Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

BolTingBlazie said:
I would be okay with palafin here either way to be honest but I think oddly enough without Kyurem, Palafin answers become a lot easier to slot due to Kyurem being a cause of a lot of the threat saturation. Stuff like Raging Bolt and Waterpon would see a ton more usage.
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The problem with this is that for me (I am in minority though) Waterpon and Raging Bolt are way more problematic than Kyurem is, therefore if Palafin stays and threat saturation is a thing regardless of what happens, I would rather let Kyurem take its throne than to let 3 Mons I hate to be dominant.

I like to have a strong (and not too slow) Ice Mon as one of the defining Mons of a metagame, therefore if all broken Mons I dont like stay in the meta, then the less broken but more liked by me Mon should stay too. Not the most morally right thing to do, but if I get voting right, I can do with my vote whatever I want, so...

In any case, all this conversation is pointless right now, we should focus on current suspect instead of hypothetical ones, regardless of the side we are on.
 
DaddyBuzzwole said:
i believe the unban percentage for quickbans should remain as a simple majority to prevent manipulation of the tiering process. if it were 60% to reverse a quickban, a less scrupulous council could qb something and then test it back down and only require 40% of people wanting it to stay banned, instead of just normally suspecting it and needing 60% to ban it. technically the policy as it stands still makes things a little asymmetrical, so the danger is still present, but the only way to solve that would be to make the threshold for every suspect a simple majority and a lot of people consider that undesirable. i do think the suspect threshold being lowered to 55% might work, but i don't think that would be approved
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This does make sense, but I have three issues with the 60% quickban system as is implemented currently.
1) Palafin was quickbanned from a metagame which no longer exists (pre-HOME might as well be another generation entirely)
2) It was unanimously agreed upon that Palafin would have been hard banned with well more than 60% support had it been tested back when
3) Whether or not a mon is dropped from Uber to OU following DLC is largely decided upon by council vote

We are effectively in a situation where a quickban - which was done in the interest of time rather than delay the inevitable and subject everyone to an awful metagame for two weeks - is making it easier to unban something than it should be. That's why people have a foul taste in their mouths. I understand "the threshold for overruling the council should be easier than overruling the people" and agree with the premise, but in practice with Palafin the council was just the executioner because the jury had already spoken. If Palafin gets 55% unban in this vote, the fact we were not subjected to two weeks of Palafin means we could get subjected to indefinite Palafin. The system makes no sense for that reason.

I think it would make more logistical sense if the threshold were 50% for Pokemon banned from pre-DLC metagames across the board (which I would probably support, really it's almost like keeping an Uber banned from a prior gen with how crazy things had been). You could also handle it on a case-by-case basis per how contentious a ban was, e.g. if Sleep were re-tested that could be 50% but if Flutter Mane were re-tested that could be 60%. Smogon tends not to like that approach which is regrettable but understandable though.


With regards to Palafin itself though so this is more on-topic, I haven't played SV OU much at all lately, but from what I've seen in spectating matches over lunch I agree with what people have already said. Building around Palafin while also building around Kyurem seems a bit too hard. What counters one largely does not counter the other and I don't think introducing yet another teambuilding constraint is a good idea, regardless of whether or not Palafin is in and of itself overpowered or addressable. The question in unbanning something is fundamentally whether or not the unban will improve the metagame if we are at all pretending the point of bans is to create a competitive environment.
 
Skyuchi said:
This does make sense, but I have three issues with the 60% quickban system as is implemented currently.
1) Palafin was quickbanned from a metagame which no longer exists (pre-HOME might as well be another generation entirely)
2) It was unanimously agreed upon that Palafin would have been hard banned with well more than 60% support had it been tested back when
3) Whether or not a mon is dropped from Uber to OU following DLC is largely decided upon by council vote

We are effectively in a situation where a quickban - which was done in the interest of time rather than delay the inevitable and subject everyone to an awful metagame for two weeks - is making it easier to unban something than it should be. That's why people have a foul taste in their mouths. I understand "the threshold for overruling the council should be easier than overruling the people" and agree with the premise, but in practice with Palafin the council was just the executioner because the jury had already spoken. If Palafin gets 55% unban in this vote, the fact we were not subjected to two weeks of Palafin means we could get subjected to indefinite Palafin. The system makes no sense for that reason.

I think it would make more logistical sense if the threshold were 50% for Pokemon banned from pre-DLC metagames across the board (which I would probably support, really it's almost like keeping an Uber banned from a prior gen with how crazy things had been). You could also handle it on a case-by-case basis per how contentious a ban was, e.g. if Sleep were re-tested that could be 50% but if Flutter Mane were re-tested that could be 60%. Smogon tends not to like that approach which is regrettable but understandable though.


