Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

[ausma]

Banning Tera Blast would cause a ripple effect on lower tiers where the move probably isn't a concern. Y'all have to keep that in mind. It would affect the viability of some Pokémon who're desperate for coverage.

Respectfully, this isn't a concern for us when it comes to tiering. We tier on the basis of OU itself, and even then, the primary justification on which we would be banning Tera Blast is relevant to other tiers on a fundamental level. Pokemon are also obviously going to be hurt by the loss of Tera Blast (in the hypothetical that it is banned) but preserving that option for other Pokemon does not and should not undermine the core reasons it's considered for a ban at all, especially since in this case it's still applicable to them.

I wonder when the survey is dropping.

From what I can say/tell, it will be dropping very soon, somewhere after SPL Week 1.

 

[EpicGuy321]

If we were to ban Tera Blast, could a lower tier (say, NU) have a suspect or use some other method to unban it in their tier?

 

[KrazyKoopa95]

Just wanted to share the best Kingambit set based on playing mind games with your opponent.
Pro tip: Kingambit's nickname matters.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Banning Tera Blast would cause a ripple effect on lower tiers where the move probably isn't a concern. Y'all have to keep that in mind. It would affect the viability of some Pokémon who're desperate for coverage. I wonder when the survey is dropping.

actually, since i have some experience with the lower tiers now, let me go ahead and travel down the tiers and see what this ripple effect might do. i won't say anything as to how much or little the tiers will be stabilized or destabilized, what sort of new meta dynamics might arise, or what might rise or drop or be banned (besides from ou) since my experience with lower tiers isn't quite extensive enough for me to make those kind of calls ahead of time and my crystal ball that lets me see into alternate timelines has a spotty connection right now. instead, i'll try to predict some of the changes we might see and let people more familiar with those tiers make their own judgements. if someone with more extensive experience wants to add their own analysis of the potential effects of a tb ban and/or thinks i'm wrong about something here, feel free to chime in

uu
enamorus and iron moth might drop—enamorus because stellar tera blast is a pretty significant tool in her kit, iron moth because it would be forced out of many of its current roles by volcarona. regieleki would drop post-unban because it's just straight-up not good in ou without coverage

nothing drops down from uubl because of a tera blast ban, at least not immediately. the only currently uubl mon with a significant tera blast presence was galarian moltres and that was broken as fuck either way

the loss of tera blast would definitely affect hyper offense in uu—polteageist would lose pretty important fighting coverage, comfey would lose extremely important ground coverage, serperior would lose virtually all its coverage, and quaquaval would lose that stupid electric thing it does. this is very notable because fuck all of these guys. hyper offense has been a bit cancerous in uu for a while now and i for one would be glad to see it taken down a couple pegs

aside from that, some less obnoxious but still offensively powerful mons like thundurus-therian and especially sandy shocks would be affected. shocks actually runs tera blast slightly more than half the time, so it'd definitely feel the impact of this more harshly than a lot of mons

ru
blastoise might be unbanned, since electric tera blast was a pretty significant plot point in its suspect, but i'm not entirely sure—there are other very good teras blastoise can opt into that have a small enough overlap in counterplay that it might still prove problematic

yanmega would almost certainly be unbanned. even though its air slash setup nonsense is stupid, its biggest weakness was that it relied heavily on ground tera blast, so removing the option from it would make it much more manageable

not much currently in ru really gets devastated by the loss of tera blast; most things either have other similar coverage they can slot in or a different function that can keep their head above water. ribombee loses what offensive prowess it had but still has its wacky webs utility. hisuian zoroark stops being able to do its silly stab tera blast bait shenanigans but those were never really consistent anyway and it still has hyper voice. volcanion suffers a notable amount actually since it can't go for fairy or dark to break its checks but still chugs along, gengar just bites the bullet and goes for focus blast or dazzling gleam or whatever, rhyperior wait why were people even running tb on this, etc etc. the only thing that sees a major viability drop is magnezone, and also gyarados but that doesn't actually exist lmao

nu
i've never actually played nu so i don't know anything about it

pu
nothing drops from publ because of a tera blast ban, it's all either dumb setup things that had the coverage they needed anyway or dumb breakers that could just click one move and didn't need coverage

