Be interesting to see the % split when all is said and done. Almost always if it takes some time to get results it's because the vote is tight, think most of the tight races ended up being Do Not Ban vs ban. On the case of roaring moon if I was a betting digimon it would fall on the side of remaining unbanned .
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 ( NEW SURVEY UP, POST 20,700 )
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
The qualified thread seemed to lean towards banning. Two sides to every argument as usual but the case for banning seemed a lot more compelling in this case. Hopefully hear something soon
Hello everyone.
I want to start by saying that I do not enjoy this meta.
You might think it has to do with Roaring Moon, or Waterpon, or Kyurem, or Gliscor. It doesn’t. This is also not an anti-Tera post. Tera isn’t getting banned and personally Tera provides a lot of skill expression and encourages game-to-game planning.
I don’t think any form of banning with solve the thing holding SV OU back from being an enjoyable and competitive metagame. To sum it up.
Favorable/Unfavorable matchups have always existed in competitive play regardless of the game, but SV OU is a tier where matchups are so polarizing, they wind up being the deciding factor of a match for the most part.
The meta is like this because…
-SV OU is simultaneously the easiest and hardest gen to play in. Due to the absurd power creep brought in, we have a gigantic pool of hyper-optimized threats. You got braindead shit like Samurott, Ting-Lu, Valiant, Waterpon, Gambit, and Gholdengo running around. Even stuff from old gens like Gking, Dnite, Zapdos, and Mola are stupidly easy to click with. None of these are broken threats, but they lead to auto-piloty game play with low risk and insane rewards. They’re tailored to dominate one matchup or the other. Samurott and Waterpon shred Balances to an unreasonable degree. Dragonite has a million different sets and you risk losing for not guessing the right one. Ting-Lu never dies and shits out spikes everywhere. Mixed DD Kyurem 6-0s alot of Balances. Zapdos and Moltres are gamblers. Pecha is an overly optimized physical wall that Game Freak gave Parting Shot for whatever fucking reason.
Even outside of the typical HO/BO/Balance structures, you have ridiculously good enablers of Sun, Webs, and Stall. These have incredibly one-sided matchups. Sun deletes the fuck out of Balance/Stall because Specs Proto SpA Wake 2HKOs resists for some fucked up reason. Dozo is a perfectly optimized Unaware wall that shuts down a majority of physical offense and Stall in general incentivizes a dedicated Stall Breaking core. Which would be easier said than done if dealing with HO and dumbass Waterpon wasn’t an issue. Gholdengo catapulted Webs to OU viability, making Corv irrelevant vs Webs and making Boots mandatory on Tusk, otherwise Tusk has no shot at removing Webs. Webs vs HO is a near guaranteed ggs if they don’t have some shit like Hatt.
When you consider the fact that the average ladder player has to face all of Balance, BO, HO, Stall, Sun, and Webs. It creates a frustrating ladder experience where you lose ELO because you ran into Webs with your HO 5 times in a row. You could insert some anti-Webs tech, but you have to account for the dozens of other standard threats you need to face. The chaotic and unpredictable environment of SV OU leads to one-sided games. I’ve managed to score wins off much better players because I brought in a mon that utterly 6-0d them. This is even worse in the tournament scene where players are more encouraged to actively cheese each other.
Regardless of what you think is broken or not. Rewarding a playerbase for matchup fishing instead of improving as a player is not good for the tier’s health. Its reminiscent of Gen 5 OU which also has polarizing matchups.
Unfortunately there isn’t an easy solution. We could ban a couple threats, but nothing can reverse the damage caused by Game Freak introducing mons with inflated stats and optimized tool kits.
If you hate SV OU. Play another format, or even play a different game. Pick up a new hobby. Which is what I’ve done lately. Everytime I feel like I’m enjoying the format, I get reminded constantly on why I despise it. So I’ve gotten into interests like Hollow Knight, sketching, script writing, reading books, and editing. I don’t need Pokemon anymore to satisfy my dopamine sensors.
I will continue making posts in the forums and remain active on Discord, I will still make teams, but I’m gonna remove myself from the atrocity that is laddering in SV OU as much as I could.
I want to start by saying that I do not enjoy this meta.
You might think it has to do with Roaring Moon, or Waterpon, or Kyurem, or Gliscor. It doesn’t. This is also not an anti-Tera post. Tera isn’t getting banned and personally Tera provides a lot of skill expression and encourages game-to-game planning.
