Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

Very off topic I know, but I keep forgetting to mention how heat Bronzong Stall teams are. Zong itself has great role compression thanks to it's typing along with Levitate, a 4x Future Sight resist, Psychic Noise and Body Press are great moves to have, can potentially set Rocks so that Blissey can use either a coverage move or pack another utility move. Love this dude
 
I have never looked at total battle count as a metric that was relevant to tiering. The council for the years before I was leader did not either. NU did not when I was leader, nor when I was on the council before I was leader. BW, SM, and SS have not when I was on their respectove Old Generation Councils over the years as well.

It is a cool stat overall and people like Freezai have done awesome jobs contextualizing it through media and conducting root cause analysis, but the question "am I going to play this metagame in my spare time?" has minimal overlap with the qualified question "is this metagame competitively balanced?" as anyone can answer the former, but only a fraction are capable of answering the latter.

There are also outliers. People play a metagame frequently during its infancy as it is new. New things are appealing while old things lose appeal to some. Metagames are least balanced and most volatile in their infancy due to lack of regulation, but they are always most popular. Things like this make it so that battle count is not something I have ever tracked or cared for. In addition, I woud rather people try new formats like National Dex or VGC than just play OU -- I run OU, but I frequent BW and SS. Our hobbies are what we make of it and there is no binding allegiance.

It is a bit sad this has to be expanded on and the false correlation in this thread has been repeated so many times, but I hope this clears things up for a final time.
I think a survey on metagame enjoyment and meta enjoyment alone needs to be prioritized, then we gauge community support for things from there because we need to know if people really don’t enjoy this metagame and if the data shows it because if it does it could affect action moving forward
 
I think a survey on metagame enjoyment and meta enjoyment alone needs to be prioritized, then we gauge community support for things from there because we need to know if people really don’t enjoy this metagame and if the data shows it because if it does it could affect action moving forward
I have already committed to a survey in the near future here. We do not tier for enjoyment and enjoyment alone though -- we tier to achieve the most competitive format possible.

I do not see what your post has to do with mine or the point on battle count altogether, but I promise you it is addressed and will be acted on in the near future.
 
We don't need to upend democracy just because we didn't get the outcome of a vote we wanted - what's next, we declare Martial Law on Smogon to destroy Kyurem once and for all?
i don't even think there's anything wrong with the current ban threshold but pokemon is not and will never be this serious. if you're drawing comparisons to real-world politics over a children's video game then i implore you to find a better use of your time
 
It's ok to call out logic we do not view as fair or reasonable. It's ok to be a little blunt. But we all -- not just the post above me, the last thread, me, you, or the next guy -- need to tone it down a bit. Every third post is being reported and for good reason. Let's work things out civilly
 
This is so subjective and frankly whiny. An entire pokemon should not be banned just because one more guy wants it to be banned than doesn't want it to be, the difference being one single guy who happened to have time to get reqs these particular two weeks, and you keep acting like we are in some disaster scenario when it seems like the playerbase doesn't seem to want the outcome that you seem to think is so awful that did not occur. Frankly your ideas that the tier is a disaster and that the rocks weak slow dragon that doesn't even crack top 10 usage and the tier staple and essential glue Mon should be banned seem pretty unpopular. The "quality of reasoning" has nothing to do with the outcome of a free and fair vote and the idea that votes should be nullified because you personally don't agree with them is absurd and frankly a bit dangerous. We don't need to upend democracy just because you personally didn't get the outcome of a vote you wanted - what's next, we declare Martial Law on Smogon to destroy Kyurem once and for all?
My opinion is actually the "popular" one lmao considering 59% of the playbase wanted it. You also focus on kyurem's flaws without even mentioning what makes it broken. If you think everything that is rock weak and slow is balanced let's just free ho-oh at this point, right?
 
My opinion is actually the "popular" one lmao considering 59% of the playbase wanted it. You also focus on kyurem's flaws without even mentioning what makes it broken. If you think everything that is rock weak and slow is balanced let's just free ho-oh at this point, right?
my apologies for not waxing poetic on the reasons not to ban a pokemon that the playerbase has voted not to ban twice over. This response screams "debate me!"
 
