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

[BigFatMantis]

I’m tryna get reqs to ban tera blast where’s all the SPL dumps fr

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

You tera blast banners are so persistent omg

 

[1LDK]

"The Duality of Man" ahhh :broken Heart: :wilted Flower:

 

[RoyalDispenser]

Whether Tera blast gets banned or not, this should've happened a year ago so that the subject could at least move on from what-ifs. Its embarrassing it took this long just because survey data is never objective to begin with its just "some prefer dragonite some prefer tera blast". I understand finch's frustration that qualified big names don't chime in enough to really emphasize just how much support from a non-shitter ranking there is on the subject, but jfc this was an inevitable one and regardless of the result you narrow down what players actually want, few weeks from now tera blast is no longer on surveys either because it was banned or because we got our answer, then you can be productive. Whether you're on the side of tera blast not being ban worthy or tera blast being absolutely disgusting, this suspect needed to happen when it was brought up as an option to do (and i still don't get why tera as a whole isn't an option but SWSH dynamax was? moving on...).

Anyways hope it goes, its a cheesy move based off a cheesy mechanic we entertain because it has checks and balances attached to it (opportunity cost of having to use a tera) when in reality there's no means without a mod like tera preview to play around it reliably, you kinda just assume what tera type someone is running and hope they dont have the particular one that fucks up your gameplan from the start. I've won so many games off my opponent just not being able to foresee what tera I am because it just sounds stupid to be using that tera type to begin with (3 fairies? ain't no way he's running a tera fairy dragonit- CANT BE FUCKING SERIOUS...)

While yes tera blast ban is technically a nerf towards the bigger problem (tera as a mechanic entirely), it would at least make more sense offensively without it; which is the part that happens to punch holes unexpectedly. You'd see more defensive teras or STAB teras rather than tera blast which gives pokemon any coverage they dream of. This is what led to previous bans since expected outcomes simply were chance based and educated 'guesses' were still just 'guesses' not 'skilled behavior'. (ex; looking at volcarona's moveset and acknowledge it literally cannot break past pokemon like dragonite, dragapult, heatran, etc without some very unrealistic setup... but then that weakness acknowledgement goes out the window when it can be any offensive tera blast to turn one of those would-be counters into mere setup fodder.. you're forced to read its team and make a discision whether to lose now, or lose later strictly because you would naturally assume a team with ground types won't have a volc that beats heatran... then you're fucking wrong and lose because it quivered on heatran, killed it, and has tempo on the game.)

It contributes the fatigue of there being so much variance in movesets in OU atm and not necessarily because it gives pokemon different playstyles but it makes pokemon just obnoxiously difficult to stop/prevent from setting up on would be counters, are just the current flagships of demonstrating how busted it is, but we have past examples that already got shot for being messengers of the problem and maybe alongside who never got to see the light of day strictly considering it with tera blast ice.

If we look at the positives... truthfully there isn't beyond frosmoth being usable for someone down below or iron moth being in mid-tier OU limbo instead of UU, almost every OU pokemon is perfectly fine without tera blast access and viable in their own merits, its negative effects on the meta just outweigh the positives. are positive additions to the tier, whether that's having another fast spinner or having a check to some of the top mons like , these are more beneficial to have than tera blast as a mechanic itself. Just from a tiering pov, its the right call to remove it for overall game health. I didn't bring up cause I still want to know where he was at in 1938.

 

[sire clod]

At the behest of my good friend cala_aa here is my teamdump from SPL

Week 1 vs Hellom
- - - - -

"Bro did you know that Great Tusk gets play rough"
"Yes but then you don't beat Corviknight 1v1."

I spent probably 30 hours prepping for Hellom week 1, then I immediately started a new job the day after the game. Turns out employment is an insane nerf to mons playing, I prolly didn't prep that much the entire rest of the season combined lmfao

Week 2 vs PDT
- - - - -

This is a beast team, I think lax was the one who made the original 6, I made it expert belt darkrai and changed the val set a bit

Week 3 vs Axzel
- - - - -

This team is legitimately dogshit, easily the week of prep I regret the most, I locked in the kyurem set the moment I knew I was facing Axzel (who had like 80+% Zama/Pech usage in the recent months and wanted to cook him with sheist tech. It failed by 1) Him bringing neither and 2) being completely fucking walled by his skarmory. Team got deleted from my builder immediately after

Week 4 vs Ewin
- - - - -

Had a feeling ewin would try to Sun me, and he did, got the matchup I wanted, unfortunately as *some* of you may have seen I choked on the sweatiest balls on the planet and suicided my cresselia for no reason in the endgame because I spent all my timer calcing Zama Body Press calcs on tera fairy Wake, and when I switched back tabs there was 3 seconds on the timer and I just panic clicked, and when the dust cleared my Cress committed seppuku. Shoutout to wof for humbling me

Week 5 vs LpZ
- - - - -

ima made this one, shoutouts to my boy for his goated OST run, unfortunately has a dicks matchup into sun and thats what LpZ brought, although I made goat plays and gave myself a shot to win until this garbage ass Cinderace missed double wisp on Gambit in the endgame

Week 6 vs Storm Zone
- - - - -

I think either ACR1 or JUST ONE GALATINA made this, I don't remember, saved in my builder as "cringe ass fat team." Shit's pretty cheap tho, good for laddering with

