Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [ survey results -- see post 21,221 ]

Webs

Been playing webs a lot for a while now, I think they are pretty fun and they can do well into most if not all playstyles. Peaked #2 tons of times but at last could not make it with only webs. Still really love them and wanted to share some thoughts.

I feel standard structures currently struggle with a lot, and it often feels like teams are built accepting to lose to one or more common playstyles. Blimax 6 like teams can be really rough, as Cinderace can Court Change, and Dondozo + Rest Ting-Lu will blanket check most attackers, on top of Sub Kyurem being really hard for Araquanid teams. Choice Specs Tera Fairy Enamorus is often not good enough counterplay against Cinderace teams as many of them have Galarian Slowking, and even Tera Ground variants of Choice Specs can fall flat. Hatterene is everywhere and Assault Vest variants may be content trading with Araquanid. With that in mind, here are a few teams I have been trying:

:Araquanid::Latias::Dragonite::Great Tusk::Gholdengo::Samurott-Hisui: - Latias + Scale Shot Dragonite Webs
I have had the other non Latias Pokemon for a while. Hisuian Samurott is a Dark resist + Ghost resist + entry hazards in one slot, and a bit of a Water resist, and with Aqua Jet it can OHKO Cinderace after a Swords Dance, so that is one less Pokemon that has to play mindgames around it. Dragonite was Tera Blast Flying + Extreme Speed for a while, as that set does fairly well into Sun and Lokix + Enamorus teams; however, it would struggle a lot against Corviknight which was already not great with Bulk Up Great Tusk on the team. I gave up on this structure for a while cause no 6th was fitting well; Latias however made me revisit the idea. You may have seen Latias on this game at WCoP. What I found it to do, is be an amazing fix against most teams that usually do well against webs: It nearly autowins against Blimax 6 like teams, does well against Enamorus + Lokix teams, Sun, and Boots Zamazenta BOs. Latias is kind of clunky cause it loses some momentum and does not seem to fit well on webs at first, yet it offers a Water resist, Ground immunity, a check to Raging Bolt and Sub Kyurem, and Webs allows it to run Recover over Agility mor easily, and since it does not need to rely on Draining Kiss for recovery, it can run Tera Poison and Aura Sphere. its good matchup against above teams means that Dragonite is free to run Scale Shot + Fire Punch, which is much better against Corviknight Balances. Very happy with this team though it is the weakest webs team as it lacks instant power.

:Araquanid::Iron Valiant::Ceruledge::Glimmora::Great Tusk::Darkrai: - Darkrai + Tera Blast Ground Iron Valiant Webs
:Araquanid::Latias::Ceruledge::Glimmora::Great Tusk::Darkrai: - Darkrai + Latias Webs
The idea of these teams are to avoid pressure from Cinderace by only using Pokemon that heavily punish it for using Court Chance. Darkrai in particular is awesome in webs, as it offers Speed, notably being faster than Cinderace, is a Ghost + Dark resist, and with this set it improves the team's matchup against stall, which you need on a different slot when not running Gholdengo. I think Iron Valiant fits better here as it also outspeeds Cinderace, though that version lacks a Water resist, which means that Rain is nearly an auto loss. The Latias variant in contrast lacks a Dragon resist.

:Araquanid:
In the teams I had 252 HP / 4 Atk / 204 Def / 48 SpA with a Relaxed nature and 28 Speed IVs. With these EVs, Araquanid always OHKOs bulkless Iron Treads, 2HKOs Ogerpon-W with Lunge, and underspeeds Garganacl and Toxapex, allowing Araquanid to Endeavor them while they try to Recover and let Araquanid faint to Salt Cure or Toxic chip. Ribombee's Skill Swap is still far too inconsistent for me still, and with bulk Araquanid can function mid game to check Pokemon like Great Tusk, Cinderace, and Ceruledge. Big fan of Mental Herb, though Custap is always fine, and Red Card can be annoying and lets Araquanid set up Webs as faster Hatterenes attack it and are forced out.

:Iron Valiant::Iron Moth:
Webs have been running Speed Booster Energy on these Pokemon fairly often, do not get surprised if you see them.

