Resource ORAS OU Metagame Discussion

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With what I've seen, STag has been put to ubers. For some reason, I feel that dugtrio will rise to the occasion as the "second STag." Shedinja does wall about 90% of all pokes due to wonder guard. Shedinja being only in rank d means that it can be used. There is the obvious trade-off of 1 HP and wonder guard. Rocks will be very important due to usages of shedinja and dugtrio. Shedinja is obvious -- 1 HP; dugtrio is due to the common focus sash-reversal set.
 
Dugtrio cant replace stag. Ignoring the obvious limitation of arena trap not being flying type, dugtrio just plain too weak to kill a lot of the things that its capable of trapping, unlike goth and to a lesser extent wobb. Its damage is too poor to kill a lot of the meta even when combining eq+sucker, and its bulk is bad enough that it cant use anything but a sash. I mean it takes more damage from earthquakes than heatran does.
 
I mean Dugtrio might gain some viability but it will never be a second stag. Stag was broken because goth could effectively trap a majority of common stall breakers and render them useless through trick or just outright killing them, where as dugtrio simply can not. As for how stall will be I am eager to see how it adapts to the meta now that it doesn't have a blanket check to so many mons, and how well stall will actually preform.
 
Both moves have limitations, for Stag, its ghosts and, as you said, flying types for arena trap. That being said, both are used to corner and take out the threats.
 
MagnuxPlux said:
Both moves have limitations, for Stag, its ghosts and, as you said, flying types for arena trap. That being said, both are used to corner and take out the threats.
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True, but Gothitelle would never attempt to trap a Ghost-type in the first place, since most of them could straight-up beat it. Compare to Duggy, who does have the moveslot to run Rock Slide if it wants.
 
Nah ghosts are also immune to arena trap and magnet pull. That limitation isnt exclusive to STag. TBH Duggy aint ever going to rise to the level of glory it reached in the pre-ChloroDrought/StreamRush-ban BW meta. While its sash and CB sets are cool (I actually like band a lot more than Sash on Shed teams tbh cause it can OHKO Scarftar without worrying about clearing potential rocks on its side first), it simply lacks the raw versatility to make the most out of the ability to trap stuff in the same way that Goth can.
 
Ok I am seeing much more semistall than I was before. Kyurem-Black, of all things, is becoming very common to see alongside Chansey, Mega Sableye, Clef, Quag, etc. It really does deal with a lot of the problems to stall, namely manaphy, while still being able to take on most of the meta. Interesting trend
 
With Gothitelle gone the balance between offense, balanced and stall has been broken and must be fixed asap. Serperior can be handled by Sap Sipper Azumarill but Manaphy steamroll stalls (and the other playstyles have major issues against it as well) and should be suspected next.
 
To be honest, if you're using fat, slow teams, you're bound to get destroyed by things like Manaphy, it's been the case. Fat passive balance just isn't good enough now, and I think that it's time for people to keep up with the metagame by using more offensive teams.

Speaking of Offense, I think M-Manectric+Keldeo+AV M-Metagross is a pretty cool core to use rn. Metagross acts as the Fairy check and Pursuit traps Latis for Keldeo and M-Manectric. It also takes on Clefable pretty well. Keldeo takes care of bulky ground types that M-Manectric struggles against, and M-Manectric destroys Offense.
 
Yeah and even then, fat teams are still fine. If you choose to use an archetype that is inherently weak to an incredibly common Mon like manaphy, then you need to build with it explicitly in mind. That is, carry a solid counter/check to all of its move possibilities. Chansey can fare well against most. Amoong and venu can handle energy ball/scald rain dance sets, slowbro can handle non energy ball relatively well, etc. Azumarill and tbolt mega latias can check almost all of them as well. It is a struggle, but manaphy is a very special case. Luckily, its chrcks are indeed multi-dimensional, so the archetype isn't completely backed into a corner against manaphy with a bit of creativity. Only really heracross and Gardevoir and hoopa are comparable, and those have a few multi-dimensional checks as well. Plus, we didn't lose sableye, so stall still has a fairly hard stop against taunt and hazard spam.