I don’t think any form of banning with solve the thing holding SV OU back from being an enjoyable and competitive metagame. To sum it up.
The Metagame Encourages Matchup Fishing
In a post made by volcanionisgood , he brought up how SPL players outsmart themselves by running sub-optimal sets to cteam each other. I don’t think most SPL players are unskilled tryhards, but I believe SPL is a showcase of what the meta looks like, and it doesn’t look great. Players aren’t thinking about their gameplan like in any other generation, but rather how hard they can 6-0 the opponent.
Favorable/Unfavorable matchups have always existed in competitive play regardless of the game, but SV OU is a tier where matchups are so polarizing, they wind up being the deciding factor of a match for the most part.
The meta is like this because…
-SV OU is simultaneously the easiest and hardest gen to play in. Due to the absurd power creep brought in, we have a gigantic pool of hyper-optimized threats. You got braindead shit like Samurott, Ting-Lu, Valiant, Waterpon, Gambit, and Gholdengo running around. Even stuff from old gens like Gking, Dnite, Zapdos, and Mola are stupidly easy to click with. None of these are broken threats, but they lead to auto-piloty game play with low risk and insane rewards. They’re tailored to dominate one matchup or the other. Samurott and Waterpon shred Balances to an unreasonable degree. Dragonite has a million different sets and you risk losing for not guessing the right one. Ting-Lu never dies and shits out spikes everywhere. Mixed DD Kyurem 6-0s alot of Balances. Zapdos and Moltres are gamblers. Pecha is an overly optimized physical wall that Game Freak gave Parting Shot for whatever fucking reason.
Even outside of the typical HO/BO/Balance structures, you have ridiculously good enablers of Sun, Webs, and Stall. These have incredibly one-sided matchups. Sun deletes the fuck out of Balance/Stall because Specs Proto SpA Wake 2HKOs resists for some fucked up reason. Dozo is a perfectly optimized Unaware wall that shuts down a majority of physical offense and Stall in general incentivizes a dedicated Stall Breaking core. Which would be easier said than done if dealing with HO and dumbass Waterpon wasn’t an issue. Gholdengo catapulted Webs to OU viability, making Corv irrelevant vs Webs and making Boots mandatory on Tusk, otherwise Tusk has no shot at removing Webs. Webs vs HO is a near guaranteed ggs if they don’t have some shit like Hatt.
When you consider the fact that the average ladder player has to face all of Balance, BO, HO, Stall, Sun, and Webs. It creates a frustrating ladder experience where you lose ELO because you ran into Webs with your HO 5 times in a row. You could insert some anti-Webs tech, but you have to account for the dozens of other standard threats you need to face. The chaotic and unpredictable environment of SV OU leads to one-sided games. I’ve managed to score wins off much better players because I brought in a mon that utterly 6-0d them. This is even worse in the tournament scene where players are more encouraged to actively cheese each other.
Regardless of what you think is broken or not. Rewarding a playerbase for matchup fishing instead of improving as a player is not good for the tier’s health. Its reminiscent of Gen 5 OU which also has polarizing matchups.
Unfortunately there isn’t an easy solution. We could ban a couple threats, but nothing can reverse the damage caused by Game Freak introducing mons with inflated stats and optimized tool kits.
If you hate SV OU. Play another format, or even play a different game. Pick up a new hobby. Which is what I’ve done lately. Everytime I feel like I’m enjoying the format, I get reminded constantly on why I despise it. So I’ve gotten into interests like Hollow Knight, sketching, script writing, reading books, and editing. I don’t need Pokemon anymore to satisfy my dopamine sensors.
I will continue making posts in the forums and remain active on Discord, I will still make teams, but I’m gonna remove myself from the atrocity that is laddering in SV OU as much as I could.
This post made helped me put into words what feels so weird about this generation. It feels like I'm playing an OM. All OMs have that fishy feeling but that's part of the fun, it's not serious and it's not particularly annoying if you lose a couple of matches. But this is OU we're talking about and we're being asked to make a serious tier out of a completely unserious generation. Paradox Pokemon have legendary stat spreads and movepools, tera is as matchup fishy as it gets, and signature moves/ abilities are so widespread its caused countless arguments about the appropriate course of action. (See shed tail, rage fist, last respects, kings rock, sleep moves, quick claw, ceaseless edge) We wasted weeks discussing each of these.