My opinion is actually the "popular" one lmao considering 59% of the playbase wanted it. You also focus on kyurem's flaws without even mentioning what makes it broken. If you think everything that is rock weak and slow is balanced let's just free ho-oh at this point, right?
boy, I do love scaring away all the crows in the field with my arguments
 
Scattered thoughts:
I've been noticing a phenomenon which might be overall problematic for tiering, and this is more of a smogon community problem than an OU problem--though it is exasperating OUs current predicament actively--when a Smogon "celebrity" posts any of their own personal opinions, they invariably switch a huge majority of peoples' opinions not due to any arguement they have but rather simply due to the fact that "the cool guy" has this opinion and I want to be like "insert cool guy" above.

This was most obvious with the Kingambit suspect--you can markedly see the overall general populace veer from pro-ban to anti-ban directly after Finch makes a short post about not banning Gambit. Whether or not that was overall healthier for the tier I'm not exactly here to argue, but point being that community leaders have far more weight on the tiering process than they are willing to admit.

while im not arguing that tier leaders/council members don't have an extensive knowledge of their tier, what does become problematic is when people end up ignoring potential options moving forward in favor of parroting another "celebrity's" opinion in lieu of their own thoughts.
 
how did this thread actually get worse since i left
you know how certain species being removed from the ecosystem made their prey items proliferate to unprecedented amounts? like that, but with more swearing

anyways

Cinderace @ Leftovers
Ability: Blaze
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pyro Ball
- Swords Dance
- Tera Blast
- Sucker Punch

Been a big fan of this Cinderace set I've been utilizing on a Veil team off and on. I'm still ironing out the finer details for it, but it absolutely rips. Mono Electric as a typing feels so good with all the birds around and being able to remove all water types not named Dozo from the earth is great. I experimented with a Banded set but the lack of item switching hurt. Still undecided on lefties but with Veil it made Cinder feel impressively tanky.

I'll likely share the line up later in the future as I need to have proper time to workshop it, but as a wall breaker Cinderace feels extremely strong.
 
This was most obvious with the Kingambit suspect--you can markedly see the overall general populace veer from pro-ban to anti-ban directly after Finch makes a short post about not banning Gambit.
SUiWftg_d.webp

5TENW4D_d.webp

...
 
while im not arguing that tier leaders/council members don't have an extensive knowledge of their tier, what does become problematic is when people end up ignoring potential options moving forward in favor of parroting another "celebrity's" opinion in lieu of their own thoughts.
I think everyone should read everyone's post and come to their own conclusion, not copy mine or other's. People have influence due to how they express themselves and their experience -- this is undeniable. The same can be said for Vert or CTC in prior suspects, too. But this is not my fault or their fault for sharing how they feel. It is just how any discussion online is. Same can be said for non-tiering topics and even across other communities (or even in IRL). Influence is real and can be good or bad depending on specifics.
 
lol, owned. Clearly some people have an agenda rather than posting clear facts. It was obvious to anyone around at the time that Finchinator voted ban on Kingambit.
Yea, their point is not even bad overall, but his justification is completely made up. I was very pro-suspect and still somehwat pro ban (publicly) during the whole thing. What he said is just not true there.
 
Your comedy brought a certain amount of levity among all the bad opinions. You made the forums tolerable. Now instead of shitposting intermixed with actual sewage we just get the shit. Pls come back Dad
yeah instead of bad takes that can reasonably be passed off as jokes because they probably are joking we now have people who legitimately think that tusk is banworthy for being too overbearing on the metagame (aka gluing the entire metagame together through rapid spin), or that mola is broken, or that swords dance is banworthy (don't even get me started on the unban uubers crowd).

i dont mind the takes, i'd just like to be able to imagine they're jokes instead of someone's genuine unfettered shit opinions.
 
