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Haven't seen rotom-wash in a while. Any suggestions on how to counter them?
Embarrassing Battle ^^"
I know ground types exist but water shuriken also exists (then maybe banning Water shuriken wouldn't be a bad idea..)
Edit: Swapped gengar with latios and changed kleavor with zarude. Surprisingly was now able to find a way to take it down while not losing much against others (other than bug types but that's a story for another day ^^")
let the creativity of STABmons flourish, I am going to do my part and hope others will take the same leap and share their opinions to prepare for a competitive OMPL. I apology due to lack of time not making this post more pretty.
https://tiermaker.com/create/stabmons-viability-rankings-17571346
big thanks to Slither Wing for making the vr, I hope others can share their version. I didn't play to long this tier to be comfortable to give a proper ranking but you can see my tendencies in the teams. While they don't cover my whole opinion they include mons you might see in my teams more than in others for now.
Final note:
Looking at Gen 7, 8, 9 and to some degree Gen 6 and helped me come up with new Structures for Teams. Maybe this can help you as well
Hey everyone! Checking in to announce the updated sample teams of STABmons. We're currently still looking for any teams the playerbase may have to submit. Feel free to send them and we will review them! Cheers, and have fun in OMPL!
TLDR: Water Shuriken, and Combat Torque gone, Manaphy, and Aqauanid are back.
Hey all. With OMPL's first few weeks underway, and recent discussion within the community, we saw it necessary to look over problematic moves in the metagame that have since been long overdue for taking some form of action on.
The first of which is Water Shuriken, this move has been in question for a long, long time, but always teetered the line between the community's overall reception of the move.
As of recent though, outcry against the move has grown far greater in recent times. With many of the other concerns now out of the way, we thought it was fit to come to a verdict on this move.
Water Shuriken
Neon
Restrict
xdRudi.exe
DNR
RoFnA
DNR
Bonk
Restrict
Kinetic
Restrict
As a result of recent voting. Water Shuriken is now Restricted in the STABmons metagame!
Water Shuriken has been highlighted as a problem for a very long time now, but as the metagame continued on, its become increasingly more apparent that this move causes far more harm than good to the health of the metagame. Having gotten two prior Pokemon banned entirely because of the move, and Rotom Wash, and Volcanion only getting better and better at abusing the move with no signs of stopping due to how easy it is for them to win games off of a single turn thanks to Water Shuriken's increased priority making revenge KOing them by the time they've gotten to take advantage of their set up options far easier said than done. This has given almost every Water Shuriken user a very suffocating presence against more offensively inclined teams, to say nothing of how difficult it is for balance teams to switch into the Water Shuriken users to begin with. As such, it has been decided that Water Shuriken is to be restricted to its native users in order to combat its effect on the metagame.
Speaking of combat...
Combat Torque
Neon
Restrict
xdRudi.exe
Restrict
RoFnA
Restrict
Bonk
Restrict
Kinetic
Restrict
Wow. Who could've possibly guessed that the no contact, 100 BP STAB Fighting move with the same chance to inflict a status that can shut down otherwise solid checks entirely on its own would be a tad bit too good? A lot of players will point towards Zamazenta being the main culprit, but this is far from the case. There's very good reason every, and any relevant Fighting type in the tier abuses this move to hell and back. Iron Hands, Iron Valiant, Annihilape, Urshifu Rapid Strike, Galarian Zapdos, Great Tusk, and Blaziken have been abusers of this move to dizzying effect, many of them winning the game off of a single bad Paralysis. As if it wasn't enough these Pokemon didn't have incredible tools to capitalize off of one bad turn already, Combat Torque easily allows them to set those up themselves without even having to make any other effort besides "Click big button you're probably clicking anyway". This is all without mentioning the ability to bypass contact effects naturally to prevent stopgaps like Beak Blast, and Burning Bulwark from consistently staving them off, which is especially pertinent in the case of Zamazenta, who abuses it with Bulk Up to effectively remove Beak Blast users as a means of checking it entirely. As such, because of the problem it posed with multiple different Pokemon, it has been decided by unanimous council vote, Combat Torque is now restricted in the STABmons metagame.
