I got to say peak non ban argument. Separating each team style and tera argument into a different paragraph is smart as hell and not only is convenient to read but also to reply to (whether to praise or counterargue). As for the actual arguments...well yeah I agree with pretty much all of them. For tera I agree that neither tera normal or water are super strong defensively and can be checked/countered relatively easy (never seen tera dragon but that sounds kind of bad unless your opponent doesn't have any ice moves). And for the specific teamstyles it is pretty easy to have at least one common check on each since ice is a very common offensive type. Anyway yeah as you can tell I am anti-ban on gliscor though admittedly I don't care that much either way. I just don't believe it is a fundamentally broken or unhealthy pokemon even with poison heal plus protect (though I will admit it is annoying).
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
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Honestly i don't really gaf if gliscor gets banned or not. If it doesn't it's fine since the current meta is perfectly fine (if not stupid and unfun sometimes) and if it does that's the first line in a domino effect that slowly disassembles all of the bullshit we've accepted as part of the game. Everything gliscor keeps in check by being stupid hard to break down reveals itself and all the annoying and stupid offensive threats slowly begin to leave the tier through suspects. If I had time to get suspects i'd vote DNB since (again) i don't really mind the current meta and the meta has way broader issues than just one mon but i don't really care which way it goes.
still think we should have done a tera ban all those years ago but that ship has long since sailed (you can laugh react me for that idgaf)
still think we should have done a tera ban all those years ago but that ship has long since sailed (you can laugh react me for that idgaf)
I had to fight subtect Gliscor today. Sub and lose 12.5%, Protect and gain 12.5%. Infinite subtect stalling! If you’re slower. A lesser player may have switched in their Hydrapple like a fool, but not I. I sent out my GOATdengo (fair and balanced btw (trust)) and clicked Tera Fairy and scared it out. Fraudscor taking yet another L. (In the end, I killed it with Drapple after Taunting with my mystery Taunt user.) (Seriously Taunt is an amazing anti-Gliscor tool since it’s so weak with no boosts.)
I had to fight subtect Gliscor today. Sub and lose 12.5%, Protect and gain 12.5%. Infinite subtect stalling! If you’re slower. A lesser player may have switched in their Hydrapple like a fool, but not I. I sent out my GOATdengo (fair and balanced btw (trust)) and clicked Tera Fairy and scared it out. Fraudscor taking yet another L. (In the end, I killed it with Drapple after Taunting with my mystery Taunt user.) (Seriously Taunt is an amazing anti-Gliscor tool since it’s so weak with no boosts.)
I usually fully agree with you and I share the sentiment of losing faith after having top players fucking things up for everyone, but I feel obligated to speak up and say "fair and balanced" is a stretch, especially considering a bunch of the cheater accounts were tournament players (so much so that to my knowledge the team they were in imploded because they lost multiple players overnight, someone may correct me if they got the objective info). Those banned players took the free account to avoid doing the whole suspect out of laziness, which is more of an indicative of disrespect to the process than a change in results.
More than that, the one dumb joke decided the vote even after the tournament-level cheaters were caught. There was in practical term a hypermajority among skilled players, but cheater and jokester asses were way too... unorthodox... to just do things normally, and so Kyurem survived on a technicality. Fair enough to keep the system in place, but two levels of stupid were required for the timeline in which Kyurem survives.
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Change of topic, addressing the Kingambit thing. I agree with you Avira but I'm afraid we're way too deep into the meta and after the whole "voting DNB to wait for a Tera suspect" fiasco it took way too long and now the playerbase is, quite frankly, understandably complacent. It's been almost a year since SV was released and people pretty much accepted it is now part of the meta. By the time everything is addressed (Ubers drops settling in, Kyurem nightmare, Gliscor still being public enemy #1, etc.) Gen 10 will be about to start. 2025 is around the corner and when ZA gets released the meta will shift dramatically. In short: I agree with you, but it's unlikely to get sizable support as of right now, and it'll be too late by the time it (possibly) does.
thank you! i wrote it in 15 minutes at 2 AM a few weeks ago. i really hope gliscor stays legal because i think the may to help the tier is to ban as few defensive mons as possible and let offensive threats like Kyurem (3rd sus maybe someday), Waterpon, and Roaring Moon die before we tackle the more defensive threats.
But yeah, DNB scor babeyyyyyy!!!!