With regards to Palafin itself though so this is more on-topic, I haven't played SV OU much at all lately, but from what I've seen in spectating matches over lunch I agree with what people have already said. Building around Palafin while also building around Kyurem seems a bit too hard. What counters one largely does not counter the other and I don't think introducing yet another teambuilding constraint is a good idea, regardless of whether or not Palafin is in and of itself overpowered or addressable. The question in unbanning something is fundamentally whether or not the unban will improve the metagame if we are at all pretending the point of bans is to create a competitive environment.
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My problem with this reasoning is that it's kind of arbitrary what we're banning to improve the competitive environment. Kingambit is obviously much stronger than Palafin. Zamazenta, Kyurem, Roaring Moon, Raging Bolt, Gliscor and Ogerpon are all probably a level ahead of it.

Why does Palafin have to take the fall to ease the builder? Why don't we ban Enamorus to reduce the number of threats? Or Dragapult? Or Pelipper?

It feels really arbitrary that we're looking to ban a mon that is struggling to even be top-10 in OU threats purely because we voted to keep far more broken mons in, but want to reduce the total.
 
I know people like paragraphs, but seriously, Life Orb Palafin with Boomburst kinda always slaps. I don't like "does something everytime" mons so if it stays in OU I will be genuinely surprised.
 
Hiddenfreezer said:
I know people like paragraphs, but seriously, Life Orb Palafin with Boomburst kinda always slaps. I don't like "does something everytime" mons so if it stays in OU I will be genuinely surprised.
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Palafin doesn’t necessarily do something every time. Except vs, like offense I guess. But that’s every priority user. And pretty much every mon should do something most games.
 
TurquoiseLink said:
My problem with this reasoning is that it's kind of arbitrary what we're banning to improve the competitive environment. Kingambit is obviously much stronger than Palafin. Zamazenta, Kyurem, Roaring Moon, Raging Bolt, Gliscor and Ogerpon are all probably a level ahead of it.

Why does Palafin have to take the fall to ease the builder? Why don't we ban Enamorus to reduce the number of threats? Or Dragapult? Or Pelipper?

It feels really arbitrary that we're looking to ban a mon that is struggling to even be top-10 in OU threats purely because we voted to keep far more broken mons in, but want to reduce the total.
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I think stuff like Kyurem is easily a bigger offender who indirectly makes palafin harder to deal with than it should be despite being an answer itself for an example, point being there are things that could be argued more oppressive than Palafin is right now, tera blast and kyurem come to mind

I think if palafin does end up staying I think a third kyurem suspect might happen sooner rather than later since well it not only beats palafin, but a bunch of its checks and counters too
 
TurquoiseLink said:
My problem with this reasoning is that it's kind of arbitrary what we're banning to improve the competitive environment. Kingambit is obviously much stronger than Palafin. Zamazenta, Kyurem, Roaring Moon, Raging Bolt, Gliscor and Ogerpon are all probably a level ahead of it.

Why does Palafin have to take the fall to ease the builder? Why don't we ban Enamorus to reduce the number of threats? Or Dragapult? Or Pelipper?

It feels really arbitrary that we're looking to ban a mon that is struggling to even be top-10 in OU threats purely because we voted to keep far more broken mons in, but want to reduce the total.
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there's actually an easy and straightforward answer for this one: suspecting something normally and testing it down are two different things. we, as a community, are not "looking to ban" palafin—it was already banned. this entire suspect is about giving palafin a chance to be unbanned. a "do not unban" vote doesn't mean "remove this existing element from the tier to reduce the number of threats", it means "don't add this new element to the tier so we don't increase the number of threats". so it's an entirely different matter to test palafin down than to suspect something like kyurem or kingambit. i hope this clears things up
 
This is a little bit of tangential point, but I think that people tend to either overplay or underplay threats in the builder.

For instance, if we look retroactively at :Kyurem:, it's actually not that big of a teambuilding problem in the current metagame. I can't remember the last time I lost to a :Kyurem: and didn't think, "yeah, that one was on me." Furthermore, stuff like Swords Dance :Gliscor: stack has fallen completely off a cliff despite how much everyone was talking about it invalidating balance, and how it constricts the metagame.

I have almost never experienced that matchup, despite playing plenty of balance and stall, and back when I was considering my vote on the :Gliscor: suspect I was wondering if I had just been very lucky. I now think that lots of people, not all, but an appreciable amount, were in the same boat and were just echoing sentiments they had heard from someplace or another.

