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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

As a general note, when talking Wellspring, games like the match between TDNT and leng loi from SCL during week 2 really illustrate why Wellspring can be a frustrating pokemon. By all rights, leng loi was well prepared for Wellspring with Zamazenta, Tornadus-T and even Kyurem meaning they had a decent out in most situations. And yet on turn 20, Wellspring proceeded to BS anyways because Cudgel crit through a +3 Zama and removed it from the game on the spot. Torn-T got removed by Valiant and then Kyurem was dropped by the surprise Play Rough at the end.

That really brings me to a point about this mon: It's not that inherently it's impossible to prepare for, but that prepping for it is a big ask when few long term answers exist and many short term answers are also tasked with handling other threats on Wellspring's teams, making preserving those short term answers for it while also handling other threats tough. Crit Cudgel allowing Wellspring to upend would be counterplay is to me, a major reason why I can't stand its presence. There's a lot of threats that indivudually aren't problematic necessarily, but preparing for them all sometimes feels like a chore when threats like Wellspring stick out and require extra attention, making building frustrating at times.

Personally, I believe it was a misplay from leng loi to Iron Defense on the Wellspring given TDNT had an Iron Valiant in the back, which easily stops an attempt to sweep with Iron Defense. She should've clearly went for a Body Press, and had she done that, leng loi would've almost certainly won that match. I guess that maybe shows how little room there is for misplaying in SV OU, but it was winnable if not for the very greedy Iron Defense, which one can clearly argue was a choke given she didn't account for Ivy Cudgel potentially haxing her or needing the chip she would've gotten.

I agree with you that prepping for Ogerpon-Wellspring is a big ask considering how few long-term answers exist with many short-term checks also being tasked with handling other threats on Wellspring teams, but I'm not convinced she's the best target for tiering action as I believe Kyurem is more constraining in the builder, and Waterpon herself isn't even the biggest threat/gatekeeper to balance's viability. Wpon has never been my top 1 or even 2 consideration in the builder, and I'm not convinced she of all things is what needs to go.
 
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Personally, I believe it was a misplay from leng loi to Iron Defense on the Wellspring given TDNT had an Iron Valiant in the back, which easily stops an attempt to sweep with Iron Defense. She should've clearly went for a Body Press, and had she done that, leng loi would've almost certainly won that match. I guess that maybe shows how little room there is for misplaying in SV OU, but it was winnable if not for the very greedy Iron Defense, which one can clearly argue was a choke given she didn't account for Ivy Cudgel potentially haxing her or needing the chip she would've gotten.

I wouldn’t agree ID was greedy. That Zama could’ve had an anti Valiant Tera type and considering it was CM+Destiny Bond, it didn’t have encore so at best it would’ve traded maybe. A +1 BP doesn’t come close to KOing healthy wellspring, especially since this Zama didn’t look def invested and assuming the crit still played out, would’ve at most traded for about 60-65%. A lot, but since at the time there weren’t hazards on TDNT’s side, it would’ve been tough to finish even a weakened Wellspring off since only Torn T outspeeds it at that point and both Gliscor and Heatran would’ve been entry points for Wellspring later.

Of course I don’t think it’s fair to make what-ifs and backseat a game after the fact because there’s so many factors that go into play at that level of game.
 
If you're going to call my posts halfhearted, at least make a better informative post in response. no offense but your post is completely wide off the mark. you tried too hard to get a “gotcha” moment but ended up rambling and going off topic.
Lmao

Brothaman, Zapdos has stabs that can hit woger for super effective(hurricane, thunderbolt if it Tera’s) it can obviously do more than thunder waving. You’re taking this example way too literally. (It could be my fault for not clarifying, but do I seriously need to explain this?)
Zapdos doesn’t get to use tbolt on it if it teras. It’s going to get outsped and oneshot by +2 cudgel. Even without tera, max defense Zapdos is going to lose to SD Woger 3/8 of the time (slightly more if Woger is adamant, though the matchup is worse overall since you exchange outspeeding offensive Zap for a 6.3% chance to OHKO defensive Zap)—if cudgel crits, or if hurricane misses. With tera, sure, Woger spends tera to get the kill, but now you’re out your first choice of Woger switch-in while Woger is full health at +2.

And I stand by this for non-SD Woger too. For one thing, cudgel into tera water cudgel has good odds to get the 2HKO without ever risking static, even better once the 23.4375% chance of critting at least one cudgel is factored in (which doesn’t require tera). For another, even if this doesn’t happen, you’ll force it out, but you’re also under a lot of pressure to recover since if you don’t you won’t be able to switch into it again. Clicking hurricane might be worth it, don’t get me wrong; that’s a choice you have to make in the battle, and I’m not against the game posing difficult turns where you have to choose which concession is best for the battle state, as that’s a big part of what makes the game fun and engaging! But, in exchange, you ought to acknowledge that this concession can be very sharp in nature: if you click roost as it switches to something that forces you out, momentum is back on the side of the Woger, while if your hurricane thuds or even misses against the switch-in, you’ve again made little progress and will be forced to either roost or switch out while in range of a later 2HKO.

But my favorite part is “you’re taking this example way too literally” as though the goal isn’t to…name literal examples of Woger checks? Of course I’m taking this example literally, because I’m disputing its status as a good example of a Woger check.
and on the "wrong woger set for matchup is almost always going to make decent progress", yes that’s how MU works.
I meant “wrong Woger set” as in, the Woger has a bad matchup thanks to its set…

There’s more I have to say but frankly I don’t feel like it soooo
 
The thing with the arguments the ban side is throwing around is that they sound like "what if it snows in July?". This is fearmongering and bordering on disinformation, with most examples citing theorymon or one instance on high ladder or OLT, SCL etc.

Hydrapple taking 70% from +2 Play Rough shows that it's a great physical tank, not that Ogerpon-W is broken. If it was an OHKO, sure. Zapdos losing to a crit Ivy Cudgel is... not a problem. Zapdos does not have the god-given right to beat Ogerpon no matter what. Sure, it happens. But we're playing the same game where we bitch about scald burns and hoping not to get full paras. Which btw, is a huge component of ZapKingLu and its adjacents, and a core Ogerpon-W does great against. The crit rate needed to be at least 50%.

The same people that bitch about Ivy Cudgel crit rates would be far more annoyed by ZapKingLu if you ask me. I believe Ogerpon-W needs to remain unbanned, it's good for business.
 
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I feel like the main strength of wogerpon that makes it much more debatably banworthy than the other breakers in the tier is not its power, but the rest of her kit giving more weight to her power.

Let’s compare Woger to Flame Orb Ursaluna

An (effective) 120 BP STAB from a 120 base attack mon is obviously much easier to switch into than an (effective) 210 BP STAB from a 140 base attack mon. Ursaluna also has coverage to destroy anything that takes a facade. However, would you rather switch into Flame Orb Luna once or Woger 4 times?

Woger has surprisingly solid bulk for a breaker with a good defensive typing, and this is paired with 110 speed, which lets her outspeed nearly the entire defensive metagame and a large portion of the offensive metagame. This means that Woger has a ton of opportunities to fire off her attacks. Ursaluna in a vacuum is bulkier, but it wears itself down with flame orb, and since it’s slow, it has to take hits first to get kills. Meaning it can be worn down really quickly and can only fire off attacks a handful of times. However, Woger’s great speed lets her force out so many things, where she can proceed to fire off her attacks repeatedly. This is enhanced by the threat of tera, which gives her a permenant +1 special defense boost and completely flips her weaknesses, on top of a boosted ivy cudgel.

Moreover, wellspring also has many free clicks in her kit. Knock Off is a premium move to have on a breaker to force progress against things that you can’t power through immediately. U-Turn is another useful tool that gives you a pretty free click a lot of the time and can gain momentum. On top of those, you even get Spikes. There is no hazard removal/denial that can reliably remove against wellspring.