I know we do the best we can but I look forward to hopefully returning to some sort of normalcy with the next generation.
Been enjoying Zapdos-G on this Glimmora HO, I stole the set from some other guy a few pages back
https://pokepast.es/b2efdb9778b7f140
Like someone else said before with a lot of spdf it can set up a sub on a lot of mons like Alo, Gliscor, Garg, Ting-lu etc. On the team it pairs well with Glimmora because it can deter/ heavily threaten lando, Ting-lu, and samurott-H leads because of both defiant and it's stab thunderous kick. It matches up well into fatter teams it can even beat a dozo considering unaware doesn't ignore the def drops from thunderous kick. It also serves well as well as being a good answer to gambit. Roaring moon is a great partner for Zapdos-G because it cripples/KO's on Zap's walls, which are reg Zapdos, reg Moltres, and Ghold. I opted for tera fire fire fang because it's pretty funny when people think it's a common set and I just get a cheese win, BUT it also helps more with burn and deals with corviknight, ice shard, and bullet punch. The rest of the team is pretty standard.
And if Roaring moon gets banned(likely) I'm thinking something with a weavile, and then replacing bolt with something else.
Here's a few replays of the team in action:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2332376827-psyxje9ecwpmyu0lynwn66j1pancct3pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2330850452
https://pokepast.es/b2efdb9778b7f140
Like someone else said before with a lot of spdf it can set up a sub on a lot of mons like Alo, Gliscor, Garg, Ting-lu etc. On the team it pairs well with Glimmora because it can deter/ heavily threaten lando, Ting-lu, and samurott-H leads because of both defiant and it's stab thunderous kick. It matches up well into fatter teams it can even beat a dozo considering unaware doesn't ignore the def drops from thunderous kick. It also serves well as well as being a good answer to gambit. Roaring moon is a great partner for Zapdos-G because it cripples/KO's on Zap's walls, which are reg Zapdos, reg Moltres, and Ghold. I opted for tera fire fire fang because it's pretty funny when people think it's a common set and I just get a cheese win, BUT it also helps more with burn and deals with corviknight, ice shard, and bullet punch. The rest of the team is pretty standard.
And if Roaring moon gets banned(likely) I'm thinking something with a weavile, and then replacing bolt with something else.
Here's a few replays of the team in action:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2332376827-psyxje9ecwpmyu0lynwn66j1pancct3pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2330850452
You won't get the normalcy you desire with Gen 10 as the trend with Pokemon as generations go by is more and more powercreep. Gen 10 will probably have even more high BST mons with insane signature moves/abilities, and we might even get another strong battle gimmick on top of having Mega Evolutions return with all or just the new Mega Evolutions getting signature moves.
Gen 4 was the physical/special split, which increased the power level of the tier a lot.
Gen 5 was the permaweather generation, which again, increased the power level a lot.
Gen 6 was the introduction of Megas, which again increased the power level of the tier
Gen 7 introduced Z-Moves while also keeping Megas all while introducing the Tapus and the Ultra Beasts, which increased the power level of the tier
Gen 8 introduced Dynamax, which increased power the level of the tier to such an extreme degree to the point that it was banned from Smogon since it made the tier unplayable. Multiple strong Pokemon with powerful signature moves such as Dragapult (Dragon Darts and a crazy speed tier), Melmetal (Double Iron Bash and crazy stats 135 HP/143 Att/143 Def was insane), Rillaboom (Grassy Glide), and Urshifu-Rapid Strike (Unseen Fist and Surging Strikes), as well as Triple Axel Weavile were all potent offensive threats although the power level was lower than that of Gen 7 since we lost Megas and Z-Moves.
Gen 9 introduced Terastal and a lot of mons with crazy statlines and powerful signature moves or signature abilities or even both (Gholdengo, Kingambit, Pecharunt, Samurott-Hisui, Ting-Lu, the Paradox Pokemon), Garganacl, Ogerpon-Wellspring, the dropping of Zamazenta, and the introduction of Psychic Noise.
I believe OU is closing in on multiple cover legendaries dropping to OU in maybe Gen 12. This gen we've had the release of Great Tusk and Pecharunt, who have enormous bulk and are getting awfully close to the Base 90 Speed tier that most cover legendaries of old all had, and if we get 570+ BST mons released with Base 91+ Speed and incredible bulk, we could finally see more cover legendaries aside from Zamazenta drop. At that point, the power level of OU will change for good.
