Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

You might’ve noticed I haven’t made any post on Cycle 3 or 4. That’s because I feel there are more urgent matters that need more attention. What I think is the most problematic element in the tier is not Kyurem or Gouging Fire or Waterpon or even Gliscor.

It’s Tera Blast.

Around January-to-April, it didn’t occur to me that Tera Blast was an issue. The move itself only had a few relevant users and it allowed for team building expression, as well as uplifting the viability of fringe mons like Frosmoth and Thundurus-T.



But since WCOP and recently, OLT, there’s been way more Tera Blast abusers. It isn’t just about adding coverage you need, it’s about fishing a potential matchup. In this post I wanna go over why Tera Blast is unhealthy, who the main culprits are, and the benefits banning it would have.



Why Tera Blast Should Go​

Broken Vs Uncompetitive

I would like to note the difference between something being broken and something uncompetitive. Ausma explained it perfectly on her Youtube channel, but in a nutshell. Broken is something being overbearing to deal with when building and battling, but uncompetitive is when a Pokemon or element in the game skews the battle away from the better player and promote fishing.

:sv/chien_pao:
Chien-Pao is a mon that was banned in SV OU for being overwhelming for offense and defense alike with absurd stats + its movepool/typing/ability. This is an example of something being unhealthy because it’s broken.


:sv/cloyster: :sv/maushold:
IMG_6731.jpeg

King’s Rock is banned in all formats besides Anything Goes. While not immediately broken like a Mega-Rayquaza, King’a Rock promote fishing for good RNG and is out of the control of the better player, thus losing the competitive element of the tier. Cloyster and the new Maushold abuse it to no end. They go from manageable to obnoxious after a flinch or two. This is an example of something being unhealthy because it’s uncompetitive.

Tera Blast falls under the latter category.

Tera Blast’s Impact In SV OU

The cost of burning Tera and a moveslot is worth it when Tera Blast can blitz through any matchup and eliminate it from the game. The inherent free 80 BP coverage move that becomes STAB adds an abundant amount of variance in a game that makes checking the offensive metagame unnecessarily difficult. Most teams often have 1-2 checks to a certain threat and fall apart once they’re eliminated, which Tera Blast can enable, especially with its unpredictable nature. To explain what I mean, I would like to highlight the most egregious users of Tera Blast along with some lesser mentions.

:sv/kyurem:
Dragon Dance Kyurem is the biggest offender of Tera Blast. Normally something like Iron Crown, Skarmory, Skeledirge, and Gholdengo can answer it, but suddenly Kyurem can decide to Tera Fire or Ground Blast through them seamlessly while being immune to burn. There’s even Tera Electric to bypass Dozo, Mola, Prima, and Tera Water Garg/Lando. DD Kyurem has a dozen different variations and Tera Blast makes it much harder to read Kyurem.

:sv/dragonite:
At a close second is Dragonite. Tera Blast turns Dnite from an honest hardworking DD sweeper to a cheese machine. Like Kyurem, Dragonite has several different variations of the DD set, one of them being Tera Blast Fairy or Flying with Encore which could reverse 6-0 teams after a single bad mistake. You see a Dnite on team preview and expect your Bolt/Gambit/Zama offense to be able to check it, only for the Dnite to reveal Tera Fairy Blast and now you have to watch as Dnite snowballs the whole team.

:sv/gouging_fire:
Another DD sweeping mfer that uses Tera Blast. On top of breaking through Dnite, Tusk, and Zama, Fire/Ground/Fairy coverage hits everything besides Moltres for neutral coverage. The only reason it’s not common is because A, Moltres Balance is all over the place, and B, ppl are too busy running Tera Dragon to notice.

:sv/kingambit:
Zamazenta is normally the perfect check, with Helmet Tusk able to force chip, but a single Tera Fairy or Flying Blast puts it out of commission, and that’s amplified even further by Fairy just being a broken offensive/defensive typing.

:sv/iron_moth:
The most famous Tera Blast user in the tier. Be it Tera Ground, Water, Dark, or Ghost. Ground especially breaks through a lot of would-be checks like Glowking, Garg, and Tran.

:sv/dragapult:
CB Tera Ghost Blast Dragapult is hard to check defensively, with Darts or U-Turn chunking Gambit/Garg along with hazards.

:sv/iron_valiant:
Tera Ground Blast CM Val is a pretty recent innovation. Normally CM Valiant would have to run Shadow Ball to hit Ghold/Glowking and Psyshock to punish Poison-types, but Tera Ground cuts the middleman and lets you nuke both, giving you room for more coverage or Encore.

:sv/landorus_therian:
Nothing ridiculous, but Tera Blast Ice Lando eliminates Lando/Gliscor from the game making it easy for shit like Gouging, Moon, and Gambit go nuts. It’s also very easy to lure Gliscor with this.

:sv/roaring_moon:
Tera Fairy Moon was a set I’ve messed around with in June and it’s kinda cracked. Fairy hits the same targets Acrobatics does but keeps your Sucker Punch resistance.

:sv/iron_crown:
Booster Crown isn’t super common, but you do see random CM Tera Ground Blast which rips apart Steels and Cinderace.

:sv/primarina:
Storm Zone hit me up a few months ago with Tera Ground Blast Primarina. This breaks through Glowking, Pex, AV Crown, Clodsire, and Volcanion while dodging T-Wave or Tbolts from Raging Bolt. Sure you lose to Stall, but there’s like only two Stall players on the high ladder so who gives a shit?

:sv/cinderace:
Once in a blue moon you see Tera Ice Blast Cinderace on the ladder for the sole purpose of deleting Gliscor, cause fuck that mon.

:sv/rillaboom:
Tera Electric Rilla is forgotten tech, but it breaks through the usual checks in Moltres, the Steel birds, and Zapdos.

Most of the applications of Tera Blast seem innocent enough, but they are all designed with the intent to completely destroy a matchup and suddenly leaving the opposing team with very little to work with. Tera Blast contributes to the threat saturation players complain about in the tier and promotes uncompetitive tactics.

Benefits to Banning Tera Blast

Banning Tera Blast would remove an element of matchup fishing, overwhelming set variety, and make defensively checking mons easier. A Tera Ghost Gambit for example, rarely breaks through Roar Zamazenta, and I find the dynamic Tera creates to be healthy because of interactions like this.

The other big benefit which is hard to ignore is that Volcarona can be retested.

:sv/volcarona:
Its not a hot take to say Volcarona was broken but served as a central defensive piece of the metagame. Banning it had consequences, the main one being losing a Kyurem check. Without Volc, Kyurem has more freedom with its slots, thus resulting in sets like Sub-Tect popping up. It also kept other things in check like Valiant, Darkrai, Zama, and Gholdengo. I doubt anyone would find Volcarona broken in a meta without Tera Blast, the same can be applied to Regieleki who isn’t as meta defining, but would give us a nice offensive spinner that also blitzes the entire unboosted tier and even outspeeds Booster Valiant with Timid. We could also retest Espathra but that mon doesn’t provide anything of defensive/offensive value besides cheese, so meh.

Would Tera Blast have any consequences? The only one I can think of is that mons with a reliance on Tera Blast sink into unviability. However most of these mons are already fringe as hell. We shouldn’t keep an unhealthy mechanic just so you can run shitty Polteageist in OU.

Imo out of everything discussed, banning Tera Blast would have the most positive impact on SV OU. Less obnoxious variance, a more competitive environment, and the return of a glue mon that kept Kyurem and others in check.

If you hate Tera Blast and have qualified for OLT. Be vocal about suspecting it once the survey is published.

I have a major project coming up. This time I’ll be focusing on an old gen Ice type. Stay tuned OU discussion threaders.
 
658Greninja said:
You might’ve noticed I haven’t made any post on Cycle 3 or 4. That’s because I feel there are more urgent matters that need more attention. What I think is the most problematic element in the tier is not Kyurem or Gouging Fire or Waterpon or even Gliscor.

It’s Tera Blast.

Around January-to-April, it didn’t occur to me that Tera Blast was an issue. The move itself only had a few relevant users and it allowed for team building expression, as well as uplifting the viability of fringe mons like Frosmoth and Thundurus-T.



But since WCOP and recently, OLT, there’s been way more Tera Blast abusers. It isn’t just about adding coverage you need, it’s about fishing a potential matchup. In this post I wanna go over why Tera Blast is unhealthy, who the main culprits are, and the benefits banning it would have.



Why Tera Blast Should Go​

Broken Vs Uncompetitive

I would like to note the difference between something being broken and something uncompetitive. Ausma explained it perfectly on her Youtube channel, but in a nutshell. Broken is something being overbearing to deal with when building and battling, but uncompetitive is when a Pokemon or element in the game skews the battle away from the better player and promote fishing.

:sv/chien_pao:
Chien-Pao is a mon that was banned in SV OU for being overwhelming for offense and defense alike with absurd stats + its movepool/typing/ability. This is an example of something being unhealthy because it’s broken.


