Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

UltraSword said:
If toxapex becomes ou again I am going to be so upset
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just being in ou again doesn't necessarily make it as great as it was before. pex is way too passive now to effectively fit on a lot of the team structures it was fitting on in 7 and 8. it used to be way more splashable because it had the extremely good progress-making tools of scald and knock off. nowadays the infamous "the pex" set has to make do with surf or liquidation off of absolutely miserable offensive stats, if it runs an attack at all, and its main way of making progress is through toxic, which is not really a fantastic way of doing that (both because there are a lot of good poison-immune mons and because toxic's immediate damage is very small and you can reset it via switching so switch-heavy teams aren't affected by it as much as they'd be from scald or knock off). recently people have expanded into assault vest pex, but honestly i'm not buying it because its best progress-making tools are "hope the opponent stays in after an acid spray" and "pray for ice beam or sludge bomb to proc"
 
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Yeah, what made Toxapex broken was:
1. Knock Off + Regenerator.
2. Scald.
3. 16 Recover PPs.

Recovery lose didn,t affect Pex as much as other Mons, since its still has Regenerator. However, losing both Knock and Scald makes poison immune Mons (which there are a lot in OU even before Tera) free switch-ins into Pex. Without either Knock or Scald, it will never be dominating OU again.
 
I don't think toxapex is broken or anything I was just saying I don't want it to be ranked ou. It is annoying as hell and if it stays uu every gen I would be happy
 
Eeveeto said:
Yeah, what made Toxapex broken was:
1. Knock Off + Regenerator.
2. Scald.
3. 16 Recover PPs.

Recovery lose didn,t affect Pex as much as other Mons, since its still has Regenerator. However, losing both Knock and Scald makes poison immune Mons (which there are a lot in OU even before Tera) free switch-ins into Pex. Without either Knock or Scald, it will never be dominating OU again.
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If only Corrosive Gas was a TM this gen, it would be able to remove items just without dealing damage
 
UltraSword said:
I don't think toxapex is broken or anything I was just saying I don't want it to be ranked ou. It is annoying as hell and if it stays uu every gen I would be happy
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no yeah but like we're saying that bc its a very easy mindtrap you know? like u think bc a mon is RU it has no OU viability and forget about it. zapdos was UU for the last three months and i feel like every second post talked about it lately. i don't think pex is going to suddenly be the most viable mon ever in OU but it's still there and you should consider it, however minimally you'd like to, but consider it
 
MC Squared said:
If only Corrosive Gas was a TM this gen, it would be able to remove items just without dealing damage
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Yeah, instead of giving Knock Off to almost every Mon back, they shoudn,t have Dexited Corrosive Gas. Pex didn,t even have the move, but 2 very cool Mons, Weezing and Vileplume, did, meaning they could force some progress in almost every battle while not being obnoxious to play against, like Knock Off Pex was.
 
arnimacarni said:
no yeah but like we're saying that bc its a very easy mindtrap you know? like u think bc a mon is RU it has no OU viability and forget about it. zapdos was UU for the last three months and i feel like every second post talked about it lately. i don't think pex is going to suddenly be the most viable mon ever in OU but it's still there and you should consider it, however minimally you'd like to, but consider it
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I know that but I just don't want toxapex to have the satisfaction of being ranked ou you know? If I didn't appreciate lower ranked pokemon in ou I wouldn't have started my Random Mons Of OU series
 
Naw, we do not need to Kokoloko out Ogerpon-Wellspring, Raging Bolt, Roaring Moon, Zamazenta, and Darkrai if Gliscor goes as it doesn't have that much impact on any of those mons' viaibility. It's not even a good Raging Bolt check due to its low raw special bulk and weak Earthquake if Raging Bolt Teras out of its Ground weakness.

Zamazenta is 100% fair and balanced and really has no business being suspected or banned.
 
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peepeepoopoo722 said:
if we do move onto gliscor next, especially quickly, as opposed to an alternate path including tera blast & sig moves then i unironically support kookookookoo method removing wog glisc bolt moon zama rai at once. and then prob ghould & kingambit. might as well be efficient about it.
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Fixing a problem that isn't there by blowing up the entire tier is crazy. How is kokoloko even remotely necessary? Most of those mons don't even deserve a suspect, let alone a quickban. Even if they were suspected, the only one I can see getting 60% (and that's still a big maybe) is Gliscor. No way people still think ou is in a state of emergency in 2024... this isn't gen 8, people gotta accept that it is ok for progress to be made outside of knock, status fishing, future sight, and pult spdef drops lol.

The standard for what is broken has changed a long time ago. It's fine for something to not have a definitive hard check/counter. There doesn't need to be an equivalent of gen 8 heatran to gen 8 volcarona for every mon. Most offensive threats, even if you for some reason don't have an answer to it, can still be managed/limited through good positioning, tera timing, and hazards/priority anyway.
 
