesses. Full disclosure, I'm not done testing the concept. I still felt it was time to get it out there.

This set is a wallbreaker. The speed tier is kinda slow for OU, so I put it on webs for power rather than trying to make scarf work. I have tried scarf Indeedee to some success, but I wanted to make full use of the wallbreaking power of Z here. In the process, I realized that I don't play webs nearly enough to know it, and therefore, don't really know how to play it well. I know HO, but not this form I guess.

I have a couple lower ladder replays that show the use Tera on Porygon-Z pretty decently. One in particular is rather a poorly played game I'm not proud of, but it still showcases the base concept well enough.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2185889467

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2186310652-h1j5y14n39bovkls7xxinp7b5wcjgnopw

With this, I can say that I have now experimented some with 2 of the 3 Normal special attackers I wanted to try out with TB tech. While I think Porygon-Z is probably still niche because of its speed tier, this can work in OU. The one I need to test now is H-Zorark. I think that one will be the best because of the speed tier. Anyways, I encourage people to play around with Tera Blast more because I sincerely believe the move is still underutilized.

Speaking of TB, the next mon I want to highlight is something I have been harping on for awhile: Roaring Moon.


Roaring Moon @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Scale Shot
- Knock Off
- Tera Blast
- Dragon Dance

The main thing here is Tera Fairy. Dark/Fairy is one of those magic type combinations that is very tough for an opponent to deal with defensively. In addition to that, Fairy is a great defensive typing. So you get offense and defense. This gives you a great alternative to the Tera Flying sets that everyone with no creativity spams everywhere. The lack of needing EQ to balance out Acrobatics means you can fit on Grassy Terrain easier. Anyways, I have Scale Shot here because it is a decent Dragon move that allows you to get to +2 with only one DD as setup. Or even +1 speed with BE attack and no setup when it suits you. It's maybe not the most necessary tech on webs, but it's still more than fine for most teams. I think Taunt could maybe be better on this team, though I haven't tested that yet. Either way, I find Scale Shot to be a lot more fresh of an idea.

This replay can show this mon setting up in Lando-T's face:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2183748737

That speaks for itself. It's not exactly high ladder, but I don't think anyone can say this wouldn't translate to high ladder. RM does what it does well. I highly encourage people to try more set diversity than just Tera Flying Acrobatics. The sooner people realize that this thing isn't just a set or two, the sooner they will realize just what a monster it has always been.

 

[Venuesaur]

I don’t know if there will be a suspect and, if we have one, what it will be. I can confirm we aim to have a survey this upcoming week, but internal discussion is far from complete and we don’t have the data set from that, so stay tuned.

I’ve been enjoying the metagame a lot personally, but there are some restrictions to team construction that we have to acknowledge. I think what is really cool is how the set mix of dynamic Pokemon like Kyurem, Gouging Fire, Zamazenta, etc. continues to adapt, even staying a step ahead of the metagame around it. I think this is something to monitor, but also cause to not act too aggressively or prematurely as our metagame has cycles of innovation and counteracting responses.

The last Gouging Fire suspect had to happen with overwhelming support, but then the metagame responded to it using Breaking Swipes variants pretty quickly — this leads to a high survey score followed up by a low suspect ban %. This is why being patient is good and also part of why we are focusing this survey on OLT players, who are up to date with trends and ahead of some less current players.

We are excited to do what’s best for the current metagame and for the tier to continue evolving.

I'm confused, why isn't there necessarily likely to be a suspect? Is it just that council is still discussing it or are you guys waiting to release and get survey results?

 

[Finchinator]

I'm confused, why isn't there necessarily likely to be a suspect? Is it just that council is still discussing it or are you guys waiting to release and get survey results?

The survey hasn’t happened yet. Discussions aren’t done yet. Why would I guarantee a suspect or put a likelihood on it without discussions being done or data being gathered? That just puts me in a potentially bad situation if there’s not ample support.

