Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

[Rekka's Backend]

zapkinglu

I'm sorry but everytime I see this shit I start to see red. It's like a boogie man that was so overblown and traumatized people despite it lasting like 3 seconds. I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. Overblown, overhyped, and a basis shakier than a grandma on her last legs. I'd sacrifice Ogerpon on the alter and face a thousand Tinglu's before I'd let that smug mask wearing bastard ruin my life. Which even then, there's so many counters to Tinglu structures that playing around them can become easier than not.

The only thing I have to say as a serious note is that more and more I wish Uturn got turned normal and that the contact burns got their contact movies removed in exchange. Some days I wish I could just mash knock, then click popbomb without one of those oversized chickens ruining my poor mouse.

 

[Welcome to mars]

Yeah i’ve it seen mentioned time and time again but theres not much variety in arguments that mention it, the first example of “ZapKingLu” was a powerful core that emerged late into the dlc 1 metagame which if you were there, you’d know was pretty bad after all the bans, but “ZapKingLu” is not a cataclysmic event that will inevitably purge OU in chaos after we ban an offensive mon (strange that it still hasn’t overcentralised the meta after we banned numerous other offensive mons?) and its certainly not something you can just point to as an argument on why a certain mon shouldn’t be banned (which doesn’t address the unhealthy effects that mon may be having on the meta rn) or use as a euphemism for balance that we should think will suddenly become broken if a certain mon is banned, especially since normally when you mention “zapkinglu”, people are going to think you’re specifically referring to “Zapdos, Galarian Slowking and Ting-Lu” since thats what the name stands for.

 

[Hon07rial]

Why is Sinistcha not used much? It is such an amazing spin blocker with a specially good matchup into Tusk and Treads.

 

[Heatranator]

Why is Sinistcha not used much? It is such an amazing spin blocker with a specially good matchup into Tusk and Treads.

While Sinistcha does better into Tusk/Treads, the issue is that it heavily competes with another Ghost type spinblocker.

Pecharunt can do the checking waterpon thing as well, can take on tusk or treads with the right ev spread (bulky for treads and fast for tusk) and is in general able to stonewall a lot of physical threats while generating progress with parting shot. Maybe sinistcha has some niche that is underexplored (it takes any non ice spinner move from tusk quite easily), but as of rn, pecharunt is really annoying for it to compete with.

 

[Magcargo]

Why is Sinistcha not used much? It is such an amazing spin blocker with a specially good matchup into Tusk and Treads.

Mostly because Strength Sap is easy to fuck up with techs like Sub or Magic Bounce / Good As Gold + Heatran and Tornadus being solid checks. That said its still a great Pokémon on all kinds of structures and I think its role as a ground/ Water resist that's bulky still gives it a strong niche. I think it can be explored more with random Tera Blast sets for some of its bad MUs like Gambit

 

[JackRG]

Why is Sinistcha not used much? It is such an amazing spin blocker with a specially good matchup into Tusk and Treads.

I think the #1 issue for it is the usage of knock off on wellspring being much, much higher than it used to be. When knock was a rarer option sinistcha was actually one of the more reliable wellspring checks but nowaday's with knock being featured on roughly half of sets its not really reliable anymore. That said it still has many good points, such as being hell for any team that relies on tusk or treads to spin, and of course it still punishes teams that rely on non knock Woger to break. It just fell off due to no longer boasting the main trait that made it a fairly splashable mon in the first place, especially since physdef hydrapple can check woger fairly reliably no matter what it has, so many have begun to naturally graviate towards it as the premier Woger check / bulky grass in the tier.

 

[CooolTrainer]

The ban of Roaring Moon has let a lot of less honest cheesers like Manaphy, Ceruledge, Hoopa-U and the like getting fully unleashed, while giving teams one less soft check to other miscellaneous threats like Gambit, Ghold, and Ogerpon-W. The amount of offense seems to have only increased with its ban, which makes sense since Roaring Moon was a game ending piece against offensive structures. It was strong against balance as well, but I feel that the new threats that have risen in its place are more difficult for these more defensive structures to handle compared to Moon.

Any solution? It seems like we’re all out of bans (not that any of those Pokemon are bannable).