There's just one more thing to square away before signing off, and that's the Pokemon that have been unbanned as a result of Water Shuriken's restriction.
As many are aware, there are two particular Pokemon that got banned a while ago due to the absurd effects Water Shuriken had on them: Manaphy, and Araquanid. As such, with Water Shuriken being restricted, the council saw it fit to vote on both of them returning to the metagame.
Manaphy
Neon
Unban
xdRudi.exe
Unban
RoFnA
Unban
Bonk
Unban
Kinetic
Unban
Araquanid
Neon
Unban
xdRudi.exe
Unban
RoFnA
Unban
Bonk
Unban
Kinetic
Unban
As decided by unanimous council vote, Manaphy and Araquanid have been unbanned from the STABmons metagame!
Thank you for taking the time to look over this update. I understand some of these tiering actions have been a long time coming, and for that, I do apologize. Any tiering issues shall be tackled more aggressively in the near future, and we will be continuing to monitor input from the community on the tier's direction in the near future.
The OP states that Silvally is able to learn every Stabmons-legal move of every type (because it has every type available via RKS System forms) thusly got banned, which I can see why as it’s like Smeargle but with actual stats. A fair ban imo.
However, the banlist wasn’t indicating that right away though, which I found in both Smogon Strategy site and the OP of here. Wouldn’t hurt to include Silvally in the banlist so it’s consistent with what the Forme Type Changes said.
However, the banlist wasn’t indicating that right away though, which I found in both Smogon Strategy site and the OP of here. Wouldn’t hurt to include Silvally in the banlist so it’s consistent with what the Forme Type Changes said.
Hello! This is a minor thing I’ve found and it might already be addressed somewhere but:
The opposing Alomomola used Aqua Cutter!
(Kingambit lost 14.1% of its health!)
Kingambit used Hyperspace Fury!
(Only a Pokemon whose form is Hoopa Unbound can use this move.)
But Kingambit can't use the move!
If you load Hyperspace Fury on a non-Hoopa-U Pokemon, you get this message. I know this is probably intentional, and meant to mimic Cart accuracy. But for all intents and purposes, it would be very convenient to just restrict the move from all non-native users. It seems like something that could easily be missed if used by someone less experienced with the tier.
With OMPL coming to a close and STABmons Seasonal just starting, it may be a good time to address some of the major issues with the current meta. Banning Combat Torque and Water Shuriken were definitely a step in the right direction, but unfortunately it still feels like there's a long way to go.
Right now there are still moves and pokemon that are very overpowered and have limited counterplay. The meta is very match-up dependent. I'd even go as far to say that it just isn't competitive - eg it doesn't feel like the better player wins more often than not.
For a metagame that is being included in tournaments with stakes, this is far from ideal. I would not be surprised to see some major upsets in the seasonal as it stands.
For now, I'll just focus on some of the biggest issues:
Meloetta People have been pointing out its brokenness since as far back as 2023, and sadly it is no less broken now.
There's only one real problematic set:
Take Heart, Esper Wing, Boomburst, Recovery
Typically with an item to improve its bulk (eg Kee Berry, Grassy Seed, Colbur Berry)
The set not only hits like a truck - with Boomburst doing significant damage even to resists - but is extremely hard to revenge kill.
The combination of great bulk and power, Esper Wing boosting speed, and reliable recovery allow it to run away with games completely - with basically no counterplay available.
Typically status can be used to deal with set-up sweepers (eg Paralysis to allow you to outspeed them or Toxic to put them on a timer), but Take Heart eliminates both of these option.
I think there are valid arguments to be made for banning each of these moves individually (Take Heart, Esper Wing, Boomburst) - I personally feel that Take Heart should go - but Meloetta is able to find decent substitutes for each of the moves and still be a problem.
Similarly, I've tried running the exact same set on other pokemon (namely Farigiraf) and found that they were nowhere near as effective - due to much lower speed and much less power).