now as for the mons in pu, some of them would get hit fairly hard by this. toxtricity loses that stupid tb ghost set that i hate, salazzle can't do her tb ground shenanigans anymore, florges... well, florges can do a million different things anyway, she can take care of herself. other affected parties include tornadus, hoopa, indeedee-f (shut up she's totally a thing there, i don't care what the usage stats say), minior (if you're cringe and non-edgequakepilled), and frosmoth (seriously folks try frosmoth in pu it's actually goated). all of those run tera blast a pretty significant amount, so i think pu might end up seeing some of the largest overall changes from a tb ban

now let me repeat, i'm not suggesting a tera blast ban would ultimately be good or bad for any lower tier in particular because everyone's opinion on these effects would be different. personally i could go either way on tera blast at the moment. i'm just presenting, neutrally, what i think might happen as a result of a tb ban. i'd suggest that people avoid factoring any of this into their decisions when voting on tera blast in ou, but i legally can't stop you from doing it

 

[RainebowValiant]

THE STALL VR HAS BEEN UPDATED!

With the addition of two new council members, Sire Clod and Zarross, as well as the brand-new Stall Bible II, the stall VR has been officially updated!

 

[TurquoiseLink]

My biggest problem with tera preview is that it just doesn't make sense as action. If a Pokemon, Item, Ability, or Move is broken / uncompetitive you ban it, if something isn't broken / uncompetitive you do nothing about it. There is no reason why Tera shouldn't be treated the same way, either do nothing or remove the entire mechanic.

Tera Blast ban is the only restriction that should ever be seriously discussed because its not a restriction on Tera in the same way banning Regieleki isn't a restriction on Tera Blast, its just a simple move ban.

As much as I wish it was the case, this just isn't Smogon policy around banning. Banning something that is perfectly balanced, just to skew the metagame in a desirable direction, is absolutely grounds for a ban under the current Smogon tiering guidelines.

I disagree with that policy, but it's important to acknowledge it with all the heated ban discussions this gen.

 

[Wapf]

As much as I hate tera and love playing teraless metas, banning tera blast and tera preview both wouldn’t do anything to deal with teras main problem. Basically every turn in the entire game is a 50/50 until someone teras. I agree with doing nothing or banning it. The in between measures will just make the mechanic less fun to use, but just as frustrating to play against

 

[EpicGuy321]

As much as I hate tera and love playing teraless metas, banning tera blast and tera preview both wouldn’t do anything to deal with teras main problem. Basically every turn in the entire game is a 50/50 until someone teras. I agree with doing nothing or banning it. The in between measures will just make the mechanic less fun to use, but just as frustrating to play against

It’s pretty easy to know when someone will Tera, though. Moon going to die to Moonblast? Tera Fly DD. Tusk switches in hard on Iron Valiant? It’s going to tera Steel. Lando switches in on Sinistcha? TB Fly/Ice.

 

[Eeveeto]

It’s pretty easy to know when someone will Tera, though. Moon going to die to Moonblast? Tera Fly DD. Tusk switches in hard on Iron Valiant? It’s going to tera Steel. Lando switches in on Sinistcha? TB Fly/Ice.

Except the Moon might be accepted as a sacrifice in order to Tera Gambit at the end of the game. There are endless variables in each scenario you can think of and I am saying this as a Unrestricted Tera defender.

 

[Cape Canaveral]

As much as I hate tera and love playing teraless metas, banning tera blast and tera preview both wouldn’t do anything to deal with teras main problem. Basically every turn in the entire game is a 50/50 until someone teras. I agree with doing nothing or banning it. The in between measures will just make the mechanic less fun to use, but just as frustrating to play against

that is not tera's main problem, and tera itself is no worse than z moves. furthermore, your idea that tera is a problem comes from the premise that tera is both

1. expendable on any given turn
2. always impactful enough to dramatically flip matchups

most of the time, though, this is not the case. randomly throwing off teras to gain tiny edges can easily be recovered, and now you've given up an integral resource. the threat of tera on a turn by turn basis is not as considerable as you claim.