:sv/cloyster: :sv/maushold: View attachment 662337
King’s Rock is banned in all formats besides Anything Goes. While not immediately broken like a Mega-Rayquaza, King’a Rock promote fishing for good RNG and is out of the control of the better player, thus losing the competitive element of the tier. Cloyster and the new Maushold abuse it to no end. They go from manageable to obnoxious after a flinch or two. This is an example of something being unhealthy because it’s uncompetitive.

Tera Blast falls under the latter category.

Tera Blast’s Impact In SV OU

The cost of burning Tera and a moveslot is worth it when Tera Blast can blitz through any matchup and eliminate it from the game. The inherent free 80 BP coverage move that becomes STAB adds an abundant amount of variance in a game that makes checking the offensive metagame unnecessarily difficult. Most teams often have 1-2 checks to a certain threat and fall apart once they’re eliminated, which Tera Blast can enable, especially with its unpredictable nature. To explain what I mean, I would like to highlight the most egregious users of Tera Blast along with some lesser mentions.

:sv/kyurem:
Dragon Dance Kyurem is the biggest offender of Tera Blast. Normally something like Iron Crown, Skarmory, Skeledirge, and Gholdengo can answer it, but suddenly Kyurem can decide to Tera Fire or Ground Blast through them seamlessly while being immune to burn. There’s even Tera Electric to bypass Dozo, Mola, Prima, and Tera Water Garg/Lando. DD Kyurem has a dozen different variations and Tera Blast makes it much harder to read Kyurem.

:sv/dragonite:
At a close second is Dragonite. Tera Blast turns Dnite from an honest hardworking DD sweeper to a cheese machine. Like Kyurem, Dragonite has several different variations of the DD set, one of them being Tera Blast Fairy or Flying with Encore which could reverse 6-0 teams after a single bad mistake. You see a Dnite on team preview and expect your Bolt/Gambit/Zama offense to be able to check it, only for the Dnite to reveal Tera Fairy Blast and now you have to watch as Dnite snowballs the whole team.

:sv/gouging_fire:
Another DD sweeping mfer that uses Tera Blast. On top of breaking through Dnite, Tusk, and Zama, Fire/Ground/Fairy coverage hits everything besides Moltres for neutral coverage. The only reason it’s not common is because A, Moltres Balance is all over the place, and B, ppl are too busy running Tera Dragon to notice.

:sv/kingambit:
Zamazenta is normally the perfect check, with Helmet Tusk able to force chip, but a single Tera Fairy or Flying Blast puts it out of commission, and that’s amplified even further by Fairy just being a broken offensive/defensive typing.

:sv/iron_moth:
The most famous Tera Blast user in the tier. Be it Tera Ground, Water, Dark, or Ghost. Ground especially breaks through a lot of would-be checks like Glowking, Garg, and Tran.

:sv/dragapult:
CB Tera Ghost Blast Dragapult is hard to check defensively, with Darts or U-Turn chunking Gambit/Garg along with hazards.

:sv/iron_valiant:
Tera Ground Blast CM Val is a pretty recent innovation. Normally CM Valiant would have to run Shadow Ball to hit Ghold/Glowking and Psyshock to punish Poison-types, but Tera Ground cuts the middleman and lets you nuke both, giving you room for more coverage or Encore.

:sv/landorus_therian:
Nothing ridiculous, but Tera Blast Ice Lando eliminates Lando/Gliscor from the game making it easy for shit like Gouging, Moon, and Gambit go nuts. It’s also very easy to lure Gliscor with this.

:sv/roaring_moon:
Tera Fairy Moon was a set I’ve messed around with in June and it’s kinda cracked. Fairy hits the same targets Acrobatics does but keeps your Sucker Punch resistance.

:sv/iron_crown:
Booster Crown isn’t super common, but you do see random CM Tera Ground Blast which rips apart Steels and Cinderace.

:sv/primarina:
Storm Zone hit me up a few months ago with Tera Ground Blast Primarina. This breaks through Glowking, Pex, AV Crown, Clodsire, and Volcanion while dodging T-Wave or Tbolts from Raging Bolt. Sure you lose to Stall, but there’s like only two Stall players on the high ladder so who gives a shit?

:sv/cinderace:
Once in a blue moon you see Tera Ice Blast Cinderace on the ladder for the sole purpose of deleting Gliscor, cause fuck that mon.

:sv/rillaboom:
Tera Electric Rilla is forgotten tech, but it breaks through the usual checks in Moltres, the Steel birds, and Zapdos.

Most of the applications of Tera Blast seem innocent enough, but they are all designed with the intent to completely destroy a matchup and suddenly leaving the opposing team with very little to work with. Tera Blast contributes to the threat saturation players complain about in the tier and promotes uncompetitive tactics.

Benefits to Banning Tera Blast

Banning Tera Blast would remove an element of matchup fishing, overwhelming set variety, and make defensively checking mons easier. A Tera Ghost Gambit for example, rarely breaks through Roar Zamazenta, and I find the dynamic Tera creates to be healthy because of interactions like this.

The other big benefit which is hard to ignore is that Volcarona can be retested.

:sv/volcarona:
Its not a hot take to say Volcarona was broken but served as a central defensive piece of the metagame. Banning it had consequences, the main one being losing a Kyurem check. Without Volc, Kyurem has more freedom with its slots, thus resulting in sets like Sub-Tect popping up. It also kept other things in check like Valiant, Darkrai, Zama, and Gholdengo. I doubt anyone would find Volcarona broken in a meta without Tera Blast, the same can be applied to Regieleki who isn’t as meta defining, but would give us a nice offensive spinner that also blitzes the entire unboosted tier and even outspeeds Booster Valiant with Timid. We could also retest Espathra but that mon doesn’t provide anything of defensive/offensive value besides cheese, so meh.

Would Tera Blast have any consequences? The only one I can think of is that mons with a reliance on Tera Blast sink into unviability. However most of these mons are already fringe as hell. We shouldn’t keep an unhealthy mechanic just so you can run shitty Polteageist in OU.

Imo out of everything discussed, banning Tera Blast would have the most positive impact on SV OU. Less obnoxious variance, a more competitive environment, and the return of a glue mon that kept Kyurem and others in check.

If you hate Tera Blast and have qualified for OLT. Be vocal about suspecting it once the survey is published.

I have a major project coming up. This time I’ll be focusing on an old gen Ice type. Stay tuned OU discussion threaders.
Click to expand...
Dewgong :D?
 
Bold School said:
I wanted to take the time to briefly highlight a couple sets I have been playing around with. First, Porygon Z.

: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.
Click to expand...

I feel like Porygon-Z would probably appreciate Tera Fighting over Tera Ghost, with Shadow Ball replacing Tri-Attack. After Tera it loses the Adaptability boost on Tri-Attack anyways, so having access to 80 BP Fighting STAB boosted by Adaptability + Shadow Ball as coverage and a resistance to Sucker Punch and other Dark type moves could benefit it more. I can see the Tera Ghost route working for baiting in Zamazenta though if that’s the idea with it.
 
658Greninja said:
Its not a hot take to say Volcarona was broken but served as a central defensive piece of the metagame. Banning it had consequences, the main one being losing a Kyurem check. Without Volc, Kyurem has more freedom with its slots, thus resulting in sets like Sub-Tect popping up. It also kept other things in check like Valiant, Darkrai, Zama, and Gholdengo. I doubt anyone would find Volcarona broken in a meta without Tera Blast, the same can be applied to Regieleki who isn’t as meta defining, but would give us a nice offensive spinner that also blitzes the entire unboosted tier and even outspeeds Booster Valiant with Timid. We could also retest Espathra but that mon doesn’t provide anything of defensive/offensive value besides cheese, so meh.
Click to expand...

Love the sentiment and agree that an unban on volc and eleki would be huge but I somehow doubt espathra is going to see the light of day as long as it can still tera (fairy/ghost/flying) and use dazzling gleam
 
Not entirely opposed to a Tera Blast Ban (though I do see it fine), but if it goes through, I think Volcarona will need to be retested but not automatically unbanned, it's still a very dangerous sweeper and match-up fishing Mon whose presence in the meta can very well be negative if unbanned. So, it should in my opinion go through a Suspect test before being fully unbanned.
Regieleki meanwhile should be 100% fine without Tera Blast. Yes, Specs Tera Normal Hyper Beam (or Swift, but Hyper Beam is more fun) will delete Tusk and Lando, but the opportunity cost is enormous and defensively the Mon is a massive 0.
Espathra still benefits from Tera defensively even without Tera Blast and has Dazzling Gleam too, so it should not be touched. Only with a full Tera Ban Espathra is fine in OU.
 