The truth is all of this is different when you actually load into game. Too often people look at Pokemon at their very best due to memory bias; we tend to remember when these Pokemon had good matchups or demolished us in a way that felt uncompetitive. It's hard to look holistically at how they affect your entire ladder experience, but I think that's how they should be considered. Good and bad matchups are an inevitable occurrence; and if you're a better player than your opponent, you have a good team, or you get a bit lucky against your bad matchups, you can still be very consistent, and the ladder stays competitive. We can have discussions about how good or bad a Pokemon's influence is while considering all of this.

Anyway, bringing this back to the current times, I think :Palafin-Hero: wouldn't ruin OU or anything. Of course, there's a :Palafin-Hero: for every team, it hits really hard, it makes pivoting structures stronger, but I am fairly sure the metagame would ultimately end up fine, despite being less healthy. Thus, I don't want it to stay, but I don't like it when discourse about these topics becomes so polarized. It makes it very hard to get productive exploration going when everyone seems set in an opinion.

Edit: I should say that I'm not calling the current discussion here polarizing; I'm more so making a case about discussion like this in general.
 
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Cape Canaveral said:
Anyway, bringing this back to the current times, I think :Palafin-Hero: wouldn't ruin OU or anything. Of course, there's a :Palafin-Hero: for every team, it hits really hard, it makes pivoting structures stronger, but I am fairly sure the metagame would ultimately end up fine, despite being less healthy. Thus, I don't want it to stay, but I don't like it when discourse about these topics becomes so polarized. It makes it very hard to get productive exploration going when everyone seems set in an opinion.

Edit: I should say that I'm not calling the current discussion here polarizing; I'm more so making a case about discussion like this in general.
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I don't know how good is to accept that the metagame will be less healthy due to the presence of :Palafin-Hero:. I am not going to pursue reqs, I have no time during this period of the year, but I would not be sure of what to vote. On the one hand, I consider that :Palafin-Hero: has more options that the ones that we are used to see (at least in the low-middle ladder where I habit xD) and it is limiting the team-building part of the game. Last team I encountered was using SpA Palafin with Boomburst and literally destroyed me... On the other hand I agree that the metagame could adapt to its presence and that we have options to stop it like :Ogerpon-Wellspring:, Water Absorb :Clodsire: ... However I agree that this same problem ocurred with :Kyurem: and :Gliscor: during their resepctive suspects tests and know nobody is complaining about them (maybe because :Gliscor: is having troubles to find a place in a crowded :Palafin-Hero: metagame).

However I did not enter the thread to discuss about :Palafin:, but about :Okidogi:. Looking at the usage stats I have seen a recent increase in :Okidogi: usage and I don't really understand why. What does Okidogi do better than other grounded Poison types in the tier like Iron Moth or Glowking? What opportunities do you see for him in the actual metagame and why do you consider it is being used at high level?

Sorry for my english :D
 
montegom said:
I don't know how good is to accept that the metagame will be less healthy due to the presence of :Palafin-Hero:. I am not going to pursue reqs, I have no time during this period of the year, but I would not be sure of what to vote. On the one hand, I consider that :Palafin-Hero: has more options that the ones that we are used to see (at least in the low-middle ladder where I habit xD) and it is limiting the team-building part of the game. Last team I encountered was using SpA Palafin with Boomburst and literally destroyed me... On the other hand I agree that the metagame could adapt to its presence and that we have options to stop it like :Ogerpon-Wellspring:, Water Absorb :Clodsire: ... However I agree that this same problem ocurred with :Kyurem: and :Gliscor: during their resepctive suspects tests and know nobody is complaining about them (maybe because :Gliscor: is having troubles to find a place in a crowded :Palafin-Hero: metagame).

However I did not enter the thread to discuss about :Palafin:, but about :Okidogi:. Looking at the usage stats I have seen a recent increase in :Okidogi: usage and I don't really understand why. What does Okidogi do better than other grounded Poison types in the tier like Iron Moth or Glowking? What opportunities do you see for him in the actual metagame and why do you consider it is being used at high level?

Sorry for my english :D
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Taunt BU mon that destroys zama (best zama counter in the game) and has a 30% chance to Toxic anything it hits.

Alternatively, you can go guard dog to own landorus. Both work.

It's a solid fat setup sweeper, mainly.
 
I have not been successful with (and have done well against) the Bulk Up :palafin hero: that got it banned the first time. It takes too many turns (including the switch out) to get it going and many things can disrupt it (encore, taunt, trick) or stop it in its tracks entirely (like Zamazenta, Raging Bolt or fast Wisp users), that set seems very mediocre in the current meta. I think the mixed options are decent for the surprise factor, but idk how to judge them on their own merits. The Choice Band sets seem the most threatening, playing like a better Lokix, and those should make up the majority of the Palafin teams in my opinion.

PS: I generally don't build my own teams (I am trying to make a Palafin team of my own work but that's besides the point), and I have been able to stop BU Palafin with the teams I had from before. So that's all I can say from the builder constraints angle.
 