Of course things become quite a bit easier if you do opt for a hybrid build. I faced someone that used scarf pursuit ttar and sand rush sd exca on a stall team to eliminate yucky threats like hoopa and Gardevoir and weakened kyurem that try to switch out.
 
Must I remind people this isnt the place to discuss whats broken, go crying somewhere else with your tales of getting 6-0ed by manaphy because you didnt prepare for it. Stall always had to prepare explicitly for stallbreakers like manaphy, thats the very nature of playing stall and the banning of STag didnt change that. You cant expect to do well with any team unless you have a way of dealing with the biggest threats in the meta, stall is no exception. This thread is strictly for discussion of the metagame, if you think stall has gotten worse than discuss it rather than saying "stall is dead bc i refuse to actually have a bit of creativity and not use the same stall outline from XY OU"
 
Stall has many ways to deal with stallbreakers like manaphy lol, it's only an unwinnable matchup if you don't account for it in teambuilding. Two stall cores that are really good vs manaphy are ferro+chansey as well as ferro+unaware clefable as ferro can take on non hp fire manaphy and the pink blobs can take on any set aside from rd tg, which running hp fire on is counterproductive. You can also run like LO kyub on semi-stall as a reliable manaphy check. Stall has plenty of ways to deal with common stallbreakers, you just need to take time to scan over your team and adjust your team according to threats and compress multiple roles into one pokemon. Sure it may take a bit more time to build than a "5 minute HO squad", but it will be just as effective if not moreso if you put effort into it. If you don't believe me, then ask the user: Wheezer
 
Ok we all agree if you don't prep for things no kidding you'll lose to them XP

Anyways, I've had a lot of success pairing mega pinsir with T-tar + Excadrill. They share most common checks so that they can weaken lando, rotom, etc. and Exca provides hazard removal. it's a pretty good core.
 
Played a bit with this underrated Keldeo set and it works pretty well.

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Keldeo @ Salac Berry
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Endeavor
- Scald
- Secret Sword

Keldeo is easily one of the best pokemon in the tier but the high usage of reliable checks such as Tornadus-T, Latios, Mega Venusaur and Azumarill can give the standard sets (Specs, Scarf, SubCM and LO resttalk) a lot of trouble doing their job. SubEndeavor Keldeo sacrifices its niche as an awesome Scizor / Bish / Weav etc. check to be a nice lure to dozens of pokemon. Getting a free sub either early game (to get rid of mons like MVenusaur) or late game (clean up when priority is gone) on the free switch is the situation you want. The set works best on faster checks such as Latios and Tornadus-T, but it will also work against slower pokemon
Turn 1: Keldeo uses Sub, opponent switches out Heatran to Mega Venusaur
Turn 2: You scald Mega Venusaur while he will try to break your sub with Giga Drain
Turn 3 - 5: You use sub until you are at 1%, Mega Venusaur breaks the Sub
Turn 6: You Endeavor while Mega Venusaur kills you.

Best case scenario: Mega Venusaur faints because of the burn you got from Scald.
Worst case scenario: Mega Venusaur is left at 1% while Keldeo has fainted.

To be honest, not the best outcome. At least you got rid of the Keldeo counter so other pokemon such as Azumarill and Mega Altaria are going to have an easier time for the remainder of the match.
Turn 1: Keldeo uses Sub, opponent switches out Heatran to Latios
Turn 2 - 4: You keep using Sub while Latios breaks your sub with Psyshock. After 4 turns, you are at 1% HP, +1 speed behind a sub against a 70% Latios.
Turn 5: You Endeavor Latios while he breaks the sub for the last time. LO recoil will kill Latios but it doesn't really matter: the next turn Keldeo will be at +1 speed so any move will kill (works very well against pokemon such as Leftovers Starmie and AV Torn-T)
Turn 6: You don't have your sub anymore, but you are at +1 speed so unless the opponent has a ghost type, scarfer above 108 speed or priority, you will get another pokemon at 1% health.