Moisture99 said:
this isn't gen 8, people gotta accept that it is ok for progress to be made outside of knock, status fishing, and pult spdef drops lol.
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You know it's okay to defend Gen9, but what is with the desire some of you have for taking pot shots at gen8 like it's a bad meta? People like it, more people do like it now, and it's really silly. The metas are different.

I agree nothing really stands out as overly broken but come on.
 
Avira said:
Naw, we do not need to Kokoloko out Ogerpon-Wellspring, Raging Bolt, Roaring Moon, Zamazenta, and Darkrai if Gliscor goes as it doesn't that much impact on any of those mons' visibility. It's not even a good Raging Bolt check due to its low raw special bulk and weak Earthquake if Raging Bolt Teras out of its Ground weakness.

Zamazenta is 100% fair and balanced and really has no business being suspected or banned.
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Zamazenta is (at least one of) the most problematic defensive Pokemon in the history of the OU tier. The three things that normally limit defensive Pokemon, low speed, low attacking stats, and/or a low defensive stat, are not present in Zamazenta, in fact, it has the opposite of all three and the coverage to beat all of its checks. To win with Zamazenta, all you need to do is remove a team’s special attackers, bring it in, and click ID once or twice before BPing the enemy to death. It can easily Tera to avoid status or flip a matchup and has the natural bulk to live basically any unboosted supereffective attack and a lot of boosted supereffective attacks as well, and force good matchups with Roar. “B-but it stops the tier from folding to Kingambit” now it’s my turn to say the line: “broken checks broken is not tier policy” (Gambit isn’t broken anyways, most people agree that the tier has long since adapted to its presence and stretched the upper limits of its rather low set variety)

Something something yet another Tera abuser.

You’d think that with the Kyurem ban people would target the other 660 BST box legend in the tier but it seems like a lot of people truly do believe that defensive mons can never be broken.
 
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Rather than arguing about or crusading for previous biases, maybe we should wait for the meta to settle more? We just had two bans in a relatively short amount of time. I personally agreed with both, but it's going to take awhile for the meta to settle. The conventional wisdom on what the tier is right now is just as likely to change in several weeks to a month or so as it is to stay relatively the same. Innovations are likely being made as we speak.
 
Seraphyde said:
Zamazenta is (at least one of) the most problematic defensive Pokemon in the history of the OU tier. The three things that normally limit defensive Pokemon, low speed, low attacking stats, and/or a low defensive stat, are not present in Zamazenta, in fact, it has the opposite of all three and the coverage to beat all of its checks.
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Way more goes into a Pokemon's viability than just it's stats. There movepools, typing, competition within the role said Pokemon has, how the Pokemon does against other common Pokemon in the metagame, it's ability, how reliant it is on it's item, etc.

For instance Zamazenta while having a good movepool, it has issues regarding 4 moveslot syndrome but also a lack of high base power options. If you look through the movepool the highest base power attack you'll see is Stone Edge, and Close Combat which is limited to all out attacker variants. However Stone Edge isn't a key part of it's coverage as it's just to hit Moltres, Zapdos, and Dragonite and there's issues with accuracy as well. All other options are Crunch, Ice Fang, Body Press which have a noticeable lack of power even with un-boosted Body Press. To expand further on the 4 Moveslot syndrome problem, Zamazenta has tons of options yes but it has to pick what it loses to. Beyond just attacks there's also utility options in Rest, Substitute, Roar, Iron Defense all of which being similarly valuable to eachother. Now to other points you'll also realize that Zamazenta while having a good ability, it isn't 1 that is broken mindlessly as it normally needs the initial defense boost to deal with big threats like Roaring Moon or Ogerpon-Wellspring. This means you do have to time your switch in's which is a complex and difficult aspect of the Pokemon when using it, showing that yes there is more to the game than just stats. I could go on and on about how Zamazenta over relies on Boots to stay healthy, or how meta relevant Pokemon like Gholdengo or Slowking-Galar keep it in check but my main point is stats aren't the end all be all of a Pokemon, and this should be gotten across by now.
 
Seraphyde said:
Zamazenta is the most problematic defensive Pokemon in the history of the OU tier. The three things that normally limit defensive Pokemon, low speed, low attacking stats, and/or a low defensive stat, are not present in Zamazenta, in fact, it has the opposite of all three and the coverage to beat all of its checks. To win with Zamazenta, all you need to do is remove a team’s special attackers, bring it in, and click ID once or twice before BPing the enemy to death.

