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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

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.



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.


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)

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.

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).
:weezing-galar: = : weezing-galar : just like on actual showdown lol.

I've been trying out encore dnite recently and this mon is awesome. I was always a big fan of Scale Shot Fire Punch Encore, but Tera Blast Encore lets you use Boots, too. I just had a game won by the skin of my teeth thanks to this tech: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2448680064

Really cool mon. My favourite set is still Scale Shot or Dtail though. Also dont ask about the team I know it's bad lol

Another mon I've been LOVING recently is AV Sylveon. Yes, I know what you're thinking, now that Moon is banned, you can drop Quick Attack. I've been using a specific tech instead recently:

Sylveon (F) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Pixilate
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draining Kiss
- Hyper Voice/Moonblast
- Mud-Slap
- Psyshock

Yep. Mud-Slap. You read that right. Hear me out: hits Moth for decent damage on the switch, and drops accuracy which can be huge in some special brawls. This mon basically 1v1s every special attacker depending on tera. If you terastallize into a Ground type, Mud-Slap becomes 60BP (90 with STAB) and does actual good damage to stuff like Gholdengo. If you're lame and want a "real move" use Shadow Ball. And like, tera Steel I guess. Which helps vs Kyurem or whatever.
 
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oi here's an epic fat breaker, dood.

:sv/ceruledge:
Ceruledge @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Flare Blitz
- Bitter Blade
- Shadow Sneak

Yes, Flare Blitz ceruledge does a certified 33% more damage than bitter blade. and while bitter blade is OP and you might think this is too great an opportunity cost, you can run both, because coverage becomes completely unnecessary when you use Tera FIRE. As in, you don't have to run CC to beat the garg swine.

In terms of slimy greed boi, I would rank this with the ultra avaricious tera fire band protosynthesis sun gouging fire raging fury.

You can fully slop out by going flash fire and run it with some wisp bait like balloon gambit or something. I dont think that's actually necessary, because of how hard weak armor punks noobs, but...

BRO
1758759072196.png


-1 252+ Atk Life Orb Tera Fire Ceruledge Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Landorus-Therian in Sun: 398-468 (104.1 - 122.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Tera Fire Ceruledge Flare Blitz vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Zamazenta in Sun: 322-382 (99 - 117.5%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Tera Fire Ceruledge Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tera Water Ting-Lu in Sun: 448-528 (87.1 - 102.7%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Tera Fire Ceruledge Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 52 Def Garganacl in Sun: 415-489 (102.7 - 121%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Tera Fire Ceruledge Flare Blitz vs. 20 HP / 236 Def Alomomola in Sun: 503-593 (105.6 - 124.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Tera Fire Ceruledge Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex in Sun: 291-343 (96 - 113.2%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

You also get cool calcs on bitter blade:
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Tera Fire Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raging Bolt in Sun: 441-519 (112.7 - 132.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

side note:
inspired by people complaining about Z-moves in national dex, I investigated the damage of STAB tera + boosting item, and it turns out that the damage of high-power z-moves (180+) sits somewhere between the damage of STAB tera + 1.2x type boost item and STAB + life orb. So if you read about some z-move cheese in national dex, it's replicable in OU with this pairing, albeit at a high cost in builder. but when you get PURE BREAKING POWER, it's worth it.


Oh also I wanted to add to this Tera Fire Weather Ball Enamorus can 2HKO slowking G with modest scarf or easily 2HKO AV with Specs. It does more damage than tera fairy moonblast. really gross
252+ SpA Tera Fire Enamorus Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 252 HP / 248+ SpD Slowking-Galar in Sun: 187-222 (47.4 - 56.3%) -- 84% chance to 2HKO
 
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Okay so I figured that the reason my other post were getting deleted was because i'm not allowed to double post. Tbh trying to reply to multiple peoples post all in one post seems annoying and messy, but I will try to do my best.


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 did acknowledge in my post that :weezing-galar does have numerous flaws like it's lack of reliable recovery and can be muscled through by :ogerpon-wellspring: via SD, but my general point still stands. Gweezing is not a mon Woger wants to be taking on due to the potentially being burned with willo or hit with sludge bomb especially when it can tera grass out of the cudgel weakness. also I didn't really name :hatterene: as a Woger switch in or a Woger counter at all I only stated that Woger wont exactly be keen on taking physdef invested hatterene if it's packing nuzzle. I mentioned taunt Woger because we were talking in the context of hazards and preventing them from being removed so that's why I brought it up. although wogers would most likely be fishing for cudgel crits or be U-turning on corviknight(but U-turn into rocky helmet corv isn't ideal)
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.
Nonetheless this is pretty much similar to what I wanted to sum up about the hazard interactions. Ogerpon does pressure and beat the more common forms of hazard control in :great tusk: :iron treads: (at least for tusk, it has CC to potentially hit Woger hard, Iront reads in general is just cooked unless it's some endeavor custap berry bullshit) however, Ogerpon doesn't really restrict or invalidate most hazard removal options and doesn't really beat most of them directly outside of the elephants.
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
ngl i'm not really sure where this assumption is from. I wasn't really assuming that Woger will get limited chances to come in. FWIW though ig some Woger weak pokemon do have some on their own little tech to work around oger. for example :ting-lu: has been seeing usage with it's weakness policy payback set every since it first appeared in that one WCOP match. I have also seen it used a little bit in OLT. it's a cheesy set but i'm glad people are exploring ting lu's 110 attack I think it's a very underrated aspect of it. :alomomola:, the most Woger weak mon imo(especially without toxic this gen) has been seen using tech to work around that weakness like tickle, acrobatics, body slam, etc. I think my personally favourite was red card acrobatics I used to abuse that long when I was using mola before. ^This isn't really apart of my argument about Woger I just wanted to point a few fun facts out.

nonetheless though this is my response though. Yes Woger as a lot of opportunities to come in(especially thanks to water absorb) and is a threat to common staples especially bulkier balanced ones. however some mons that Woger does switch in on do have their means of chipping it. talking about :ting lu:though seriously it has ruination which can cut :ogerpon-wellspring: hp to half on switch in. This can halt Woger's longevity in a game especially Woger sets lacking recovery like synthesis for example. :primarina: and :keldeo: are also mons that wellspring can easily into their water stabs and immediately threaten them back, however both prim and keldeo are strong enough to comfortable do more than half to Woger on the switch with their secondary stabs. :ogerpon-wellspring: is going to get a lot of good opportunities to switch in, however its not as super free as people are making it out to be.

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.
I might sound ignorant but i'm not entirely sure on what you mean by strawmanning. I wasn't trying to invalidate anyone I was just saying that people don't like going the discussion route of team preview guessing games especially when talking about bans, at least based on what I read when I read suspect threads sometimes. I'm guessing it was tone that was the problem, it probably wasn't necessary but it's whatever.

about your points, again the sub variants and the recovery variants still fall under the categories of the Woger support movesets I was arguing in my thread where if you uncover those, you'll probably know that it's lacking coverage.
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.
Yea those sub and synthesis variants fall under here too^

I also don't think uncovering the 4th move is as essentially imo, you can have a good idea of what the woger set is when it clicks its 3 other moves. the suprise factor comes here and then but the first 3 moves reveal enough info to make decent gameplans about Woger.