Eeveeto said:
Not entirely opposed to a Tera Blast Ban (though I do see it fine), but if it goes through, I think Volcarona will need to be retested but not automatically unbanned, it's still a very dangerous sweeper and match-up fishing Mon whose presence in the meta can very well be negative if unbanned. So, it should in my opinion go through a Suspect test before being fully unbanned.
Regieleki meanwhile should be 100% fine without Tera Blast. Yes, Specs Tera Normal Hyper Beam (or Swift, but Hyper Beam is more fun) will delete Tusk and Lando, but the opportunity cost is enormous and defensively the Mon is a massive 0.
Espathra still benefits from Tera defensively even without Tera Blast and has Dazzling Gleam too, so it should not be touched. Only with a full Tera Ban Espathra is fine in OU.
Click to expand...
agreed with all of this. i'm fine with tera blast but i also wouldn't be opposed to a ban if and only if espathra doesn't come back down, volc is retested under heavy scrutiny, and tiering action against kyurem still goes through (whether or not volc gets freed). those are my three major concerns, but i don't think any of them will happen that way, which is one of the major reasons i'm currently against a ban

(also the fact that we should definitely be making sure to get the meta into as healthy a position as possible before suspecting the move, and that would require at least one or two more mon bans. the results of the tera suspect, though i believe them ultimately to be right, were scuffed as fuck because shit like chi-yu was legal)
 
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Honestly if we are going for Tera Blast, might as well just go for Tera as a whole. This is not an anti-tera post btw but I feel like banning Tera Blast is just a band-aid fix to the current meta that has so many variances and threats to account for. Tera Blast won't stop the threat saturation that a lot of people have grievances with. Without Tera Blast Kingambit will still rip apart fat teams with Tera Dark BGs or flip the script on would-be checks like Zama.
In fact let me show you some replays of Tera Ghost Gambit using Zama as setup fodder:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2186431246
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2186902512 (yes Zama was almost dead. wouldn't have made much of difference if he was healthier though)

I am sure a lot of olt players are familiar with this painful moment

Without Tera Blast, Kyurem will still be an annoying POS.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2139947625?p2 Look here, just with the right Tera type, mimi couldn't do anything to this guy
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2179531828?p2 (Kyurem just casually outstalling one of its best defensive answer)


Dragon/Ground/Fire coverage is honestly already perfect for Gouge, Tera Blast is really just a bonus to make it's life easier. Tera itself is far more terrrifying for it. It can block para with tera ground, block dragons with fairy and setup, blow past walls with tera dragon outrage. There are also some tera ghost sets with D-tail that target Zama. Gouge really doesn't need tera blast, it is just an extra thing to worry about. It's bulk and ability to snowball is what is really problematic.

Tera Blast on nite is a massive opportunity cost and kinda useless against fat teams unless it's banded tera flying shit(and even then, if you hate fat, you can also tech in tera dragon outrage)

Tera itself, while not deleting mons like Tera Blast does, does something far worse. It gives a mon a free turn AND flips MU on its head at the spur of the moment. And in a meta this offensive, a free turn can mean the game. In other words, tera might not win the battle but it will win you the war.

All removing tera blast does is removing one teeth from a bunch of monsters that still have a bunch of sharp teeths left+ their sharp claws.

Of course Tera also has positives. It rewards grinding the meta, it also adds to the skill depth to it(you can't just blanket check a mon, you have to keep tera in mind and play around that. Midground plays will be really important) and also it really rewards reads and aggressive plays(I have will o wisp'd a gouging fire with Dragapult before the turn it tera'd. Freakin satisfying). So this is not me going for an anti tera campaign. But I am also a believer of seeing it from the other side and I have seen a lot of top players not enjoying this meta precisely bc you can just flip the script at the drop of the moment and just....win. Unpredicatability, MU fishing, and powercreep being the most complaint about thing leads back to tera in the end. If we are really gonna address this, it would be better to go to the root issue here. Tera Blast is just the drug dealer, the big overlord is tera itself.

Of course if the community thinks otherwise, I will shut up about it. Just sth to think about. I feel like current problematic mons don't care about TB too much and will find other ways to rip you apart.
 
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SDK03 said:
I feel like Porygon-Z would probably appreciate Tera Fighting over Tera Ghost, with Shadow Ball replacing Tri-Attack. After Tera it loses the Adaptability boost on Tri-Attack anyways, so having access to 80 BP Fighting STAB boosted by Adaptability + Shadow Ball as coverage and a resistance to Sucker Punch and other Dark type moves could benefit it more. I can see the Tera Ghost route working for baiting in Zamazenta though if that’s the idea with it.
Click to expand...

There are several main reasons why. First, you keep STAB on your original typing. Tera does not change this whatsoever, as far as I know. I'm not aware of Adaptability changing the Normal STAB damage after Tera, either. Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I have not noticed my original Normal STAB damage going down with my tests on Showdown.

Second, let's talk resistances. Normal is resisted by 3 types, being Rock, Steel, and the Ghost immunity. Fighting does nothing to Ghosts. But STAB Shadow Ball hits Ghosts and is neutral to Rock and Steel. It is better overall coverage. The only things that resist Ghosts are Dark and Normal types. There are no combinations in OU that resist both besides basically Gambit, which teams are generally equipped to deal with, and Garg who has an ability that resists Ghost moves. Tyranitar is very rare. Rock/Normal and Steel/Normal don't exist in gen 9 OU at all. I feel like the team can be made to deal with 2.5 mons.

On the other hand, Normal/Fighting STAB will have trouble with basically all Ghosts. If you try to add Shadow Ball without Tera Ghost to hit opposing Ghosts, you lose out on the Adaptability boost because Ghost was never a STAB. I would rather Tera Ghost, get the conditional Adaptability, and then keep Normal STAB with a Tri Attack option so I can hit everything except Gambit and Garg.

I did run TB Fighting on my Choice Scarf Indeedee, but that was because countering Dark types was far more important for both that mon and Psyspam teams in general. For Z, I feel like raw damage is king. Ghost/Normal STAB hits most of the meta at least neutrally. Just let the team deal with Gambit.

Third, Porygon Z is a glass cannon. I would rather take an immunity to Fighting moves from an opposing pokemon trying to exploit my weakness than a resisted hit on a Gambit that, depending on how buffed it was, might just 1HKO me with Sucker Punch anyways. IMO, Z isn't really suited as a Gambit counter. You could maybe be decent bait, but I don't think it is as good.

Fourth, you did see the Zama on my team. One synergy that works well is baiting the Ghost type KO for a mon like Zama. This was what ultimately saved me in my second replay despite my poor plays. The reverse is also true in another replay, where I was able to sacrifice Zama early to bait out an early Tera. This later allowed me to break through with little resistance. I don't think a Fighting type TB would be nearly as useful for stuff like this.
 
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I wonder if the council can vote on Tera Blast like they did for sleep. As it’s an entire mechanic that’s arguably uncompetitive. Maybe if it gets high survey scores? Would be cool.
 
658Greninja said:
You might’ve noticed I haven’t made any post on Cycle 3 or 4. That’s because I feel there are more urgent matters that need more attention. What I think is the most problematic element in the tier is not Kyurem or Gouging Fire or Waterpon or even Gliscor.

It’s Tera Blast.

Around January-to-April, it didn’t occur to me that Tera Blast was an issue. The move itself only had a few relevant users and it allowed for team building expression, as well as uplifting the viability of fringe mons like Frosmoth and Thundurus-T.



But since WCOP and recently, OLT, there’s been way more Tera Blast abusers. It isn’t just about adding coverage you need, it’s about fishing a potential matchup. In this post I wanna go over why Tera Blast is unhealthy, who the main culprits are, and the benefits banning it would have.



Why Tera Blast Should Go​

Broken Vs Uncompetitive

I would like to note the difference between something being broken and something uncompetitive. Ausma explained it perfectly on her Youtube channel, but in a nutshell. Broken is something being overbearing to deal with when building and battling, but uncompetitive is when a Pokemon or element in the game skews the battle away from the better player and promote fishing.

:sv/chien_pao:
Chien-Pao is a mon that was banned in SV OU for being overwhelming for offense and defense alike with absurd stats + its movepool/typing/ability. This is an example of something being unhealthy because it’s broken.


:sv/cloyster: :sv/maushold: View attachment 662337
King’s Rock is banned in all formats besides Anything Goes. While not immediately broken like a Mega-Rayquaza, King’a Rock promote fishing for good RNG and is out of the control of the better player, thus losing the competitive element of the tier. Cloyster and the new Maushold abuse it to no end. They go from manageable to obnoxious after a flinch or two. This is an example of something being unhealthy because it’s uncompetitive.

Tera Blast falls under the latter category.

Tera Blast’s Impact In SV OU

The cost of burning Tera and a moveslot is worth it when Tera Blast can blitz through any matchup and eliminate it from the game. The inherent free 80 BP coverage move that becomes STAB adds an abundant amount of variance in a game that makes checking the offensive metagame unnecessarily difficult. Most teams often have 1-2 checks to a certain threat and fall apart once they’re eliminated, which Tera Blast can enable, especially with its unpredictable nature. To explain what I mean, I would like to highlight the most egregious users of Tera Blast along with some lesser mentions.

