Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

I was running Tera Dark Bite for awhile, but it feels like Moltres is everywhere rn. Rest of the team is built to handle it but sometimes you really gotta just pop tera fire and go for that double tidy up when they try to wisp LOL.
I feel that part of using maushold is accepting it will have inconsistent matchups, and just putting it on a team that can deal with that.
 
If you aren't Tera Dark, you don't beat (healthy) offensive Gholdengo.

If you aren't Tera Ghost, you lose to ID/BP everything, though you can Encore if they go for the ID and double switch.

If you aren't Tera Fire, then Moltres and Talonflame beat you.


I'm a lousy builder, but I've been tinkering with normal spam (!!!): Ursaluna, Maushold, and Dragonite, with a Glowking to eat Fighting hits and offer the slow pivots all three crave. Each can get past Gholdengo, and then trying to have two of the three able to beat the other Ghosts and Steels.

Overload the checks and let either ESpeed or Population Bomb sweep.
 
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I’ve been gone from this thread for a while, but I’ve been wondering about this one team I saw a tournament clip of (SPL if I remember correctly?) where someone brought a team using HDB Entei as a burn-spreader with Sacred Fire. Helps it can actually hit Moltres with Stone Edge and just fast enough to outspeed Kyurem and the other sub-base 100s too.

Probably isn’t viable, but it does seem like a fun thing to play around with. What was the rest of the team like, anyways?
 
I’ve been gone from this thread for a while, but I’ve been wondering about this one team I saw a tournament clip of (SPL if I remember correctly?) where someone brought a team using HDB Entei as a burn-spreader with Sacred Fire. Helps it can actually hit Moltres with Stone Edge and just fast enough to outspeed Kyurem and the other sub-base 100s too.

Probably isn’t viable, but it does seem like a fun thing to play around with. What was the rest of the team like, anyways?
:ting-lu: :iron-valiant: :dragapult: :zapdos: :entei: :pecharunt: Nat (1-0) vs (0-1) oldspicemike :ogerpon-wellspring: :corviknight: :kyurem: :kingambit: :great-tusk: :enamorus:
ninth: I was already excited for this matchup, but then Nat pulled up with an Entei? I'm leaning all the way forward. Now, it does lose some of the aura by having Ting-Lu x Zapdos x Pecharunt hazard/status spamming, but the fact remains that Sacred Fire is one of the hardest moves to switch into. You can't safely bring in a Tusk or a Wellspring without risking a burn. With backup offensive conditions in Valiant and Dragapult, the team is pretty flexible overall but does seem centred around the Entei goobing. Conversely, oldspicemike has that Wellspring/Gambit/Tusk core that everybody loved in, like, September of last year. The goal here is just overwhelming the opponent with outstanding physical violence, then picking up the pieces with Enamorus and in this case Kyurem. I guess there's a Corviknight here too. Nat leads with Valiant, as even without Booster it outspeeds mike's entire team, which allows her to easily shift to Entei and start spamming Sacred Fire. Tusk takes a burn and instantly becomes a rocks bot, and in response Nat opts to go Ting-Lu and start setting up her own rocks. mike punishes with his Specs Kyurem, but Nat's happy to take some damage in exchange for chip - ah, wait, Ruination missed and Lu has to switch out now. This ends up being important later. Anyways, this just lets Boots Entei back in, who can now click Sacred Fire forever, especially because it thaws burns. The useless Tusk is sacrificed, and mike unseals his not-Boots Enamorus to take out Nat's Ting-Lu. Soon after, Nat uses her Iron Valiant to bait Tera Fairy out of Kingambit, going Zapdos to absorb the 2HKO and paralyze it first. This also ends up being important later.
Now, you may notice mike has no Ghost resists left and 2/5 mons are paralyzed. What follows is Nat sacking the low-health Entei, wasting Corviknight's recovers, and setting up for a Pecharunt Hex sweep. Several full paralyses on mike's Kingambit allow for chip on Corviknight, but the sweep can't happen until mike's Scarf Enamorus is abolished. To accomplish this, Nat sends out Valiant and immediately hits Tera Flying on the Earth Power. Insane turn that leads to a kill via Ice Punch. The last remaining winpath for mike requires his Kingambit to break paralysis once, just once, and kill Nat's Dragapult: this allows Kyurem to safely chip Pech enough for his full-health Wellspring to clean up. On the literal last possible turn, Gambit snaps out of it and mike Sucker Punches the Dragapult for the kill. From here, mike sacks Corviknight to bring in his Kyurem, attacks until he's dead, then the full-health Wellspring tanks a CC to finish off Valiant. One hell of a back-and-forth thriller with smooth plays on both sides. Absolute cinema.
Not sure if I did this quote right, but here's the write-up from that game, week 2 SPL, yeah. It's great at forcing burns onto stuff that would normally be tasked with taking physical Fire moves (dragons, Lando/Tusk, Hammy), and it's just got a nice meaty stat distribution that can allow it to trade well. Thudding into Mola isn't great, and I feel like it just doesn't really fill enough of the niches you generally want in a BO teamslot (you don't really break, you're not "slow" but you don't really offer speed control/cleaning, your defensive value is inhibited by the fact that the Ice/Fairy types you want a chunky Fire type to handle typically pack super-effective coverage for it), but who knows, maybe there's a consistent build somewhere with this idea. I think someone I remember someone on the Smogtours Discord saying that it feels great when it's hitting the burns and awful when it's not.
 