I disagree that the dynamic is the same for Woger as it is for other past threats in the tier. if we take a look at :gouging fire: :roaring moon: :volcarona: for example those mons had like an abundance of tera sets and items it can abuse. :gouging fire: and :roaring moon: had like 5 different DD sets alone and can abuse items like :heavy duty boots: :booster-energy: :choice band: and :leftovers: for examples while having like 5 different teras(this is more in gouging fires case roaring moon was mainly abusing tera fairy and flying for the most part). Volcarona, while not having the same item diversity as the two former as its forced to run boots, it still had a lot of tera sets which made it difficult for teams to answer outside of being forced to tera fairy on :skeledirge: . :ogerpon-wellspring: does not have the same dynamic as those mons due to it being item and tera locked, which limits its set anomynity a lot despite its great movepool.

and not the specific set thing, again I feel like there is enough tools to generally prepare for :ogerpon-wellspring:. yes if you put a specific set inn a right scenario it's going to be an advantage, this can be said for a lot of mons, however this definitely isn't always the case. Woger does have a lot it can do but it's definitely nowhere near the set anomynity of previous banned mons like a Gfire/Rmoon or Volc imo.

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.




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.
again this argument is not really one I want to be going back and forth on because the original sentiment was more philosophy based rather than literally talking about the brokenness of these mons. and this is kinda subjective as there is people that find the mons I included braindead and cheap as I have seen a some people make arguments about :gliscor: and :gholdengo:. I will still make some comments on your response though.

Yes make it rain has a drawback technically. but its not really a big one as only -1 special attack drop isn't that big of a drawback especially on a mon that has 133 based special attack. after a nasty plot and 1 make it rain it still has +1 special attack, so it can drop a few make it rains without worrying about big special attack drops. yes steel is easily resisted but in the case of gholdengo not a lot of resist take boosted make it rains that well, especially with the metal coat dengo sets that have been on the rise.

I don't think i'm exaggerating how threatening bolt is, and I definitely don't agree that specs is not very good. outside of ting lu most steels get 2hkoed by specs draco and most fairies get nearly Koed by electric move. there is a reason why specs was commonly used a lot especially in OLT. and I don't really get your statements on bolt being hazard weak and easy to revenge kill. I mean yes grounded mons not running :heavy duty boots: are going to be taking hazard damage if they are on the field but raging bolt isn't even weak to stealth rock like :kyurem: . also bolt is very bulky with it's high hp stat and isn't as easy to revenge kill as you're making it out to be especially when it's really healthy. Raging bolt on sun is another scary version of bolt which will prob support some of my arguments but again I don't really want to go that deep into this.

looking back at this argument I probably should've included mons like :garganacl: here because that is generally agreed upon as a braindead mon, but then again the original point of this entire argument was suppose to be more philosophal.

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. if you have the replay I will gladly watch and assess it on my own.


onto the other posts where I originally responded was deleted due to double posting.

Oh MY BAD I didn’t realize I don’t get to make my own points about Woger :|
Listen I never said you can't make your own points on woger. the main reason why I was criticizing your posts was because you kept making a lot of quotes and remarks to my arguments, then you went on saying stuff that didn't make sense or were completely unrelated to my arguments. You can make your own points about woger but if you're going to be making references to my argument at least make it something that actually makes sense or relates to my argument. FWIW I do have other comments to say on your other posts.



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.
This post in general is weird. I don't get why you're dying on this hill on trailblaze :ogerpon-wellspring: and woger's offense matchup in general when it's literally the worst angle to argue on a Wogerpon ban post when there is literally a lot of better arguments to go off of. me, and many other have gone over posts explaining the huge disadvantages of trailblaze pon in the first place. it trades it's wallbreaking capabilities into bulkier teams(which it was it does best) to a trailblaze set that is mediocre in general and isn't even that good of an anti offense mon in the first place. imo it's the worst ogerpon sets to run and oger has a lot of better sets to run over trailblaze. At best trailblaze is an okay whatever cheese that can work sometimes.

don't really see how :ogerpon-wellspring: made significant progress against these offense teams like your saying. the first offense game literally shows woger having a terrible trade off against the other offense team despite woger being under screens. it take significant chip like the Tusk CC and gets revenge killed by dragapult. Ogerpon did kill great tusk yes but that's not proof of it making significant or meaningful progess. the great tusk wasn't needed at that point of the match, it was sacked for a reason. the person that traded the tusk for the woger easily had the better tradeoff.

the second replay showed woger dying to zama. the only thing it did was hit the cudgel crit on the switch in( I know this is what the ban side have been argument but still it's rng). had that cudgel crit not happen on the switch and literally any other turn zama sets up iron defense and gets max boost for free. even then woger still clicks trailblaze(mid move) and dies, proving other points about trailblaze woger where it wont find a lot of opportunities to set up perfectly even against offense teams. FWIW that blonded guy still won comfortable despite the crit and their zama still put enough pressure on the opposing team.

I wouldn't exactly consider the third replay an entire misplay. it was more like the bhkg guy lost his only ghost resist in ting lu and his other mons were either walled by pecha or weak to shadow ball, so he really didn't have much of a choice but to try and switch in Pon and maybe respond with knock off. still maybe you're right on it not being entirely on woger since this is more on the guy letting hazards up and giving up his ghost resist to chip and tera.

In general, even if you did technically prove some points your overall argument on this post is weak, and there is better arguments where you can base your Woger ban opinions on over whatever this is.


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.
Lastly, I do understand your sentiment on bulky balance teams being obnoxious and annoying to play against, I would argue it's more obnoxious than stall itself, but respectfully this ZapKingLu analogy needs to be dropped. it's not a good analogy and that core is barely even used nowadays.
 
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Okay so I figured that the reason my other post were getting deleted was because i'm not allowed to double post. Tbh trying to reply to multiple peoples post all in one post seems annoying and messy, but I will try to do my best.



again, I did acknowledge in my post that :weezing-galar does have numerous flaws like it's lack of reliable recovery and can be muscled through by :ogerpon-wellspring: via SD, but my general point still stands. Gweezing is not a mon Woger wants to be taking on due to the potentially being burned with willo or hit with sludge bomb especially when it can tera grass out of the cudgel weakness. also I didn't really name :hatterene: as a Woger switch in or a Woger counter at all I only stated that Woger wont exactly be keen on taking physdef invested hatterene if it's packing nuzzle. I mentioned taunt Woger because we were talking in the context of hazards and preventing them from being removed so that's why I brought it up. although wogers would most likely be fishing for cudgel crits or be U-turning on corviknight(but U-turn into rocky helmet corv isn't ideal)

Nonetheless this is pretty much similar to what I wanted to sum up about the hazard interactions. Ogerpon does pressure and beat the more common forms of hazard control in :great tusk: :iron treads: (at least for tusk, it has CC to potentially hit Woger hard, Iront reads in general is just cooked unless it's some endeavor custap berry bullshit) however, Ogerpon doesn't really restrict or invalidate most hazard removal options and doesn't really beat most of them directly outside of the elephants.

ngl i'm not really sure where this assumption is from. I wasn't really assuming that Woger will get limited chances to come in. FWIW though ig some Woger weak pokemon do have some on their own little tech to work around oger. for example :ting-lu: has been seeing usage with it's weakness policy payback set every since it first appeared in that one WCOP match. I have also seen it used a little bit in OLT. it's a cheesy set but i'm glad people are exploring ting lu's 110 attack I think it's a very underrated aspect of it. :alomomola:, the most Woger weak mon imo(especially without toxic this gen) has been seen using tech to work around that weakness like tickle, acrobatics, body slam, etc. I think my personally favourite was red card acrobatics I used to abuse that long when I was using mola before. ^This isn't really apart of my argument about Woger I just wanted to point a few fun facts out.

nonetheless though this is my response though. Yes Woger as a lot of opportunities to come in(especially thanks to water absorb) and is a threat to common staples especially bulkier balanced ones. however some mons that Woger does switch in on do have their means of chipping it. talking about :ting lu:though seriously it has ruination which can cut :ogerpon-wellspring: hp to half on switch in. This can halt Woger's longevity in a game especially Woger sets lacking recovery like synthesis for example. :primarina: and :keldeo: are also mons that wellspring can easily into their water stabs and immediately threaten them back, however both prim and keldeo are strong enough to comfortable do more than half to Woger on the switch with their secondary stabs. :ogerpon-wellspring: is going to get a lot of good opportunities to switch in, however its not as super free as people are making it out to be.