Week 7 vs MANNAT
- - - - -

Easily my favorite team I built during SPL, and I was under a lot of pressure and badly needed a win for my own sanity after having lost 5 straight so I brought the best shit I had. This team is fucking cheap and absolutely smokes ladder. Any noob can autopilot this to 2k without even thinking, this shit is fucking monstrous

Week 8 vs Fogbound Lake
- - - - -

I did zero prep this week so I just brought the cheapest team in SVOU history, shoutouts Blim and CTC for making this cancer ass shit

Week 9 vs kdca
- - - - -

Same as week 8, I threw this together the night before the game and it seemed pretty strong, had some help from Vert and ima, pretty decent team tho


All in all a very disappointing season for me, I definitely choked a few games, had some bad RNG in others, very much a learning experience. SPL is really a grind. Hope some people enjoy using these on ladder

ALSO: BAN TERA BLAST. GET REQS, VOTE BAN. SAVE OUR TIER

 

[darkmoonbeam]

I know im getting ahead of myself, but will there be consideration for past bans to be reviewed should tera blast be banned?

One step at a time tho I guess...

Common considerations:

Volc - Coverage issues w/o tera blast and/or no guessing games needed for which tera it is running
Espartha - Coverage issues but probs still way too op anyway hey.
Chien-Pao - Im in the hot take group that think tera-dark crunch pushed it over the edge, it removed a bad half of its typing while just turning many 2ko's to 1ko's
Regieleki - probably the only realistic unban I guess but one I can hope we can be brave and see how we go.

Probs a waste of time to theorymon till we see what result happens.

Happy suspecting!

 

[Finchinator]

I know im getting ahead of myself, but will there be consideration for past bans to be reviewed should tera blast be banned?

Yes, but that’s not a public discussion to have mid-suspect test.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

I know im getting ahead of myself, but will there be consideration for past bans to be reviewed should tera blast be banned?

One step at a time tho I guess...

Common considerations:

Volc - Coverage issues w/o tera blast and/or no guessing games needed for which tera it is running
Espartha - Coverage issues but probs still way too op anyway hey.
Chien-Pao - Im in the hot take group that think tera-dark crunch pushed it over the edge, it removed a bad half of its typing while just turning many 2ko's to 1ko's
Regieleki - probably the only realistic unban I guess but one I can hope we can be brave and see how we go.

Probs a waste of time to theorymon till we see what result happens.

Happy suspecting!

Well chien-pao is just an entirely different issue, that's not tera blast that's just doing a STAB tera for one of its moves lol

 

[Finchinator]

Chien-Pao would not be one of those considered.

 

[mcribs]

oh whoops i showed up again with a new team. have fun yall

Kyurem @ Assault Vest
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 152 HP / 164 Def / 16 SpA / 80 SpD / 96 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Freeze-Dry
- Earth Power
- Body Press
recently theres been a huge uptick in AV . I couldn't really get behind it until i found a spread that fully suited my needs. This guy is crazy btw it tanks everything. BP is a solid click into and . you can prob mess with stall this way too. You may think that this kyu is pretty weak, which i mean yeah it can't even ohko naive , but it tends to do good enough and offers trading oppurtunities. iirc, this guy 2hkos max hp gambit with bp, tanks 2 headlong rushes from , tanks +2 dark pulses from and 2 proto boosted weather boosted specs hydro steam, and still outspeeds . a bit nutty overall but its fat so whatever. Tera fairy is here to troll and but its also just neat to resist sucker. fun guy.

Samurott-Hisui @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Sharpness
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 176 HP / 152 Atk / 180 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Ceaseless Edge
- Encore
- Knock Off
- Razor Shell
oh my goodness no AV? i thought triple av was at least a bit too insane for me so I opted for boots. I haven't seen encore in a while but its occasionally nice for . you can def swap it out for smth else like sucker. Gotta say even with bulk investment this guy is a fake check still takes gets chunked by sball or mir. Outspeeds and hits a stat bump, so i could put the rest in hp. the hp iirc does actually let me tank proto headlong from . Tera Poison is here for checking and .

Zamazenta @ Leftovers
Ability: Dauntless Shield
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 176 HP / 140 Def / 192 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Defense
- Body Press
- Crunch
- Heavy Slam
been using zama more frequently and its still very solid. i've started using tera steel hslam not only to bully and , but also because steel is just really solid rn. can't hit you and lots of can't. had games where tera steel zama just outbulked everything and got past stuff like colbur glowking. hp still tanks modest and i aimed for a stat bump for speed cuz i was initially running roar, but being hard walled by fairies was a pain. still kept it though.

https://pokepast.es/bc6006f9e147b9de
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2579528412-327ly1pfettw5w7l04y4itvawsca5p1pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2579546184-bra2e9gutubggavf0g9471fveuam77ppw
this team got me top 50 at around 1910+ elo. also some replays.

btw the teams i send in to the forum are prob good enough for reqs. nuke tb for me cuz i got ap exams to worry about

 

[perplexful]

can someone tell me how removing tera blasts makes the metsgsme
1. any better
2. any different from a no gimmick metagame

i just think removing the newest edition to a metagame just kinda ruins the whole point. The game is playable and tera ISNT as diverse as you think it is, sure tera fairy dnite is horrible but it’s very (not easily) but very counterable. And if it’s not that it’s flying? flying…. not even an offensive type walled by nearly every defensive mon in one of the best defensive metagames.

