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GG Godly Gift
- Thread starter Les2BG
- Start date
Hello everyone, I'm here today to advocate for a suspect test for Ogerpon-Wellspring 
. With OMPL on the horizon I, it's an important time so I think it prudent to voice my concern. All of my points will be focused mainly on Swords Dance sets and their many variations.
My first point: It's really easy to let Ogerpon-W get out of control, even if you play proactively against it.
Even after just one Swords Dance, Ogerpon-W begins to invalidate many common physical walls such as these
All of these calcs are taken without an attack donation on Ogerpon, so if they don't look like much, they get much worse with an attack donation.
So when the non resists fail, the natural solution is to find a resist, but that is much easier said than done. At first glance, it might seem easy seeing as it's stab combination is resisted by both grass and dragon, but this tier is lacking many grass types bulky enough to withstand Ogerpon-W and dragons like Hydrapple
die to play rough, which is one of its most common coverage moves. And aside from its impeccable neutral coverage, Ogerpon-W also packs incredible super effective coverage against very common defensive types like Water and Ground, making it very strong into common defensive cores.
With defensive counterplay very hard to come by, the next logical solution is to out offense it, which a lot of mons can do. Ogerpon-W has a good speed, but not great, and it can get outsped and KOed by mons like Weavile
, Prioed by Lokix 
, and beat by pretty much any speed receiver. But these mons can be frail and rely on pivots to get in, but Ogerpon-W denies many common pivots such as Rotom-W 
, Slowking 
, Landorus-T 
, and to an extent neutral targets like Corviknight 
and Glowking 
if it's managed to get a Swords Dance off, making it very difficult for these pivots to do their jobs and in turn for the breakers to do their jobs. Ogerpon-W can also receive HP and run a bulkier set that can be difficult to revenge kill and has decent longevity with Horn Leech. Basically it feels like anytime Ogerpon-W gets in you have to cede some ground to it, which can be true of any breaker but the amount of ground you have to give Ogerpon-W feels unfair. And there are plenty of mons with similar offensive stats as Ogerpon-W but what they don't have is: a stab combo that hits nearly the whole meta, amazing typing offensively and defensively, a very reliable high power stab move with pp to last (ivy cudgel), respectable bulk, and water absorb too to let it switch into waters for free and also be impervious to scald. There are mons with some of these traits but Ogerpon-W's combination of all of them just feels like to much.
All in all Ogerpon-W is just a nightmare to account for in the builder, and playing against it is very stressful and frustrating due to how quickly it can go from 0 to 100. And I'm not trying to make it sound like Ogerpon-W is unbeatable, it has weaknesses of course (like unaware clef
, bulky etern 
, hydrapple for non play rough sets) but the hard counters are few and hey, that's what teammates are for. It is much easier I've found to make up for Ogerpon-W's weakness than other offensive mons considering how few things beat it. I feel that due to all of these factor a suspect test could be considered for Ogerpon-W, but this is all just my opinions, if anyone else has thoughts I'd love to hear it. And I know that I'm not backing this up with any replays either, so I'll try to compile some.
Thx for reading and have a nice day :)
. With OMPL on the horizon I, it's an important time so I think it prudent to voice my concern. All of my points will be focused mainly on Swords Dance sets and their many variations.My first point: It's really easy to let Ogerpon-W get out of control, even if you play proactively against it.
Even after just one Swords Dance, Ogerpon-W begins to invalidate many common physical walls such as these
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Neutralizing Gas Weezing-Galar (140 Base HP): 235-277 (48.5 - 57.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hatterene (140 Base HP): 331-390 (68.3 - 80.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Clodsire (120 Base Def): 282-333 (60.9 - 71.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Ivy Cudgel vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Clodsire (120 Base Def): 236-278 (50.9 - 60%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Pecharunt (120 Base HP): 190-225 (42.7 - 50.6%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hatterene (140 Base HP): 331-390 (68.3 - 80.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Clodsire (120 Base Def): 282-333 (60.9 - 71.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Ivy Cudgel vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Clodsire (120 Base Def): 236-278 (50.9 - 60%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Pecharunt (120 Base HP): 190-225 (42.7 - 50.6%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
All of these calcs are taken without an attack donation on Ogerpon, so if they don't look like much, they get much worse with an attack donation.
So when the non resists fail, the natural solution is to find a resist, but that is much easier said than done. At first glance, it might seem easy seeing as it's stab combination is resisted by both grass and dragon, but this tier is lacking many grass types bulky enough to withstand Ogerpon-W and dragons like Hydrapple
die to play rough, which is one of its most common coverage moves. And aside from its impeccable neutral coverage, Ogerpon-W also packs incredible super effective coverage against very common defensive types like Water and Ground, making it very strong into common defensive cores.With defensive counterplay very hard to come by, the next logical solution is to out offense it, which a lot of mons can do. Ogerpon-W has a good speed, but not great, and it can get outsped and KOed by mons like Weavile
, Prioed by Lokix , and beat by pretty much any speed receiver. But these mons can be frail and rely on pivots to get in, but Ogerpon-W denies many common pivots such as Rotom-W , Slowking , Landorus-T , and to an extent neutral targets like Corviknight and Glowking if it's managed to get a Swords Dance off, making it very difficult for these pivots to do their jobs and in turn for the breakers to do their jobs. Ogerpon-W can also receive HP and run a bulkier set that can be difficult to revenge kill and has decent longevity with Horn Leech. Basically it feels like anytime Ogerpon-W gets in you have to cede some ground to it, which can be true of any breaker but the amount of ground you have to give Ogerpon-W feels unfair. And there are plenty of mons with similar offensive stats as Ogerpon-W but what they don't have is: a stab combo that hits nearly the whole meta, amazing typing offensively and defensively, a very reliable high power stab move with pp to last (ivy cudgel), respectable bulk, and water absorb too to let it switch into waters for free and also be impervious to scald. There are mons with some of these traits but Ogerpon-W's combination of all of them just feels like to much.All in all Ogerpon-W is just a nightmare to account for in the builder, and playing against it is very stressful and frustrating due to how quickly it can go from 0 to 100. And I'm not trying to make it sound like Ogerpon-W is unbeatable, it has weaknesses of course (like unaware clef
, bulky etern , hydrapple for non play rough sets) but the hard counters are few and hey, that's what teammates are for. It is much easier I've found to make up for Ogerpon-W's weakness than other offensive mons considering how few things beat it. I feel that due to all of these factor a suspect test could be considered for Ogerpon-W, but this is all just my opinions, if anyone else has thoughts I'd love to hear it. And I know that I'm not backing this up with any replays either, so I'll try to compile some.Thx for reading and have a nice day :)
Out of curiosity to the above and same question asked in discord about W-Ogerpon in discord, I compiled the GG 2025 Open Usage.
Compiled replays are in the pokepaste here - https://pokepast.es/cb057a929b11ed46
Compiled replays no spacing - https://pokepast.es/6a621f441024025f
65 Public replays available, Round 1 was mostly Byes/Acts. Replays compiled are from Finals then down. No current bans/suspects have skewed the stats otherwise.
