Results of the SV OU tiering survey are up: check them out!
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter TPP
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I used a similar set successfully only with brick break instead of earthquake for Orthworm, and to destroy reflect. Looking at the way the meta has shaped out though, eq is probably better overall. Its strong, but not perfect, Grimmsnarl with reflect is really annoying, orthworm totally walls it, Garganacl can survive +1 earthquakes/set up with curse, and shed tail can make its life difficult. Dondozo is the biggest counter though, it basically negates pretty much every setup physical attacker.
Anyway, I've been experimenting with teambuilding recently, and I'm realizing exactly how oppressive Gholdengo really is in this metagame. Since Gholdengo can switch in to any attempt at removing hazards and threaten back with nearly perfect offensive coverage, just trying to remove hazards at all feels like a waste of time and resources. Permanent hazards really restricts teambuilding and it forces you to use heavy duty boots way more than you'd like to, which limits the amount of viable options on so many pokemon.
Nobody else does what Gholdengo does, and that might actually be a problem, because while its very possible to design teams that don't care too much about hazards, players are forced to run them. I didn't realize this was such an issue when I was running a hyper offense team anyway whos goal was to win before hazards could stack up too much, but when I was trying to build a longer lasting team, I realized it just kinda wouldn't work when I didn't have a way to remove hazards.
Thank you, very interesting to see
I feel like most people who voted other probably wanted a TP solution, can you confirm or deny that? You don't have to answer if that's too much work, it's really not that important and I feel your rest is more important than my curiousity
Unsurprising to me that Chi Yu is the most controversial Mon. Of all the mons on the survey, I think fish and Gholdengo are the only suspectworthy, and only Fish I am very convinced about should be banned
I wasn't qualified myself, but I agree with the results in most aspects
Yeah, this is pretty much how I started feeling in the post-Bundle meta. I was like “oh, Gholdengo’s pretty good but how much of a problem could it really be?” and morphed into “OK, this is a problem” after about the tenth game in a row where my opponent just flat-out forfeited because I got three layers of Spikes up.
Maybe 30-40% of “other” was that and then a lot had impossible, complex solutions that didn’t hold up well I’d say.
I bet a bunch of them were that stupid “only UU and below can Tera” idea I floated as a half-joke about a million pages back. (I still think that’d work as an OM once the meta’s settled down, but it absolutely does not work on any non-OM ladder.)
The top 250 results were interesting, most notably depending on the suspect's goal, neither side went in the 60%s which is typical suspect testing majority threshold, the test could either be set where its banned and the vote is to restrict it, in which it would fail to read majority to restrict it, or it could be set to ban it, in which the majority for banning it couldn't be reached. Its definitely still a cointoss on the council's part how they want to approach the test.
Ultimately getting reqs and voting matter more than the survey so I think a no tera ladder and a nerfed tera ladder for testing which is preferred is the way to figure things out. Getting reqs on either (maybe both with lower reqs with how controversal this is then asking which ladder they preferred) is probs the best we could do. Everything about the survey and even the tera thread is pure theorymonning which is never intelligent to go off of with decisions, there needs to be a way to test their theories.
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As for the individual pokemon, I'm still uncertain if even tacking them on the survey was a good idea for data, as a lot of the results will be skewed based on 'lets test tera first'. Some of them are perfectly fine without the tera meta and the espathra votes really show that idea of how we should wait and see, otherwise we need to survey them again and see how they feel if tera stays or goes.
This is going to be a long generation...
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Order of problematic ness is probably along these lines:
chi yu - too much power, some games are decided at preview. Too easy to create lose-lose situations for your opponent, especially when stacked with Pokémon that enjoy seeing its switch-ins weakened. No more palafin and iron bundle to take the spotlight (both matchup well vs chi yu). Very unlikely that it will be considered manageable as more Pokémon enter the meta. Problematic with or without Tera.
Cyclizar and shed taiil - enables threats like annihilape, dragonite and espartha to perform at a level that pushes them over the edge. Especially with screens support. We have reason to believe screens are harmless, it’s the combination of screens and a sure-sub that doesn’t take a move slot. Will likely become an even bigger problem as more Pokémon enter the meta. Problematic with or without Tera.