When the “OU Metagame Discussion” thread becomes the “OU Metagame Discussion Thread Discussion” thread…



Salamence (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 248 HP / 224 Def / 36 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Earthquake
- Flamethrower
- Roost

Woger counter (kinda)
-1 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Play Rough vs. 248 HP / 224+ Def Salamence: 128-152 (32.5 - 38.6%) -- 98.6% chance to 3HKO

2HKOs Dozo with Draco, 2HKOs Gking and Clodsire with EQ, and Corv is 3HKOed by Flamethrower.
 
Ok kids
DO NOT:
Aimlessly whine about ban% thresholds. These aren't changing in the middle of a gen.
Act like justice and truth are on your side because 40.1% of the community agreed with you. Especially if you did not even get reqs...
Discuss dropping ubers.
Doompost about how dead the SV OU ladder is. If you want to point at something as evidence for "SV OU bad," wait for the survey.
Make comparisons to real world politics. This is an unofficial format of a children's video game.
Treat this thread like your personal diary.

DO:
Talk about SV OU, in its current state.
Discuss this ominous tweet

Be free
 
I deadass have no idea what will be tested next based on the tweet lol. What shit has a "movement" behind it? Quick Claw? Tera Blast? Palafin?

If it's Gholdengo because of the stall monarchy's complaints against it, I will be extremely disappointed. This pokemon is the number 1 most honest Pokémon in the metagame, holding the tier together against key threats like Zamazenta, Iron Valiant, and Slowking-Galar, while having an honest stat distribution, and clear flaws, such as a vulnerability to Ting-Lu and Samurott-H, as well as many other Pokémon such as Kingambit, Great Tusk, Dragapult, Cinderace, and even lower tier Pokémon like Garchomp.

As for the meta, anyone else find the DDers to be increasingly annoying? Now that Dragonite and Roaring moon are running more Tera types like Ground and digging deeper into their movepools it's noticably harder to pin them down.
 
When the “OU Metagame Discussion” thread becomes the “OU Metagame Discussion Thread Discussion” thread…



Salamence (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 248 HP / 224 Def / 36 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Earthquake
- Flamethrower
- Roost

Woger counter (kinda)
-1 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Play Rough vs. 248 HP / 224+ Def Salamence: 128-152 (32.5 - 38.6%) -- 98.6% chance to 3HKO

2HKOs Dozo with Draco, 2HKOs Gking and Clodsire with EQ, and Corv is 3HKOed by Flamethrower.

If you want to check Ogerpon-Wellspring, you had best use Dual Wingbeat as that's probably the best move to hit it with that's reasonably accurate. The given set I have provided still almost always 3HKOes Corviknight while also allowing you to outspeed max speed Raging Bolt. Yeah, it loses to Dondozo, but if you're using Salamence primarily to check Ogerpon-Wellspring, it does a much better job with Dual Wingbeat.

Salamence (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 200 HP / 252 Def / 56 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dual Wingbeat
- Earthquake
- Flamethrower
- Roost

56 Speed EVs for outspeeding Raging Bolt (250 Speed) so that you can chunk it with Earthquake and set Bolt up for being revenge killed.


0+ Atk 0 IVs Salamence Dual Wingbeat (2 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 256-304 (85 - 100.9%) -- approx. 6.3% chance to OHKO
+1 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Play Rough vs. 200 HP / 252 Def Salamence: 304-358 (79.7 - 93.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0- SpA Salamence Flamethrower vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Corviknight: 144-170 (36 - 42.6%) -- 94.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

DO:
Talk about SV OU, in its current state.
Discuss this ominous tweet

Be free

I deadass have no idea what will be tested next based on the tweet lol. What shit has a "movement" behind it? Quick Claw? Tera Blast? Palafin?

or so he claims. What could this mean? How deep will this go? Even something as big as tera would come down to a suspect.

I think this tweet is not all that concerning when you pair it up with the follow-up in which Finchinator said it wasn't made with a resuspect or potential tiering action in mind but rather a movement.

My takeaway when including the follow-up tweet is that the OU Council is moving towards increasing the GXE requirement. There is definitely a movement building to make reqs harder as seen during the Kyurem retest, and it's the only thing that makes sense with the provided context.
 
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