Code:
+ ---- + --------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon | Use | Usage % | Win % |
+ ---- + --------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1 | Great Tusk | 49 | 37.69% | 51.02% |
| 2 | Ting-Lu | 26 | 20.00% | 57.69% |
| 3 | Corviknight | 25 | 19.23% | 60.00% |
| 4 | Rotom-Wash | 22 | 16.92% | 40.91% |
| 5 | Hatterene | 22 | 16.92% | 40.91% |
| 6 | Iron Hands | 21 | 16.15% | 42.86% |
| 7 | Landorus-Therian | 20 | 15.38% | 40.00% |
| 8 | Hydrapple | 19 | 14.62% | 84.21% |
| 9 | Eternatus | 19 | 14.62% | 42.11% |
| 10 | Clefable | 17 | 13.08% | 82.35% |
| 11 | Roaring Moon | 17 | 13.08% | 52.94% |
| 12 | Zacian | 17 | 13.08% | 47.06% |
| 13 | Ogerpon-Wellspring | 17 | 13.08% | 35.29% |
| 14 | Araquanid | 16 | 12.31% | 68.75% |
| 15 | Samurott-Hisui | 15 | 11.54% | 46.67% |
| 16 | Rayquaza | 14 | 10.77% | 28.57% |
| 17 | Rillaboom | 13 | 10.00% | 53.85% |
| 18 | Pecharunt | 13 | 10.00% | 46.15% |
| 19 | Clodsire | 12 | 9.23% | 66.67% |
| 20 | Dondozo | 12 | 9.23% | 58.33% |
| 21 | Iron Moth | 12 | 9.23% | 50.00% |
| 22 | Necrozma-Dusk-Mane | 12 | 9.23% | 58.33% |
| 23 | Meowscarada | 12 | 9.23% | 41.67% |
| 24 | Ditto | 11 | 8.46% | 90.91% |
| 25 | Sinistcha | 10 | 7.69% | 60.00% |
| 26 | Manaphy | 10 | 7.69% | 50.00% |
| 27 | Arceus | 10 | 7.69% | 50.00% |
| 28 | Arceus-Ghost | 10 | 7.69% | 90.00% |
| 29 | Kyurem-White | 10 | 7.69% | 30.00% |
| 30 | Slowking-Galar | 10 | 7.69% | 30.00% |
| 31 | Mandibuzz | 10 | 7.69% | 40.00% |
| 32 | Electrode-Hisui | 9 | 6.92% | 33.33% |
| 33 | Zamazenta | 9 | 6.92% | 11.11% |
| 34 | Volcanion | 9 | 6.92% | 22.22% |
| 35 | Calyrex-Ice | 8 | 6.15% | 25.00% |
| 36 | Ho-Oh | 7 | 5.38% | 57.14% |
| 37 | Skarmory | 7 | 5.38% | 57.14% |
| 38 | Iron Crown | 7 | 5.38% | 14.29% |
| 39 | Lunala | 7 | 5.38% | 57.14% |
| 40 | Weezing-Galar | 7 | 5.38% | 57.14% |
| 41 | Garganacl | 7 | 5.38% | 57.14% |
| 42 | Slowking | 7 | 5.38% | 42.86% |
| 43 | Lilligant-Hisui | 7 | 5.38% | 57.14% |
| 44 | Walking Wake | 7 | 5.38% | 57.14% |
| 45 | Primarina | 7 | 5.38% | 57.14% |
| 46 | Tornadus-Therian | 6 | 4.62% | 83.33% |
| 47 | Ninetales | 6 | 4.62% | 50.00% |
| 48 | Hoopa-Unbound | 6 | 4.62% | 66.67% |
| 49 | Sneasler | 6 | 4.62% | 50.00% |
| 50 | Lokix | 5 | 3.85% | 20.00% |
| 51 | Weavile | 5 | 3.85% | 40.00% |
| 52 | Landorus | 5 | 3.85% | 80.00% |
| 53 | Groudon | 5 | 3.85% | 60.00% |
| 54 | Darkrai | 5 | 3.85% | 40.00% |
| 55 | Tinkaton | 4 | 3.08% | 50.00% |
| 56 | Urshifu | 4 | 3.08% | 50.00% |
| 57 | Ninetales-Alola | 4 | 3.08% | 25.00% |
| 58 | Iron Valiant | 4 | 3.08% | 25.00% |
| 59 | Mimikyu | 4 | 3.08% | 50.00% |
| 60 | Charizard | 4 | 3.08% | 50.00% |
| 61 | Heatran | 4 | 3.08% | 75.00% |
| 62 | Ogerpon | 4 | 3.08% | 75.00% |
| 63 | Cloyster | 4 | 3.08% | 25.00% |
| 64 | Giratina | 4 | 3.08% | 75.00% |
| 65 | Zapdos-Galar | 3 | 2.31% | 33.33% |
| 66 | Skeledirge | 3 | 2.31% | 66.67% |
| 67 | Comfey | 3 | 2.31% | 33.33% |
| 68 | Iron Treads | 3 | 2.31% | 0.00% |
| 69 | Azelf | 3 | 2.31% | 66.67% |
| 70 | Gardevoir | 3 | 2.31% | 66.67% |
| 71 | Necrozma-Dawn-Wings | 3 | 2.31% | 66.67% |
| 72 | Ceruledge | 3 | 2.31% | 33.33% |
| 73 | Excadrill | 3 | 2.31% | 33.33% |
| 74 | Glimmora | 3 | 2.31% | 33.33% |
| 75 | Blastoise | 3 | 2.31% | 33.33% |
| 76 | Minior | 3 | 2.31% | 33.33% |
| 77 | Polteageist | 3 | 2.31% | 33.33% |
| 78 | Torterra | 3 | 2.31% | 33.33% |
| 79 | Slowbro | 3 | 2.31% | 100.00% |
| 80 | Kyogre | 2 | 1.54% | 100.00% |
| 81 | Scream Tail | 2 | 1.54% | 50.00% |
| 82 | Zapdos | 2 | 1.54% | 0.00% |
| 83 | Cinderace | 2 | 1.54% | 50.00% |
| 84 | Enamorus-Therian | 2 | 1.54% | 50.00% |
| 85 | Moltres | 2 | 1.54% | 50.00% |
| 86 | Zacian-Crowned | 2 | 1.54% | 50.00% |
| 87 | Archaludon | 2 | 1.54% | 50.00% |
| 88 | Greninja | 2 | 1.54% | 0.00% |
| 89 | Fezandipiti | 2 | 1.54% | 100.00% |
| 90 | Rhyperior | 2 | 1.54% | 100.00% |
| 91 | Dialga | 1 | 0.77% | 100.00% |
| 92 | Reuniclus | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 93 | Scizor | 1 | 0.77% | 100.00% |
| 94 | Ribombee | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 95 | Okidogi | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 96 | Conkeldurr | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 97 | Tyranitar | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 98 | Deoxys-Defense | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 99 | Kilowattrel | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 100 | Palafin | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 101 | Pelipper | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 102 | Goodra-Hisui | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 103 | Dragonite | 1 | 0.77% | 100.00% |
| 104 | Ogerpon-Cornerstone | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 105 | Latias | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 106 | Maushold | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |
| 107 | Sinistcha-Masterpiece | 1 | 0.77% | 100.00% |
| 108 | Arcanine-Hisui | 1 | 0.77% | 0.00% |Compiled replays no spacing - https://pokepast.es/6a621f441024025f
65 Public replays available, Round 1 was mostly Byes/Acts. Replays compiled are from Finals then down. No current bans/suspects have skewed the stats otherwise.
I am on a mission to learn and review every OM, and just so happened to settle on Godly Gift first - peep my RMT from the other day. Take my opinions with a grain of salt, they're all based on exclusively my ladder experience so who knows whether I played meta-relevant stuff or just ladder nonsense...
To start, Godly Gift is a really cool concept and is executed so well. Knowing the God and stat distributions in preview makes for some really dynamic planning and gameplay, especially since the boosts can promote a lot of stuff like Special Attack-boosted Meowscarada that you'd never even consider the movepool for. I do think that GG ladder has an infatuation with nonsense Araquanid Sticky Web offense structures, which can be tricky since it receives Attack and Special Attack almost equally well, but otherwise the games are generally pretty straightforward. You can get pretty creative with your receivers and team compositions and I think the better builder is generally rewarded more, which is good.
I theory crafted a lot of bulky SpikeStack stuff when I first started learning the meta but ended up settling for more offensive teams at first before committing to the RMT team. While Kyurem-White is a pretty cool God I think that Eternatus and Calyrex-Ice are the top two in the meta; Eternatus can pass really solid HP and SpA to stuff like Hatterene and Hisuian Electrode, respectively, enabling VoltTurn SpikeStack stuff. Calyrex-Ice is a nuisance to play against if you let it get the Trick Room off, and given how fat it is that comes pretty easily in a lot of games, and gives MASSIVE bulk to its teammates. Both of these Gods are really exceptional for their own slot and passing huge stats to meta-relevant receivers, so it is an obvious pick for me to say they should be the S-tier Gods, even above NDM and Zacian-C.
Speaking of NDM, I saw almost none on ladder it felt like, which was surprising but to be honest I tried building with it and never came up with a six I felt confident loading so maybe it makes sense? It has a ton of flexibility as a DD sweeper, Rocks support, TR cleaner, etc. of course, but it just felt kinda bad to build around despite passing great Attack and bulk. I will be tuning in to some GG gameplay this OMPL to see if maybe I see a six that makes sense for me to experiment with but I certainly never cracked it alone. Some other Gods I wanted to use but didn't have confidence in building with include Arceus-Fairy and Groudon - I wanted to make Attack-receiver Hisuian Lilligant work so badly but never got around to it, same with Defense-receiver Reuniclus.
For receivers, I'd be remiss if I didn't start with Tinkaton. I saw a lot of Attack Tinkaton with SD and that thing is so hard to switch into, especially since it can get rocks up against Hatt if it chooses. It also just has nice bulk without having to rely on getting a stat passed to it which opens up the builder a lot. Next is a mon I went in depth with on my RMT but think it needs more praise; Amoonguss. I used AV Amoonguss on nearly every team, often using it as the Defense receiver to help with a bit extra bulk, but this thing never let me down in-game. It took so little from so much and threatened to reverse Trick Room on Calyrex-Ice by itself.
Iron Hands is a dominant offensive presence in the tier, using its massive bulk to trade with practically anything at minimum. Passing a Speed boost to this in conjunction with Booster Energy enables it to reverse sweep a lot of standard structures, so I'd like to see it recognized as an S-tier mon alongside Great Tusk. Speaking of mons in A+ that don't belong... Hisuian Electrode is a fraud. I ran AV Amoonguss so my perception is warped but that mon felt really lackluster and relies on Tera a ton to make progress, unless you get every play right between Leaf Storm and Volt Switch. People didn't use it a lot on ladder but when it came up I was unimpressed.
Some mons I won't go too in-depth on but tried and liked include;
Scrafty (HP), dominant on screens as a DD + Encore setup sweeper
Basculegion-F (SpA), has a good enough Speed tier to justify Adaptability + Choice Scarf
Sylveon (Atk), before you say anything I KNOW this is a funny meme set but check some calcs of what CB Sylveon does and get back to me
Scream Tail (SpA), I really liked this as a Booster Speed + CM breaker/cleaner
Maushold (Atk), it doesn't take a lot of effort to figure out the Population Bomb menace receiving a legitimate Attack stat becomes very annoying very fast, doubles as removal too!
Overall my games on GG ladder were generally fun to play and the builder offers immense allowance for creativity. The tier seems healthy, nothing in particular stands out as overwhelming/broken/uncompetitive, and the mechanics work great, so OMPL should be a really nice spectating experience.
To start, Godly Gift is a really cool concept and is executed so well. Knowing the God and stat distributions in preview makes for some really dynamic planning and gameplay, especially since the boosts can promote a lot of stuff like Special Attack-boosted Meowscarada that you'd never even consider the movepool for. I do think that GG ladder has an infatuation with nonsense Araquanid Sticky Web offense structures, which can be tricky since it receives Attack and Special Attack almost equally well, but otherwise the games are generally pretty straightforward. You can get pretty creative with your receivers and team compositions and I think the better builder is generally rewarded more, which is good.