I might sound ignorant but i'm not entirely sure on what you mean by strawmanning. I wasn't trying to invalidate anyone I was just saying that people don't like going the discussion route of team preview guessing games especially when talking about bans, at least based on what I read when I read suspect threads sometimes. I'm guessing it was tone that was the problem, it probably wasn't necessary but it's whatever.

about your points, again the sub variants and the recovery variants still fall under the categories of the Woger support movesets I was arguing in my thread where if you uncover those, you'll probably know that it's lacking coverage.

Yea those sub and synthesis variants fall under here too^

I also don't think uncovering the 4th move is as essentially imo, you can have a good idea of what the woger set is when it clicks its 3 other moves. the suprise factor comes here and then but the first 3 moves reveal enough info to make decent gameplans about Woger.

I disagree that the dynamic is the same for Woger as it is for other past threats in the tier. if we take a look at :gouging fire: :roaring moon: :volcarona: for example those mons had like an abundance of tera sets and items it can abuse. :gouging fire: and :roaring moon: had like 5 different DD sets alone and can abuse items like :heavy duty boots: :booster-energy: :choice band: and :leftovers: for examples while having like 5 different teras(this is more in gouging fires case roaring moon was mainly abusing tera fairy and flying for the most part). Volcarona, while not having the same item diversity as the two former as its forced to run boots, it still had a lot of tera sets which made it difficult for teams to answer outside of being forced to tera fairy on :skeledirge: . :ogerpon-wellspring: does not have the same dynamic as those mons due to it being item and tera locked, which limits its set anomynity a lot despite its great movepool.

and not the specific set thing, again I feel like there is enough tools to generally prepare for :ogerpon-wellspring:. yes if you put a specific set inn a right scenario it's going to be an advantage, this can be said for a lot of mons, however this definitely isn't always the case. Woger does have a lot it can do but it's definitely nowhere near the set anomynity of previous banned mons like a Gfire/Rmoon or Volc imo.


again this argument is not really one I want to be going back and forth on because the original sentiment was more philosophy based rather than literally talking about the brokenness of these mons. and this is kinda subjective as there is people that find the mons I included braindead and cheap as I have seen a some people make arguments about :gliscor: and :gholdengo:. I will still make some comments on your response though.

Yes make it rain has a drawback technically. but its not really a big one as only -1 special attack drop isn't that big of a drawback especially on a mon that has 133 based special attack. after a nasty plot and 1 make it rain it still has +1 special attack, so it can drop a few make it rains without worrying about big special attack drops. yes steel is easily resisted but in the case of gholdengo not a lot of resist take boosted make it rains that well, especially with the metal coat dengo sets that have been on the rise.

I don't think i'm exaggerating how threatening bolt is, and I definitely don't agree that specs is not very good. outside of ting lu most steels get 2hkoed by specs draco and most fairies get nearly Koed by electric move. there is a reason why specs was commonly used a lot especially in OLT. and I don't really get your statements on bolt being hazard weak and easy to revenge kill. I mean yes grounded mons not running :heavy duty boots: are going to be taking hazard damage if they are on the field but raging bolt isn't even weak to stealth rock like :kyurem: . also bolt is very bulky with it's high hp stat and isn't as easy to revenge kill as you're making it out to be especially when it's really healthy. Raging bolt on sun is another scary version of bolt which will prob support some of my arguments but again I don't really want to go that deep into this.

looking back at this argument I probably should've included mons like :garganacl: here because that is generally agreed upon as a braindead mon, but then again the original point of this entire argument was suppose to be more philosophal.


Fair enough. if you have the replay I will gladly watch and assess it on my own.


onto the other posts where I originally responded was deleted due to double posting.


Listen I never said you can't make your own points on woger. the main reason why I was criticizing your posts was because you kept making a lot of quotes and remarks to my arguments, then you went on saying stuff that didn't make sense or were completely unrelated to my arguments. You can make your own points about woger but if you're going to be making references to my argument at least make it something that actually makes sense or relates to my argument. FWIW I do have other comments to say on your other posts.




This post in general is weird. I don't get why you're dying on this hill on trailblaze :ogerpon-wellspring: and woger's offense matchup in general when it's literally the worst angle to argue on a Wogerpon ban post when there is literally a lot of better arguments to go off of. me, and many other have gone over posts explaining the huge disadvantages of trailblaze pon in the first place. it trades it's wallbreaking capabilities into bulkier teams(which it was it does best) to a trailblaze set that is mediocre in general and isn't even that good of an anti offense mon in the first place. imo it's the worst ogerpon sets to run and oger has a lot of better sets to run over trailblaze. At best trailblaze is an okay whatever cheese that can work sometimes.

don't really see how :ogerpon-wellspring: made significant progress against these offense teams like your saying. the first offense game literally shows woger having a terrible trade off against the other offense team despite woger being under screens. it take significant chip like the Tusk CC and gets revenge killed by dragapult. Ogerpon did kill great tusk yes but that's not proof of it making significant or meaningful progess. the great tusk wasn't needed at that point of the match, it was sacked for a reason. the person that traded the tusk for the woger easily had the better tradeoff.

the second replay showed woger dying to zama. the only thing it did was hit the cudgel crit on the switch in( I know this is what the ban side have been argument but still it's rng). had that cudgel crit not happen on the switch and literally any other turn zama sets up iron defense and gets max boost for free. even then woger still clicks trailblaze(mid move) and dies, proving other points about trailblaze woger where it wont find a lot of opportunities to set up perfectly even against offense teams. FWIW that blonded guy still won comfortable despite the crit and their zama still put enough pressure on the opposing team.

I wouldn't exactly consider the third replay an entire misplay. it was more like the bhkg guy lost his only ghost resist in ting lu and his other mons were either walled by pecha or weak to shadow ball, so he really didn't have much of a choice but to try and switch in Pon and maybe respond with knock off. still maybe you're right on it not being entirely on woger since this is more on the guy letting hazards up and giving up his ghost resist to chip and tera.

In general, even if you did technically prove some points your overall argument on this post is weak, and there is better arguments where you can base your Woger ban opinions on over whatever this is.



Lastly, I do understand your sentiment on bulky balance teams being obnoxious and annoying to play against, I would argue it's more obnoxious than stall itself, but respectfully this ZapKingLu analogy needs to be dropped. it's not a good analogy and that core is barely even used nowadays.
A little more reading and a little less writing would have done some good. The reason I reference its offense matchup is it’s undisputed that it does incredibly, oppressively well in balance and fat matchups. The main anti-ban argument is that it’s bad into offense, which is not necessarily true. It has sets that do well into offense, though they do sacrifice some wallbreaking power. The point of bringing up trailblaze (and glide, though glide is niche) is, like I explicitly said, NOT that Woger can do it all with one set; rather, it is that Woger is not a mon you can consider unproblematic in the builder simply because you are running offense. It has the means to perform quite well into offense. I don’t know why you and others insist on saying “trailblaze isn’t worth mentioning, you lose a lot of breaking power with it” as though that was ever disputed.