None of these teams were particularly "Meloetta-weak". The opponents had pokemon such as Ting-Lu, Gholdengo, Corviknight, Heatran, Sylveon, Kingambit, Weavile - all of which are either checks or able to revenge on paper - as well as priority attacks on their teams, but it was still able to sweep through with ease.
Despite being only part way through Week 1 of STABmons seasonal, Meloetta has already been doing Meloetta things.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9stabmons-2400430832-b8nu2fvkucxoy8pxfak8p8n296ausg0pw
Ultimately the Meloetta does not win in this game. However, it puts me in a position where I have to make extremely risky hard reads in order to avoid losing on the spot. (For example, I have to bring in Greninja on an Esper Wing whilst avoiding being KOed by Boomburst). This tips the game massively in favour of the Meloetta user - creating multiple 50/50s, which can just end the game on the spot. I also would have just lost on the spot if the Meloetta had been running max speed (and outsped Greninja at +1).
Even when Meloetta does not appear in the games, it causes massive strain on the teambuilder and renders so many teams just unviable since they are not able to revenge it once it starts setting up.
Torch Song This seems to be a bit more controversial, but I believe Torch Song to be a very unhealthy move.
Similarly to Meloetta, it creates situations where there just isn't any counterplay at zero risk to the user.
Typically, being able to bring a pokemon in on a resisted hit and then pivot into another pokemon is one of the fundamental ways to handle threatening attackers. Torch Song massively limits a player's ability to pivot - because you're now facing a boosted coverage move. (Or let's be honest, coverage is optional a lot of the time since with enough boosts you can power through your counters)
Being a sound move it can even be combined with the Throat Spray item for essentially a free Nasty Plot whilst attacking.
Again it is very restrictive in the builder - forcing players to run Assault Vests or priority moves on every team in order to not be swept by an Iron Moth, Volcarona, Blaziken or even a Heatran
It is a move that requires little skill or thought from the user, but can cheese wins from otherwise unwinnable positions.
A generous interpretation of this game might be that I weakened everything I need to facilitate an Armarouge sweep. Or that the opponent misplayed by letting certain pokemon get weakened or by activating Weak Armor.
The reality is: it was a failed match up fish - Sash Spam expecting offense into Lu-Pex balance, with counters for every mon. I got basically every turn wrong (bar 1 or 2). I was close to forfeiting because the game looked beyond lost. Got bailed out by spamming Torch Song. Realistically, Armarouge shouldn't be sweeping a team with a (almost full health) Ting-Lu and a Latias, but there we go.
Other moves, like Esper Wing and Lumina Crash are similarly able to bypass standard counter-play, but I'm less convinced about them being banworthy at this point.
Esper Wing boosting speed whilst also attacking is not dissimilar to moves like Trailblaze and Flame Charge - it just happens to have a higher BP, that makes it more viable as a primary STAB attack. And pokemon with Esper Wing also have access to Take Heart/Calm Mind - which is perhaps what makes it more problematic than those other moves
Surging Strikes / Jet Punch I've already written a lot at this point and don't really feel like writing that much more if I'm honest.
I don't think these are as immediately banworthy as Torch Song or Meloetta - but I definitely think they are borderline.
It is perhaps the fact that they can both be used together and combined with the Punching Glove item to bypass contact effects (which would be able to punish Surging Strikes especially).
Plus being on already powerful pokemon such as Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Crawdaunt, Samurott-H, Barraskewda, Quaquaval, etc makes them especially threatening
Sample Teams I've noticed whilst playing on the ladder and from general discussion that many of the sample teams are very weak to common threats in the metagame. I guess this is in part to the match-up issues that I alluded to earlier.
Zamazenta is the main one that stands out. The Sub Bulk Up set can pretty much 6-0 a bunch of the teams (consider this a heads up for anyone considering using them in the seasonal).
This is not because Zamazenta is broken and overpowered and uncounterable - there's actually way more you can do to handle Zamazenta than a lot of other pokemon in the metagame. It is more as a result of being over-reliant on Clear Smog Toxapex to handle set-up pokemon. Any Substitute set-up attacker can cause issues for such teams, but Zamazenta just happens to match up especially well vs the teams in question.