You’d think that with the Kyurem ban people would target the other 660 BST box legend in the tier but it seems like a lot of people truly do believe that defensive mons can never be broken.
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Okay, seriously, defensive pokemon can be broken. Look at mega sableye in Gen 6, which while it was banned on the last day of the gen, WAS banned. The reason why defensive mons are inherently less banworthy is because there are inherently more issues with them, such as being overwhelmed over time, status and wallbreakers.
Also can we stop saying that zamazenta has no counters? Seriously, this mon has some many checks or counters, that I would have to have 5 hands in order to properly count them. And while yes, it CAN technically have the move to decimate one of your checks to it, it has to give up something big in order to hit them. Oh, it clicked sub on your toxic gliscor? Well, now your iron valiant permanently walls it as bp is doing dicks damage. Oh, it heavy slam'd your hatterene? Cool, now moltres/zapdos walls it completely and can fish for flame body or static. Roar'd out your other mon that was trying to setup besides it? Now your gliscor can toxic or knock off its lefties.
Alomomola
Clefable
Corviknight (needs helmet, but if it does, then its a win)
Deoxys-Speed
Dondozo
Dragapult
Dragonite (encore or hurricane beats zama)
Enamorus
Gholdengo
Gliscor
Hatterene
Iron Moth
Iron Valiant
Landorus Therian
Moltres
Primarina
Slowking Galar
Zapdos
Clodsire
Okidogi
Pecharunt
Sinistcha
Skeledirge
Skarmory (needs helmet, but that's fine)
Toxapex
TERA GHOST
This is only accounting for OU and UU mons, which is saying something if even more mons can beat most variants of zama (like fezandipiti). And this list includes both offensive and defensive counters, and most teams will have one or more of these mons on a team. Also if one of your offensive mons doesn't have tera ghost.... what kind of offensive team are you making.
Zamazenta is completely fine, and frankly, is one of the healthiest mons in the tier. It helps keep offensive teams in check, while said offensive teams have outs against it. Against any team with a defensive backbone, its going to flounder into them as said mon will probably check it decently well regardless of the set.
 
Moyashi said:
You know it's okay to defend Gen9, but what is with the desire some of you have for taking pot shots at gen8 like it's a bad meta? People like it, more people do like it now, and it's really silly. The metas are different.

I agree nothing really stands out as overly broken but come on.
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Yeah, I do prefer gen 9 over gen 8 because making progress in the latter isn't something I personally enjoy. However, I also wasn't taking pot shots at it, but rather stating a fact about how different it is from gen 9 in order to make a point about how people's standards need to change. It is quite a balanced metagame, and while it's a bit too safe/slow for me, it's totally fine if u or others enjoy it.
Seraphyde said:
Zamazenta is the most problematic defensive Pokemon in the history of the OU tier. The three things that normally limit defensive Pokemon, low speed, low attacking stats, and/or a low defensive stat, are not present in Zamazenta, in fact, it has the opposite of all three and the coverage to beat all of its checks. To win with Zamazenta, all you need to do is remove a team’s special attackers, bring it in, and click ID once or twice before BPing the enemy to death.

You’d think that with the Kyurem ban people would target the other 660 BST box legend in the tier but it seems like a lot of people truly do believe that defensive mons can never be broken.
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You can't just list the characteristics of a mon and act like its brokenness is self-evident. We already know zamazenta is fat, fast, and has decent coverage. This sort of description/analysis doesn't mean anything unless you can demonstrate how it relates to the actual metagame.
Zamazenta has absolutely no shortage of counterplay, and most teams will naturally fit 2-3 checks to zamazenta without even trying because mono fighting is a garbage offensive typing. E.g. Any offense team can slap on landorus t + bold ghold and never lose to ironpress unless crazy hax.

'all you need to do is remove a team's special attackers'

First of all, this isn't even true - there are still physical attackers that can beat/trade favourably with zamazenta such as okidogi, encore dnite, helmet lando (if ur not already ep), and random tera ghost on mons such as gambit. Also, the premise that special attackers beat zama isn't even entirely true? Yeah, in general, special attackers fare better against Zamazenta than physical attackers but you can't just say anything that uses special attacks is a counter. If anything, this demonstrates a lack of understanding of what counterplay to zamazenta should look like.

Second, why are you acting like it is trivial to just delete your opponent's special attackers?
Third, ur saying that if your opponent sets up their win condition to win... it wins?

I think it's not even close to banworthy, but it's not absurd to think zamazenta should be suspected. However, your argument is just completely unconvincing. With your BST based reasoning, maybe we should ban Hoopa too lol.
 
Anyone find it interesting during the Kyurem suspect the change in perception some of the qualified base has regarding Kingambit? Seems like people are starting to think, or at the very least being vocal about it, that Kingambit is in fact a problematic Pokemon. Something to the tune of “why are we talking about X when Kingambit is allowed in the tier?”

Idk, I’ve always held the opinion that Gambit, Zama, and Ghold have been holding back the tier for at least a year now. Let the meta settle for sure y’all just had back to back bans. Though once the dust settle maybe look at something like Kingambit rather than Gliscor, which is cancer tbf.
 