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Powercreep is not a constantly spiraling downward phenomenon that happens at a constant, increasingly fast rate. Gen5 pushed the bar a lot, but gen6 ended up being pretty mild all things considered as far as powercreep goes, once the major brokens were banned and the meta settled more. The same was true of gen8 (post dmax) which is a very nicely balanced tier. Let's be real: Gen9 is an outlier among any of the generations thus. GF has never put so much focus into optimizing the majority of the new dex of pokemon so pointing to this gen as some kind of trend is just not accurate or realistic.
I've been playing Smogon for 12 years, I remember gen 6 bringing Megas and the effect was really not that drastic. Even though a lot of teams were built around a mega, only a few were really broken like Gengar, which were swiftly banned. The opportunity cost of no item and a predetermined Mega per team meant there was really no unpredictable element about that mechanic, aside from maybe running 2 pokemon that were capable of mega and guessing which was which. If there are no new mechanics beyond returning to mega evolutions, then gen 10 should be quite fun and simple.
Gen 9 was big on introducing high BST (not necessarily legendary) Pokemon with either powerful signature Moves or Abilities (not necessarily signature abilities either, just strong ones) or even both of those things. This was a trend that actually started with Gen 8 with Cinderace, Darmanitan-Galar, Dracovish, Dragapult, Melmetal, Rillaboom, and the Urshifus. I view the trend clearly being more and more power over the time. Maybe you don't consider two consecutive generations' design policy (universal mechanics that require no item) as being enough to establish a pattern, but I believe in Gen 10 we're getting more crazily optimized Pokemon and probably another powerful game-warping mechanic.
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Cinderace was one of few gen8 pokemon introduced that was broke It has two good signature moves but neither are particularly big powercreep at all (court chance is legit just a unique tool that has its downsides, it's not even THAT powerful). Dragapult I don't know why you keep lumping in with the actually brokens. It's a very brilliantly designed comp mon that has high strengths but doesn't push the bar too far in any one direction, and is one of the best examples of GF showing restraint by not giving it tools to push it over the edge. Melm is terrific and top tier, but I don't know why you include it among actual brokens like Darm or Vish, and Rillaboom merely settled into a good spot by the end of the gen after having a streak of mediocrity for months before the discovery of bulky lefties sets (it really was only kinda dumb in VGC because of the overtuned BP on grassy glide in gen8 and GF swiftly corrected this a gen later).
Urshifu, Darm-G, Vish, Spectrier and Cinderace were the only brokens brought in gen8. And if we go back to gen7 that gen also didn't introduce that many brokens either (it was legit just Pheramosa, Marshadow and Naganadel). If I'm honest, I think you are using powercreep as a negative term too loosely. You're plenty entitled to that opinion but I simply don't agree that there is a trend that's pointing towards future gens just getting nuttier instead of being more toned down (especially since there's been a number of complaints about many mons in VGC this gen like the horses, urshifu and multiple paradox mons which are likely to see balance changes that nerf them in gen10, reducing the power level to a degree)
This gen is very much a standout and not typical when it comes to generational powercreep. It's very unprecedented in what it introduced and how focused on maximizing a Pokemon's potential in battle, so we've seen many specialized or highly optimized new additions perform well. I don't think an extreme example that far eclipses any past notion of powercreep should be used as a point to say "next gen will be even crazier".
'Cause I'm not focusing on just what was broken but what raised the bar for particular niches like Dragapult having an excellent kit with a lot of set variety that has blistering speed, Melm being a really slow but top-tier mon that is basically a load of stats and damage multipliers, and Rillaboom pushing the envelope with its very powerful priority.
Even if Naganadel, Pheromosa, and Marshadow were the only brokens introduced in Gen 7, Tapu Lele was an extremely powerful wallbreaker (there's a joke when they do Gen 7 roomtours that Lele gets a free kill every time it comes out to the field) that also limited the ability of your opponent to revenge kill your team's threats, the other Tapus all had strong niches in the tier, Magearna was a really good win condition and a strong pivot, and Ash-Greninja was a very strong progress-maker that could force out many mons to get free Spikes in the early game and come out to clean up weakened teams later.