I theory crafted a lot of bulky SpikeStack stuff when I first started learning the meta but ended up settling for more offensive teams at first before committing to the RMT team. While Kyurem-White is a pretty cool God I think that Eternatus and Calyrex-Ice are the top two in the meta; Eternatus can pass really solid HP and SpA to stuff like Hatterene and Hisuian Electrode, respectively, enabling VoltTurn SpikeStack stuff. Calyrex-Ice is a nuisance to play against if you let it get the Trick Room off, and given how fat it is that comes pretty easily in a lot of games, and gives MASSIVE bulk to its teammates. Both of these Gods are really exceptional for their own slot and passing huge stats to meta-relevant receivers, so it is an obvious pick for me to say they should be the S-tier Gods, even above NDM and Zacian-C.
Speaking of NDM, I saw almost none on ladder it felt like, which was surprising but to be honest I tried building with it and never came up with a six I felt confident loading so maybe it makes sense? It has a ton of flexibility as a DD sweeper, Rocks support, TR cleaner, etc. of course, but it just felt kinda bad to build around despite passing great Attack and bulk. I will be tuning in to some GG gameplay this OMPL to see if maybe I see a six that makes sense for me to experiment with but I certainly never cracked it alone. Some other Gods I wanted to use but didn't have confidence in building with include Arceus-Fairy and Groudon - I wanted to make Attack-receiver Hisuian Lilligant work so badly but never got around to it, same with Defense-receiver Reuniclus.
For receivers, I'd be remiss if I didn't start with Tinkaton. I saw a lot of Attack Tinkaton with SD and that thing is so hard to switch into, especially since it can get rocks up against Hatt if it chooses. It also just has nice bulk without having to rely on getting a stat passed to it which opens up the builder a lot. Next is a mon I went in depth with on my RMT but think it needs more praise; Amoonguss. I used AV Amoonguss on nearly every team, often using it as the Defense receiver to help with a bit extra bulk, but this thing never let me down in-game. It took so little from so much and threatened to reverse Trick Room on Calyrex-Ice by itself.
Iron Hands is a dominant offensive presence in the tier, using its massive bulk to trade with practically anything at minimum. Passing a Speed boost to this in conjunction with Booster Energy enables it to reverse sweep a lot of standard structures, so I'd like to see it recognized as an S-tier mon alongside Great Tusk. Speaking of mons in A+ that don't belong... Hisuian Electrode is a fraud. I ran AV Amoonguss so my perception is warped but that mon felt really lackluster and relies on Tera a ton to make progress, unless you get every play right between Leaf Storm and Volt Switch. People didn't use it a lot on ladder but when it came up I was unimpressed.
Some mons I won't go too in-depth on but tried and liked include;
Scrafty (HP), dominant on screens as a DD + Encore setup sweeper
Basculegion-F (SpA), has a good enough Speed tier to justify Adaptability + Choice Scarf
Sylveon (Atk), before you say anything I KNOW this is a funny meme set but check some calcs of what CB Sylveon does and get back to me
Scream Tail (SpA), I really liked this as a Booster Speed + CM breaker/cleaner
Maushold (Atk), it doesn't take a lot of effort to figure out the Population Bomb menace receiving a legitimate Attack stat becomes very annoying very fast, doubles as removal too!
Overall my games on GG ladder were generally fun to play and the builder offers immense allowance for creativity. The tier seems healthy, nothing in particular stands out as overwhelming/broken/uncompetitive, and the mechanics work great, so OMPL should be a really nice spectating experience.
Snow Cloak and Sand Veil are banned !
Abilities : | dhelmise | Fraise | Les2BG | TTTech | SammyCe123 | Results: |
Snow Cloak | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | 5-0-0 Banned |
Sand Veil | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | 5-0-0 Banned |
I already see what the majority of peoples are gonna say yes i've delayed a little bit the announce of this ban it's true i woudn't say that we forgot about it but yeah it's here ! To make this short they were just totally uncompetitive abilities that added nothing to the tier except frustration so it was banned to make sure that this type of uncompetitive cheese woudn't be possible (and now you can't use the wrong ability on Ninetales-A which is a total W)
Last edited:
It’s honestly crazy that these abilities weren’t initially banned. Seems like something you ban by default Gen 5 onwards and maybe have a complex clause when its an important Pokemon’s only ability.
Its great that’s banned now at least.
https://pokepast.es/9d5504729ce160d3
My teams this year. I might edit in some thoughts if i get time but one thing i'm pretty sure is that balance can't play against anything else but balance.
My teams this year. I might edit in some thoughts if i get time but one thing i'm pretty sure is that balance can't play against anything else but balance.
I'm going to do a mini-teamdump from my time playing in OMFL and drop some metagame thoughts, both from my own playing experiences and from supporting others in OMPL. Hopefully this doesn't end up super long or anything, but even though I'm not playing at the highest level I can achieve, I'm very happy with the teams I've come up with, and I think this is the best as a builder I've been in a while, so I wanted to share these teams.
OMFL
W1 vs breadsandwich (L) - Belly Drum Hands HO
W2 vs wes8888 (L) - Very Original Kyurem-White Electrode bulky offense
W3 vs NDK (W) - Turbo Honse
W4 vs Blazing (W) - cat's Stellar Zacian Offense
W5 vs a fairy (L) - Specs Kyurem Offense
Theorymon teams
Team is a little bit old, but Kyogre theoretically kills everything in the metagame, so it might be interesting to explore this archetype again
I thought Clas's Zacian / Hoopa core was hella interesting so I tried to riff off it here
Sub Ho-Oh is a cool Pokemon. EVs are incomplete
EVs aren't complete either. Team is a weird mix of rain offense and balance, the idea is to keep rain going to help Thundurus and Araquanid break, and then win in the endgame with Sinistcha or Zacian.
For getting this far in the post, you get a funny fish team :)
Reflections and metagame thoughts
In terms of the metagame, I think it's been the healthiest it has been in a while - which is not very, unfortunately, speaking to how much of a car crash of a gen we've had for most OMs, through the fault of no one. There are too many things that can blow everything up - Urshifu, Zacian-Crowned, Electrode-Hisui, Iron Hands, Kyurem-White, Landorus and much more. These strong breakers are far too difficult to fit checks for on balance. Pokemon like Ogerpon, Samurott-Hisui and Ghostceus further pressure what limited slots for defensive presence can have. And then there's a shit ton more you have to account for - hyper offense pieces (like Darkrai, Manaphy), webs (mainly Araquanid, but also Ribombee), the lack of good removal in the tier (Great Tusk and Corviknight aren't strong enough defensively). Even off-meta builds (see FlamPoke's Houndstone and Trick Room teams) can be brought. This all means that playing bulky offense or balance makes you really prone to bad matchups. You can cover most things, but you can't always be solid into everything. Fat is in the worst place it has been for a while so people are really incentivised to play offense, which is fishy in of itself. I think there are two ways you can solve this - you can either try to be more restrictive and ban a lot of stuff - Iron Hands, Kyurem-White, Zacian-Crowned, Eternatus (because Etern being the fastest god outside of Deoxys-N sounds like a terrible idea), Arceus-Ghost probably need to go, Araquanid or Webs definitely needs to go, and then whatever remains broken needs to go after - or you can undo some of the more dubious tiering actions that have been taken over the past year and see if it solves people's problems with the meta. IE, freeing Gholdengo + Alomomola + Bolt. Alomomola in particular would help keep all of the broken special attackers in check. I hate Alomomola and absolutely hate playing against it, but as the meta stands at the moment, we are not in a healthy state unless we either free Alomomola, or ban a lot of stuff, and I mean a lot of stuff.
TL;DR:
as nashrock said, balance is only good into balance, and even then it's a matchup fish
ban Araq or Webs, and ban Hands
ban Zacian, KyuW, Etern, Ghost, or free Alomomola, whatever is more popular by survey
free Gholdengo, free Raging Bolt
and give us gen 10 please game freak
special thanks to iiFWM cat for forcing me to build good teams
OMFL
W1 vs breadsandwich (L) - Belly Drum Hands HO
I wasn't too sure how experienced Bread Sandwich was with the tier, and I know from my scout that I only really spam fat and balance, so I wanted to try out hyper offense at least one week during this tour. I thought this would be an excellent time to do it given it's week 1, and Bread seemed good at the game, so a knowledge check MU would be great.
iiFWM had the brilliant idea of Belly Drum Iron Hands, which turns all normal counterplay on a head. We went with Tera Flying to flip the matchup on Landorus forms, as well as give us a resistance to other Fighting types. Tera Fire is also a similarly good option. The idea with this Hands set is that if you give it the space to find a Belly Drum, it often just wins games on the spots, and in tests this thing was just fucking entire teams over without a dedicated check to it (mainly Skeledirge, which is the main reason to run Tera Fire, because otherwise that guy goobs you).
We toyed around with the idea of EKiller and Zacian as Gods, but in the end me and iiFWM settled on Eternatus as the choice of God as it is the best HO God in the tier. In retrospect the set itself is a little bit sus, Power Herb 4a would have been a lot better, but for what it is LO Etern is great at clearing holes and cleaning, and it also gives the team a somewhat ok check to Electrode with longevity. The natural special partner of choice was of course Manaphy, who just nukes things of the face of the earth. Originally this was leftovers but Pannu suggested that Salac Berry would be better behind screens, as we don't need the longevity when we have evil fucked up bulk.
The rest of the team filled itself out quite naturally. Sinistcha in HP gives us a great answer to Sneasler and opposing Iron Hands, while Grimmsnarl sets up screens which is fucked up. Samurott sets up hazards and gives us a little bit of special bulk, it has Sucker for speed control but it really is just a Ceaseless bot.
Unfortunately on game day I threw the game to the wolves (this is going to be a common occurence). I sacked my tera off far too early for no reason, and I got the tera flip on Ditto wrong later on in the game when hands was set up (if I win the tie and get the turn right I win). I defo should have won this game, but in retrospect Ditto is not an easy matchup for Screens HO anyway.
iiFWM had the brilliant idea of Belly Drum Iron Hands, which turns all normal counterplay on a head. We went with Tera Flying to flip the matchup on Landorus forms, as well as give us a resistance to other Fighting types. Tera Fire is also a similarly good option. The idea with this Hands set is that if you give it the space to find a Belly Drum, it often just wins games on the spots, and in tests this thing was just fucking entire teams over without a dedicated check to it (mainly Skeledirge, which is the main reason to run Tera Fire, because otherwise that guy goobs you).