Best case scenario: Latios faints, another pokemon is left at 1% health
Worst case scenario: Latios faints, Keldeo is revenge killed the next turn (which will give you the momentum)
You can also pair this Keldeo set up with Healing Wish support. You won't be able to use Salac Berry again, but you can still use the combination of Substitute + Endeavor for slower checks and use your standard Scald + Secret Sword to kill mons like Tyranitar.
 
littlelucario said:
Stall has many ways to deal with stallbreakers like manaphy lol, it's only an unwinnable matchup if you don't account for it in teambuilding. Two stall cores that are really good vs manaphy are ferro+chansey as well as ferro+unaware clefable as ferro can take on non hp fire manaphy and the pink blobs can take on any set aside from rd tg, which running hp fire on is counterproductive. You can also run like LO kyub on semi-stall as a reliable manaphy check. Stall has plenty of ways to deal with common stallbreakers, you just need to take time to scan over your team and adjust your team according to threats and compress multiple roles into one pokemon. Sure it may take a bit more time to build than a "5 minute HO squad", but it will be just as effective if not moreso if you put effort into it. If you don't believe me, then ask the user: Wheezer
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Not sure what you are necessarily talking about here, sorry. Stallbreakers actually don't provide much counterplay options to stall... that's why they are effective stallbreakers. Yes, you do have options for beating common stallbreakers / wallbreakers, they place many constraints upon stall teams when building, keeping the builder from being very creative with the team concept or mons on the team. That is why we see common team archetypes like [Mega Sableye / Ferrothorn / Clefable / Starmie / Hippowdon / Talonflame], or [Mega Venusaur / Chansey or Clefable / Heatran / Slowbro / filler / filler], or [Mega Charizard X / Hippowdon / Ferrothorn or Skarmory / Mew or Slowbro / filler / filler], etc. It is not that common stallbreakers necessarily beat stall teams, it is the restrictions they place on teambuilding that is the problem because they end up limiting the creativity and variety of stall. The biggest issue with stallbreakers is that you are often not able to compound counters to the common stallbreakers. Take Mega Medicham, Manaphy, Mega Gardevoir, and Gengar for example. More often than not, a stall team will have the following framework in order to beat the aforementioned stallbreakers (however, stall teams are not built around this framework, it just naturally falls into place): [Mega Medicham psychic type counter or m sab / Manaphy set counterplay 1 / Manaphy set counterplay 2 / Mega Gardevoir steel type counter or chansey / Gengar counter]. Because each of these stallbreakers often require their own dedicated slot on stall teams, stall will end up falling into common archetypes. However, there are a few ways around this that I know of (if you can think of any other mons that can compound these slots, I would love to hear about them). Mega Scizor can counter both Mega Gardevoir and Gengar, and Chansey can fulfill both Manaphy counter 1 and Mega Gardevoir counter (although Chansey isn't necessarily the best Mega Gardevoir counter).

Please don't think I'm trying to convince anybody that these stallbreakers / wallbreakers need to be suspected (also, I don't know what the argument before this was about, I just got tagged and read littlelucario's post). I just thought that I would point out that stall doesn't have many options when dealing with stallbreakers / wallbreakers, but a well built stall team should have sufficient counterplay to the common stallbreakers / wallbreakers.

e: i mean stallbreakers as a whole restrict stall, not necessarily individual stallbreakers.
 
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on the whole topic of stall:

yes, losing gothitelle definitely hurt stall a bit; gothitelle being able to trap & trick annoying stallbreakers was a godsend for stall, but it's also what made gothstall such an uncompetitive build. you had to bring things like shed shell manaphy + ttar (or any pursuit trapper); point is that you had to run really stupid things to beat what basically amounted to 1 team and a variant or 2 of it.

however, stall (really just fat builds in general) has already been pressured like crazy as of recently. in both x/y & ORAS, we saw further increases in "power creep", but there wasn't really a defensive counterpart to this to balance it out a bit. sure, we got things like mega slowbro and mega sableye, but the amount of offensive threats definitely outweighed the defensive ones. on top of this, we've seen the rise of some amazing stall / wall breakers. things like manaphy and stallbreaker (and / or spdef) talonflame saw a bump in usage & viability (for the specific sets) in ORAS, and hoopa-u was introduced. this isn't including other neat stallbreakers like mega heracross, mega medicham, mega gallade, mega gardevoir, etc. that we already had... some of which saw ups and downs in viability through x/y and oras. my point here is: there are so many great and viable stallbreakers that there's no excuse not to run one. a lot of this things can somewhat hold their own against offense with their standard / most optimal stallbreaking set, and if they can't, they usually have a set that has a stronger MU against offense, while only sacrificing a bit in the stallbreaking department: things like salac manaphy, scarf & av hoopa-u, for example.

