Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[Msousagamer]

I wanted to comment on how everyone thought houdstone was overpowered, and now everyone is complaining. It wins a lot purely from matchups and it's pure strengh is amazing, it can run sand rush or even fluffy scarf and when you're reduced to 2 mons against it you might not have the material to beat it, by this i mean a lot of times

 

[dsbruce]

I wanted to comment on how everyone thought houdstone was overpowered, and now everyone is complaining. It wins a lot purely from matchups and it's pure strengh is amazing, it can run sand rush or even fluffy scarf and when you're reduced to 2 mons against it you might not have the material to beat it, by this i mean a lot of times

oh no, a late game sweeper that can take down 2 mons if positioned right with scarf on. surely this has never happened before in the history of pokemon.

 

[sufys]

Bullshit. Talk to Freeze clause on that and tell me there's a code to follow. It's arbitrary and there's no need to let the mechanic suffer for this supposed ideology that isn't followed when it's suited.

As for what I said, you did not read it right. One Mon selected in team builder that is announced to the opponent when the game loads. That is not unreasonable and is easy to implement. This is the patient and thoughtful method rather than larping about authenticity and a code. This is the same bullshit that got Houndstone banned when it is clearly the move

Sleep Clause and the like are mistakes from the past that are kept for the sake of convenience and just following of the general principle of not fixing what's not broken. They shouldn't have existed but we've moved on from that now.

That's not even Tera though, that's just a new mechanic of your own creation at this point. Such a mechanic was never added to SV.

 

[Porygon2Bandit]

The fact that Houndstone needs to rely on every single one of its teammates to be dead, along with having sand up or scarf which locks it into the move, ALONG WITH the fact that normal types completely wall the move... just why?

Wow its a great thing Houndstone "needs to rely on teammates being dead" rather than you just winning the game if it doesn't come to fruition.

Also its not like those teammates were on strike until they got added to the fainted column.

 

[Joseph Gomes]

PDef Gyarados is probably the most consistent check to Taunt BU Palafin because it hits for 2-4% after Intimidate and Lefties. Half of Gyarados's effectiveness lies in the surprise value of Thunder Wave though, since some Palafin user like to plays greedy with BU expecting DD. I always try for TWave regardless, if I get Taunted I just DTail it out the next turn. The main problem is that Gyarados doesn't really do much in return either, I've tried Chilling Water to blank out BU's Atk boost forever, but funny enough Chilling Water literally doesn't deal any damage through Palafin's own Lefties. I've even considered running Body Slam to Paralyse Palafin through Taunt, which just exemplifies the fact that Palafin is still a big problem.

Set

Gyarados @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Waterfall
- Dragon Tail
- Thunder Wave
- Protect
I used to run Iron Head with 88 SpD for Flutter and Valiant, but with Flutter basically confirmed to be gone, it has a lot more freedom to run DTail. Really solid check to Chien-Pao, Roaring Moon and Iron Valiant too depending on your choice of moves over Protect

Scarf Rotom-W with WoW and Trick is pretty nice tech too, you can either outspeed to dodge the Taunt, then burn him or just Scarf lock him forever, though admittedly both of these are just band-aid solutions to this stupidly overpowered Dolphin.

Anything to check the Dolphin screams desperation honestly. It's explicitly broken and should be kicked out ASAP

 

[Msousagamer]

oh no, a late game sweeper that can take down 2 mons if positioned right with scarf on. surely this has never happened before in the history of pokemon.

Oh yeah it relies on teammates being dead, true. Before that they already traded eachother against the opposing team, and it is uncompetitive when your mon can teare through 3 pokemon cause it is far too powerful for would be counters and has access to 2 abilities that allow him to be far too powerful to handle. Most priorities that could kill him are physical, what does fluffy do? Cut physical attack in half. But don't forget in case you don't have priority but mons that outspeed, a sand rush suddenly outsped your flutter mane with speed boost, amazing...