We toyed around with the idea of EKiller and Zacian as Gods, but in the end me and iiFWM settled on Eternatus as the choice of God as it is the best HO God in the tier. In retrospect the set itself is a little bit sus, Power Herb 4a would have been a lot better, but for what it is LO Etern is great at clearing holes and cleaning, and it also gives the team a somewhat ok check to Electrode with longevity. The natural special partner of choice was of course Manaphy, who just nukes things of the face of the earth. Originally this was leftovers but Pannu suggested that Salac Berry would be better behind screens, as we don't need the longevity when we have evil fucked up bulk.
The rest of the team filled itself out quite naturally. Sinistcha in HP gives us a great answer to Sneasler and opposing Iron Hands, while Grimmsnarl sets up screens which is fucked up. Samurott sets up hazards and gives us a little bit of special bulk, it has Sucker for speed control but it really is just a Ceaseless bot.
Unfortunately on game day I threw the game to the wolves (this is going to be a common occurence). I sacked my tera off far too early for no reason, and I got the tera flip on Ditto wrong later on in the game when hands was set up (if I win the tie and get the turn right I win). I defo should have won this game, but in retrospect Ditto is not an easy matchup for Screens HO anyway.
W2 vs wes8888 (L) - Very Original Kyurem-White Electrode bulky offense
After the clusterfuck that was my W1 game, everyone in my prep channel decided that I should load something comfy, and I decided that the best way to do this would be Kyurem-White Electrode, which is my favourite pairing in the tier and also happened to have a great scout into Les's scouter. We immediately decided that Hatterene goes on this paste, because Hatterene is an absolute dumb fucking Pokemon that sits around forever, and happens to deny hazards unless you are edging ceaselessly or break the mold. Unfortunately, this is where the comfy building ended because me and iiFWM couldn't find a remaining 3 that made this team complete. Kyurem was originally Sub / double Ice stab / EP because I think it's a broken set, and Electrode was Boots. We had quite a few problem matchups and it didn't help that Hatterene was our only check to any of them, and it felt like it could get overloaded very easily. This bothered me for quite a bit and I could not figure out how to flesh out the team.
Enter yuki (:wowreact:). Singles yuki is a force to be reckoned with (not) and had some interesting ideas for the team. But in the end, I am actually very grateful because he helped finish this team to a good standard with me and iiFWM. We moved the Sub to Hatterene (because Sub CM is broken on a mon that fat, its Subs are downright war crimes), and made Kyurem an all-out attacker. We added Lokix as the speed control of the team, and Tusk as an emergency spinner but mainly as the phaser and rocker of the team (Tera Poison to beat Electrode and more importantly Sneasler). But the main glue of this team is speed Skeledirge, which is the only thing preventing Zacian from ripping this team to shreds. As an Unaware it is also amazing into Iron Hands. We did something strange and actually opted for Earth Power over Shadow Ball, because in tests we found the coverage was a lot better. The Electrode set is also a little abnormal, but I think it's quite good. Tera Grass grabs a lot of important rolls, including guaranteeing the KO against most Great Tusks. We decided that hazards generally won't stay up on our side, so we could forgo the Boots, allowing us to run Magnet, taking Electrode to some henious levels of power.
In the actual game itself, we loaded a god matchup into Caly-I Shifu, with the speed control being Scarf LandoT. I made a lot of aggressive predictions early on and got a huge lead, notably knocking the Lando's scarf on Turn 12, which should mean that Electrode wins the game by itself. Unfortunately my monkey brain decided that Tera Grass Leaf Storm killed the Caly-I at 76%. It turns out that I should have calc'd because it was a roll (oops) and I proceeded to get my shit rocked by BandShifu. Not great, and shame I couldn't do the team justice, because I think it's a really nice take on KyuW Electrode, which is one of the most used archetypes in the format.
Enter yuki (:wowreact:). Singles yuki is a force to be reckoned with (not) and had some interesting ideas for the team. But in the end, I am actually very grateful because he helped finish this team to a good standard with me and iiFWM. We moved the Sub to Hatterene (because Sub CM is broken on a mon that fat, its Subs are downright war crimes), and made Kyurem an all-out attacker. We added Lokix as the speed control of the team, and Tusk as an emergency spinner but mainly as the phaser and rocker of the team (Tera Poison to beat Electrode and more importantly Sneasler). But the main glue of this team is speed Skeledirge, which is the only thing preventing Zacian from ripping this team to shreds. As an Unaware it is also amazing into Iron Hands. We did something strange and actually opted for Earth Power over Shadow Ball, because in tests we found the coverage was a lot better. The Electrode set is also a little abnormal, but I think it's quite good. Tera Grass grabs a lot of important rolls, including guaranteeing the KO against most Great Tusks. We decided that hazards generally won't stay up on our side, so we could forgo the Boots, allowing us to run Magnet, taking Electrode to some henious levels of power.
In the actual game itself, we loaded a god matchup into Caly-I Shifu, with the speed control being Scarf LandoT. I made a lot of aggressive predictions early on and got a huge lead, notably knocking the Lando's scarf on Turn 12, which should mean that Electrode wins the game by itself. Unfortunately my monkey brain decided that Tera Grass Leaf Storm killed the Caly-I at 76%. It turns out that I should have calc'd because it was a roll (oops) and I proceeded to get my shit rocked by BandShifu. Not great, and shame I couldn't do the team justice, because I think it's a really nice take on KyuW Electrode, which is one of the most used archetypes in the format.
W3 vs NDK (W) - Turbo Honse
I was pretty demotivated after W1 and W2. Loading a winnable and an unlosable matchup and losing both was pretty rough, and I wasn't coming up with any great ideas to play NDK, who was almost certainly getting passed a pannu team. I know that pannu's teams tend to be very weak to Kyurem-White, both on paper and in practice, as I have tested with them a lot. However, it felt bad to bring Kyurem-White given that they know I love to spam it and I literally just brought it last week. So I was stuck for ideas for a while, before an idea quite literally came to me in a dream.
The idea was Webs + two breakers that are generally considered slow but can actually schmove when the opponent is nerfed by webs. Araquanid is, of course, the Webber of choice. It can always get Webs up, having the ability to 2HKO +0 Hatterene (who all run physdef) and it also happens to have a god 1v1 matchup into Great Tusk. One of the two stupid breakers of choice was Band Urshifu, which was actually originally Adamant, but I decided to go Jolly in the end. Most people look at this structure and expect Scarf, because where the fuck is the speed control otherwise? But then they switch in their Skarm to check it and it gets blown up. The singular check to this fucking bear is Clefable - MGLO CM is admittedly a bit of a weak matchup for the team, but with correct play you can blow it up when they least expect. The other broken on this team is the horse himself, Calyrex-Ice-Rider. This Pokemon is beyond stupid and can just win games on its own. When I first made this set, it was adamant max hp max speed, which was a troll set, but also meant I was never committing to Trick Room, allowing me to run SD 3 attacks, which is nice because I was prepared for the possibility of Dondozo, and could hence fit Seed Bomb. Or at least, I think this is my reasoning for that move, because I don't actually remember why we fit it. In the end, we decided that max speed was troll and we changed the spread to outspeed no investment base 90's when Webs are up. Completely arbitrary, but someone suggested outspeeding Tusk, and then I decided to outspeed Excadrill, then decided "fuck it let's go to 90 because it's a nice number".
We filled the team out with Sinistcha (because it's fat and CM's, and most importantly stops Tusk + Drill from spinning), Clefable (MG utility because this guy is fat as balls and we needed a rocker), and finally Skeledirge (because the team was weak to Zacian and also he's fat as balls. also it was meant to be Roar but I forgot to change that and instead it's wisp).
In game I loaded a god mu, into a reused Ho-Oh hazard stack. In reality what that meant was I could fuck about with Clef and Skeledirge forever, getting Rocks AND Webs up and Knocking their MG Clef and Skarm (both Helmet). NDK got bored of this on Turn 21 and Tera'd the Ho-Oh to Fairy, which was really sus as I was able to Knock the Ho-Oh and follow up by Wisping it a few turns later. I also managed to knock and Wisp the Dozo, forcing it to rest. I then got my Calyrex in on a double, and this is where the troubles began for NDK. I chipped Dozo heavily, and then when the Skarm came in, forced it out with Skeledirge. Dozo came back in and I go into Calyrex as Dozo can't do shit back and it needs to burn sleep turns. As it can't do anything I'm able to get a free Swords Dance as Skarm comes in, and NDK Body Presses the next turn and thus Calyrex begins to snowball. The 36 points of Speed investment come in clutch as Calyrex gets the jump on a Knocked Ho-Oh, knocking it out, and from here there's literally nothing to stop Calyrex from taking a knockout every turn. This was a really important win for me to get because I was starting to become really disillusioned with my abilities, and having an important win under my belt gave me the motivation I needed.