:Enamorus:
I still like Choice Specs but really like other variants like Sub Life Orb, Calm Mind, and I know a few Superpower variants were doing fine on ladder. All of these I feel do much better against Cinderace teams beyond Cinderace

:Darkrai::Latias:
Both good mons that have now performed on multiple webs. Storm used a different Darkrai set here. Hope you give them a try!

:Glimmora:
Glimmora being great right now is awesome, as it gives webs another option for Stealth Rock setter and/or removal, and with Power Herb it is another option for a Poison-type (Toxic Spikes absorber) with instant power, other than just Iron Moth.
 
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Setsu said:
:Glimmora:
Glimmora being great right now is awesome, as it gives webs another option for Stealth Rock setter and/or removal, and with Power Herb it is another option for a Poison-type (Toxic Spikes absorber) with instant power, other than just Iron Moth.
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Gonna be honest, Glimmora is really good- I've been using a hazard stack team with Hex Ghold (Legit Glim and Ghold are insanely OP) and araquanid for webs


Glimmora @ Focus Sash
Ability: Toxic Debris
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Power Gem
- Earth Power

Gholdengo @ Life Orb
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Make It Rain
- Hex
- Thunder Wave
- Nasty Plot

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Protect
- Swords Dance
- Facade
- Earthquake

Arcanine-Hisui @ Choice Band
Ability: Rock Head
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Head Smash
- Wild Charge
- Extreme Speed

Araquanid @ Custap Berry
Ability: Water Bubble
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Sticky Web
- Liquidation
- Leech Life
- Endeavor

Hydrapple @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
- Energy Ball
- Fickle Beam
- Earth Power
- Dragon Tail

Idk the viability of all of these sets, but I've stuck to what I know works (at the cost of looking interesting)
I'm unsure about what Gholds tera should be (in stuck between water for fire types and flying for tusk, who it has a weird matchup against) however so if anyone has recommendations I'd love to hear them!
 
I want to talk about some mons that have really caught my attention rn

:darkrai: is the goober that has been flying under the radar recently. its usage has been steadily getting lower until recently where its not even 10% usage. While I do think NP is a good set, I've never particularly liked it as it falls flat a lot of the time if it doesn't have the right coverage against idk a :kingambit:. What I do think can be really appreciated rn are the more "hybrid" breakers.

Darkrai @ Black Glasses
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Sucker Punch
- Ice Beam
- Knock Off

this set I've been using for a bit and its done pretty well overall. Black Glasses + Tera Dark are a massive pain for frailer resists to face, while shredding :slowking-galar:. Knock really helps in this department as checks are much more susceptible to being worn down and makes up for not having a certain coverage move against :samurott-hisui: and :kingambit:. Sucker Punch also is nice to have as a emergency check to smth like a :dragapult: or a :ogerpon-wellspring: after a trailblaze. Pay attention to the more knock focused :darkrai:


Tinkaton (F) @ Air Balloon
Ability: Mold Breaker
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 24 SpD / 236 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Gigaton Hammer
- Encore
- Thunder Wave

:tinkaton: has also been smth that I wanted to use. Typing is still solid and its especially nice to have vs the :tornadus-therian: :hatterene: :kyurem: teams popping up. Mold Breaker + Encore + twave is still great for :gholdengo: and :garganacl:. Best get on the :tinkaton: train while :hatterene: is everywhere.



https://pokepast.es/8025c0c4daac269c
this was the team I used with them to reach top 25
 
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While we’re talking about webs and webs abusers, I can’t help but bring up a few of my favorite webs brings. I can already hear Pinkacross in my head saying “webs is a basically solved archetype” and “everything appreciates webs, not everything deserves webs”, and he’s at worst mostly right, but some of these mentions are oriented towards common counterplay to webs (Cinderace, solid defensive cores/fatter teams/regen mons, strong priority, Zapdos/para, Pult, Iron Moth for Ribombee teams, Kyurem and AV Hatt for Araq teams, etc), and the rest are meant as for-fun recommendations that I wouldn’t bother taking to tournaments or high ladder. So without further ado:

With tblast fairy, nasty plot, thunderbolt, and choice of filler (grass knot, knock off, focus blast, or volt switch normally), you are a webs abuser that deals with Raging Bolt (after tera), Zapdos (before and sorta after tera), paralysis (all before tera, most still after), most fat teams (Clodsire isn’t real, he can’t hurt you), and sorta Kingambit. 145 spatk is no joke either, definitely a capable abuser in its own right. Boots or LO are sensible.