“It takes significant chip from CC and gets revenge killed” it trades 1 for 1 with the Tusk in an ostensibly bad matchup. It didn’t need to be sacked to Pult either imo.

“It thudded into Zama and trailblaze did nothing, this shows you won’t get good setup opportunities” yes, if you make the decision to just trade your Woger for chip on the potentially massive threat that is this grassy seed Zama (which is again debatably a misplay given the Dnite and Moltres available to sponge hits and given how good Woger looks after Zama goes down), it should come as no surprise that you don’t get a good setup opportunity to show for it. Saying Trailblaze Woger struggles to setup against offense because a player made the decision to exchange it for chip according to their assessment of the situation is…just not the gotcha you think it is. Trailblaze was, however, the literal best grass coverage option to have if you make that play there as it allowed Woger to pick up *slightly* more chip by outspeeding next turn; the only better thing to have in that slot would have been Encore to try to lock it into IDef. It’s only a tiny improvement over power whip or horn leech, but it is objectively an improvement for the play chosen.

“bhkg lost his only ghost resist in Ting Lu” he let Glowking get incredibly low to get a sludge bomb on the volcanion instead of chillying to Tusk or Woger to drop it. Then Ting Lu had to sponge the Pech that Glowking would’ve easily sponged, and takes hazards. Then stays in on Lando’s eq (getting crit, granted) even though he has Corv, Tusk, and Woger all able to enter. Ting Lu also teras while low to take IVal hits that Glowking would’ve taken, though it could only do this for Pech or IVal, but either route would’ve led to a much healthier Ting Lu and tera saved. Corv also could’ve taken on IVal, though I am all for the caution taken with regard to scouting the set. Then Ting Lu gets sacked on the next IVal entry and Corv walls it, and Pech comes in on a roost; Glowking is at this point healthy enough to live 2 shadow balls and a turn of burn damage, so if it has anything at all in its toolkit to help shut down pech, now is a good time for it. Instead Woger is switched in. Bhkg would almost surely toast me in a match, I truly don’t mean any disrespect to them as a player, but I really don’t understand why this game was routed this way at all.

And again, I will emphasize, even though I’m exhausted of having to do so only for you not to read, these are all “bad matchups” for Woger according to the eye. Yet in one, Woger trades evenly, in another it takes out most of a Zama’s HP, and in the final I am just at a loss for why the game was played the way it was frankly. Even the first 2 games, while I am not dying on this hill, both Wogers were debatably misplayed.
 
Turning away from the verbose Ogre discussion, Rillaboom is having a fun resurgence. So many pokemon appreciate passive healing+reduced ground damage. Grassy Terrain can enable Zama, Ghold, Hatterene, Oger, Bolt, Heatran and many others. Even without a choice band, its ability to provide priority, knock, u-turn, Oger-W checking, and emergency breaking with wood hammer makes it pretty easy to build around. I think top players are just scratching the surface of G-terrain based sets. Grassy Seed Dnite, Gambit, and Ceruledge all seem like they have potential.
 
While seeing a resurgence of a few popular Pokemon from older gens like Heatran, Garchomp, and Tyranitar is kinda cool, I am not a fan of how so many regen mons have also seen a rise in usage. In addition to the usual Gking / Mola which are as common as ever, mons like Torn-T, Hydrapple, Pex and Amoongus, are giga annoying to face, esp if they are used together with Gweezing / Treads x Hat for anti hazard support. Torn-T is definetly the most annoying of them all since Taunt / U-Turn / Knock / Filler has somewhat limited counterplay long-term and its difficult for defensive teams / pokemon to deal with. AV is also pretty crazy - I've seen many battles where this mon is able to use its incredible speed to knock off breaker's items and survive some crazy strong attacks like Kyurem's Blizzard and come back to full later in the match. Specs is also pretty solid as a breaker.

At the very least, these regen mons have a bit more counterplay here than UU, with strong Ice attackers like Weav / Meow destroying Hydrapple / Torn-T. Also I find that a lot of the defensive cores these regen cores use are a bit fake so their teams can get crushed by Gambit / Dnite if those are played well.

Also, the one annoying part about building around shiest mons like Garchomp, Heatran, Iron Hands, Keldeo, Meowscarada, and a few others is that most of them are fairy weak (specifically to Iron Valiant / Enamorus) so you have to run a few of the same options to address that like Moltres, Gking, Ghold and Corv. Overlapping weaknesses with other top tiers like Tusk is also annoying to account for, esp if you run a non boots item.
 
A little more reading and a little less writing would have done some good. The reason I reference its offense matchup is it’s undisputed that it does incredibly, oppressively well in balance and fat matchups. The main anti-ban argument is that it’s bad into offense, which is not necessarily true. It has sets that do well into offense, though they do sacrifice some wallbreaking power. The point of bringing up trailblaze (and glide, though glide is niche) is, like I explicitly said, NOT that Woger can do it all with one set; rather, it is that Woger is not a mon you can consider unproblematic in the builder simply because you are running offense. It has the means to perform quite well into offense. I don’t know why you and others insist on saying “trailblaze isn’t worth mentioning, you lose a lot of breaking power with it” as though that was ever disputed.

“It takes significant chip from CC and gets revenge killed” it trades 1 for 1 with the Tusk in an ostensibly bad matchup. It didn’t need to be sacked to Pult either imo.

“It thudded into Zama and trailblaze did nothing, this shows you won’t get good setup opportunities” yes, if you make the decision to just trade your Woger for chip on the potentially massive threat that is this grassy seed Zama (which is again debatably a misplay given the Dnite and Moltres available to sponge hits and given how good Woger looks after Zama goes down), it should come as no surprise that you don’t get a good setup opportunity to show for it. Saying Trailblaze Woger struggles to setup against offense because a player made the decision to exchange it for chip according to their assessment of the situation is…just not the gotcha you think it is. Trailblaze was, however, the literal best grass coverage option to have if you make that play there as it allowed Woger to pick up *slightly* more chip by outspeeding next turn; the only better thing to have in that slot would have been Encore to try to lock it into IDef. It’s only a tiny improvement over power whip or horn leech, but it is objectively an improvement for the play chosen.

“bhkg lost his only ghost resist in Ting Lu” he let Glowking get incredibly low to get a sludge bomb on the volcanion instead of chillying to Tusk or Woger to drop it. Then Ting Lu had to sponge the Pech that Glowking would’ve easily sponged, and takes hazards. Then stays in on Lando’s eq (getting crit, granted) even though he has Corv, Tusk, and Woger all able to enter. Ting Lu also teras while low to take IVal hits that Glowking would’ve taken, though it could only do this for Pech or IVal, but either route would’ve led to a much healthier Ting Lu and tera saved. Corv also could’ve taken on IVal, though I am all for the caution taken with regard to scouting the set. Then Ting Lu gets sacked on the next IVal entry and Corv walls it, and Pech comes in on a roost; Glowking is at this point healthy enough to live 2 shadow balls and a turn of burn damage, so if it has anything at all in its toolkit to help shut down pech, now is a good time for it. Instead Woger is switched in. Bhkg would almost surely toast me in a match, I truly don’t mean any disrespect to them as a player, but I really don’t understand why this game was routed this way at all.

