Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

There's more to a pokemon being banworthy than just being traditionally broken. There's also whether or not the Pokemon's impact is overall healthy and positive to the tier, which especially relevant this tier when we have so many things to account for already. Pokemon like the retested Palafin a while ago are a great example of this. It could be argued it wasn't super broken outright, but the way it warped the tier around it was very unhealthy and especially unneeded when we already had (and continue to have) so many things to prep for already.

What does your second paragraph even mean?? What does "bleed market share to VGC" mean? And anyways, the approach currently used is doing fine and we still see innovation and creativity being fostered. Gweezing is on track to reach OU through usage next month (should trends continue) and we constantly see little tweaks to Pokemon and how they're getting used.

Idk. It seems to me like de facto, the threshold for an unban is much higher than the one for a ban, because you have to argue whether that mon "brings positive qualities to the tier". I just read the 6th Gen RU thread and it had a similar debate about potentially freeing some RUBL mons and I kept hearing the same reasoning about even pokemon that aren't broken per se shouldn't be unbanned because "they don't bring anything to the tier". Correct me if I sound like I have a tinfoil hat on, but that's like a great pretext for locking most banned mons pretty much forever. If you argue about bans you will see most of them tend to be "justified in hindsight".

Now I'm not saying we should unban flutter mane or something lmao, I just made certain observations. I made the bleeding market share to VGC point because to me it seems like people want shorter battles. Banning a mon still means we have a ton of other mons to innovate with, but PR is way more impactful over the average player and leads to short slogans like "Smogon loves stall"

 

[Welcome to mars]

The rise in wellspring mask ogerpon complaints makes sense since it is very restricting on teambuilding, it limits options for teams that run defensive pokemon as it demands specific counters like amoonguss due to its boosted moves and coverage to crush seemingly solid counters like hydrapple or sinistcha. I believe that because of how hard it is to cover in the teambuilder for any team that isn’t hyper offense that never wants to have a dedicated defensive mon, that it is an unhealthy presence in the tier.

 

[Supraz]

Hi, i'll make the following post in hope of a Volcarona + Roaring Moon retest between the end of WCoP and the start of OLT

Waterpon right now is on her 2016-18 CR7 champions league run since the moon ban, even reaching top 3 usage in some stour days and top 5 on ladder and it's a boost in viabilty and usage that was not needed as she was already one of the best mons in the tier.

In general I've never seen the ladder as centralized as the post moon ban, with Zama/Ghold/Lu/Dnite/Waterpon everywhere, even on the same team, BO feels unmatched in its consistency and if the goal of tiering is to have as many playstyle with at least decent viabilty as possible in my opinion that was better achieved in previous meta interactions.

HO right now feels on the verge of death and RMoon was carrying the aforementioned style with its unique capacity in forcing progress vs boots spam, its win rate in SPL settled as a fair 52% which is lower than it was before, showing an adaption to the new shining fairyblast sets probably.

What volc brings has already been discussed some months ago in this post so I won't go much in details about it, I'll just say that after the moon ban, Gholdengo is at his best ever and both mons would check it greatly. Both mons would check each other decently and i could see moon going more speed boosting like here with CTC using moon's unmatched non choice locked speed tier to use taunt and block set up, in this case from another RM, but i could see it directly using acro as even if speed boosted, Volc is forced to invest highly in bulk to barely survive it, or force tera.

I won't come here like a shameless jerk and say that their bans were completely ridiculous, I'm aware that both of them are incredible sweepers given the right conditions, and that those conditions are fewer than other mons, but in the end i feel like all those bans got the rich richer more than elevating previously suppressed mons and that their addition would lower a bit the top dogs capabilities and even resurrect mons like dirge.

Why not ban Ogerpon then? Well, i fell like the ban chain has to stop at some point, a Waterpon-less meta would elevate fat too much and generally if we continue to ban whatever is slightly more powerful than the others the usage from the previous mons would just spread into the other top dogs, Gen 7 is perfectly playable and considered one of/if not the best gen of all time and it had less than half the suspects with megas and Z moves in the equation.

So yeah, i feel like after 16 suspects for a ban, for once (well, twice if we consider the likeshop suspect) we could try go in the opposite direction and move the theory of previous posts and nomination in the survey to practice, then who knows, maybe both will be rejected with ursa bloodmoon %, but who knows till we test them.

 

[FayaWizard]

Both mons would check each other decently and i could see moon going more speed boosting like here with CTC using moon's unmatched non choice locked speed tier to use taunt and block set up, in this case from another RM, but i could see it directly using acro as even if speed boosted, Volc is forced to invest highly in bulk to barely survive it, or force tera.

I would just like to point out this is literally what tiering policy tries to avoid: broken checking broken. I’m not going to address the rest of these points because I’m not that invested, but if you want to unban a few Ubers, don’t use the argument that “they’d check each other”: that’s the opposite of what we want.

 

[Magcargo]

I'm kinda surprised that Synthesis Serp - or Serp in general - hasn't risen in usage to help vs Ogerpon-W. I find it to be pretty great outside of this match-up - mon does quite nicely against mons like Lu, Garg, Tusk, etc. and it has strong progress making tools against its counters with Glare + Knock Off. Glare in general can feel kinda of broken and cheap since it can let you roll the dice and snowball with Leaf Storm - or enable some shitter partner. Furthermore, most of its checks like Raging Bolt, Slowking-G, Zapdos, or Ghold get mogged by Lu, with a few other guys like Cinderace & Dragapult getting owned by Garg (unless you are one of those evil ppl running HJK Cinderace). IIRC it had solid showing during SPL where it went 5 for 5 the few times it was brought. There's also room for additional development imo with some moves like Taunt, Leech Seed, etc.