I just wana know how this doesn’t make SVOU gen 5 with batshit crazy speed tiers and the fairy type.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

can someone tell me how removing tera blasts makes the metsgsme
1. any better
2. any different from a no gimmick metagame

You answered your own question;

sure tera fairy dnite is horrible but it’s very (not easily) but very counterable.

its very difficult to counter tera fairy dragonite at the same time as tera normal, tera flying, you essentially team build to have a harder time against 66% of dragonites to avoid losing to 33% of them. If it was only tera fairy dragonite we wouldn't be discussing this, if it was only tera ground volcarona we wouldn't have banned it over sending out dragapult to deal with it or something. Infact before DLC volcarona wasn't even as bad because it was pretty much defaulting to tera water most of the time but as more shit was added it flexed fairy/water/ground/STABfire/ice.. etc. On one hand that in theory means volc would've been held back because it had 4MSS but on the other it made it borderline RNG from an opposing perception how you're supposed to counter it.

Tera blast removal makes it so even if dragonite tera fairies, it doesn't literally setup and beat your garchomp to a pulp, it just means the garchomp has to deal with it using ground instead of dragon. Same for kingambit which was just allowed to turn any type than follow it up with a move it can actually uno reverse with instead of just making your opponent use a different coverage move on their pokemon. Kyurem similar your typical "ice/dragon" answers when looking at its movepool should be safe but there's a percentage that randomly have this coverage move to outright kill them effortlessly.. it feels awful being forced to overthink what potential teras it can be and lose just because you gambled the wrong slot, it makes the matchup always feel like damned if you do damned if you don't which is not skill based at all.

 

[perplexful]

You answered your own question;

its very difficult to counter tera fairy dragonite at the same time as tera normal, tera flying, you essentially team build to have a harder time against 66% of dragonites to avoid losing to 33% of them. If it was only tera fairy dragonite we wouldn't be discussing this, if it was only tera ground volcarona we wouldn't have banned it over sending out dragapult to deal with it or something. Infact before DLC volcarona wasn't even as bad because it was pretty much defaulting to tera water most of the time but as more shit was added it flexed fairy/water/ground/STABfire/ice etc.

Tera blast removal makes it so even if dragonite tera fairies, it doesn't literally setup and beat your garchomp to a pulp, it just means the garchomp has to deal with it using ground instead of dragon. Same for kingambit which was just allowed to turn any type than follow it up with a move it can actually uno reverse with instead of just making your opponent use a different coverage move on their pokemon. Kyurem similar your typical "ice/dragon" answers when looking at its movepool should be safe but there's a percentage that randomly have this coverage move to outright kill them effortlessly.. it feels awful being forced to overthink what potential teras it can be and lose just because you gambled the wrong slot, it makes the matchup always feel like damned if you do damned if you don't which is not skill based at all.

are most offensive tera’s still not walled by every major and most used offensive threats tho? genuine question just based off what i’ve seen

 

[Talpr0ne]

any different from a no gimmick metagame

Because defensive Tera and Tera with natural coverage still exists? What does this even mean

 

[moore's law]

are most offensive tera’s still not walled by every major and most used offensive threats tho? genuine question just based off what i’ve seen

No, they are not walled by most threats, and tera blast is not the main use case for tera, most of the time people use it either defensively to stop something from snowballing out of control, or to tank a hit and set up and then try to end the game. People dislike it because it is uncommon enough to be very effective for matchup fishing, though I think as we have come to better understand the meta, tera blast is a little better telegraphed these days and not necessarily always a fish.

Flying and Fairy are some of the most common tera blasts used, and for good reason, especially on SD and DD abusers. Good physical flying and fairy moves are not well distributed, and both types are immense offensively, with no immunities and a few resists, most of which get fried by ground moves (conveniently, EQ is one of the best coverage moves in singles). Fairy in particular is potent, destroying the plethora of fighting, dark and dragons which are some of the most splashable and viable mons in the tier.

Fairy notoriously has few resists, with GKing, Pech, Ghold, Crown, Ace and Corv (occasionally, Moth or Heatran as well) being the most common checks to the offensive fairies in this tier. Natural offensive fairy types like Primarina, Enamorous and Valiant are all good, balanced, but flawed mons, and it is (in part) the potency of fairy STAB that makes them as good as they are. When a powerful tera abuser like Gambit or DNite (or the banned Roaring Moon) uses fairy blast, they usually either pair it with a dark or ground move which generally destroys all of these checks except for Corv, and even corv can get overwhelmed by powerful dark moves.

Among commonly used mons, Flying is walled by more stuff like steels (Gambit, Ghold, Corv, Treads, Crown), Garg and Bolt. All of these are either easily beaten with coverage like EQ, especially after being weakened, except Corv. Flying is not typically used on Gambit much anymore, DNite is by far the most egregious abuser of flying blast, we have more niche users like scarf Lando who I think everyone would agree are not problematic.

Corv is good, but is very exploitable, and is forced to check so much that it is very easy to wear down over the course of a game and break down. There are more checks, I am too lazy to list every viable mon and the principle is similar.

Offensive teras are not going to become bad without tera blast, there's no shortage of offensive tera users like Darkrai, Valiant, AoA Zamazenta, Wellspring and Gliscor (just to name some of the best mons) who use tera offensively and don't need tera blast to smash their way past walls.

