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OU ADV OU Viability Ranking and Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter McMeghan
- Start date
For the past few years, I have not participated in VRs, but the speedpass vote has made me realize the following:
By choosing to ban speedpass, much of the new (or returning) generation of players deprioritize the amazing creativity that exists and -- the key part -- the creativity that has *yet to be discovered* in favor of the comfortable, safe, and predictable metagame, where surprises are seen as negatives. I hope that by posting about the way I think about the metagame, I can discourage people from continuing to stifle the metagame in future.
Immediately after the speedpass ban, I sought to see how one could continue innovating with BP while also sampling some trends. Could I compensate for the lack of speed some other way? I built this team, paste here, (with some tweaks from collective input in the ADV community) and reached 1800 to qualify for the VRs. It is unique in that while many offense teams break with slows mons sweep with a fastmon, this team dual uses SubPass to break early game and support the same breakers with Wish as sweepers in the late game with paraspam.
My purpose of building this team is twofold:
1. To show that as stifled as it is, BP remains a dynamic part of our metagame that should not be further nerfed. One common rhetoric is "[insert stat here]-pass is a small part of our metagame" - the metagame that you see but not the one it can be. Around the time of this and the previous suspect test, I built teams with new ideas designed to test boundaries of healthy BP strategies. My point is that if I, one person, only had a few days and came up with several new ideas just in response to a suspect test, the collective of teambuilders can really innovate and push the metagame in many interesting directions altogether if we keep an open mind.
2. Because I believe that voters should have skin in the game (in suspects and VRs). I disagree with the idea of voting on BP without even having tried to use BP strats, or writing about mons on VRs without having tried using them.
Even though I have built with Raikou and Registeel in the past, I'd feel dishonest writing about teams I made years ago in different contexts. Now that I have (publicly) built new teams with the trends of the day, Raikou and Registeel with reasonable success, I feel qualified to vote. Now for the VR post.
The larger context:
Three related major shifts happened: the rise of 1) El clasico (/Pixie TSS), 2) Raikou, 3) Registeel. They are related by the attempt to provide more specially defensive coverage without resorting to dedicated special walls, and also their attempt to check each other. This philosophy and the specific mons' influence on the metagame extends beyond these cases - for example, Jolteon provides sp.def coverage while being a good check to Zapdos in clasico-style teams and Raikou teams.
I will explain my VRs in the context of these shifts.
1. El clásico
/ Pixie TSS
Over the years, TSS has evolved from composing of
(2018) mons with well-defined roles (spinblocker, walls, Pursuit) to
(2021) general damage with key defensive backbone (MixMence + Blissey) to
(2025) damage dealing with distributed backbone (special side - Leech3AtkCelebi+Jirachi, clasico Zapdos+Refpert+Aero; physical - Mence+OffPert/Dol).
This distributed backbone also means that some breakers/sweepers that ordinarily cannot break through dedicated walls now perform much better (Raikou, Jolteon, AgiliGross).
2. Raikou
Beyond being a strong exploiter of distributed special backbones, Raikou also
(2020) Outspeeds the slow Dugtrio trend that special offenses adopted, and
(2022) Performs strongly in sandless environments, providing special coverage where Blissey cannot (against other Blissey, Suicune, Celebi) or complementing monoBliss, which is very strong and almost a physical wall.
- Its physical bulk is also impressively allows it to be played more aggressively, especially with the Rest set (a nice revival of an old MDragon RestCune+RestKou team).
- The concept of having a special backbone also applies to spikeless offenses, where Raikou's pure electric type and speed is a huge asset. For example, replacing Zapdos with (or using it with) Raikou on a spikeless offense team improves its matchup notably against Gengar.
3. Registeel
Registeel had sporadically been used on TSS teams (far back from an infamous Sand Veil team by CZ (2017)); also this team of mine (2022) so I do not consider its rise on TSS to be an innovation.
