Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

This thread is a circus. Instead of identifying genuinely unhealthy or overpowered elements and proposing suspect tests, people decide they want to ban something so they fabricate cases out of thin air. If we had one suspect test per week, in six months, we’d be suspect testing Corviknight. I just want to thank Finchinator for not giving in to their every whim.

Sorry for the harsh tone :)
It is funny the forum was relatively peaceful the last few pages before this post. Not trying to insult you I just think it is funny lol.
 
nothing else in your post made any sense. Nobody dislikes gen 4 because of team preview lol. Also, you can call gen 2 and 8 "boring" all you want, but unlike gen 9 they are actually competitive.
You can keep deconstructing individual phrases from my post instead of addressing the overall message—the idea that the power creep in Gen 4 almost crosses the line of reasonableness, making Team Preview necessary, is not new, and it’s shared by many Gen 3 players who dislike Gen 4.

I didn't say that I personally found Gen 2 or Gen 8 boring, I said some people don't like them.

If you want to claim that Gen 9 isn’t competitive, I don’t know what to tell you. We’ll just have to agree to disagree. Go check out the same players who consistently perform in tournaments and talk to them.

Edit: Also claiming that nothing in my post made any sense is disingenuous and just demonstrates bad faith on your part.
 
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Woger next please



I’ve been enjoying Maushold recently. The best hazard removal and a bonafide nuke. Pair with a Knocker that lures Helmet users, such as Roaring Moon. Tera Fire for Moltres. Encore is EXCELLENT utility. Pair with a pivot like Glowking and potentially encore a Gliscor or Garg or whatever. +1 outspeeding scarf Enam is huge, as well as base outspeeding Woger and the Latis. Very cool Pokémon I love these little guys. So much potential. :maushold-four::maushold four::maushold four:
 
some dislike Gen 4 because the lack of team preview can be problematic
The only people you see complaining are the people who don't know the metagame too well. Everyone who actually is a good player in DPP enjoys the lack of team preview because it makes metagame knowledge and guessing your opponent's last another aspect of the game that rewards skill.
The only people you see complaining are the people who don't know the metagame too well. Everyone who actually is a good player in SV enjoys Terastalization because it makes metagame knowledge and guessing when your opponent is going to terastallize is another aspect of the game that rewards skill.
Feel free ig lmao. I really don't know what to think of tera anyway.
 
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The only people you see complaining are the people who don't know the metagame too well. Everyone who actually is a good player in DPP enjoys the lack of team preview because it makes metagame knowledge and guessing your opponent's last another aspect of the game that rewards skill.
The only people you see complaining are the people who don't know the metagame too well. Everyone who actually is a good player in SV enjoys Terastalization because it makes metagame knowledge and guessing when your opponent is going to terastallize is another aspect of the game that rewards skill.

Thank you, I'm going to use that one from now on haha joking joking, I have to go to sleep
 
Woger next please



I’ve been enjoying Maushold recently. The best hazard removal and a bonafide nuke. Pair with a Knocker that lures Helmet users, such as Roaring Moon. Tera Fire for Moltres. Encore is EXCELLENT utility. Pair with a pivot like Glowking and potentially encore a Gliscor or Garg or whatever. +1 outspeeding scarf Enam is huge, as well as base outspeeding Woger and the Latis. Very cool Pokémon I love these little guys. So much potential. :maushold-four::maushold four::maushold four:
Would you say it works well on Balance or bulky offense teams as a remover?
 
Woger next please



I’ve been enjoying Maushold recently. The best hazard removal and a bonafide nuke. Pair with a Knocker that lures Helmet users, such as Roaring Moon. Tera Fire for Moltres. Encore is EXCELLENT utility. Pair with a pivot like Glowking and potentially encore a Gliscor or Garg or whatever. +1 outspeeding scarf Enam is huge, as well as base outspeeding Woger and the Latis. Very cool Pokémon I love these little guys. So much potential. :maushold-four::maushold four::maushold four:
Is Maushold even playable without veil?
 
Is Maushold even playable without veil?
Absolutely does not need veil to be usable. I've piloted random Maushold teams up to 1700 with it just acting as emergency Zama checks or Oger deletion button. While nowhere near the top of the ladder, I've never really felt like it underperformed outside of obviously needing rocky helmets to be removed. Or ghosts.

Best with two Knock Offers and someone to taunt/remove Dozo honestly. Just because most teams will prioritize their rocky helms as an answer to it and Dozo can largely set up in front of it if you don't have something to blow thru the bastard.

Mauls everything else though.
 
Is Maushold even playable without veil?