Ultimately, it's just hard/impossible to cover for everything - particularly in such a high powered meta - but I think covering for the commonly used pokemon is advisable.
Hopefully taking some action to deal with some of the more problematic elements would ease up the strain on teambuilding and make match-up issues less signifcant
wanted 2 chime in @ above as someone whos used melo a fair bit in tours.
I think Meloetta is absurdly broken and should go. Normal and Psychic are some top typings in stab for moves they get access to, and melo takes perfect advantage of every strong tool it has in its disposal, this is to say that i dont think the melo issue is a boomburst or take heart issue, these moves are fine on their own and idt something like arbolivia or latias are good enough to warrant action on elements that make meloetta problematic.
Something that word didnt mention that i think is one of meloettas biggest breaking points is is that it is so abusrdly easy to support, because it requires very specific counterplay that is easy to punish. this team is one ive used a bunch in tours / tests. Bunch of mons that can spread burn on stuff like Ting, TTar, or Corv, notably Darkrai as it forces in alot of spdef mons that are also tasked with checking melo, and Stealth Rocks is basically all that Meloetta needs to weaken opposing teams into range that it can just win on the spot, or break enough holes so that i win.
Stab open r1 vs rudi gives me an insane melo match up on lead, as it threatens to ohko or 2hko every mon on his team, notably torkoal who would be the obvious lead, meloetta then proceeds to trade itself for 50% on wake, KO iron moth, and almost take out raging bolt before going down, causing me to win. In Seasonal against QT i show why wisp + knock rai is such a good melo partner, forcing burn on ttar (and also like burning ting or knocking something like heatran) lets melo 1v1 it which is completely insane considering how theres a slowking on the opposing team asw, melo should never get a kill here but because of how easily its teammates facilitate it it just gets to absolutely go in. this ompl game is also interesting to me bc idt kaif is using a team weak into melo, but melo has such an easy time teching for its counters/checks (colbur for sucker weav in this case) that it just wins
I would really like to know what council thinks abt meloetta and the current meta in general, and if theres any further plans to ban something soon
w1 (W) - - replay - song
First week of building and I knew Zamazenta was the #1 broken in the tier. Went for a more offensive approach here since I'm more comfy with fast paced offense. Didn't play the best and I got bailed by parahax so there's that. AV Gambit was stolen from Rudi and I liked it as a quick stopgap to Ghold and Latios. AV Prim patches up the Wake and Keldeo mu.
Yeah so I decided to misclick and bring w1's team instead of the team I wanted to bring (will be posted below!). It had a pretty good mu into their team anyway and I hastily clicked Sacred Fire on turn 9 forgetting that Sunsteel would bypass Sturdy but thankfully I am never punished. Was a very productive 23 turns clicking Knock Off just to get Lando in safely but apparently Pex wasn't even Scald so..
w3 (L) - - replay
Special spam! Was expecting either some form of stall bc pannu knows that I am a dirty loser who will cheese whenever they can. Unfortunately I loaded into Sylveon which was basically an autoloss. Pretty fun webs team though; the Gholdengo is designed to brute force its way through stall while still being an annoying fuck. Tail Glow Volcarona was the Pex lure of choice here, with +3 LO Psychic being able to OHKO it. The rest are either your typical webs mainstays or in Rotom-W's case a Scarf Lando-T answer since he's always annoying for webs. Tunneled into thinking Moltres was Scorching Sands and went to Bolt too early and the game spiraled down from there.
w4 (L) - - replay
I got ask to rfn in 8h's time when I was about to sleep so of course I accepted it. I'm not really too proud of the team since I barely worked on it and practiced with it and couldn't find the team's issues. Using Weavile as my only breaker into a Pex mu where I couldn't get Spikes up fast enough was rough.
w5 (W) - - replay - song
After going through numerous breakdowns trying to make different teams work, I came across a stroke of enlightenment. This Tier Is Fucked Up. And so I decided to go with not one, but two Take Heart cheesers which makes it much harder to check if your only hope is tricking a Choice Scarf to one of the cheesers early on. The team does lose to any form of phazing, and luckily my opponent had none which led to Zamazenta stealing the spotlight and winning on the spot.
