Metagame Ubers Metagame and Set Discussion v4 - DLC 2 Edition

[Pigbeeef]

~~Haha we got the double post let’s go~~

Ok, it’s been a while since the forums have graced me with another notification that a post had been made in the metagame discussion thread, and the ladder honestly feels as dead as this thread, so I’ll be here to be the one to make it happen.

People who don’t play Ubers often are often not interested in playing this tier, as from an outsider perspective, not a lot is going on and ladder being dead doesn’t help either. You do still see a few accounts playing the tier regularly on the higher parts of the ladder sometimes to mess with whatever they are testing, but that’s about it. Or maybe it’s just me with when am I active everybody is not.

The mainstay players are usually playing or focused on UPL right now, and they have other players to test teams with too…

Anyways, metagame developments that at least I have seen, some might be covered somewhat above, but here I go with some new sets rising in usage.




Koraidon @ Life Orb
Ability: Orichalcum Pulse
Tera Type: Fire / ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Scale Shot / Wild Charge
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat / Wild charge

I forgot to cover life orb koraidon in the post above, but life orb koraidon has been rising in usage for quite a while now for its immediate power against teams that are more prepared for scale shot variants, as it can one tap Lando-t easily at just +1 with sun boosted orichalcum pulse flare blitz, and one tap full physdef fairyceus at +2 with life orb flare blitz and also arc water with life orb wild charge. Scale shot is there as an option even though loaded dice isn’t there to make sure it hits 4-5 times when it connects, because speed boosting is still a very valuable in this offense oriented metagame, and hitting eternatus is still nice. Wild charge is still an option for Ho-Oh but scale is usually better as you can win after weakening them anyways, and +2 lorb cc should nuke waterceus anyways. It has also been rising in usage for a while now in tournaments which really doesn’t help stall teams…



Necrozma (Necrozma-Dusk Mane) @ Leftovers / Heavy duty boots / covert cloak / utility umbrella maybe
Ability: Prism Armor
Tera Type: Fire / Grass
Evs: 248 HP / 140 Def / 120 Spe
Impish Nature
-Dragon Dance
-Sunteel Strike / Earthquake
-Photon Geyser
-Morning Sun

Ironically, the drop in dusk mane usage is actually helping the people who do use dusk mane, as now that less people are using dusk mane, the people who still do can afford to run double stab moves instead of one stab and a coverage move / knock more often. Though you will still have kingambit issues, just like normal photon eq / Sunsteel knock sets. However, photon Sunsteel is great into the rest of the tier as the only other steel outside of gambit is other dusk mane, who as I said has dropped off in usage on ladder, and zacian, who is the the mon it checks and is not resistant to Sunsteel anyways. Photon and sunsteel helps with the iron defense + calm mind fairyceus MU a lot too, as the two stab options hits both its base type and Tera type of poison very effectively, and the rise of Etern lets it have more opportunities to come in than before. Covert cloak is nice for dodging burns, utility umbrella is a tech to still have normal healing in the rain while taking less damage from kyogre, while also weakening attacks from koraidons flare blitz, though there will be no boosted healing from morning sun.

Anyways these are some of the cool sets yall should try out ig, photon knock has also been a thing but I don’t fw it.

And honestly maybe I should convince people to ladder more as none of this matters if nobody is playing.

Gliscor fell off a cliff long time ago, knock isn’t as useful now.

There are some more cool new sets as well, but either I don’t have enough time to go over them or I just want to wait till UPL is over.

And shoutout to the Chinese homies for playing with the wack mons on ladder, yall are awesome.

Edit: I’ll go over some funny techs I have witnessed in UPL after it’s over, some of them are truly hilarious.

 

[Pigbeeef]

I swear this is the last post I’m gonna make before the next person hopefully posts, but UPL is over, and here is a set I feel like MIGHT get a little bit of ladder usage after this.

Eternatus @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Def / 192 SpA / 48 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dynamax Cannon
- Sludge Bomb
- Fire Blast
- Toxic Spikes

Credits to Kate and Taka for the set.

