Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

This is not the place to discuss the finer details of Terapagos, make another Policy Review if you want to do that.

Moving on, how do you guys feel about Ceruledge and Veil right now? It made a big splash in WCOP, but I haven't seen it a lot on ladder. Do y'all think its just a passing trend, or a more permanent addition/rediscovery?

I think veil teams succeeding are just currently exploiting a trend in building of certain teams simply not being prepared for specific veil threats (Ceruledge being an obvious example). It’s a naturally “cheesy” playstyle that tends to do this. So I don’t expect the hype to last as people will simply be more prepared for them. Especially since those teams lack a really good consistent centerpiece threat ever since RM was banned.

Ceruledge isn’t bad and I think renewed usage is deserved as people using it are rightly being rewarded for bringing such a neat set up threat, although it’s still hard to fit on teams that aren’t HO, since it feels rather boom or bust sometimes as it isn’t easy to get multiple set up chances with it (also vulnerable to common priority). I’d be curious to see it explored more in terms of its movepool because it does have interesting tech options like destiny bond and will o wisp.
 
[Some cool Manaphy sets]

Manaphy has only one major kryptonite that keeps it out of major SV OU usage and that's Ogerpon-W. I am glad you mentioned Take Heart as I prefer it to Tail Glow for most builds. My personal favorite set of Manaphy's is below. Yours also work for luring in opposing bulky Water types; I just prefer the versatility of additional coverage instead of going for the home run with the massive setup sweep every time. The EV spread is to maximize Leftovers recovery and Speed for outpacing AV Iron Crown. I have also run EVs of 112 HP / 180 SpA / 216 Spe to outpace Kyurem and Gliscor and put the rest in Special Attack. It doesn't need Hyper Offense to shine and can work just fine on a well built Bulky Offense build.

:sv/Manaphy:
Teardrop (Manaphy) @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 112 HP / 144 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Take Heart
- Scald
- Psychic
- Alluring Voice
 
garchomp.png



What do you guys think about garchomps usage in Round 1 of WCoP, it got used 14 times giving it enough usage to be ou (only considering r1 including tie breaker). With 3-4 sd variants also showing up. Is this just a dumb coincidence or is garchomp actually usable in sv ou
 
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What do you guys think about garchomps usage in Round 1 of WCoP, it got used 14 times giving it enough usage to be ou (only considering r1 including tie breaker). With 3-4 sd variants also showing up. Is this just a dumb coincidence or is garchomp actually usable in sv ou
Chomp is a solid mon, but due to its two roles being accompanied by the best mons in the tier. You have to really find a reason to use Chomp over Ting-Lu as a spiker or Dnite as a sweeper, or Lando as a breaker. Tankchomp is an easier variant to justify due to the inherent value of punishing contact moves in a tier made up of 60% physical attackers. SD Chomp has seen use, but usually its a set you run because its cool not because it has a niche over offensive Tusk, Lando, SD Gliscor, Dnite, or DD Kyu.
 
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What do you guys think about garchomps usage in Round 1 of WCoP, it got used 14 times giving it enough usage to be ou (only considering r1 including tie breaker). With 3-4 sd variants also showing up. Is this just a dumb coincidence or is garchomp actually usable in sv ou
Its always been usable and a good mon in the tier. SV OU's ground resist aren't great and SD Chomp has an easy time ripping apart most of the standard mons players run to beat Tusk (Alo, Moltres, Zapdos). Most standard Kyurem teams can have a difficult time dealing with SD Garchomp because of how easily it can throttle some of the main defensive mons on those structures (i.e. Slowking-G, non-Corvi birds, etc.). And SD boosted Ground STAB is really nice in a tier where pecharunt is quite popular. In general, the speed and typing can make its threat level quite high vs a number of threats, including the fellow Ground and Dragon types its competing with like Great Tusk, Raging Bolt, and Kyurem, particularly if you get the SD off. I think it can also compress some additional utility on these SD Sets with Rocks or Spikes, but it can be a bit tough to find room to go for these moves, esp on the teams offensive Chomp finds itself on.