Then wellspring also has tech in Encore, Taunt, even Synthesis to have longevity etc. In conclusion, I believe wellspring is very strong not mainly because of her power, but because the rest of her kit is very optimally built, allowing her to fire off attacks much more than breakers that are on paper stronger than her, and grant a lot of utility. This is why I think it can feel so pressuring to switch into ivy cudgel even though it’s "not that strong"
 
But my favorite part is “you’re taking this example way too literally” as though the goal isn’t to…name literal examples of Woger checks? Of course I’m taking this example literally, because I’m disputing its status as a good example of a Woger check.
when I said your taking this example way too literally I meant as in this
Defensive Zapdos should not have to tera grass just to live a +2 cudgel in order to get a twave off. It dies from full vs tera cudgel and crit cudgel, while cudgel infamously has higher crit chance.
When Zapdos can obviously get more off a ogerpon than a Twave


You call it very revenge killable, by things that pretty consistently lose to trailblaze woger, and your defense of trailblaze woger was “well trailblaze is actually broken but people just run way too greedy sets”. Other than Dragonite and Raging Bolt, none of the effective priority options switch in well at all, and only Lokix and specs Raging Bolt in sun threaten a oneshot (the former of which has to tera and be banded to meet Woger’s tera with a oneshot). You don’t always need a oneshot of course, but the thing this should illustrate for you is just how dire a misstep against it can be.
and your quoting on my trailblaze Woger argument "well trailblaze is actually broken but people just run way too greedy sets." even though that's not really what I was trying to say about trailblaze Pon.

again your going off topic on my argument.
Zapdos doesn’t get to use tbolt on it if it teras.
it can if the ogerpon has terad before the Zapdos and Zapdos teras to dragon/grass to resist cudgel
 
The thing with the arguments the ban side is throwing around is that they sound like "what if it snows in July?". This is fearmongering and bordering on disinformation, with most examples citing theorymon or one instance on high ladder or OLT, SCL etc.

Hydrapple taking 70% from +2 Play Rough shows that it's a great physical tank, not that Ogerpon-W is broken. If it was an OHKO, sure. Zapdos losing to a crit Ivy Cudgel is... not a problem. Zapdos does not have the god-given right to beat Ogerpon no matter what. Sure, it happens. But we're playing the same game where we bitch about scald burns and hoping not to get full paras. Which btw, is a huge component of ZapKingLu and its adjacents, and a core Ogerpon-W does great against. The crit rate needed to be at least 50%.

The same people that bitch about Ivy Cudgel crit rates would be far more annoyed by ZapKingLu if you ask me. I believe Ogerpon-W needs to remain unbanned, it's good for business.
ZapKingLu fearmongering is the 100% most surefire way to trash your credibility.

Hydrapple taking 70% from a +2 PR does make it look like a great physical tank, that is true, but considering that Hydrapple is generally cited as THE best counter to Woger in the game outside of maybe Amoonguss (which isn’t great elsewhere and which arguably is worse at checking Woger seeing as +2 tera cudgel easily 2HKOs it), it’s kind of a big deal that it can still be made to take 70% while not OHKOing back after a single turn of setup by a mon with 110 base speed.

No one is saying Zapdos has the god-given right to beat Woger. I am disputing its solidity as even a check to Woger seeing as Woger has to do so incredibly little to break past it and every Woger with max attack and cudgel (which is the VAST majority of them) can land a 2HKO unboosted with the help of tera, a crit, or (effectively) a Hurricane miss. Zapdos is a fantastic mon, but coming in on Woger with it is just not very good for progressing the game state favorably.

That’s not “when it snows in July”, we are talking about common Woger sets breaking through their very best checks and counters after a singular turn of setup or with the help of knock off + hazards (I know knock + hazards is a very standard plan for many mons, I’m not gonna talk any further about how Woger slot’s excellently into the hazard meta, I’ve said enough on that; I do think SD is more broken anyway), while outspeeding most of the meta. This is routinely how games with Woger play out.

When Zapdos can obviously get more off a ogerpon than a Twave
Sure, tera and click hurricane and see what happens. When they tera water and still do over half to you, while taking 33-39% from hurricane if it even hits, you’ll be glad you did. Tbolt/volt switch against non-tera has similar outcomes. OR, you can click twave and outspeed it thereafter, thus getting to click your best STAB into it next turn and likely forcing it out. If you’re expending your tera, it really is the only safe way to ensure you don’t get your tera wasted entirely.

again your (sic) going off topic on my argument.
Oh MY BAD I didn’t realize I don’t get to make my own points about Woger :|
 
Vert vs. Clean - This easily could have been taunt (another good set on HO), and even knowing its SD isn't necessarily enough since on its own it's a set with a million permutations

Originality vs crying - assuming grassy glide was a fair play here, but what about the rest of the set? SD and cudgel are likely, but how would you go about deducing the last move?

Fusien vs 3D - Tbh I think most oger sets would work here. on Hstack Taunt is also good to block a corv/weez defog.

Ima vs dasmer - Knock and cudgel are the only certainties here. Synthesis? SD? Taunt? PR?

Also fairy blast gliscor lol

You also said at the end of your post that the ban side needs provide evidence, even though we've been giving you guys it for months? The pinkacross video is a good place to start. Meanwhile the ban side has only provided shaky arguments, so I'd definitely say it's on you to defend your cause, we have plenty

You do not need to precisely map out all four moves from preview. A lot of discussion around Woger tends to hinge on its set variety - This is one of Pinkacross' main points - but once you've identified the set, you know how it's going to be used in a match, and can formulate a plan for handling it depending on its set.

Here are some SCL and OLT replays of bulkier teams playing into Woger, demonstrating players' strategies against it.

- Making sacks to ensure that hazards stay up to limit its entries:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873534
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873260

- Committing an early tera to OHKO it, knowing that the rest of the team will not be able to break through the defensive core:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873722

I do not want to speculate or backseat. In actual tournament games that are being played, players are teambuilding and finding lines to win convincingly against Woger.

Offense’s and hazard stack’s matchups against Woger is consistently grossly overrated. Offensive teams still need to contend 1) with anti-offense sets like trailblaze/glide variants and anti-offense support like webs and moltres/zapdos, and 2) need to contend with the fact that every death is a potential opportunity for entry for Woger. Again, even the most screaming HO teams have 2-3 mons slower than Woger—110 speed is actually insane for something as powerful as Woger—so even against offense it will likely grab an opening to do something, where Woger is demonstrably possibly the strongest exploiter of an opening in the entire game.

Even more egregious is your assessment of its matchup vs hazards though. Virtually every hazard setter and remover in the game is relatively easy for Woger to switch directly in on; letting the best breaker in the tier in for cheap every time you set a hazard or try to remove is pretty brutal, or it can opt to match hazards if it’s a spikes Woger anyway.

I would call Kyurem harder to scout than Woger undoubtedly, but in any case, I’m not trying to assert that it’s difficult to scout, I’m disputing that a given set of mons from the post to which I replied can come in fairly easily in order to scout. That said, even within the realm of “this Woger is definitely SD”, there are a number of SD variants aimed at assuaging particular bad matchups, and *that* certainly can be harder to scout.

Anti-offense options like trailblaze or glide are tradeoffs that compromise Woger's ability to serve as a breaker. (Not to mention glide is telegraphed from preview). It is disingenuous to claim that these are common options.

Moltres and Zapdos are not listed as teammates on either the 1695 or 1825 moveset stats, nor have I seen Woger paired with them on ladder or in tour. Webs is a cheese playstyle that by definition has an extremely skewed matchup spread; there is nothing special about Woger on these teams. These are bad faith arguments.

Woger's ability to "do something" is heavily limited against more offensive teams. This has been shown in multiple tour games this week:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873595
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873178?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-872674

Every single 'mon will sound unstoppable if you give them a perfect set for every possible scenario.
This is not how actual games play out. You have to make concessions when teambuilding. Nothing can run every option at once.
 
You do not need to precisely map out all four moves from preview. A lot of discussion around Woger tends to hinge on its set variety - This is one of Pinkacross' main points - but once you've identified the set, you know how it's going to be used in a match, and can formulate a plan for handling it depending on its set.

Here are some SCL and OLT replays of bulkier teams playing into Woger, demonstrating players' strategies against it.