Gholdengo - this is more of a question of do you like what it’s doing to the metagame. One Pokémon is affecting all viable strategies. It could be argued it’s similar to landorus/heatran/etc. Realistically, it can be dealt with, so maybe it’s just enabling too many other more prominent things right now. Personally I have to admit this is a super fun Pokémon to use, and I kind of don’t mind the impact it’s having. I’m just trying to empathise with all the slower, passive strategies that suffer the most.
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can be gameflowed around and there’s lots of alternative strats to best it. So even if it is considered too strong, at least it doesn’t force outcomes at team preview like the others. A big part of its threat is Tera.
is predictable, outside of the whole “fairy vs fighting“ Tera.. so even tho it’s frustrating, it’s something that for now isn’t as problematic as the others. A big part of its threat is Tera.
chi yu - too much power, some games are decided at preview. Too easy to create lose-lose situations for your opponent, especially when stacked with Pokémon that enjoy seeing its switch-ins weakened. No more palafin and iron bundle to take the spotlight (both matchup well vs chi yu). Very unlikely that it will be considered manageable as more Pokémon enter the meta. Problematic with or without Tera.
Cyclizar and shed taiil - enables threats like annihilape, dragonite and espartha to perform at a level that pushes them over the edge. Especially with screens support. We have reason to believe screens are harmless, it’s the combination of screens and a sure-sub that doesn’t take a move slot. Will likely become an even bigger problem as more Pokémon enter the meta. Problematic with or without Tera.
Gholdengo - this is more of a question of do you like what it’s doing to the metagame. One Pokémon is affecting all viable strategies. It could be argued it’s similar to landorus/heatran/etc. Realistically, it can be dealt with, so maybe it’s just enabling too many other more prominent things right now. Personally I have to admit this is a super fun Pokémon to use, and I kind of don’t mind the impact it’s having. I’m just trying to empathise with all the slower, passive strategies that suffer the most.
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can be gameflowed around and there’s lots of alternative strats to best it. So even if it is considered too strong, at least it doesn’t force outcomes at team preview like the others. A big part of its threat is Tera. is predictable, outside of the whole “fairy vs fighting“ Tera.. so even tho it’s frustrating, it’s something that for now isn’t as problematic as the others. A big part of its threat is Tera.
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just wanna post to give you, the council, & all others involved a big shoutout. this must have been a hefty undertaking & i know i speak for all of us when i say your work is very much appreciated.
edit: to make this sort of on-topic, with regards to annihilape & espathra: the tera situation needs to be resolved before any action is considered for both of them, especially espathra. i think assessing their potential banworthyness is a fool’s errand, as tera is lending & emphasising much of their problematic aspects.
chi-yu, cyclizar, & gholdengo, can all get the boot regardless imo
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I know I submitted the idea of just straight up having a Tera ban list. Just straight up preventing certain Pokémon from teraing seemed to be the best solution in my eyes.
im a fan of this lol, keeps the fun mechanic, can’t see any issues around “complexity of bans”, and you know.. change in how banning is approached isn’t always a bad thing and not as scary as it seems.. as if it turns out to be the big boogeyman it’s made out to be, you’ve learned empirically for all future situations, currently it’s just “assumed” that complex bans are a bad thing. There’s no precedent
What flies for gen8mixandmega is grounded for official metagames
precedent is kinda irrelevant, the point is that complex bans are incoherent & unworkable from a tiering standpoint, & fail in disentangling problematic elements from the whole, as it’s arbitrary when trying to “normalise” something. there’s a bunch of old threads in pr on this stuff if you want the well-founded arguments against complex bans (would link them but i’m on mobile).
anyway, that aside, there is actually precedent for complex bans being problematic when enforced. the baton pass debacle of g6 & weather policy in g5 were both a waste of time & left the respective metas unstable & in states of arrested development.