as for tera's effectiveness in flipping matchups; does a zamazenta crowned care if kingambit teras to anything but ghost or fairy + tera blast? does a gliscor care if the opposing landorus teras to anything but ice + tera blast? does a roaring moon suddenly gain the ability to beat a full hp dragonite because it terad to flying? although these may be 'easy' examples i think it illustrates how pokemon have limitations regardless of typing or stab.

that is to say, i think for both players in any given matchup using tera would not make sense on a vast majority of turns, so this 'problem' is not really relevant to the tera blast thing.

you may have noticed i brought up a few edge cases there that involve tera blast. although tera blast isn't very common and the ban wouldn't be very impactful i think its ban would improve an already mostly healthy mechanic.

 

[toshimelonhead]

that is not tera's main problem, and tera itself is no worse than z moves. furthermore, your idea that tera is a problem comes from the premise that tera is both

1. expendable on any given turn
2. always impactful enough to dramatically flip matchups

most of the time, though, this is not the case. randomly throwing off teras to gain tiny edges can easily be recovered, and now you've given up an integral resource. the threat of tera on a turn by turn basis is not as considerable as you claim.

as for tera's effectiveness in flipping matchups; does a zamazenta crowned care if kingambit teras to anything but ghost or fairy + tera blast? does a gliscor care if the opposing landorus teras to anything but ice + tera blast? does a roaring moon suddenly gain the ability to beat a full hp dragonite because it terad to flying? although these may be 'easy' examples i think it illustrates how pokemon have limitations regardless of typing or stab.

that is to say, i think for both players in any given matchup using tera would not make sense on a vast majority of turns, so this 'problem' is not really relevant to the tera blast thing.

you may have noticed i brought up a few edge cases there that involve tera blast. although tera blast isn't very common and the ban wouldn't be very impactful i think its ban would improve an already mostly healthy mechanic.

These edge cases mentioned are exactly why Tera Preview is worth considering. I would rather not have to buy a new laptop if I had a Gliscor and my opponent used Tera Blast Ice Landorus-T to win a tournament match.

 

[Cape Canaveral]

These edge cases mentioned are exactly why Tera Preview is worth considering. I would rather not have to buy a new laptop if I had a Gliscor and my opponent used Tera Blast Ice Landorus-T to win a tournament match.

yeah, 100%. i think people in the same camp as you or i are in agreement about this, and just would prefer a tb ban or preview when it comes to tera action for various reasons.

 

[gephicka]

These edge cases mentioned are exactly why Tera Preview is worth considering. I would rather not have to buy a new laptop if I had a Gliscor and my opponent used Tera Blast Ice Landorus-T to win a tournament match.

i mean, if your opponent decides to commit both a suboptimal move slot, tera type, and actual tera on lando-t in a tournament match just to take down one pokemon then i would definitely argue it's not a horrible trade.

into things like kingambit, any good team is going to have counterplay to gambit beyond just "ooga-booga IDBP on that ass", and while zama-h is a great gambit counter into most tera types, you should still have a secondary option so you don't lose to the second most common mon in the tier. it's been long enough to the point that any experienced player in gen 9 ou understands how to play around kingambit regardless of its tera type, and that while zama-c and ID corv/skarm are good counterplay into gambit you need to have other measures (stuff like a faster gambit, faster priority from bolt, dnite, lokix, fat physical walls like dozo and tusk, WoW from cinderace or molt, etc). while you CAN tech your gambit set to beat some of its counters, you can't singlehandedly beat all of your counters with a single set.

whether or not you think that is a healthy or fair interaction or part of the metagame is up to you. I believe personally that the absolutely reflects more on Kingambit's place in the metagame rather than on tera as a whole. Of course, I don't believe Kingambit is broken or banworthy– even with the given counterplay to its various checks in the meta you still need to set up your gambit in a position to sweep. It isn't as easy as letting all your mons die and clicking SD + sucker and sweeping unless you either positioned very well, are playing against a bad player, or are playing against a badly constructed team.