 

[Moyashi]

The problem with Serperior is that it has no clean way to get past its answers so it has a difficult time making progress in those match ups which unfortunately are very common. Between limited Leaf Storm PP and a limited defensive profile, I just don’t see it being very useful in the meta. It has its place on some teams but I’m not surprised it isn’t used much.

On a different note, am I going crazy or is there a lot more Banded Pult on ladder lately. And if so why is that. I don’t recall off the top of my head a reason why it’d be more used suddenly.

 

[mcribs]

The problem with Serperior is that it has no clean way to get past its answers so it has a difficult time making progress in those match ups which unfortunately are very common. Between limited Leaf Storm PP and a limited defensive profile, I just don’t see it being very useful in the meta. It has its place on some teams but I’m not surprised it isn’t used much.

On a different note, am I going crazy or is there a lot more Banded Pult on ladder lately. And if so why is that. I don’t recall off the top of my head a reason why it’d be more used suddenly.

band pult is prob becoming more popular with how well it does into balance/fat teams. uturn chunks ting lu and tb ghost can be a nightmare for mons like tink or glowking. plus with dnite and multiscale, a harder hitting dragon darts can mess with dnite pretty well.

personally, i still use specs pult, given how with hazards, it'll be a nuisance for gambit or lu to switch in. Shadow ball is still spammable enough vs certain teams, and draco can be very hard to switch into

 

[Excalibuwrath]

Having played around with both Levitate and Gas for a bit now, there's actually something I want to mention that I feel has gone a little underdiscussed. I used to be a bit of a Neutralizing Gas hater before I used it, because it never felt particularly good when I played against it. It felt like I never really had to play around it because it didn't actually wall anything meaningful; yeah, you're not going to be able to stack hazards against it but if you just accept that, it feels like you're playing a 6v5. And like, yeah, that's overly pessimistic. Gas does things like turn you into the best non-Clef Garg answer and allow you to really pressure Gliscor like nothing else, but obviously the big appeal is that by denying Ghold hazard-stack you suddenly get access to massive teambuilding flexibility that you wouldn't have otherwise. I think it was Pkel that said in an RMT recently that Boots suck and you unlock a ton of potential on everything when you give it a real item, and like, yeah, true. We know this, reliable removal is good, that's not new.

For my first little bit of trying out Gas Gweezing, though, it just felt awful to play. I started with my Levitate Gweezing team and altered it accordingly, swapping out the Tusk for a physical wall that could actually contain Booster setup Tusk, and then swapping in Lu as my special wall to not auto-lose to Bolt, so on and so forth, but it just felt like something wasn't working. Even though I could remove on Ghold now, it felt like I was somehow worse at removing (my Tusk didn't have spin before so that's not it). I felt really passive, I could never really get Gweezing in to remove anything, and my wincons felt like they were getting taken out of the game.

Here's the thing I realized that I feel like I haven't heard many people point out. Neutralizing Gas does indeed give Gweezing a special position in the hazard control meta, and while it's the Ghold matchup more broadly that gives it that position, more broadly the setters it does well against are Hamurott, Gliscor, Clod and Ting-Lu sorta if you're Wisp instead of Toxic. Those are valuable! But what I realized is that when you lose the Ground immunity, not only are you a less reliable defensive piece in general, you specifically lose the ability to come in to remove on Lando and Tusk, aka the standard BO rockers, and mons that Levitate Gweezing just completely sits on (although Taunt Lando is a pain for sure). For them, you need to play the long game, accept that you'll have to play some turns with rocks up until you can bring the Weezing in on something else, whereas against most Spikers you can just come hard in and clear the field.

The reason this is important is that half the reason you're using a mon like Gas Gweezing, which is pretty limited as a defensive piece but which is massively valuable for hazard control, is that it allows you to load up on good sets elsewhere. Defensive pieces with lefties/sludge or helmet, rocks-weak sweepers with boosting items or even greedier stuff like Lum, etc etc. But I got tricked by this because I had been using Lum Dnite as my broken sweeper of choice, and what I realized is that while it was working great with Levitate Gweezing (as long as I didn't keep running into Gholdengo), paired with the Gas variant it was consistently getting taken out of the game by rocks that I just couldn't consistently remove. Yes, I could deny hazardstack, but Dnite's immune to those anyway. I swapped it out for the Sub Tera Steel Zama set and immediately the build started working again. More importantly, it's the really fat builds that get opened up that would otherwise lose the long game to spikes.

Tl;dr Neutralizing Gas is unique specifically in that it can deny spikestack, but it's not actually great at keeping rocks off at all times because it matches up poorly into common rockers. The result is that it can allow greedy offensive/defensive pieces, but they have to specifically be pieces that fall apart to Spikes, not rocks. If you rely on it to try to enable, like, Helmet Zapdos or Lum Dnite, they're probably going to just get taken out of the game. Is this an interesting observation? Who knows!