And again, I will emphasize, even though I’m exhausted of having to do so only for you not to read, these are all “bad matchups” for Woger according to the eye. Yet in one, Woger trades evenly, in another it takes out most of a Zama’s HP, and in the final I am just at a loss for why the game was played the way it was frankly. Even the first 2 games, while I am not dying on this hill, both Wogers were debatably misplayed.
i'm pretty sure I read your argument when I was responding to you. you're arguing that woger is not bad into offence and has some sets that do "well" into offence and the main set you're basing your argument around is trailblaze, which again not that good of a set in the first place. my points on your argument being weak in general still stand.

A little more reading and a little less writing would have done some good. The reason I reference its offense matchup is it’s undisputed that it does incredibly, oppressively well in balance and fat matchups. The main anti-ban argument is that it’s bad into offense, which is not necessarily true. It has sets that do well into offense, though they do sacrifice some wallbreaking power. The point of bringing up trailblaze (and glide, though glide is niche) is, like I explicitly said, NOT that Woger can do it all with one set; rather, it is that Woger is not a mon you can consider unproblematic in the builder simply because you are running offense. It has the means to perform quite well into offense. I don’t know why you and others insist on saying “trailblaze isn’t worth mentioning, you lose a lot of breaking power with it” as though that was ever disputed.
again, trailblaze pon isn't that good into offence as your making out to be and most of the time Woger doesn't perform the best into offence. also all builds view woger as a threat. Nobody goes in the builder not considering Woger a problem they have to account for so your statement on not considering it umproblematic doesn't make much sense. Offence uses proactive playing to gain the advantage on woger teams anyways+they do have decent midground checks like :zamazenta:, etc.

and again, you're pretty much saying the same stuff you said last post that I literally spent an entire paragraph trying to dispute.
Screenshot 2025-09-26 4.03.59 PM.png



If you think a whole :ogerpon-wellspring: under screens for a :great tusk: that wasn't really needed at that point of the match was a good trade for Woger, idk what to say at this point. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873595 you say he didn't need to sack Woger to :dragapult: but literally had nothing else that can take pult on directly.

again on the second replay, had that cudgel crit happened any other turn than the switchin, it's influnce would have not been much in this match. sure it probably could have switched out after that fortunate crit and swap out to a moltres or something but even then he still won comfortably and woger wasn't even that free considering there was a whole healthy rilla in the back and a curse garg(that could have terad had that unfort not happened, but still it won the game comfortably after the opposing zama went down). https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873178?p2

on the third replay though I will probably agree it was more on the fact that the guy was selling his defensive pieces than wogerpon doing poorly in general. idk why the guy let :ting lu: take all those unneccesary hits and burn a tera to tank :iron valiant: when he had corv & gking. that specific woger play though he didn't really have much of a choice since he straight up loss to pecha at that point. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-872674

but nonetheless, these three replays that you claimed "proved your point" that Woger makes "significant" progress against offence teams when these replays show the exact opposite of that. at best woger got a fortunate crit on a crucial switch in which slightly made a match more annoying. This is why I was calling your argument weak in the first place because why would you base your stance on this when there is better angles to argue at. At point though it's whatever.

Side note: sorry guys I know some said to move on from this annoying debate, but still I had this post in the drafts already and I wasn't planning on letting it slide anyways since he claimed I wasn't reading his argument (even though I was breaking down his points) and frankly, he spent a lot of posts making snarky remarks about my arguments then responding with stuff that didn't make sense but it's whatever I will move on from this :ogerpon-wellspring: topic for now.

Turning away from the verbose Ogre discussion, Rillaboom is having a fun resurgence. So many pokemon appreciate passive healing+reduced ground damage. Grassy Terrain can enable Zama, Ghold, Hatterene, Oger, Bolt, Heatran and many others. Even without a choice band, its ability to provide priority, knock, u-turn, Oger-W checking, and emergency breaking with wood hammer makes it pretty easy to build around. I think top players are just scratching the surface of G-terrain based sets. Grassy Seed Dnite, Gambit, and Ceruledge all seem like they have potential.
Rillaboom & grassy terrain Is a thing I been experimenting a lot with lately. grassy terrain does have a lot of benefits as you say giving free healing to all your pokemon which set up sweepers would like. it's essentially a leftovers but its not taking up your item spot. I remember trying some more unorthodox grassy terrain sweepers like :decidueye-hisui:

Decidueye-Hisui @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Scrappy
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD / 232 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Triple Arrows
- Trailblaze
- Swords Dance
- Substitute

I forgor why I put 16hp and 8spdef on there but the speed is there outspeed woger after 2 trailblazes. I really want to run adament but this mon is so slow that it needs that much speed invest just to outspeed a 350 speed mon after two trailblazes. but then, this set is really outdated and was barely a concept of a Hisidueye that I only played some ladder matches with. Still I think this mon have some potentially and I will probably fix up this set. initially building this set I kinda overlooked the fact that it had access to grassy glide, so I will try that over trailblaze and maybe try rock tomb to hit the fires like :moltres: over subsitute. this mon kinda blanks into :pecharunt: without ghost coverage though, so maybe shadow sneak/poltergeist can work here idk. If you have any thoughts on this mon^ let me know.

in general though rillaboom was really annoying to play against during OLT. not the fact that it was hard to counter or switch into but moreso the fact that it enabled its teammates very well and lived longer than you wanted it to live. FWIW though xav's rillaboom sand team was cool(even though it was annoyingly good).
 
Since Woger has been the talk of the town of this thread for a bit I just wanna bring smth up.

Unironically most of the ppl who say Woger is broken bring up it killing rain’s viability as a major point on why. Look, even I hate woger but, hot take, it killing rain’s viability is a healthier aspect of it.
Let me explain,

By it killing rain’s viability I don’t exactly mean rain’s usage, I mean it indirectly acts as a barraskewda check.
Barraskewda being a mon with 123 base attack, frequently running max attack adamant being in rain spamming Tera water liquidations and flip turn isn’t exactly fun to face either, and if it weren’t for Woger I can guarantee you a portion of the community would be complaining about it. Either way, the ou playerbase sure loves to complain so it doesn’t matter.

I wouldn’t call barra broken in a Woger less metagame but it’ll absolutely be annoying as fuck, especially when you’re building and testing teams, you’re absolutely more likely to forget to account for it.
As well we have mons like raging bolt which gets 3 shot by band Tera water rain liquidations to thunderclap OHKO, pult which can take one hit and wisp, mola and dozo which can practically switch into barra indefinitely, pecharunt, zama and corv (same IronPress), strong priority like gambit sucker punches or rilla’s glide and mons like prima which can ohko with Moonblast and take at least one hit.

As well notice my wording, “it killing rain is probably a *healtheir aspect* of it”, I wasn’t directly implying it was healthy, I was stating it’s not as bad as the other things Woger has.

Anyways uhh, i’m bad at writing conclusions soooo, thank you for reading, sorry if it felt like you wasted your time, have a great day going forward!
 
and if it weren’t for Woger I can guarantee you a portion of the community would be complaining about it. Either way, the ou playerbase sure loves to complain so it doesn’t matter.