 

[Bold School]

i mean, if your opponent decides to commit both a suboptimal move slot, tera type, and actual tera on lando-t in a tournament match just to take down one pokemon then i would definitely argue it's not a horrible trade.

That's not entirely accurate to that example. Ground/Ice is a really strong attacking combo. Grass and most Flying types that might not care about Ground STAB would be hit superefectively by Tera Ice. Tera Ice, while bad defensively, also makes up for your 4x weakness and can potentially flip quite a few matchups. Not just Gliscor. You could beat Ice Spinner Tusk and the mirror-T matchup.

Part of Tera Blast is that you can get these kinds of coverages that the pokemon normally shouldn't have acess to. Stuff like Bolt/Beam Kyurem or Dark/Fairy Moon are added to the guessing game, but also just really good offensive combinations in general. In this case of these example, Electric and Fairy are also better defensive Tera types than Ice, but still. Tera Blast is primarily used for offense.

 

[gephicka]

That's not entirely accurate to that example. Ground/Ice is a really strong attacking combo. Grass and most Flying types that might not care about Ground STAB would be hit superefectively by Tera Ice. Tera Ice, while bad defensively, also makes up for your 4x weakness and can potentially flip quite a few matchups. Not just Gliscor. You could beat Ice Spinner Tusk and the mirror-T matchup.

not necessarily saying it’s an uviable option, moreso just saying that there are trade-offs that make it harder to use random tera blast

calling it suboptimal is a slight exaggeration, my main point is that it’s not really a big deal if lando wants to tech tera blast ice because it’s way more of a commitment (especially compared to smth like hidden power) to overcome your checks and counters- in my opinion a balanced tradeoff depending on the situation

 

[Cape Canaveral]

not necessarily saying it’s an uviable option, moreso just saying that there are trade-offs that make it harder to use random tera blast

calling it suboptimal is a slight exaggeration, my main point is that it’s not really a big deal if lando wants to tech tera blast ice because it’s way more of a commitment (especially compared to smth like hidden power) to overcome your checks and counters- in my opinion a balanced tradeoff depending on the situation

again, tera blast sets i personally think are mostly below average. i think tera blast ice lando is absolutely horrible UNLESS you connect it into gliscor. i think tera fairy kingambit is really not good as you end up running kowtow + tera blast coverage. the only two things i think can run tera blast sets very well are roaring moon and dragonite.

but that's not my point. the situation you brought up where a person brings this to a tournament game is kind of the problem; tera blast enables this matchup fish cheese that lowers match quality dramatically, whether it actually works or not. it's not broken, it just decreases skill expression in both building and play, which i personally don't like.

and that's not to say that tera blast sets don't require some skill, but i think they are markedly less skillful than builders and their opponents exploring the pokemon's existing move set to find or cover opportunities respectively.

 

[gephicka]

it just decreases skill expression in both building and play, which i personally don't like.

and that's not to say that tera blast sets don't require some skill, but i think they are markedly less skillful than builders and their opponents exploring the pokemon's existing move set to find or cover opportunities respectively.

i think you’re right as far as tera blast goes, i am mostly talking about tera blast as it pertains to tera preview because i do not believe we should ever allow such a mechanic in OU.

Personally I think any upsides of tera preview are also accomplished by a tera blast ban- also preventing the insane amount of information immediately being given to your opponent as I outlined in my OP on the matter.

To me the steps are to suspect tera blast, if that gets banned or not then a survey or two later circle back to tera itself. Tera preview is not a real or good solution to any of gen 9 OU’s issues, it only theoretically prevents inconveniences in ladder and tournament games from a surprise tera type.

 

[JensenDale]

Banning Tera Blast would cause a ripple effect on lower tiers where the move probably isn't a concern. Y'all have to keep that in mind. It would affect the viability of some Pokémon who're desperate for coverage. I wonder when the survey is dropping.

I would be very interested in seeing the usage of Tera blast amongst all lower tiers. I don't know how much it is used across all however I'd imagine it's nothing that should be ignored.

 

[Cape Canaveral]

i think you’re right as far as tera blast goes, i am mostly talking about tera blast as it pertains to tera preview because i do not believe we should ever allow such a mechanic in OU.