I'd say its big issue is just less of an issue exclusive to it, but more just a general teambuilding annoyance. IMO one of chomp's strongest traits is being a good punisher to GKing - which it does pretty well, but a lot of the Pokemon that could benefit from this utility like Kyurem or Iron Valiant wind up having awkward defensive synergy with Garchomp, stacking weaknesses and leaving the team vulnerable to a few key threats like opposing Iron Valiants, Dragapult, Darkrai, etc. This could be fine, but another issue Chomp can face imo is that it is really annoyned by entry hazards and Kingambit's Sucker Punch Priority. And when you are annoyed by those things, it just becomes easier to justify running Great Tusk, which makes you MU vs hazard spam better + handles Kingambit. I can't speak for others, but most of the offensive Chomp teams I build feel like they are very weak to a few key MUs like Darkrai, Webs, etc. and patching it up requires stacking weaknesses which can make you weak to other mons (i.e. running Zama for Rai can make the Pult MU really annoying). I haven't seen any of the WCop replays of Chomp, so I am largely speaking out of my ass here, but I feel that the MU fishy nature of these team comps may be the reason we see more of them in a tourney setting - as you aren't regularly running into stuff like Webs or Dragapult, so Garchomp's strengths as a strong breaker vs greedy teams is able to shine through much better - most Garg teams can get absolutely fried by it, other cores like Gweezing + Mola can struggle vs it, and teams relying on an RNG bird as their "counterplay" will be in a rude awakening as Garchomp SD's up and deletes them with Stone Edge or Scale Shot.

TL;DR Garchomp on its own is a solid mon, but teambuilding constraints can make it difficult to build a consistent team with it, like many other Pokemon.
 
I’m fan of this particular set

Garchomp @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Rough Skin
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Spikes
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

Its the typical swords dance breaker which pressures defensive cores but also uses spikes to captialise in the switch it can force which allows this set to work fine enough in balance, I chose to run stone edge since a set with fire fang is walled by moltres whilst 3x boosted stone edge has the potential to kill corviknight in two hits with rocks damage, if you don’t care about moltres you can run fire fang with tera fire to avoid burns.

I chose clear amulet to avoid being checked by landorus therian, but life orb can be ran if you’re willing to take the damage every attack.
 
Whelp I've decided to run Heatran again and I've gotta say.... Lava Plume >>>>> Magma Storm just from the handful of games I've played lol. This mon is actually pretty decent when its STAB isn't missing key targets, even in the spikes infested metagame, and the burn Rate + extra PP are pretty nice into mons that might wanna swap into it like Ogerpon-W, Zamazenta, Tusk, Samurott-H, Dragonite, etc. Wisp also works for this (more reliable too), but being able to condense burn utility with other moves like Taunt and Rocks is just nice (ig scorching sands exist but uh... no one is running that). Heatran's whole Magma Trapper shtick is still strong at making progress - espicially in Sun - but I just really hate playing the game on whether or not the STAB move will hit, esp on a defensive mon like Heatran where getting reliable damage on targets like Rai or Corv is key. Combined with nightmare scenarios of getting PP stalled out by miscallaneous threats like sub DD Kyurem and it just becomes annoying.

Speaking of Heatran... it was performing a lot better than I expected. Most teams I faced had no switch-ins to Lava Plume, and I found its bulk to be very nice against some key targets like Gholdie, Darkrai, and Dragapult. Even when Spikes got layed down, I did find it to be a solid contributor to the team effort. Perhaps we've treated this mon too harshly....
 