 

[UltraSword]

The ban of Roaring Moon has let a lot of less honest cheesers like Manaphy, Ceruledge, Hoopa-U and the like getting fully unleashed, while giving teams one less soft check to other miscellaneous threats like Gambit, Ghold, and Ogerpon-W. The amount of offense seems to have only increased with its ban, which makes sense since Roaring Moon was a game ending piece against offensive structures. It was strong against balance as well, but I feel that the new threats that have risen in its place are more difficult for these more defensive structures to handle compared to Moon.

To be honest I have the opposite opinion. I personally do/did not think Roaring Moon was banworthy. I believe if we waited a month or 2 after the time the suspect took place we would have better understood whether Roaring Moon was broken or if the tera fairy set or other similarly common sets were not as problematic as we thought. However, while I do not believe Roaring Moon shouldn't have banned, I think the meta is better post Moon. With the exception of Ceruledge, most "cheesers" haven't improved much since the Roaring Moon ban and many of the things Roaring Moon used to check are still limited by other things in the meta (Dragonite my beloved). While I don't believe Roaring Moon was broken, it wasn't a necessary part of the SV OU meta compared to pokemon like Gholdengo and Ting Lu.

 

[Achohermano]

To be honest I have the opposite opinion. I personally do/did not think Roaring Moon was banworthy. I believe if we waited a month or 2 after the time the suspect took place we would have better understood whether Roaring Moon was broken or if the tera fairy set or other similarly common sets were not as problematic as we thought. However, while I do not believe Roaring Moon shouldn't have banned, I think the meta is better post Moon. With the exception of Ceruledge, most "cheesers" haven't improved much since the Roaring Moon ban and many of the things Roaring Moon used to check are still limited by other things in the meta (Dragonite my beloved). While I don't believe Roaring Moon was broken, it wasn't a necessary part of the SV OU meta compared to pokemon like Gholdengo and Ting Lu.

Separating cheesers from the biggest cheeser itself is quite funny honestly.

Like, isn't a Pokémon with 6-7 viable different Teras, Encore, recovery, set up and every coverage ever the most cheesy thing ever? XD

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Separating cheesers from the biggest cheeser itself is quite funny honestly.

Like, isn't a Pokémon with 6-7 viable different Teras, Encore, recovery, set up and every coverage ever the most cheesy thing ever? XD

depends on what you think is "cheese", i guess. personally i think the only cheesy part of dragonite is how easy it is to set up with multiscale. i don't think the fact that it has coverage or multiple tera types or encore is cheesy at all, that's just the sort of thing you gotta watch out for when you're fighting against one of the five billion setup goons we have here. the ridiculous tankiness making it so easy to set up multiple dragon dances, especially with recovery, does have a definite cheesy flavor to it, but i wouldn't call it the cheesiest thing in the meta

of course there is the kind of inherent background cheesiness of tera blast and tera in general, but i can't really blame dragonite for that, it's just the way this gen is

 

[FayaWizard]

Hey everyone, our newest set of OU analyses are open for reservation! This slate is focused on newer sets for higher-ranked Pokemon like Deoxys-Speed and Tornadus-Therian, as well as updating some of the older sets. If you want to write an analysis, place a reservation in this thread. If you're interested in quality checking them, feel free to reach out to C&C staff!

 

[Finchinator]

Tera Blast will remain legal given council consensus — more here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/tera-blast-in-sv-ou.3768288/page-2#post-10679082

 

[MC Squared]

As Finchinator said it’s unlikely. OU at the moment is based on core series gameplay that is directly involved with a mainline region including entirely new Pokemon or new forms, whereas Pokemon Champions isn’t. It’s most likely it gets its own format, however we can’t say definitively until there’s more information.

Would it make sense to create a Showdown ladder when the game is confirmed to be free and everyone has access to either a phone or Switch?