Shoutout to BoingK for checking my sanity and input on my teams! This was a fun season even if I ended up with a pretty eh 3-2 and I lost my sanity numerous times while building.
Other teams - song
The team meant for week 2. Relies on my lazy but reliable LuPexSylveon core with a Lando to check 80% of the scary threats. Iron Hands is also one fucked up monster that farms a shitton of cores rn but he never saw the light of day.
I posted in OMcord about my thoughts but I think Zamazenta is a big issue rn, it's incredibly easy to start setting up and fits pretty easily on offense since Its A Fucking Zamazenta. Without specifics answers or just loading into a bad mu and it's incredibly easy to find yourself 6-0ed like in my w5 match. Take Heart is another issue imo, and a bigger one than that of Esper Wing, since you don't necessarily need to be getting Speed boosts to be an annoying fuck. Take Espathra as an example, while it does have an arguably worse type than Meloetta and doesn't have as much bulk, it naturally gets Speed Boost which removes the need for Esper Wing to go even further with Stored Power. I do agree that Esper Wing is part of the issues with the tier, but personally I think a Take Heart restrict would be the better move atm. Torch Song is definitely worth a look at too, with how accessible it is and easy to start piling up boosts with it.
I think the issue with the tier atm is that we are too slow with tiering action. There are definitely a lot of suspicious elements roaming the tier (like SStrikes, the stuff i mentioned earlier, hell even meloetta as a whole) but I am under the impression that the council is extremely divided in their perspectives and what they think is potentially banworthy and what isn't. However there is a lot of outcry against numerous elements and surely it is loud enough for tiering action to be done quickly? I know that there is a survey that should be dropping post-OMPL but I hope that all tiering decisions can be done faster if there is a wide majority of players supporting it.
Meloetta's combination of setup moves, powerful attacks, and high stats has proven it to be too difficult to handle. With Take Heart to nullify status from moves like Mortal Spin, Esper Wing to prevent it from being revenge killed, and Boomburst to deal significant damage to even Dark-types like Ting-Lu and Kingambit, Meloetta was nearly an unstoppable force that could easily win most games on the spot. Items like Kee Berry could easily let it snowball even further and let it set up in the face of physical attackers like the aforementioned Dark-types, which has been demonstrated in several tournament games where it easily snowballs out of control. For these reasons and with community support the council has decided to quickban Meloetta.
Haven't seen rotom-wash in a while. Any suggestions on how to counter them?
Embarrassing Battle ^^"
I know ground types exist but water shuriken also exists (then maybe banning Water shuriken wouldn't be a bad idea..)
Edit: Swapped gengarwith latios and changed kleavor with zarude. Surprisingly was now able to find a way to take it down while not losing much against others (other than bug types but that's a story for another day ^^")
I think max SpD Lanturn should be the perfect counter thanks to Volt Absorb, but it might have Grass type moves or Freeze-Dry. Clodsire is also a counter thanks to its Ground typing and Water Absorb. It takes just little damage from Ice Beam and stalls it out with Toxic, Recover, removes Nasty Plot / Torch Song boosts with Haze or Clear Smog. Appletun is another example, has a 1/4 resistance in both water and electric, takes half damage from fire and only x2 from Ice thanks to Thick Fat. Leech Seed + Spiky Shield plus Matcha Gocha are used to stall Rotom-Wash.
Continuing on from my OMPL team dump.
Here are a couple of teams I built during OMPL but didn't get around to using.
I was going to include many more teams, but I ended up writing way more on each team than I intended, so I'll just focus on a couple for now and then maybe post some more another time.
The thought processes behind the teams may be more useful than the actual teams themselves.
While they are capable of winning, they are also vulnerable to the "match-up roulette" issues that are common in this metagame.
Deoxys Hazard Stack HO
This was the first SV STABmons team I built. I wanted something quick and easy to use on the ladder so I could get a better feel for the metagame, so I decided to use one of my favourite archetypes - lead Deoxys-S HO.