This is a bit of an odd one. Most webs abusers are setup threats, and the exceptions are generally things that can just spam the same high power move over and over (specs Enam mainly). Heatran has a lot of positive qualities that are accentuated by webs though. It is arguably the best user of stealth rocks in the tier in terms of its matchups into removal mons, coming in directly on Corv, Geez, and non-HJK Cinderace while being scary for Tusk and Treads to switch into; however, its usual speed tier means that Tusk and Treads can switch directly in on rocks if they’re feeling cocky, which lets them play the spin vs ground move 50/50 while outspeeding you. With webs, non-boots variants no longer get to play this game now that you outspeed them. Kyurem is a big sticking point for running Heatran generally, as Heatran’s quad resist to ice doesn’t go very far when the next turn it clicks earth power and kills you; admittedly Heatran isn’t changed much in this matchup against specs (where it can’t switch moves regardless), boots (where it ignores webs), or substitute variants (when it clicks sub as you come in anyway), but its rocks help a lot with Kyurem and if you find yourself against any other variants, Heatran now outspeeding Kyurem is very handy. Finally, Heatran singlehandedly shores up the fat matchup incredibly well, while being more difficult to revenge kill for various common non-boots threats like Darkrai, IVal, Woger, Hamu, the aforementioned Tusk/Treads/Kyurem, Glimmora, and Iron Crown.

Moltres is one of the best checks to Lokix, Kingambit, Rillaboom, and Cinderace, with a sneakily high 125 spatk stat that it often isn’t tapping into. With webs, it can afford to invest more attention into its offensive prowess with speed and spatk EVs, with nearly perfect coverage and high base power via flamethrower/fire blast/overheat, scorching sands, and hurricane (why rotom whyyy). With webs being a playstyle that is a bit vulnerable to getting snowballed especially early on, flame body is excellent insurance as well.

Onto more niche ones that I do not recommend on any serious builds:

It shores up the priority weakness well (I fucking hate you Rillaboom and I hope you die), and expanding force hits hard. If you’re gonna use this, I’d probably use LO, being able to switch moves is too important here considering both its stabs have very common immunities by the two frontrunners for best offensive type in the game. You will probably need it to tera hog with tera blast fighting/fire or dgleam. Hwish support is a really nice feature for a webs abuser to have though, and STAB hyper voice helps with sub Kyurem; my rec is LO with expanding force, hyper voice, tblast fight/tblast fire/dgleam, and healing wish.

Timid Volc outspeeds Adamant Dnite, flame charge lets it set up a speed boost as some poor fraud switches out, now you’re fast AND really scary to switch into. Can run AV with this if you want. Feels like it’s most of the way to being a decent abuser, and it’s satisfying to use, but realistically there are overall better abusers that cover most of the same stuff Volc does.

And finally, this monstrosity:

Klefki with lefties + CM, ID, dkiss, and stored power (and tera fairy is my favorite imo) is either God Herself or equivalent to playing 5v6, no in-between. But, at 60 speed EVs you outspeed Tusk after webs, or 192 for Woger, while fully investing in spatk with a modest nature and dumping the rest in HP. You have prankster defense/spdef boosting setup moves along with STAB dkiss and stored power, while tera fairy makes dkiss 60% stronger (see Pinka, despite what these suggestions might have you believe, I did pay attention in class!) and shares no weaknesses with your original typing despite being one of your original types. One of the main struggles with this set normally is that your fast setup is not complemented with fast attacks, so you are vulnerable to encore into setup or just getting killed before you can attack. Thanks webs!
 