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Interesting to see Heatran doing well as you said. That does fit into a bigger theme I saw from breaking down the WCoP R1 analysis. Pokemon with high win rates in R1 (Raging Bolt, Moltres, Hatterene, Iron Moth, Cinderace) all had issues with Roaring Moon and probably weren't as prepped as well as they normally would have been. Conversely, Primarina, Clefable, and Weezing-Galar all had win rates in the low 40s and were common Roaring Moon checks. UU had a similar phenomenon with Meowscarada post ban. It doesn't explain every meta shift for WCoP, but it was a pattern that I couldn't ignore given the usual noisiness of tournament W/L data.
 
Does anyone else feel like Kingambit needs another suspect test?

:sv/kingambit:


Here's the thing with gambit, it feels like it is way too easy for it to win endgames. Everytime I see a gambit on a team there is always the pressure of keeping your most defensive mon at the back so that it doesn't get KO'd by sucker punch. If you happen to need that defensive mon for a different threat and it's now unhealthy you now gotta make sure Gambit can't just swords dance in say, your Slowbro or Mola or your choice locked pokemon. And if that happens now endgames are basically a sucker punch predict game. Due to it's ability u almost always expect gambit to be completely healthy by the time it hits the field meaning even if you are correct on the sucker punch predict it can tank a couple of unboosted hits. In my opinion the mere pressence of this pokemon just completely shifts your focus because you have to think of how you deal with it in endgames.

Of course every mon has a counter, usually Kingambit loses to most iron defense body press sets like with Zamazenta or Corviknight, sometimes even Moltres or Dragapult can cripple it with Will O wisp. But I feel like Gambit's counterplay is just a lot more specific compared to most offensive threats since the massive power boost it gains with Supreme Overlord and not even discussing sets made to counter those situations such as terra fire gambit or terra ghost.

Overall I think this mon feels incredibly oppressive to deal with especially in endgames which always boil down to a game of chance with sucker punch.
 
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dude i hate Ogerpom Wellspring so much she stole my lunch money and broke my Rilaboom´s ankles

aside from the Ogerpom problem ive been having fun in the current metagame, but ive been struggling against the Roaring Knight of UUbl himself, Ceruledge, any tips on how to check and defeat this mon that dont involve running it over with a truck
 
dude i hate Ogerpom Wellspring so much she stole my lunch money and broke my Rilaboom´s ankles

aside from the Ogerpom problem ive been having fun in the current metagame, but ive been struggling against the Roaring Knight of UUbl himself, Ceruledge, any tips on how to check and defeat this mon that dont involve running it over with a truck

Both Sand and Rain do well against Ceruledge, regardless of it being in Sun or not. Hippowdon eats everything at +2 and forces Tera, but still is able to stop that with WW. Tyranitar meanwhile stops all Ceruledges that dont use CC or Tera Blast. If either setter falls, Drill is still there to RK.
Rain makes Bitter Blade weak and some of the rain Mons have Aqua Jet to finish the knight.
 
dude i hate Ogerpom Wellspring so much she stole my lunch money and broke my Rilaboom´s ankles

aside from the Ogerpom problem ive been having fun in the current metagame, but ive been struggling against the Roaring Knight of UUbl himself, Ceruledge, any tips on how to check and defeat this mon that dont involve running it over with a truck
For the Focus Sash Weak Armor set, it's really important to get hazards up against it so that it can't set up for free. Also, keep in mind that even if it takes damage, the Focus Sash is still there and it could potentially use it if Bitter Blade heals it back to full. Hazards + any healthy bulky Ground or Garg should check it easily. Ceruledge is especially vulnerable to being outsped without its weak armor boost, so even if it SDs, if you haven't attacked it then you can revenge kill it easily (watch out for Tera letting it absorb your hit and gain +2 speed).

The Bulk Up Set is more annoying because Taunt + Tera Bug is surprisingly good against common defensive mons, leaving them unable to do much against Ceruledge. The main counterplay is running it over with a truck so it can't set up enough to snowball out of control. Be mindful not to give it free turns for it to setup and even abuse the fact that it has to Taunt your defensive mons in order to get a free switch into said truck to run it over with.
 