 

[toshimelonhead]

Weezing-Galar really shouldn't switch on any hazard setter directly. Its better option is to use Rocky Helmet to switch into a physical sweeper to chip it and then Defog hazards without worrying about Gholdengo stopping things (assuming Clear Amulet doesn't take over things if rumors that it's becoming more popular are actually true). It's also possible to get the best of both abilities by running Neutralizing Gas + Rocky Helmet + Tera Flying to bait any Earthquakes, Earth Powers, or Headlong Rushes. The set I have had the most success with in OU is below:


Weezing-Galar (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Neutralizing Gas
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 224 HP / 32 SpA / 252 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Fire Blast
- Strange Steam
- Defog

EV spread here is for OHKOing Lokix with Strange Steam if it hits and outspeeding Jolly Kingambit with remaining EVs in HP for bulk.

32 SpA Neutralizing Gas Weezing-Galar Strange Steam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Lokix: 284-336 (100.3 - 118.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

[Excalibuwrath]

Weezing-Galar really shouldn't switch on any hazard setter directly. Its better option is to use Rocky Helmet to switch into a physical sweeper to chip it and then Defog hazards without worrying about Gholdengo stopping things (assuming Clear Amulet doesn't take over things if rumors that it's becoming more popular are actually true). It's also possible to get the best of both abilities by running Neutralizing Gas + Rocky Helmet + Tera Flying to bait any Earthquakes, Earth Powers, or Headlong Rushes. The set I have had the most success with in OU is below:


Weezing-Galar (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Neutralizing Gas
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 224 HP / 32 SpA / 252 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Fire Blast
- Strange Steam
- Defog

EV spread here is for OHKOing Lokix with Strange Steam if it hits and outspeeding Jolly Kingambit with remaining EVs in HP for bulk.

32 SpA Neutralizing Gas Weezing-Galar Strange Steam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Lokix: 284-336 (100.3 - 118.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

But that's the point! If you can't come directly in on hazard setters, then you're going to have to play at least a bit of the game with hazards up. That can be fine, and it can also take certain team members out of the game if you really need hazards off. Sure, you can say "don't use sets that get invalidated once hazards go up", but the main point of using Neutralizing Gas Gweezing is to allow you to run those normally greedy sets, sets that are just outright better than Boots sets if you can keep the hazards under control.

Also, I increasingly find "just bring it in on a different physical sweeper" to be better in theory than in practice, because how many of those is it actually coming in on and walling? Obviously it's not Tusk or Lando, and it's not Gambit either. Woger has a decent roll to OHKO if it SD's on the switch and clicks Tera. You can handle Dnite alright but because you lack recovery, it can just play the long game, chip you, and then come in to break past later. You're pretty good into Zama, except AoA sets with Heavy Slam are tricky, and Tera Steel IDBP sets just shut you down unless you run Fire coverage (which is useful, I agree, but there is an opportunity cost). You're also pretty good against some Val sets, but definitely not all.

My point isn't to call this mon bad or anything, it's just that "you can't switch it in on any hazard setters" is a massive, glaring issue for a mon whose most gamechanging attribute is its removal abilities. All I'm trying to illustrate is that figuring out the matchups where its defensive utility is most effective and where it can actually keep hazards off at all times as opposed to those where it has to be patient is going to be very important for building solid teams around it.

 

[658Greninja]

what’s up smogonites, I would like to take this moment to discuss Gholdengo in SV OU.

I’m finding Ghold to be in an awkward spot right now. Its not a bad mon, quite the opposite, its well-established as a top 5 mon right now. But Mr. Ghold Man over here is dealing with what I’d like to call set choice syndrome.


Balloon Physically defensive sets were considered to be Gholdengo’s magnum opus, combining its defensive profile and longevity with the breaking potential of Nasty Plot. It was and still is important for staving off Zama, Kyurem, Dnite, and Tusk. It even could tank Waterpon’s Cudgel and T-Wave it in response. But I’m finding it more difficult to splash, because giving Ting-Lu free Spikes or Ruinations is, for a lack of a better term….ruinous. Ghold can 2HKO with Tera Fairy Dazzling Gleam, but there are problems with that. Ghold is a crucial glue, so bringing it below half health with Ruination puts it in a lose/lose situation. Ghold is also burning Tera and sacrificing its ability to spinblock. Ghold’s speed tier makes it incredibly prone to being rkilled


So now the best set has become Scarf. Providing speed control vs Zama, Pult, Kyurem, weakened Ogerpon, Val, and opposing Gholdengo. But more importantly, a way for Ghold to cripple Ting-Lu and Stall with Trick. Here’s the catch though. Gholdengo becomes less effective at switching into Zama and spinblocking.

252 Atk Zamazenta Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gholdengo: 172-204 (54.6 - 64.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 Atk Zamazenta Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gholdengo: 142-168 (45 - 53.3%) -- 29.7% chance to 2HKO

Ghold is bulky, but only with bulk investment, as its mediocre base defenses start to show when you try to run max SpA max Speed sets. There is a reason you don’t see offensive NP three attacks Ghold outside of shit like Webs. is fun, but suboptimal outside of fishing Balance.

Lu’s dominance has made bulkier variants of Ghold less favorable. Teams either drop Ghold for Pecha or run Scarf on Ghold. Teams running Physdef Ghold need to pair it with Tusk and Waterpon to punish Lu.

So I want to bring up three discussion questions.

1: How do you feel about Lu’s impact in the tier?

2: Do you prefer Pecha over Ghold?

3: What are your thoughts on Ghold in SV OU?

 

[Magcargo]

what’s up smogonites, I would like to take this moment to discuss Gholdengo in SV OU.

View attachment 746127
I’m finding Ghold to be in an awkward spot right now. Its not a bad mon, quite the opposite, its well-established as a top 5 mon right now. But Mr. Ghold Man over here is dealing with what I’d like to call set choice syndrome.