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Whaloob said:
While we’re talking about webs and webs abusers, I can’t help but bring up a few of my favorite webs brings. I can already hear Pinkacross in my head saying “webs is a basically solved archetype” and “everything appreciates webs, not everything deserves webs”, and he’s at worst mostly right, but some of these mentions are oriented towards common counterplay to webs (Cinderace, solid defensive cores/fatter teams/regen mons, strong priority, Zapdos/para, Pult, Iron Moth for Ribombee teams, Kyurem and AV Hatt for Araq teams, etc), and the rest are meant as for-fun recommendations that I wouldn’t bother taking to tournaments or high ladder. So without further ado:

With tblast fairy, nasty plot, thunderbolt, and choice of filler (grass knot, knock off, focus blast, or volt switch normally), you are a webs abuser that deals with Raging Bolt (after tera), Zapdos (before and sorta after tera), paralysis (all before tera, most still after), most fat teams (Clodsire isn’t real, he can’t hurt you), and sorta Kingambit. 145 spatk is no joke either, definitely a capable abuser in its own right. Boots or LO are sensible.

This is a bit of an odd one. Most webs abusers are setup threats, and the exceptions are generally things that can just spam the same high power move over and over (specs Enam mainly). Heatran has a lot of positive qualities that are accentuated by webs though. It is arguably the best user of stealth rocks in the tier in terms of its matchups into removal mons, coming in directly on Corv, Geez, and non-HJK Cinderace while being scary for Tusk and Treads to switch into; however, its usual speed tier means that Tusk and Treads can switch directly in on rocks if they’re feeling cocky, which lets them play the spin vs ground move 50/50 while outspeeding you. With webs, non-boots variants no longer get to play this game now that you outspeed them. Kyurem is a big sticking point for running Heatran generally, as Heatran’s quad resist to ice doesn’t go very far when the next turn it clicks earth power and kills you; admittedly Heatran isn’t changed much in this matchup against specs (where it can’t switch moves regardless), boots (where it ignores webs), or substitute variants (when it clicks sub as you come in anyway), but its rocks help a lot with Kyurem and if you find yourself against any other variants, Heatran now outspeeding Kyurem is very handy. Finally, Heatran singlehandedly shores up the fat matchup incredibly well, while being more difficult to revenge kill for various common non-boots threats like Darkrai, IVal, Woger, Hamu, the aforementioned Tusk/Treads/Kyurem, Glimmora, and Iron Crown.

Moltres is one of the best checks to Lokix, Kingambit, Rillaboom, and Cinderace, with a sneakily high 125 spatk stat that it often isn’t tapping into. With webs, it can afford to invest more attention into its offensive prowess with speed and spatk EVs, with nearly perfect coverage and high base power via flamethrower/fire blast/overheat, scorching sands, and hurricane (why rotom whyyy). With webs being a playstyle that is a bit vulnerable to getting snowballed especially early on, flame body is excellent insurance as well.

Onto more niche ones that I do not recommend on any serious builds:

It shores up the priority weakness well (I fucking hate you Rillaboom and I hope you die), and expanding force hits hard. If you’re gonna use this, I’d probably use LO, being able to switch moves is too important here considering both its stabs have very common immunities by the two frontrunners for best offensive type in the game. You will probably need it to tera hog with tera blast fighting/fire or dgleam. Hwish support is a really nice feature for a webs abuser to have though, and STAB hyper voice helps with sub Kyurem; my rec is LO with expanding force, hyper voice, tblast fight/tblast fire/dgleam, and healing wish.

Timid Volc outspeeds Adamant Dnite, flame charge lets it set up a speed boost as some poor fraud switches out, now you’re fast AND really scary to switch into. Can run AV with this if you want. Feels like it’s most of the way to being a decent abuser, and it’s satisfying to use, but realistically there are overall better abusers that cover most of the same stuff Volc does.