Maushold's biggest limiting factor is that it has low defenses and needs its item slot, so cannot wear HDB, leaving it exceptionally frail. Its second biggest limiting factor is that Rocky Helmet is a good item already, leaving many balance teams with a hard counter to a Maushold sweep without even trying.

Its strength is a great speed tier, outrunning and OHKOing Ogerpon-W (or non-terastalized base Ogerpon) and anything slower, and the sheer power of Population Bomb:

252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Gliscor: 280-340 (79.5 - 96.5%) -- approx. 2HKO after Poison Heal

That's a neutral hit on Gliscor, a notorious physical fatty, without a Tidy Up boost. Getting a free turn to click Tidy Up is difficult, but the payoff is going nuclear:

+1 252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory: 160-190 (47.9 - 56.8%) -- approx. 81.3% chance to 2HKO

Ho hum, a favorable chance to 2HKO a physical wall that resists the move. It's a 60% chance to 2HKO Dondozo, as well, so you can break the big lug if it hasn't Cursed up yet, or if you predict it switching in. If you're Tera Ghost to dodge the Body Press, all that Skarm (or Corv, they're interchangeable here) can do is Iron Defense up and get Encore'd into the move, meaning they aren't an answer.

Tera Ghost beats steel birds and can, depending on how many hazards it had to take, take a Crunch from ID/BP Zamazenta to click Tidy Up (to outspeed) and then Encore or Population Bomb it, depending on which contributes more. Tera Dark can kill offensive Gholdengo from full, and heavily chunk defense sets while surviving a +0 Make it Rain if hazards weren't fully stacked; it also forces a PP stall on CM Sinistcha, because Matcha Gotcha's healing isn't enough to survive two +1 Tera Dark Bites, giving the Maushold user the choice between trading Tidy Up PP for Strength Sap PP, or else just clicking Encore and switching out, having cleared hazards.

Of course, Tera Ghost never breaks the bulky ghosts, and Tera Dark never gets past the steel birds, and do not underestimate the difficulty of getting that free turn to Tidy Up while still having enough health to put in work afterwards - it's no good to get chunked to 20% and then picked off by priority, 75/70/75 bulk with no resistances does not take a hit well. It needs to be an early addition to the team to compensate for its weaknesses, but the payoff is there, and there's more ways to offset the vulnerability than just a veil team.
 
some dislike Gen 4 because the lack of team preview can be problematic.
To be fair you said some people but in all fairness most people who dislike gen 4 ou from my experience dislike it because of paraflinch/confusion hax. Personally gen 4 is my favorite competitive gen but even I will admit it gets annoying sometimes.
 
Solgeleo would not be a good drop to OU.

It'd just be introducing yet another hugely centralizing threat and would do nothing regarding the problem of threat oversaturation. I am against dropping any Uber Pokemon to OU, especially not Palafin, which would 100% be cancerous in any meta with Tera legal.

This is highly self contradictory - centralization is the opposite of "threat saturation" (diversity.) a centralizing Mon by definition lowers threat saturation by being centralizing.

Palafin I support. It has a monstrous 160 Attack and excellent 100/97/87 bulk, but it can't run everything needed to dominate the tier like it did when first banned. Without Wave Crash, it'd struggle to break fat; without Jet Punch, it's just another fatty versus HO; without Taunt, it is forever walled by Dondozo on stall; without Flip Turn, you have to hard switch out to activate Zero to Hero and give a free turn to offense; without HDB, you'll be eating chip, especially unfortunate when Palafin's big nuke does recoil damage. Palafin also NEEDS to run a coverage move or else it can't touch Ogerpon-W, so it's hard to stack Wave Crash + Jet Punch + Flip Turn on the same set, and will always make one of those trade offs.

We have much better water resists now, and one of the best mons in the tier has a water immunity, so the days of Choice Band Wave Crash being both safe and deleting everything are gone. Stall teams have more options to deal with the stallbreaker set, and that set really hates all the offensive teams running around.

Palafin also has sparce coverage choices. Fighting has two excellent choices in Close Combat and Drain Punch, and Ice Punch is adequate ice coverage, but after that you're looking at Throat Chop (helps versus Sinistcha, but without Tera Dark even the Choice Band set isn't an OHKO), Zen Headbutt (fails to OHKO Toxapex even with Choice Band), and Tera Blast. Water/Fighting is great neutral coverage, but being predictable makes it easier to play against.

Of course, there's Choice Band Wave Crash in rain calcs for nuclear damage, but plenty of things can outspeed and revenge Palafin when it clicks a recoil move and lacks HDB. Rain teams blowing up an enemy isn't anything new.