:sv/kyurem:
Dragon Dance Kyurem is the biggest offender of Tera Blast. Normally something like Iron Crown, Skarmory, Skeledirge, and Gholdengo can answer it, but suddenly Kyurem can decide to Tera Fire or Ground Blast through them seamlessly while being immune to burn. There’s even Tera Electric to bypass Dozo, Mola, Prima, and Tera Water Garg/Lando. DD Kyurem has a dozen different variations and Tera Blast makes it much harder to read Kyurem.

:sv/dragonite:
At a close second is Dragonite. Tera Blast turns Dnite from an honest hardworking DD sweeper to a cheese machine. Like Kyurem, Dragonite has several different variations of the DD set, one of them being Tera Blast Fairy or Flying with Encore which could reverse 6-0 teams after a single bad mistake. You see a Dnite on team preview and expect your Bolt/Gambit/Zama offense to be able to check it, only for the Dnite to reveal Tera Fairy Blast and now you have to watch as Dnite snowballs the whole team.

:sv/gouging_fire:
Another DD sweeping mfer that uses Tera Blast. On top of breaking through Dnite, Tusk, and Zama, Fire/Ground/Fairy coverage hits everything besides Moltres for neutral coverage. The only reason it’s not common is because A, Moltres Balance is all over the place, and B, ppl are too busy running Tera Dragon to notice.

:sv/kingambit:
Zamazenta is normally the perfect check, with Helmet Tusk able to force chip, but a single Tera Fairy or Flying Blast puts it out of commission, and that’s amplified even further by Fairy just being a broken offensive/defensive typing.

:sv/iron_moth:
The most famous Tera Blast user in the tier. Be it Tera Ground, Water, Dark, or Ghost. Ground especially breaks through a lot of would-be checks like Glowking, Garg, and Tran.

:sv/dragapult:
CB Tera Ghost Blast Dragapult is hard to check defensively, with Darts or U-Turn chunking Gambit/Garg along with hazards.

:sv/iron_valiant:
Tera Ground Blast CM Val is a pretty recent innovation. Normally CM Valiant would have to run Shadow Ball to hit Ghold/Glowking and Psyshock to punish Poison-types, but Tera Ground cuts the middleman and lets you nuke both, giving you room for more coverage or Encore.

:sv/landorus_therian:
Nothing ridiculous, but Tera Blast Ice Lando eliminates Lando/Gliscor from the game making it easy for shit like Gouging, Moon, and Gambit go nuts. It’s also very easy to lure Gliscor with this.

:sv/roaring_moon:
Tera Fairy Moon was a set I’ve messed around with in June and it’s kinda cracked. Fairy hits the same targets Acrobatics does but keeps your Sucker Punch resistance.

:sv/iron_crown:
Booster Crown isn’t super common, but you do see random CM Tera Ground Blast which rips apart Steels and Cinderace.

:sv/primarina:
Storm Zone hit me up a few months ago with Tera Ground Blast Primarina. This breaks through Glowking, Pex, AV Crown, Clodsire, and Volcanion while dodging T-Wave or Tbolts from Raging Bolt. Sure you lose to Stall, but there’s like only two Stall players on the high ladder so who gives a shit?

:sv/cinderace:
Once in a blue moon you see Tera Ice Blast Cinderace on the ladder for the sole purpose of deleting Gliscor, cause fuck that mon.

:sv/rillaboom:
Tera Electric Rilla is forgotten tech, but it breaks through the usual checks in Moltres, the Steel birds, and Zapdos.

Most of the applications of Tera Blast seem innocent enough, but they are all designed with the intent to completely destroy a matchup and suddenly leaving the opposing team with very little to work with. Tera Blast contributes to the threat saturation players complain about in the tier and promotes uncompetitive tactics.

Benefits to Banning Tera Blast

Banning Tera Blast would remove an element of matchup fishing, overwhelming set variety, and make defensively checking mons easier. A Tera Ghost Gambit for example, rarely breaks through Roar Zamazenta, and I find the dynamic Tera creates to be healthy because of interactions like this.

The other big benefit which is hard to ignore is that Volcarona can be retested.

:sv/volcarona:
Its not a hot take to say Volcarona was broken but served as a central defensive piece of the metagame. Banning it had consequences, the main one being losing a Kyurem check. Without Volc, Kyurem has more freedom with its slots, thus resulting in sets like Sub-Tect popping up. It also kept other things in check like Valiant, Darkrai, Zama, and Gholdengo. I doubt anyone would find Volcarona broken in a meta without Tera Blast, the same can be applied to Regieleki who isn’t as meta defining, but would give us a nice offensive spinner that also blitzes the entire unboosted tier and even outspeeds Booster Valiant with Timid. We could also retest Espathra but that mon doesn’t provide anything of defensive/offensive value besides cheese, so meh.

Would Tera Blast have any consequences? The only one I can think of is that mons with a reliance on Tera Blast sink into unviability. However most of these mons are already fringe as hell. We shouldn’t keep an unhealthy mechanic just so you can run shitty Polteageist in OU.

Imo out of everything discussed, banning Tera Blast would have the most positive impact on SV OU. Less obnoxious variance, a more competitive environment, and the return of a glue mon that kept Kyurem and others in check.

If you hate Tera Blast and have qualified for OLT. Be vocal about suspecting it once the survey is published.

I have a major project coming up. This time I’ll be focusing on an old gen Ice type. Stay tuned OU discussion threaders.
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I would be fully in support of a tera blast ban if people would stop suggesting we bring back broken shit. I think 658Greninja is chill but I have a lot of problems with the reasonings behind this post, that being the overwhelming portion of the "benefits" section literally just being that we should bring back volc because it keeps kyurem in check, which I absolutely disagree with. Volc was banned with a 76% majority, which in a tier where no one agrees on anything is fucking wild, and some people seem very driven to find whatever justification they can to overwrite this.

Problems with the post:
1) the list of mons that use tera blast is well and good but most of these are not broken by tera blast at all. Kyurem is broken regardless of if tera blast is in the tier or not. Moon is mid, I do not think Gouging is broken at all but if it is (which I don't think is the case) its probably from tera dragon outrage. Dragonite is also fine, as is Valiant, and Moth is crazy good but will do well with or without tera blast considering that it heavily annoys GKing just by substituting on it, which is really what tera ground is for (skeledirge and tran are not real mons). SD electric rilla is a meme. Tera ice lando and ace are actually just giant memes, and as annoying as it is for them to get nuked I actually get really happy that someone decided to blow their tera on that. Tera blast isn't broken on essentially any of these mons, and Kyurem is broken even without it so I don't care. I personally don't like tera blast though, and I would 100% be willing to get rid of it (because it's cheese) if people would just stop using it as an excuse for a volc retest.

2) That this is suggested as a means of keeping Kyurem in check is pretty wild to me instead of suggesting the actual simplest option if Kyurem is broken (and given 658Greninja has said he wants a Kyurem suspect in discord I don't think he disagrees with that) is just getting rid of kyurem. Why are we suggesting a roundabout way of keeping kyurem in check, involving getting rid of a mechanic so we can retest a mon that was universally wanted out of OU just so we can get keep this mon in check; as well, it's not even every set that's gonna be kept in check, its mostly just subtect, which is a super cheesy set but is far from being the only thing that breaks Kyurem, especially considering that it can still just click freeze dry and pray for a freeze, which is what the set is for. Even in the actual suspect, people correctly pointed out that Volcarona was not nearly as good against Kyurem as people were making it out to be; DD sets still could nuke with scale shot, specs draco just killed you, boots sets even ran rock slide to get around the usual lack of a necessary 4th move. It's not gonna be what keeps kyurem in check, it barely did last time.