No one was complaining even before Wellspring was around so this completely falls on its face. Rain has far more issues than just Wellspring. If it was just one pokemon, it’d be easy to tech a slot specifically to taking advantage of or beating it, and there are multiple choices for this (whether raging bolt or specs TornadusT).
 
i'm pretty sure I read your argument when I was responding to you. you're arguing that woger is not bad into offence and has some sets that do "well" into offence and the main set you're basing your argument around is trailblaze, which again not that good of a set in the first place. my points on your argument being weak in general still stand.


again, trailblaze pon isn't that good into offence as your making out to be and most of the time Woger doesn't perform the best into offence. also all builds view woger as a threat. Nobody goes in the builder not considering Woger a problem they have to account for so your statement on not considering it umproblematic doesn't make much sense. Offence uses proactive playing to gain the advantage on woger teams anyways+they do have decent midground checks like :zamazenta:, etc.

and again, you're pretty much saying the same stuff you said last post that I literally spent an entire paragraph trying to dispute.
View attachment 774024


If you think a whole :ogerpon-wellspring: under screens for a :great tusk: that wasn't really needed at that point of the match was a good trade for Woger, idk what to say at this point. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873595 you say he didn't need to sack Woger to :dragapult: but literally had nothing else that can take pult on directly.

again on the second replay, had that cudgel crit happened any other turn than the switchin, it's influnce would have not been much in this match. sure it probably could have switched out after that fortunate crit and swap out to a moltres or something but even then he still won comfortably and woger wasn't even that free considering there was a whole healthy rilla in the back and a curse garg(that could have terad had that unfort not happened, but still it won the game comfortably after the opposing zama went down). https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-873178?p2

on the third replay though I will probably agree it was more on the fact that the guy was selling his defensive pieces than wogerpon doing poorly in general. idk why the guy let :ting lu: take all those unneccesary hits and burn a tera to tank :iron valiant: when he had corv & gking. that specific woger play though he didn't really have much of a choice since he straight up loss to pecha at that point. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-872674

but nonetheless, these three replays that you claimed "proved your point" that Woger makes "significant" progress against offence teams when these replays show the exact opposite of that. at best woger got a fortunate crit on a crucial switch in which slightly made a match more annoying. This is why I was calling your argument weak in the first place because why would you base your stance on this when there is better angles to argue at. At point though it's whatever.

Side note: sorry guys I know some said to move on from this annoying debate, but still I had this post in the drafts already and I wasn't planning on letting it slide anyways since he claimed I wasn't reading his argument (even though I was breaking down his points) and frankly, he spent a lot of posts making snarky remarks about my arguments then responding with stuff that didn't make sense but it's whatever I will move on from this :ogerpon-wellspring: topic for now.


Rillaboom & grassy terrain Is a thing I been experimenting a lot with lately. grassy terrain does have a lot of benefits as you say giving free healing to all your pokemon which set up sweepers would like. it's essentially a leftovers but its not taking up your item spot. I remember trying some more unorthodox grassy terrain sweepers like :decidueye-hisui:

Decidueye-Hisui @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Scrappy
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD / 232 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Triple Arrows
- Trailblaze
- Swords Dance
- Substitute

I forgor why I put 16hp and 8spdef on there but the speed is there outspeed woger after 2 trailblazes. I really want to run adament but this mon is so slow that it needs that much speed invest just to outspeed a 350 speed mon after two trailblazes. but then, this set is really outdated and was barely a concept of a Hisidueye that I only played some ladder matches with. Still I think this mon have some potentially and I will probably fix up this set. initially building this set I kinda overlooked the fact that it had access to grassy glide, so I will try that over trailblaze and maybe try rock tomb to hit the fires like :moltres: over subsitute. this mon kinda blanks into :pecharunt: without ghost coverage though, so maybe shadow sneak/poltergeist can work here idk. If you have any thoughts on this mon^ let me know.

in general though rillaboom was really annoying to play against during OLT. not the fact that it was hard to counter or switch into but moreso the fact that it enabled its teammates very well and lived longer than you wanted it to live. FWIW though xav's rillaboom sand team was cool(even though it was annoyingly good).
Is trailblaze Woger good into offense? If so, your assessment of the set overall is irrelevant (though I’d add it had quite the tournament surge for a reason, it is in fact a good set, but again, irrelevant). It just needs to be good into offense to support the claim I made.

Also, might I remind you, I did not pick out these three replays. These replays were meant to showcase Woger doing poorly. The fact that it did okay—not fantastic, but okay within the contrived sample of games in which it was supposed to do poorly, even with misplays (I would argue Ceruledge or Ival is the better sac to the Pult btw, Woger resists bullet punch and blows up Glowking, and Pult revenge kills but cannot switch into it well so Woger likely claims another kill)—is in fact a point in favor of Woger.

And “you're pretty much saying the same stuff you said last post that I literally spent an entire paragraph trying to dispute” I repeated myself because you don’t listen. You did not do a good job of disputing my point, just because you tried doesn’t mean you succeeded.

ANYWAY

Yes, Rilla is good. I think its biggest problem in a supporting role is not its passivity into birds and pech and such, but rather that grassy terrain is so generalized in its value that it’s hard to make a team that appreciates grassy terrain by enough more than the opposing team to compensate for the use of Rilla over an otherwise better support mon (of which there are many, in a hypothetical version of Rilla where GT ends on switch-out it obviously becomes a terrible support pokemon even if its breaking capabilities remain untouched). That said, builders have worked hard on managing this with LO Zama and Heatran and such—LO Zama in particular becomes an absolute monster in GT.

Still, LO SD is in my opinion the best set on Rilla right now. I have talked some in the OU Underdogs thread about Jolly LO SD Rilla with tera blast rock and why I believe this set to be very good in the current meta, and the classic glide/hammer/knock/SD with tera grass or dark is quite potent at overwhelming its usual checks as well. Band Rilla’s problems with breaking birds and pech without having to predict correctly repeatedly are only partially resolved by SD sets, where +2 knock with tera OHKOs max defense pech (and max hp max speed pech is OHKO’d without tera, though it outspeeds you), but SDing as a slower mon switches out is SO much of an improvement over committing to the switch you want to hit, letting you threaten slow switch-ins with +2 wood hammer, knock, or a tera blast and fast ones with +2 glide, while LO glide is almost as strong as band glide for revenge killing. Additionally some faster frail mons die on switch-in to LO hammer into glide, but not band glide; this includes Cinderace, Ceruledge, and Dragapult, and I have to imagine there are others but I don’t feel like checking exhaustively. It’s just much better set up to break than band imo, and while you can’t build full GT around it, you can certainly exploit GT beneficiaries alongside LO Rilla.

As far as other sets I believe have earned a shout right now, I’d like to give mention to TB Ghost Enamorus—scarf/specs/LO/boots with moonblast, earth power, tblast, and hwish/superpower is quite nice into the current meta. Part of enam’s struggle is a lack of a good midground click against teams with Glowking, Corv, Moltres, and even bulky Ghold/Sciz/Crown; even without considering Enam, teams simply have to have fairy resists/moonblast switch-ins to have any shot against Ival, among others. Ghost resists are generally a lot thinner in supply than fairy resists, and the most common ones are dark types that get blown up by moonblast anyway. TB ghost has simply insane neutral coverage that helps Enam to circumvent some of its heavy prediction reliance quite nicely.
 
Is trailblaze Woger good into offense? If so, your assessment of the set overall is irrelevant (though I’d add it had quite the tournament surge for a reason, it is in fact a good set, but again, irrelevant). It just needs to be good into offense to support the claim I made.
You can’t just dismiss a set’s flaws completely to say “Waterpon does well into offense”, considering running double Grass moves gets you hard walled by a significant portion of the metagame.
 