To be honest, the way gamefreak is doing things, precedent is irrelevant because every new gen is gonna have a new whacky gimmick to work with, so i think every new gimmick should be tackled on their own way, now as for the tiering survey, its honestly amazing to see all the titanic labor to see all the stats and numbers and the effort that the council put into this, now ill be honest with everybody in the room, im a total failure at many things, but math is the single biggest one, i just dont know to truly appreciate it, but if i have to give an interpretation, its that at the very least, tiering action will be taken, kinda sad to see tera being limited, but it is what it is
I really don't like a tera ban list because it creates this really weird dynamic where pokemon are basically "worse" because of how good they are. I personally believe viability should be purely based on a pokemon's actual usefulness, and not based on whether or not the playerbase decided to handicap it
When will the official VR come out?
I've been using it a bit on HO. It can come in clutch at times and can let you make riskier plays early game because you know you've got a Plan B in your back pocket, but there's a big trade off between running Revival Blessing instead of another breaker on your team. The biggest issue with Revival Blessing is Pawmot really not accomplishing much besides getting the rez off and maybe doing some chip or volting into something else. I say Pawmot because Rabsca is a total shitmon who isn't even worth considering outside of meme trick room teams. You have to run HDB with max speed and bulk to ensure you can actually get the rez; Leppa Berry is a meme. I don't think it has a place outside of HO because the rez is only 50%, which leaves rezzed mons extremely vulnerable especially if hazards are up, so you only really want to rez cleaners to finish off compromised teams. Pawmot also seems incredibly hard to justify slotting into teams with more longevity. Revival Blessing could become very problematic in the future if something that is worth using for reasons other than this move gets it, but right now it feels kinda hard to incorporate into teams despite its clear strengths
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itll be bwtter once home comes out with all the regen mons like tornadus and glowking
and tangrowth
does anyone have suggestions for mons that can reliably counter annihilape without being totally useless otherwise. The best general solution i've found is to run something like specs chi yu and just muscle through him but even that's not enough sometimes.
Slowbro @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Oblivious
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
- Block
- Imprison
- Drain Punch
- Chilling Water
Also this which is admittedly extremely funny to pull off but useless if you're not fighting exactly annihilape. Also requires the annihilape user to burn tera which they won't always do.
Slowbro @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Oblivious
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
- Block
- Imprison
- Drain Punch
- Chilling Water
Also this which is admittedly extremely funny to pull off but useless if you're not fighting exactly annihilape. Also requires the annihilape user to burn tera which they won't always do.
I find it interesting how the surveys for possible ban pokemon were all in like the 3 range. It's pretty telling. There are so many things you could argue about with being borderline or maybe a bit over or details of Annihilape versus Rage Fist and things like that. But nothing even made the 4 range, suggesting that there isn't a particularly strong collective agreement about any pokemon listed despite certain complaints you see from time to time in various places such as this thread.
Personally, I think Chien-Pao is a probably too much. But it wasn't even listed. It will also likely be a monster with Home because it will be able to destroy pretty much any defensive mon introduced including Heatran, most of the new regenerator mons, and possibly Ferrothorn as well.
Personally, I think Chien-Pao is a probably too much. But it wasn't even listed. It will also likely be a monster with Home because it will be able to destroy pretty much any defensive mon introduced including Heatran, most of the new regenerator mons, and possibly Ferrothorn as well.
My guess is (based on how i voted on them anyways) no one is sure until they see how we approach tera. Espathra can be UUBL overnight if tera gets banned, shed tail can be less bullshit if its sweepers/wall breakers become less bullshit, and chi-yi ig muscles its few checks with tera/prevents revenge killing so many it'll lose 1/10 more games than currently without access to it.
I think it was just a terrible time to survey them and the data is very inconclusive. There's too much happening rn and like you said they left some things out (D-nite and dragapult IMO are more bullshit and meta defining right now. Chi-yi is strong but dragapult specifically I have to bring several answers for or gimp sets for scarf just to outspeed it)
Skeledirge @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Torch Song
- Will-O-Wisp
- Slack Off
- Hex / Shadow Ball
this beats Annihilape 100% of the time after tera unless it's some weird max attack set. Dirge is very bulky so even SE Drain Punches will be doing very little damage. You also should not try to burn it because it will probably taunt you, just attack.
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