Dubbed Voyagetern, This eternatus set looks quite unconventional, with the EV spread designed to live a five hit scale shot from koraidon due to how sitrus berry and multi hit moves work, it can lead off versus koraidon and win the exchange if they try to get some damage in via scale shot as Dmax cannon one shots with modest. Sludge bomb and fire blast are there for coverage versus zacian-c and fairyceus, while toxic spikes is great in case you get the chance to click it, and yada yada yada. Hilariously fun as an Antilead into koraidon, works wonders if they don’t see it coming, especially as it doesn’t reveal itself on preview. It does have a little bit of trouble twave kyogre leads though, as it cannot two shot kyogre like life orb sets nor status them like spdef sets do.

Probably left out important details but yeah, coolest set to come out of this tour I know.

 

[sleazy dimonkey]

Here are some cool techs and ideas I've recently used on ladder:

+

Stall isn't in a great spot rn. Ability Shield is a cool pick on Unaware mons like Skeledirge and Dondozo as it prevents Photon Geyser or Teravolt from shutting it down. This helps both Dirge and Dozo stand up to set-up sweepers like non-Knock Off NDM and Kyu-B. If running Ability Shield on Dirge, either Rapid Spin or Defog support is required.


+

Trick + SD Band Calyrex-Ice

Calyrex-Ice @ Choice Band
Ability: As One (Glastrier)
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 232 HP / 96 Atk / 180 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Glacial Lance
- High Horsepower
- Swords Dance
- Trick

Band Calyrex-Ice is incredibly powerful. It can easily OHKO resists at +1 with Tera Ice. This set works best on Hyper Offense teams and pairs well with another TR setter like Hatterene or NDM. The defense EVs help it survive a +1 Behemoth Blade from Zacian-C and non-LO Flare Blitz from Koraidon from full HP. Trick is an interesting option that can cripple physical walls.

 

[Pigbeeef]

Here are some cool techs and ideas I've recently used on ladder:

+

Stall isn't in a great spot rn. Ability Shield is a cool pick on Unaware mons like Skeledirge and Dondozo as it prevents Photon Geyser or Teravolt from shutting it down. This helps both Dirge and Dozo stand up to set-up sweepers like non-Knock Off NDM and Kyu-B. If running Ability Shield on Dirge, either Rapid Spin or Defog support is required.


+

Trick + SD Band Calyrex-Ice

Calyrex-Ice @ Choice Band
Ability: As One (Glastrier)
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 232 HP / 96 Atk / 180 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Glacial Lance
- High Horsepower
- Swords Dance
- Trick

Band Calyrex-Ice is incredibly powerful. It can easily OHKO resists at +1 with Tera Ice. This set works best on Hyper Offense teams and pairs well with another TR setter like Hatterene or NDM. The defense EVs help it survive a +1 Behemoth Blade from Zacian-C and non-LO Flare Blitz from Koraidon from full HP. Trick is an interesting option that can cripple physical walls.

interesting ideas, though ability shield on unaware walls don’t actually work well in practice, as the spinners we have right now simply lack reliable recovery, and our defoggers lack recovery as well, which really impacts how well do they fit on such teams, and NDM and Zekrom aren’t even that common these days, as life orb koraidon could also blast away dozo with close combat anyways.

 

[doubtful intuition]

interesting ideas, though ability shield on unaware walls don’t actually work well in practice, as the spinners we have right now simply lack reliable recovery, and our defoggers lack recovery as well, which really impacts how well do they fit on such teams, and NDM and Zekrom aren’t even that common these days, as life orb koraidon could also blast away dozo with close combat anyways.

Stall is pretty much unviable, but they can fit in more unorthodox Defoggers with reliable recovery like or , at the cost of being weaker to other things. Ability Shield is a cool pick, but I agree with you, it'd be difficult to pull off in practice because stall literally sucks rn

+

Koraidon @ Heavy Duty Boots
Ability: Orichalcum Pulse
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Scale Shot
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat

This has been my favorite set as of late. Boots Koraidon nearly invalidates Webs on its own, but the crux of this set is Tera Fairy, which can be used as a great check to shore up opposing mirrors. Alternate Tera Types like Tera Dark can work too to stop ID+CM set-up sweepers.