And finally, this monstrosity:

Klefki with lefties + CM, ID, dkiss, and stored power (and tera fairy is my favorite imo) is either God Herself or equivalent to playing 5v6, no in-between. But, at 60 speed EVs you outspeed Tusk after webs, or 192 for Woger, while fully investing in spatk with a modest nature and dumping the rest in HP. You have prankster defense/spdef boosting setup moves along with STAB dkiss and stored power, while tera fairy makes dkiss 60% stronger (see Pinka, despite what these suggestions might have you believe, I did pay attention in class!) and shares no weaknesses with your original typing despite being one of your original types. One of the main struggles with this set normally is that your fast setup is not complemented with fast attacks, so you are vulnerable to encore into setup or just getting killed before you can attack. Thanks webs!
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A single minor check, but was your first listing for Thundurus-T? I know Torn-T just rose from UU but every non-shared trait (movepool mainly) I assume this is Thundurus-T given the list of things it checks, Paralysis, and stats (145 SpA and a much more "if I was a BIT faster" Speed tier). Asked given it's a more niche Pokemon and thus I'm curious about its listing with the more "serious" mon suggestions vs the niche ones that follow.
 
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I've been experimenting with Flame Charge Heatran. It seems like a great option. I actually dreamt up this set, and immediately put it into my builder once I woke up.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2459801736-3h9397uisssen811sld4yny5fiwcyebpw

Here we see how it outplays the Dragonite and outspeeds it even after a DD via Flame Charge before 2HKOing with Power Gem. An option to consider is Overheat, which has very impressive calcs such as 50% OHKO vs Woger, OHKOs Darkrai, 2HKOs max HP Zama while outspeeding so that it can't switch in after you're +1.

edit: here it forced damage on Tusk, allowing Dnite to setup and mostly sweep https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2459808513
 
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Reached #1 with some unusual sets

Rillaboom @ Miracle Seed
Ability: Grassy Surge
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Grassy Glide
- Wood Hammer
- Swords Dance
- Drain Punch

Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Salt Cure
- Curse
- Recover
- Protect

Cinderace @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Libero
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pyro Ball
- High Jump Kick
- U-turn
- Court Change

Raging Bolt @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 20 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Thunderclap
- Draco Meteor

Slowking-Galar @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psychic
- Chilly Reception
- Ice Beam
- Future Sight

Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Earthquake
- Weather Ball
- U-turn
- Stealth Rock

- mono attacking curse garg with protect
- almost mono grass SD rilla (drain punch only for kingambit)
- rocky helmet glowking with almost mono psychic (psychic and future sight and a rarely used ice beam)

There’s also 3 standard sets .. 2 pivots in cinderace and landorus as well as standard specs raging bolt.

Anyway, it’s interesting that mono or almost-mono specialisation is pretty good in this meta:

- garg only needs salt cure to harass teams and protect to buy turns
- rilla only needs fast grass or strong grass, coverage is optional
- phys def glowking is really efficient at removing threats with psychic, whilst future sight helps break cores

Raging bolt isn’t really in the conversation despite having three electric attacks because meteor is very important in its set rather than rarely used like the others.

-

Proof in the pic
IMG_8698.jpeg
 
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Ctann said:
Reached #1 with some unusual sets

Rillaboom @ Miracle Seed
Ability: Grassy Surge
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Grassy Glide
- Wood Hammer
- Swords Dance
- Drain Punch

Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Salt Cure
- Curse
- Recover
- Protect

Cinderace @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Libero
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pyro Ball
- High Jump Kick
- U-turn
- Court Change

Raging Bolt @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 20 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Thunderclap
- Draco Meteor

Slowking-Galar @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psychic
- Chilly Reception
- Ice Beam
- Future Sight

Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Earthquake
- Weather Ball
- U-turn
- Stealth Rock

- mono attacking curse garg with protect
- almost mono grass SD rilla (drain punch only for kingambit)
- rocky helmet glowking with almost mono psychic (psychic and future sight and a rarely used ice beam)

There’s also 3 standard sets .. 2 pivots in cinderace and landorus as well as standard specs raging bolt.

Anyway, it’s interesting that mono or almost-mono specialisation is pretty good in this meta:

- garg only needs salt cure to harass teams and protect to buy turns
- rilla only needs fast grass or strong grass, coverage is optional
- phys def glowking is really efficient at removing threats with psychic, whilst future sight helps break cores

Raging bolt isn’t really in the conversation despite having three electric attacks because meteor is very important in its set rather than rarely used like the others.