3) Volc is unlikely to be healthy in OU, even without tera blast. It's worth noting that every mon that consistently and reliably slotted on tera blast AND was good were largely just very strong snowballers in and of itself. Annihilape and Espathra are never going to be healthy in OU, for example. Kyurem is absolutely broken even without tera blast. The fact that Volc, the majority of the time, was slotting in tera blast should tell people about its inherent strength as a snowballer, which is very high. This post refers to Volc as glue, and that's sort of true, but especially by the time of suspect volcarona was increasingly run not as glue, but as cheese, with random sets literally just acting as counterpicks. Yes, Volc used tera blast to that effect well, but I wrote essays about how even without tera blast, Volc had the perfect combo to just absolutely snowball thanks to its functional gambling kit of fiery dance, flame body letting it proc burns on counterplay to stop stuff from hitting its weaker physical defense, and Quiver Dance letting it become bulkier, faster and stronger. Volc had the near perfect storm of coverage to counterplay and even without tera blast and just with the much weaker HP in previous gens this was still enough to have people bemoan just how fishy it was. Yes, its less broken without tera blast, but what likely happens in response is it changes its tera to become more defensive and just blank the counterplay you'd need to stop it; GKing was ironically one of its best checks, but it needed psyshock and toxic to reliably do this, as it was even mentioned that twave wasn't that reliable at stopping it as you could still boost up on it. However, volc doesn't need to worry about needing tera blast so it can just tera steel and blank that, or literally just click sub as well, which it already was doing before. It can nuke the best special check in the tier in Ting Lu, who is forced to whirlwind it out anyways, especially if it has bug buzz or even tera grass giga. It can tera fairy if it hates pult. Its worth noting that given that its most commonly cited weakness is its rocks weakness, if it gets knocked off, inflicts burn, then tera steels/fairies, it doesn't need to worry about that anymore. This mon is not healthy, and if we want to get rid of kyurem and keep it in check, we have much easier ways to do that, without dropping another fucking cheese mon into the tier.
 
Venuesaur said:
I would be fully in support of a tera blast ban if people would stop suggesting we bring back broken shit. I think 658Greninja is chill but I have a lot of problems with the reasonings behind this post, that being the overwhelming portion of the "benefits" section literally just being that we should bring back volc because it keeps kyurem in check, which I absolutely disagree with. Volc was banned with a 76% majority, which in a tier where no one agrees on anything is fucking wild, and some people seem very driven to find whatever justification they can to overwrite this.

Problems with the post:
1) the list of mons that use tera blast is well and good but most of these are not broken by tera blast at all. Kyurem is broken regardless of if tera blast is in the tier or not. Moon is mid, I do not think Gouging is broken at all but if it is (which I don't think is the case) its probably from tera dragon outrage. Dragonite is also fine, as is Valiant, and Moth is crazy good but will do well with or without tera blast considering that it heavily annoys GKing just by substituting on it, which is really what tera ground is for (skeledirge and tran are not real mons). SD electric rilla is a meme. Tera ice lando and ace are actually just giant memes, and as annoying as it is for them to get nuked I actually get really happy that someone decided to blow their tera on that. Tera blast isn't broken on essentially any of these mons, and Kyurem is broken even without it so I don't care. I personally don't like tera blast though, and I would 100% be willing to get rid of it (because it's cheese) if people would just stop using it as an excuse for a volc retest.

2) That this is suggested as a means of keeping Kyurem in check is pretty wild to me instead of suggesting the actual simplest option if Kyurem is broken (and given 658Greninja has said he wants a Kyurem suspect in discord I don't think he disagrees with that) is just getting rid of kyurem. Why are we suggesting a roundabout way of keeping kyurem in check, involving getting rid of a mechanic so we can retest a mon that was universally wanted out of OU just so we can get keep this mon in check; as well, it's not even every set that's gonna be kept in check, its mostly just subtect, which is a super cheesy set but is far from being the only thing that breaks Kyurem, especially considering that it can still just click freeze dry and pray for a freeze, which is what the set is for. Even in the actual suspect, people correctly pointed out that Volcarona was not nearly as good against Kyurem as people were making it out to be; DD sets still could nuke with scale shot, specs draco just killed you, boots sets even ran rock slide to get around the usual lack of a necessary 4th move. It's not gonna be what keeps kyurem in check, it barely did last time.

3) Volc is unlikely to be healthy in OU, even without tera blast. It's worth noting that every mon that consistently and reliably slotted on tera blast AND was good were largely just very strong snowballers in and of itself. Annihilape and Espathra are never going to be healthy in OU, for example. Kyurem is absolutely broken even without tera blast. The fact that Volc, the majority of the time, was slotting in tera blast should tell people about its inherent strength as a snowballer, which is very high. This post refers to Volc as glue, and that's sort of true, but especially by the time of suspect volcarona was increasingly run not as glue, but as cheese, with random sets literally just acting as counterpicks. Yes, Volc used tera blast to that effect well, but I wrote essays about how even without tera blast, Volc had the perfect combo to just absolutely snowball thanks to its functional gambling kit of fiery dance, flame body letting it proc burns on counterplay to stop stuff from hitting its weaker physical defense, and Quiver Dance letting it become bulkier, faster and stronger. Volc had the near perfect storm of coverage to counterplay and even without tera blast and just with the much weaker HP in previous gens this was still enough to have people bemoan just how fishy it was. Yes, its less broken without tera blast, but what likely happens in response is it changes its tera to become more defensive and just blank the counterplay you'd need to stop it; GKing was ironically one of its best checks, but it needed psyshock and toxic to reliably do this, as it was even mentioned that twave wasn't that reliable at stopping it as you could still boost up on it. However, volc doesn't need to worry about needing tera blast so it can just tera steel and blank that, or literally just click sub as well, which it already was doing before. It can nuke the best special check in the tier in Ting Lu, who is forced to whirlwind it out anyways, especially if it has bug buzz or even tera grass giga. It can tera fairy if it hates pult. Its worth noting that given that its most commonly cited weakness is its rocks weakness, if it gets knocked off, inflicts burn, then tera steels/fairies, it doesn't need to worry about that anymore. This mon is not healthy, and if we want to get rid of kyurem and keep it in check, we have much easier ways to do that, without dropping another fucking cheese mon into the tier.
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I do think Volc might be debatable but tera as a whole might break it tbh. With no tera blast it might not be a problem, I think if they playerbase wanted to give it a shot in a hypothetical no tera blast meta I wouldn’t mind since if it is still broken it just gets suspected and banned again probably. Tera blast is cheap and uncompetitive but I am not sure if it has the support even now.

But right now I think we need to focus on what mon is the most problematic, and kyurem feels the closest to a consensus on what is problematic.
 
if i'm being honest, i don't think volc has ever really been what i'd describe as healthy. it's been a big dumb matchup fish since gen 5 that's realistically only been held back by a handful of things. this was fine back when those things were actually capable of holding it back, but now boots exist to counteract rocks, the blobs and heatran can't put it on a timer with toxic anymore, pex lost too much to ever be splashable again, nature's madness fini no longer exists, and even without tera blast it can still use tera defensively to pick and choose what priority moves it wants to beat. there are still a couple workable answers to it, but it's a lot fewer than there were in previous gens, and i personally think that's a big problem
 
Tera Blast ban fundamentally changes the meta in such a way we can't fully appreciate the benefits.

We complain about the matchup fishing, inability to cover the amount of threats, the threats diverse movesets. And then on top of it we have surprise tera blasts. You can never cover everything and so offense tends to be the most effective, counting on outspeeding or using priority to take whatever comes. I think subtracting that one suprise card will give some comfort and make the game more healthy

Kyurem and Gouging could still go. But I disagree with needing to prioritize them over Tera Blast. Banning TB is a big deal that changes the game a lot. We need to stop dancing and get this out of the way, imo..

But we'll see what the survey says. :)
 
I feel like Volcarona would absolutely be fine without TB and frankly that's where most of its problems came from.
Without Tera Blast, it loses its only way to break through Heatran and can be defensively answered by most dragons and fires in the tier due to its appallingly awful coverage. Furthermore, with a greatly increased amount of rock coverage being slotted on mons with the uprise of Moltres, it would still struggle to find entry opportunities on many physical mons in the current metagame.
 
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I strongly disagree with all this volcarona fearmongering. "Retest with heavy caution" is wild, the mon is 100% immediately freeable if tera blast goes. It doesn't even have hidden power now which contributed to its mu fishiness in oldgens, meaning half the tier blanks it outright. Glowking no longer fears tb ground or ghost and is an incredibly slottable counter. Gouging Fire is an answer on HO, AV Prim and Heatran are incredible hard walls for offense, ting lu for balance, and clod and bliss for stall. It's also checked by every single fire type and a slew of bulky waters as well. Sure, tera grass giga drain, tera fly hurricane, and defensive teras might all make it a good, versatile mon, but it would definitely be far from the behemoth that tera blasted ground or dragon through entire teams.

edit: okay this was NOT coordinated
 
I think there is merit to talking about a Tera Blast ban even if I personally oppose it. However, focusing on the amount of Pokémon made better by the move is, imo, the wrong way to go about it. Talking about the design of the move itself and how the Pokémon that abuse with it interact with it is a much better argument. Kingambit is a more solid talking point for the move being unhealthy than, say, Kyurem, despite Kyurem being more broken than Kingambit. Kyurem primarily just uses the move to fill a hole in its physical coverage that helps push it over the edge in a traditional sense but doesn’t really lean into the uncompetitive aspect of the move, that being the guesswork and unpredictability attached to a move with big swing potential. Meanwhile Kingambit can occasionally tech the move onto its set to completely dispatch an otherwise hard counter that would prevent its lategame snowballing, and it’s not particularly easy to actually scout for the move in the context of Kingambit since preserving it as much as possible until lategame is oftentimes the optimal win condition for teams that are running it into a variety of matchups. Basically what I’m trying to say is “this move gives Pokémon access to coverage it wouldn’t normally have access to” isn’t a good argument in favor of it being uncompetitive, but “this move gives Pokémon the ability to push their gameplans beyond the scope at which they would normally operate in a way that is hard to scout for and oftentimes requires pure guesswork in order to anticipate it” is a much better one.
 