- Making sacks to ensure that hazards stay up to limit its entries:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873534
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873260
While yeah once you've identified the set, you know what it is going to do, Ogerpon is strong and fast enough that changing up your plan according to a set is often not doable with slower/bulkier teams, and I do find some of your replays examples particularly odd, as the first replay is explicitly showing that hazards are not enough to deal with Ogerpon, as on turn 5 it came down to a speed tie (I checked the calcs, the knock off damage on wellspring indicates that it can be jolly, so it isnt possible that you scouted on rolls for adamant to make the speed tie safe) and it isnt a particularly neutral speed tie either, as the risk from hiko's side is much lower provided they lose the speed tie, as the game was extremely close despite the speed tie loss (any prediction of doubling cinderace out with u-turn on the telegraphed pech switch after clicking gunk shot to force gliscor out to give a free kyurem switch in for example could very easily changed the result of the game), but if they won the speed tie, heileone just sacced a mon for no damage at all on hiko's ogerpon and such result would be extremely devastating.
The second replay is def an ok example though.
- Committing an early tera to OHKO it, knowing that the rest of the team will not be able to break through the defensive core:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873722

I do not want to speculate or backseat. In actual tournament games that are being played, players are teambuilding and finding lines to win convincingly against Woger.
This is another case that you needed to commit an early tera but the said plan of oneshotting Ogerpon would only be possible if you won the speed tie and hit the draco meteor, so not particularly good odds, although this replay is in my opinion a more nuanced case as if you lost the speed tie, assuming Ogerpon went for U-turn, the position is way less bad than in the first example and so it is cloudier to judge whether it defined the outcome of the game or not, as no matter which mon took the draco meteor, that would still be some progress....
So what those games showed to me is the opposite of your conclusion, the lines they found in the games arent consistent to win against Woger.
Anti-offense options like trailblaze or glide are tradeoffs that compromise Woger's ability to serve as a breaker. (Not to mention glide is telegraphed from preview). It is disingenuous to claim that these are common options.
I agree with those points, those options are relatively uncommon for a reason, as while trailblaze can potentially be powerful into more offense teams, it is somewhat consistent and is specially bad in the matchups where ogerpon performs the best at, a more consistent approach when building is to cover the worst matchups of a pokémon with the rest of your team, not making your pokémon worst at what it is good at trying to patch up its weaknesses with a tech move as you are losing what the pokémon is good at in the first place and leading you to a "worst of both worlds situation"

Woger's ability to "do something" is heavily limited against more offensive teams. This has been shown in multiple tour games this week:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873595
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873178?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-872674
I also do agree that Ogerpon does much worse into more offensive teams as while the speed tier is great into bulkier teams, it is not so great against faster paced teams, and the last two replays showed it doing particularly poorly, although I am more used to the average of it being more akin to the first replay where Ogerpon trades 1 for 1, usually KOing 1 mon after coming in on the ground type then getting revenge killed, which def isnt spetacular but for how high the ceiling for her vs bulkier teams are, which admiteddly isnt unique to Ogerpon-Wellspring, but most other mons have much higher costs to be used and have much worse floor due to worse typing, worse speed which allows to perform way worse in bad matchups is what leads to Ogerpon being such a high usage pokémon having its usage just rising more and more lately, and as you said earlier, players are winning against woger, I just dont completely agree with you about what methods they are using to accomplish that, as while hazards are definitely pretty useful vs it, you need to run more offensive teams than ogerpon herself to win against it consistently, which leads to an effect that is in my opinion extremely unhealthy in the metagame, where Ogerpon-Wellspring 's existance leads to a massive polarization of increasing massively the usage and performance of Bulky Offense, Offense and Hyper Offense teams in the massive detriment of Balance and any archetype bulkier than Balance, which is why Ogerpon is definitely the pokémon I personally would look the most forward to see it gone from the tier (although I do understand if you believe some other pokémon is more worthy of similar decision as there are still plenty of attrocities in the tier unfortunately)
 
While yeah once you've identified the set, you know what it is going to do, Ogerpon is strong and fast enough that changing up your plan according to a set is often not doable with slower/bulkier teams, and I do find some of your replays examples particularly odd, as the first replay is explicitly showing that hazards are not enough to deal with Ogerpon, as on turn 5 it came down to a speed tie (I checked the calcs, the knock off damage on wellspring indicates that it can be jolly, so it isnt possible that you scouted on rolls for adamant to make the speed tie safe) and it isnt a particularly neutral speed tie either, as the risk from hiko's side is much lower provided they lose the speed tie, as the game was extremely close despite the speed tie loss (any prediction of doubling cinderace out with u-turn on the telegraphed pech switch after clicking gunk shot to force gliscor out to give a free kyurem switch in for example could very easily changed the result of the game), but if they won the speed tie, heileone just sacced a mon for no damage at all on hiko's ogerpon and such result would be extremely devastating.
The second replay is def an ok example though.

I agree with you that the Hiko match was not the best demonstration of Wellspring being balanced given the speed tie and a correct prediction from the opponent instead of repeatedly clicking Gunk Shot into the obvious incoming Pecharunt could've changed the outcome of the match. The second replay is a good example as you say.

This is another case that you needed to commit an early tera but the said plan of oneshotting Ogerpon would only be possible if you won the speed tie and hit the draco meteor, so not particularly good odds, although this replay is in my opinion a more nuanced case as if you lost the speed tie, assuming Ogerpon went for U-turn, the position is way less bad than in the first example and so it is cloudier to judge whether it defined the outcome of the game or not, as no matter which mon took the draco meteor, that would still be some progress....
So what those games showed to me is the opposite of your conclusion, the lines they found in the games arent consistent to win against Woger.

That was a Choice Scarf Latios, so it was not a speed tie. Latios notably outsped Zamazenta at one point, which should've clued you in on it being Choice Scarf.
I also do agree that Ogerpon does much worse into more offensive teams as while the speed tier is great into bulkier teams, it is not so great against faster paced teams, and the last two replays showed it doing particularly poorly, although I am more used to the average of it being more akin to the first replay where Ogerpon trades 1 for 1, usually KOing 1 mon after coming in on the ground type then getting revenge killed, which def isnt spetacular but for how high the ceiling for her vs bulkier teams are, which admiteddly isnt unique to Ogerpon-Wellspring, but most other mons have much higher costs to be used and have much worse floor due to worse typing, worse speed which allows to perform way worse in bad matchups is what leads to Ogerpon being such a high usage pokémon having its usage just rising more and more lately, and as you said earlier, players are winning against woger, I just dont completely agree with you about what methods they are using to accomplish that, as while hazards are definitely pretty useful vs it, you need to run more offensive teams than ogerpon herself to win against it consistently, which leads to an effect that is in my opinion extremely unhealthy in the metagame, where Ogerpon-Wellspring 's existance leads to a massive polarization of increasing massively the usage and performance of Bulky Offense, Offense and Hyper Offense teams in the massive detriment of Balance and any archetype bulkier than Balance, which is why Ogerpon is definitely the pokémon I personally would look the most forward to see it gone from the tier (although I do understand if you believe some other pokémon is more worthy of similar decision as there are still plenty of attrocities in the tier unfortunately)

I can understand why you believe Ogerpon-Wellspring is very limiting towards balance structures, but I personally don't find it to be the #1 or #2 consideration when building balance, and I suspect it'll be very hard to ban Wellspring without getting a large portion of offense players on board. I do believe Ogerpon-Wellspring is a top-tier threat, but I'm on the fence on whether it should actually be banned when there's at least one mon more constraining in the builder than she is.
 
That was a Choice Scarf Latios, so it was not a speed tie. Latios notably outsped Zamazenta at one point, which should've clued you in on it being Choice Scarf.
I assumed it was soul dew due to the roll on the kyurem from luster purge being too high for a subtect kyurem
Turn 8
Latios used Draco Meteor!
(The opposing Kyurem lost 97% of its health!)
252 SpA Tera Dragon Latios Draco Meteor vs. 52 HP / 0 SpD Tera Ground Kyurem: 310-366 (76.7 - 90.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Tera Dragon Latios Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tera Ground Kyurem: 310-366 (79.2 - 93.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Tera Dragon Latios Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tera Ground Kyurem: 340-402 (86.9 - 102.8%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Tera Dragon Latios Draco Meteor vs. 52 HP / 0 SpD Tera Ground Kyurem: 340-402 (84.1 - 99.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Although upon further viewing the replay, I just assumed that hellom just gave up and clicked roar but in hindsight it is definitely possible if not more likely that the scarf latios just happened to be modest and in that case I was wrong and no speed tie was involved.
I can understand why you believe Ogerpon-Wellspring is very limiting towards balance structures, but I personally don't find it to be the #1 or #2 consideration when building balance, and I suspect it'll be very hard to ban Wellspring without getting a large portion of offense players on board. I do believe Ogerpon-Wellspring is a top-tier threat, but I'm on the fence on whether it should actually be banned when there's at least one mon more constraining in the builder than she is.
I am more on the philosophy of "If I think X mon is broken/unhealthy enough to be banned, one more mon being more problematic and legal in the tier doesnt make the first one significantly less banworthy" which is a philosophy that I think would lead to better action in my humble opinion, as in the gliscor + kyurem suspect tests for example, plenty of people used Gliscor being more problematic with a kyurem ban as a reason to not ban kyurem which I find pretty odd, as if that is true then just take action on it on a future suspect test...
Also curious on which mon you think is more constraining in the builder if you dont mind answering it.
 