I'm only a ladder player, so I'm not a big tera blast enjoyer or hater anymore these days, I really used to despise it in the past when it was uncommon and was usually used as cheese on ladder, but I think ladder has gravitated to using it more often than not on "good" mons like DNite and no one is usually crazy enough to run 2 or 3 mons with tblast so it is a little easier to expect these days. I totally get why it can be a nightmare to prep for in tournaments. I felt like I had to clarify this before people got their pitchforks out thinking I was pro- or anti- ban, I don't have the time to play enough anymore to care too much.

Unrelated to this, but what do people think about CB defiant gambit?
Kingambit @ Choice Band
Ability: Defiant
Tera Type: Fighting/Fairy
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Kowtow Cleave
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch/Tera Blast
- Low Kick/Tera Blast

I remember watching aim's video on a meme specs Kingambit set, and I think banded defiant gambit would be really funny as well. It hits as hard as 5 deads supreme overlord off the bat, can lead into Lando and kill stuff, and is the ultimate pecharunt switchin. Pecharunt often goes for the greedy parting shot expecting gambit, so you can probably collect a few kills with band and being at +3 after parting shot. It's probably best to pair with stuff like Zama and Wellspring who hate pech. Max speed jolly is probably best to serve as a good switch in to ghold, if it tricks you a scarf, you immediately outspeed and kill it, and outspeed a lot actually, everything up to base 100s (scarf jolly hits 327 speed, just 1 short of +speed base 100 mons).

And yes, you should not be a coward - put sucker punch on it. Your opponent will probably already think you are crazy for running banded gambit once they calc iron head doing ~50 to offensive great tusk when you lead with gambit or whatever, what better way to troll than with a mid game sucker on the banded mon.

Obviously not a better set than SD, I remember someone talking about how the opportunity cost of not running SD is way too high because of its random game ending potential, but I thought this set can just be very funny, and won't lack for coverage since it will use all 4 move slots as attacks.

 

[sire clod]

At the behest of my good friend cala_aa here is my teamdump from SPL

Week 1 vs Hellom
- - - - -

"Bro did you know that Great Tusk gets play rough"
"Yes but then you don't beat Corviknight 1v1."

I spent probably 30 hours prepping for Hellom week 1, then I immediately started a new job the day after the game. Turns out employment is an insane nerf to mons playing, I prolly didn't prep that much the entire rest of the season combined lmfao

Week 2 vs PDT
- - - - -

This is a beast team, I think lax was the one who made the original 6, I made it expert belt darkrai and changed the val set a bit

Week 3 vs Axzel
- - - - -

This team is legitimately dogshit, easily the week of prep I regret the most, I locked in the kyurem set the moment I knew I was facing Axzel (who had like 80+% Zama/Pech usage in the recent months and wanted to cook him with sheist tech. It failed by 1) Him bringing neither and 2) being completely fucking walled by his skarmory. Team got deleted from my builder immediately after

Week 4 vs Ewin
- - - - -

Had a feeling ewin would try to Sun me, and he did, got the matchup I wanted, unfortunately as *some* of you may have seen I choked on the sweatiest balls on the planet and suicided my cresselia for no reason in the endgame because I spent all my timer calcing Zama Body Press calcs on tera fairy Wake, and when I switched back tabs there was 3 seconds on the timer and I just panic clicked, and when the dust cleared my Cress committed seppuku. Shoutout to wof for humbling me

Week 5 vs LpZ
- - - - -

ima made this one, shoutouts to my boy for his goated OST run, unfortunately has a dicks matchup into sun and thats what LpZ brought, although I made goat plays and gave myself a shot to win until this garbage ass Cinderace missed double wisp on Gambit in the endgame

Week 6 vs Storm Zone
- - - - -

I think either ACR1 or JUST ONE GALATINA made this, I don't remember, saved in my builder as "cringe ass fat team." Shit's pretty cheap tho, good for laddering with

Week 7 vs MANNAT
- - - - -

Easily my favorite team I built during SPL, and I was under a lot of pressure and badly needed a win for my own sanity after having lost 5 straight so I brought the best shit I had. This team is fucking cheap and absolutely smokes ladder. Any noob can autopilot this to 2k without even thinking, this shit is fucking monstrous

Week 8 vs Fogbound Lake
- - - - -

I did zero prep this week so I just brought the cheapest team in SVOU history, shoutouts Blim and CTC for making this cancer ass shit

Week 9 vs kdca
- - - - -

Same as week 8, I threw this together the night before the game and it seemed pretty strong, had some help from Vert and ima, pretty decent team tho


All in all a very disappointing season for me, I definitely choked a few games, had some bad RNG in others, very much a learning experience. SPL is really a grind. Hope some people enjoy using these on ladder

ALSO: BAN TERA BLAST. GET REQS, VOTE BAN. SAVE OUR TIER

It has come to my attention

At the behest of my good friend cala_aa here is my teamdump from SPL

Week 1 vs Hellom
- - - - -

"Bro did you know that Great Tusk gets play rough"
"Yes but then you don't beat Corviknight 1v1."