Since hazard removal is more widespread in this metagame - and some of the methods (eg Tidy Up/Court Change/Sylveon's Rapid Spin) can even bypass Gholdengo - people typically favour hazard setters that are durable and can repeatedly set hazards over the course of the game. Dedicated hazard setting suicide leads (with the exception of some Sticky Web users) tend to be quite uncommon.
They can definitely be effective though - just look at all the powerful sweepers that are available which can benefit from hazard support.
Some planning is required in the builder though - and the game must be played carefully - to ensure that you don't end up playing 5v6 (and with no hazards up to show for it).
Maintaining offensive pressure is key with a team like this. You need to keep the opponent on the backfoot. Ideally, they don't get an opportunity to remove your hazards, and if they do you have to make it cost them.
The Deoxys-S set is a pretty standard double hazards set. Red Card is the item of choice as you usually have the bulk to live at least one hit anyway and Red Card can be quite disruptive. Wasting Booster Energies can be especially useful.
I opted for Lumina Crash over Healing Wish or some other alternative for a few reasons:
First of all, being able to break Focus Sashes or Sturdy can be a game-saver. Without an actual attack, there's not much from stopping something like a Sash Yanmega from clicking Tail Glow and potentially ending the game right there.
Lumina Crash also allows me to create set-pieces with Iron Moth and Gholdengo. If I bring in Iron Moth on a mon that's at -2 SpDef, I either get a KO right there or a big hit off and a boost on whatever switches in.
Booster Speed Iron Moth is very scary with hazard support and can very quickly snowball out of control with Torch Song boosts. It is, however, quite vulnerable to priority attacks and can't always break dedicated special walls from full health - so is often best saved until mid to late game. Iron Moth also gives us a fast Mortal Spin (that most Steel types do not want to attempt to block). It is not always worth spinning - but sometimes preserving Ogerpon's Sturdy can win the game.
Gholdengo is primarily there to ensure hazards don't get removed. However, the Nasty Plot + Psyshock set is a powerful breaker in its own right. I sometimes run Focus Blast over Tachyon Cutter as it does more damage to Ting-Lu, Kingambit, Tyranitar, and others.
Urshifu is running Thunder Punch with an Adamant nature since that gives it a good chance to OHKO Toxapex after a Swords Dance (after Stealth Rock and a Layer of Spikes). Being able to remove one of the most common spinners and one of the best Iron Moth checks is more valuable to this team than Fighting STAB would be (although I definitely miss it at times).
Kingambit offers strong priority, as well as checking mons like Latios and Gholdengo which are otherwise quite difficult to deal with. With Black Glasses, a few Supreme Overlord boosts and hazard support Kingambit can be very dangerous.
Kingambit also functions as a secondary Mortal Spin blocker. A Covert Cloak can be considered to make switching in to potential Scalds and Infernal Parades less risky.
Lastly, but not least-ly, is Ogerpon-C. Hard enough to wall as it is, but with hazards up it becomes an even harder task.
Diamond Storm is the Rock STAB of choice since it is non-contact and that 50% chance of a defense boost can be a game-changer. Horn Leech lets you get back to full health and re-activate Sturdy. Sacred Fire hits Steel types.
This team works particularly well against fatter & more passive teams. Since the hazards and the multiple set-up pokemon can quickly overwhelm them. However, the multiple priority moves and set-up sweeper can also give offensive teams a lot of trouble.
Some of the tougher pokemon to deal with are Raging Bolt, Gholdengo, Zamazenta, things that are very fast (eg Scarf Latios, Booster Energy Iron Valiant, Booster Energy Iron Boulder), and things with very strong priority (eg Lokix, Araquanid).
Corrosion Glimmora Balance
This is also an earlier team I made - before I started noticing a lot of issues with using balanced teams. I initially scrapped it because it seemed overly passive and looked like it lost to too many things. But when I came back to it a bit later, it didn't seem quite as bad as I'd first thought - still not perfect, but useable. I ended up using it for round 1 of seasonal and it performed well enough.
The team was built around this Corrosion Glimmora set that I had theorised awhile ago.