-

Proof in the picView attachment 778422
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Congrats on the peak! I played you a good bit on ladder and I have to say i was very impressed by this team. Do you think you will make an rmt?
 
i have decided that waiting for a survey + results is silly and we need to reopen the tera blast policy thread and not hyper focus on whats consistent with our made up tiering policy. dnite epidemic is getting out of hand and im not convinced whatsoever that dnite itself is the problem.
 
Goobing Fire said:
Tera blast is never getting banned, the people don't support it
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i'm inclined to agree based on previous survey results and the relative lack of people speaking up about tera blast in particular compared to the number of complaints i've historically seen about stuff that's ended up banned. whatever your opinion on tera blast is (personally i could go either way but i don't think policy justifies a ban, and i don't think the case is bad enough to be worth changing policy), all evidence points to it not having the community support for even a suspect, much less a ban. like tera itself, we're pretty much stuck with it, so if we want to get anything done we should focus on its problematic abusers
 
LOOR said:
i have decided that waiting for a survey + results is silly and we need to reopen the tera blast policy thread and not hyper focus on whats consistent with our made up tiering policy. dnite epidemic is getting out of hand and im not convinced whatsoever that dnite itself is the problem.
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I'm confused why opening the policy thread would really speed up the process as opposed to a survey: the last time it was opened, the response was incredibly lackluster and took around a month for a final decision to be made. Even if we assume that support has drastically gone up, I doubt that we would get any concrete results before at least a time period of two weeks.

Meanwhile, if the tiering survey comes out in a week or two, it would only take a couple of days for the results to be released, which would give the council a far more concrete overview of how the playerbase is feeling, and if Tera Blast is truly the biggest issue in the tier, or if there is some other threat they should be targeting.
 
Tera Blast shouldn't be banned without a discussion in all SV official metagames. For some reason it's much more contentious in OU than in lower tiers. Besides I'm generally against banning offense tools, unless they're like Terrakion in NU which probably deserves a ban, so Tera Blast deserves to stay and I'm glad the council made the decision to leave it untouched while cg.
 
I'm Tapu Bulu said:
Tera Blast shouldn't be banned without a discussion in all SV official metagames.
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OU should never (and I don't think has) tier out of consideration for lower tiers. The whole point of lower tiers is that they are subject to the whims of higher tiers, and we shouldn't have to consider the ramifications of how, for example, the sleep ban would impact a Pokemon's niche in NU.
 
Backtracking a tad, while we’re talking about webs, have any of you been able to find success with alternate webbers? While araq is old reliable, I’ve found charjabug of all things (you’ll never guess why) to be an unironically good one, and I’ve known a few other scattered cases of people trying out the less viable webbers. I think some are beyond saving (sorry kricketune), but there could be a kernel of heat there
 
Quackborg said:
Backtracking a tad, while we’re talking about webs, have any of you been able to find success with alternate webbers? While araq is old reliable, I’ve found charjabug of all things (you’ll never guess why) to be an unironically good one, and I’ve known a few other scattered cases of people trying out the less viable webbers. I think some are beyond saving (sorry kricketune), but there could be a kernel of heat there
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i fw smeargle a lot, has a lot of cool shit to get webs up reliably (court change for hatterene, silk trap + disable for spin/fog), it’s def passive but pairing with red card mimi for example makes it a uniquely strong webber vs hatterene that can fit a lot of other util asw (bulwark, ceaseless, etc.) i’ve even run conversion + dbond to turn ghost vs rapid spin and then dbond to trade w the spinner
 
Quackborg said:
Backtracking a tad, while we’re talking about webs, have any of you been able to find success with alternate webbers? While araq is old reliable, I’ve found charjabug of all things (you’ll never guess why) to be an unironically good one, and I’ve known a few other scattered cases of people trying out the less viable webbers. I think some are beyond saving (sorry kricketune), but there could be a kernel of heat there
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my tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory is that masquerain has some tiny iota of viability as a webber that no one will find until midway through gen 11 when this is an oldgen that has about 3 people playing it still. tera blast will probably be involved
 