I spent probably 30 hours prepping for Hellom week 1, then I immediately started a new job the day after the game. Turns out employment is an insane nerf to mons playing, I prolly didn't prep that much the entire rest of the season combined lmfao

Week 2 vs PDT
- - - - -

This is a beast team, I think lax was the one who made the original 6, I made it expert belt darkrai and changed the val set a bit

Week 3 vs Axzel
- - - - -

This team is legitimately dogshit, easily the week of prep I regret the most, I locked in the kyurem set the moment I knew I was facing Axzel (who had like 80+% Zama/Pech usage in the recent months and wanted to cook him with sheist tech. It failed by 1) Him bringing neither and 2) being completely fucking walled by his skarmory. Team got deleted from my builder immediately after

Week 4 vs Ewin
- - - - -

Had a feeling ewin would try to Sun me, and he did, got the matchup I wanted, unfortunately as *some* of you may have seen I choked on the sweatiest balls on the planet and suicided my cresselia for no reason in the endgame because I spent all my timer calcing Zama Body Press calcs on tera fairy Wake, and when I switched back tabs there was 3 seconds on the timer and I just panic clicked, and when the dust cleared my Cress committed seppuku. Shoutout to wof for humbling me

Week 5 vs LpZ
- - - - -

ima made this one, shoutouts to my boy for his goated OST run, unfortunately has a dicks matchup into sun and thats what LpZ brought, although I made goat plays and gave myself a shot to win until this garbage ass Cinderace missed double wisp on Gambit in the endgame

Week 6 vs Storm Zone
- - - - -

I think either ACR1 or JUST ONE GALATINA made this, I don't remember, saved in my builder as "cringe ass fat team." Shit's pretty cheap tho, good for laddering with

Week 7 vs MANNAT
- - - - -

Easily my favorite team I built during SPL, and I was under a lot of pressure and badly needed a win for my own sanity after having lost 5 straight so I brought the best shit I had. This team is fucking cheap and absolutely smokes ladder. Any noob can autopilot this to 2k without even thinking, this shit is fucking monstrous

Week 8 vs Fogbound Lake
- - - - -

I did zero prep this week so I just brought the cheapest team in SVOU history, shoutouts Blim and CTC for making this cancer ass shit

Week 9 vs kdca
- - - - -

Same as week 8, I threw this together the night before the game and it seemed pretty strong, had some help from Vert and ima, pretty decent team tho


All in all a very disappointing season for me, I definitely choked a few games, had some bad RNG in others, very much a learning experience. SPL is really a grind. Hope some people enjoy using these on ladder

ALSO: BAN TERA BLAST. GET REQS, VOTE BAN. SAVE OUR TIER

It has come to my attention that my dragapult on the week 7 team has 0 attack IVs. I have been running this shit for 2 months now and this is the paste i brought to spl lmfaooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

[tommytt22]

Is tera blast or encore worse on Dragonite? Could write a ten page essay on my thoughts about encore this gen but encores strength is really just the synergy with tera I guess

 

[malahuju]

Is tera blast or encore worse on Dragonite? Could write a ten page essay on my thoughts about encore this gen but encores strength is really just the synergy with tera I guess

I think tera blast is surely worse (aka scarier, edit: I'm interpreting worse to mean more oppressive in the way you used it), or at least more difficult to prep or plan for mid battle. Encore you can scout more easily or at least plan around i.e., don't set up or use the wrong move until you know it can't encore you. Tera type is a lot more difficult to plan for. Sure sometimes you lose bc the dnite encores you but encore helps it abuse DD + tera blast more.

There are sometimes clues you can use to infer tera type and/or tera blast. Dnite gaining fairy or flying coverage (or even ghost as was a fad once) is a lot harder to know a priori, especially because trends shift with the meta. If you haven't been keeping up with the meta, you might not know the popular dnite tera blast type as of late. At least scouting for encore never changes with meta trends (outside normal move usage).

You could argue there's more of an opportunity cost of running tera blast, but I think the reward of having the right tera blast often is more valuable than the the reward of getting an encore turn correct. It's also more difficult to have the positioning to let you abuse encore. Having the right tera is part of SV matchups, but tera blast gives dnite any color it wants; whereas without tera blast, at the worst, you're just planning for dnite to change defensive profile while setting up w a multiscale.

 

[CaioXLive12]

I'm not yet qualified to discuss on Tera Blast, but I want to voice my opinion in it

For me, Tera Blast is not broken. You may argue that having a Wild Card coverage may be too much, but by using Tera Blast, there's an immense commitment you're doing:

- You either accept the fact you're going to have basically 3 moves should you have to emergency tera another mon, or you're essentially locking your Terastal choice. Because until you're terastalized, you have a weaker hyper voice that if you're not even a Special attacker you cannot use anyway.

- Also, you can only have 1 Tera Blast in your team. It's vastly different from Hidden Power for instance, where you could use as many as you needed on your team.

Another factor we should consider is that your type changes with Tera and that can be a double-edged sword. If you're an Electric Type and you choose to Terastalize to Ice type to have Bolt-Beam, remind yourself that you have the worst defensive type in the game.

That being said, if it's to do some kind of action, the only thing I'd personally do is what I've suggested before when people claimed Tera was too broken:
- Add a Tera Reveal Clause, allowing you to check the tera type of all mons.
That wouldn't require modding the cartridge to replicate in game, because it'd be the equivalent of saying irl: "Hey, that Kingambit in front of you, it has Tera Flying".
Plus, by having Tera reveal, we remove one of the two most annoying things about tera which is to predict which tera type do you have(Leaving only the "when he will terastalize").