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Hey all, the newest slate of analyses for the OU tier is now open for reservation, for anyone interested in writing! Check the OP to see which Pokemon and sets are now available. This slate will focus on Pokemon ranked from B to C+ in the Viability Ranking, with some additional sets for higher-ranked Pokemon that have recently picked up in usage!
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-reservation-index.3714276/post-10443873
 
today we hold a vigil for the banned soldier DaddyBuzzwole. pay your respects today by sad reacting this post (or angry react if you supported the ban).
the f=ck happened?

to keep this OU related, I'm surprised Latios isn't being used more. It looks like Garchomp is going to be the flavour of the month mon that the community suddenly rediscovers after ignoring it for a long time, but I think Latios with its superior set variety, privoting, recover, breaking power, etc. is a better mon than Garchomp. Psynoise CM Recover is my favourite set.
 
to keep this OU related, I'm surprised Latios isn't being used more. It looks like Garchomp is going to be the flavour of the month mon that the community suddenly rediscovers after ignoring it for a long time, but I think Latios with its superior set variety, privoting, recover, breaking power, etc. is a better mon than Garchomp. Psynoise CM Recover is my favourite set.
I love Expert Belt Latios personally. The wide range of weirdo converage it has is soooo good and fun to spam. I've tried to use Specs and while it is good, the choice lock on a mon with that much variety feels so bad
 