DaddyBuzzwole said:
my tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory is that masquerain has some tiny iota of viability as a webber that no one will find until midway through gen 11. tera blast will probably be involved
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Tera blast in gen 11 would be some certified crazy shit. Masq is that Mon who I think a lot of webs players have theorycrafted for the meme, but it isn’t really good even at being a meme Mon, just at being mid. Depending on the speed tier it may be able to do smth with intimidate, though
 
Quackborg said:
Backtracking a tad, while we’re talking about webs, have any of you been able to find success with alternate webbers? While araq is old reliable, I’ve found charjabug of all things (you’ll never guess why) to be an unironically good one, and I’ve known a few other scattered cases of people trying out the less viable webbers. I think some are beyond saving (sorry kricketune), but there could be a kernel of heat there
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ok so my guess for charjabug is something to do with thunder wave and the eviolite bulk maybe? i can't figure out how it does anything against the common leads like how araq found its niche though. mud-slap?
 
DaddyBuzzwole said:
ok so my guess for charjabug is something to do with thunder wave and the eviolite bulk maybe? i can't figure out how it does anything against the common leads like how araq found its niche though. mud-slap?
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It probably says something about my reputation that your first thought was mud slap… Anyway, the use case for Charja is simple. The araq takeover got me interested in the idea of a bulky Webber as opposed to the more frail offensive ones like bee and most others. Honestly, a good portion of araqs issues, that cause it to falter in this bulky Webber role, are because of its typing. Things like raging bolt, rillaboom, and Tera specs kyu are able to take advantage of its generally useful water typing to seriously hinder it. Charjabug is the future. Not because it’s particularly strong, or has a particularly large movepool (though both of those aren’t huge issues in Charja case) but because it has BULK. If their plan for webs is just to kill the Webber before it can get them up, they will find themselves befuddled by the frankly stupendous bulk Charja possesses, thanks, of course, to eviolite. In particular, what got me to start using it was when I was looking up (non ribombee) anti bolt webbers, and ran the calcs with this guy as a joke. He takes two proto pulses, he takes specs Draco, and he even tanks max attack jolly rockpon cudgel (it will NOT be critting). “But what of the moves?” I hear you cry. Well, Charja is not extremely blessed in that department, but nor is it destitute. In particular, it has the oft forgotten skitter smack, which takes advantage of the fact it’s a physical attacker for some reason to make the aforementioned bolt calc more notable. Webs and thunder wave are both obvious slot ins, and the last slot was volt switch for a long time, until I had a brain blast: grounds wall anyway, so why not pretend to be lokix with double bug stab. Thus, lunge skitter twave webs with mixed bulk is the epitome of a bulky Webber, if not a strong one. Now, this obviously needs a little bit of removal, and a solid spinblocker since you can’t get webs up too often, but with the right support, it can shine like a diamond. Dont ask me for replays with it because I haven’t loaded it in months!
 
FayaWizard said:
I'm confused why opening the policy thread would really speed up the process as opposed to a survey: the last time it was opened, the response was incredibly lackluster and took around a month for a final decision to be made. Even if we assume that support has drastically gone up, I doubt that we would get any concrete results before at least a time period of two weeks.

Meanwhile, if the tiering survey comes out in a week or two, it would only take a couple of days for the results to be released, which would give the council a far more concrete overview of how the playerbase is feeling, and if Tera Blast is truly the biggest issue in the tier, or if there is some other threat they should be targeting.
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not gonna fully reply bc i wanna save a longer response for a policy thread. the other threat in question would absolutely be dragonite, i doubt its a contentious point whatsoever that what its doing in the tier rn is pretty absurd. thing is, dragonite will absolutely score significantly higher than tera blast considering yenno, its a physical pokemon. problem is if you look at the surveys as purely data and not a wider picture in this scenario, you are suspecting dragonite first. the tera blast "problem" is a wider issue that you can't get a proper conclusion on from a survey, hence a policy thread. the move has been pushing strong sweepers over the edge pretty much the entire gen; volcarona, moon, goug, whether they are still broken without isnt relevant, the variety of sets the move has provided to these have pretty much been the nail in coffin for all them. the last survey was before dnite really started to become the "i lose if its the right set i just lose here" mon it has been since OLT. suspecting dragonite first because it scored significantly more than tera blast without establishing what the plan is with tera blast first is absolutely a mistake, its not unlikely that something(s) similarly annoying will take its place anyway, nor does it acknowledge the root of the problem properly since you have to make a decision on if its banworthy in the current meta and not theoretical situations (which if we ban tera blast later its going to be even more of a pain in the ass going back and re-suspecting since theres no content drops for this generation left that can act as soft resets). reading data alone from a survey doesn't fully give context to this particular situation, especially given the variaty of people we poll, unclecharizard83 may think dragonite is too much for the tier but also not understand what the problem is on a deeper level.