Balloon Physically defensive sets were considered to be Gholdengo’s magnum opus, combining its defensive profile and longevity with the breaking potential of Nasty Plot. It was and still is important for staving off Zama, Kyurem, Dnite, and Tusk. It even could tank Waterpon’s Cudgel and T-Wave it in response. But I’m finding it more difficult to splash, because giving Ting-Lu free Spikes or Ruinations is, for a lack of a better term….ruinous. Ghold can 2HKO with Tera Fairy Dazzling Gleam, but there are problems with that. Ghold is a crucial glue, so bringing it below half health with Ruination puts it in a lose/lose situation. Ghold is also burning Tera and sacrificing its ability to spinblock. Ghold’s speed tier makes it incredibly prone to being rkilled


So now the best set has become Scarf. Providing speed control vs Zama, Pult, Kyurem, weakened Ogerpon, Val, and opposing Gholdengo. But more importantly, a way for Ghold to cripple Ting-Lu and Stall with Trick. Here’s the catch though. Gholdengo becomes less effective at switching into Zama and spinblocking.

252 Atk Zamazenta Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gholdengo: 172-204 (54.6 - 64.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 Atk Zamazenta Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gholdengo: 142-168 (45 - 53.3%) -- 29.7% chance to 2HKO

Ghold is bulky, but only with bulk investment, as its mediocre base defenses start to show when you try to run max SpA max Speed sets. There is a reason you don’t see offensive NP three attacks Ghold outside of shit like Webs. is fun, but suboptimal outside of fishing Balance.

Lu’s dominance has made bulkier variants of Ghold less favorable. Teams either drop Ghold for Pecha or run Scarf on Ghold. Teams running Physdef Ghold need to pair it with Tusk and Waterpon to punish Lu.

So I want to bring up three discussion questions.

1: How do you feel about Lu’s impact in the tier?

2: Do you prefer Pecha over Ghold?

3: What are your thoughts on Ghold in SV OU?

Personally I feel like Ghold has been overrated for most of DLC2, with most of the banned setup sweepers like Volcarona, Gouging Fire, and Roaring Moon eating it alive - and even a lot of the non-banned Pokemon like Kingambit, Darkrai, Great Tusk, Hisuian Samurott, Weavile, and a few others giving it trouble. You had counterplay to a lot of this to some degree - Colbur Berry was pretty cool on bulky T-Wave sets to lure and cripple mons like Rai and Weavile + lure Kingambit with Focus Blast, and most of the Air Balloon sets / Tera Fairy NP sets can be annoying to deal wiith on Web, particularly with certain balance structures. But a lot of this counterplay can feel a bit flimsy or have certain oppurtunity cost when using the mon - Colbur Berry and Air Balloon are both Temporary measures + make you more vulnerable to hazards, T-Wave can lure some mons well but is also a massive piece of Ting-Lu food, and Focus Blast always just felt bad to run. I feel it also needed Tera for its NP set to cook balance, which is fair, but Tera'ing gholdengo IMO has pretty high oppurtunity cost since you remove what makes it so solid - Its typing. And most of SV's other balanced breakers like Rai, Gliscor, or Weav felt like they have wider uses against the rest of the metagame compared to Gholdie. Most other players won't agree with me here, but I always found the running ghold would comprimise my MU vs the many other threats in previous iterations of SV, like VOlc, Goug, Moon, Rai, Gambit etc. so I found it difficult to build with.

With all the bans, I think Gholdengo is in a pretty solid spot. Its Choice Scarf set previously was (imo) very terrible in previous iterations of the metagame because it was just setup fodder for all the fast sweepers like DD Moon, Goug, QD Volc, etc. and was not reliable enough to act as speed control vs them. With these Pokemon gone however, I feel like it is in a much better spot and is the premier speed control option in the format imo alongside Pult / Zama. The next best DDer, Dragonite, is slower, letting you revenge kill that + cripple it with Trick or something and the set I think best leverages Gholdengo's resistances to switch into Pokemon and either deal big damage or revenge kill them. For example, Gholdengo can technically switch into all of rai's moves (Focus Blast, Sludge Bomb, Ice Beam, NP, Wisp, etc.), but previously its middling speed meant that it would need to Tera in order to beat it. With Scarf though? You can leverage these resistances to apply pressure and revenge kill it. Similarly, you can leverage its resistances to Ice and apply pressure to other mons like Kyurem and directly threaten it back rather than taking a ton of damage from EP. And, on more generalist builds, Scarf Gholdengo is one of the best Pokemon at actually spinblocking against Great Tusk since you are able to chip it with a ton of damage before it is able to act, rather than just getting you balloon broken and HLR'd. I think these sets really make the most of Ghold's utility.

 

[toshimelonhead]

But that's the point! If you can't come directly in on hazard setters, then you're going to have to play at least a bit of the game with hazards up. That can be fine, and it can also take certain team members out of the game if you really need hazards off. Sure, you can say "don't use sets that get invalidated once hazards go up", but the main point of using Neutralizing Gas Gweezing is to allow you to run those normally greedy sets, sets that are just outright better than Boots sets if you can keep the hazards under control.

Also, I increasingly find "just bring it in on a different physical sweeper" to be better in theory than in practice, because how many of those is it actually coming in on and walling? Obviously it's not Tusk or Lando, and it's not Gambit either. Woger has a decent roll to OHKO if it SD's on the switch and clicks Tera. You can handle Dnite alright but because you lack recovery, it can just play the long game, chip you, and then come in to break past later. You're pretty good into Zama, except AoA sets with Heavy Slam are tricky, and Tera Steel IDBP sets just shut you down unless you run Fire coverage (which is useful, I agree, but there is an opportunity cost). You're also pretty good against some Val sets, but definitely not all.