Probably revealing my hand a bit early here (since the team I am currently running is garbage), but I've been trying out Modest Fist Plate Keldeo on ladder and its fun.

The combination of Fist Plate & a Modest Nature bump up Keldeo's damage output a decent amount. Notably, Secret Sword into Vaccum Wave has an extremely high chance to KO Ogerpon-W with no prior chip. The extra damage on the likes of Raging Bolt and Pecharunt is also nice. Some other notable calcs is that Vaccum Wave does significantly more to Kingambit compared to standard sets, almost always OHKOing max HP variants. Darkrai can also be revenge killed from higher ranges as well.
252+ SpA Fist Plate Keldeo Secret Sword vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 211-249 (70 - 82.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Fist Plate Keldeo Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Ogerpon-Wellspring: 90-106 (29.9 - 35.2%) -- 20.1% chance to 3HKO

252+ SpA Keldeo Surf vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Pecharunt: 178-211 (46.8 - 55.5%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Fist Plate Keldeo Secret Sword vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raging Bolt: 196-232 (50.1 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Keldeo Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 304-360 (75.2 - 89.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Fist Plate Keldeo Vacuum Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 396-468 (98 - 115.8%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

252 SpA Keldeo Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Darkrai: 144-170 (51.2 - 60.4%) -- 90.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Fist Plate Keldeo Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Darkrai: 186-222 (66.1 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
There are some key drawbacks with this set. Effectively, you go from being a base 108 Speed Pokemon to a base 94 Speed pokemon, notably losing out on Kyurem, Iron Treads, Enamorus, and a few others, which does sting quite a bit. Keldeo also does struggle a decent amount with Big regen (:Tornadus-Therian: :Toxapex: :Slowking-Galar: :Hydrapple: :Alomomola:), as well as needing to make a few reads against cores like Ogerpon-W + Ghost type or regen mon, which are all pretty annoying. That said, you still have a good enough speed tier to outspeed some key mons like Lando-T, Great Tusk, Ghold, Samu-H, and Glimm, which you can use as entry points to get the big hits in.

As an aside, something I find cool is that Keldeo's neutral damage & speed aren't too far off from a mon we currently have on the banlist, Urshifu-RS (specifically Pads Shifu-RS). Use it quickly before the council notices!
252+ SpA Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Silvally-Electric: 205-243 (61.9 - 73.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Keldeo Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Silvally-Electric: 169-199 (51 - 60.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Fist Plate Keldeo Secret Sword vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Electric: 190-225 (57.4 - 67.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Urshifu-Rapid-Strike Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Electric on a critical hit: 198-234 (59.8 - 70.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Urshifu-Rapid-Strike Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Electric: 205-243 (61.9 - 73.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 
I am more on the philosophy of "If I think X mon is broken/unhealthy enough to be banned, one more mon being more problematic and legal in the tier doesnt make the first one significantly less banworthy" which is a philosophy that I think would lead to better action in my humble opinion, as in the gliscor + kyurem suspect tests for example, plenty of people used Gliscor being more problematic with a kyurem ban as a reason to not ban kyurem which I find pretty odd, as if that is true then just take action on it on a future suspect test...
Also curious on which mon you think is more constraining in the builder if you dont mind answering it.

I find Kyurem more constraining to deal with in the builder than Ogerpon-Wellspring due to all its different sets that have counterplay that don't overlap well with each other. All of Choice Specs, Mixed DD, and physical DD along with all of Kyurem's other good sets make building for it a chore due to how strong of an immediate threat it poses.

I also find Gholdengo harder to prep for than Ogerpon-Wellspring for balance. The Grassy Seed set is ridiculous to KO outside of using the strongest special attackers in the tier, and it can more just trade 1-for-1 with so much of the tier. Just look at how oldspicemike decimated Dasmer03 in OLT Swiss Round 4. The Gholdengo just cleaved through the opposing team like Swiss cheese with the Grassy Seed Defense boost, and this is a team that had Great Tusk, Samurott-Hisui, Ting-Lu, and a faster Gholdengo (with a Hex that doesn't 2HKO, and if it had Shadow Ball, it still wouldn't 2HKO), showing how this Grassy Seed set smites standard counterplay to Gholdengo.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873378?p2
 
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i'll keep this post brief but i don't think wellspring is an unreasonable mon to account for in the teambuilder. most teams often have 2 or more pokemon (i.e. :dragonite:, :pecharunt:, :zamazenta:) that can sufficiently limit the amount of progress wellspring can make. they aren't perfect counters ofc, given ivy cudgel's crit rate and wellspring's long list of coverage options, but they often provide enough stability to prevent her from just setting up an SD and slaughtering everything. and between her own 4MSS and gen 9's more proactive style of defensive counterplay, i'm not sure if i can say this mon is outright banworthy. i wouldn't be opposed to a wellspring suspect at all but i'm still very skeptical on banning it; some of her checks are more splashable than ever and she constantly has to adjust her moveslots to account for them, only to leave herself without anything to threaten a different pokemon, and so on. if she ever does end up getting banned, then so be it, i just don't think it's absolutely necessary to ban this mon.

my thoughts are kinda jumbled rn so i'm sorry if my points weren't made clear in this post, i will do my best to clarify if needed
 
I find Kyurem more constraining to deal with in the builder than Ogerpon-Wellspring due to all its different sets that have counterplay that don't overlap well with each other. All of Choice Specs, Mixed DD, and physical DD along with all of Kyurem's other good sets make building for it a chore due to how strong of an immediate threat it poses.

I also find Gholdengo harder to prep for than Ogerpon-Wellspring for balance. The Grassy Seed set is ridiculous to KO outside of using the strongest special attackers in the tier, and it can more just trade 1-for-1 with so much of the tier. Just look at how oldspicemike decimated Dasmer03 in OLT Swiss Round 4. The Gholdengo just cleaved through the opposing team like Swiss cheese with the Grassy Seed Defense boost, and this is a team that had Great Tusk, Samurott-Hisui, Ting-Lu, and a faster Gholdengo (with a Hex that doesn't 2HKO, and if it had Shadow Ball, it still wouldn't 2HKO), showing how this Grassy Seed set smites standard counterplay to Gholdengo.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873378?p2
I don't think gholdengo is too challenging to prep for on balance, tbh the team they used was a little bit scuffed, having no strong special attackers will always leave you prone to getting punished by guys who boost their defense. Balance has many common countermeasures with mons like Ting-lu (even if it loses 1 on 1 to seed, it can get it low for a revenge killer with ruination), cinderace, iron treads (especially spdef), Kingambit, gliscor, moltres, hrott, etc. (note, most of these pokemon don't mind switching in directly).

I personally think wellspring is harder to prep for than kyurem but its, but its close, and both are broken anyway so it doesn't really matter which one you think is worse.
and between her own 4MSS
It's refreshing to see a dnb Woger post that seems to be in actually good taste, but I want to touch on this part. I've said this many times, but Woger is not the type of mon that needs perfect coverage. Take dragonite for example. Ideally Woger would have play rough for it, but if it has knock off, it can still break through without much trouble by knocking off boots then 2 shotting with Ivy Cudgel afterwards. Same deal for pech, it wants Knock Off in this MU, but just nuking it with +2 tera water cudgel is sufficent (especially because pech is forced to rely on a malignant chain proc, since the move is doing nothing after tera. Zama needs to check a million other things and is also just a bad check. Honestly just the combination of Ivy Cudgel and Knock Off can break literally anything with hazards. These 2 moves pair especially well with synthesis since you can easily outlast these checks when they only get 1 or 2 switch-ins anyway.