Ceruledge gets absolutely molested by H-Rott

So this isn’t 2010 and before, we left this type of language behind. How bout we don’t talk like this yeah? Not cool.

Both Sand and Rain do well against Ceruledge, regardless of it being in Sun or not. Hippowdon eats everything at +2 and forces Tera, but still is able to stop that with WW. Tyranitar meanwhile stops all Ceruledges that dont use CC or Tera Blast. If either setter falls, Drill is still there to RK.
Rain makes Bitter Blade weak and some of the rain Mons have Aqua Jet to finish the knight.

Too bad rain and sand are bad. Also pretty sure Hippo just loses to Taunt+BU Ceru.
 
I switched up my garchomp to use the lansatt berry or whatever that boosts critical hits. Its been successful like twice. Problem is after def drop from scale shot even with tera steel you don't live to activate berry as much as you'd think. May try sub over swords dance to get into berry range more regularly.

Its uh not great but just trying some different stuff when I do play. To try to keep things fresh.
 
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What do you guys think about garchomps usage in Round 1 of WCoP, it got used 14 times giving it enough usage to be ou (only considering r1 including tie breaker). With 3-4 sd variants also showing up. Is this just a dumb coincidence or is garchomp actually usable in sv ou
Just a take before my analysis, i don't watch the WCoP because i dislike the format on Principle(Way too long, and only 2 leagues is not great imo), and i'm a bit upset that there is no World Cup Equivalent to players, only teams. That's why I'm not mentioning WCoP.

To the analysis: I think the issue about Garchomp is what affected a lot of mons in OU now: Powercreep. Why would you use Garchomp, because all he does, Something else does better.
Hazards? You have Great Tusk who can double as a cleaner. You have Ting Lu.
Breaker? Landorus Therian.
Sweeper? Dragonite.

Literally Rough Skin in a tank set is all that justify running it over another ground tank, giving that most of them has no Reliable recovery just like Chomp and the ones who does have worse stats. It's not easy to justify a slot on him.
That's not bad enough? One of the top mons in OU right now is Iron Valiant, who naturally check Garchomp. Not forgetting Clefable, and that some mons get a new toy in Ice Spinner who forces the Garchomp user to immediately Tera or Switch out. And it gets worse: Still have Weavile, Enamorus and some dragons who naturally suprass 102 speed which for Modern OU is average, and bad when you dont have a boost to back yourself. The meta is just hostile towards Garchomp.
 
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I kinda feel like OU currently has a bit of a problem with Water type Breakers being incredibly dificult to stop for offense and bulkier teams compared to past gens.

People didnt take the right lesson from the Palafin Suspect of Wellspring not being nowhere near enough to stop Water type sweepers/Breakers, Specs Volcanio, Keldeo and Walking Wake specialy can still break through most teams and Manaphy and other water type setup sweepers, while severely underated are still very threatening.
The only water Types Wellspring has actually killed the viability of are all the bulky water types not named Alomomola and primarina, the same bulky waters that would make checking all these powerfull breakers much easier.
this is also compounded by the current low viability of Grass types, as they have lost usage and viability over being walled by most defensive staples and being unreliable checks to Wellspring herself
 
I need to ask y'all what the heck happened to Choice Specs Thundurus-Therian, or just Thundurus as a whole. I vividly remember around a year or two ago (already!? Jesus Christ...) that it was a lower tier with mad potential. Specs was just hitting stuff pretty hard and making some fun VoltTurn cores. Now, assuming Munchstats is to be believed, has less usage than pokes like Excadrill and TTar, to weird things like Pawmot and Infernape of all things. Shouldn't Ting-Lu being one of the head honchos of the tier be a good thing, seeing as it's an Electric who farms it with Grass Knot or Focus Blast?

Was it just a flavor of the month ordeal back then?
 