My point isn't to call this mon bad or anything, it's just that "you can't switch it in on any hazard setters" is a massive, glaring issue for a mon whose most gamechanging attribute is its removal abilities. All I'm trying to illustrate is that figuring out the matchups where its defensive utility is most effective and where it can actually keep hazards off at all times as opposed to those where it has to be patient is going to be very important for building solid teams around it.

Point taken - Gweezing has been stuck in RU for a while for a reason (it won't stay there next month of course). Unfortunately, the bar for hazard removers in SV OU is on the floor and Gweezing barely floats over it.

 

[mcribs]

Scarf ghold has become my preferred way of using ghold atm. Just having trick utility and speed control is nice to have for teams. Tera ghost has been my favorite tera, as it provides an extra power boost on shadow ball

Heart Of Ghold (Gholdengo) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Make It Rain
- Trick
- Thunder Wave

The extra speed can be nice for bo or offense teams. A tech ive used for a while is twave. The teams i used it on were very prone to getting bulldozed by wellspring, but a fast twave is practically a death sentence vs a dnite. It also helps after tricking, since you can still check zama decently well.

 

[kd458]

Hey all, our next OU analysis slate for the Smogon Dex will be going up tomorrow at approx. 7AM PST / 10AM EST / 3PM GMT!

More information will be made available then, both in the OP of the SV OU Reservation Index and a follow-up post in the thread on release; this slate will focus on the addition of new sets based on developments to the metagame, along with rewrites of outdated sets on the dex that require updates to reflect the current meta. If you're interested in writing a set or giving Quality Control a go, keep an eye out for then!

 

[BikDutkus]

I am enjoying breaker gholdengos rather than scarf or defensive sets. I will also say that I think Tera Blast is not used enough on this dude.


Gholdengo @ Life Orb
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 24 HP / 252 SpA / 232 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Recover
- Make It Rain
- Hex / Shadowball

I started using this after reading about all the consternation in the national dex forums over Steelium Z Gholdengo. It's just the metal coat set but a wee-bit stronger. Go +2 to beat , +4 for Blissey. On a target that resists steel and neutral to ghost, Tera Make it Rain does the same damage as shadowball, so just click the steel move. No thought allowed.

+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Steel Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin : 473-559 (92 - 108.7%) -- 50% chance to OHKO (guaranteed after 1 spike)

I prefer using hex with some paralysis support. is a good partner.
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Steel Gholdengo Hex (130 BP) vs. 252 HP / 212+ SpD : 441-519 (114.2 - 134.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Pair with stuff, like , that wants ting lu dead and you win.

 

[gephicka]

1: How do you feel about Lu’s impact in the tier?
2: Do you prefer Pecha over Ghold?
3: What are your thoughts on Ghold in SV OU?

i think overall lu is probably broken, but it's a highly necessary presence because of the sheer power level of the format. tbh, i think lu is one of the few things holding the tier together against basically every special (and a lot of physical) breakers in the tier
i do think as the post-moon meta has been developing we're seeing a big time solidification and centraliziation of the metagame, and a large part of that is coming down to Lu (and dnite to an extent, but that's tangential) and pech and their extreme defensive capabilities in the face of a tier full of demons

i think the thing about pech is that, on a lot of teams it really just does bold ghold's job better than it. toxic is a way better status at punishing things like Lu and Dnite while it's insane defense stat allows it to check wellspring and even spinblock on tusk decently long-term. even plot pech is a really solid breaker in its own right due to how well it can handle stall. I think ghold's removal blocking capabilities are getting less valueable as well nwo that we're seeing the rise of gweezing and because of how much better of a spinblocker pech really is.

ghold is still a demon tbh, scary mon & can be a big threat— i just find it hard to justify over pech on a lot of bulkier cores tbh

 

[Achohermano]

1: How do you feel about Lu’s impact in the tier?

2: Do you prefer Pecha over Ghold?

3: What are your thoughts on Ghold in SV OU?

1.
Ting Lu is a necessary evil. I think it is a really strong Pokémon that stomps most of the OU roster 1v1 easily and can set up hazards on the process, by all definitions, for me, it is a broken mon and arguably stronger than some ubers were before getting banned.

However, without it Raging Bolt, Iron Moth, (lowkey Dragonite), Pecharunt, Ghold, Darkrai, Gambit... All these Pokémon, manageable for now (Dnite less than the other but that's another topic) get probably too strong for OU. Or at least some of them gotta go.


2.
I don't usually use Pecharunt, not my cup of tea, but I think it's a great alternative to Ghold. My problem is that, while some matchups that were neutral / bad for Ghold (like Ogerpon Wellspring for example) get much better, losing matchups like Corv or Kingambit (or my GOAT Alolan Muk) get really, really bad. Pecha can only pivot so it's really predictable in those cases. Still a great Pokémon

3.
Molds the game in a way I still don't like, and some bans were to be done (Wellspring, Lu as already mentioned) it could get problematic. But for now is just a really good Pokémon. A really strong one

 

[Moisture99]

Hi, i'll make the following post in hope of a Volcarona + Roaring Moon retest between the end of WCoP and the start of OLT

Waterpon right now is on her 2016-18 CR7 champions league run since the moon ban, even reaching top 3 usage in some stour days and top 5 on ladder and it's a boost in viabilty and usage that was not needed as she was already one of the best mons in the tier.