the last thread also suffered from "how can we fit this into our current policy" opposed to looking at the moves history and adapting the current policy to give a better conclusion on how to move forward. the beauty of being a non official competitive scene for a game is our ruleset can and should be adaptive and given how gen9 pushed the goal post in several regards, we've been trying to apply a older concept of tiering framework to something much more complicated that it was initially intended for.
 
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LOOR said:
not gonna fully reply bc i wanna save a longer response for a policy thread. the other threat in question would absolutely be dragonite, i doubt its a contentious point whatsoever that what its doing in the tier rn is pretty absurd. thing is, dragonite will absolutely score significantly higher than tera blast considering yenno, its a physical pokemon. problem is if you look at the surveys as purely data and not a wider picture in this scenario, you are suspecting dragonite first. the tera blast "problem" is a wider issue that you can't get a proper conclusion on from a survey, hence a policy thread. the move has been pushing strong sweepers over the edge pretty much the entire gen; volcarona, moon, goug, whether they are still broken without isnt relevant, the variety of sets the move has provided to these have pretty much been the nail in coffin for all them. the last survey was before dnite really started to become the "i lose if its the right set i just lose here" mon it has been since OLT. suspecting dragonite first because it scored significantly more than tera blast without establishing what the plan is with tera blast first is absolutely a mistake, its not unlikely that something(s) similarly annoying will take its place anyway, nor does it acknowledge the root of the problem properly since you have to make a decision on if its banworthy in the current meta and not theoretical situations (which if we ban tera blast later its going to be even more of a pain in the ass going back and re-suspecting since theres no content drops for this generation left that can act as soft resets). reading data alone from a survey doesn't fully give context to this particular situation, especially given the variaty of people we poll, unclecharizard83 may think dragonite is too much for the tier but also not understand what the problem is on a deeper level.

the last thread also suffered from "how can we fit this into our current policy" opposed to looking at the moves history and adapting the current policy to give a better conclusion on how to move forward. the beauty of being a non official competitive scene for a game is our ruleset can and should be adaptive and given how gen9 pushed the goal post in several regards, we've been trying to apply a older concept of tiering framework to something much more complicated that it was initially intended for.
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I agree with this a lot. Tera Blast has been problematic on Espathra (Tera Blast let it beat Steel-type Pokemon), Regieleki, Volcarona, Kyurem (which resulted in two very close suspect tests one of which woulf have been a ban if one player hadn't troll voted DNB, and Roaring Moon (Tera Blast Fairy pushed it overboard). And even outside of these core five abusers, it significantly increases the volatility in SV OU by giving many mons, especially top mons, access to powerful coverage they otherwise wouldn't have.

For this reason, I believe it was reductive to frame the discussion in the Policy Review thread on Tera Blast as whether it met the definition of broken as Tera Blast can have an unhealthy effect to warrant getting banned by making many top mons harder to beat while also giving mons not quite as strong similar strong coverage, all of which increases the volatility of the tier and makes it harder to prep for threats and is a big reason why the meta in SV OU is quite cyclical, arguably to an unhealthy degree.

Comparisons with Hidden Power aren't great 'cause Tera Blast has higher Base Power and it gets a STAB boost upon Terastalizing, making it far more impactful of a move. Sure, you can argue that dedicating your Tera to a particular mon is a significant opportunity cost, but such teams often use Tera Blast sweepers to cleave big holes through the opposing team or outright sweep with them, something rarely seen with Hidden Power when it was available since it was mainly used to lure very specific Pokemon.
 
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