As someone who has been anti-Tera since the gen started, a Tera Blast ban would not fix my fundamental issues with it. Tera is too easily abused for power on wallbreakers and setup sweepers without the proper limitations or trade offs. At this point, I would like to see Tera Blast gone for different reasons relating mostly to matchup fishing, artificial coverages, and Regieleki. This won't fix my fundamental issues with Tera itself. But I believe banning TB would still help the tier quite a bit.

What I don't agree with are the pro-Volcarona arguments relating to TB. This thing has been banned multiple times, including some high ban numbers in a metagame where nobody can seem to agree most of the time. Quiver Dance is a flat broken setup move that is mostly balanced out by being reserved for trash mons with mostly trash typings and like 400 range base stats. You know, stuff like Vivillon, Frosmoth, and Bellossom that belong nowhere near OU? As an actual real mon with good typing and stats, Volc is too problematic for that move. Even without Tera Blast, you can get up an extra QD to boost half your stats again with defensive Tera. The snowball potential is too great. I might be open to a suspect with heavy scrutiny. But I'm certainly not thrilled about this mon coming back after so many bans of it.

Another thing I don't agree with are certain sentiments that mons like Gouging Fire and even more so Roaring Moon aren't fundamentally problematic in a Tera meta. Tera Blast makes the problem worse, but even without it, defensive Tera allowing an extra DD and maybe extra damage on like Outrage, Acrobatics, or EQ isn't particularly healthy to me. Booster Energy accelerate the setup time by basically a turn. These mons simply have too many tools to accelerate the setup sweeping and snowball too quickly. This is a dynamic goes too far overall in gen 9. To me, a lot of these mons with speed bosting setup moves should be under higher scrutiny. Their cheese can be hugely amplified by the tools gen 9 gives them.
 
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I feel like tera should be banned because defensive teras basically make revenge killing a sweeper a sucker vs. setup move mindgame. If you predict tera, then great. But if you don't, then your primary speed control is gone and the sweeper will likely do massive damage against your team.
 
Ehmcee said:
I've personally always been in the No Tera Blast ban camp, I've found that it's usage is incredibly risky on the majority of mons due to necessitating commitment in the teambuilder, and essentially having a full move as a dead slot if your Pokemon is not the target pick for your Tera during a game.

The few cases where I think there's an argument for it being broken are on Pokemon that can either:

A) Afford to be a dedicated Tera during a game, due to their sheer strength (Ex: Kingambit, Volcarona, DD Kyurem)

B) Can Afford to have a dead moveslot (Enamorus, Kingambit and kind of Iron Moth)

Now I was interested in seeing the stats behind Tera Blast usage, and see which users of Tera Blast where the most common among the Pokemon ranked on the current VR, so here's some stats (I included Comfey due to it's considerable usage on both ladder and the Tournament scene), including every OU VR'd Pokemon with Tera Blast usage above 10%:

:polteageist:95.81%
:sandy_shocks:72.70%
:serperior:63.65%
:moltres-galar:63.35%
:volcarona:61.29%
:enamorus:55.95%
:comfey:55.12%
:iron_moth:51.34%
:thundurus-therian:49.04%
:hydrapple:42.89%
:cresselia:21.17%
:kyurem:20.14%
:lilligant-hisui:20.06%
:skeledirge:12.06%

:polteageist:93.69%
:sandy_shocks:89.72%
:thundurus-therian:83.57%
:hydrapple:71.21%
:comfey:68.83%
:iron_moth:67.82%
:volcarona:67.36%
:enamorus:52.85%
:cresselia:50.77%
:serperior:50.07%
:moltres-galar:36.71%
:kyurem:21.88%
:indeedee:10.19%

There was one surprise to me, the lack of :kingambit:
Kingambit hasn't seen Tera Blast be a significant part of it's moveset at all in the DLC2 meta, which was interesting to me. Now there may certainly be some discrepancy between it's usage on ladder and it's usage in Tournament, but I certainly expected Tera Blast to make up for at least 10% of it's sets. Turns out it's coverage between Sucker Punch/Kowtow+Iron Head+Low Kick is pretty damn good, it rarely needs the additional coverage Tera Blast provides, and the neutrality that Tera Fairy provides or the immunity that Tera Flying provides is often enough for Kingambit to beat Great Tusk (the main mon it needs to Tera out of).

Now I think the main Tera Blast users can be distributed into three main categories:

1. Pokemon that need additional coverage to succeed:
:polteageist:, :thundurus-therian:, :comfey:, :volcarona:, :cresselia:, :serperior:, :moltres-galar:, DD :kyurem:

These pokemon all suffer greatly without the additional coverage, or are just full out outclassed by other mons. This is mostly filled with Pokemon that setup as a win condition or just for breaking power. Pokemon like :polteageist:, :comfey: and :cresselia: typically use Tera Blast Fighting, due to it's favorable matchup into steel types, which multiple of them struggle to break. :moltres-galar: typically slots in Tera Fairy, to become a bulky double dance sweeper. :kyurem: and :serperior: both slot in Tera Fire or Ground, to gain super effective stab against steel types, which both struggle against.

:volcarona: is the true wild card here, it's tera blast can be a wide range of types, between ground, water, fairy and even dragon. I'd argue this is outright the most problematic user of Tera Blast. Without Tera Blast it's fairly balanced due to it's fairly bad matchup into most fire types like :gouging_fire:, :heatran:, :skeledirge:. In combination with Quiver Dance and Volcarona's stats, it could very much be too much for the metagame. I however don't believe this is the fault of Tera Blast, but simply due to Volcarona's unique combination of characteristics.

The one exception to the "setup sweeper" mantle is :thundurus-therian:, which mainly uses Tera Blast since Game Freak didn't give it flying stab :(. It becomes an especially effective breaker thanks to Tera Blast Flying.

2. Pokemon that typically can afford a dead slot
:sandy_shocks:, :hydrapple:, :iron_moth:, :indeedee:, :enamorus:

:sandy_shocks: and :indeedee: fill kind of a similar role. both being leads for specific archetypes, which cover Tera Blast just in case they think they can nab a kill on defensive typings that cover them extremely well, Shocks running Tera Blast Ice to nail ground types, while Indeedee typically slots Tera Blast Fighting to OHKO Kingambit. These Pokemon don't typically need a 4th moveslot, as they act as either hazard leads that are expected to die quickly, or spawn Psychic Terrain as essentially their only job.

:iron_moth: is an interesting one because unlike Volcarona, Iron Moth has amazing coverage. When they run Tera Blast, it's mainly for Tera Blast Water or Ground, to mainly hit :clodsire: and :skeledirge: super effectively, it's primary checks. There's an argument to be made that this could also slot into category 1, but these two Pokemon rarely appear, and Iron Moth certainly doesn't need the additional coverage for success.

:hydrapple: this one's pretty much only here because of that one stall team with Tera Blast Ice. Hydrapple doesn't really need to have Tera Blast Ice, it's pretty much just Teraing in select matchups where the team needs an ice resist (mainly vs Weavile and Meow). Tera Blast is kind of just a cherry on top because between Giga Drain, Body Press and Recover, it might as well slot in Tera Blast Ice due to it's synergy with the rest of it's offensive moves.

:enamorus: will be explained in the next section, but between Moonblast, Earth Power and Healing Wish, it hardly ever needs it's 4 slot unless it wants to go for a sweep.

3. Stellar users

:enamorus:, :serperior:

I'd only really argue enamorus should be here, because I think Serperior's other tera types vastly outclass Stellar. Enamorus is the only potential problematic user of Tera Blast Stellar, due to it's unresisted option that continuously boosts it's special attack. Good speed control or priority is needed to outplay it, which I think the metagame generally has, between :iron_boulder:, :raging_bolt:, :weavile:, :barraskewda: and :iron_moth:, as well as the multiple defensive Pokemon that have a fairly good matchup against it when locked into Tera Blast, such as :clodsire:, :slowking-galar:, :skeledirge:, :gholdengo: and :ting-lu:.

Now I think the most popular Tera Blast users are overwhelmingly balanced, the majority of them aren't broken or game breaking and are definitely manageable in the current metagame. Where this changes however is with 4 specific Pokemon that have the potential to be broken with it, :volcarona:, :kyurem:, :kingambit:, :enamorus:. Now in my personal opinion, all of these mons should be looked into individually over a Tera Blast ban, I think Tera Blast is a great addition that offers many pokemon that need additional coverage with extra options, while having a noticeable tradeoff in a dead moveslot if the user itself does not Tera.