You can’t just dismiss a set’s flaws completely to say “Waterpon does well into offense”, considering running double Grass moves gets you hard walled by a significant portion of the metagame.
1) no one runs double grass move with trailblaze, it’s SD, cudgel, trailblaze, and play rough/knock/synthesis

2) when the point is “Woger can tech for offense (with concessions in other matchups)” its other matchups are, in fact, irrelevant to that point. I am BEGGING for basic reading comprehension.
 
Since Woger has been the talk of the town of this thread for a bit I just wanna bring smth up.

Unironically most of the ppl who say Woger is broken bring up it killing rain’s viability as a major point on why. Look, even I hate woger but, hot take, it killing rain’s viability is a healthier aspect of it.
Let me explain,

By it killing rain’s viability I don’t exactly mean rain’s usage, I mean it indirectly acts as a barraskewda check.
Barraskewda being a mon with 123 base attack, frequently running max attack adamant being in rain spamming Tera water liquidations and flip turn isn’t exactly fun to face either, and if it weren’t for Woger I can guarantee you a portion of the community would be complaining about it. Either way, the ou playerbase sure loves to complain so it doesn’t matter.

I wouldn’t call barra broken in a Woger less metagame but it’ll absolutely be annoying as fuck, especially when you’re building and testing teams, you’re absolutely more likely to forget to account for it.
As well we have mons like raging bolt which gets 3 shot by band Tera water rain liquidations to thunderclap OHKO, pult which can take one hit and wisp, mola and dozo which can practically switch into barra indefinitely, pecharunt, zama and corv (same IronPress), strong priority like gambit sucker punches or rilla’s glide and mons like prima which can ohko with Moonblast and take at least one hit.

As well notice my wording, “it killing rain is probably a *healtheir aspect* of it”, I wasn’t directly implying it was healthy, I was stating it’s not as bad as the other things Woger has.

Anyways uhh, i’m bad at writing conclusions soooo, thank you for reading, sorry if it felt like you wasted your time, have a great day going forward!
ok so i had to double-check because i don't remember anyone voicing that particular complaint against waterpon, and it looks like almost nobody is saying that. the last time someone mentioned rain at all in this thread was two and a half weeks ago, with no mention of waterpon. the last time someone mentioned waterpon weakening rain teams was in the middle of july, and the last time before that was 2 mentions in may when the latest (i think it was the latest? i wasn't paying much attention) survey came out. i found a handful of mentions of it in some of the cords, but a lot of those mentions were in a positive light, saying it was one of the only healthy things waterpon does, that sort of thing. actual complaints about the rain-killing aspect of waterpon are few and far between

i also think that rain is dealing with a lot more problems than just waterpon, and a waterpon ban would just shift rain from "completely unviable" to "niche at best", kind of like what the annihilape ban did for stall at the time
 
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Since Woger has been the talk of the town of this thread for a bit I just wanna bring smth up.

Unironically most of the ppl who say Woger is broken bring up it killing rain’s viability as a major point on why. Look, even I hate woger but, hot take, it killing rain’s viability is a healthier aspect of it.
Let me explain,

By it killing rain’s viability I don’t exactly mean rain’s usage, I mean it indirectly acts as a barraskewda check.
Barraskewda being a mon with 123 base attack, frequently running max attack adamant being in rain spamming Tera water liquidations and flip turn isn’t exactly fun to face either, and if it weren’t for Woger I can guarantee you a portion of the community would be complaining about it. Either way, the ou playerbase sure loves to complain so it doesn’t matter.

I wouldn’t call barra broken in a Woger less metagame but it’ll absolutely be annoying as fuck, especially when you’re building and testing teams, you’re absolutely more likely to forget to account for it.
As well we have mons like raging bolt which gets 3 shot by band Tera water rain liquidations to thunderclap OHKO, pult which can take one hit and wisp, mola and dozo which can practically switch into barra indefinitely, pecharunt, zama and corv (same IronPress), strong priority like gambit sucker punches or rilla’s glide and mons like prima which can ohko with Moonblast and take at least one hit.

As well notice my wording, “it killing rain is probably a *healtheir aspect* of it”, I wasn’t directly implying it was healthy, I was stating it’s not as bad as the other things Woger has.

Anyways uhh, i’m bad at writing conclusions soooo, thank you for reading, sorry if it felt like you wasted your time, have a great day going forward!
I hard disagree with this, I'm not fully convinced woger is necessarily overpowered but the fact that rain would be super balanced with it gone definitely tips me towards the pro ban side. You already mentioned how many other rain checks exist in the metagame, although I'd also include Hydrapple, Sinistcha, and Grasspon in the list of checks, and also tera means that literally any mon can be a water resist, including Tusk or Lando. I'm not sure how you think rain would be anywhere near dominant, let alone a problem, in a metagame with all these mons around. Rain still struggles in a metagame with all of these mons gone, but IMO it struggles in a much more dynamic way where you're trying to cover for a wide variety of threats (including literally any bulky mon with a potential water/dragon tera), rather than focusing the entire team around dealing with waterpon.
 
I hard disagree with this, I'm not fully convinced woger is necessarily overpowered but the fact that rain would be super balanced with it gone definitely tips me towards the pro ban side. You already mentioned how many other rain checks exist in the metagame, although I'd also include Hydrapple, Sinistcha, and Grasspon in the list of checks, and also tera means that literally any mon can be a water resist, including Tusk or Lando. I'm not sure how you think rain would be anywhere near dominant, let alone a problem, in a metagame with all these mons around. Rain still struggles in a metagame with all of these mons gone, but IMO it struggles in a much more dynamic way where you're trying to cover for a wide variety of threats (including literally any bulky mon with a potential water/dragon tera), rather than focusing the entire team around dealing with waterpon.
I wasn’t saying rain would be dominant, I was saying it would certainly be better as well I was only bringing up barraskewda checks

The likes of rilla, bolt and mons like idk, wake are still massive problems for rain in a wogerLess meta.

But yeah I forgot about hydra, sinistcha and grasspon.

DaddyBuzzwole I’m mentioning you in this post as I think making a seperate post would be redundant.
2 seperate 20 word long posts rather than 1 40 word long post doesn’t really fit me.

Idk a lot of ppl I’ve met bring that up a good amount of the time during “is woger broken” discussions
But once again, I was implying rain would be in a better state, not dominant or annything, and the main annoyance would be in the builder when you forget to account for it.
 
here's a set you guys need to try:

Ogerpon-Wellspring (F) @ Wellspring Mask
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Atk / 136 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Ivy Cudgel
- Knock Off
- Spikes
- Synthesis

I just played a game in 1900s where I kid you not, this managed to break through a defensive dnite, zapdos, and zama in one game. Some of the hits this can live are genuinely disturbing lmao

252 Atk Choice Band Zamazenta Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 322-379 (88.4 - 104.1%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Ogerpon-Wellspring: 273-322 (75 - 88.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Dragapult Dragon Darts (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 270-318 (74.1 - 87.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Tera Ghost Dragapult Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 286-338 (78.5 - 92.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Fairy Enamorus Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Ogerpon-Wellspring: 328-388 (90.1 - 106.5%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2451106951
 
I noticed that Ting-Lu rose to S tier. Is it a coincidence that both offensive Ruinous Pokemon (Chi-Yu, Chien-Pao) were banned and both defensive Ruinous Pokemon are legal in OU? And Wo-Chien is not even OU. Why is it that Pokemon that are banned tend to be offensive?
 