(2023) Rather, its use on spikeless offense (iirc first prominently by BIHI on blue offense) is novel. Looking back, its similarities to Hclat's Sp.Def Magneton is striking - tanking random special attacks and sometimes physical attacks with ease and annoying its checks with status. Well known features of Registeel are 1) defensive prowess which allows compensation with offensive sets on other mons (Endpert Registeel is a zoomer meme by this point), 2) consistent chip with SToss hitting all targets, 3) Boom.
But other underrated aspects also are
A) Registeel's pivoting ability - switch into any Earthquake user on a resisted move (like Metagross), and you force them to face Counter, and they either switch out or go for EQ and trade. This makes getting a flying-type in very safe regardless of whether you actually have Counter.
B) Registeel's ability to trade.
These underrated aspects A & B bring me to my personal experience of using Registeel - Counter and Thunder Wave are staple moves but rather easy to play around. In my team above, I used HP Grass > Counter because I retain the pivoting benefits of looking like I have Counter (and the threat of TWave) while allowing me to trade with Pert, or, after grass is revealed, direct damage/boom to a difficult mon like Skarmory / Blissey. TWave is less droppable, but many spikeless offense teams do not go faster than 328 which makes them really susceptible to Gengar, so Zap Cannon / Thunder are options as well.
Ok, what else has changed?
The BPers:
Zapdos - the above trends + speedpass nerf make the metagame unkind to Zapdos. However, some possible adaptations especially to Zapdos on clasico-style teams are
1) Light Screen, which becomes useful to all mons on distributed sp.def backbone teams; on my way to qualifying for speedpass reqs, I combined that with 4Atks Modest OffGar which was really threatening to spinners.
2) Double-Edge / Hyper Beam which deals with Raikou/Jolteon; DE also has nifty self-KO recovery denial mechanics vs Blissey.
What other ways are there to pass? I want take the opportunity to promote
3) EvilZap or rather the Sub/BP/Rest/Tbolt version of it that watermess helped to make, which provides a very safe way to maintain momentum (to dug) vs these sp.def cores.
Vaporeon - After a few experiments, the easiest path forward to me is Sub/Wish/BP/Surf. Wishpassing is a very good combination with Sub because
1) Even if Vaporeon gets roared out, it can still Wishpass.
2) It self-sustains Vaporeon against targets it subs on such as STossers (and there is more than one in today's metagame).
3) SubPass Vaporeon is naturally paired with bulky breakers (CBMeta, Snorlax, Fighters etc.) that benefit greatly from Wish.
Other stuff
Salamence - Everyone is on the divide and conquer train now. Better KO a Blissey + wipe out virgin 5 while losing to Metagross than doing 70% to everything. I fancy DD/Brick/Refresh/Fly myself in this meta with a prevalence of dedicated stalls (v5), but that set is also very useful against traditional TSS (it beats Skarm/Bliss/Tar, with good EVs survives Ice attacks from Gar/Pert as well, and shrugs off Molt Wisp). I acknowledge offensive Brick sets used now as well.
Jolteon - TSS version of Raikou beneficial for countering the distributed sp.def backbones mentioned above.
Starmie - Again another Pokemon good vs distributed sp.def backbones. Lead Starmie that I believe ABR popularized makes clasico/pixieTSS sweat.
Some personal mentions
Claydol - I find Rock Slide very useful on offensive teams where sometimes spinning is just wasting momentum but you're hard pressed for Zapdos checks. "What if you face Spikes Aero Gar"? Well, most Aerodactyl are CB-locked, so you mostly need to worry about the next fastest sweeper before that (Offmie/Raikou/Jolteon). Those used not to appear too frequently but now have a lot of traction and require alternative solutions.
CBdol, another set I like, is also very useful on teams that are CMRachi/DDTar weak. The key is that you're not sending dol in early game except to pivot, where you're not revealing CB. By the time dol is useful, it's late game, and a strong EQ/Boom is more useful than than spin, or you can spin very predictably knowing how the endgame is going to look like.
Swampert - Pointing out a set from one of my teams, El Cloysico, defensive Pert with Surf/Ice/EQ/Refresh (or Roar over Ice), with enough speed creep for Blissey. This set came from wanting Pert to make progress vs Skarm like RefPert but not wanting to do 6% with Toxic to Blissey while it heals for 50%. This feigns MonoPert and can surprise Blissey with nasty EQs. You only need to surprise Blissey once with EQ - then it needs to heal several times to regain its HP, which is your chance to crit it. If the team is relatively fast paced like El Cloysico, dropping Protect is fine.