 

[Pigbeeef]

Stall is pretty much unviable, but they can fit in more unorthodox Defoggers with reliable recovery like or , at the cost of being weaker to other things. Ability Shield is a cool pick, but I agree with you, it'd be difficult to pull off in practice because stall literally sucks rn

+

Koraidon @ Heavy Duty Boots
Ability: Orichalcum Pulse
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Scale Shot
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat

This has been my favorite set as of late. Boots Koraidon nearly invalidates Webs on its own, but the crux of this set is Tera Fairy, which can be used as a great check to shore up opposing mirrors. Alternate Tera Types like Tera Dark can work too to stop ID+CM set-up sweepers.

The only idcm setup sweepers tera dark stops is ndm, and if you wanna do that taunt over cc shuts it off completely anyways.

On a side note, I do see the appeal in tera fairy, but my personal preference still lean towards steel for iron head sets or simply tera fire for the flare blitz one shots. for invalidating webs consider flame charge with tera fire for double boosting, as that lets you blow right past scale shot blockers!

 

[doubtful intuition]

The only idcm setup sweepers tera dark stops is ndm, and if you wanna do that taunt over cc shuts it off completely anyways.

On a side note, I do see the appeal in tera fairy, but my personal preference still lean towards steel for iron head sets or simply tera fire for the flare blitz one shots. for invalidating webs consider flame charge with tera fire for double boosting, as that lets you blow right past scale shot blockers!

Giving up CC to run Taunt on Korai is a huge opportunity cost and hardly ever worth it outside of the stall mu. Tera Dark also has fringe uses as seen when Colin used it in UPL, preventing Agility Lunala sweeps, getting a Ghost resist, etc.

Tera Fairy works better on Boots, Tera Steel better on Loaded Dice, although I never got the appeal of a Koraidon lacking Fire or Fighting coverage. Sure, you beat Tera Fairy cores occasionally, but the opp could always Tera themselves. Seems like a mid set at best, but what do I know. Good convo.

 

[Pigbeeef]

Giving up CC to run Taunt on Korai is a huge opportunity cost and hardly ever worth it outside of the stall mu. Tera Dark also has fringe uses as seen when Colin used it in UPL, preventing Agility Lunala sweeps, getting a Ghost resist, etc.

Tera Fairy works better on Boots, Tera Steel better on Loaded Dice, although I never got the appeal of a Koraidon lacking Fire or Fighting coverage. Sure, you beat Tera Fairy cores occasionally, but the opp could always Tera themselves. Seems like a mid set at best, but what do I know. Good convo.

Because just a fire move and a dragon move gives up surprisingly little coverage and utility into the meta. Sure, maybe a fighting move gives you a nice middle ground into certain turns at times, I've often found substitute, taunt or a different move to be more useful at cheesing certain matchups, as blitz, scale and sd lets koraidon do like 85% of what it does already, though scale missing is pain. we also got sub sd iron head sets that gets walled by ndm most of the time, its a MU fish set anyways. taunt abuses roar arc fairy, stall, and other fat structures + idcm, while sub flame charge messes up webs leads real hard, heck, even scale flame charge can sweep teams! though, tera fairy with its surprise factor I believe can work quite well.

but yeah, the last moveslot is extra customizable.

 

[doubtful intuition]

Because just a fire move and a dragon move gives up surprisingly little coverage and utility into the meta. Sure, maybe a fighting move gives you a nice middle ground into certain turns at times, I've often found substitute, taunt or a different move to be more useful at cheesing certain matchups, as blitz, scale and sd lets koraidon do like 85% of what it does already, though scale missing is pain. we also got sub sd iron head sets that gets walled by ndm most of the time, its a MU fish set anyways. taunt abuses roar arc fairy, stall, and other fat structures + idcm, while sub flame charge messes up webs leads real hard, heck, even scale flame charge can sweep teams! though, tera fairy with its surprise factor I believe can work quite well.

At least in my experience, Tera Fairy worked best on ladder since, as you said, most people don’t expect the surprise factor. I got it to work best on the Specs Ogre Webs HO sample I submitted, which is one of the rare structures that doesn’t use Pagos.