 

[lucky333]

Honestly OLT was a really fun to spectate. So many different teams(especially sun teams in cycle 1) and ideas, it was really inspiring. Part of why I have gotten better at this game is, so many great players sharing their teams. This really helped me as a guideline to balance out my "creativity" and meta staples to build my own teams. It also helped me open up to new possibilities since I am sometimes stuck in the teambuilder, having to account for a lot of things. I am sad that the olt laddering will come to an end but I have enjoyed the view and even got to fight against some strong players myself despite not loading as many games as I used to. Also thank you to anyone who shared teams in wcop thread and olt thread. Big thumbs up to you all.

 

[P3DS]

Quickbans are not used to circumvent suspects; if a suspect wouldn’t lead to a ban, then a quickban would be an abuse of power and misuse of the system.

If something doesn’t have the support to be banned, it simply will remain in the tier. That’s how tiering is intended. The QB -> retest loop is grouped strictly with releases when there is more extreme sentiment (which we have data on), not situations like this.

To add a missing detail to Finch's statement above, the primary purpose of a quickban is to remove something from the tier in a situation where the suspect test is a formality, and there is no question whether the thing in question would be banned. This is why the Volcarona quickban last summer was so controversial, there was no consensus that it needed to be removed.

In the current tier, there's a number of mons that might get banned if put to a suspect, but there's nothing that would have such overwhelming support as to make the suspect a forgone conclusion, and so nothing is a valid quickban target.

Yeah, I kinda thought so. I was just curious. Lots of people have differences in opinion on what is broken and what isn't, and I just hadn't been seeing the consistent "X Mon is broken" enough on one single mon. More it's a spread of big threats/restrictions that centralize the format around which of them is Public Enemy No. 1. And depending on your preferred playstyle, some Mons are worse for you than others.

Zamazenta, Kyurem, Gouging Fire, Wellspring, Darkrai, kingambit and Gholdengo all fall into this circle. You take one out, and their defensive chokehold on the format leaves a power vacuum that many feel is too big, and allows one of the others to become even bigger of a threat. Take out Zama, and the Darks rise up. Take Gambit out, and Gholdengo could be issues.

It's interesting to see council thoughts, and will be interesting where the format will go.

 

[Welcome to mars]

OU has fallen, millions must spam cobalion on mid ladder

I create an account just for say this
CAN YOU FUCKING BAN GLISCOR, THIS SHIT IS SO BROKEN,HE JUST WIN IN VS 2 WATER POKE IN MY LAST GAME, THIS CANCERSHIT MAKE THE GAME HORRIBLE CAN YOU FIX THIS SHIT PLS AND NEVER UNBAN HIM, HE JUST EXIST FOR MAKE WIN TRASH PLAYER WHO CANT WIN WITHOUT HIM. ty for reading me

I would disagree, people tend to use landorus more because they are biased and can’t see true greatness since he has intimidate and works well with kingambit so gliscor isn’t exactly flooding the ladder, not to mention that it has many counters with most being available when it was first banned (which temporarily killed OU altogether) which means it isn’t messing up the metagame

gliscor is an amazing fellow and one of the few actually well designed pokemon but to say he ruins the metagame would be misinformation that even dolphins would be able to sense

and welcome to earth smogon!

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Yeah, I kinda thought so. I was just curious. Lots of people have differences in opinion on what is broken and what isn't, and I just hadn't been seeing the consistent "X Mon is broken" enough on one single mon. More it's a spread of big threats/restrictions that centralize the format around which of them is Public Enemy No. 1. And depending on your preferred playstyle, some Mons are worse for you than others.

Zamazenta, Kyurem, Gouging Fire, Wellspring, Darkrai, kingambit and Gholdengo all fall into this circle. You take one out, and their defensive chokehold on the format leaves a power vacuum that many feel is too big, and allows one of the others to become even bigger of a threat. Take out Zama, and the Darks rise up. Take Gambit out, and Gholdengo could be issues.

It's interesting to see council thoughts, and will be interesting where the format will go.

Honestly Kyurem is the most positive removal but even then we may end up with wellspring becoming kinda broken because there is no kyurem to dissaude it. I see what you mean though. Anything we ban now has consequences at this point, but I think it is about what consequences are the most positive, and I personally believe Kyurem is the most positive removal possible because it has definitely shown to be super restrictive as of late.