Metagross - I think Metagross (CB/Agility) is super good when everyone is using MonoWaters, Mence+Steel/Dol cores, and weak Swamperts.
Snorlax - When used with your favorite new-age additional special check Raikou/Registeel, Counter Snorlax trades incredibly well risk-free.
Cloyster - Two ways to use it.
1) It becomes threatening once Skarm is damaged. Otherwise, weaker than Skarm as a Spiker. Thus target Skarm first (like El Cloysico)
2) Lead Cloyster
Final ranked list, willing to explain on request
By choosing to ban speedpass, much of the new (or returning) generation of players deprioritize the amazing creativity that exists and -- the key part -- the creativity that has *yet to be discovered* in favor of the comfortable, safe, and predictable metagame, where surprises are seen as negatives. I hope that by posting about the way I think about the metagame, I can discourage people from continuing to stifle the metagame in future.
Immediately after the speedpass ban, I sought to see how one could continue innovating with BP while also sampling some trends. Could I compensate for the lack of speed some other way? I built this team, paste here, (with some tweaks from collective input in the ADV community) and reached 1800 to qualify for the VRs. It is unique in that while many offense teams break with slows mons sweep with a fastmon, this team dual uses SubPass to break early game and support the same breakers with Wish as sweepers in the late game with paraspam.
My purpose of building this team is twofold:
1. To show that as stifled as it is, BP remains a dynamic part of our metagame that should not be further nerfed. One common rhetoric is "[insert stat here]-pass is a small part of our metagame" - the metagame that you see but not the one it can be. Around the time of this and the previous suspect test, I built teams with new ideas designed to test boundaries of healthy BP strategies. My point is that if I, one person, only had a few days and came up with several new ideas just in response to a suspect test, the collective of teambuilders can really innovate and push the metagame in many interesting directions altogether if we keep an open mind.
2. Because I believe that voters should have skin in the game (in suspects and VRs). I disagree with the idea of voting on BP without even having tried to use BP strats, or writing about mons on VRs without having tried using them.
Even though I have built with Raikou and Registeel in the past, I'd feel dishonest writing about teams I made years ago in different contexts. Now that I have (publicly) built new teams with the trends of the day, Raikou and Registeel with reasonable success, I feel qualified to vote. Now for the VR post.
The larger context:
Three related major shifts happened: the rise of 1) El clasico (/Pixie TSS), 2) Raikou, 3) Registeel. They are related by the attempt to provide more specially defensive coverage without resorting to dedicated special walls, and also their attempt to check each other. This philosophy and the specific mons' influence on the metagame extends beyond these cases - for example, Jolteon provides sp.def coverage while being a good check to Zapdos in clasico-style teams and Raikou teams.
I will explain my VRs in the context of these shifts.
1. El clásico
/ Pixie TSS
Over the years, TSS has evolved from composing of
(2018) mons with well-defined roles (spinblocker, walls, Pursuit) to
(2021) general damage with key defensive backbone (MixMence + Blissey) to
(2025) damage dealing with distributed backbone (special side - Leech3AtkCelebi+Jirachi, clasico Zapdos+Refpert+Aero; physical - Mence+OffPert/Dol).
This distributed backbone also means that some breakers/sweepers that ordinarily cannot break through dedicated walls now perform much better (Raikou, Jolteon, AgiliGross).
2. Raikou
Beyond being a strong exploiter of distributed special backbones, Raikou also
(2020) Outspeeds the slow Dugtrio trend that special offenses adopted, and
(2022) Performs strongly in sandless environments, providing special coverage where Blissey cannot (against other Blissey, Suicune, Celebi) or complementing monoBliss, which is very strong and almost a physical wall.
- Its physical bulk is also impressively allows it to be played more aggressively, especially with the Rest set (a nice revival of an old MDragon RestCune+RestKou team).