I noticed that Ting-Lu rose to S tier. Is it a coincidence that both offensive Ruinous Pokemon (Chi-Yu, Chien-Pao) were banned and both defensive Ruinous Pokemon are legal in OU? And Wo-Chien is not even OU. Why is it that Pokemon that are banned tend to be offensive?

Traditionally offensive Mons are harder to stop than defensive Mons are to break. In this specific example, both Chien Pao and Chi Yu have good offensive STABs that are easy to spam, on top of massive power. Chi Yu also benefits from Sun to be even stronger, while Chien Pao outspeeds almost the whole meta and has priority for the few faster Mons.

Meanwhile, Ting Lu (who I think is massively overrated and shouldn,t be S btw) has 6 weaknesses and no recovery outside of Rest. Wo Chien is even worse, with 7 weaknesses and only Knock Off (which to be fair is very good) to make real progress. Both are still viable Mons, but neither is even close to break the meta.
 
here's a set you guys need to try:

Ogerpon-Wellspring (F) @ Wellspring Mask
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Atk / 136 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Ivy Cudgel
- Knock Off
- Spikes
- Synthesis

I just played a game in 1900s where I kid you not, this managed to break through a defensive dnite, zapdos, and zama in one game. Some of the hits this can live are genuinely disturbing lmao

252 Atk Choice Band Zamazenta Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 322-379 (88.4 - 104.1%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Ogerpon-Wellspring: 273-322 (75 - 88.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Dragapult Dragon Darts (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 270-318 (74.1 - 87.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Tera Ghost Dragapult Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 286-338 (78.5 - 92.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Fairy Enamorus Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Ogerpon-Wellspring: 328-388 (90.1 - 106.5%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2451106951
that set put in tons of work but I do want to acknowledge that (respectfully) your opponent seemed allergic to making plays. why did they self chip their Dragonite so much with useless d tails. why were no spikes gotten up. where was Zapdos on every obvious Corv switch (instead of clicking e speed and d tail into a helmet Corv!!). how did Ghold Tera manage to do absolutely nothing.

props to you for the set and for putting in work but good lord that replay was hard to watch.
 
Traditionally offensive Mons are harder to stop than defensive Mons are to break.

Can you go into more detail? Your examples seem to imply that it was happenstance that ChienPao and Chi-Yu have good offensive typings, while Ting-Lu and Wo-Chien have poor defensive typings. Is it generally the case that types are worse defensively than offensively?
 
Can you go into more detail? Your examples seem to imply that it was happenstance that ChienPao and Chi-Yu have good offensive typings, while Ting-Lu and Wo-Chien have poor defensive typings. Is it generally the case that types are worse defensively than offensively?

We are well past Gen 2 and 3. Nowadays, there are almost no offensive Mon with movepool problems. Therefore, almost any Mon walled by Ting-Lu can adapt to it. Gholdengo has Focus Blast and Dazzling Gleam. Darkrai has 3 different super effective moves + Wow to cripple it. Deoxys-S has Superpower or NP + Focus Blast (though I wouldn,t risk it with Ting-Lu set unrevealed, Payback is a thing). Raging Bolt simply launches Specs (Tera, but not really needed) Dragon Draco Meteor. Etc. This is all even without mentioning Tera Blast, which makes it even easier.

Meanwhile, its harder to adapt for an offensive Mon that 2HKOs almost the whole meta. You can use Poliwrath or Paldean Tauros vs Chien Pao, sure (and I actually did it when the cat was legal and even without it), but they are way harder to fit in teams than just putting a Specs on your Raging Bolt.
 
Nowadays, there are almost no offensive Mon with movepool problems.
This definitely is not true. There are plenty of Pokemon with lacking movepools even in this tier. Raging Bolt for example has a shallow overall movepool for example and relies on brute strength mostly. Or Dondozo which has a deceptively small pool of useful moves.

Also side note specs bolt mid af don’t know why you mentioned it when talking about ting lu

while Ting-Lu and Wo-Chien have poor defensive typings.

It’s also just not true that Lu has a poor defensive typing. It has some really nice resists and immunities (future sight immune, electric immune, dark resist, rock resist, tons of useful neutralities).

As a whole, offensive pokemon are geared towards dealing damage and winning faster and so they’re more likely to end up broken when they lean too far in that direction. Whether they do too much damage too quickly (chi yu and chien pao) or they are able to boost and reach a state of being too difficult to answer reasonably (Gouging Fire, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon).

Defensive threats have a much tougher time being unbalanced due to their nature of slower paced gameplay, and lesser damage output. So for them it would be less of damage, and more “is this defensive pokemon unreasonably hard to break through? Do they force excessive levels of specificity when preparing to handle it?” and even their ability to control certain aspects of the meta (example like Teal Mask Gliscor which dominated the hazard game). These dynamics can limit team building and be unhealthy if the conditions needed to handle them are such.

In practice these situations regarding broken defensive pokemon don’t come up nearly as often, because there just often is more counterplay overall to defensive play as opposed to offensive play, due to the slower nature and the fact that there tends to be more offensive tools overall.
 
^Non Specs Bolt surely has movepool problems (I like Tera Blast, but it's a big commitment), but Specs one definitely doesn't need more Moves except Stabs, very few Mons switch on it.
Also, I wouldn't call Dondozo an offensive Mon, it can use Curse, but rarely sweeps with it, it's main use, Curse or not, is still walling things
 
that set put in tons of work but I do want to acknowledge that (respectfully) your opponent seemed allergic to making plays. why did they self chip their Dragonite so much with useless d tails. why were no spikes gotten up. where was Zapdos on every obvious Corv switch (instead of clicking e speed and d tail into a helmet Corv!!). how did Ghold Tera manage to do absolutely nothing.

props to you for the set and for putting in work but good lord that replay was hard to watch.
Yeah you aren't wrong, but thats also not the point lol. The replay linked is to showcase the set and its capability of breaking through usual checks (also my lu had rest, so the zapdos coming in wasn't the end of the world). I'll see if I can find any other good replays
 
I noticed that Ting-Lu rose to S tier. Is it a coincidence that both offensive Ruinous Pokemon (Chi-Yu, Chien-Pao) were banned and both defensive Ruinous Pokemon are legal in OU? And Wo-Chien is not even OU. Why is it that Pokemon that are banned tend to be offensive?
Every non-boxart Pokemon that's been banned this Generation has been an offensive force for varying reasons. They hit too hard and they're too fast, it's too easy for them to find free turns and run away with the game after that, they can pick and choose what they lose to. They are immediately threatening and are just too good at blowing teams open.
Defensive threats by comparison boil down to either how well they do their job or how difficult they are to kill. Forgive me and point out if I'm wrong, but I'll be referring to Pre-Gen 9 Defense Deoxys and Pre-Isle of Armor Toxapex. To my knowledge;
Defense Deoxys was good at building up and keeping up Spikes. Its Speed tier of 90 was really good for what it did and Taunt enabled it to completely block Defog.
Toxapex was just toxic plain and simple. It was so cartoonishly bulky it could stay in on pretty much any unboosted Earthquakes and fish for a Scald burn all while being nigh unkillable thanks to Regenerator. I believe there was discussion for it before Isle of Armor dropped, around the time Dracovish got banned?
It's simply so much easier for offensive threats to snap the metagame in half like a twig and win when you have 4 Pokemon left vs a defensive Pokemon constricting the metagame around it and being too hard to kill.
 
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