this post isn't me saying "suspect this stuff so stall can be better"; it's just what i've noticed about stall in general from the beginning of ORAS to gothitelle being banned :p

MagnuxPlux, i'd refer to the type cores & good cores threads. the type cores thread is locked, but you should be able to find some solid cores in there considering it isn't too old. also, you seem fairly new (considering your account was made on saturday), so i'd suggest asking questions like this in the simple questions, simple answers thread. not trying to minimod, just trying to guide you in the right direction here n_n
 
I am find with mega sableye staying in the tier. IMO it was not over centralizing, but I can say that it can limit team building to an extent. Having no hazards in a game can definitely hurt you when you are facing stall. And with limited fairy choices in the tier, it can be a little difficult to play around. Gardevoir is not very good without a mega, azu is a good choice but this mon is not a good choice on every team, and clef is like one of the only plausible options, since clef is really splashable. While mega sableye is very good at what it does, and despite all these nitpicks I have with it in the meta, it is definitely not ban worthy, since there are always ways to play around it, and it has its weaknesses. Such as having to be forced to recover and how easy it can be whittled when played correctly.
 
Speaking of Mega Sableye stall, as someone currently in mid later, since the suspect test I can't remember the last time I played against stall. Anyone else notice a sharp decrease in stall and even semi-stall? Is it the same in higher ladder? It's gotten to the point where I'd nominate Mega Sab to drop to A+ rank (if I wasn't too chicken to make the nom) based on the fact that the teams Mega Sab glue together no longer exist. I could be completely wrong here though lol. Anyone else with me here?
 
Expert_Occultist said:
Speaking of Mega Sableye stall, as someone currently in mid later, since the suspect test I can't remember the last time I played against stall. Anyone else notice a sharp decrease in stall and even semi-stall? Is it the same in higher ladder? It's gotten to the point where I'd nominate Mega Sab to drop to A+ rank (if I wasn't too chicken to make the nom) based on the fact that the teams Mega Sab glue together no longer exist. I could be completely wrong here though lol. Anyone else with me here?
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above i talked about how stall losing gothitelle would hurt it, and that relates to there being a decline in stall. i don't ladder, but stall usage declining a bit makes sense for the reasons explained by myself and others above.

however, that isn't gonna be something that hurts mega sableye lol. this isn't the VR thread, so i'm not gonna discuss your opinion that sab should now be A+, but sableye is definitely still amazing for the reasons it was suspected. it's capable of putting insane pressure on teams thanks to being a bulky magic bounce user; it gives a really nice form of hazard prevention to bulkier builds (how it basically enabled gothstall), it's unaffected by moves like toxic and will-o-wisp (thanks to magic bounce), making it harder to wear down, it has excellent defensive typing, it has an amazing movepool for a bulky utility pokemon, etc.. the thing is capable of forcing switches, and then capitalizing on those with moves like will-o-wisp, knock off, and recover (more passive). yes, one of the big, uncompetitive things it did in being a key part of gothstall is gone, but it's other attributes that make it annoying to deal with still exist.

the thing is still a solid option for fat teams; while stall usage has declined, it can still be seen in the gimmicky wonder trio build, and imo that's almost as annoying as gothstall was. there aren't any other big / remarkable stall builds that i can think of, but sab's still nice on various stall / semi-stall builds, as well as balance. being able to prevent hazards while providing excellent utility like i explained above is still super useful for balanced builds, and it's definitely worth the mega slot. if you want a good example of a balanced build featuring mega sableye, i'd check out TDK's / dice's mega sableye balance in the sample teams thread. there are a bunch of other teams like this, and odds are you've probably run into or at least seen one by now.
 
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