- The concept of having a special backbone also applies to spikeless offenses, where Raikou's pure electric type and speed is a huge asset. For example, replacing Zapdos with (or using it with) Raikou on a spikeless offense team improves its matchup notably against Gengar.
3. Registeel
Registeel had sporadically been used on TSS teams (far back from an infamous Sand Veil team by CZ (2017)); also this team of mine (2022) so I do not consider its rise on TSS to be an innovation.
(2023) Rather, its use on spikeless offense (iirc first prominently by BIHI on blue offense) is novel. Looking back, its similarities to Hclat's Sp.Def Magneton is striking - tanking random special attacks and sometimes physical attacks with ease and annoying its checks with status. Well known features of Registeel are 1) defensive prowess which allows compensation with offensive sets on other mons (Endpert Registeel is a zoomer meme by this point), 2) consistent chip with SToss hitting all targets, 3) Boom.
But other underrated aspects also are
A) Registeel's pivoting ability - switch into any Earthquake user on a resisted move (like Metagross), and you force them to face Counter, and they either switch out or go for EQ and trade. This makes getting a flying-type in very safe regardless of whether you actually have Counter.
B) Registeel's ability to trade.
These underrated aspects A & B bring me to my personal experience of using Registeel - Counter and Thunder Wave are staple moves but rather easy to play around. In my team above, I used HP Grass > Counter because I retain the pivoting benefits of looking like I have Counter (and the threat of TWave) while allowing me to trade with Pert, or, after grass is revealed, direct damage/boom to a difficult mon like Skarmory / Blissey. TWave is less droppable, but many spikeless offense teams do not go faster than 328 which makes them really susceptible to Gengar, so Zap Cannon / Thunder are options as well.
Ok, what else has changed?
The BPers:
Zapdos - the above trends + speedpass nerf make the metagame unkind to Zapdos. However, some possible adaptations especially to Zapdos on clasico-style teams are1) Light Screen, which becomes useful to all mons on distributed sp.def backbone teams; on my way to qualifying for speedpass reqs, I combined that with 4Atks Modest OffGar which was really threatening to spinners.
2) Double-Edge / Hyper Beam which deals with Raikou/Jolteon; DE also has nifty self-KO recovery denial mechanics vs Blissey.
What other ways are there to pass? I want take the opportunity to promote
3) EvilZap or rather the Sub/BP/Rest/Tbolt version of it that watermess helped to make, which provides a very safe way to maintain momentum (to dug) vs these sp.def cores.
Vaporeon - After a few experiments, the easiest path forward to me is Sub/Wish/BP/Surf. Wishpassing is a very good combination with Sub because1) Even if Vaporeon gets roared out, it can still Wishpass.
2) It self-sustains Vaporeon against targets it subs on such as STossers (and there is more than one in today's metagame).
3) SubPass Vaporeon is naturally paired with bulky breakers (CBMeta, Snorlax, Fighters etc.) that benefit greatly from Wish.
Other stuff
Salamence - Everyone is on the divide and conquer train now. Better KO a Blissey + wipe out virgin 5 while losing to Metagross than doing 70% to everything. I fancy DD/Brick/Refresh/Fly myself in this meta with a prevalence of dedicated stalls (v5), but that set is also very useful against traditional TSS (it beats Skarm/Bliss/Tar, with good EVs survives Ice attacks from Gar/Pert as well, and shrugs off Molt Wisp). I acknowledge offensive Brick sets used now as well. Jolteon - TSS version of Raikou beneficial for countering the distributed sp.def backbones mentioned above. Starmie - Again another Pokemon good vs distributed sp.def backbones. Lead Starmie that I believe ABR popularized makes clasico/pixieTSS sweat.Some personal mentions
Claydol - I find Rock Slide very useful on offensive teams where sometimes spinning is just wasting momentum but you're hard pressed for Zapdos checks. "What if you face Spikes Aero Gar"? Well, most Aerodactyl are CB-locked, so you mostly need to worry about the next fastest sweeper before that (Offmie/Raikou/Jolteon). Those used not to appear too frequently but now have a lot of traction and require alternative solutions.CBdol, another set I like, is also very useful on teams that are CMRachi/DDTar weak. The key is that you're not sending dol in early game except to pivot, where you're not revealing CB. By the time dol is useful, it's late game, and a strong EQ/Boom is more useful than than spin, or you can spin very predictably knowing how the endgame is going to look like.