Moisture99 said:
Yeah, I do prefer gen 9 over gen 8 because making progress in the latter isn't something I personally enjoy. However, I also wasn't taking pot shots at it, but rather stating a fact about how different it is from gen 9 in order to make a point about how people's standards need to change. It is quite a balanced metagame, and while it's a bit too safe/slow for me, it's totally fine if u or others enjoy it.
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Fair!

Seraphyde said:
Zamazenta is (at least one of) the most problematic defensive Pokemon in the history of the OU tier. The three things that normally limit defensive Pokemon, low speed, low attacking stats, and/or a low defensive stat, are not present in Zamazenta, in fact, it has the opposite of all three and the coverage to beat all of its checks. To win with Zamazenta, all you need to do is remove a team’s special attackers, bring it in, and click ID once or twice before BPing the enemy to death. It can easily Tera to avoid status or flip a matchup and has the natural bulk to live basically any unboosted supereffective attack and a lot of boosted supereffective attacks as well, and force good matchups with Roar. “B-but it stops the tier from folding to Kingambit” now it’s my turn to say the line: “broken checks broken is not tier policy” (Gambit isn’t broken anyways, most people agree that the tier has long since adapted to its presence and stretched the upper limits of its rather low set variety)

Something something yet another Tera abuser.

You’d think that with the Kyurem ban people would target the other 660 BST box legend in the tier but it seems like a lot of people truly do believe that defensive mons can never be broken.
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Zama isn't really a "defensive" pokemon in the first place. It's an offensive pokemon with defensive qualities that lets it blanket check threats for its time, while it also can act as a threatening wincon (and speed control depending on team). Beyond that, you act as though it's some brainless sweeper that goes crazy super easily, but it's actually one of the tier's most nuanced and skill based pokemon. There's a lot of things that have to happen on average to let Zama sweep, as just about any team is well prepared for it with stops that prevent it from just clicking BP. There's no shortage of good mons that hold it off. Glowking and Zap/Molt which together ensure it can never sweep while they're around. Landorus-T and Gholdengo (bulky), Dragapult (wisp), Tera Ghost as a choice, Sinistcha, not to mention niche but viable options like Okidogi.

Also what does its BST have anything to do with anything? Pro Ban Kyurem players didn't care about its BST at all and it's not helping your argument to insinuate they might have.

Lastly, and no offense is meant here, but you seem to complain about defensive mons a lot. Gliscor (who you weirdly censor its name like it's the devil), Garg, Clod. It seems like there's a bias in your comments. Just a bit.
 
Seraphyde said:
Zamazenta is (at least one of) the most problematic defensive Pokemon in the history of the OU tier. The three things that normally limit defensive Pokemon, low speed, low attacking stats, and/or a low defensive stat, are not present in Zamazenta, in fact, it has the opposite of all three and the coverage to beat all of its checks. To win with Zamazenta, all you need to do is remove a team’s special attackers, bring it in, and click ID once or twice before BPing the enemy to death. It can easily Tera to avoid status or flip a matchup and has the natural bulk to live basically any unboosted supereffective attack and a lot of boosted supereffective attacks as well, and force good matchups with Roar. “B-but it stops the tier from folding to Kingambit” now it’s my turn to say the line: “broken checks broken is not tier policy” (Gambit isn’t broken anyways, most people agree that the tier has long since adapted to its presence and stretched the upper limits of its rather low set variety)

Something something yet another Tera abuser.

You’d think that with the Kyurem ban people would target the other 660 BST box legend in the tier but it seems like a lot of people truly do believe that defensive mons can never be broken.
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Calm mind hatterene when it sees zama:

z3bsgvuspua21.png


No but seriously there are plenty of counters to zama and zama is very vulnerable to statis
 
June Heat said:
Anyone find it interesting during the Kyurem suspect the change in perception some of the qualified base has regarding Kingambit? Seems like people are starting to think, or at the very least being vocal about it, that Kingambit is in fact a problematic Pokemon. Something to the tune of “why are we talking about X when Kingambit is allowed in the tier?”

Idk, I’ve always held the opinion that Gambit, Zama, and Ghold have been holding back the tier for at least a year now. Let the meta settle for sure y’all just had back to back bans. Though once the dust settle maybe look at something like Kingambit rather than Gliscor, which is cancer tbf.
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They were simply drawing a comparison to counter one of the major arguments for the ban side, which was that broken shouldn't check broken.

We have so many examples of Kingambit or Zama getting an inch and taking a mile. Look at recent SCL replays, the number of games where Zama/Gambit get a single free turn and end the game illustrates this, yet we know they all have splashable counterplay and provide valuable defensive utility, so we don't consider them broken. It's less so an argument that Kingambit is broken and needs to be banned, and more that we also need to consider the positive aspects that each 'mon brings to the table.
 
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