This was an interesting look into Tera Blast as a move, and I hope it was interesting for you :)
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With the rise of Tera Blast, especially during the OLT season, I was interested in doing another look at the stats on Tera Blast, and see how different they would be from the stats from 6 months prior, just to see what would be significant. A big note is that these stats are before OLT, and it is quite likely that Tera Blast usage would be much higher due to it's matchup fishy nature.
We'll be taking a look at every Pokemon on the OU VR, and listing them if they happen to have Tera Blast above 10% usage rate.
I'll also be showing wether a Pokemon's tera usage went up, down, or write up "NEW" if they did not have proper stats 6 months ago.

:serperior:70.16% +6.51%
:polteageist:69.67%-26.14%
:sandy-shocks:53.27%-19.43%
:lilligant-hisui:51.87%+31.81%
:comfey:48.51%-6.61%
:necrozma:48.44%NEW
:moltres-galar:45.99%-17.36%
:thundurus-therian:41.96%-7.08%
:iron_moth:36.02%-15.32%
:enamorus:29.39%-26.56%
:hydreigon:24.82%NEW
:kyurem:22.31%+2.17%
:skeledirge:20.35%+8.29%
:indeedee:17.97%+13.96%
:dragapult:17.51%+10.87%
:bellibolt:16.35%NEW
:cresselia:13.97%-7.20%
:kommo-o:12.19%NEW
:keldeo:12.10%+7.00%
:volcanion:11.07%+4.20% (Nice)

Now there isn't anything too incredibly big about these stats, there's however a significant drop of usage for Tera Blast for :polteageist:, :sandy-shocks:, :moltres-galar:, :iron_moth: and :enamorus:. With the particularly notable rises in my opinion being from :lilligant-hisui: and :dragapult:.
Now if this were the whole story, my opinions on Tera Blast would be quite similar to many months ago, however what truly surprised me were the 1825 Stats, which paint an entirely different picture.

:sandy_shocks:84.31%-5.41%
:lilligant-hisui:79.28%+72.67%
:thundurus-therian:71.75%-11.82%
:comfey:63.97%-4.86%
:serperior:58.09%+8.02%
:moltres-galar:36.00%-0.71%
:polteageist:31.42%-62.27%
:iron_moth:27.18%-40.64%
:iron_boulder:23.59%NEW
:dragonite:19.89%NEW
:dragapult:19.48%+15.14%
:gouging_fire:18.62%NEW
:enamorus:16.45%-36.40%
:bellibolt:15.99%NEW
:manaphy:15.88%NEW
:pecharunt:13.49%+5.97%
:kyurem:13.40%-8.48%
:cresselia:13.34%-34.32%
:landorus-therian:11.25%+1.59%
While the past sheets showed little to no difference between the two stats, this one is like night and day. While we see an absolutely staggering rise of Tera Blast usage on Lilligant-Hisui and a very sizable increase of 15.14% on Dragapult, we see 4 very potent OU Sweeping Pokemon that now carry Tera Blast. And also Bellibolt

These numbers are nothing to scoff at either, above 15% usage is WELL above the cutoff of where you should pretty much always be considering if the opposing Pokemon is carrying Tera Blast. Dragonite and Gouging Fire in particular are especially potent due to their already incredibly strong attack stats coupled with Dragon Dance, while Manaphy scurges through it's would be checks with +3 Tera Blasts.

Now particularly, since 6 months ago, Tera Blast Stellar has been found to be incredibly bad. Tera usage rates on Enamorus and Serperior somewhat reflect this, with Enamorus now typically carrying tera ground or fire without Tera Blast and Enamorus running whatever coverage it wants.

I think the rise of Tera Blast on sweeping Pokemon, particularly in higher ELO definitely spells a problem that's rising. A move that's fundamentally incredibly difficult to have counterplay for is rising among the ranks of these Pokemon and becoming more popular, while we previously only had to consider a few setup Pokemon, we now have to consider MANY MORE.

My opinion on Tera Blast is certainly shifting, and I'm incredibly interested in seeing the August stats once they come out.

Hope you found this interesting :)
 
658Greninja said:
You might’ve noticed I haven’t made any post on Cycle 3 or 4. That’s because I feel there are more urgent matters that need more attention. What I think is the most problematic element in the tier is not Kyurem or Gouging Fire or Waterpon or even Gliscor.

It’s Tera Blast.

Around January-to-April, it didn’t occur to me that Tera Blast was an issue. The move itself only had a few relevant users and it allowed for team building expression, as well as uplifting the viability of fringe mons like Frosmoth and Thundurus-T.



But since WCOP and recently, OLT, there’s been way more Tera Blast abusers. It isn’t just about adding coverage you need, it’s about fishing a potential matchup. In this post I wanna go over why Tera Blast is unhealthy, who the main culprits are, and the benefits banning it would have.



Why Tera Blast Should Go​

Broken Vs Uncompetitive

I would like to note the difference between something being broken and something uncompetitive. Ausma explained it perfectly on her Youtube channel, but in a nutshell. Broken is something being overbearing to deal with when building and battling, but uncompetitive is when a Pokemon or element in the game skews the battle away from the better player and promote fishing.

:sv/chien_pao:
Chien-Pao is a mon that was banned in SV OU for being overwhelming for offense and defense alike with absurd stats + its movepool/typing/ability. This is an example of something being unhealthy because it’s broken.


:sv/cloyster: :sv/maushold: View attachment 662337
King’s Rock is banned in all formats besides Anything Goes. While not immediately broken like a Mega-Rayquaza, King’a Rock promote fishing for good RNG and is out of the control of the better player, thus losing the competitive element of the tier. Cloyster and the new Maushold abuse it to no end. They go from manageable to obnoxious after a flinch or two. This is an example of something being unhealthy because it’s uncompetitive.

Tera Blast falls under the latter category.

Tera Blast’s Impact In SV OU

The cost of burning Tera and a moveslot is worth it when Tera Blast can blitz through any matchup and eliminate it from the game. The inherent free 80 BP coverage move that becomes STAB adds an abundant amount of variance in a game that makes checking the offensive metagame unnecessarily difficult. Most teams often have 1-2 checks to a certain threat and fall apart once they’re eliminated, which Tera Blast can enable, especially with its unpredictable nature. To explain what I mean, I would like to highlight the most egregious users of Tera Blast along with some lesser mentions.

:sv/kyurem:
Dragon Dance Kyurem is the biggest offender of Tera Blast. Normally something like Iron Crown, Skarmory, Skeledirge, and Gholdengo can answer it, but suddenly Kyurem can decide to Tera Fire or Ground Blast through them seamlessly while being immune to burn. There’s even Tera Electric to bypass Dozo, Mola, Prima, and Tera Water Garg/Lando. DD Kyurem has a dozen different variations and Tera Blast makes it much harder to read Kyurem.

:sv/dragonite:
At a close second is Dragonite. Tera Blast turns Dnite from an honest hardworking DD sweeper to a cheese machine. Like Kyurem, Dragonite has several different variations of the DD set, one of them being Tera Blast Fairy or Flying with Encore which could reverse 6-0 teams after a single bad mistake. You see a Dnite on team preview and expect your Bolt/Gambit/Zama offense to be able to check it, only for the Dnite to reveal Tera Fairy Blast and now you have to watch as Dnite snowballs the whole team.

:sv/gouging_fire:
Another DD sweeping mfer that uses Tera Blast. On top of breaking through Dnite, Tusk, and Zama, Fire/Ground/Fairy coverage hits everything besides Moltres for neutral coverage. The only reason it’s not common is because A, Moltres Balance is all over the place, and B, ppl are too busy running Tera Dragon to notice.

:sv/kingambit:
Zamazenta is normally the perfect check, with Helmet Tusk able to force chip, but a single Tera Fairy or Flying Blast puts it out of commission, and that’s amplified even further by Fairy just being a broken offensive/defensive typing.

:sv/iron_moth:
The most famous Tera Blast user in the tier. Be it Tera Ground, Water, Dark, or Ghost. Ground especially breaks through a lot of would-be checks like Glowking, Garg, and Tran.

:sv/dragapult:
CB Tera Ghost Blast Dragapult is hard to check defensively, with Darts or U-Turn chunking Gambit/Garg along with hazards.

:sv/iron_valiant:
Tera Ground Blast CM Val is a pretty recent innovation. Normally CM Valiant would have to run Shadow Ball to hit Ghold/Glowking and Psyshock to punish Poison-types, but Tera Ground cuts the middleman and lets you nuke both, giving you room for more coverage or Encore.

:sv/landorus_therian:
Nothing ridiculous, but Tera Blast Ice Lando eliminates Lando/Gliscor from the game making it easy for shit like Gouging, Moon, and Gambit go nuts. It’s also very easy to lure Gliscor with this.