Swampert - Pointing out a set from one of my teams, El Cloysico, defensive Pert with Surf/Ice/EQ/Refresh (or Roar over Ice), with enough speed creep for Blissey. This set came from wanting Pert to make progress vs Skarm like RefPert but not wanting to do 6% with Toxic to Blissey while it heals for 50%. This feigns MonoPert and can surprise Blissey with nasty EQs. You only need to surprise Blissey once with EQ - then it needs to heal several times to regain its HP, which is your chance to crit it. If the team is relatively fast paced like El Cloysico, dropping Protect is fine. Metagross - I think Metagross (CB/Agility) is super good when everyone is using MonoWaters, Mence+Steel/Dol cores, and weak Swamperts. Snorlax - When used with your favorite new-age additional special check Raikou/Registeel, Counter Snorlax trades incredibly well risk-free. Cloyster - Two ways to use it. 1) It becomes threatening once Skarm is damaged. Otherwise, weaker than Skarm as a Spiker. Thus target Skarm first (like El Cloysico)
2) Lead Cloyster
Final ranked list, willing to explain on request
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First VR :D
(Everything B-tier and above would be my OU cutoff)
(Everything B-tier and above would be my OU cutoff)
-Taunt Gengar is really broken right now in my opinion. Its insane at breaking fat teams as they often rely too much on claydol to trade with it (especially with monobliss teams being pretty popular these days) and is otherwise great into most teams. I also believe Gengar spikes is still the best archetype in the meta. As for OffGar, I still think its great on Dugtrio offense even though players' opinions of it have gone down recently.
-Flygon's speed is a really underrated trait for a rock resist, even on defensive sets where outrunning meta/ttar can make a huge difference.
-Vaporeon is very good at enabling breakers like Hera or Metagross on offense with subpass and can do well on stall teams, where it can pass wishes and sometimes take a hit and BP to dug to trap someone like Metagross (Its high special attack also allows it to always 2hko bulky tar unlike milo/cune).
-Cloyster is pretty great, it's often tough for it to keep spikes up though which is why I like it on teams that dont need the spike as much in some matchups (for example, on special offense you'll want the spike vs, say, a metagross team while vs v5 you would much rather blow up the blissey and trap it). On those teams being able to boom early when the opponent expects a spike is a nice advantage.
-I don't have anything special to say about Regice except that it's pretty great.
(Also, I didn't bother to add most niche mons in here but I will in my submission, piloswine WILL be ranked.)
-Flygon's speed is a really underrated trait for a rock resist, even on defensive sets where outrunning meta/ttar can make a huge difference.
-Vaporeon is very good at enabling breakers like Hera or Metagross on offense with subpass and can do well on stall teams, where it can pass wishes and sometimes take a hit and BP to dug to trap someone like Metagross (Its high special attack also allows it to always 2hko bulky tar unlike milo/cune).
-Cloyster is pretty great, it's often tough for it to keep spikes up though which is why I like it on teams that dont need the spike as much in some matchups (for example, on special offense you'll want the spike vs, say, a metagross team while vs v5 you would much rather blow up the blissey and trap it). On those teams being able to boom early when the opponent expects a spike is a nice advantage.
-I don't have anything special to say about Regice except that it's pretty great.
(Also, I didn't bother to add most niche mons in here but I will in my submission, piloswine WILL be ranked.)
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ADV Hot take of the day: if you're getting into an endgame position where it's likely going to be decided by an aerodactyl speed tie, regardless of whatever walls each of you have left, just let the speed tie decide it and have the game end like 15 turns earlier. If both of you are playing well, it's gonna come down to that speed tie anyway so just let it happen. This is specifically for endgames, which I know is nebulous and a vague concept, but can generally be agreed upon during games themselves. The amount of games where my opponent does almost anything they can to avoid an aerodactyl speed tie deciding the game only for that to be the deciding factor anyway is too many. I already hate aerodactyl because of how often this speed tie is game determinative, let's just end the game 15 turns early instead of playing out a formality.