In general I've never seen the ladder as centralized as the post moon ban, with Zama/Ghold/Lu/Dnite/Waterpon everywhere, even on the same team, BO feels unmatched in its consistency and if the goal of tiering is to have as many playstyle with at least decent viabilty as possible in my opinion that was better achieved in previous meta interactions.

HO right now feels on the verge of death and RMoon was carrying the aforementioned style with its unique capacity in forcing progress vs boots spam, its win rate in SPL settled as a fair 52% which is lower than it was before, showing an adaption to the new shining fairyblast sets probably.

What volc brings has already been discussed some months ago in this post so I won't go much in details about it, I'll just say that after the moon ban, Gholdengo is at his best ever and both mons would check it greatly. Both mons would check each other decently and i could see moon going more speed boosting like here with CTC using moon's unmatched non choice locked speed tier to use taunt and block set up, in this case from another RM, but i could see it directly using acro as even if speed boosted, Volc is forced to invest highly in bulk to barely survive it, or force tera.

I won't come here like a shameless jerk and say that their bans were completely ridiculous, I'm aware that both of them are incredible sweepers given the right conditions, and that those conditions are fewer than other mons, but in the end i feel like all those bans got the rich richer more than elevating previously suppressed mons and that their addition would lower a bit the top dogs capabilities and even resurrect mons like dirge.

Why not ban Ogerpon then? Well, i fell like the ban chain has to stop at some point, a Waterpon-less meta would elevate fat too much and generally if we continue to ban whatever is slightly more powerful than the others the usage from the previous mons would just spread into the other top dogs, Gen 7 is perfectly playable and considered one of/if not the best gen of all time and it had less than half the suspects with megas and Z moves in the equation.

So yeah, i feel like after 16 suspects for a ban, for once (well, twice if we consider the likeshop suspect) we could try go in the opposite direction and move the theory of previous posts and nomination in the survey to practice, then who knows, maybe both will be rejected with ursa bloodmoon %, but who knows till we test them.

Completely agree, moon kept cringe stuff like pech and oger down and was by far the best way for hyper offense to make early progress vs those brainless bootspam hazard stack teams. Seriously don't think it was broken in the first place, with a really close ban margin while the meta was beginning to adapt to it toward the end of its suspect. I've tried numerous iterations of hyper offense since the moon ban and they always feel like they are missing something really important because in reality nothing can replace what it did. Strongly support a roaring moon retest

 

[Welcome to mars]

Ting lu is very bulky and can efficently get hazards onto the field, but its lack of reliable recovery makes it unable to repeatably shrug hits without rest which is very exploitable, its defensive typing gives multiple unfavourable weaknesses like fighting, water, ice and fairy whilst also giving it a u-turn weakness which limits what it can wall noticably even if it can potentially avoid OHKOs from super effective moves and it hates being burned or poisoned which completely removes any longevity of sets that don’t run rest

It also has a healthy effect on the metagame as it keeps multiple threats in check by not folding to their moves and using phazing to prevent them from setting up for a sweep, this isn’t broken checks broken because ting lu does have counterplay like hatterene, gliscor and weavile, with the former not even needing to worry about having a single turn to ruin it due magic bounce which also blocks its hazards.

 

[Bold School]

So I want to bring up three discussion questions.

1: How do you feel about Lu’s impact in the tier?

2: Do you prefer Pecha over Ghold?

3: What are your thoughts on Ghold in SV OU?

1. Given the offensive powercreep this gen, I think it's good to have defensive pokemon like this and Gliscor in the tier as glue mons. In the case of Ting-Lu, it has enough common weaknesses and a lack of reliable recovery. I'd also add that the U-turn weakness can really help more offensive teams chip it down. Forcing the Tera on Lu also is often a better outcome for the opponent than some hyper sweeper or wallbreaker using it. This isn't even to mention that Taunt and Encore are very good against the usually passive Ting-Lu.

Another thing I want to touch on relating to Lu is the idea that other hypothetical bans like Wellspring could push it over the top. No, I don't think so. Like a possible Wellspring ban wouldn't be an issue in this case for two reasons: First, Cornerstone would see more use and still has Grass STAB. It's not as splashable (pun intended) as Waterpon, but the Rock Bonk is still a good mon that is currently overshadowed by its cousin. Second, this would free up other Water type attackers and Flip Turn to be utilized more. A mon like Lu could be more easily warn down by U-turn/Flip-Turn cores if Wellspring wasn't always in the way. And I'm not even saying that I'm necesarrily pro-Wellspring ban. Just that if it did happen, I don't think it would break something like Ting Lu.

For other attackers that could be banned, Ting lu still has 6 weaknesses. It won't ever be 1 shot much, but it can be hit hard by a lot of things when a third of the types are supereffective. OU has enough wallbreakers available to draw from that I highly doubt any one or two wallbreakers in the tier being gone would break any walls. This generation is way too offensively inclined for that.

2. It depends on the team I'm using. Some teams Ghold works better. For others, Pech is better. But I guess I prefer Ghold if I have to pick one. I also don't really see them as the same outside of being Ghost type spinblockers. Pech is more of a wall and slow pivot while Ghold is more of a progress maker who also messes with Corv. My personal favorite of the two is Ghold because I just like how it plays. My favorite Ghold set is Covert Cloak because you can do some fun stuff with that and setup on slower mons. I think Air Balloon is a bit overrated on it for people looking to troll Great Tusk. Those people should just use Sinistcha instead.