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montegom said:
I don't know how good is to accept that the metagame will be less healthy due to the presence of :Palafin-Hero:. I am not going to pursue reqs, I have no time during this period of the year, but I would not be sure of what to vote. On the one hand, I consider that :Palafin-Hero: has more options that the ones that we are used to see (at least in the low-middle ladder where I habit xD) and it is limiting the team-building part of the game. Last team I encountered was using SpA Palafin with Boomburst and literally destroyed me... On the other hand I agree that the metagame could adapt to its presence and that we have options to stop it like :Ogerpon-Wellspring:, Water Absorb :Clodsire: ... However I agree that this same problem ocurred with :Kyurem: and :Gliscor: during their resepctive suspects tests and know nobody is complaining about them (maybe because :Gliscor: is having troubles to find a place in a crowded :Palafin-Hero: metagame).

However I did not enter the thread to discuss about :Palafin:, but about :Okidogi:. Looking at the usage stats I have seen a recent increase in :Okidogi: usage and I don't really understand why. What does Okidogi do better than other grounded Poison types in the tier like Iron Moth or Glowking? What opportunities do you see for him in the actual metagame and why do you consider it is being used at high level?

Sorry for my english :D
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To answer you question about Okidogi increase in usage. Not too sure but maybe I have an answer. Both Iron Moth and Glowing is bad into Gambit and Zama. Okidogi on the other hand is really good into Zama and especially Gambit, I saw some Dogi can 1 vs 1 Zama easy if you set up right. Maybe you don't underestimate Okidogi but personally for me it's a sleeper Pokemon. I think it has a lot of tools to be Ou. Sure it's slow but it's bulk is what makes it shine more. Invest into HP and SpD with bulk up 3 attack or even choice band, choice scarf has it's niche. Two good ability especially Guard Dog is good into Lando. Toxic Chain is never bad though. It has Upper Hand to spot priority user if you value that. It's move pool is really good like you can run different sets. Has taunt and roar to stop other slow set up sweepers. Sorry for the long post and maybe this is not the answer you are looking but if it is or someone can explain better, then you are welcome.
 
Okidogi gets obliterated by roar Zamazenta if you don't run guard dog. Seems important if you're looking for a reliable check.

On the topic of fighting/poison mons, my main man Toxicroak adds another victim to his list. That brings him up to Palafin, Wogerpon and Alomomola that he bullies in OU now.
 
TurquoiseLink said:
Okidogi gets obliterated by roar Zamazenta if you don't run guard dog. Seems important if you're looking for a reliable check.

On the topic of fighting/poison mons, my main man Toxicroak adds another victim to his list. That brings him up to Palafin, Wogerpon and Alomomola that he bullies in OU now.
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+2 252+ Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 346-408 (112.7 - 132.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
 
AerionT said:
Jolly too (webless adamant is troll)

+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 315-372 (102.6 - 121.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
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Adamant pon is the type of greed I adore. I go Booster SpA moth. I go Adamant Roaring Moon. I fucking go 252 Atk / 252 speed Jolly Gliscor. My greed is unmatched. I am morshu. I am scrooge mcduck. I will go Modest Specs Kyurem and Tera Steel Metal Coat Gholdengo just to laugh at the balances desperately trying to survive my onslaught. They do not understand. They will never understand my greed. My drive. My lust for power. Adamant and Modest call my name, and I answer in return.
 
RainebowValiant said:
+2 252+ Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 346-408 (112.7 - 132.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
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+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 0 HP / 200 Def Toxicroak: 242-285 (78.8 - 92.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Yeah Toxicroak has to sacrifice a lot of speed to do his job properly. I was referencing a Mola/Toxicroak team I played a lot and brought up in this thread a while ago.

To be clear, Toxicroak still sucks. I just think it's funny he keeps adding to the tiny niche he can do.
 
TurquoiseLink said:
Okidogi gets obliterated by roar Zamazenta if you don't run guard dog. Seems important if you're looking for a reliable check.

On the topic of fighting/poison mons, my main man Toxicroak adds another victim to his list. That brings him up to Palafin, Wogerpon and Alomomola that he bullies in OU now.
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Taunt stops Roar. MolaCroak is interesting, but croak is unfortunately an old mon and thus is bad because powercreep. It’s a shame, I liked using him in Pokemon Go PvP.
 
EpicGuy321 said:
Taunt stops Roar. MolaCroak is interesting, but croak is unfortunately an old mon and thus is bad because powercreep. It’s a shame, I liked using him in Pokemon Go PvP.
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That seems like an extremely dangerous game to play. If you click taunt on a +3 body press or iron defense you'll lose. If they ever click roar when you don't click taunt you lose. 50/50 mind games are spooky.
 
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