Curious on why Mag and Zard are so low and Jolt is so high compared to many vrs, maldo over loom too
I don’t really know where I stand on sleep but every time I encounter a smeargle or some gambling addict running hypnosis I lean closer and closer to wanting sleep banned. These things never fail to genuinely make my day worse
E: Had the misfortune of encountering a 4 pressure pokemon pp stall team. I don't think it's good at all but I do think playing it should get you IP banned from showdown. Genuinely miserable game that I'm pretty sure I only won because he failed a double protect on the final turn
E: Had the misfortune of encountering a 4 pressure pokemon pp stall team. I don't think it's good at all but I do think playing it should get you IP banned from showdown. Genuinely miserable game that I'm pretty sure I only won because he failed a double protect on the final turn
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I was perhaps too low on Mag. I think if Mag became better, it became incidentally better, not convincingly. Distributed sp.def core structures like el clasico, Registeel, and Jolteon actually have a fair bit of trouble with Mag. However, Mag usually is made to support, not be supported - not many are actually actively thinking of use Mag to exploit these structures, which is what I mean by incidental. Perhaps this could be a point of innovation just as what hclat did with sp.def Mag (!). I should point out though that Fruhdazi's take on Magneton + Raikou is interesting defensively and offensively. My general impressions are that over the years, fewer Pokemon need/want Mag support.
I have nothing against Charizard. If you traced my VR history, you would see that I have consistently ranked Charizard higher than most people even in 2018. I think value has only been recognized by the masses recently. Charizard has some flaws that prevent me from putting it on every team. Think about the economy of flying types/levitators - it's very competitive. Once you have filled the key roles, you typically only have 1 or 2 remaining slots, and are you going to use a Charizard? On a Spikes team, you include Skarm, a special wall (mostly grounded, but could be a Zap), a physical wall (also grounded, could be Flygon) and if you use ttar then you have maybe 2 more slots. There are so many more reasons to fit the hovering mons I ranked above Charizard. You typically want these flyers to have good sweeping power (Charizard breaks some teams well, sweep, not really) or Spikes utility (spinblock, spin, dug trap - which is also Spikes utility btw). What about spikeless mixed offense? In short, the standard Charizard set (Subpunch lefties) lends itself to a pivot-based game that is my less preferred style of engaging with mixed offense. I feel that a pivot game usually favors Spike styles and mixed offense needs to be built a certain way to be effective with a pivoting style. I'm more in favor of sets that divide and conquer or maintain momentum (Sunny Petaya), which is a minority set. Note also that you do get one extra (flying) slot compared to Spikes, but to make up for the lack of Spikes chip you also want this slot to be able to boost (speed or (sp)attack). So you are once again constrained.
I think Armaldo is a much better knock offer than Hariyama, and Knock Off has a place in this metagame. Hariyama teams usually try to make use of its fighting type and knock off but fail to do both effectively. Sand is too potent. It's far more difficult to Wish or Rest+Aroma up a Hariyama than an Armaldo. At the same time, Hariyama isn't that great at checking physical Ttar. One more thing Armaldo can do is threaten the Recoverers Celebi and Starmie. It is a lot easier to exploit an itemless Blissey than an stemless Celebi / defensive Starmie in my opinion. That's partially because people who use Blissey frequently rely entirely on it for their sp.def needs (which is also changing to be fair).
Breloom used to be really interesting to use but a few things changing like Agility Metagross being everywhere means its ability to act as a physical check is made highly irrelevant. Not to mention inviting zard in.
Jolteon is pretty scary don't you think?
Do you ever feel like defense is just too strong in adv? I feel like the majority of teams that can consistently get past big 5 +1 are either weak to Zap or Dug or lack the tools to get past sandless Milotic teams. It feels like Metagross and maybe Haracross are the only wallbreakers that offer non negligable defensive utility to a team.
(I'm not counting cb Mence or Tar because they lack the option to hit both Skarm and Pert for significant damage)
Most VRs reflect this as the majority of ADV defense resides in the S, A, and B ranks.