252+ Atk Wellspring Mask Tera Water Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Zamazenta: 160-190 (49.2 - 58.4%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO (now It will be in +2 gambit sucker punch range for later!)
 
I don't think gholdengo is too challenging to prep for on balance, tbh the team they used was a little bit scuffed, having no strong special attackers will always leave you prone to getting punished by guys who boost their defense. Balance has many common countermeasures with mons like Ting-lu (even if it loses 1 on 1 to seed, it can get it low for a revenge killer with ruination), cinderace, iron treads (especially spdef), Kingambit, gliscor, moltres, hrott, etc. (note, most of these pokemon don't mind switching in directly).

I personally think wellspring is harder to prep for than kyurem but its, but its close, and both are broken anyway so it doesn't really matter which one you think is worse.

Whenever I build a team, I consider whether it has the offensive power to beat Gholdengo as if the answer is no, I consider it unviable due to Good as Gold limiting ways to answer Gholdengo aside from outoffensing it. I have felt this way since the beginning of SV OU. Even storm zone, one of the best players and builders, finds Gholdengo the #1 limiter to balance's viability, which he has shared in OU room when he rebuts people who claim that Ogerpon-Wellspring should be banned due to how she limits balance, saying if that's the case that they should want Gholdengo banned since it limits balance a lot more than Wellspring does. I'm not just piggybacking off storm zone though since I've felt this way since the beginning.

Here's what I believe oldspicemike's Gholdengo set was for that OLT game I linked:

Gholdengo @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 196 SpD / 60 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Focus Blast
- Nasty Plot
- Recover
- Shadow Ball

And to illustrate how bulky it is, let me demonstrate with a calc:

252+ SpA Protosynthesis Raging Bolt Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 196+ SpD Gholdengo: 177-208 (46.8 - 55%) -- 67.2% chance to 2HKO

So a Booster Special Attack Raging Bolt barely does 50%, meaning the Ghold user can just force out Raging Bolt with another mon, and the next time Ghold is in, Raging Bolt won't be beating it due to having blown its Booster boost.

Even Fiery Dance from Iron Moth doesn't do as much as you'd think:

132 SpA Iron Moth Fiery Dance vs. 252 HP / 196+ SpD Gholdengo: 206-246 (54.4 - 65%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

I could list other calcs such as Darkrai's Dark Pulse, but with these calcs, I think I've made it clear that Gholdengo can Tera into another type and just cleave through entire balance cores if your Tera matches well into the opponent's team or if they don't use the strongest special attackers in the tier since only STAB supereffective hits really do enough damage to threaten Gholdengo, and unlike other threats, you can't Encore or Taunt it unless you have a very specific Ability.
 
Whenever I build a team, I consider whether it has the offensive power to beat Gholdengo as if the answer is no, I consider it unviable due to Good as Gold limiting ways to answer Gholdengo aside from outoffensing it. I have felt this way since the beginning of SV OU. Even storm zone, one of the best players and builders, finds Gholdengo the #1 limiter to balance's viability, which he has shared in OU room when he rebuts people who claim that Ogerpon-Wellspring should be banned due to how she limits balance, saying if that's the case that they should want Gholdengo banned since it limits balance a lot more than Wellspring does. I'm not just piggybacking off storm zone though since I've felt this way since the beginning.

Here's what I believe oldspicemike's Gholdengo set was for that OLT game I linked:

Gholdengo @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 196 SpD / 60 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Focus Blast
- Nasty Plot
- Recover
- Shadow Ball

And to illustrate how bulky it is, let me demonstrate with a calc:

252+ SpA Protosynthesis Raging Bolt Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 196+ SpD Gholdengo: 177-208 (46.8 - 55%) -- 67.2% chance to 2HKO

So a Booster Special Attack Raging Bolt barely does 50%, meaning the Ghold user can just force out Raging Bolt with another mon, and the next time Ghold is in, Raging Bolt won't be beating it due to having blown its Booster boost.

Even Fiery Dance from Iron Moth doesn't do as much as you'd think:

132 SpA Iron Moth Fiery Dance vs. 252 HP / 196+ SpD Gholdengo: 206-246 (54.4 - 65%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

I could list other calcs such as Darkrai's Dark Pulse, but with these calcs, I think I've made it clear that Gholdengo can Tera into another type and just cleave through entire balance cores if your Tera matches well into the opponent's team or if they don't use the strongest special attackers in the tier since only STAB supereffective hits really do enough damage to threaten Gholdengo, and unlike other threats, you can't Encore or Taunt it unless you have a very specific Ability.
This set living all these hits is great and all but how much is it really doing back to these mons?

0 SpA Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Iron Moth: 102-121 (33.8 - 40.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Raging Bolt: 121-144 (30.9 - 36.8%) -- 71.3% chance to 3HKO
0 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Darkrai: 180-213 (64 - 75.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

If you invest fully in special defense, obviously you are going to live most hits, but this is coming at the cost of considerable damage output. I could EV my keldeo to live a mega alakazam psychic, but then I'm just using a bad keldeo set.

for the record I think finding gholdengo broken is a valid opinion, but what does this have to do with Wellspring? If you want to defend wellspring, you can do so, but just pivoting to other mons to avoid the discussion seems like you don't want to argue that it isn't broken. It's fine to bring up concerns about gholdengo, but don't just bring it up when the discussion is about something else entirely (also who is to say these people don't ALSO want gholdengo banned).

As an aside I think one of the main things seperating Wellspring from Gholdengo is the sheer difference in speed. Most of Gholdengo's checks that can switch in to its attacks are faster, making it naturally easier to play around.
 
This set living all these hits is great and all but how much is it really doing back to these mons?

0 SpA Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Iron Moth: 102-121 (33.8 - 40.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Raging Bolt: 121-144 (30.9 - 36.8%) -- 71.3% chance to 3HKO
0 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Darkrai: 180-213 (64 - 75.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

If you invest fully in special defense, obviously you are going to live most hits, but this is coming at the cost of considerable damage output. I could EV my keldeo to live a mega alakazam psychic, but then I'm just using a bad keldeo set.

Gholdengo would be at +2 since those mons would be switching into it after it has used Nasty Plot, so those calcs you listed wouldn't be relevant. Keldeo has 0 reason to ever run bulk, but Gholdengo can due to its defensive profile, Recover, and Nasty Plot with the bulk making it easy for it boost up or otherwise 1v1 many mons.

for the record I think finding gholdengo broken is a valid opinion, but what does this have to do with Wellspring? If you want to defend wellspring, you can do so, but just pivoting to other mons to avoid the discussion seems like you don't want to argue that it isn't broken. It's fine to bring up concerns about gholdengo, but don't just bring it up when the discussion is about something else entirely (also who is to say these people don't ALSO want gholdengo banned).

As an aside I think one of the main things seperating Wellspring from Gholdengo is the sheer difference in speed. Most of Gholdengo's checks that can switch in to its attacks are faster, making it naturally easier to play around.

This is a forum, where a free exchange of ideas takes place. Someone bringing up another mon instead of Wellspring is a perfectly acceptable decision to make unless you want to censor them. You may find Waterpon more unhealthy/broken than Gholdengo 'cause of its speed, but I find Gholdengo's superior bulk + Ghost STAB coupled by other coverage more threatening than what Wpon typically runs since Ghost/Fighting or Ghost/Fairy are pretty nasty (especially the former) whereas Water and Grass is resisted by two types naturally although I acknowledge Ogerpon-Wellspring has good coverage options, such as Play Rough and Knock Off.
 