Just 'cause even VGC players have been complaining about multiple mons doesn't mean Gamefreak will suddenly change course and stop its shift from releasing stronger and stronger Pokemon as Urshifu-Rapid Strike was already hugely centralizing in VGC in Gen 8, and Gamefreak actually buffed it to make it even better this gen.
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You can also argue that gamefreak retconning most of these things indicates they don't want power creep getting out of hand, most likely they just don't test shit before releasing it. Terrain boost was lowered, ash greninja is gone, scald distribution is cut, grassy glide slashed, regieleki nerfed, protean nerfed, aegislash stats reduced, the list goes on. Imagine for a moment that kingambit kept knock off...
I'm going to give some credit where it's due, they do at least attempt to undo their mistakes (even if those mistakes were unnecessary in the first place)
Ash-Greninja being gone was not done for the sake of balance but almost certainly 'cause Gamefreak had thought of a Mega Greninja for a future game.
While I do agree that Gamefreak does try to reduce the power level of a mon after 1-2 generations if it is dominant in VGC, I do believe the design trend is towards stronger and stronger Pokemon especially given that Gen 10 will be a special milestone, and it'll probably go all out to make a lot of very powerful Pokemon that stand out competitively much like how Gen 9 was in the process of being made during Pokemon's 25th anniversary.
Its not just VGC though. Pretty sure Bisharp (with Knock Off) and Toxapex (with Scald, Knock Off and 16 PP Recover) were never too powerful or used in VGC. Similarly, Scizor was a rare sight in VGC and even more with Roost. So, they look for Singles too, despite being quite bad at it ( though I apreciate some of their mistakes, Urshifu getting SD allowed for a Ban, hated that Mon in SS).
Roaring Moon is now banned from SV OU: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ancing-in-the-moonlight.3761880/post-10504097
The Roaring Moon's ban is gonna make the tier better imo, it was a good call. I don't think the job's finished tho, we have to aim at Kyurem, Gliscor or Waterpon now.
Going back to Moon, I was testing it on the ladder when I had a bit of time for the last couple of weeks and it's too strong and centralizing. The way it can take games by itself from a single turn or mistake is too much for the tier. SV is already an insanely volatile meta, Pokémon like Moon makes it even worse. You shouldn't be punished with an L due to Moon being Tera Ground Taunt instead of Flying Acro, Bulky Fairy, Offensive fairy with Tera Blast, Tera Dragon Outrage...
The only Moon sets that were "honest" were the sun sets imo, which I'm sad about since while Sun usually is played atm without Moon it's an option they lost that was pretty neat.
Anyways, congrats to every user that got the reqs and voted ban, you did a good job for everyone.
Going back to Moon, I was testing it on the ladder when I had a bit of time for the last couple of weeks and it's too strong and centralizing. The way it can take games by itself from a single turn or mistake is too much for the tier. SV is already an insanely volatile meta, Pokémon like Moon makes it even worse. You shouldn't be punished with an L due to Moon being Tera Ground Taunt instead of Flying Acro, Bulky Fairy, Offensive fairy with Tera Blast, Tera Dragon Outrage...
The only Moon sets that were "honest" were the sun sets imo, which I'm sad about since while Sun usually is played atm without Moon it's an option they lost that was pretty neat.
Anyways, congrats to every user that got the reqs and voted ban, you did a good job for everyone.
My last match ever using roaring moon, it did solid work but primarina was what ultimately won the game due to its CM set forcing a forfeit
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2332792386
Also pls no gliscor ban
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2332792386
Also pls no gliscor ban
I think lugia at least probably drops next gen, if it gets absolutely nothing next gen it is so cooked. Also losing tera next gen screws it hard. Like genuinely its typing and over-reliance on setup could cause it to drop next gen, even if it is smaller scale powercreep next gen reminiscent to SS OU/XY OU rather than the giant powercreep of gens 7/9 ou, and I think if tera didn’t exist it may have been tested already.
Also yeah Kyurem becomes even more of a pain with no roaring moon so its probably getting suspected next.
Weavile is OU again!
We are so weavback! (Definitely shouldn't have dropped in the first place though.)
We are so weavback! (Definitely shouldn't have dropped in the first place though.)
Insta losing to Iron Valiant? In this economy? No but seriously Roaring Moon being the first thing to get banned since Gouging Fire is not what I expected to be banned first. I am still not sure how I feel about Moon's presence in the tier but hopefully the meta will get better with it gone