The idea was Webs + two breakers that are generally considered slow but can actually schmove when the opponent is nerfed by webs. Araquanid is, of course, the Webber of choice. It can always get Webs up, having the ability to 2HKO +0 Hatterene (who all run physdef) and it also happens to have a god 1v1 matchup into Great Tusk. One of the two stupid breakers of choice was Band Urshifu, which was actually originally Adamant, but I decided to go Jolly in the end. Most people look at this structure and expect Scarf, because where the fuck is the speed control otherwise? But then they switch in their Skarm to check it and it gets blown up. The singular check to this fucking bear is Clefable - MGLO CM is admittedly a bit of a weak matchup for the team, but with correct play you can blow it up when they least expect. The other broken on this team is the horse himself, Calyrex-Ice-Rider. This Pokemon is beyond stupid and can just win games on its own. When I first made this set, it was adamant max hp max speed, which was a troll set, but also meant I was never committing to Trick Room, allowing me to run SD 3 attacks, which is nice because I was prepared for the possibility of Dondozo, and could hence fit Seed Bomb. Or at least, I think this is my reasoning for that move, because I don't actually remember why we fit it. In the end, we decided that max speed was troll and we changed the spread to outspeed no investment base 90's when Webs are up. Completely arbitrary, but someone suggested outspeeding Tusk, and then I decided to outspeed Excadrill, then decided "fuck it let's go to 90 because it's a nice number".
We filled the team out with Sinistcha (because it's fat and CM's, and most importantly stops Tusk + Drill from spinning), Clefable (MG utility because this guy is fat as balls and we needed a rocker), and finally Skeledirge (because the team was weak to Zacian and also he's fat as balls. also it was meant to be Roar but I forgot to change that and instead it's wisp).
In game I loaded a god mu, into a reused Ho-Oh hazard stack. In reality what that meant was I could fuck about with Clef and Skeledirge forever, getting Rocks AND Webs up and Knocking their MG Clef and Skarm (both Helmet). NDK got bored of this on Turn 21 and Tera'd the Ho-Oh to Fairy, which was really sus as I was able to Knock the Ho-Oh and follow up by Wisping it a few turns later. I also managed to knock and Wisp the Dozo, forcing it to rest. I then got my Calyrex in on a double, and this is where the troubles began for NDK. I chipped Dozo heavily, and then when the Skarm came in, forced it out with Skeledirge. Dozo came back in and I go into Calyrex as Dozo can't do shit back and it needs to burn sleep turns. As it can't do anything I'm able to get a free Swords Dance as Skarm comes in, and NDK Body Presses the next turn and thus Calyrex begins to snowball. The 36 points of Speed investment come in clutch as Calyrex gets the jump on a Knocked Ho-Oh, knocking it out, and from here there's literally nothing to stop Calyrex from taking a knockout every turn. This was a really important win for me to get because I was starting to become really disillusioned with my abilities, and having an important win under my belt gave me the motivation I needed.
W4 vs Blazing (W) - cat's Stellar Zacian Offense
This week I really wanted to bring Zacian-Crowned. The specific set I wanted was Stellar, with STABs Wild Charge and Swords Dance. The main thing about this Zacian set is it is Adamant, getting the jump on Eternatus and its inheritors, the main idea being that the extra power offsets being outsped by other Zacians and their inheritors, which are honestly very difficult to pilot, and very easy to account for on balanced builds. However, I couldn't make any Zacian balances stick, and about an hour and a half before the game I bailed and just asked my teamcord for help.
Fortunately for me, cat was around and threw together the team extremely quickly for me, which I am very thankful for :blobheart:. Unlike the previous weeks where iiFWM and yuki helped me a lot, I had very little input on this team outside of the Zacian set, so full credit goes to her.
This isn't quite a hyper offense, but the defensive structure is quite thin, with momentum into the big breakers much preferred. All of the defensive pieces on this team have a way to create momentum - Pecharunt and AV Samurott flip, and Tusk has Eject Pack. Pecharunt is the most passive Pokemon on the team, but between Malignant Chain and Foul Play it can never truly be ignored, and it is of course a fantastic physical wall, with some absurd stats. AV Samurott brings some bulk on the special side while bringing a spike stack element, enabling it to always make progress that is difficult to remove, because Pecharunt is very good at blocking spins from Tusk. I've discussed Zacian already, while Roaring Moon acts as a strong Dragon Dancer that overloads Unaware Clef in tandem with Samurott, who is an issue for the team. It also Taunts down Dozo, who is also a problem for this team. The last slot goes Hydrapple, which gives the team a solid Wogerpon switch in, as well as an actual special breaker.
In the actual match, I load into a Rayquaza webs team. I lead Tusk and spam Rapid Spin, and it's to my benefit that my opponent doesn't Tera their Ribombee to Ghost, allowing me to keep webs off. From here, Zacian has a godly matchup as its naturally faster than everything and kills everything. Roaring Moon deals with the Ceruledge and I catch the Tera Ground Tusk with my Hydrapple's Leaf Storm. After getting Zacian in one more time, I am able to get a SD in front of WOgerpon and I win the game.
Fortunately for me, cat was around and threw together the team extremely quickly for me, which I am very thankful for :blobheart:. Unlike the previous weeks where iiFWM and yuki helped me a lot, I had very little input on this team outside of the Zacian set, so full credit goes to her.
This isn't quite a hyper offense, but the defensive structure is quite thin, with momentum into the big breakers much preferred. All of the defensive pieces on this team have a way to create momentum - Pecharunt and AV Samurott flip, and Tusk has Eject Pack. Pecharunt is the most passive Pokemon on the team, but between Malignant Chain and Foul Play it can never truly be ignored, and it is of course a fantastic physical wall, with some absurd stats. AV Samurott brings some bulk on the special side while bringing a spike stack element, enabling it to always make progress that is difficult to remove, because Pecharunt is very good at blocking spins from Tusk. I've discussed Zacian already, while Roaring Moon acts as a strong Dragon Dancer that overloads Unaware Clef in tandem with Samurott, who is an issue for the team. It also Taunts down Dozo, who is also a problem for this team. The last slot goes Hydrapple, which gives the team a solid Wogerpon switch in, as well as an actual special breaker.
In the actual match, I load into a Rayquaza webs team. I lead Tusk and spam Rapid Spin, and it's to my benefit that my opponent doesn't Tera their Ribombee to Ghost, allowing me to keep webs off. From here, Zacian has a godly matchup as its naturally faster than everything and kills everything. Roaring Moon deals with the Ceruledge and I catch the Tera Ground Tusk with my Hydrapple's Leaf Storm. After getting Zacian in one more time, I am able to get a SD in front of WOgerpon and I win the game.
W5 vs a fairy (L) - Specs Kyurem Offense
By Week 5 I was starting to become a little bit disillusioned with the metagame, becos of how many high powered threats are just flying around everywhere. I wanted to run back Kyurem Electrode because it had a great matchup into fairy's scout, but eventually I pivoted to a more offensive build with Landorus and Scarf Samurott. Garg is necessary to check LO Eternatus and Kyurem and beats Electrode after Tera, Primarina checks both Urshifu formes with Tera Bug to help into Landorus, and Pecharunt is here to be a bulky fucking pivot. Tera Normal is required to check Ghostceus that has already started setting up.
In the game I loaded Kyurem into a team with no Kyurem checks. Unfortunately I chucked it, my Tera, and my game's chances to Arceus because I wasn't expecting Life Orb. Unfortunately that Arceus crit my Pecharunt (there was a small chance to kill naturally, but it was, keyword, a small chance) and thus most of my team fell to Arceus. I had a way back in with Garg but I didn't play it accurately because I got my headcalcs wrong and was extremely tilted. With that being said, fairy definitely deserved the win because I didn't play well enough to warrant it. In retrospect, Pecharunt should probably be max physdef or max speed, Garganacl was a very late addition to the team, and so Pecharunt was checking Eternatus before its addition. Not changing the EV spread thus was absolute comedy but didn't really matter in the match.
e: I've also realised the Pecharunt does not need to be Tera Normal for Ghostceus, as there is a Garganacl on the team.
In the game I loaded Kyurem into a team with no Kyurem checks. Unfortunately I chucked it, my Tera, and my game's chances to Arceus because I wasn't expecting Life Orb. Unfortunately that Arceus crit my Pecharunt (there was a small chance to kill naturally, but it was, keyword, a small chance) and thus most of my team fell to Arceus. I had a way back in with Garg but I didn't play it accurately because I got my headcalcs wrong and was extremely tilted. With that being said, fairy definitely deserved the win because I didn't play well enough to warrant it. In retrospect, Pecharunt should probably be max physdef or max speed, Garganacl was a very late addition to the team, and so Pecharunt was checking Eternatus before its addition. Not changing the EV spread thus was absolute comedy but didn't really matter in the match.
e: I've also realised the Pecharunt does not need to be Tera Normal for Ghostceus, as there is a Garganacl on the team.
Theorymon teams
Team is a little bit old, but Kyogre theoretically kills everything in the metagame, so it might be interesting to explore this archetype again
I thought Clas's Zacian / Hoopa core was hella interesting so I tried to riff off it here
Sub Ho-Oh is a cool Pokemon. EVs are incomplete
EVs aren't complete either. Team is a weird mix of rain offense and balance, the idea is to keep rain going to help Thundurus and Araquanid break, and then win in the endgame with Sinistcha or Zacian.
For getting this far in the post, you get a funny fish team :)
Reflections and metagame thoughts
In terms of the metagame, I think it's been the healthiest it has been in a while - which is not very, unfortunately, speaking to how much of a car crash of a gen we've had for most OMs, through the fault of no one. There are too many things that can blow everything up - Urshifu, Zacian-Crowned, Electrode-Hisui, Iron Hands, Kyurem-White, Landorus and much more. These strong breakers are far too difficult to fit checks for on balance. Pokemon like Ogerpon, Samurott-Hisui and Ghostceus further pressure what limited slots for defensive presence can have. And then there's a shit ton more you have to account for - hyper offense pieces (like Darkrai, Manaphy), webs (mainly Araquanid, but also Ribombee), the lack of good removal in the tier (Great Tusk and Corviknight aren't strong enough defensively). Even off-meta builds (see FlamPoke's Houndstone and Trick Room teams) can be brought. This all means that playing bulky offense or balance makes you really prone to bad matchups. You can cover most things, but you can't always be solid into everything. Fat is in the worst place it has been for a while so people are really incentivised to play offense, which is fishy in of itself. I think there are two ways you can solve this - you can either try to be more restrictive and ban a lot of stuff - Iron Hands, Kyurem-White, Zacian-Crowned, Eternatus (because Etern being the fastest god outside of Deoxys-N sounds like a terrible idea), Arceus-Ghost probably need to go, Araquanid or Webs definitely needs to go, and then whatever remains broken needs to go after - or you can undo some of the more dubious tiering actions that have been taken over the past year and see if it solves people's problems with the meta. IE, freeing Gholdengo + Alomomola + Bolt. Alomomola in particular would help keep all of the broken special attackers in check. I hate Alomomola and absolutely hate playing against it, but as the meta stands at the moment, we are not in a healthy state unless we either free Alomomola, or ban a lot of stuff, and I mean a lot of stuff.