I asked this on the SQSA page, but since you’re the only one contributing to this thread, I’m curious what’s the most popular Koraidon set atm? The utility of Scarf Koraidon is unmatched, yet I see more LO usage in tours + ladder. And for Scale Shot sets, why is LO preferred over Loaded Dice? I assume it's because Koraidon gets the ability to OHKO max/max Arc-Fairy and Lando-T at +2 / +1 respectively? In that case, are LO variants better off using Tera-Fire / Ghost Scale Shot / Flare Blitz / Close Combat or Tera-Fire Flame Charge / Close Combat / Wild Charge?

 

[Pigbeeef]

At least in my experience, Tera Fairy worked best on ladder since as you said, most people don’t expect the surprise factor. I got it to work best on the Specs Ogre Webs HO sample I submitted, which is one of the rare structures that doesn’t use Pagos.

I asked this on the SQSA page, but since you’re the only one contributing to this thread, I’m curious what’s the most popular Koraidon set atm? The utility of Scarf Koraidon is unmatched, yet I see more LO usage in tours + ladder. And for Scale Shot sets, why is LO preferred over Loaded Dice? I assume it's because Koraidon gets the ability to OHKO max/max Arc-Fairy and Lando-T at +2 / +1 respectively? In that case, are LO variants better off using Tera-Fire / Ghost Scale Shot / Flare Blitz / Close Combat or Tera-Fire Flame Charge / Close Combat / Wild Charge?

Man, now that you bring it up, the thread really is dead asf ;(. In my opinion though, specs ogre isn't good on webs, as it does pretty badly into the webs mirrors as giving koraidon free setup on an HO team is a massive No-No in my eyes. cm sitrus ogre (funny UPL set, beats etern 1v1) as a breaker or scarf ogre as an endgame cleaner seems much more plausible, though that's more me, but most of us can agree that 99% of the "good" HO teams make sure koraidon cannot have a single free turn on all six slots one way or another. (except hax, cant control that.) or else a single sd and a speed boost can be ggs.

Scarf don is the best scarfer in the tier yes, but sd koraidon is so versatile, unpredictable and powerful that people have been throwing it on balance, BO and Other offenses while having lando for example as an alternative scarfer, cuz the opportunity cost is way too high not to use on many teams. There is not many different ways you can play scarf korai, its usually just same four moves, maybe with a bit of EV changes and natures or the occasional dual wing beat, it really is mostly the same thing... but for SD koraidon the possibilities are endless, skies the limit, we got standard tera fire SD scale shot with dice, tera ghost for ekiller, tera steel iron head for fairy ogre cores + ekiller, sub + tera to abuse arc fairy and others, taunt to break stall, raw scale shot with heavy duty boots, NO scale shot with boots, scale shot AND flame charge, life orb scale shot sets for super breaking power... The list goes on and on and on and on. I don't know exactly which of these specifically is the most used, my bets on tera fire SD because its the first Dex set so ladder is more likely to use it, but in tours the variants span so far and wide I really don't know.

Long answer short SD is the most used set now, and life orb movements both you listed are good for different matchups. one breaks better and one is better into offense, but I cant say exactly which is better.

It could also be people realizing scale shot is really good even just for that speed boost, and life orb just blows things up especially with the decreased ekiller usage.

 

[doubtful intuition]

Man, now that you bring it up, the thread really is dead asf ;(. In my opinion though, specs ogre isn't good on webs, as it does pretty badly into the webs mirrors as giving koraidon free setup on an HO team is a massive No-No in my eyes. cm sitrus ogre (funny UPL set, beats etern 1v1) as a breaker or scarf ogre as an endgame cleaner seems much more plausible, though that's more me, but most of us can agree that 99% of the "good" HO teams make sure koraidon cannot have a single free turn on all six slots one way or another. (except hax, cant control that.) or else a single sd and a speed boost can be ggs.

Scarf don is the best scarfer in the tier yes, but sd koraidon is so versatile, unpredictable and powerful that people have been throwing it on balance, BO and Other offenses while having lando for example as an alternative scarfer, cuz the opportunity cost is way too high not to use on many teams. There is not many different ways you can play scarf korai, its usually just same four moves, maybe with a bit of EV changes and natures or the occasional dual wing beat, it really is mostly the same thing... but for SD koraidon the possibilities are endless, skies the limit, we got standard tera fire SD scale shot with dice, tera ghost for ekiller, tera steel iron head for fairy ogre cores + ekiller, sub + tera to abuse arc fairy and others, taunt to break stall, raw scale shot with heavy duty boots, NO scale shot with boots, scale shot AND flame charge, life orb scale shot sets for super breaking power... The list goes on and on and on and on. I don't know exactly which of these specifically is the most used, my bets on tera fire SD because its the first Dex set so ladder is more likely to use it, but in tours the variants span so far and wide I really don't know.