Glimmora @ Black Sludge
Ability: Corrosion
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 244 HP / 8 Def / 16 SpD / 240 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Spiky Shield
- Toxic
- Salt Cure
Anyone who has played any Random Battles should know that Corrosion Toxic is one of the free-est clicks in the game - there's very few pokemon that can switch into it (Clefable, Gliscor, Gholdengo, Garganacl) and they aren't that common in STABmons. Anyone that has used (or faced) a Garganacl also knows that Salt Cure is one of the free-est clicks in the game. So having both on the same pokemon seemed pretty appealing. The result is essentially SubToxic Gliscor on steroids - a passive damage machine.
Even though it looked great in theory, I had trouble getting the set to work for awhile. Glimmora's bulk just seemed to be lacking. I wasn't able to stall anything out the way I had imagined because it was really hard to switch into anything and the a lot of mons could exploit its common Water, Ground, & Psychic weaknesses.
I did try coming back to it every now and then though - especially with the encouragement of betathunder and some of my other OMPL team-mates. It wasn't until the following battles until it really started to click though:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9stabmons-2399717428-dxw40t3ab4wqxce1kot363hntpsbnq2pw
Here I finally got to test the set against the kind of team it should in theory do well against. I was pretty impressed by it overall, but the Toxapex interaction really got my attention. If I'd gone into Clodsire to block the Flip Turn that would have been 87% damage on Pex for basically free (3 turns Salt Cure, + a Spiky shield)
Looking at the list of mons that Glimmora isn't so good against, I noticed that Greninja was able to deal with all of them so I figured that would be a good partner.
With some of the most broken moves in the meta being Torch Song, Surging Strikes, and Jet Punch the double immunity core of Water Absorb Clodsire and Flash Fire Heatran seemed like it could be strong - so I ended up trying them on this team. A lot of my earlier builds were taking multiple separate ideas that seemed like they could be good and putting them together and seeing what worked.
A lot of the other broken moves in the meta are Psychic and Normal type moves so the double steel core of Heatran and Skarmory also seemed like it was worth trying out.
All 3 pokemon in the defensive core have moves that can inflict status (Mortal Spin, Beak Blast, Burning Bulwark). This was an intentional decision as extra sources of passive damage seemed like a good way to get the most out of Glimmora's Salt Cure.
Scream Tail is kind of a weird mon. It has basically Uber level stats (aside from its offenses) and great typing - particularly useful in STABmons as it naturally checks big threats like Latios and Zamazenta. Psychic/Fairy/Fire is also great offensive coverage. Not only does it hit the common defensive core of Toxapex, Ting-Lu, and Corviknight super-effectively, but it is just strong into the metagame in general. Most teams (including this one) have 4+ pokemon weak to those types.
Having access to higher BP attacks does slightly mitigate Scream Tail's poor offensive stats - although it is still very weak. However, after doing a bunch of calcs - I noticed that after a Take Heart or two it does actually start to get KOs on a lot of things.
I'd never managed to get it to fit on a team before - I always wished I just had something more immediately powerful. But I figured that if it's going to fit on any team, it might be this one that is heavily focussed on dealing passive damage. I might be able to weaken stuff just enough for Scream Tail to clean up.
----------------------
Hopefully I haven't rambled on too much. Insight and context is always useful to go with teams, but perhaps it's better in moderation
Just out of curiosity and sorry if it was discussed in the past, but why is Urshifu Single strike banned? Is it mostly because of wicked blow (if so why not ban just the move instead of restricting it) or is it the dark fighting stab too oppressive in the meta?
I used to think the water version was stronger, as surging strikes breaks subs and jet punch is just better than sucker. Also defensive lando T being so prevalent, plus fairy types just exisiting.
It was just an out of the blue thought, I might be very wrong lol.
Posting the stuff I used for omfl since our team is out
Week 1 - - L
I’m a NDOU player so you can see where I took inspiration with this build. I wanted to try sd knock roost Scizor since with roost it felt like it could function effectively in a svou-esque environment which is what I was expecting as my first time going into the tier (spoiler: it was not). I was really annoyed playing walking wake in some of the games I played at first with other teams so I wanted to use my goat Primarina which is probably a B- level mon rn I think in such an offensive meta where it can fit excellently. My set was kinda ass but it was basically the best walking wake counter I could think of, and moonlight Prima seemed heat to me on this more bo kind of build than av would. In the actual game I think I played well but some hax that didn’t go my way sealed the game.