TL;DR:
as nashrock said, balance is only good into balance, and even then it's a matchup fish
ban Araq or Webs, and ban Hands
ban Zacian, KyuW, Etern, Ghost, or free Alomomola, whatever is more popular by survey
free Gholdengo, free Raging Bolt
and give us gen 10 please game freak
special thanks to iiFWM cat for forcing me to build good teams
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With ompl over I wanted to do mainly some vr noms but also talk a bit about the meta and how I felt about it building and playing. Going into this tour I hadn't played GG seriously in a while and in ompl specifically had only played it in 1 tiebreak game. I felt like at the time it was relatively appealing compared to other tiers I might play because it seemed stable enough, and after losing w1 and starting to figure more things out I think I was generally correct in thinking that and did quite well building all my own teams with consistency in my opinion.
I think the 2 best stat doners rn are eternatus and arceus quite clearly. My usage during the 10 games I played was:
etern 2x
ghostceus 2x
kyogre 2x
calyrex-ice 2x
groundceus 1x
kyurem-white 1x
IMO referencing the current vr some changes should be something like moving to S tier etern + ghostceus, A tier groundceus kyogre kyu-w kyogre, a/b tier zacian-c and ndm, b tier rayquaza, then the rest of them can stay where they are or are kinda bad so idrc but some of the unusable garbage like lugia ndw can probably drop. I feel like I'll get a lot of disagreement from zacian in B tier, but I genuinely think it's not that good. It realistically gives 2 good stats in speed and sp.def since the ground types and hamurott mainly appreciate the sp.def and everything likes the speed, but regular zacian just has like such mediocre stats for this metagame. A lot of the heavy lifting has to be done by zacian itself and I just can't see that happening vs a lot of well built teams with how easy it is to slap on something like dondozo, hp rotom, hp skarm, def zapdos, def lando, and scarfers. It's still a strong mon because it's zacian but it seems heavily overrated and I don't really like it compared to something with maybe 1 bad stat but some really high ones and maybe some average ones like caly and etern. The same kinda applies to ndm where it's just really slow and only has 1 super strong stat in attack and okay defenses but not much else, but it can do HO decently and has some niche uses on spikes stacking. I faced 0 of both zacian and ndm while also using 0 of both, and I tried building with a lot of stuff during this tour but I just never found something I felt was consistent enough with zacian. ndm maybe I could try to use more since I did see some decent teams with it but I'm not sure on its viability compared to some of the strongest stuff.
As for receivers, there's a lot more to talk about so I'll make just a quick list of some changes below but I have a few things I wanted to talk about in particular.
hamurott is genuinely insane in this meta, and I think a lot of its best teams it doesn't even go in attack or speed. I used it in 3/5 of the second half of my season once I started playing around with it more and testing it out, with none of the times putting it in attack or speed. I gave it sp.def AV twice and def scarf once, and also faced AV against me in both finals and finals tiebreak. It's such an amazing pivot into so many things with AV just alone already, and since its sp.def is super bad if you give it something like caly sp.def which I did in this game it can take so many hits and elevate a bulky offense a lot by being a reliable pivot that makes a lot of progress so you can role compress and outplay more mu's. A+ tier mon probably, can be given almost every stat and succeed, but caly attack and most sp.def are probably best.
the undefeated regiman. I used it twice in my run and while it's not that good in theory I think this thing has a legitimate niche. I put it on some bulky offense / balance builds where its only job was to be a steel type and to set rocks. There aren't that many bulky steel types that I think are super good and fill the role I expect of it, it's really only competing with heatran and tinkaton for sp.def steel stealth rocker. The other 2 do have issues tho, with heatran having the water weakness and not having twave like regi and tinkaton do, while tinkaton just gets stat gapped a lot and generally isn't the best mon to be giving a good stat to make up for that. I threw regi in attack both times despite it just being better in hp, because the hp slot is way more valuable so it's better to just throwaway regi's and give it slightly stronger iron head for a better mon overall to get hp. It gets a slightly real offensive presence with attack boost and can be a disrupter with rocks and twave. Funny mon that I said I would bring a lot of times and only ended up using twice, but idt anyone else was really using it and I think it has some sauce.
I send dragonite out once in both the games I used it in and it literally just died immediately since I wasn't using boots so I didn't get to show anything off, but I think this mon is legit insane and it did a bunch in test games and with the right support is in theory so much better than its ranked and used rn. If you give it a speed stat it has basically no flaws anymore stats wise, and just becomes a super fast dragon dancer with insane bulk and tera options. I gave it arc speed twice and that's more than enough for minimal investment to get it over the fastest viable speed pass with deo-n, so the rest can go into attack and bulk. Like I said I didn't reveal the sets but both were encore sets taken from OU, with the one in this game being eq tera fairy blast dd encore, and the one in this game being low kick tera ghost blast dd encore spell tag. It has so much set variety with tera and is super unexplored, can actually see it being close to broken down the line since it also does wonders on HO from my testing. Encore is just an insane move in this meta and the most average thing it'll do is probably like tera normal espeed dd sets which is still an amazing role to fill.
Iron treads is a fairly common mon and people know what it does, but both times I used it I brought 4a clear amulet and I just wanted to bring it up since I think it's really strong. It kinda farms teams that wanna pivot lando into it while also being super good anti webs with being faster than lando i and able to ice spinner and being a super scary rapid spinner since it has knock for ghosts. Strong pick in mainly sp.def slot but hp works too if you're in need of the sp.def slot for smth else and have a high hp gift.
I just had fun using blaziken and okidogi, blaziken in particular is super good and has big degen potential. I gave it kyu-w special attack and ran focus energy tera fire scope lens overheat, which has some actually absurd calcs. Tera overheat is 2hko'ing arc sp.def ting lu with the crit and focus blast does 72-86 with crit, while even sp.def etern is 2hko'd by tera crit overheat. Okidogi is a more honest mon but it's just a good progress maker, with AV and sp.def boost it's really tanky since that's one of its only average stats given how well rounded it is and it has knock + toxic chain to threaten anything bulky while being tanky enough to trade at least 1 for 1 vs a lot of HO, solid mon.
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Of these teams, the ones I would call closest to offense are the week 7 and the finals teams. Week 7 I used fast taunt ting lu with hazard stacking then sd scizor, dd encore dnite, and cm ghostceus. The team still had its defensive core of sp.def tusk even tho it was booster, and av prim in defense slot for pivoting with the ghsotceus being phys.def. It's very clearly not meant to be a super long game team but it isn't hyper offense, just has some strong set up and plays more aggressively. The finals team is rain so it's naturally just offensive, with lu and hp hatt being the only real defensive backbones since archaludon will likely be trading damage, and just strong mons otherwise in kyogre specs torn scarf samurott. Again not full HO since there's a slower hazard stacker in ting lu and bulkier pivots like hatt and arch, but an offensive team regardless. Every other team has some form of powerful defensive core that can be used to stick around, and I tested them all a lot and never found immense weaknesses I couldn't outplay. I'm sure there are some since all teams have poor matchups but the point is that I found immense consistency never using HO and almost exclusively using balance / bulky offense. I faced offensive builds with them too, offense vs ivar week 3, veil vs nashrock week 5, webs vs fraise week 6, and sun vs mindnight in semis. Balance teams have the capabilities to beat HO with fairly common and consistent pokemon, with mons like clefable, av hamurott, iron treads, eternatus, and dondozo all being important pieces in these games while all being very high tier mons.
On the contrary to these posts I'm quoting I think offense is actually the gimmicky playstyle and is the most inconsistent. It has a lot of customization so obviously sometimes you can pull a good mu but a lot of the times common cores will be able to outpace the threats you have and the strength of unaware mons, certain priority / fast boots attackers like darkrai, common teras, and really fat hp slots can hurt offense a lot. Even things like trick room caly and fast flying mons like the CB lando I used in finals can be good ways to outplay HO and the rest of your team covering other mu's can just pick up the pieces. I don't think it's unviable ofc it's HO in an OM with a high power level, I just don't think it's anywhere near broken. If anything were to get banned it's probably best to be like araquanid or iron hands ig, but I see neither as broken rn although araquanid also being an insane balance breaker might make it close. Banning any of the current ubers shouldn't be considered imo, etern is the best and is fairly balanced.
I will also post sample submissions since the samples are insanely outdated. These seem quite important to update soon especially with seasonal coming around, not having them at the start of the season kinda hurt me trying to get back into the tier since references for good cores weren't easy to come by. Click mons for paste.
This was my team from week 6 vs fraise, where I faced webs HO. Just by my guess it's probably the most consistent team I built, and has the most ways to outplay things in every matchup. Genuinely can't remember what the hamurott evs are for or if they're just funny slider, but all the mons here are powerful and serve a purpose. The worst matchup is probably just a simple life orb etern, but even for that you have tera on iron treads with max attack eq, tera cb stomping tantrum ogerpon, twave clefable, landorus which can live a hit and eq, sp.def tera poison av hamurott, and bulky calyrex ice to threaten. Its opportunities overall are limited, and anything else that may be an issue on paper like electrode can probably be outplayed with pivoting and tera.