Pech as a slow pivot is a nice alternative to Glowking for certain teams, but it's hard to use both Glowking and Pech on the same team because of stacking weaknesses. So I'd generally stick to one of the two depending on what my team needs. They also tend to be only on my balance teams rather than my more offensive teams. I know the question was about Pech verse Ghold, and not Glowking, but it's important for teambuilding to mention this. You could run a Glowking with a Ghold. However, you probably wouldn't run a Pech with either. To me, this limits the amount of teams I would put a Pech on. Ghold feels more splashable, if that makes any sense.

3: The balance is pretty good for this gen's standards. It isn't fast with the speed tier. You know the selection is from a handful of attacks (Make It Rain, Shadow Ball/Hex, or Psyshock) or T-wave are the main threats from it. The sets may be diverse as far as choiced or Air Balloon or what have you, but the main ways it threatens you are very similar across those sets.

I also like most of the counterplay chains between hazard setters, anti-hazard measures, and anti-hazard clear. Ghold blocks mainly Corv as a defogger, but Corv is still good in that role anyways. There are also ways around this, such as Geezing or Ace. Ghold's presence is not the absolute terror that it is sometimes made out to be.

In general, Ghold has been one of a few consistent red herrings for the Spikes problem this gen. It isn't Ghold's fault that most of the old defoggers are no longer defoggers. It isn't Ghold that stops defoggers like Corv or Geezing from being viable because they are. In fact, it isn't even most hazards that are an issue. It's just Spikes. Stealth Rock is fine and even welcome to help keep certain things under control. We have enough good Poison types where T-spikes are balanced. Webs are fine, with certain pokemon like Clear Body Pult and Flying types completely bypassing them. The only thing that is problematic is the stickiness of multiple Spike layers.

4. There wasn't a 4th question, but I honestly think the Roaring Moon pining is off. We have plenty of wallbreakers. We have plenty of sweepers. We have plenty of Knock Off users. We just don't have anything left that can threaten to do all 3 at once with the broken combination of Dragon Dance + Booster Energy. Offensive teams don't need Roaring Moon to make progress.

You want to keep Pech in line? Try a core with a different Dark or even a Ground type attacker and Future Sight. We have plenty of that to go around. Try a mon that is good with Covert Cloak to stop the hax or use Garg on your more defensive team. This would also threaten to hit Ghold. Ting-Lu can be worn down. There are tactics for all 3 of the mons listed in these questions and more.

 

[Avira]

1: How do you feel about Lu’s impact in the tier?

2: Do you prefer Pecha over Ghold?

3: What are your thoughts on Ghold in SV OU?

1. Ting-Lu is so important for keeping many big threats in SV OU in check, such as Raging Bolt, Gholdengo, Dragonite, Darkrai, Kingambit, Pecharunt, and Dragapult. If Ting-Lu were banned, at minimum, we'd also have to ban Raging Bolt and then Gholdengo too after Bolt's ban, which would destabilize the tier since losing Lu and strong special attackers like Bolt and Ghold would lead to Pecharunt being very hard to kill (although that may not break it), result in Dragonite losing a good phaser to it and losing a mon that's a good check to a lot of Dragonite sets (Air Balloon Ghold), losing a good revenge killer for Kingambit (Raging Bolt) and a good early game check to Kingambit (Ting-Lu), result in Darkrai losing its most splashable check (Ting-Lu) and a revenge killer (Raging Bolt), and result in Ogerpon-Wellspring losing a soft check and sometimes revenge killer in Raging Bolt if it doesn't have Encore.

I don't believe fat teams are an issue right now, but a Ting-Lu ban could seriously impact the meta in a negative way by requiring multiple bans of offensive mons to stabilize the meta, and I believe if action was going to be taken against Ting-Lu it should have been earlier in the generation. Generally, I find Ting-Lu a healthy presence in the meta due to its tremendous bulk in this hugely powercrept meta, and it does have clear weaknesses in that its base typing is weak to several strong attacking types and doesn't have reliable recovery all while Ruination is a move that can be abused. If action were to be taken against Ting-Lu, I believe the OU Council would have to commit to an accelerated pace of tiering action due to how much of a destabilizing effect Ting-Lu's ban would have on the meta as it'd REALLY rock the boat to ban it.

2. I wouldn't necessarily say I prefer Pecharunt over Gholdengo, but it's hands down the best check to Zamazenta in the entire tier and the most reliable good mon into Ogerpon-Wellspring, and its massive physical bulk makes teambuilding easier for some archetypes due to how much of the meta it checks with its raw bulk and Parting Shot.

3. I have hated Gholdengo in SV OU since the beginning 'cause of its cancerous ability. If you thought Mega Sableye was annoying, Gholdengo actually has more raw bulk on both ends of the spectrum and high Special Attack, which it can boost with Nasty Plot. Good As Gold also blocks Defog, making it way more annoying than Mega Sableye ever was due to its ability to deny hazard removal. Yes, Defog distribution was cut in Gen 9, but I just hate the effect this mon has on the meta.

 

[VlNTAGE]

Idk if this is that revolutionary but I’ve been watching WCOP and noticed that players are tearing apart the slow paced balance structures that very been popular the past few months with powerful breakers. I wonder if this will trickle down to the metagame at all in the coming weeks and we’ll see a shift back to more offense play structures.