 

[Msousagamer]

Anything to check the Dolphin screams desperation honestly. It's explicitly broken and should be kicked out ASAP

Physdef toxic heal breloom can handle him quite well, try it:
Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Mach Punch
- Spore
- Close Combat
- Tera Blast/Seed Bomb

 

[ninth]

Damn now I have 2 less reasons to use Garganacl

 

[Breadboy]

Wow its a great thing Houndstone "needs to rely on teammates being dead" rather than you just winning the game if it doesn't come to fruition.

Also its not like those teammates were on strike until they got added to the fainted column.

If I win the game before Houndstone comes out, doesn't that mean I deserved to win due to skill anyways?

 

[Joseph Gomes]

Physdef toxic heal breloom can handle him quite well, try it:
Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Mach Punch
- Spore
- Close Combat
- Tera Blast/Seed Bomb

Yeah Breelom is a decent check ig. Don't think it matter though

 

[A_Wild_Noob_Appeared!]

there is no such thing as consistency in tiering decisions/bans ever since the first complex ban (yes, smogon has complex bans!) and to insist otherwise is revisionism/fallacious argument pointing toward some imagined objective parameters for decisionmaking. there is nothing really stopping us from just doing what should be done. smogon has literally done a complex ban ON sand rush before dude. literally the exact same situation. come on now.

Sand Rush is only a problem on Houndstone; it is not unbalanced on Lycanroc (and likely would not be ban-worthy on most of the other Sand Rush users if they were introduced either). It doesn't make sense to ban an ability which is not inherently broken to save one Pokemon. Gen 5 tiering decisions are not a good precedent and those kinds of things are specifically discouraged in large part due to what happened in Gen 5.

Edit: At least Last Respects has an argument for being an inherently broken move. Sand Rush does not.

 

[dsbruce]

Sand Rush is only a problem on Houndstone; it is not unbalanced on Lycanroc (and likely would not be ban-worthy on most of the other Sand Rush users if they were introduced either). It doesn't make sense to ban an ability which is not inherently broken to save one Pokemon. Gen 5 tiering decisions are not a good precedent and those kinds of things are specifically discouraged in large part due to what happened in Gen 5.

sand rush is a problem on houndstone only? that's crazy, sounds like we should ban sand rush on houndstone.

 

[alephgalactus]

Damn now I have 2 less reasons to use Garganacl

Purifying Salt is so purifying that it banishes Ghost-types right out of the tier

 

[Bugboy]

Not saying it’s the right choice or whatever but the idea of showing tera types in team preview isn’t necessarily a complex ban (or a ban at all lol).

There is also precedent mechanically for this sort of change. When a mon is banned, the way it works on cartridge is both players have a gentleman’s agreement to not use that Pokémon. With team preview tera types, it works the same way. Both players have a gentleman’s agreement to provide a list of their tera types to each other before battle.

I honestly think it’s a pretty elegant and non-obtrusive nerf.

 

[serotine]

For Houndstone, the problem is the combination of an ability, a move, and a Pokemon with enough viability to make that combination effective. Banning a pokémon is the best option and continues to be given how most, if not all, complex bans ended up being patchwork that didn’t fully address the issues they intended to fix. Houndstone was able to abuse a speed tier, use a move with no defensive options, and do so with little difficulty because there is multiple sand setters and little defensive counterplay to a 150-300bp move.

We did the same thing with Dracovish in Gen 8, yes other mons get Fishious Rend but none of them get the combination of a stellar typing, an ability to make that move even stronger, and a speed tier that actually gets Dracovish the opportunity to use Fishious Rend. That isn’t to mention the ease of setting rain for it either.

Last Respects is the issue, but then we tread close to the “well x,y,z is balanced if you take away x,y,z from the mons move list, abilities, etc.“ That is worst possible way to balance something, because new players will come to comp pokémon and have no idea why so many pokémon have these seemingly arbitrary restrictions.

 

[PixelKirby]

So much for no hasty decisions. Sad to see Houndstone go.

 

[alephgalactus]

the way it works on cartridge

I think that showing Tera types in team preview is the right move, but “this is how it should be/would be on cartridge” isn’t a great argument because no one plays competitive on cartridge anymore. Showdown has been the main platform for competitive Pokémon since they ruined online battling last gen. Things being difficult to implement on cartridge shouldn’t be an issue.