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Would it make sense to create a Showdown ladder when the game is confirmed to be free and everyone has access to either a phone or Switch?

not that this is super relevant to ou but yes, it does make sense to make a champions ladder. showdown's likely to still have advantages over champions (speed tooltips, hp percentages, faster building/battling, better timer, offering ties, /dt commands, etc), so it's almost certain that some people will still want to play the format on showdown instead of the game itself. it's also a possibility that future gens won't have pvp on cartridge and it'll all be on champions from now on, in which case we'd have to implement champions-based ladders starting with gen 10 whether we had one already or not, so i figure we might as well get a head start on that. of course, we don't have enough concrete info to actually make a decision and the decision isn't mine to make anyway, this is just my personal opinion

with that said, we're getting a little off track here, so let's get back to ou-related discussion with a couple open-ended questions:

1. what's your favorite tech or meta development that has emerged during olt?
2. what's your least favorite tech or meta development that has emerged during olt?
3. now that action on tera blast is out of the picture for the time being, what do you think the next move is likely to be tiering-wise?
4. what tiering action would you most like to see that's still on the table? (note: dropping/retesting ubers is not on the table without overwhelming demand)
5. if you were handed total control over svou right now, without having to worry about policy or public opinion or any sort of constraints on what you could do with it (besides "no modding"), but you could make only 3 changes, what would you do?

 

[ShieldPhoenix]

what tiering action would you most like to see that's still on the table? (note: dropping/retesting ubers is not on the table without overwhelming demand)

Probably a woger suspect because there’s a lot of discussion about it being too much for the tier

 

[Tio Chico]

1. what's your favorite tech or meta development that has emerged during olt?
2. what's your least favorite tech or meta development that has emerged during olt?
3. now that action on tera blast is out of the picture for the time being, what do you think the next move is likely to be tiering-wise?
4. what tiering action would you most like to see that's still on the table? (note: dropping/retesting ubers is not on the table without overwhelming demand)
5. if you were handed total control over svou right now, without having to worry about policy or public opinion or any sort of constraints on what you could do with it (besides "no modding"), but you could make only 3 changes, what would you do?

1. Tornadus-T Specs on the Storm Zone's Sand team is really cool.
2. Rillaboom. I dislike making progress with something that gives the opponent passive recovery.
3. With Tera Blast temporarily off-target, targeting the current best user (Dragonite) seems like the way to go.
4. Ogerpon-Wellspring is at its peak and without Dragonite it could become even more unstoppable.
5. In my dictatorship; 1 Gholdengo would be deleted from the showdown codes, 2 Kingambit would be banned, and 3 would be a swap between Crowned and Hero Zamazenta.

 

[UltraSword]

not that this is super relevant to ou but yes, it does make sense to make a champions ladder. showdown's likely to still have advantages over champions (speed tooltips, hp percentages, faster building/battling, better timer, offering ties, /dt commands, etc), so it's almost certain that some people will still want to play the format on showdown instead of the game itself. it's also a possibility that future gens won't have pvp on cartridge and it'll all be on champions from now on, in which case we'd have to implement champions-based ladders starting with gen 10 whether we had one already or not, so i figure we might as well get a head start on that. of course, we don't have enough concrete info to actually make a decision and the decision isn't mine to make anyway, this is just my personal opinion

with that said, we're getting a little off track here, so let's get back to ou-related discussion with a couple open-ended questions:

1. what's your favorite tech or meta development that has emerged during olt?
2. what's your least favorite tech or meta development that has emerged during olt?
3. now that action on tera blast is out of the picture for the time being, what do you think the next move is likely to be tiering-wise?
4. what tiering action would you most like to see that's still on the table? (note: dropping/retesting ubers is not on the table without overwhelming demand)
5. if you were handed total control over svou right now, without having to worry about policy or public opinion or any sort of constraints on what you could do with it (besides "no modding"), but you could make only 3 changes, what would you do?

I admittedly didn't pay much attention to OLT so I will just answer the last 3.

I think the most likely tiering action with tera blast being done is ever going to either be a Dragonite or Wogerpon discussion.

I personally don't think anything is actually broken at the current moment so yeah.

1. Unban sleep moves (and add sleep clause back).
2. Ban Darkrai and maybe Iron Valiant.
3. Forcibly make Walking Wake UU.

 

[Avira]

I admittedly didn't pay much attention to OLT so I will just answer the last 3.

I think the most likely tiering action with tera blast being done is ever going to either be a Dragonite or Wogerpon discussion.

I personally don't think anything is actually broken at the current moment so yeah.