All that said, 160 Attack and great mixed bulk means Palafin would be a top mon, but the drawbacks are enough that I'd love to see a tournament legalize it to see how Palafin would play out.

I completely agree - we are in a very different meta now than the one Palafin was banned from. Wellspring, Kyurem, Raging Bolt, Primarina, Tera Water Gliscor, Sinistcha, Pecharunt, Zapdos, we have numerous new pokemon that stop palafin in its tracks that we did not have when it was banned. Bulky teams are also much more optimized now and also tend to stack defensive water types such as Dondozo alomomola and toxapex, and we are better at utilizing those defensive water types now. This is a far cry from the original meta Palafin was banned from when Skeledirge was a top tier defensive Mon. Rain is also virtually nonexistent now, and we only saw Palafin in a meta where Shed Tail was legal.

It is possible, given the fighting coverage palafin tends to use, that its reintroduction giving fairy types another defensive use case makes them overbearing. This would be a good chance to reintroduce Volc, which would no doubt be much more bearable in a meta with Palafin. Those upset about Gliscor's righteous triumph over the ban voters will be pleased to have another strong water type to deal with it and/or force Tera too.

Overall, we should do our due diligence and retest Palafin; given how much the meta has changed and how virtually every change has made things more difficult for Palafin it would be irresponsible not to give it a fair shake, even if it does still end up banned in the end. I could see it taking a similar path as Darkrai, being tested in a tour's suspect round where people realize it really isn't all that.
 
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4m7WbC.gif
 
This is highly self contradictory - centralization is the opposite of "threat saturation" (diversity.) a centralizing Mon by definition lowers threat saturation by being centralizing.



I completely agree - we are in a very different meta now than the one Palafin was banned from. Wellspring, Raging Bolt, Primarina, Tera Water Gliscor, Zapdos, we have numerous new pokemon that stop palafin in its tracks that we did not have when it was banned. Bulky teams are also much more optimized now and also tend to stack defensive water types such as Dondozo and toxapex, and we are better at utilizing those defensive water types now. This is a far cry from the original meta Palafin was banned from when Skeledirge was a top tier defensive Mon.

It is possible, given the fighting coverage palafin tends to use, that its reintroduction giving fairy types another defensive use case makes them overbearing. This would be a good chance to reintroduce Volc, which would no doubt be much more bearable in a meta with Palafin. Those upset about Gliscor's righteous triumph over the ban voters will be pleased to have another strong water type to deal with it and/or force Tera too.

Overall, we should do our due diligence and retest Palafin; given how much the meta has changed and how virtually every change has made things more difficult for Palafin it would be irresponsible not to give it a fair shake, even if it does still end up banned in the end. I could see it taking a similar path as Darkrai, being tested in a tour's suspect round where people realize it really isn't all that.
I would rather see a Solgaleo test first since it has never been considered for ou before. However I do support giving Palafin a second chance. It has solid coverage in the form of water and fighting moves but as we have learned with pokemon like keldeo water fighting is not all that.
 
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Mmm yes another 3 pages of Uber discussion incoming just for a mod to have to say “guys stop please this is the 10th time” and us not getting an Uber suspected to drop anyway because surprise surprise the Water-type Slaking with no Truant is probably broken and Solgaleo with 4 billion BST and Tera will be broken. Do you really want a metagame where you have to deal with both Palafin AND Kingambit?
 
This is not me being dismissive, I want to genuinely invite this question to rerail things.

Since we have had 2 no-Ban Suspects and thus things aren't likely to see a major "legality" shake-up for a while, what have people been experimenting with in OU, be it trying to innovate the top or just trying more B-Rank/Niche mons to tie teams together (like Okidogi being tried for Zama or Sinistcha for Tusk and Ogerpon-W checking/Spin-blocking)? Figure inviting questions of stuff people are doing in response to the state of the Meta is more discussion-provoking than lamenting the state or talking Uber drops that probably wouldn't get much traction until a Survey at least.
 
Mmm yes another 3 pages of Uber discussion incoming just for a mod to have to say “guys stop please this is the 10th time” and us not getting an Uber suspected to drop anyway because surprise surprise the Water-type Slaking with no Truant is probably broken and Solgaleo with 4 billion BST and Tera will be broken. Do you really want a metagame where you have to deal with both Palafin AND Kingambit?

Nothing stopping you from just not engaging if you aren't interested in the topic, and "slaking with no truant" ignores the very real disadvantage of zero to hero, and once again a lot of pokemon seem more broken than they are in a meta where cyclizar can give anything infinite shed tail subs, such as the only meta we tested palafin in. This along with the existence of wellspring should be enough to trigger a retest, but there's so much more.
 