Tbf given that we didn’t get to use the Hisuian Pokemon til Home update in current Gen I highly doubt ZA will have any impact.
Also complacency has been the name of the game for SV OU for awhile. People can recognize when something is cheap/busted, but are to used to the play patterns needed to play with or around the broken that they'd rather keep them in then learn how to play without them.
The Legends: Arceus mons weren't available for the SS meta and weren't playable until the Home update of SV as June Heat says. Thus, I believe there will be no major meta shift when Legends: Z-A is released.
After the probable DNB verdict on Gliscor, people will be itching to ban something after 1 or 2 months, and Kingambit will probably have the most support of anything on the survey aside from Kyurem and Gliscor, with those 2 maybe not even being options on the survey, so I believe it's a mistake to rule out a second Kingambit suspect test at this point.
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The problem with kingambit getting a suspect isn't that it's not strong enough to warrant a suspect. It really is. People aren't complacent with it, it's just that unlike the new metagame threats kingambit has been around since literally the start of the meta and its gameplan is more or less second nature to any remotely competent player. Kingambit is a mindgame mon. He's reliant on lucky bullshit to win. If you're bad at mindgames you'll find kingambit to be an uncompetitive mess and if you're good at them you'll find him a relative nonissue since you can switch into something like tusk/moth/val/whatever and just win the mindgame. That's why he's such a contentious issue. Some good players find him a nonissue and some good players find him hard to deal with and the split is enough of a 50/50 that gambit will likely not get banned unless people fight tooth and nail over it in the suspect thread.
tl;dr kingambit suspect is somewhat likely but kingambit ban is far less likely
tl;dr kingambit suspect is somewhat likely but kingambit ban is far less likely
I wouldn't rule it out but I feel like more people have been complaining about waterpon than anything else so it will more than likely be next (not that I think it should be banned). I have seen more support since kyurem came back which is kind of weird considering gambit is a solid answer to kyurem (especially against sets that don't use tera) but either way maybe after waterpon we will get that second gambit suspect. Personally I think the tier is fine as it is now though and unless someone makes some serious discovery that changes everything (like how espartha dropped to uu and then people realized just how insane it was and banned it) I don't think anything needs to be banned at the moment.
Edit: Actually I want darkrai banned but for one thing it is kind of personal bias (I am still against the sleep ban) and also there hasn't been a lot of support at all since the kyurem suspect. I myself am not completely sure if darkrai is broken anymore though I certainly have thought that even discounting said personal bias.
I'm almost certain Blunder mentioned Gambit/other potentially banworthy threats not feeling more oppressive than Kyurem hence the DNB on the latter, but bro is like almost meme tier weirdly good at predicting the mindgames. Even if this particular example isn't super relevant, I think a suspect not being a likely ban isn't a deterrent from the suspect itself, as it allows people to weigh in, debate, and drive activity into the ladder.
I mean I win mindgames ~80% of the times (as per recent memory) both with and against kingambit so i'm not going to be the first person on the ban boat but i very much see how people can find it oppressive and hard to deal with.
The thing about mindgames is that when you* win the mindgames against Kingambit, you’ll go and say “DNB, this mon sucks”, and the Kingambit user will also say “DNB, this mon sucks”.*
* general term
** comedic exaggeration
That's why you run a core of Gliscor + Kingambit.
Them both will give you enough psychic power to open the third eye.
Moonlight Clefable is almost always terrible since it can get pp stalled much faster than WishTect with Moonlight's 8 PP and stall really enjoys Tera Steel with Protect to absorb Future Sight. Curse Avalanche Dozo is just inferior to Waterfall since it has more damage and flinch and Avalanche doesn't OHKO (i think). Avalanche Waterfall Rest Talk is also not a real set with the current metagame being able to muscle past Dozo if it lacks curse. No matter what Dozo set if Dozo gets knocked then the HStack team just kind of wins unless you're running the sort of stall team that tries to fight to remove hazards with Cyclizar, GWeezing or Talonflame. IronPress Corv is an actual good answer for stall, but often it can get PP stalled out of its roosts over the course of a long game taking rocks damage and doubling out by the Gliscor player to pressure it since it doesn't threaten Gliscor back very much. Tera Ice Hydrapple needs Tera Blast to actually do anything to Gliscor, and the Gliscor player will always scout since the Hydrapple Stall RMT by Quacc. Finally Weezing-Galar is not an answer most of the time because if it has Neutralizing Gas (basically every single one is to defog on Gholdengo) it will take huge damage from EQ sets, and even Facade sets will be able to chip it over time with Knock, Facade and hazards, and since GWeezing doesn't have the greatest recovery it can get worn down fast, although denying the Gliscor recovery is definitely good. If you are running levitate, Gliscor just 1v1s you. Just wanted to help out with the discussion of Stall's answers to Gliscor, and also to say that we definitely should not ban Gliscor because it is one of the only mons left preventing Big Stall from taking over the metagame. Thank you.