Not sure if I did this quote right, but here's the write-up from that game, week 2 SPL, yeah. It's great at forcing burns onto stuff that would normally be tasked with taking physical Fire moves (dragons, Lando/Tusk, Hammy), and it's just got a nice meaty stat distribution that can allow it to trade well. Thudding into Mola isn't great, and I feel like it just doesn't really fill enough of the niches you generally want in a BO teamslot (you don't really break, you're not "slow" but you don't really offer speed control/cleaning, your defensive value is inhibited by the fact that the Ice/Fairy types you want a chunky Fire type to handle typically pack super-effective coverage for it), but who knows, maybe there's a consistent build somewhere with this idea. I think someone I remember someone on the Smogtours Discord saying that it feels great when it's hitting the burns and awful when it's not.
Actually going to update here because I tried to play around with it a bit (also it got brought to SPL again this week in Ahy Wddicted v. Fogbound Lake, but the game ended before it came out), so gonna add some jot-form notes here:
- I really, really wish Entei got Morning Sun. In theory a bulky spread could be good for checking like Val/Kyurem in addition to burn-spreading, but without recovery it just doesn't feel worth it. Besides, it really likes outspeeding Kyurem and Tusk, so there's a ton of opportunity cost for going bulky there too. It could have done a poor man's version of the bulky Volc/Goug sets from earlier metas, where it's a bulky fire that spreads burns, but both of those mons could pour all their EVs into bulk because they had reliable recovery and setup that addresses all that lost speed and power in a single turn. Entei just doesn't.
- I ran Sacred Fire/Stone Edge/Espeed/Roar. Edge sucks and mostly sucks to click but it at least deals with an obvious switch-in in Moltres and Entei doesn't really have other moves that seem worth using (it doesn't get EQ or HH, so if you want to hit Bolt/Tran then you're going to need to use Stomping Tantrum or Bulldoze and at that point why are you even clicking buttons with this mon). Espeed and Roar are actually really nice and useful for the mons Entei wants to check, so if I was to keep trying I think going the bulky route and accepting that you're either burning stuff on the switch or finishing it off with Espeed is the play.
- the Mola matchup is brutal, and Bolt is also brutal (more and more you see non-Booster Bolt so forcing it in isn't even really that valuable). Stuff like Garg or Tran are rarer but also brutal.
- I think Nat's build was the "better" of the two SPL Entei teams. The concept is that it's a Lu/Pech spikestack with several status spreaders for Pult and Pech to click Hex. I really don't like how Gambit-weak it is, and you can see that once Mike's gets para'd and clicks the Tera Fairy the team really just does not have good options for dealing with it. I'm kinda skeptical of Boots Val in general, I get why it's here since you want the secondary speed control and dropping boots is risky on this build considering how you're going to be conceding against spikestack, but it just feels too weak to me and Val's speed tier doesn't seem that impactful for me compared to the 350s.
- I don't really get why both these teams ran Zap with it, to be honest. I get that Zap is really good and it spreads status super well, but a) it accentuates the vulnerability to opposing Bolt and b) the main appeal of running Entei in the first place is spreading burns to Lando/Tusk and the Dragons, and like, Zap already handles those fine.
- My teambuilding gut was to start with Nat's concept (Entei/Lu/Pech/Pult), replace the Zapdos with a setup Bolt (which has a much easier time forcing through grounds and dragons when Entei burns them all), and replacing Val with another Boots speed control option that can cover the gaping hole to Dark types (like Zama or Keld), and like, I think there's something that can "work" here, but I'm not necessarily convinced there's something "good" here. I can't help but think that if you want a fire-type to force in grounds and dragons to spread burns you're probably better off using Cinderace, honestly. Would be happy to be proven wrong if anyone has cool ideas :))
 
the f=ck happened?

to keep this OU related, I'm surprised Latios isn't being used more. It looks like Garchomp is going to be the flavour of the month mon that the community suddenly rediscovers after ignoring it for a long time, but I think Latios with its superior set variety, privoting, recover, breaking power, etc. is a better mon than Garchomp. Psynoise CM Recover is my favourite set.
Couldn't agree more. Part of Garchomp's hype is that it isn't washed and deserves OU and all that jazz. Meanwhile, Latios gets lips service from some, despite technically fairing better in this meta than Chomp. Personally, i'm glad more and more people are subscribing to Latios. It really does deserve a lot of the hype it's getting.
 
is it just me, or has building become way more fun since the "discovery" of pecharunt? Fills so many holes in the builder which creates more breathing room for experimentation.
I've been using Pech for a longggggggggggg time and no joke, one of the single most fun pokemon on there. I'm still a big fan of my Tera Normal set up set but the defensive ones are very funny too. Chain can be annoying sure but I love the utility and gameplay around it, clear amulet as a counter rocks!
 
Replay from a cool Roaring Moon

While it didn't win (since I was a bit lucky with the freeze, gotta admit it) I think that this tera bug Roaring Moon set has potential. I know people are exploring TB Fairy right now, but I wanted to highlight Bug since, in a pinch, it is a really interesting tera type. You can safely set up on non Head Smash Tusk for example, or even win some BP Corvs sets if you taunt them quickly.