Fusien brought Tera-dark specs Darkrai that destroyed a team with Samu, Tinkaton, and Zama.

VK used an interesting Iron Boulder team to sweep Oldspicemike.

Erwin beat Georgiethefirst with Tera-fighting Nasty Plot Deoxys-s.

I’ve also seen a few games with choice band Weavile, which obviously has great breaking power. Zama takes over 40% from Triple Axle at +1.

None of these sets are anything new, but they can chunk a lot of the common balance structures right now and have an easy time making progress once a wall is chipped down a bit.

I’d be curious to hear other players thoughts on where the meta is headed.

 

[toshimelonhead]

Idk if this is that revolutionary but I’ve been watching WCOP and noticed that players are tearing apart the slow paced balance structures that very been popular the past few months with powerful breakers. I wonder if this will trickle down to the meta game at all in the coming weeks and we’ll see a shift back to more offense play structures.

Fusien brought Tera-dark specs Darkrai that destroyed a team with Samu, Tinkaton, and Zama.

VK used an interesting Iron Boulder team to sweep Oldspicemike.

Erwin beat Georgiethefirst with Tera-fighting Nasty Plot Deoxys-s.

I’ve also seen a few games with choice band Weavile, which obviously has great breaking power. Zama takes over 40% from Triple Acle at +1.

None of these sets are anything new, but they can chunk a lot of the common balance structures right now and have an easy time making progress once a wall is chipped down a bit.

I’d be curious to hear other players thoughts on where the meta is headed.

Your insight confirms a suspicion I have had for a while - offense has morphed into tempo setup mutated from setup sweepers that no longer need Baton Pass to be as lethal. They now use Tera as their shield to prevent counterplay and revenge killing attempts at the worst possible timing. Balance can work in SV OU, but it's stressed further than it has ever been and those stresses aren't going away.

 

[658Greninja]

Idk if this is that revolutionary but I’ve been watching WCOP and noticed that players are tearing apart the slow paced balance structures that very been popular the past few months with powerful breakers. I wonder if this will trickle down to the meta game at all in the coming weeks and we’ll see a shift back to more offense play structures.

Fusien brought Tera-dark specs Darkrai that destroyed a team with Samu, Tinkaton, and Zama.

VK used an interesting Iron Boulder team to sweep Oldspicemike.

Erwin beat Georgiethefirst with Tera-fighting Nasty Plot Deoxys-s.

I’ve also seen a few games with choice band Weavile, which obviously has great breaking power. Zama takes over 40% from Triple Acle at +1.

None of these sets are anything new, but they can chunk a lot of the common balance structures right now and have an easy time making progress once a wall is chipped down a bit.

I’d be curious to hear other players thoughts on where the meta is headed.

Interesting discussion topic.

I remembered last year in Feburary, Storm Zone mentioned to be about how breakers are easier to fit on Balances and it isn’t hard to see why. Breakers need to have access to as much entry points as possible, that means supporting them with hazard control and pivots, which Balance is really good at supplying. Because Fusien has an established breaking core in Gliscor + Specs Rai, he can focus on patching up the offense matchup with Pecha/Mola/Corv and then Zama for speed control. Its a solid team that also presents teambuilding fundamentals which can apply outside of SV OU.

Specs Darkrai is kinda like Band Zama where its difficult to use but getting your predictions right feels so damn good.

rare Boulder W. Despite this game, I still consider it to be mid, but the stars aligned for it to work in this game. Firstly, Mike made the mistake of letting his Mola get chipped way too low by Vk’s Primarina. He also underestimated +2 Cleave by ID’ng up with Corv rather than U-Turning to bring it in Thunderclap range. Secondly, Boulder had the perfect coverage to hit everything in Mike’s team Cleave/Zen/CC. A huge flaw with Iron Boulder is its 4MSS. Earthquake is incredibly important, otherwise it’s completely walled by Gholdengo who is the 2nd used mon in the tier rn. However ditching Zen Headbutt means that Zama can Roar Boulder out or Tusk can Headlong Rush it. But Vk made a call that Mike wouldn’t bring a team with Gholdengo which paid off. Thirdly, Boulder has a terrible time getting up an SD. Rock/Psychic offers very few opportunities to do so in a Dark + Ghost + Ground centric meta, and Boulder being weak asf without a boost (which feels wrong to say about a base 120 Attack mon), means the only things it forces out are very frail mons like Iron Moth, however Vk made an excellent play by sacking Landorus to Specs Bolt Draco, because thanks to the SpA drop, Boulder now can get off the SD he needs to secure the game. Even if Mike were to click an Electric move instead, Vk has gained momentum with his Lando. TL;DR: Mike let his Mola get chipped and put himself in a lose/lose situation with Specs Bolt.

I’ve been a fan of NP Deo for a while. Its an underrated wallbreaker that can break through the common Balance cores in the tier, as demonstrated by Ewin’s game, but bringing Recover and OHKOing Georgie’s Ghold with a resisted +2 Psycho is next level diabolical. It pays off perfectly as Ewin is able to setup in front of the Garganacl and heal off LO chip. Seeing as Deo is breaking OU usage rn, its clear that people are re-recognizing its ability as a lead and breaker.

Deadass CB Weavile feels like physical Kyurem with s p e e d. Many of its checks can be worn down quickly with hazards, and stuff like Corv/Zama take a shitton from Crash/Axel. Also try out Tera Dark which packs up Cinder in one hit and patches its SR weakness. Its a good mon to pair with other breakers as it forces walls like Corv to heal up.