 

[termi]

For now, we have to keep the ban at just Houndstone after talking with tiering administration.

In the post with the new bans, this line stood out to me. Initially, I assumed most of council must be in favor of a Houndstone ban rather than a Last Respects ban, but if this were the case, a line about "talking with tiering administration" wouldn't really have been necessary. Does this mean a majority of OU council was in favor of a Last Respects ban? Finchinator for the sake of transparency, could we be told what council members' opinions were regarding banning Houndstone vs Last Respects?

 

[DemiiHub ✘]

I think that showing Tera types in team preview is the right move, but “this is how it should be/would be on cartridge” isn’t a great argument because no one plays competitive on cartridge anymore. Showdown has been the main platform for competitive Pokémon since they ruined online battling last gen.

Literally every major VGC tournament is on catridge??

 

[Finchinator]

I prefer banning the move personally here given the future projections, but was not allowed to because Home is not out yet with more distribution and it's technically speculative. The consensus of others was not clear, but we were told to focus on the Pokemon prior to our vote yesterday termi

 

[Dive Missile]

Not saying it’s the right choice or whatever but the idea of showing tera types in team preview isn’t necessarily a complex ban (or a ban at all lol).

There is also precedent mechanically for this sort of change. When a mon is banned, the way it works on cartridge is both players have a gentleman’s agreement to not use that Pokémon. With team preview tera types, it works the same way. Both players have a gentleman’s agreement to provide a list of their tera types to each other before battle.

I honestly think it’s a pretty elegant and non-obtrusive nerf.

i'm not really fond of the idea just because it's very clearly sidestepping the issue. it's acknowledging that tera is bad for the meta but instead of removing the problem it's putting a bandaid on it. not to mention that it's perfectly possible for tera to be problematic even after this restriction is put in place, which could lead to even more weird restrictions placed on it.

 

[alephgalactus]

Literally every major VGC tournament is on catridge??

VGC is the equivalent of playing Smash with items on. It’s the “official” format, but calling it competitive is disingenuous.

 

[DaemonChop]

VGC is the equivalent of playing Smash with items on. It’s the “official” format, but calling it competitive is disingenuous.

VGC is plenty competitive, it's just not the smogon format. I agree it probably shouldn't really be worried about when making decisions

 

[Pluim]

sand rush is a problem on houndstone only? that's crazy, sounds like we should ban sand rush on houndstone.

Complex bans aren't a thing. I also dont see how Sand Rush is broken over last respcts. Sand rush isn't broken without Last Respects on Houndstone, while Fluffy Houndstone while probably okay is still a beast.

 

[plznostep]

Hello again, People of OU. I found a set that i really like on a mon that doesn't see too much play in the tier, however it should have niche with this really unique trapping set that not a lot of mons can do, and that is Ting-Lu

Set

Ting-Lu @ Leftovers
Ability: Vessel of Ruin
Tera Type: Ghost/Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Ruination
- Sand Tomb
- Taunt
- Protect

Ting-Lu is shockingly good at trapping things in this tier. Ting Lu has amazing Bulk all around thanks to that amazing ability, Vessel of Ruin. This makes Ting-Lu deceptively bulky on the special side even when not investing in its bulk. Ting-Lu is able to trap mons such as Dondozo, Iron Treads, Clodsire, Toxapex, and other passive bulky mons, making it a good stallbreaker. The one mon that it can trap that might be a problem is Corviknight, so i suggest pairing with Magnezone in order to bait Corviknight in and then trap it. It can tera type into a ghost type to get the jump on fighting types who thought they could hit it for super effective damage, while Ting-Lu can also go tera water and attempt to trap Chien-Pao. Taunt stops mons such as Slowking from using Chilly Reception and pivotting out to a dangerous threat.

If this set had a direct comparsion to another mon in the previous gen, it would be Tapu Fini's Whirlpool + Nature Madness set, and it does function quite similarly to this set imo. I hope you give Ting Lu a try, as with Flutter Mane gone, Ting Lu has gotten much better and this set has been really fun to use.