The thing with Clef on stall is that it compresses a lot of roles together, and it doesn't exactly compete with Gliscor. Firstly, while it isn't as good as a wish passer as Alo for sure, it still has wish, which can provide a lot of utility to a stall team. Second of all, with protect it can absorb Fsight with tera steel, and yes while Gliscor does this too, it also can set rocks AND absorb knock. This role compression makes Clefable still worth using on stall imo, and mono fairy is still a good defensive typing. Finally, it mainly functions as a knock absorber, but while it may seem like it is competing with Gliscor for this slot, in reality it often is a good partner for Gliscor. This is because it absorbs knock a lot easier from Great Tusk that have Ice Spinner, along with absorbing knock from Meow and Weavile with Tera, which Gliscor cannot do because if it teras out of its ice weakness it will lose its spikes immunity.
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I'm gonna take it a step further and say that tbh Clefable is at most a B- Pokémon in the tier and I'm being really nice to it. I honestly don't know how it's still OU and I think it is clearly the most used mon in the ladder that's actually bad.
It can do some stuff (set up rocks. knock off spam, bring wishes to other mons and use sticky barb aganist Roaring Moon. And I guess cheese sweeps) and I gotta say wow, excepting the barb strat (which is not necessary, you can actually deal with Roaring Moon while adding a Pokémon to your team that's better) all the stuff this Pokémon do are completly outclassed by Gliscor XD or like, most defensive Pokémon in the tier.
Clefable's Moonblast can't OHKO Tusk (which is honestly pathetic) and due to a low BST you will fall quickly to the defensive side you don't invest EVs into. Moonlight is indeed extremely bad and inconsistent due to Chilly Reception being spammed all over the place, and unlike Alomomola, you don't have regenerator alongside Wish and a pivot move (rip Teleport) to bring safely the Wishes.
Clefable also loses to a lot of Tera's of Pokémon that it should win on paper (Steel Zama, Electric Valiant, Fire Tusk) so it's not even consistent on those MUs.
And like, really, Gliscor does everything and even more since Gliscor can also run: Spikes, Toxic Spikes, U-turn, healing at least 25% every time you pivot for free, being one of the most consistent wincons in the tier with SD and finally being inmmune to status for the price of...Clicking Protect once, or pivot, or just not getting knocked turn 1.
I'm sorry, but clefable is REALLY good in the tier. To the point that it was used by both players in OLT Finals in one of their matches. And in said matches, it was extremely powerful with a calm mind set (and the game was decided by a crit in a mirror match).
The gliscor comparison feels like comparing apples to oranges. Yes, they both are passive damage immune mons that have hazards and knock, but clefable's magic guard is a lot more useful since you don't have to find a free turn in order to activate your immunity, and don't take double damage from hex while doing so. Clefable also doesn't have a big 4x weakness, which is big for allowing it to stick around longer. Besides gliscor (and again, completely different mons), nothing else in the tier is so immune to passive damage that clefable is (even corv can get worn down by hazards, and its neutral to rocks while being immune to spikes).
Also clefable is THE hardest counter to moon, that's not something you can simply handwave away. Like it or not, moon is a very powerful mon in the tier, and shutting it down completely is big. And once again, those traits seem pretty great to me, that's a great mon that can do lots of stuff if it needs to without even taking into account the passive damage immunity.
0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 326-386 (87.8 - 104%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
It can, and with an uninvested stat, I'd say that's good damage. Yes, its low defenses can hurt it at times, but it has JUST enough bulk to tank hits (with lefties, headlong rush from tusk never 2hit ko's it). And your not trying to wall the entire meta, you are trying to use your passive damage immunity to tank hits that might be iffy to on an otherwise 'superior' defensive mon.