1. Unban sleep moves (and add sleep clause back).
2. Ban Darkrai and maybe Iron Valiant.
3. Forcibly make Walking Wake UU.

Those are some pretty hot takes.

1. No, Sleep was always a ridiculous status and sleeping a mon in SV OU was like getting a KO. Sleep Clause was basically an arbitrary complex nerf to Sleep, and Sleep Clause wouldn't be made in modern day Smogon.
2. Darkrai isn't even a Top 10 mon, and Iron Valiant isn't an issue for any team archetype.
3. Walking Wake is a fine OU mon with specific strengths albeit not very splashable.

 

[Bakugames]

I do not understand cgou/new gen players who defend sleep clause. At least old gens have the excuse of existing with it for years upon years and removing it would probably require a bunch of tiering action that they just don't have the player base to sustain, and a lot of folks are not interested in updating them and want to play the fossilized meta as close as possible (except for things they dont like). But current gen ou? brother that shit should have been removed in day 1 sv.

literally explain to me how "sleep is ok as long as we put one of the most insane restrictions you could ever put on a status that also wouldn't work in cartridge even with the usual impartial judge bullshit we use for most of our qol clauses" is something that should be in place in 2025 and not laughed at. what is this stubborness with keeping a defanged, fangame-y sleep around? what insane groundbreaking benefit is sleep going to bring to sv ou that can justify bringing back a 1999 stadium mode?

i dont care if you think it makes the meta better, you could make the meta better by imposing any kind of stupid restrictions on any number of aspects of the game. lets mod out the full paralysis out of the game. lets turn freeze into frostbite from legend arceus. i was gonna make a joke akin to "lets bring back chien pao but it can only use moves with 60 bp or lower", but that stupid strawman joke is more realistic than sleep clause because you at least can justify it by someone getting disqualified if they pull out an ice spinner, no game mechanic mods required

i know this is probably a rather mean comment to give for someones offhanded remark but its less about one person and how i see the sentiment that the sleep ban was a mistake because darkrai should have been banned instead or iron valiant or just whatever argument acting like sleep clause isnt a mess by itself regardless of whatever pokemon exists in a meta. if it took darkrai for people to realize how outdated the whole thing was then so be it. you can ban darkrai if its really a problem or whatever but for the love of god do not bring back sleep clause

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

1. Unban sleep moves (and add sleep clause back).

i did say no modding. sleep clause mod counts as modding, so if you want sleep unbanned in this theoretical scenario you've gotta live with it unclaused

3. Forcibly make Walking Wake UU.

ok fine this one i'll allow

2. Darkrai isn't even a Top 10 mon, and Iron Valiant isn't an issue for any team archetype.

i'm actually going to defend this because it would only be done after unbanning sleep. obviously they're not problems right now, but with sleep back in the mix, darkrai and valiant would once again become bullshit gamblemons that i would have no problem getting rid of. of course unbanning sleep would be absurd but this is a perfectly logical follow-up to it

 

[KamenOH]

not that this is super relevant to ou but yes, it does make sense to make a champions ladder. showdown's likely to still have advantages over champions (speed tooltips, hp percentages, faster building/battling, better timer, offering ties, /dt commands, etc), so it's almost certain that some people will still want to play the format on showdown instead of the game itself. it's also a possibility that future gens won't have pvp on cartridge and it'll all be on champions from now on, in which case we'd have to implement champions-based ladders starting with gen 10 whether we had one already or not, so i figure we might as well get a head start on that. of course, we don't have enough concrete info to actually make a decision and the decision isn't mine to make anyway, this is just my personal opinion

with that said, we're getting a little off track here, so let's get back to ou-related discussion with a couple open-ended questions:

1. what's your favorite tech or meta development that has emerged during olt?
2. what's your least favorite tech or meta development that has emerged during olt?
3. now that action on tera blast is out of the picture for the time being, what do you think the next move is likely to be tiering-wise?
4. what tiering action would you most like to see that's still on the table? (note: dropping/retesting ubers is not on the table without overwhelming demand)
5. if you were handed total control over svou right now, without having to worry about policy or public opinion or any sort of constraints on what you could do with it (besides "no modding"), but you could make only 3 changes, what would you do?