Personally I think any upsides of tera preview are also accomplished by a tera blast ban- also preventing the insane amount of information immediately being given to your opponent as I outlined in my OP on the matter.

To me the steps are to suspect tera blast, if that gets banned or not then a survey or two later circle back to tera itself. Tera preview is not a real or good solution to any of gen 9 OU’s issues, it only theoretically prevents inconveniences in ladder and tournament games from a surprise tera type.

oh, my bad, i missed that. i totally agree; i don't really like the idea of tera preview either. part of the skill expression of tera is figuring this stuff out in game, and it'd be a real shame if we lost that. previewless tera has innumerable benefits like incentivizing innovation and new teams, and allows less theoretically optimal styles to be viable, i think.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I would be very interested in seeing the usage of Tera blast amongst all lower tiers. I don't know how much it is used across all however I'd imagine it's nothing that should be ignored.

i covered some of this with my last post, but for a more complete view of things, here's all the mons in lower tiers that, as of the end of december, use tera blast enough to be mentioned by the stats page on either the 1630 or 1760 stats of the lowest tier they're allowed in:

uu:
rubl:

ru:
nubl:

nu:
publ:

pu:
zubl:

zu:

sub-zu

 

[JensenDale]

i covered some of this with my last post, but for a more complete view of things, here's all the mons in lower tiers that, as of the end of december, use tera blast enough to be mentioned by the stats page on either the 1630 or 1760 stats of the lowest tier they're allowed in:

uu:
rubl:

ru:
nubl:

nu:
publ:

pu:
zubl:

zu:

sub-zu

I am also interested in how many of these mons also have other sets, or multiple sets. I know for NU in particular with exception to porygon z (and even then I’m not even sure) that there are other sets that the mons usually run. I’ve personally known there are other sets for tauros, flygon, kilo, and typhoH

 

[JackRG]

What do people think of chansey rn? Needs lots of hazard control but it honestly is a pretty safe switch to a unrevealed kyurem

 

[Alternator]

Chansey is stall-only, and compared to Blissey, immensely more vulnerable to being chipped down due to lacking HDB. There's probably some madlad able to make it work (there's a guy running mono-poison stall at a respectable ELO), but in general it's just the inferior choice.

 

[Eeveeto]

^Neither Chansey nor Blissey are Stall only, though both are a little hard to use outside of the style. Main Blissey advantage over Chansey is not being able to run Boots, since Boots aren,t and never have been, mandatory on Blissey. The Main advantage is that Chansey does have Eviolite as mandatory item and is completely fucked by any surprise Knock Off, Trick/Switcheroo or even a random Thief (I miss Corrossive Gas, btw, instead of giving Knock Off to almost every relevant Mon, they shouldn,t have deleted the Gas in Gen 9, its a fair a balanced item removal move). Hazard weakness is obviously a minus, but its not the whole picture. Another Blissey advantage is being able to use Special moves without having to run CM 100% of the time to do it.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I am also interested in how many of these mons also have other sets, or multiple sets. I know for NU in particular with exception to porygon z (and even then I’m not even sure) that there are other sets that the mons usually run. I’ve personally known there are other sets for tauros, flygon, kilo, and typhoH

fair enough, tera blast is niche enough on many of those mons that a ban of it won't actually affect them. most of them have other sets that they use, so it's easier to just count the ones that use tera blast a lot of the time. so this time around, let's only count the pokemon that run tera blast 25% or more of the time:

uu:
rubl:

ru:
nubl:

nu:
(surprisingly not )
publ: none

pu:
zubl:

zu:
(realistically the sub-zu guys don't enter into this discussion much at all so i won't bother with them)

now, if we want only mons that use tera blast over any other set, we'll have to look only at stuff that has tera blast in the top 4 moves of its moveset. that gives us the following:

uu:
rubl:

ru: none
nubl:

nu: technically none, but i'm counting since tera blast is in fifth place and psychic/psyshock should probably be counted as one move
publ: none

pu:
zubl:

zu:

one final note: do still have other non-tb sets that are fairly commonly run, but everything else here leans on it extremely heavily