This is not me being dismissive, I want to genuinely invite this question to rerail things.

Since we have had 2 no-Ban Suspects and thus things aren't likely to see a major "legality" shake-up for a while, what have people been experimenting with in OU, be it trying to innovate the top or just trying more B-Rank/Niche mons to tie teams together (like Okidogi being tried for Zama or Sinistcha for Tusk and Ogerpon-W checking/Spin-blocking)? Figure inviting questions of stuff people are doing in response to the state of the Meta is more discussion-provoking than lamenting the state or talking Uber drops that probably wouldn't get much traction until a Survey at least.
The thing is not a whole lot has changed since the last survey only two months ago- both bans failed. The next highest rated concern still remains (tera blast). ‍↕️
 
Lugia, Giratina-A and Zamazenta Crowned are the only Ubers that I would test even remotely. With a Tera Blast Ban, Regileki would be added to auto-Unban and Volcarona to retest (but not immediately unbanned). Solgaleo, Chien Pao and Sneasler are Ubers I wouldn,t test, but still look way more healthy than Palafin to me.
 
Mmm yes another 3 pages of Uber discussion incoming just for a mod to have to say “guys stop please this is the 10th time” and us not getting an Uber suspected to drop anyway because surprise surprise the Water-type Slaking with no Truant is probably broken and Solgaleo with 4 billion BST and Tera will be broken. Do you really want a metagame where you have to deal with both Palafin AND Kingambit?

Yes? Palafin's checks and counters would heavily overlap with Ogerpon-W's checks and counters, so teams should already be prepared for the fish. Running both together to try and overload shared counters comes with the downside of shared weaknesses, just like every attempt to run overload one type of threat, and if you have no answer to water spam then what's your plan for a rain team?

I'm not suggesting it be blindly dropped, but I am suggesting that running a tournament with Palafin allowed, with the explicit intention of testing its viability in OU, should be a goal.

Edit to not spam the thread:

I thought the metagame was fair, balanced, and healthy? Why are you people once again talking about dropping Ubers! Literally talk about anything else. Tera/Tera Blast suspect, Pokemon you find suspect worthy, general metagame trends, fun teams, fun off meta Pokes. Just shut up about Palafin and Solgaleo. Makes lurking unbearable.

It’s like a cyclic infection. One person mentions it and 20 more come out of the woodworks to respond and go back and forth until the mods have to finally shut it down. Rinse and repeat.

You're complaining about how suggestions about an Ubers drop tend to clutter the thread with low-quality posts while making a pair of zero content posts yourselves. If you don't like the suggestion, then either debate back with why it's a bad idea, or ignore it entirely and address other topics.
 
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I thought the metagame was fair, balanced, and healthy? Why are you people once again talking about dropping Ubers! Literally talk about anything else. Tera/Tera Blast suspect, Pokemon you find suspect worthy, general metagame trends, fun teams, fun off meta Pokes. Just shut up about Palafin and Solgaleo. Makes lurking unbearable.
It’s like a cyclic infection. One person mentions it and 20 more come out of the woodworks to respond and go back and forth until the mods have to finally shut it down. Rinse and repeat.
 
Lugia, Giratina-A and Zamazenta Crowned are the only Ubers that I would test even remotely. With a Tera Blast Ban, Regileki would be added to auto-Unban and Volcarona to retest (but not immediately unbanned). Solgaleo, Chien Pao and Sneasler are Ubers I wouldn,t test, but still look way more healthy than Palafin to me.
I know you qualified that with "even remotely", but calm mind lugia and giratina, and iron press zama with heavy slam are wayyyyy too much.
 
I know you qualified that with "even remotely", but calm mind lugia and giratina, and iron press zama with heavy slam are wayyyyy too much.

Lugia has no 2 combination of moves to win vs the whole meta and has a terrible typing pre-tera.
Giratina is stronger, but Kingambit lives both STABs, so it has to run Aura Sphere, therefore no Rest and eventually dies.
Zamazenta Crowned has a better defensive typing that regular Zamazenta, but it comes at the cost of not running an item, therefore suffering massively vs Spikes.

The point of my post is that all of these Mons will have a better effect on the meta than Palafin would. The meta currently is not in such a terrible state, despite the Suspect tests failing twice. Palafin would make the meta way worse than it currently is, the other Mons I mention in my post might make the meta better or worse, but not massively worse. Apart from (most) actual legendaries, the only Mon that would make the meta even worse than Palafin is Annihilape.
 
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