Gholdengo would be at +2 since those mons would be switching into it after it has used Nasty Plot, so those calcs you listed wouldn't be relevant. Keldeo has 0 reason to ever run bulk, but Gholdengo can due to its defensive profile, Recover, and Nasty Plot with the bulk making it easy for it boost up or otherwise 1v1 many mons.
This calc was purely to make a point, yes logically keldeo isn't running Bulk lol.
This is a forum, where a free exchange of ideas takes place. Someone bringing up another mon instead of Wellspring is a perfectly acceptable decision to make unless you want to censor them. You may find Waterpon more unhealthy/broken than Gholdengo 'cause of its speed, but I find Gholdengo's superior bulk + Ghost STAB coupled by other coverage more threatening than what Wpon typically runs since Ghost/Fighting or Ghost/Fairy are pretty nasty whereas Water and Grass is resisted by two types naturally although I acknowledge Ogerpon-Wellspring has good coverage options, such as Play Rough and Knock Off.
Whenever I build a team, I consider whether it has the offensive power to beat Gholdengo as if the answer is no, I consider it unviable due to Good as Gold limiting ways to answer Gholdengo aside from outoffensing it. I have felt this way since the beginning of SV OU. Even storm zone, one of the best players and builders, finds Gholdengo the #1 limiter to balance's viability, which he has shared in OU room when he rebuts people who claim that Ogerpon-Wellspring should be banned due to how she limits balance, saying if that's the case that they should want Gholdengo banned since it limits balance a lot more than Wellspring does.
Yeah thats fine, if you want to discuss gholdengo you can do that, but saying it being potentially worse means Woger shouldn't get a test is silly. If you want to say Woger is balanced, say why you think so, don't just say well actually what about gholdengo. Gholdengo has nothing to do with wellspring being broken or not.
 
Okay, when you put it that way, I'll end this by saying I'm not convinced Ogerpon-Wellspring needs to be banned since I don't think it crosses the threshold of being broken in practice due to top-tier mons such as defensive Pecharunt, Zamazenta, some prominent Dragon-type Pokemon, and lesser answers such as Rillaboom as well as all of the other faster revenge killers, that while aren't perfect answers, can usually manage to do the job in tandem with the rest of the team, but if others do, that's a fair take. I just firmly believe there are better suspect targets that would improve the meta more should they be removed due to them being more restrictive in the builder.
 
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Actually Dragonite takes around 30% from Ivy Cudgel if Multiscale is broken (not hard to pull off, and if at any point Dragonite comes in on Ivy Cudgel while MS is down, it is forced to roost or it won't be able to comfortably take boosted Cudgels next time (especially with the risk of crits). Of course bulky DNite takes it much better, but it's one set. And Play Rough isn't exactly the only way Wellspring can bypass DNite. The thing with needing hazard removal for DNite in case of Knock Off, is that Wellspring beats most removal options so in a game where it's coming in a lot. If you aren't using Hatterene, stopping to removal rocks isn't the easiest against Wellspring teams (unless you're Cinderace but that isn't perfect either).
Fair enough. Although in in terms of hazard removal, I'm assuming we are talking :galarian-weezing: :corviknight: :cinderace: :hatterene: :iron treads: :great tusk:?. in a certain context maybe is true as :great tusk: and :iron treads: are the most common form of removal in the game and both lose to waterpon. in that case yea wogerpon is beating its removal options a lot of the time, but then again this is a game of 6 mons no? tusk and treads could find other opportunities in the games to remove hazards and common spin blockers like :gholdengo: and :pecharunt: wont exactly be taking hits from :great tusk: :iron treads: comfortably. again this is really dependent on game state though i'm not dismissing scenarios where hazards are really super stacked and tusk/treads wont have the longevity to remove them, but I think they will find a reasonable amount of opportunities to remove hazards. in terms of the other removal options though I don't really agree that wellspring beats most of them. gweezing despite its numerous flaws is often sited as a Woger check, and Woger isn't exactly keen on staying in on a gweezing and risking a will o wisp or a sludge bomb for example. Again depending on game state Woger can/can't muscle through Gweez but generally speaking Gweez is not a mon Woger wants to be taking on. About :corviknight: again, sure SD ogerpon can definitely muscle through corviknight, but lets assume in the context of hazards(since this is what the post is talking about) Ogerpon doesn't really want to be risking clicking taunt on a corviknight that can potentially kill it with brave bird or heavyily chip it with U-turn. :Cinderace: can outspeed and kill Woger if chipped(again assuming non tera, but even then cinderace still clicks U-turn for free. Woger also isn't exactly keen on taking on physdef :hatterene: packing nuzzle.


The point is that, if you don't want to be forced to burn Tera against it, you need other back ups which can be more limiting than it seems. Of course Tornadus-T, Zamazenta and some others can soft check temporarily, but they're imperfect answers for multiple reasons whether it's shaky bulk or vulnerability to crits and lack of longevity.
again I think some of the points are being missed here. the DnB in general isn't arguing that Woger has perfect checks that can handle it in the long term or that Woger can't muscle through its checks, I'm not arguing that. i'm argument that Woger has a fair amount of checks that can handle it and phase it out in the early/mid game and prevent it from rolling through teams immediately. in that case Woger checks are fairly reliable in doing that. and on the tera stuff again its situational. you're not going to be forced to burn tera everytime, but in situations where you need to it's there and games can still be winnable.

physdef Pecha switches in but after Knock Off, it's vulnerable to being overwhelmed by hazards. Even with just rocks up, Pecha needs to almost always Recover each time it switches into Ivy Cudgel lest it fall dangerously close into range of a potential crit +2 Cudgel (something you must factor), or Tera Water +2 hits. Dragonite checks some variants, not all. Not just Play Rough but Knock variants are irritating for it too. The rest of this is just not really a sound argument, saying that Wellspring can go without SD isn't really compelling because a lot of them still are running it. You always have to respect the possibility of it.

When talking about checks that lose to different Wellspring sets, it's not a matter of these sets appearing all the time, but that you have no real way of knowing which you'll face and prepping for the many variants it can bring is a strain on building. SD has many permutations alone, and with Wellspring variants now including bulkier sets and recovery moves, it continues to broaden the possibilities and make counterplay weirder. There aren't many comfortable true stop gaps. Side note but I miss Tangrowth.
Okay so it seems we are going in circles on the Pecharunt argument. I'm saying physdef Pecharunt can switch in on Woger if you initially recover and hazards aren't stacked, your saying that it's vulnarable if hazards are up. both are reasonable situations but it's just going to keep going in circles if we going further. FWIW though from my experience playing OLT Pecharunt was still able to check Woger pretty decently despite being knocked and stealth rocks being up(not ideal, but still good enough)

On your statement that "you have no real way of knowing which woger you'll face" I disagree with. :ogerpon-wellspring: does not have the set anonymity as a dragon dance :kyurem: or :dragonite: that can run 4-5 different tera blast sets. Woger does not have the same set anonymity due to being item and tera locked, which removes a lot from the guessing game. yes Woger has a lot set diversity but you can figure out it's moveset on the first turn its in(assuming its not just spamming cudgel). for example if Woger clicks U-turn you can safely assume its not SD(I highly doubt anyone runs SD u-turn but I have seen it like one time). If Woger clicks a support move like encore/taunt/spikes or clicks trailblaze you can safely assume its lacking coverage and base your game plans on that information. knock off is probably the trickiest one but then again you can still assume stuff like no play rough, etc. I know people don't like the argument "YoU cAn TeLl BaSeD oN tHe TeAm PrIeViEw" but there is some truth to it as in you can make an educated guess based on team preview. for example if you see a team that looks like a voltTurn spam team you can assume that Woger is U-turn. if you see a team that looks like set up spam(I'm talking like a veil,webs or other sorta niche archetypes like grassy terrain structures) you can assume SD Woger is coming. if you see a team that looks like hazard stacking(which is probably easier to tell) you can assume Woger is knock off. Sure educated guesses aren't always going to be exactly right but they are more reliable than not.

