Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

Is BootsPult good on hyper offense? I figured that it works well for slowing down Shitmazenta with Twave and parahaxxing walls, Booster Speed users, and priority abusers, all of which tend to annoy HO.
 
wanted to ask bc im curious, how many non speed boosting/just slow mons have you all had success with running +offensive natures viably in this meta? been trying stuff like modest keld on webs, and the power difference can be shocking when you make up for the speed
 
Is BootsPult good on hyper offense? I figured that it works well for slowing down Shitmazenta with Twave and parahaxxing walls, Booster Speed users, and priority abusers, all of which tend to annoy HO.
tbh t wave pult is good but like... its main thing on boots is wisp wisp wisp, specifically because t wave has a decently worse gambit mu. haven't seen it on ho really, idt it would be too good, but you could run a more offensive pult that happened to use boots that might work
 
A knocked Pex is a dead Pex. Hoopa only really needs like 6 turns to get a couple of kills/half kills (even then you'll have to make some predicts). Band is way better at stallbreaking (brainless Tera Dark Hyperspace) but it's worse into everything else.
Banded Hoopa is far worse into most styles, it's a fat fish and nothing else.

AV, on the other hand, isn't amazing as a solo breaker. The cores it fits on are Mola + Gking + Corv + etc, which really can't beat stall. Most stall teams are happy burning Tera and maybe sacking a mon or two in exchange for Hoopa because they know they'll win long-term.
 
A knocked Pex is a dead Pex. Hoopa only really needs like 6 turns to get a couple of kills/half kills (even then you'll have to make some predicts). Band is way better at stallbreaking (brainless Tera Dark Hyperspace) but it's worse into everything else.
a knocked pex is not necessarily a dead pex. losing boots or lefties is an inconvenience but absolutely not a death sentence for something with regenerator and recovery. losing helmet or av hurts more, but pex can still function fairly well after losing those items too. there are even pex sets out there designed to run a consumable item (eject button, red card, some sort of type berry—i hear wacan is all the rage these days) and function itemless for most of the match. pex isn't super super item-reliant like a lot of its peers. and for the record, even if it were, writing off crippled mons as "already dead" tends to not be a very good idea because it can often lead to underestimating a still semi-functional mon and throwing away a good position
 
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Banded Hoopa is far worse into most styles, it's a fat fish and nothing else.

AV, on the other hand, isn't amazing as a solo breaker. The cores it fits on are Mola + Gking + Corv + etc, which really can't beat stall. Most stall teams are happy burning Tera and maybe sacking a mon or two in exchange for Hoopa because they know they'll win long-term.

When I went through my Assault Vest Hoopa-U phase, stall was always 6-0'd by Tera Steel. Toxic and sac a mon or 2 was always their only plan so I'd just blow tera steel very early on. Maybe stall teams are a little better into it these days, I'm not fully up to date on today's stall.

Steel was always a premium tera type on Hoopa anyway. It isn't a sweeper so when you clicked Tera it was always "I need to live this hit and delete this threat" which meant a tera that resists as many random types as possible.
 
When I went through my Assault Vest Hoopa-U phase, stall was always 6-0'd by Tera Steel. Toxic and sac a mon or 2 was always their only plan so I'd just blow tera steel very early on. Maybe stall teams are a little better into it these days, I'm not fully up to date on today's stall.

Steel was always a premium tera type on Hoopa anyway. It isn't a sweeper so when you clicked Tera it was always "I need to live this hit and delete this threat" which meant a tera that resists as many random types as possible.
1) steel/poison is standard for toxic immunity + resists both of your weaknesses.

2) also what. Did you not see a single team that relied on Flame Body, Sticky Barb, Scald, Earthquake, or Counter to beat Hoopa? Because those are all common options nowadays (except Counter, which is more niche.)

a knocked pex is not necessarily a dead pex. losing boots or lefties is an inconvenience but absolutely not a death sentence for something with regenerator and recovery. losing helmet or av hurts more, but pex can still function fairly well after losing those items too. there are even pex sets out there designed to run a consumable item (eject button, red card, some sort of type berry—i hear wacan is all the rage these days) and function itemless for most of the match. pex isn't super super item-reliant like a lot of its peers. and for the record, even if it were, writing off crippled mons as "already dead" tends to not be a very good idea because it can often lead to underestimating a still semi-functional mon and throwing away a good position
Hello! As toxapex (yes, I am the real toxapex from alola) I can add that DBW is right here. Pex doesn't care about Boots more than most Pokemon, and still walls mons like Primarina, Iron Moth, and pivot Ogerpon-Wellspring even itemless.

Also eject button pex is heat. Want Toxapex, but need Pecharunt? There's your answer!