I need to ask y'all what the heck happened to Choice Specs Thundurus-Therian, or just Thundurus as a whole. I vividly remember around a year or two ago (already!? Jesus Christ...) that it was a lower tier with mad potential. Specs was just hitting stuff pretty hard and making some fun VoltTurn cores. Now, assuming Munchstats is to be believed, has less usage than pokes like Excadrill and TTar, to weird things like Pawmot and Infernape of all things. Shouldn't Ting-Lu being one of the head honchos of the tier be a good thing, seeing as it's an Electric who farms it with Grass Knot or Focus Blast?

Was it just a flavor of the month ordeal back then?
As the meta develops, players have been leaning towards builds where they can preserve Tera more easily. Most Tera Blast abusers are on offense where you can get away with burning Tera in faster games and pick n’ choose which Pokemon to use and what order. Balance and BO generally wants to Tera after their opponent does to cover emergencies. Since Specs Thundy is a Balance-oriented wallbreaker that often finds itself needing to burn Tera in order to break, it puts the player in a position where they have to pick between covering a potential matchup and make progress, thus it isn’t a splashable choice. Thundy-I was an option I experimented with last year as an anti-offense option that can also force progress. It was alright, but needing Tera to hit Lando/Gliscor is rough.

Though I do see potential in Thundy-T with a bulky NP set and Taunt to shutdown Stall teams. Veil seems like the best archetype for Thundy.
 
As the meta develops, players have been leaning towards builds where they can preserve Tera more easily. Most Tera Blast abusers are on offense where you can get away with burning Tera in faster games and pick n’ choose which Pokemon to use and what order. Balance and BO generally wants to Tera after their opponent does to cover emergencies. Since Specs Thundy is a Balance-oriented wallbreaker that often finds itself needing to burn Tera in order to break, it puts the player in a position where they have to pick between covering a potential matchup and make progress, thus it isn’t a splashable choice. Thundy-I was an option I experimented with last year as an anti-offense option that can also force progress. It was alright, but needing Tera to hit Lando/Gliscor is rough.

Though I do see potential in Thundy-T with a bulky NP set and Taunt to shutdown Stall teams. Veil seems like the best archetype for Thundy.
The real heat is mixed Thundurus-Incarnate with Knock Off / Hammer Arm / Thunderbolt / Thunder Wave with Prankster to cheese away wins like T-Pain using Autotune like a good boomer pop star. I used it on a balanced team messing around and it worked well there. Thundurus-Therian can still wreck things...if it can get in. It basically had a couple of solid performances on a couple of Pinkacross RMTs and was flavor of the month to break stall for a while. I'd rather have Zapdos in the pivot role, though.

:sv/Thundurus:
T-PAIN (Thundurus) (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Prankster
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 76 Atk / 180 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Knock Off
- Thunder Wave
- Hammer Arm
 
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I need to ask y'all what the heck happened to Choice Specs Thundurus-Therian, or just Thundurus as a whole. I vividly remember around a year or two ago (already!? Jesus Christ...) that it was a lower tier with mad potential. Specs was just hitting stuff pretty hard and making some fun VoltTurn cores. Now, assuming Munchstats is to be believed, has less usage than pokes like Excadrill and TTar, to weird things like Pawmot and Infernape of all things. Shouldn't Ting-Lu being one of the head honchos of the tier be a good thing, seeing as it's an Electric who farms it with Grass Knot or Focus Blast?

Was it just a flavor of the month ordeal back then?
I tried running Thundurus-T a couple of times. While it indeed hits hard, it doesn't have an insanely good speed to catch up with the 350 bench mark or longevity to switch in multiple times (if you run Specs). In addition, electric is as spammable as like Ena's Moonblast, and you need to tera Flying to use its other good neutral STAB.

The best use for it, IMO, is in Veil / Screen HO with Nasty Plot. Pinkacross used to have a good Specs Thundurus-T team, but I think the meta has shifted to the point that it's not really viable anymore.