Week 2 - - W
Another one of my cooks. For those who aren’t familiar with my building style I like to take inspiration from svou / past gen ou teams and build off of those. I took this one Darkrai zama weezing fat structure I saw in wcop and edited it for the stab meta. Latios was originally a Darkrai but I wanted some way of checking Rotom wash and other steam eruption balance breakers like volcanion. It also breaks pex balance cores well so there’s that. Weezing Galar is also a mon that should be explored imo, on fat disrupting stuff like Gliscor and importantly regen mons is extremely good. In the game, I played pretty decently around a specs bolt arch squad which was very nice pickings for both latios and Gliscor. Don’t let Lando / ting lu getting recovery fool you; Gliscor is still doing Gliscor things.
Week 4 -
- L
This week I used one of word’s teams since he was supporting me so no paste here. I had a case of builder block this week and I was swamped with other tours and didn’t really have time to test so I just asked for a bo build. Idea is double removal to facilitate band weavile. Unfortunately in the game I got matchup’d as I couldn’t do anything about iron moth + Kingambit, so not much I could do there.
Week 5 - - L
Another word team so no paste. I don’t know how but it wasn’t until this week that I realized offense / ho are extremely dominant in this tier and that there is no way one can prep for all these threats on a balance alone. The opponent seemed to like balance a good amount so this seemed like a solid chance to bring ho. This team was good and it did what it was supposed to do but in the game I ended up in a dicey endgame with a scarf Ghold where I got literally every turn wrong and lost.
Semis - - L
This was another one of my builds but this was the one game where I felt like I actually got outplayed / just loaded a not very great team. I decided to try gterrain + iron hands this week since the opponent was a big fan of pex + ground balance cores. The other form of synergy was in the special offense core of Prima + gseed Ghold + knock Lorb Darkrai, which overwhelms every special wall in the tier excellently so (hopefully) gseed Ghold can win in the end. Unfortunately I played like shit in the actual game because I was really out of it that week after losing a ton of other important tours, and I didn’t really prep to the best of my ability, thus ending my omfl run to a final record of 1-4 lol.
I remember having a friend recently talk to me about how records don’t really paint a full picture in a teamtour and this was probably a good example of that lol. Decent bit of bad mus / turns or hax that didn’t go my way with little in return. However at the end of the day it’s omfl so it doesn’t really matter lol. Hopefully next year once I become a player of its caliber I can play stab again in OMPL if it ends up in a state where I enjoy playing it better.
As for my thoughts on the meta in general, I feel it’s a lot like other SV metas where the tier isn’t bad but that there is so much bullshit that you can stack / load on ho or offense that can just matchup fish you if you aren’t prepared for it, and there’s a lot of that you have to prepare for, making building the tier more of a headache. Balance feels really awkward to run rn because of all the offensive threats that easily overwhelm these kinds of structures. I don’t know exactly what you’d target first since I haven’t played a lot of this tier compared to others but this is just some food for thought.
in a while. Any suggestions on how to counter them?
with latios
and changed kleavor
with zarude
. Surprisingly was now able to find a way to take it down while not losing much against others (other than bug types but that's a story for another day ^^")
offense
+ 
Sun with Solar Beam 
should be the perfect counter thanks to Volt Absorb, but it might have Grass type moves or Freeze-Dry. Clodsire 
is also a counter thanks to its Ground typing and Water Absorb. It takes just little damage from Ice Beam and stalls it out with Toxic, Recover, removes Nasty Plot / Torch Song boosts with Haze or Clear Smog. Appletun 
is another example, has a 1/4 resistance in both water and electric, takes half damage from fire and only x2 from Ice thanks to Thick Fat. Leech Seed + Spiky Shield plus Matcha Gocha are used to stall Rotom-Wash.