I mean, sure? Moonlight can be screwed over by Glowking, but Glowking 1. Isn't on every team (yes, #7 in usage is VERY high, but that's only 17% of teams) 2. Clefable ain't staying in on glowking at all, so its maybe having 3 turns to deal with reduced recovery at worst. It helps in the sun matchup against tusk too, as Moonlight now heals 75% of your hp. Yes, it can't use a pivot move to safely bring wishes, but hazard immunity means it doesn't care about being knocked as much as mola does (regen helps the hazard problem, but if you want to actually be taking hits, its going to be iffy with max layers, which clefable doesn't care about), so it can more reliably at times get wishes off if full hazards are up.
Don't most mons? Like, really, tusk loses to Tera Grass Curse Garg, most ground types lose to Tera Raging Bolt (besides a few like ting lu and clod, but that's only two), Moltres loses to Tera Fire Zama (yes, it can roar it out, but last mon situation means you can't do this). It feels wrong to say this about clefable, as even in those matchups it does alright, at worst knocking off there item (moonblast still 2hit ko's valiant if they tera, so it is still winning if they are SD).
Can Gliscor uses calm mind to boost its defenses while boosting its offenses? Or punish any physical contact move if the opponent doesn't have an item? Can it heal its teammates health by using its own recovery? This is again, comparing apples to oranges, in that case, most spikers are worse then Hamurott in every regard because they don't have priority or attack while setting up spikes. Clefable has lots of advantages over Gliscor, and thus, it isn't strictly outclassed by it.
Clefable deserves its B+ ranking, if anything, it should be A- since its extremely powerful as proven by the OLT finals.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-802878?p2
Seriously, watch this match. Clean's clefable was able to take out 3 whole mons in the first 25 turns. This is not a B- mon performance, its an OU staple performance.
Clefable isn't the top tier mon it used to be in ORAS/SM/SS OU, but it can still put provide decent utility and put in a lot of work in some matchups. The first game of OLT finals from this past weekend actually had both finalists bringing a Clefable, and both Clefables were easily the biggest threats to each team. Magic Guard in a tier where hazard removal is awful means that unlike 95% of the mons in this tier, Clefable does not need to consider Heavy-Duty Boots as an item, and that gives it a lot of room to run whatever it wants, usually Leftovers or Sticky Barb.
I think Clefable is the living definition of how BST doesn't matter much, because despite its very low BST and not having a single stat above 100, it has been known to one of the strongest mons in singles defensively in modern gens. Despite its very low stats, it somehow finds ways to avoid taking 51% or 100% from even the strongest threats, and Clefable being able to eat 1 hit from anything can be more than enough to handle whatever threat, especially offensive mons that struggle after Thunder Wave or Knock Off or Sticky Barb.
Clefable is unique because of Magic Guard and its pure Fairy-typing, which means it is very hard to 1HKO even with super-effective attacks sometimes. Gliscor has to worry about strong Ice-type and Water-type attacks, while Clefable really only has to fear a 1HKO from Iron Moth, Gholdengo, Iron Crown, Kingambit, Sludge Bomb Darkrai after Nasty Plot or with Tera Poison and Slowking-Galar doing 60-70 with Sludge Bomb and nerfing Moonlight with Chilly Reception. For a lot of these mons, they all do not want to eat a Knock Off nor a Thunder Wave (besides Ghold/Glowking), and even if they do, they will have to be careful due to taking permanent hazard chip (besides ghold/glowking) if they don't have boots, or if they get their boots knocked off. It's not that easy to force out Clefable without risking an item loss, status, or something else. Gliscor is pretty good as a Clefable switch in, so there technically is that as well.
I see this argument a lot regarding tera, and I think it's unfair if only 1 mon in the situation can tera while the other can't. Both mons can tera if necessary and if Steel Zama catches Clefable, then hopefully Clefable has a teammate to punish that Tera. Speaking of Tera, Clefable does have a cool unique role of being able to Tera and not take hazard damage despite not running Heavy-Duty Boots, meaning that you can potentially have a Flying/Fire/Bug type immune to Stealth Rock even after Knock Off.