Btw, if you think Tera Reveal isn't impactful, lemme show you a scenario to demonstrate:

- You have a Kingambit on the opposing side of the field, and you have an Iron Valiant. Currently you have to switch out or Tera because he could be Tera Flying, Tera Fairy or Tera Ghost. If you guess wrong, he's hitting you with an Iron Head.
(252+ Atk Kingambit Iron Head vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Iron Valiant: 320-380 (110.7 - 131.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO)
- If you know in advance he's Tera Dark, you ain't switching at all. You know you can safely click your Fighting-type attack. He's the one forced out.
(252 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Dark Kingambit: 336-396 (98.5 - 116.1%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO)

 

[tommytt22]

I'm not yet qualified to discuss on Tera Blast, but I want to voice my opinion in it

For me, Tera Blast is not broken. You may argue that having a Wild Card coverage may be too much, but by using Tera Blast, there's an immense commitment you're doing:

- You either accept the fact you're going to have basically 3 moves should you have to emergency tera another mon, or you're essentially locking your Terastal choice. Because until you're terastalized, you have a weaker hyper voice that if you're not even a Special attacker you cannot use anyway.

- Also, you can only have 1 Tera Blast in your team. It's vastly different from Hidden Power for instance, where you could use as many as you needed on your team.

Another factor we should consider is that your type changes with Tera and that can be a double-edged sword. If you're an Electric Type and you choose to Terastalize to Ice type to have Bolt-Beam, remind yourself that you have the worst defensive type in the game.

That being said, if it's to do some kind of action, the only thing I'd personally do is what I've suggested before when people claimed Tera was too broken:
- Add a Tera Reveal Clause, allowing you to check the tera type of all mons.
That wouldn't require modding the cartridge to replicate in game, because it'd be the equivalent of saying irl: "Hey, that Kingambit in front of you, it has Tera Flying".
Plus, by having Tera reveal, we remove one of the two most annoying things about tera which is to predict which tera type do you have(Leaving only the "when he will terastalize").

Btw, if you think Tera Reveal isn't impactful, lemme show you a scenario to demonstrate:

- You have a Kingambit on the opposing side of the field, and you have an Iron Valiant. Currently you have to switch out or Tera because he could be Tera Flying, Tera Fairy or Tera Ghost. If you guess wrong, he's hitting you with an Iron Head.
(252+ Atk Kingambit Iron Head vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Iron Valiant: 320-380 (110.7 - 131.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO)
- If you know in advance he's Tera Dark, you ain't switching at all. You know you can safely click your Fighting-type attack. He's the one forced out.
(252 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Dark Kingambit: 336-396 (98.5 - 116.1%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO)

how about a counter scenario. Kingambit V Great tusk. you have tera preview, and you know kingambit can tera flying. do you click ice spinner into kingambit for 10% as it stays dark/steel (opponent knows you can see their tera)? or do you headlong rush into it as tera flying gets clicked? or do you switch out as it gets a swords dance? tera preview takes out one mind game but applies another.

252 Atk Great Tusk Ice Spinner vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Flying Kingambit: 150-178 (43.9 - 52.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Zero bulk kingambit cant even be 2hko by ice spinner from max attack tusk if it has full health. So assuming you get the turn correct it still fries you with tera blast flying. Without tera blast though, this is irrelevant, because the best play is just to click bulk up. you'll always win, doesnt matter what tera kingambit has.

you can run a lot of similar scenarios where tera blast is the make or break in a matchup, heatran vs iron moth for example. Don't get me started on dragonite. volcarona would be allowed back, regieleki would be completely homeless.

Council/ community has decided not to take direct action on tera, this is clear. We've spent 3 years banning setup sweepers who abuse tera/ tera blast, every time the next worst abuser becomes a problem (see dragonite/ kyurem after roaring moon ban). Action on tera blast is finally something new that might be enough to take the edge off tera, instead of us continuing down the flawed path we've already been walking. Tera blast has some limitations, but the worst tera abusers generally abuse tera blast as well, and this will target them a lot more than average pokemon that might use defensive tera or Stab tera, which feels like a good balance move to me.

 

[CaioXLive12]

how about a counter scenario. Kingambit V Great tusk. you have tera preview, and you know kingambit can tera flying. do you click ice spinner into kingambit for 10% as it stays dark/steel (opponent knows you can see their tera)? or do you headlong rush into it as tera flying gets clicked? or do you switch out as it gets a swords dance? tera preview takes out one mind game but applies another.

252 Atk Great Tusk Ice Spinner vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Flying Kingambit: 150-178 (43.9 - 52.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Zero bulk kingambit cant even be 2hko by ice spinner from max attack tusk if it has full health. So assuming you get the turn correct it still fries you with tera blast flying. Without tera blast though, this is irrelevant, because the best play is just to click bulk up. you'll always win, doesnt matter what tera kingambit has.

you can run a lot of similar scenarios where tera blast is the make or break in a matchup, heatran vs iron moth for example. Don't get me started on dragonite. volcarona would be allowed back, regieleki would be completely homeless.

Council/ community has decided not to take direct action on tera, this is clear. We've spent 3 years banning setup sweepers who abuse tera/ tera blast, every time the next worst abuser becomes a problem (see dragonite/ kyurem after roaring moon ban). Action on tera blast is finally something new that might be enough to take the edge off tera, instead of us continuing down the flawed path we've already been walking. Tera blast has some limitations, but the worst tera abusers generally abuse tera blast as well, and this will target them a lot more than average pokemon that might use defensive tera or Stab tera, which feels like a good balance move to me.

Under current Scenarios my friend, not only does you have to account for tera flying, but also for tera ghost, tera fairy...