... If they had taunt, of course.
 
Replay from a cool Roaring Moon

While it didn't win (since I was a bit lucky with the freeze, gotta admit it) I think that this tera bug Roaring Moon set has potential. I know people are exploring TB Fairy right now, but I wanted to highlight Bug since, in a pinch, it is a really interesting tera type. You can safely set up on non Head Smash Tusk for example, or even win some BP Corvs sets if you taunt them quickly.

... If they had taunt, of course.

Mudkip Nerd was really ahead of his time.

If we gonna reuse old sets, Jaw Lock Roaring Moon could make a comeback too, at this point no one expects it anymore.
 
I always thought Tera Bug was interesting in theory. I just feel Tera Flying is overall a much better typing. Pretty much the same resistances with an additional resistance to Bug as well as immunity to all other Entry Hazards besides Rocks which both are weak to.

I guess the neutrality to Electric and Ice is pretty cool but overall, I prefer what Flying has to offer in the current meta
 
Is there any thought on paralysis atm? I'm seeing more and more teams carry 2-3 paralysis setters, usually in a way that pressures multiple pokemon so you feel awkward using the same pokemon to absorb it. Its easily the least fun status to play against, even sleep i didnt care as much because of sleep clause and it was limited to 3 turns maximum. (sleep talk even invalidated it somewhat if you felt a bit fruity).

I'm not starting a rant about it being uncompetitive, I didnt care about quick claw, and i dont think this is any worse, but its just extremely "not fun". Frankly i think gamefreak shouldve reworked it to remove immobilisation, maybe instead of speed reduction you just get a -1 priority on all moves. I dont see any way forward with this, hopefully gen 10 landscape is different enough to make it unviable.
 

Terastallization will remain legal in SV OU, SV DOU, SV Ubers, SV UU, SV RU, SV NU, SV PU, and SV LC throughout the entirety of generation nine!

For more: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/terastallizaion-tiering-update.3760202/
I believe the door should have been at least kept open personally, like I understand where the decision is coming from but the initial suspect was handled pretty poorly in some ways

I think shutting it out entirely is not the move, as things can change extremely quickly or even with time and the tier is in a rough spot enjoyment wise as is as is, so shutting out an option entirely is not the move when it's a potential option even if it's not a popular one

We could be back here in 10 years wanting it gone and this decision would prevent that, I think this should at least be lifted once scarlet and violet is an old gen if you all stick by this.
 
Good, I like undemocratic decisions as long as their point of view is the same as mine.
It was unanimous among all tier leaders and tiering admins involved after not receiving anywhere near close to enough survey support. Smogon is not a perfect democracy, but I was fully prepared for a second suspect back in mid-late 2023 and it just never gained traction, continued to lose steam from there, etc
 
I believe the door should have been at least kept open personally, like I understand where the decision is coming from but the initial suspect was handled pretty poorly in some ways

I think shutting it out entirely is not the move, as things can change extremely quickly or even with time and the tier is in a rough spot enjoyment wise as is as is, so shutting out an option entirely is not the move when it's a potential option even if it's not a popular one

We could be back here in 10 years wanting it gone and this decision would prevent that, I think this should at least be lifted once scarlet and violet is an old gen if you all stick by this.
from how I see it, this doesn't change much, it just puts the final nail in the coffin. We just need to accept gen 9 ou for what is it even if it's honestly (in my opinion don't crucify me) a clown show, old gens are right there too so you don't need to play gen 9 if you don't want to
 
Mostly I'm just not super on board with this decision as it feels like it is restrictive on what we can do to balance the tier, I am a believer that having more options is a good thing, and taking one route out of the picture however popular it might be feels like the wrong move long term as it limits options and could be bad if people change their minds on a whim

At least allow these discussions to happen again once this gen is an oldgen and reopen the door once all is said and done and we move on to a new gen
 
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