I used this team in the deciding finals game vs entro and if we want varied archetypes I think this is a good one to feature. Archaludon is super strong and has good consistency, I think the spread lives some iron hands calcs maybe I can't exactly remember what I made it for. I forgot I had hamurott for my actual game so lu was spikes > eq initially, but eq just seems better with hamurott. Rest of the team is a fairly normal rain, specs torn does heavy lifting vs most things.
Used this in finals tiebreak vs ivar, I think it has surprise factor which was good for the game but also strong consistency which is why I'm submitting it. Lando is just a fantastic breaker and kinda destroys a lot of teams, and paired with spatk wake it's a nice pivoting core. Garg walls so much with etern hp it's super strong and moltres + iron treads rounds out the phys.def and hazard control game. Etern itself is just really consistent so I wanted to send one of the teams I used with it, and I figure people will call registeel less consistent than this. Teras are just to cover for slight weaknesses to physical attackers mainly since lando doesn't wanna take chip, like ground moltres for iron hands and steel etern for some zacian/ekiller/caly. Hands is a big threat to this team if you let up momentum but most things have a tera that can help it and it'll get chipped quite a bit, lando has intim and moltres can burn + tera roar then wake will outspeed or lando speed ties if it's an etern build and outspeeds on arc builds.
Looking at my usage I just found some final things I saw that were interesting and kinda reflect my takes on the meta as a whole. Between the stats, my ubers took the slots for each stat:
attack 3x (etern x1, kyogre x2)
def 2x (etern x1, kyu-w x1)
spatk 3x (ghostceus x2, groundceus x1)
speed 2x (caly-i x2)
In every game I played I was gifting both HP and sp.def, with the others being relatively evenly distributed as the stat I don't gift. I think this makes a lot of sense just thinking about it, pretty much every good uber should have an hp stat it can give away and benefit a mon since so many low hp mons get buffed insanely hard, and sp.def is just really good mainly on ground types but also on samurott dondozo pecha arch etc. The only arc stat I never gave away was spatk, which I think is just because the spatk receivers lowkey are just all garbage. To make things like elecrode hisui work you're giving it at worst etern spatk at 145 but ideally kyu w at 170, so I only made it a slot of focus with etern kyogre and kyu w, where I had a different receiver in every game (cress, electrode, blaziken, torn, wake) and I wouldn't even call wake a super big focus since the increase is 20 bst from it to etern. The rest of the good special attackers like darkrai crown prim enam etc barely appreciate the boost from the high spatk mons and arceus lowers all of theirs, so it makes sense to drop the gift a lot. Attack was dropped that much just bc their attack stats weren't good, not that attack receivers are bad.
My usage was fairly varied which I think is a good thing showing the meta isn't super constricted, but it's only a good thing because a lot of staples showed up multiple times which means it's not just chaos there's stability to be had. My most used mons showed up 3 times, being ting-lu, clefable, great tusk, landorus-therian, samurott-hisui, and hatterene. Of these, hatt, tusk, and clef all only appeared in 1 donation slot (hp, sp.def, def respectively), hamurott was in def and sp.def x2, lando was in speed and sp.atk x2, and lu was the only one in a different stat every time, between attack sp.def and speed. Ting lu and lando just have the variety to do that, and I never even used a special attack on the sp.atk lando gifts since it was with caly so it lowered the stat, lando is just really good (wow!!).
A lot of yap but that's just some stuff I wanted to talk about, I quite enjoyed this meta especially building and felt like it's in a fairly solid spot. Shoutouts again to HiZo and Smudge for drafting me in ompl, and Taka DragonPhoenix333 maybca damflame 3 Potatochan and anyone I may have forgotten that I tested with, I couldn't have gotten up to speed in this meta so fast without being able to try a bunch of stuff throughout the season.
I think the 2 best stat doners rn are eternatus and arceus quite clearly. My usage during the 10 games I played was:
etern 2x ghostceus 2x kyogre 2x calyrex-ice 2x groundceus 1x kyurem-white 1xIMO referencing the current vr some changes should be something like moving to S tier etern + ghostceus, A tier groundceus kyogre kyu-w kyogre, a/b tier zacian-c and ndm, b tier rayquaza, then the rest of them can stay where they are or are kinda bad so idrc but some of the unusable garbage like lugia ndw can probably drop. I feel like I'll get a lot of disagreement from zacian in B tier, but I genuinely think it's not that good. It realistically gives 2 good stats in speed and sp.def since the ground types and hamurott mainly appreciate the sp.def and everything likes the speed, but regular zacian just has like such mediocre stats for this metagame. A lot of the heavy lifting has to be done by zacian itself and I just can't see that happening vs a lot of well built teams with how easy it is to slap on something like dondozo, hp rotom, hp skarm, def zapdos, def lando, and scarfers. It's still a strong mon because it's zacian but it seems heavily overrated and I don't really like it compared to something with maybe 1 bad stat but some really high ones and maybe some average ones like caly and etern. The same kinda applies to ndm where it's just really slow and only has 1 super strong stat in attack and okay defenses but not much else, but it can do HO decently and has some niche uses on spikes stacking. I faced 0 of both zacian and ndm while also using 0 of both, and I tried building with a lot of stuff during this tour but I just never found something I felt was consistent enough with zacian. ndm maybe I could try to use more since I did see some decent teams with it but I'm not sure on its viability compared to some of the strongest stuff.
As for receivers, there's a lot more to talk about so I'll make just a quick list of some changes below but I have a few things I wanted to talk about in particular.
hamurott is genuinely insane in this meta, and I think a lot of its best teams it doesn't even go in attack or speed. I used it in 3/5 of the second half of my season once I started playing around with it more and testing it out, with none of the times putting it in attack or speed. I gave it sp.def AV twice and def scarf once, and also faced AV against me in both finals and finals tiebreak. It's such an amazing pivot into so many things with AV just alone already, and since its sp.def is super bad if you give it something like caly sp.def which I did in this game it can take so many hits and elevate a bulky offense a lot by being a reliable pivot that makes a lot of progress so you can role compress and outplay more mu's. A+ tier mon probably, can be given almost every stat and succeed, but caly attack and most sp.def are probably best. the undefeated regiman. I used it twice in my run and while it's not that good in theory I think this thing has a legitimate niche. I put it on some bulky offense / balance builds where its only job was to be a steel type and to set rocks. There aren't that many bulky steel types that I think are super good and fill the role I expect of it, it's really only competing with heatran and tinkaton for sp.def steel stealth rocker. The other 2 do have issues tho, with heatran having the water weakness and not having twave like regi and tinkaton do, while tinkaton just gets stat gapped a lot and generally isn't the best mon to be giving a good stat to make up for that. I threw regi in attack both times despite it just being better in hp, because the hp slot is way more valuable so it's better to just throwaway regi's and give it slightly stronger iron head for a better mon overall to get hp. It gets a slightly real offensive presence with attack boost and can be a disrupter with rocks and twave. Funny mon that I said I would bring a lot of times and only ended up using twice, but idt anyone else was really using it and I think it has some sauce. I send dragonite out once in both the games I used it in and it literally just died immediately since I wasn't using boots so I didn't get to show anything off, but I think this mon is legit insane and it did a bunch in test games and with the right support is in theory so much better than its ranked and used rn. If you give it a speed stat it has basically no flaws anymore stats wise, and just becomes a super fast dragon dancer with insane bulk and tera options. I gave it arc speed twice and that's more than enough for minimal investment to get it over the fastest viable speed pass with deo-n, so the rest can go into attack and bulk. Like I said I didn't reveal the sets but both were encore sets taken from OU, with the one in this game being eq tera fairy blast dd encore, and the one in this game being low kick tera ghost blast dd encore spell tag. It has so much set variety with tera and is super unexplored, can actually see it being close to broken down the line since it also does wonders on HO from my testing. Encore is just an insane move in this meta and the most average thing it'll do is probably like tera normal espeed dd sets which is still an amazing role to fill. Iron treads is a fairly common mon and people know what it does, but both times I used it I brought 4a clear amulet and I just wanted to bring it up since I think it's really strong. It kinda farms teams that wanna pivot lando into it while also being super good anti webs with being faster than lando i and able to ice spinner and being a super scary rapid spinner since it has knock for ghosts. Strong pick in mainly sp.def slot but hp works too if you're in need of the sp.def slot for smth else and have a high hp gift. I just had fun using blaziken and okidogi, blaziken in particular is super good and has big degen potential. I gave it kyu-w special attack and ran focus energy tera fire scope lens overheat, which has some actually absurd calcs. Tera overheat is 2hko'ing arc sp.def ting lu with the crit and focus blast does 72-86 with crit, while even sp.def etern is 2hko'd by tera crit overheat. Okidogi is a more honest mon but it's just a good progress maker, with AV and sp.def boost it's really tanky since that's one of its only average stats given how well rounded it is and it has knock + toxic chain to threaten anything bulky while being tanky enough to trade at least 1 for 1 vs a lot of HO, solid mon.Rises:
Samurott-Hisui --> S/A+ (atk, def, sp.def, speed)
Registeel --> Ranked (maybe C/C+ or so) (hp, atk)
Tornadus-Therian --> B/B+ (most of them but mainly sp.atk is really good)
Okidogi --> B/B+ (sp.def, speed)
Scizor --> B+ (hp, sp.def)
Blaziken --> B+ (any, mainly sp.atk)
Dragonite --> A/A- (speed)
Sinistcha --> Ranked (surely this being UR is just an oversight it should be like B+ or something) (HP)
Tinkaton --> B+ (hp, attack, def)
Scream tail --> A-/B+ (kyu spatk on webs is crazy with encore I just never got around to bringing it) (sp.atk)
Garganacl --> A/A- (hp, sp.def)
Vaporeon --> Ranked (milotic is ranked and is garbage vaporeon just is better milotic with wish passes, discount alo) (def)
Garchomp --> C+ (maybe just a slight rise, I built a lot with it in finals before deciding on cb lando instead as the ground but phys.def with def gift and hazard stacking helmet dtail eq is quite strong in a lot of mu's) (def, sp.def, speed)
Drops:
These are less important to be specific with so I'll just list some names
ogerpon wellspring, excadrill, ogerpon cornerstone, iron boulder, volcanion, empoleon, goodra hisui, grimmsnarl, milotic, and a bunch of random mons once you get below like B rank can all move or get unranked, almost nothing down there is even considered serious.