It's not necessarily that the defensive mons are too strong in a vacuum (at lest imo), but that the offensive mons tend to be very flawed and thus inconsistent. Maybe it's just my skill issue tho
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this
(I'm not counting cb Mence or Tar because they lack the option to hit both Skarm and Pert for significant damage)
Most VRs reflect this as the majority of ADV defense resides in the S, A, and B ranks.
It's not necessarily that the defensive mons are too strong in a vacuum (at lest imo), but that the offensive mons tend to be very flawed and thus inconsistent. Maybe it's just my skill issue tho
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this
Idk if defense vs offense mons is a great distinction. The dex is quite small in gen 3. Most of the top mons fit on a broad range of archetypes. Example: defensive vs offensive suicune,swampert,jirachi etc. Even blissey can find itself on teams that would be considered an offense.
Heh. Defense is broken indeed. Free agipass zap or ban dugtrio, I dont care which.
Why don't you use Defense if it's broken?
Was gonna respond and say idk if defense is broken, but dugtrio in particular adds a certain something sus to it for sure ... especially those lead dug teams. I personally view it in a sorta similar way as I was thinking about smearlge DD pass stuff (just on the other side of the coin), it exists on/enables teams that are very consistent at making auto wins in their desired matchup which can be what makes it frustrating to play I think.
Feel like speedpass ban makes the already increasing dug suspect test support even stronger, would be very interesting (I'm pro dug ban unless all the vets say no).
I do sort of feel like anyone who supported a speedpass ban should also want to ban dug but I know this isn't true at all so thats why it's interesting
It is simple. I am too stupid to use defense. Besides, I do occasionally, see me vs Mayo g1 of JI or me vs fakes g2 of JI finals for that matter. Granted if I was a better defense pilot I would probably use it more often, the truth is that the style is in fact very skilled and it needs something I do not have (patience). I do think defense is restricting when putting on account that u need to handle both the prospect of facing Aero spikeoff or Dug fat. Its possible that diversity is unhealthy for the meta but I genuinely thought we had a almost perfect sweetspot w agizap in the mix. That said I am gonna learn defense more sometime, I think ppl dont use it due to the fact its honestly harder to enter / intuitively "less fun" for most ppl. Thats most definitely the case w me, that doesnt mean it isnt restricting and I feel it in my bones while building
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>Feels like its existence just eats away at the viability of so many mons
First of all, "x makes y unviable" is no reason for a ban.
I think the main reason for Dug being free is that the metagame is less frail than in newer generations and that Dug doesn't have sash. Since you're limited to one cb boosted move instead of 2 unboosted moves, the amount of mons you can eliminate from full health isn't that big. It also means that your Dug is mostly useless against faster mons. Also, because Dug needs to lock into either eq or a weak coverage move, it's also highly exploitale and a huge loss of momentum whenever it kills something.
Looking at OU, only Breloom, Hera, Mag and Medi are always a potential oh-ko, and Medi is a roll even with adamant.
Offensive sets of Celebi, Jirachi, Meta and T-tar can be oh-ko-ed aswell, but bulky sets always live. Bulky beat up Dug is anti Blissey Tech and sacrifices its matchup into anything else.
Compared to modern metagames, this really isn't a lot. Even against its targets, dug doesn't have the easiest time switching in. Keep in mind that dug can't be used to check dd sweepers since it doesn't outrun them and doesn't have sash.
That being said, Dug is still a controversial force an ADV and as you can see in this thread, many want it banned.
The reasons why I only gave arguments against a ban on Dug are
a) to answer your questin.
b) because the broken aspects of Dug are pretty obvious and I already listed all the mons it does trap from full. Especially offense suffers from having little counterplay vs Dug.
From a historical perspective, ADV was around before any later gen arena trap bans happened, and ADV clearly has a thriving player base (most/2nd most popular oldgen on the ladder), so it is probably doing something right. As someone who played ADV when it was the current generation, it is more perplexing that people found things that worked in later gens (like blanket BP bans) and think of back-applying it in ADV assuming that conditions are similar. The onus is on later gen players to show that their gen requires some regulation and that it would be beneficial to apply it to historical gens. It's like perhaps asking my grandma "Why don't you use social media? You can keep in touch with your friends" and her responding "Unlike you, back in my day, we actually meet our friends" and then running off for tea.