Toxic Spikes Gliscor is mainly only used on Stall, even then it probably just runs Spikes and lets another teammate like Toxapex runs Toxic Spikes. One utility move doesn't magically make it infinitely better than another mon. Clefable has Wish, Trick, Encore and Healing Wish while Gliscor doesn't, so should I say Clefable outclasses Gliscor? Obviously not. They do different things and that's totally fine and we can appreciate both.
If you need more experience with Clefable, I'd recommend SS OU where it's very good. Have fun.
I cutted most of the answers in this psot to be able to quote both comments at the same time (I read both a couple of times and I appreciate the time and effort to make solid responses) and I gotta say you both gave pretty good arguments and in most things .
I gotta say I have to agree with most of it tbh.
I however don't think a couple of good games should be the reason to up a Pokémon a rank in the VR, if that was the case Tornadus-Therian should have risen a rank after it popped off in a game in WCoP, and it didn't. This is not to downgrade any argument made by Heatranator, just a point I wanted to make
I didn't consider a lot the fact you can skip the HDB part, which is something really fair and also maybe Gliscor wasn't the best mon to compare to. I gotta say mb.
As for things like weak to rocks teras, I've seen the replay you both sent and it's the first time I've seen a tera fire Clef, which is pretty cool, but it's the first time I've seen it tbh. Like, this is not meant to downplay the argument, but rather than I find it creative it was used.
I've never seen Healing Wish or Encore used on Clef the second one is extremely good on every mon it can use it so I think it can also have good applications.
Finally, I played a lot of SS when it was cg and I know there Clef is an undisputed top tier mon. In fact, I used all the time XD but yeah not feeling the same about it these days
Edit: I don't feel the same about it in *gen 9* , I don't know if I'm SS since I don't play it anymore (I like to watch it tho) it has gotten worse, hope it didn't.
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aight aight aight What are your opinions on gallade? I feel like it's underexplored especilly on webs team. Agility and SD both look cool, and it has Night slash/triple axel for pokemon like Gholdengo and Lando-T
Doesn't it have to fish for crits to break through Skarm and Corv?
okay on paper, good in theory, perfect with agility/webs/trick room, then you test it and:
-Max speed SD Gliscor (most common set at the moment)
-Samurott boots spam
-Moltres brave bird
-bulky twave dengo
-just ting lu in general not caring it got hit by a super effective sacred sword and one shot you back
-fast offensive lando
-fast defensive lando
-great tusk killing you after hazards with 0 attack
-ghost spam
-iron valiant with 10000 hazards
-sucker punch
-cinderace one shotting you
-every single ogerpon, especially grass
and many.... many more okay and good pokemon that just destroys gallade. and gallade cant just be gallade on its own u need set up and so much support at that point just use band zamazenta, keldeo or.....
Despite 
getting a lot of hate in the overused tier, I must admit that this mon always does decently whenever I whip it out. Strangely has never felt outclassed by Darkrai when I use it due to Booster Energy + access to coverage that Darkrai wishes it had like Hurricane, Hydro Pump, and Earth Power. I just wish it's speed tier was a little better - getting outpaced by Ogerpon-W after a Booster Energy proc is lame + Bolt MU is annoying, but for a supposedly bad Pokémon,I feel like Juggy winds up fitting onto lot of random team comps quite snugly, whether it be E-Terrain, Rain, or Darkspam. The typing is just so nice into Gambit, Tusk, and Gholdengo.
getting a lot of hate in the overused tier, I must admit that this mon always does decently whenever I whip it out. Strangely has never felt outclassed by Darkrai when I use it due to Booster Energy + access to coverage that Darkrai wishes it had like Hurricane, Hydro Pump, and Earth Power. I just wish it's speed tier was a little better - getting outpaced by Ogerpon-W after a Booster Energy proc is lame + Bolt MU is annoying, but for a supposedly bad Pokémon,I feel like Juggy winds up fitting onto lot of random team comps quite snugly, whether it be E-Terrain, Rain, or Darkspam. The typing is just so nice into Gambit, Tusk, and Gholdengo.On a different though related note could you imagine how broken darkrai would be in rain with hurricane? Darkrai already outspeeds most fighting and grass types in the tier (there are no bug types rn lol) and with choice scarf it even out speeds every paradox mon with protosynthesis/quark drive active (which includes iron Valiant of course)Despite
Wouldn't ScarfRai be overlapping weaknesses in many Rain teams? Or would the offensive momentum make up for that hinderance?