Lastly I do want to point out that certain Woger sets do have its flaws and disadvantages. for example encore Pon and trailblaze Pon lack coverage moves and especially trailblaze Pon has a worst matchup into bulkier teams. Knock is probably the most reliable Woger move into everything but even then knock off Pon variants can lack the immediate breaking of a SD play rough woger and have a more annoying matchups into dragons for example(can definitely be beatable, but its a little harder)
Gliscor and Gholdengo aren't really something to be put in the group of braindead (well maybe some SD Gliscor sets are silly but meh). And Kingambit isn't even at its peak from earlier in the gen. It's great, but it has flaws holding it back and is not nearly as flexible in sets compared to Wellspring or Dragonite. And I'm perplexed why Bolt is even here at all, since it's neither braindead nor super crazy. It's not something that "basically gets a kill every time it switches in", not at all. And it is pretty defensively lacking at times while being pretty fair to overwhelm through chip and pressure.
both :gliscor: and :Gholdengo: have insanely broken abilities in prison heal and GAG. being entirely immune to support moves and in gliscors case, being immune to status conditions while getting free hp off being poisoned makes them cheap to use. and Gholdengo has one of the best typings in the game and has two spammable stab combos in shadow ball(ghost resist are fairly limited) and make it rain(120 move with barely any draw backs) I would argue they belong in the braindead category. I disagree on your assessment on :raging bolt:, outside of ting lu & iron treads(which don't like taking specs Draco's) raging bolt pretty much has nothing that wants to switch ins. imo its around the caliber of specs kyurem, although it's slower I argue its less predict reliant than Kyurem since it can just spam specs draco especially into teams where ting lu is the main check and most fairy types get severely chipped from volt switch/thunderbolt. :kingambit: although isn't the mon its once was its still generally agreed upon as a braindead mon that can just come in the late game and claim wins, its also one of the more controversial tera abusers so it definitely belongs here. I could have put :Dragonite: or :kyurem: but they are more controversial mons where there is a good amount of people that think these mons are broken as well and basing arguments around them when talking about Woger as well will probably end up in the debate going a different direction which I don't really want right now.

and again the general point of that section where I mentioned those braindead mons isn't about their literal level of brokenness. it's about the sentiment that you can think something is very braindead/cheap to use but also think they are not broken at the same just. someone originally quoted my post saying "I love how you think Woger is balanced but also admit its cheap and braindead to use" and my general response to it was that something can be braindead, and can also be thought to be balanced/not broken at the same.
As a general note, when talking Wellspring, games like the match between TDNT and leng loi from SCL during week 2 really illustrate why Wellspring can be a frustrating pokemon. By all rights, leng loi was well prepared for Wellspring with Zamazenta, Tornadus-T and even Kyurem meaning they had a decent out in most situations. And yet on turn 20, Wellspring proceeded to BS anyways because Cudgel crit through a +3 Zama and removed it from the game on the spot. Torn-T got removed by Valiant and then Kyurem was dropped by the surprise Play Rough at the end.

That really brings me to a point about this mon: It's not that inherently it's impossible to prepare for, but that prepping for it is a big ask when few long term answers exist and many short term answers are also tasked with handling other threats on Wellspring's teams, making preserving those short term answers for it while also handling other threats tough. Crit Cudgel allowing Wellspring to upend would be counterplay is to me, a major reason why I can't stand its presence. There's a lot of threats that indivudually aren't problematic necessarily, but preparing for them all sometimes feels like a chore when threats like Wellspring stick out and require extra attention, making building frustrating at times.
If i'm being honest I don't think the replay you cited is a good example of Woger being broken. I didn't watch the replay myself but based on what other people commented about that replay it seems like that zama setting up all those iron defense wasn't necessary, it seems leng loi was being greedy with the iron defenses and ended up getting critted by Woger. it's tuff but based on what i'm reading I'm going to assume it was preventable. also I know that ivy cudgel has a high crit rate but its still rng at the end of the day. I find the claim that Woger is stupid because of a replay where Woger only won cuz of a cudgel crit(which was preventable) very similar to the guy that was complaining about kyurem being broken then citing a replay of kyurem only winning because of a freeze(and it was preventable the guy that lost could have easily won and beat the kyurem).

although I do understand your general sentiment that Woger is frustrating and annoying to deal and it does lack very long term checks outside of mostly shitmons(minus my goat :hydrapple: obviously) and I feel like you're a good poster in general. I definitely don't want to go back and forth with you, I'm just hoping we can meet an eye for an eye and understand each others views.


Side note: does anyone know the actually command for the Gweezing sprite?? I have trouble finding that. And forums is really annoying. spent nearly half an hour typing this and I click away for one second and most of it was removed, so I had to type it again. hopefully it's coherent enough to get my point across(and hopefully not that much grammar mistakes).
 
Fair enough. Although in in terms of hazard removal, I'm assuming we are talking :galarian-weezing: :corviknight: :cinderace: :hatterene: :iron treads: :great tusk:?. in a certain context maybe is true as :great tusk: and :iron treads: are the most common form of removal in the game and both lose to waterpon. in that case yea wogerpon is beating its removal options a lot of the time, but then again this is a game of 6 mons no? tusk and treads could find other opportunities in the games to remove hazards and common spin blockers like :gholdengo: and :pecharunt: wont exactly be taking hits from :great tusk: :iron treads: comfortably. again this is really dependent on game state though i'm not dismissing scenarios where hazards are really super stacked and tusk/treads wont have the longevity to remove them, but I think they will find a reasonable amount of opportunities to remove hazards. in terms of the other removal options though I don't really agree that wellspring beats most of them. gweezing despite its numerous flaws is often sited as a Woger check, and Woger isn't exactly keen on staying in on a gweezing and risking a will o wisp or a sludge bomb for example. Again depending on game state Woger can/can't muscle through Gweez but generally speaking Gweez is not a mon Woger wants to be taking on. About :corviknight: again, sure SD ogerpon can definitely muscle through corviknight, but lets assume in the context of hazards(since this is what the post is talking about) Ogerpon doesn't really want to be risking clicking taunt on a corviknight that can potentially kill it with brave bird or heavyily chip it with U-turn. :Cinderace: can outspeed and kill Woger if chipped(again assuming non tera, but even then cinderace still clicks U-turn for free. Woger also isn't exactly keen on taking on physdef :hatterene: packing nuzzle.

Gweezing is a check, but it also has no reliable recovery and is not too difficult to overwhelm with prior damage. +2 Cudgel is a roll of min 70% and that’s not hard to push it towards prior. +2 Cudgel also blows through Hatterene unless it Teras. And I’m not sure why you mentioned Taunt vs Corv…?

again I think some of the points are being missed here. the DnB in general isn't arguing that Woger has perfect checks that can handle it in the long term or that Woger can't muscle through its checks, I'm not arguing that. i'm argument that Woger has a fair amount of checks that can handle it and phase it out in the early/mid game and prevent it from rolling through teams immediately. in that case Woger checks are fairly reliable in doing that. and on the tera stuff again its situational. you're not going to be forced to burn tera everytime, but in situations where you need to it's there and games can still be winnable.

This all assumes that Wellspring won’t get many chances to come in so short term checks are good enough, but this isn’t super true since it offensively threatens so many staples


I know people don't like the argument "YoU cAn TeLl BaSeD oN tHe TeAm PrIeViEw" but there is some truth to it as in you can make an educated guess based on team preview. for example if you see a team that looks like a voltTurn spam team you can assume that Woger is U-turn. if you see a team that looks like set up spam(I'm talking like a veil,webs or other sorta niche archetypes like grassy terrain structures) you can assume SD Woger is coming. if you see a team that looks like hazard stacking(which is probably easier to tell) you can assume Woger is knock off. Sure educated guesses aren't always going to be exactly right but they are more reliable than not.

First let’s not with strawmanning because no one dislikes “you can tell from team preview”. Most any player knows that on average you can discern information from preview through team comp. But that’s not what is argued here with regards to not knowing. It’s not knowing what variant of sets it runs because different versions exist. Bulky variants, sub variants, sets with recovery, and of course difference fourth move coverage. And more than that, the issue is you might not be prepped for a specific set and wind up pretty disadvantaged as a result. A dynamic not uncommon from past big threats of the tier.


both :gliscor: and :Gholdengo: have insanely broken abilities in prison heal and GAG. being entirely immune to support moves and in gliscors case, being immune to status conditions while getting free hp off being poisoned makes them cheap to use. and Gholdengo has one of the best typings in the game and has two spammable stab combos in shadow ball(ghost resist are fairly limited) and make it rain(120 move with barely any draw backs) I would argue they belong in the braindead category.

These qualities don’t make them braindead. It makes them very good. Gliscor excels at long games but has problems facing aggressive teams where its low average damage output can get it into trouble, and its bulk isn’t always sufficient into some threats, especially boosting ones. And Make it Rain has a big drawback. The part where it lowers its own damage output? Plus it’s near 8PP means it cannot just be thrown out freely. Especially as steel is not a very spammable type due to how it gets resisted often.