:sv/roaring_moon:
Tera Fairy Moon was a set I’ve messed around with in June and it’s kinda cracked. Fairy hits the same targets Acrobatics does but keeps your Sucker Punch resistance.

:sv/iron_crown:
Booster Crown isn’t super common, but you do see random CM Tera Ground Blast which rips apart Steels and Cinderace.

:sv/primarina:
Storm Zone hit me up a few months ago with Tera Ground Blast Primarina. This breaks through Glowking, Pex, AV Crown, Clodsire, and Volcanion while dodging T-Wave or Tbolts from Raging Bolt. Sure you lose to Stall, but there’s like only two Stall players on the high ladder so who gives a shit?

:sv/cinderace:
Once in a blue moon you see Tera Ice Blast Cinderace on the ladder for the sole purpose of deleting Gliscor, cause fuck that mon.

:sv/rillaboom:
Tera Electric Rilla is forgotten tech, but it breaks through the usual checks in Moltres, the Steel birds, and Zapdos.

Most of the applications of Tera Blast seem innocent enough, but they are all designed with the intent to completely destroy a matchup and suddenly leaving the opposing team with very little to work with. Tera Blast contributes to the threat saturation players complain about in the tier and promotes uncompetitive tactics.

Benefits to Banning Tera Blast

Banning Tera Blast would remove an element of matchup fishing, overwhelming set variety, and make defensively checking mons easier. A Tera Ghost Gambit for example, rarely breaks through Roar Zamazenta, and I find the dynamic Tera creates to be healthy because of interactions like this.

The other big benefit which is hard to ignore is that Volcarona can be retested.

:sv/volcarona:
Its not a hot take to say Volcarona was broken but served as a central defensive piece of the metagame. Banning it had consequences, the main one being losing a Kyurem check. Without Volc, Kyurem has more freedom with its slots, thus resulting in sets like Sub-Tect popping up. It also kept other things in check like Valiant, Darkrai, Zama, and Gholdengo. I doubt anyone would find Volcarona broken in a meta without Tera Blast, the same can be applied to Regieleki who isn’t as meta defining, but would give us a nice offensive spinner that also blitzes the entire unboosted tier and even outspeeds Booster Valiant with Timid. We could also retest Espathra but that mon doesn’t provide anything of defensive/offensive value besides cheese, so meh.

Would Tera Blast have any consequences? The only one I can think of is that mons with a reliance on Tera Blast sink into unviability. However most of these mons are already fringe as hell. We shouldn’t keep an unhealthy mechanic just so you can run shitty Polteageist in OU.

Imo out of everything discussed, banning Tera Blast would have the most positive impact on SV OU. Less obnoxious variance, a more competitive environment, and the return of a glue mon that kept Kyurem and others in check.

If you hate Tera Blast and have qualified for OLT. Be vocal about suspecting it once the survey is published.

I have a major project coming up. This time I’ll be focusing on an old gen Ice type. Stay tuned OU discussion threaders.
Click to expand...
Nice writeup but some of the abusers of tb you mentioned are kinda mid. I haven't seen anything other than tera blast ground on dd Kyu. Dnite, goug, prim, crown, ace, rilla, and lando is kinda uncommon with tera blast ice. On top of that, having to sacrifice your tera for the tera blast Mon is a huge investment
 
HunterNeverHere9 said:
On top of that, having to sacrifice your tera for the tera blast Mon is a huge investment
Click to expand...
the huge investment in question when you tera and immediately win the game

everyone always says "tera blast is a big investment" but the idea is you're investing into specific matchups that you can exploit to no end. It's an opportunity cost that always pays off in the matchups it fishes for, which is inherently uncompetitive
 
Ehmcee said:
On Tera Blast and Lilligant
Click to expand...

I like to think I am one of the influencers of the Tera Blast Lilligant trend. I didn't play much during OLT but I played a ton around the period you collected your stats. Tera Blast Fire + Sun on Lilligant takes out many of its otherwise checks and is a great breaker.

Below is a team that I used with Tera Blast Lilligant for those who want to try it out (bring out your cowboy boots):
https://pokepast.es/09b550006911580a
 
Ehmcee said:
With the rise of Tera Blast, especially during the OLT season, I was interested in doing another look at the stats on Tera Blast, and see how different they would be from the stats from 6 months prior, just to see what would be significant. A big note is that these stats are before OLT, and it is quite likely that Tera Blast usage would be much higher due to it's matchup fishy nature.
We'll be taking a look at every Pokemon on the OU VR, and listing them if they happen to have Tera Blast above 10% usage rate.
I'll also be showing wether a Pokemon's tera usage went up, down, or write up "NEW" if they did not have proper stats 6 months ago.

:serperior:70.16%+6.51%
:polteageist:69.67%-26.14%
:sandy-shocks:53.27%-19.43%
:lilligant-hisui:51.87%+31.81%
:comfey:48.51%-6.61%
:necrozma:48.44%NEW
:moltres-galar:45.99%-17.36%
:thundurus-therian:41.96%-7.08%
:iron_moth:36.02%-15.32%
:enamorus:29.39%-26.56%
:hydreigon:24.82%NEW
:kyurem:22.31%+2.17%
:skeledirge:20.35%+8.29%
:indeedee:17.97%+13.96%
:dragapult:17.51%+10.87%
:bellibolt:16.35%NEW
:cresselia:13.97%-7.20%
:kommo-o:12.19%NEW
:keldeo:12.10%+7.00%
:volcanion:11.07%+4.20% (Nice)

Now there isn't anything too incredibly big about these stats, there's however a significant drop of usage for Tera Blast for :polteageist:, :sandy-shocks:, :moltres-galar:, :iron_moth: and :enamorus:. With the particularly notable rises in my opinion being from :lilligant-hisui: and :dragapult:.
Now if this were the whole story, my opinions on Tera Blast would be quite similar to many months ago, however what truly surprised me were the 1825 Stats, which paint an entirely different picture.

:sandy_shocks:84.31%-5.41%
:lilligant-hisui:79.28%+72.67%
:thundurus-therian:71.75%-11.82%
:comfey:63.97%-4.86%
:serperior:58.09%+8.02%
:moltres-galar:36.00%-0.71%
:polteageist:31.42%-62.27%
:iron_moth:27.18%-40.64%
:iron_boulder:23.59%NEW
:dragonite:19.89%NEW
:dragapult:19.48%+15.14%
:gouging_fire:18.62%NEW
:enamorus:16.45%-36.40%
:bellibolt:15.99%NEW
:manaphy:15.88%NEW
:pecharunt:13.49%+5.97%
:kyurem:13.40%-8.48%
:cresselia:13.34%-34.32%
:landorus-therian:11.25%+1.59%
While the past sheets showed little to no difference between the two stats, this one is like night and day. While we see an absolutely staggering rise of Tera Blast usage on Lilligant-Hisui and a very sizable increase of 15.14% on Dragapult, we see 4 very potent OU Sweeping Pokemon that now carry Tera Blast. And also Bellibolt

These numbers are nothing to scoff at either, above 15% usage is WELL above the cutoff of where you should pretty much always be considering if the opposing Pokemon is carrying Tera Blast. Dragonite and Gouging Fire in particular are especially potent due to their already incredibly strong attack stats coupled with Dragon Dance, while Manaphy scurges through it's would be checks with +3 Tera Blasts.

Now particularly, since 6 months ago, Tera Blast Stellar has been found to be incredibly bad. Tera usage rates on Enamorus and Serperior somewhat reflect this, with Enamorus now typically carrying tera ground or fire without Tera Blast and Enamorus running whatever coverage it wants.

I think the rise of Tera Blast on sweeping Pokemon, particularly in higher ELO definitely spells a problem that's rising. A move that's fundamentally incredibly difficult to have counterplay for is rising among the ranks of these Pokemon and becoming more popular, while we previously only had to consider a few setup Pokemon, we now have to consider MANY MORE.

My opinion on Tera Blast is certainly shifting, and I'm incredibly interested in seeing the August stats once they come out.

Hope you found this interesting :)
Click to expand...
Were there any that fell below the 10% mark in the more recent data that had been above 10% previously? Cause if so that could show us something as well. Either way I do think that Tera Blast is becoming more and more of a problem and should definitely have a suspect.
 
Gohankuten said:
Were there any that fell below the 10% mark in the more recent data that had been above 10% previously? Cause if so that could show us something as well. Either way I do think that Tera Blast is becoming more and more of a problem and should definitely have a suspect.
Click to expand...

The only such cases would be :hydrapple: dropping from 42.89% Tera Blast Usage in January to unrecorded in July (somewhere below 9.79%) in the 1695 range.

In the 1825 range we see :hydrapple: dropping from 71.21% Tera Blast Usage in January to 7.26% usage in July, while we also see a slight drop for :Indeedee:, going from 10.19% to 8.89%.

Otherwise, all the Pokemon that were running Tera Blast in January were still running them a decent amount in July.
 
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