The change is: You go from: guessing which tera he has, and then figuring out when he'll terastalize, to only figure out when he's terastalizing.

And again, double-edged sword - It can help you a Tera Blast but you're committing to terastalize that specific Pokémon. That not even considering your own terastal though.

 

[moore's law]

how about a counter scenario. Kingambit V Great tusk. you have tera preview, and you know kingambit can tera flying. do you click ice spinner into kingambit for 10% as it stays dark/steel (opponent knows you can see their tera)? or do you headlong rush into it as tera flying gets clicked? or do you switch out as it gets a swords dance? tera preview takes out one mind game but applies another.

252 Atk Great Tusk Ice Spinner vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Flying Kingambit: 150-178 (43.9 - 52.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Zero bulk kingambit cant even be 2hko by ice spinner from max attack tusk if it has full health. So assuming you get the turn correct it still fries you with tera blast flying. Without tera blast though, this is irrelevant, because the best play is just to click bulk up. you'll always win, doesnt matter what tera kingambit has.

I agree that tera blast makes things worse and is the underlying problem in the situation you described, but I have never understood this particular critique of tera preview (i.e. that the mindgame now becomes when you tera), as if it is worse than the situation we have today. I agree that such mind games can exist, but I think the situation is still better than today because you have the whole game to plan for it.

Today, I still have the exact same guessing game as I would have if tera preview were implemented, but worse. We still see people trying to make tera "reads" in play like using Crunch on a Kingambit that is trying to set up on Zamazenta, because the implication is that it is tera ghost and they want to catch the tera. I still am not sure when I am facing a late game gambit if it is best to go for headlong (for fire, fairy, or ghost) or CC (for dark). People thankfully don't run tera flying as much anymore, so you don't often need to think of ice spinner, and generally, clicking headlong gets you value out of the turn.

People bluff tera (either that they are about to tera, or signal that they are a certain tera type but actually are not), and it is very scary on stuff with bulk like Gambit, Nite, Kyurem and Zamazenta because tera is often used to flip type matchups or end some forms of counterplay entirely, and if you read/guessed wrong, that can instantly be game ending.

If I had tera preview, I would be able to tell on team preview what do I need to preserve to check the opposing team's sweepers, what should my game plan be. Is it a tera fairy gambit? I should probably do my best to preserve moltres, because if I lose it that thing probably wins, and so on. We have a pretty good understanding on how to beat each set individually, but what makes things tricky is that you are often not sure what the set is, and if the set was not what you expected, gg.

I don't think it would solve the coverage issue as you pointed out, but tera preview would probably make it easier to plan than having to guess things out for the biggest abusers.

I understand that is not on the table and it looks like the community and council have decided it is best to look at any restricting tera by taking action on tera blast, I just dislike the argument that tera preview somehow leads to more or worse mind games than we have today, I just can't wrap my head around it. I know you probably didn't imply that, but that was what was argued in the past to dismiss it as not being helpful, and as you said, we are unlikely to ever see any action on tera apart from tera blast.

 

[CaioXLive12]

I agree that tera blast makes things worse and is the underlying problem in the situation you described, but I have never understood this particular critique of tera preview (i.e. that the mindgame now becomes when you tera), as if it is worse than the situation we have today. I agree that such mind games can exist, but I think the situation is still better than today because you have the whole game to plan for it.

Today, I still have the exact same guessing game as I would have if tera preview were implemented, but worse. We still see people trying to make tera "reads" in play like using Crunch on a Kingambit that is trying to set up on Zamazenta, because the implication is that it is tera ghost and they want to catch the tera. I still am not sure when I am facing a late game gambit if it is best to go for headlong (for fire, fairy, or ghost) or CC (for dark). People thankfully don't run tera flying as much anymore, so you don't often need to think of ice spinner, and generally, clicking headlong gets you value out of the turn.

People bluff tera (either that they are about to tera, or signal that they are a certain tera type but actually are not), and it is very scary on stuff with bulk like Gambit, Nite, Kyurem and Zamazenta because tera is often used to flip type matchups or end some forms of counterplay entirely, and if you read/guessed wrong, that can instantly be game ending.

If I had tera preview, I would be able to tell on team preview what do I need to preserve to check the opposing team's sweepers, what should my game plan be. Is it a tera fairy gambit? I should probably do my best to preserve moltres, because if I lose it that thing probably wins, and so on. We have a pretty good understanding on how to beat each set individually, but what makes things tricky is that you are often not sure what the set is, and if the set was not what you expected, gg.

I don't think it would solve the coverage issue as you pointed out, but tera preview would probably make it easier to plan than having to guess things out for the biggest abusers.

I understand that is not on the table and it looks like the community and council have decided it is best to look at any restricting tera by taking action on tera blast, I just dislike the argument that tera preview somehow leads to more or worse mind games than we have today, I just can't wrap my head around it. I know you probably didn't imply that, but that was what was argued in the past to dismiss it as not being helpful, and as you said, we are unlikely to ever see any action on tera apart from tera blast.

The issue with Tera Blast is mainly the opportunity cost. You're committing a moveslot and your tera in it.

That's very different from let's say, Hidden Power. Because with Hidden Power you can use it freely without major Drawbacks. But Tera Blast it's one per team, and you're locking yourself in a specific tera. That can backfire greatly especially if the type needed is bad defensively. Like for example, if you need Ice type for Bolt-Beam: Ice is terrible defensively and you can potentially lose your mon quite easily

And the worst part, if you in the course of the match, need to emergency tera another mon, you have a move that will be 90% of the time, useless. A Weaker Hyper Voice without any secondary effects.