Unfortunately, I think we are at a point where people are already performing too much elective surgery (banning speedpass) on ADV, restricting the amount of dynamism in this metagame, to produce one that runs like clockwork. Some people like the predictability, but there is nothing alive about a clock. It is death. So at this point we might as well just open the Pandora's box.
I think you're absolutely right that dug makes a lot of fun mons unviable, enough to make the metagame visibly different. Notice that I haven't actually said anything about dug's interactions, and that is intentional. I think a lot of people try to make tiering arguments based on detailed evaluations of the current metagame without acknowledging higher order effects and interactions -- i.e. the metagame will look different enough that your assumptions of how dug interacts with any other mon's current roles fall flat -- and I disagree with that. Isn't is an oxymoron to guess the future based on how it currently looks? I could tell you how balanced dug is right now but that answers nothing. When one suggests a big enough change, only the philosophical questions remain -
Do you want to see
(1) a different (likely unrecognizable) metagame?
(2) a more varied metagame?
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a) dug keeps many polarising mons in check. without dug mons like kou and hera and ddtar become much harder to stop -and consequently much easier to enable by hitting their checks. you need a variety of ways to check these kinds of mons available in the teambuilder or else it becomes rather simple to build teams that just blow through the limited answers these mons have via other means.
b) dug is very exploitable. people incorporate dug into teambuilding and have plans for when they encounter dug. like ok dug catches your cele. now you've got a guaranteed free setup turn for DDmence or even the SDhera in the back thats also technically weak to dug. lategame dug is more often a liability than an asset for this reason- once youre down a few mons and limited on switchins, dug can be a lead weight around your ankle as it forces you to commit to game-losing plays more often than not
c) all mons affect the viability of other mons. many mons are gatekept from OU by the mere existence of others, this is true for any meta. dug just happens to do it in a particularly obvious way. but so does ttar, so does aero, so does skarm, so does gar, etc etc. example- in a world without skarm or gar, CB tauros would be pretty mint, alongside the litany of normal type physical attackers that have a movepool that looks like Return/EQ/Ghost coverage (or the normal/flying types). but they all languish outside of OU with the exception of lax, why? cause they are gatekept by a combination of skarm and gar (and ttar) making them difficult to use, and lax outshining the ones that could function to some degree. lax can adapt and fit into a meta that is fundamentally very hostile to normal type physical attackers. and even if all of these things werent true (lets say we ban skarm gar and tar bc we love normals so much), we'd probably just look at tauros and go, this guy fits the meta best, all the others are lesser in some way (ursaring would probably be good tbh), and poor old granbull and kangaskhan would still be relegated to off meta picks (probably idk). and in that world where we try and make these normals more viable, what probably actually happens is suicune ascends to god emperor of the tier and destroys everything that isn't hypnosis bulk up focus punch poliwrath or something because that is also an incredibly powerful polarising mon presently operating in adverse conditions that keep it in check. so what have we gained? maybe if smogon was made of normal type lovers everyone would agree this was a necessary change for the better. but the world we live in is one where we like clicking spikes and directing gengars shit eating grin at our opponents. which brings me to
d)it's just always been that way and dug is part of the identity of the tier. there are people out there who hate dug but really the game has been played with dug for so long and theres zero evidence that dug breaks the tier in some way. we can argue about whether dug makes the tier *more* fun or *more* healthy (i happen to think yes and yes) but i think it would be stretching like stretch armstrong to claim dug restricts the metagame to an unhealthy and repetitive point that requires it to be restricted, which is really what the function of bans should be. dug does not solve the game in any way in such a way that you end up not really playing it, like BP chains did, or sand veil did, or allowing kyogre into OU would do. ADV is a tight meta with a very well defined range of threats and answers that have evolved over time to accomodate each other and dug is honestly just one of them, playing its part.