And as for Thundurus OG, it's just not worth it. Prankster isn't as great as in gen 5, and Defiant? On a special attacker? Lmao.
 
Hopefully it doesn't become a problem but I was never a fan of STAB stacking when it came to Terastilization. Are there any non stall answers to Tera Fairy Enamorus that don't involve sacking and revenge killing?

One of the hardest things to get used to in this Meta was the fact that sometimes, you just gotta let something get KOed and that you're not just gonna be able to switch your way out of that situation
 
Anyone got some good utility Scizor sets with defog? Looking for a sturdy one that still deals some dmg. Haven't really used it before so I'm interested in seeing what people use.
 
Hopefully it doesn't become a problem but I was never a fan of STAB stacking when it came to Terastilization. Are there any non stall answers to Tera Fairy Enamorus that don't involve sacking and revenge killing?

One of the hardest things to get used to in this Meta was the fact that sometimes, you just gotta let something get KOed and that you're not just gonna be able to switch your way out of that situation
Standard Glowking can wall it, but make sure to keep it healthy enough so it doesn't fall to a predicted Earth Power.
 
Hopefully it doesn't become a problem but I was never a fan of STAB stacking when it came to Terastilization. Are there any non stall answers to Tera Fairy Enamorus that don't involve sacking and revenge killing?

One of the hardest things to get used to in this Meta was the fact that sometimes, you just gotta let something get KOed and that you're not just gonna be able to switch your way out of that situation

If you want three non-stall answers, there's AV Toxapex, AV Slowking-Galar, and AV Ursaluna. You need to have really good hazard control For Ursaluna though and/or Grassy Terrain support. For some calcs regarding Ursaluna before you yourself use Tera when the situation demands it:

+1 252 SpA Life Orb Tera Water Greninja Hydro Pump vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna: 442-525 (95.4 - 113.3%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
244 SpA Choice Specs Tera Water Walking Wake Hydro Steam vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna in Sun: 428-504 (92.4 - 108.8%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
+1 252+ SpA Protosynthesis Raging Bolt Weather Ball (100 BP Water) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna in Rain: 404-476 (87.2 - 102.8%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ice Kyurem Blizzard vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna: 400-472 (86.3 - 101.9%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna: 387-458 (83.5 - 98.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 172 SpA Tera Fighting Iron Crown Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 252 SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna: 320-380 (69.1 - 82%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Primarina Surf vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna: 264-312 (57 - 67.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Protosynthesis Raging Bolt Dragon Pulse vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna: 229-270 (49.4 - 58.3%) -- 98.4% chance to 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna: 220-261 (47.5 - 56.3%) -- 84.8% chance to 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Quark Drive Iron Valiant Moonblast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna: 211-250 (45.5 - 53.9%) -- 46.9% chance to 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Quark Drive Iron Moth Fiery Dance vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna: 199-235 (42.9 - 50.7%) -- 3.1% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Fairy Enamorus Moonblast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Ursaluna: 178-210 (38.4 - 45.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

So you have some room to maneuver if you manage to misplay badly against these threats. I would not use this outside of very specific balances that want Ursaluna to check Raging Bolt, Iron Moth, Gholdengo, Iron Moth, and Iron Crown while not being abused by Fairy-type special wallbreakers or non-grounded mons (Air Balloon users included) since it is slightly bulkier than Ting-Lu on the special side while not typically only having Earthquake as a finishing move, but you will probably need a secondary special wall as well, especially something for Choice Specs Kyurem and Walking Wake, since there's no way Ursaluna can handle all of the mons I mentioned by itself unless you commit to primarily using offensive counterplay. You can tell by the calcs that Ursaluna absolutely owns Speed-boosting variants of Iron Moth and Iron Valiant looking at these calcs, and it can handle them with ease. People sometimes forget that Ursaluna has cover legendary-bulk due to it being more often used as a strong breaker.
 
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