Long answer short SD is the most used set now, and life orb movements both you listed are good for different matchups. one breaks better and one is better into offense, but I cant say exactly which is better.

Thanks for the thorough response!

And yea this thread is dead af but I guess that speaks more about the stale nature of the metagame than the player base.

Have any new “innovations” been discovered as of late? Feel like running Sitrus on random defensive mons only works in a tour game once in a while but lacks the consistency to do well on ladder

 

[Pigbeeef]

Thanks for the thorough response!

And yea this thread is dead af but I guess that speaks more about the stale nature of the metagame than the player base.

Have any new “innovations” been discovered as of late? Feel like running Sitrus on random defensive mons only works in a tour game once in a while but lacks the consistency to do well on ladder

We have sitrus eternatus that eats a round of scale shot and fires back due to how sitrus works I guess, but I assume you already saw that.

There are also 6792671 different koraidon sets running around on the ladder...

if you wanna find people who are still searching for new sets, reach out / check out my Chinese homies, Emoxu9 and others are awesome builders and players.

Maybe you can count flyceus as a new one? perhaps eleceus as a Zac check? Honestly, the only place that is kinda active is the Ubers discord and even then they talk about random stuff a big chunk of the time... the sample team submission numbers have been lacking too.

lets just hope gen 10 we see this tier back in action.

Oh yeah ndm is rising in usage again.

and I think we once saw SD u turn koraidon to bluff scarf.

 

[doubtful intuition]

We have sitrus eternatus that eats a round of scale shot and fires back due to how sitrus works I guess, but I assume you already saw that.

There are also 6792671 different koraidon sets running around on the ladder...

if you wanna find people who are still searching for new sets, reach out / check out my Chinese homies, Emoxu9 and others are awesome builders and players.

Maybe you can count flyceus as a new one? perhaps eleceus as a Zac check? Honestly, the only place that is kinda active is the Ubers discord and even then they talk about random stuff a big chunk of the time... the sample team submission numbers have been lacking too.

lets just hope gen 10 we see this tier back in action.

Oh yeah ndm is rising in usage again.

and I think we once saw SD u turn koraidon to bluff scarf.

I’m surprised with the lowered EKiller usage. I think EKiller is an insanely good pick (though I’m making this judgment - heh see what I did there? - solely off ladder). LO + Double Edge nukes so many things. And priority spam is always strong imo

Yes, I get the opportunity cost of not using an Arc-Fairy or Water but still, EKiller is incredibly strong and does better into a more offensive metagame

Speaking of offense, despite the sheer number of balances I see, I’m of the opinion a well built Deo-S HO or Webs to a less extent can beat the vast majority of non-HO teams

 

[Pigbeeef]

I’m surprised with the lowered EKiller usage. I think EKiller is an insanely good pick (though I’m making this judgment - heh see what I did there? - solely off ladder.) LO + Double Edge nukes so many thing. And priority spam is always strong imo

yeah, you either use fairyceus for defensive utility or something else, the decreased in tera ghost tells me I should start using it again. LO tera normal double edge just guarantees one shot on Ho-Oh and max defense arcs after a single sd... it can even one shot zacian at times!

Anyways join the Ubers discord, you will find people there.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

Have any new “innovations” been discovered as of late? Feel like running Sitrus on random defensive mons only works in a tour game once in a while but lacks the consistency to do well on ladder

Does Fezandipiti count? The NDubers set but fully invested into special defense can hard wall Eternatus, Fairyceus, special Ghostceus, and can even pick off a chipped Koraidon that switches into an Acid Spray using Icy Wind in an emergency. Still sucks into Kyogre, Lunala, and full physical teams though.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ubers-2447760509-hqlpeok8hgvt4tbjwa0nq4gh7a6swyqpw