I disagree on your assessment on :raging bolt:, outside of ting lu & iron treads(which don't like taking specs Draco's) raging bolt pretty much has nothing that wants to switch ins. imo its around the caliber of specs kyurem, although it's slower I argue its less predict reliant than Kyurem since it can just spam specs draco especially into teams where ting lu is the main check and most fairy types get severely chipped from volt switch/thunderbolt.

This grossly exaggerates how threatening Bolt is. In practice, for one, specs is super prediction reliant and just not very good. The set is protect bait and offensively revenge killed easily, plus super hazard weak and as Bolt has little defensive utility in practice it struggles for direct switch ins, this makes it awkward to use as any one wrong call saps so much momentum.

If there is a ground+steel or ground+fairy, sometimes all three, it’s extremely hard to consistently make the correct call on the move. Bolt itself has appeared, by my knowledge, a whole 4 times in the first two weeks of SCL so far. Lost both games in week one, won both in week two (but one game saw it attack a total of one time) and both times it appeared week 2 was on sun.

It’s still overall quite good, but it’s harder to fit in practice than it was when indigo disk meta started.

If i'm being honest I don't think the replay you cited is a good example of Woger being broken. I didn't watch the replay myself but based on what other people commented about that replay it seems like that zama setting up all those iron defense wasn't necessary, it seems leng loi was being greedy with the iron defenses and ended up getting critted by Woger. it's tuff but based on what i'm reading I'm going to assume it was preventable. also I know that ivy cudgel has a high crit rate but its still rng at the end of the day. I find the claim that Woger is stupid because of a replay where Woger only won cuz of a cudgel crit(which was preventable) very similar to the guy that was complaining about kyurem being broken then citing a replay of kyurem only winning because of a freeze(and it was preventable the guy that lost could have easily won and beat the kyurem

Afaik only one person commented on the game i brought up and i covered why the play leng loi made wasn’t likely greedy. The replay demonstrates that short term counter play also hinges on not being crit and put into situations where you have to play awkwardly and reactively. In general I respectfully encourage you to form your own opinion by watching it instead of taking someone else’s argument as truth because their conclusion lines up with your view on a Mon.
 
Fair enough. Although in in terms of hazard removal, I'm assuming we are talking :galarian-weezing: :corviknight: :cinderace: :hatterene: :iron treads: :great tusk:?. in a certain context maybe is true as :great tusk: and :iron treads: are the most common form of removal in the game and both lose to waterpon. in that case yea wogerpon is beating its removal options a lot of the time, but then again this is a game of 6 mons no? tusk and treads could find other opportunities in the games to remove hazards and common spin blockers like :gholdengo: and :pecharunt: wont exactly be taking hits from :great tusk: :iron treads: comfortably. again this is really dependent on game state though i'm not dismissing scenarios where hazards are really super stacked and tusk/treads wont have the longevity to remove them, but I think they will find a reasonable amount of opportunities to remove hazards. in terms of the other removal options though I don't really agree that wellspring beats most of them. gweezing despite its numerous flaws is often sited as a Woger check, and Woger isn't exactly keen on staying in on a gweezing and risking a will o wisp or a sludge bomb for example. Again depending on game state Woger can/can't muscle through Gweez but generally speaking Gweez is not a mon Woger wants to be taking on. About :corviknight: again, sure SD ogerpon can definitely muscle through corviknight, but lets assume in the context of hazards(since this is what the post is talking about) Ogerpon doesn't really want to be risking clicking taunt on a corviknight that can potentially kill it with brave bird or heavyily chip it with U-turn. :Cinderace: can outspeed and kill Woger if chipped(again assuming non tera, but even then cinderace still clicks U-turn for free. Woger also isn't exactly keen on taking on physdef :hatterene: packing nuzzle.
I think it makes sense what you brought, but I still don't see the situation so clear in favor of Wogerpon like that. Yes, it presses the most common ways of removal (:prey large:, :bands iron:) and in super stacked hazard scenarios it weighs, but as you said, the game is not just about this 1v1. These two still find reasonable windows to remove against quite a lot, even with Woger in the field.


About the other options:


  • Gweezing it really isn't a perfect answer, but you can't deny that it's a nuisance check and that Woger usually doesn't want to risk Will-O-Wisp or Sludge Bombs for free.
  • Corviknight also not such a simple target to explore — SD can pass, but the risk of Brave Bird/heavy chip + the uncertainty of a Taunt greatly complicates.
  • Cinderace it has the advantage of being able to force the Woger on the chip, either by U-turn free, or by threatening direct KO in some situations.
  • Hatterne it is also another case: it is not counter, but Woger does not like to eat Psyshock / Draining Kiss when he needs to preserve HP.

In the end, the point is that although Wogerpon presses quite the most common spinners, it does not invalidate“the hazard control generally ” several options still manage to work depending on the state of the game. It is precisely this situational interaction that prevents it from being a universal response to hazards.
 
Anti-offense options like trailblaze or glide are tradeoffs that compromise Woger's ability to serve as a breaker. (Not to mention glide is telegraphed from preview). It is disingenuous to claim that these are common options.

Moltres and Zapdos are not listed as teammates on either the 1695 or 1825 moveset stats, nor have I seen Woger paired with them on ladder or in tour. Webs is a cheese playstyle that by definition has an extremely skewed matchup spread; there is nothing special about Woger on these teams. These are bad faith arguments.

Woger's ability to "do something" is heavily limited against more offensive teams. This has been shown in multiple tour games this week:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873595
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873178?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-872674

Every single 'mon will sound unstoppable if you give them a perfect set for every possible scenario.
This is not how actual games play out. You have to make concessions when teambuilding. Nothing can run every option at once.
Glide isn’t particularly common, that is true. Trailblaze is quite common. And yes, running these sets is a compromise in breaking power (though most of your breaking power is built on SD + cudgel anyway). The point here is not that Woger can have everything at once. The point is that Woger cannot reliably be dealt with by running offense.

One of your replays LITERALLY has a Moltres with a Woger, so you expressly have seen that partnership. I’m not attached to that particular partnership mind you (and I reserve the right to be non-specific because the existence of anti-offense mons is both undisputed and not the subject of conversation)—I am merely pointing out that with 5 other mons on any given team, struggling against offense is incredibly far from sufficient to deem it as having sufficient counterplay. Webs, while fishy, is also a well-established playstyle that regularly sees some tournament usage—certainly enough that offense teams have to consider them in the builder—and more uniquely to Woger among webs abusers, Woger puts a lot more pressure on balance and stall teams than other webs abusers, which is, again, what makes being able to shore up its supposed offense weakness with ease so compelling. Shoring up Lokix’s matchup into offense isn’t compelling because it’s already good into offense; doing the same with the best breaker to ever hit OU is much more compelling. I’m not sure what about that is so hard to gather, though I would also encourage you to understand the meaning of the phrase “bad faith argument” before just throwing it into your comment.

And frankly, the replays you provided prove my point if anything—that being that even in Woger’s worse matchups it still manages to make significant meaningful progress. In the first game Woger takes out a whole Tusk and then is arguably misplayed when sacked to the Pult. The second game Woger is again arguably misplayed given it sacs itself for damage on Zama when it has a Moltres and a tera fairy Dragonite to rein it in, and when Woger only needed Zama to exit the field at some point and Rilla to be cleared in order to sweep. *Even then* in an ostensibly bad matchup for it, it still trades for 0.8 of a Zama, arguably the biggest threat to the Woger team at least if it had Stone Edge (which does not oneshot Moltres anyway, though you want health for Rilla). The third replay Woger is inarguably misplayed, switching directly into Pech while the special walls of the team just kinda ate a ton of chip, no offense to the player in question but honestly the whole battle is pretty puzzling at least to the eye, maybe I’m missing something.

So again, my whole point here is this: Woger can tech for offense matchups either through team support or through a couple of its move options, so offense being a bad matchup for it is not at all a given; furthermore, even when it DOES encounter an ostensibly bad matchup, such as offense that it hasn’t teched for or fat Mola hstack shit when it’s running trailblaze, it still generally manages to earn or get close to earning its slot, even as it performs overwhelmingly well in its good matchups.
 
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