Not too keyed into the Office League Tourney, so I can't answer 1 or 2.
3: My thoughts are either Wellspring Ogerpon, mostly due to the vibrant discussion surrounding it, or Ting-Lu if/when the Woger action is shelved/enacted because, though I don't fully subscribe to the "TingZapPex" iirc school of thought, it is still a tremendous wall capable of putting in work, and we all know Kingambit and Gholdengo aren't getting banned any time soon.
4: I know you said it'd take overwhelming demand for an unban, but I just can't think of anything I'd actually want banned in OU rn.
5: Unban Volcarona, Unban Lugia, and Unban Terapagos-Terastal. One Offense- and two Defensive-statted mons. I can admit that OU tends towards offense.

 

[Hon07rial]

not that this is super relevant to ou but yes, it does make sense to make a champions ladder. showdown's likely to still have advantages over champions (speed tooltips, hp percentages, faster building/battling, better timer, offering ties, /dt commands, etc), so it's almost certain that some people will still want to play the format on showdown instead of the game itself. it's also a possibility that future gens won't have pvp on cartridge and it'll all be on champions from now on, in which case we'd have to implement champions-based ladders starting with gen 10 whether we had one already or not, so i figure we might as well get a head start on that. of course, we don't have enough concrete info to actually make a decision and the decision isn't mine to make anyway, this is just my personal opinion

with that said, we're getting a little off track here, so let's get back to ou-related discussion with a couple open-ended questions:

1. what's your favorite tech or meta development that has emerged during olt?
2. what's your least favorite tech or meta development that has emerged during olt?
3. now that action on tera blast is out of the picture for the time being, what do you think the next move is likely to be tiering-wise?
4. what tiering action would you most like to see that's still on the table? (note: dropping/retesting ubers is not on the table without overwhelming demand)
5. if you were handed total control over svou right now, without having to worry about policy or public opinion or any sort of constraints on what you could do with it (besides "no modding"), but you could make only 3 changes, what would you do?

1. Rise of Rillaboom and Heatran; I think they and what they bring are very healthy additions to the meta.

2. Rise of Tornados; While an early believer of the Assault Vest set, I generally can't see the fat Nasty Plot sets being a good addition to this meta.

3. Getting rid of its most notorious abusers

4. Ogerpon-Wellspring suspect

5. If I didn't have 3 wishes only, I would have a very different answer that could possibly revamp the tier as I do not like how it is going right now. But since I only have 3 ,I will make the most of them:

A. Unban Medium-Sized Terapagos; We really need more anti-offense tools in this meta and I think this one is about as justified as Zamazenta.

B. Ban Deoxys-speed, Darkrai and Iron Valiant; While I do not find these inherently broken, I do find the over-saturation of offensive threats very overwhleming to build for, especially for balance, and excluding the mons already on radar, these 3 are the ones I am most willing to let go of.

C. Ban Malignant Chain; While I find Pecharunt a very healthy pokemon for this meta, and while malignant chain is a big part of that as it scares away many offensive threats that would otherwise try to get past it with sheer force or setup.
Yet, despite all of that, I find a move that it's main gimmick is an unguranteed spread of confusion to be way too RNG-based for me to find it competitive.

 

[Karxrida]

showdown's likely to still have advantages over champions (speed tooltips, hp percentages, faster building/battling, better timer, offering ties, /dt commands, etc)

fwiw HP% display is actually part of Champions.

Which is nice because people can finally stop bad faith arguing about it being a mod (it's technically not, calculators and public knowledge rules exist).

 

[Eeveeto]

My 3 wishes:
1. Ban Gholdengo.
2. Tossing a coin. If heads, Ban Waterpon. If tails, unban Archaludon.
3. Ban Gliscor.

Honorable mentions: Full BP Unban (If people cry too much,Dry Pass allowed is enough), Ban Spikes + Rocks on same team (Stone Axe and Ceaseless Edge not affected), and Ban Daddy Buzzwole (he is not legal in Paldea).

 

[ShieldPhoenix]

Ban Spikes + Rocks on same team (Stone Axe and Ceaseless Edge not affected)

This post was written by Hisuian Samurott.