Edit: shroom, please stop with the hahas oh my lord :sob:

Double edit: BRO WHY I GOT LITERALLY 15 NOTIFICATIONS FROM THIS MAN REACT SPAMNING ME
 
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I'm confused by these answers you listed. To be clear, I meant a mixed assault vest Hoopa with Knock/Psychic. (Maybe psychic noise is better, I have no idea).

I did not encounter flame body on stall no. Even if I did, it's 30% on the first knock and then special moves from there.

Same with sticky barb, you have to knock me and then bait my knock off on a future turn? What else is a clefable doing to a steel Hoopa?

Scald doesn't do a lot to an assault vested special attacker with 130spd.

Gliscors were all spikes/knock/toxic, don't think I've ever seen an earthquake gliscor on stall, maybe it's common these days. Clodsire sometimes had earthquakes but clod really, really struggles to switch in on a mixed Hoopa and doesn't exactly ohko with it.

And no, I've never seen a counter in gen 9.
 
I'm confused by these answers you listed. To be clear, I meant a mixed assault vest Hoopa with Knock/Psychic. (Maybe psychic noise is better, I have no idea).

I did not encounter flame body on stall no. Even if I did, it's 30% on the first knock and then special moves from there.

Same with sticky barb, you have to knock me and then bait my knock off on a future turn? What else is a clefable doing to a steel Hoopa?

Scald doesn't do a lot to an assault vested special attacker with 130spd.

Gliscors were all spikes/knock/toxic, don't think I've ever seen an earthquake gliscor on stall, maybe it's common these days. Clodsire sometimes had earthquakes but clod really, really struggles to switch in on a mixed Hoopa and doesn't exactly ohko with it.

And no, I've never seen a counter in gen 9.
1) Flame Body is on the common Talonflame and more niche Moltres, and Scald is on Alomomola for days. If you get burnt, you're now toast into a lot of mixed walls.

2) Gliscor survives ur hits and Knocks, then Clefable comes in on the ever-present Drain Punch. It's the same tactic used to pressure Corviknight, Gliscor, Weavile, and others.

3) Earthquake is common on spdef Gliscor who coincidentally walls AV hoopa much better than physdef.
 
1) Flame Body is on the common Talonflame and more niche Moltres, and Scald is on Alomomola for days. If you get burnt, you're now toast into a lot of mixed walls.

2) Gliscor survives ur hits and Knocks, then Clefable comes in on the ever-present Drain Punch. It's the same tactic used to pressure Corviknight, Gliscor, Weavile, and others.

3) Earthquake is common on spdef Gliscor who coincidentally walls AV hoopa much better than physdef.

Sac Talonflame to burn would allow Blissey to wall. Still sounds like a rough time for stall, especially since Blissey or whoever is still getting knocked.

And yeah SpD Earthquake Gliscor would ruin Hoopa, definitely right on that.

I dropped drain punch the moment it failed to ohko a Kingambit. Focus Miss for me. I can see your plan working but I'm not so sure it's easy to bait the drain punch when knock + psychic is such easy progress.

Is Assault Vest Mola really common on stall? I would assume the wish version which definitely can't be tanking a Hoopa while it tries to roll a scald. Maybe vest Mola does answer it, no idea.
 
Speaking of Meowscarada imo that is probably the biggest reason it stayed ou this time around. Like let's face it this pokemon is not that good.
It is good
Same for Walking Wake (except I don't know how the hell that thing is still ou)
It's the mon that's single handedly carrying Sun
but the point is I predict that both pokemon will probably drop after the next 3 month cycle (and probably be qb to uubl because let's be real)
That would be very sad
 
Sac Talonflame to burn would allow Blissey to wall. Still sounds like a rough time for stall, especially since Blissey or whoever is still getting knocked.

And yeah SpD Earthquake Gliscor would ruin Hoopa, definitely right on that.

I dropped drain punch the moment it failed to ohko a Kingambit. Focus Miss for me. I can see your plan working but I'm not so sure it's easy to bait the drain punch when knock + psychic is such easy progress.

Is Assault Vest Mola really common on stall? I would assume the wish version which definitely can't be tanking a Hoopa while it tries to roll a scald. Maybe vest Mola does answer it, no idea.
AV mola is fake on stall but normal mola runs mixed defenses + scald which handles it easier.
 
It is good
Meowscarada is mid, sure you could do a lot worse, but you could also do a lot better. Its only thing going for it over other mons is that it is insanely fast knock off user with choice scarf. But choice scarf has its own problems of being locked into certain moves that can be scouted (like clicking protect on gliscor).
It's the mon that's single handedly carrying Sun
A pokemon can single handedly carry a playstyle, and still not be great. I know this is a harsh downgrade from sun and wake, but polteageist probably single handedly carries psyterrain. Wake's viability is directly related to how sun is doing in the meta (yes, there are knock wake teams, but those are extremely rare), and sun rn isn't great.
The best sun setter is RU.
Its NU now, and will likely drop all the way to ZU. But Ninetales is better in most tiers then Torkoal.
 
