While I understand the sentiment, you are genuinely bringing up examples of common wallbreakers, which there are plenty of in the ou tier. HO, while not really the forefront of the metagame, genuinely has some great options and can be considered viable, along with BO, Balance, and Stall to some extent.
I do understand this sentiment, and it is fair that playing much more aggressively is something many players, myself included, have had to figure out in this new metagame. However, it is impossible to call this merely a breath of fresh air. In a metagame with very few hazard removal options, one of the most promising, and probably the most consistent, would be corviknight. Corviknight cannot progress past Gholdengo to defog, ever. In addition to this, Gholdengo's unique typing blocks Magnet Pull, Rapid Spin, and Mortal Spin, while being immune to Toxic Spikes, status effects, and resisting rocks. It is incredibly hard to force progress on Gholdengo at times, and Gholdengo's very existence means you cannot remove hazards. Everytime it comes in, either you kill it or nothing happens, but hazard removal is not an option until it is gone. Yes, your physdef Tusk can spin on that Tera Flying Roaring Moon if it wants, but would you really risk that? If Gholdengo dies, your opponent can apply more pressure to keep it away by bringing in a new sweeper. You don't have many turns after Gholdengo is gone to remove these hazards, as you have to defend against the onslaught of offensive threats. This doesn't even factor tera type shenanigans (tera Fairy Gholdengo beats Tusk switchins although it loses to Iron Treads).
This is something I do want to bring up. Scarf is incredibly common yes, but Air Balloon is also similarly very common. Additionally, its not like Gholdengo doesn't have other options like Sub, Twave, Plot, Hex, Tera Blast, etc. Gholdengo even without the ability is a very good mon, maybe not OU, but at least a UU mon. Your point, that sacking Gholdengo to keep hazards up isn't always the right move, is true and on hyper offensive teams where Gholdengo is often the only defensive pivot, losing Gholdengo could mean a fast breaker like Specs Bundle or Booster Valiant can come in and just win. However, this really points to the core problem:
Ignoring the boots stuff, which I do agree with to an extent, I 100% agree that Chien Pao would smash 90% of offense by itself. In a metagame where we have such crazy offensive presences like Palafin, Chien-Pao, Chi-Yu, Valiant, Roaring Moon, and Iron Bundle, each turn is incredibly valuable. Spending a turn to wipe away hazards instead of attacking is already somewhat risky, but to have those hazards be impossible to remove or to just have to slot your team in such a way that either you only run hazard immune/resistant mons or you slap 6 boots on your team to not face the consequences is not a good set of choices.
This is true. Truthfully, I'm not pro ban Gholdengo, and I see what it does for the tier. As players we do need to adapt to an extent to Gholdengo, and I agree that fat teams needed to be forced to make more aggressive plays, but the issue is that in a new metagame where we have clearly broken stuff running around, Gholdengo allows players to abuse these mons to their fullest and generate way too much offensive pressure against other teams. Games will start to come down to 50/50s more often, and the value of each turn is exponentially high. Gholdengo is balanced in a slower metagame like post Home/DLC, where we have more defoggers/spinners and ways to defensively pivot around it, but in the current metagame, every broken threat is able to abuse Gholdengo's ability to the fullest.
I very much appreciate how the OU council is dealing with the metagame so far, especially with how transparent they are and how quick they are to respond to meta threats. Whether Gholdengo will be unhealthy after all the broken mons are gone is still in the air, but at the moment, it just enables too much in the tier.
Last edited:
Balloon is immune to 75% of its viable moves meaning that unless it gets the Knock Off prediction right, it loses the exchange and Gholdengo severely weakens it to the point where it can't switch into the other 5 teammates to switch again.
Better MU than Great Tusk and Treads is bulky enough to take a Shadow Ball comfortably, especially with AV.
Can only touch it with Earthquake and takes a ton from Shadow Ball or Focus Blast
Literally cannot touch Gholdengo
Cannot touch Gholdengo
Hits Gholdengo pretty hard but generally can't afford to switch into it when it needs to spin.
Can't touch it without Earth Power and it takes a lot from Shadow Ball
The only way you can actually remove the hazards but you're stuck with a mon that can't really damage it and takes a million from Focus Blast
and, in Wind Moves category, Sandstorm is listed.