That without even considering your opponent can also terastalize to resist your own tera blast too.

 

[moore's law]

The issue with Tera Blast is mainly the opportunity cost. You're committing a moveslot and your tera in it.

That's very different from let's say, Hidden Power. Because with Hidden Power you can use it freely without major Drawbacks. But Tera Blast it's one per team, and you're locking yourself in a specific tera. That can backfire greatly especially if the type needed is bad defensively. Like for example, if you need Ice type for Bolt-Beam: Ice is terrible defensively and you can potentially lose your mon quite easily

And the worst part, if you in the course of the match, need to emergency tera another mon, you have a move that will be 90% of the time, useless. A Weaker Hyper Voice without any secondary effects.

That without even considering your opponent can also terastalize to resist your own tera blast too.

I was backing your point up on tera preview. I am ambivalent on tera blast, it is pretty clear that the move can be problematic on a few mons but is not broken on the vast majority of the pokemon. At the same time it can lead to matchup fishing which is against what most people want (I hope).

Tera ice is not a problem, we see it occasionally on stuff to snipe Gliscor, but the big abusers always use offensively potent types that double as a solid defensive option like Fairy (Dnite and Gambit), Ghost (Dnite, Kyurem), Electric, Fire or Ground (Kyurem), and Flying (Dragonite). The teams that do run these abusers are designed to not require emergency defensive teras, they are extremely offensive and look to burst checks to these sets down before bring the setup sweeper in to kill stuff.

I also don't love the hidden power comparison you bring up. Yes, you could slap hidden power on anything, but it wasn't drawback free like you suggest:
- it was a weak move that could (post gen 3) only be used on special attackers, so you couldn't sweep with DD + hidden power
- you were usually using it as coverage, so you didn't get stab on it

When you pop the button here, you are getting a 120 (or 160 in case of same type like tera fly blast on dragonite) base power move after STAB. It's literally at least twice as strong, which is why it is so potent on sweepers, especially with DD. Hidden power was generally only used to facilitate sweeps on Volcarona in the past, and that mon has always had its share of controversy. Even there, it was the combination of high bulk + move that boosted speed AND the relevant attacking stat that made it usable.

Tera blast can be a dead slot if you end up teraing something else, what makes it so powerful (usable on both physical and special attackers post tera) is also what hinders it if you don't commit to or are unable to tera. That (and it being problematic on only a few sweepers) is why we are seeing a suspect test right now - whether the variance it brings is manageable given the opportunity cost of building around such a mechanic.

 

[Moyashi]

The issue with Tera Blast is mainly the opportunity cost. You're committing a moveslot and your tera in it.

That's very different from let's say, Hidden Power. Because with Hidden Power you can use it freely without major Drawbacks. But Tera Blast it's one per team, and you're locking yourself in a specific tera. That can backfire greatly especially if the type needed is bad defensively. Like for example, if you need Ice type for Bolt-Beam: Ice is terrible defensively and you can potentially lose your mon quite easily

And the worst part, if you in the course of the match, need to emergency tera another mon, you have a move that will be 90% of the time, useless. A Weaker Hyper Voice without any secondary effects.

That without even considering your opponent can also terastalize to resist your own tera blast too.

There is zero guarantee you'd have the tools needed to "counter" or respond to the opponent's chosen type and tera blast coverage. That is the fundamental problem with the move and why there have been vocal complaints about it, especially as more abusers of the move have been explored. It very much embodies the match up fish aspect of Tera (which, by itself has become less of an issue as people get better at reading from preview) to an extreme, and is very frustrating to see come up.

A good player can have a perfectly well built team that's generally prepared for a number of relevant threats and still play into less advantegous match ups. They're prepped for those threats and can generally handle different tera types with skillful play. That's considering the fact this gen has more threats to have to prep for than arguably any other OU meta ever due to Tera inflating the threat list effectively. But it's still possible to handle.

Tera Blast throws that out the window. There's not much you can do if you prepare for most traditional Kyurem sets only for it to whip out the Tera Blast type you WEREN'T able to prep for because you didn't have room in the builder, and thus you are at a great disadvantage and risk losing to it. This goes for Kingambit and Dragonite too, and those are just the S -> S- rank pokemon. There's several among the A ranks this could apply to like Raging Bolt or Ceruledge, and I guarantee you the longer this move remains in the tier, the more people will explore it to create cheesy wins with it and that list will get bigger and bigger with time.

And these are all just the OU mons. Pokemon like Volcarona and Regieleki had to be removed due to the move and both were otherwise balanced pokemon that had good healthy traits for the tier (Volcarona brought a lot of helpful tools to the teams it fit on, both as a wincon and as a check to dangerous threats). But Tera Blast let them cheat past their answers.

Tera Blast promotes fishing, and creates further volatility in a tier that has plenty of threats to prep for as is without having to factor the move's capacity for BS. The idea I've seen some people float about it being fine because it's not always consistent or that it "gives mons with coverage issues tools to work with" kind of just are proving the point. Those mons delibrately were kept from having those tools as a balancing factor. TB gets around that.

Yes, technically, there's opportunity cost, as with most anything, but the upside can be so potentially high, sometimes game winning, that it can and is worth it in those cases.