Meowscarada is mid, sure you could do a lot worse, but you could also do a lot better. Its only thing going for it over other mons is that it is insanely fast knock off user with choice scarf. But choice scarf has its own problems of being locked into certain moves that can be scouted (like clicking protect on gliscor).

A pokemon can single handedly carry a playstyle, and still not be great. I know this is a harsh downgrade from sun and wake, but polteageist probably single handedly carries psyterrain. Wake's viability is directly related to how sun is doing in the meta (yes, there are knock wake teams, but those are extremely rare), and sun rn isn't great.

Its NU now, and will likely drop all the way to ZU. But Ninetales is better in most tiers then Torkoal.
ursaluna carries trick room and trick room is complete ass

ninetales is better than torkoal

when is the next fight night happening i wanna 1v1 daddybuzzwole and seraphyde and ianlazerbeem
 
Torkoal is NU now, and will likely drop all the way to ZU. But Ninetales is better in most tiers then Torkoal.
It's interesting to see this statement now entering 2025. Since the generation began, Torkoal was an OU mainstay because sun was so popular, even when Ninetales released, Torkoal was still OU. What changed?
 
I said it is not that good.

The best sun setter is RU.

I completely agree.
Gastrodon, a perfectly viable Pokemon in gens 5, 6 and 7 of OU, is not OU in any of those gens, same with Cofagrigus in gen 6, a lot UUBL mons in gen 3 like Regice, Kingdra or Raikou…

You can also say the opposite. Mimikyu, Keldeo and Marowak-Alola were OU for most of gen 7 due to low ladder usage yet they were pretty bad in OU. OU tier status usually means viability but there are exceptions.

This gen alone you have a lot of non-OU relevant mons in high ladder / tournament: Sun, Alolan Ninetales, Sinistcha, Lokix, Keldeo, Scizor, Weezing - Galar, Tornadus Therian, Garchomp,Tinkaton, Weavile…
 
It's interesting to see this statement now entering 2025. Since the generation began, Torkoal was an OU mainstay because sun was so popular, even when Ninetales released, Torkoal was still OU. What changed?
SV OU is dominated by offense and having some kind of way to disrupt opposing offense and support your own is huge this gen. Ninetales has way more utility than Torkoal because of its access to Encore and Healing Wish, and its speed lets it take advantage of these moves. Torkoal has historically been better due to Rocks + Spin + good bulk and Wisp but this utility is a little less valuable for Sun this gen than what Ninetales provides. Additionally, Torkoal lost Yawn to the sleep ban, leaving Clear Smog as its only option to stop setup. Torkoal is just a huge momentum drain for Sun as opposed to Ninetales.

The main thing keeping Torkoal usage above Ninetales earlier this gen was simply lack of experimentation. Ninetales slowly became more popular as people started experimenting more with it. I think probably a big part of it is how ass Ninetales has been historically in comparison to Torkoal, leaving few people to try to mess with it when Torkoal is known to be better.
 
Ninetales vs Torkoal is a good reminder on being civil in discussions. I definitely remember 6-12 months ago various users were being flamed for liking Ninetales over Torkoal. It was obvious you needed the bulkier Sun setter for more switch in opportunities and you were stupid if you didn't realise that.

Out of curiosity, is Torkoal + Ninetales usage combined enough to be OU at the moment? I don't know how to check. I'd imagine that number would be near identical to Walking Wake's usage which is still barely OU.
 
Ninetales vs Torkoal is a good reminder on being civil in discussions. I definitely remember 6-12 months ago various users were being flamed for liking Ninetales over Torkoal. It was obvious you needed the bulkier Sun setter for more switch in opportunities and you were stupid if you didn't realise that.

Out of curiosity, is Torkoal + Ninetales usage combined enough to be OU at the moment? I don't know how to check. I'd imagine that number would be near identical to Walking Wake's usage which is still barely OU.
Walking Wake still exists outside of sun as a Boots pivot. Getting Knock + Flip Turn is really nice for a strong special attacker, which pivot Raging Bolt sets do not have. I'd say sunless Wake is niche but definitely decent on the right team comp. I'd assume sun setters have around 0.5% combined less usage than Wake.
 
Out of curiosity, is Torkoal + Ninetales usage combined enough to be OU at the moment? I don't know how to check. I'd imagine that number would be near identical to Walking Wake's usage which is still barely OU.
Yes. Ninetales usage is at 1.441% usage, while torkoal usage is at 4.021%. Torkoal was actually kinda close to rising ngl, (4.52% is the cutoff). Together they have 5.462% usage.
You can also check out the usage stats here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...y-usage-statistics-discussion-thread.3711767/ (note, they use the 1695 usage stats)
 
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