Ok gang. This thread is getting out of line fast, with FAR too many unhelpful, pessimistic posts about the future of the metagame without really contributing anything of merit to the discussion. Hopefully, my little rant here fixes that!
I'm gonna be talking about something I find important - the future of SVOU. I don’t think Kyu’s unban is the end of the world, I in fact believe the resulting meta would be much worse with a Kyurem ban in place, but what I know is we DO have to act on the future if we want to keep Kyu less borderline. IMO Scor is definitely not broken in a tier with kyu, krai, and pon as common, threatening breakers and there being so much counterplay to its shenanigans - Sub, Taunt, Encore, and more, and I really don't see a world where a scor ban improves the meta whatsoever. There is one thing on my mind though, one that as many have pointed out and many have disagreed with (???):
It is time to ban tera blast.
A preface: this post will revolve around example gameplay, to illustrate why tera blast is unhealthy rather than outright broken. While these are specific examples on specific mons on specific teams, I hope you'll find that SIMILAR, not necessarily exactly the same situations, appear a lot more often than some seem to think.
Imagine two opposing teams, composed as such.
Note: this is me against an alt. The team comps are far from perfect, but I wanted to display standard offense with a couple possible tera blast users vs standard balance.
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I. Tera Blast indirectly enables sweepers, and changes how certain matchups are played in an unhealthy manner.
Undoubtedly at some point of this game,
will be on the field against an opposing
. In a situation without Tera Blast,
would always be safe to click Knock Off and force some sort of progress. This should always be a positive position for the
user.
It's also worth noting aside from fishing for scald burns, Scor is very much the only cm or sd
answer on this team. Keeping
around for this matchup is important, and in this mu, preserving
is easy to do.
However, in a world where
is free to run Tera Blast Ice (and somewhat often does!) this becomes much more dependent on random, unpredictable chance. If the
user suspects this is the case, protecting is a reasonable play - but even then,
can either just get free rocks up or click taunt turn one to scout. And then things get worse - If the
user stays in another turn and gets Tera Blasted, the balance guy more than likely just immediately loses whenever
gets a good entry point. If the
user switches out to Alo predicting Tera Blast, and
doesn't have it, Alo is likely getting U-turned on, and at best the offense player gains momentum out of what should have been a negative position from them, and fires off a strong attack from specs or boots
, or gets a sub up if it's subtect. At worst for the balance player,
is Sub DD, which leads me to my next point.
II. Tera Blast directly enables sweepers, changing their poor matchups and checks in an unpredictable manner.
Without Tera Blast, normally Tera Water
would be an excellent check to handle SubDD
. (Worth noting that while Mixed DD
is more of a problem, Tera Steel Spdef
serves as a much more consistent check to that, and Air Balloon
as well.) However, if
is running the dreaded Tera Blast Electric, the sole answer (outside of Encore
if you predict every turn right and commit Tera) is immediately fried, and you run away with the game. Specific Tera Blast types on setup sweepers like Dragon Dance
can collectively invalidate nigh every form of counterplay, even if not all at once, which inherently encourages unhealthy, matchup-fishing teambuilding. IN these ways, Tera Blast can also be tailored to support other mons on your team in more ways than one, whether it be luring an otherwise safe switchin or just outright hammering through a check to your sweeper.
III. Tera Blast adds very little to the tier, and none of it is necessary. The tier would not remotely destabilize if Tera Blast were to be banned.
is a mon many consider unhealthy, and while I may be inclined to agree, it would very certainly destabilize the tier if it were to be banned and more than likely cause a waterfall of other bans. Tera Blast is very much not the same. If Tera Blast were to be banned, the viability of certain mons would decrease slightly (
,
,
),
would fall off (It lowkey already has), and Band
would return to fraudulence. No common mons would completely vanish from the tier however, and the tier would be more or less the same, just in a significantly more healthy environment, as the most problematic
set (Dragon Dance Tera Blast) would be illegal.
IV. Yes, the "Free Volcarona" suspect. Y'all may mock it all you like, but it would only bring good things to the tier.
No shot
is broken without Tera Blast. Sure, it may add one more pseudo-threat to the tier, but while simultaneously relieving the tier of a top notch threat I don't see that as a problem. Subtect and MixDD
are immediately crippled by the moth, and it also gives bulkier builds a good glue mon that checks special spam offense.
is also definitely not broken without tera blast, as
on nearly every playstyle;
and
on offense;
,
, and
on balance; and
and
on fatter builds all offer varying degrees of checks, and the various fires and dragons of the tier no longer fear tb ground or dragon. The fearmongering about moth being broken without tera blast is crazy, and it would only improve the meta. Oh yeah and we get
, which is another niche hazard remover that kinda removes on dengo, a pivot, an rkiller, and speed control, which is kinda neat.
All in all, I firmly believe Tera Blast should be our next target for improving the state of the metagame, and see few reasons not to ban it. Hope this post restores peace and productive discussion to the OU discussion thread!
edit: holy shit not even a minute later we get another unhelpful complaint. chat this cannot be real