Samurott-Hisui --> S/A+ (atk, def, sp.def, speed) Registeel --> Ranked (maybe C/C+ or so) (hp, atk) Tornadus-Therian --> B/B+ (most of them but mainly sp.atk is really good) Okidogi --> B/B+ (sp.def, speed) Scizor --> B+ (hp, sp.def) Blaziken --> B+ (any, mainly sp.atk) Dragonite --> A/A- (speed) Sinistcha --> Ranked (surely this being UR is just an oversight it should be like B+ or something) (HP) Tinkaton --> B+ (hp, attack, def) Scream tail --> A-/B+ (kyu spatk on webs is crazy with encore I just never got around to bringing it) (sp.atk) Garganacl --> A/A- (hp, sp.def) Vaporeon --> Ranked (milotic is ranked and is garbage vaporeon just is better milotic with wish passes, discount alo) (def) Garchomp --> C+ (maybe just a slight rise, I built a lot with it in finals before deciding on cb lando instead as the ground but phys.def with def gift and hazard stacking helmet dtail eq is quite strong in a lot of mu's) (def, sp.def, speed)Drops:
These are less important to be specific with so I'll just list some names
ogerpon wellspring, excadrill, ogerpon cornerstone, iron boulder, volcanion, empoleon, goodra hisui, grimmsnarl, milotic, and a bunch of random mons once you get below like B rank can all move or get unranked, almost nothing down there is even considered serious.
I also wanted to respond to these posts in particular since I think they're quite incorrect and can lead to poor action being taken if it's a widespread belief. I personally would only call 2 of the teams I used during my ompl run "offense", and not proper hyper offense with a suicide lead but some bulkier attackers and at least some form of defensive core. Just as sprites these are what I used, in stat order with replays hyperlinked:
(L) (W) (W) (W) (W) (W) (W) (W) (W) (W)Of these teams, the ones I would call closest to offense are the week 7 and the finals teams. Week 7 I used fast taunt ting lu with hazard stacking then sd scizor, dd encore dnite, and cm ghostceus. The team still had its defensive core of sp.def tusk even tho it was booster, and av prim in defense slot for pivoting with the ghsotceus being phys.def. It's very clearly not meant to be a super long game team but it isn't hyper offense, just has some strong set up and plays more aggressively. The finals team is rain so it's naturally just offensive, with lu and hp hatt being the only real defensive backbones since archaludon will likely be trading damage, and just strong mons otherwise in kyogre specs torn scarf samurott. Again not full HO since there's a slower hazard stacker in ting lu and bulkier pivots like hatt and arch, but an offensive team regardless. Every other team has some form of powerful defensive core that can be used to stick around, and I tested them all a lot and never found immense weaknesses I couldn't outplay. I'm sure there are some since all teams have poor matchups but the point is that I found immense consistency never using HO and almost exclusively using balance / bulky offense. I faced offensive builds with them too, offense vs ivar week 3, veil vs nashrock week 5, webs vs fraise week 6, and sun vs mindnight in semis. Balance teams have the capabilities to beat HO with fairly common and consistent pokemon, with mons like clefable, av hamurott, iron treads, eternatus, and dondozo all being important pieces in these games while all being very high tier mons.
On the contrary to these posts I'm quoting I think offense is actually the gimmicky playstyle and is the most inconsistent. It has a lot of customization so obviously sometimes you can pull a good mu but a lot of the times common cores will be able to outpace the threats you have and the strength of unaware mons, certain priority / fast boots attackers like darkrai, common teras, and really fat hp slots can hurt offense a lot. Even things like trick room caly and fast flying mons like the CB lando I used in finals can be good ways to outplay HO and the rest of your team covering other mu's can just pick up the pieces. I don't think it's unviable ofc it's HO in an OM with a high power level, I just don't think it's anywhere near broken. If anything were to get banned it's probably best to be like araquanid or iron hands ig, but I see neither as broken rn although araquanid also being an insane balance breaker might make it close. Banning any of the current ubers shouldn't be considered imo, etern is the best and is fairly balanced.
I will also post sample submissions since the samples are insanely outdated. These seem quite important to update soon especially with seasonal coming around, not having them at the start of the season kinda hurt me trying to get back into the tier since references for good cores weren't easy to come by. Click mons for paste.
This was my team from week 6 vs fraise, where I faced webs HO. Just by my guess it's probably the most consistent team I built, and has the most ways to outplay things in every matchup. Genuinely can't remember what the hamurott evs are for or if they're just funny slider, but all the mons here are powerful and serve a purpose. The worst matchup is probably just a simple life orb etern, but even for that you have tera on iron treads with max attack eq, tera cb stomping tantrum ogerpon, twave clefable, landorus which can live a hit and eq, sp.def tera poison av hamurott, and bulky calyrex ice to threaten. Its opportunities overall are limited, and anything else that may be an issue on paper like electrode can probably be outplayed with pivoting and tera.
I used this team in the deciding finals game vs entro and if we want varied archetypes I think this is a good one to feature. Archaludon is super strong and has good consistency, I think the spread lives some iron hands calcs maybe I can't exactly remember what I made it for. I forgot I had hamurott for my actual game so lu was spikes > eq initially, but eq just seems better with hamurott. Rest of the team is a fairly normal rain, specs torn does heavy lifting vs most things.
Used this in finals tiebreak vs ivar, I think it has surprise factor which was good for the game but also strong consistency which is why I'm submitting it. Lando is just a fantastic breaker and kinda destroys a lot of teams, and paired with spatk wake it's a nice pivoting core. Garg walls so much with etern hp it's super strong and moltres + iron treads rounds out the phys.def and hazard control game. Etern itself is just really consistent so I wanted to send one of the teams I used with it, and I figure people will call registeel less consistent than this. Teras are just to cover for slight weaknesses to physical attackers mainly since lando doesn't wanna take chip, like ground moltres for iron hands and steel etern for some zacian/ekiller/caly. Hands is a big threat to this team if you let up momentum but most things have a tera that can help it and it'll get chipped quite a bit, lando has intim and moltres can burn + tera roar then wake will outspeed or lando speed ties if it's an etern build and outspeeds on arc builds.
Looking at my usage I just found some final things I saw that were interesting and kinda reflect my takes on the meta as a whole. Between the stats, my ubers took the slots for each stat:
attack 3x (etern x1, kyogre x2)
def 2x (etern x1, kyu-w x1)
spatk 3x (ghostceus x2, groundceus x1)
speed 2x (caly-i x2)
In every game I played I was gifting both HP and sp.def, with the others being relatively evenly distributed as the stat I don't gift. I think this makes a lot of sense just thinking about it, pretty much every good uber should have an hp stat it can give away and benefit a mon since so many low hp mons get buffed insanely hard, and sp.def is just really good mainly on ground types but also on samurott dondozo pecha arch etc. The only arc stat I never gave away was spatk, which I think is just because the spatk receivers lowkey are just all garbage. To make things like elecrode hisui work you're giving it at worst etern spatk at 145 but ideally kyu w at 170, so I only made it a slot of focus with etern kyogre and kyu w, where I had a different receiver in every game (cress, electrode, blaziken, torn, wake) and I wouldn't even call wake a super big focus since the increase is 20 bst from it to etern. The rest of the good special attackers like darkrai crown prim enam etc barely appreciate the boost from the high spatk mons and arceus lowers all of theirs, so it makes sense to drop the gift a lot. Attack was dropped that much just bc their attack stats weren't good, not that attack receivers are bad.
My usage was fairly varied which I think is a good thing showing the meta isn't super constricted, but it's only a good thing because a lot of staples showed up multiple times which means it's not just chaos there's stability to be had. My most used mons showed up 3 times, being ting-lu, clefable, great tusk, landorus-therian, samurott-hisui, and hatterene. Of these, hatt, tusk, and clef all only appeared in 1 donation slot (hp, sp.def, def respectively), hamurott was in def and sp.def x2, lando was in speed and sp.atk x2, and lu was the only one in a different stat every time, between attack sp.def and speed. Ting lu and lando just have the variety to do that, and I never even used a special attack on the sp.atk lando gifts since it was with caly so it lowered the stat, lando is just really good (wow!!).
A lot of yap but that's just some stuff I wanted to talk about, I quite enjoyed this meta especially building and felt like it's in a fairly solid spot. Shoutouts again to HiZo and Smudge for drafting me in ompl, and Taka DragonPhoenix333 maybca damflame 3 Potatochan and anyone I may have forgotten that I tested with, I couldn't have gotten up to speed in this meta so fast without being able to try a bunch of stuff throughout the season.
Survey !
(VR update and samples coming soon)
We decided to make a quite short survey but don't worry you can put whatever you think is important enough that hasn't been put on the survey (mons that weren't quoted on the survey etc). We will pay a big attention at this part in particular so do not hesitate to write a lot on it.
--> You can also deepened your thoughts on the differents question we asked if you have a specific hit in mind for Sticky Web for example (Araq etc)
(VR update and samples coming soon)
We decided to make a quite short survey but don't worry you can put whatever you think is important enough that hasn't been put on the survey (mons that weren't quoted on the survey etc). We will pay a big attention at this part in particular so do not hesitate to write a lot on it.
--> You can also deepened your thoughts on the differents question we asked if you have a specific hit in mind for Sticky Web for example (Araq etc)
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