Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[alephgalactus]

There is no cherry picking, every meta before Gen 6 lacked guaranteed hazard removal.

Yes, and we’re trying not to go back to that. Progress generally goes forward, not backward. If you don’t like how hazard removal works in modern gens, you can still play the old ones.

We have better tools for dealing with hazards than ever

Are those tools in the room with us right now? Because the most prominent one I’m seeing on ladder is “well, guess I’ll just learn to live with hazards on the field then”, followed by Great Tusk and Iron Treads, which Gholdengo can outplay without much effort if you have basically any Ground-immune mon in the back, and Mortal Spin Glimmora, which Gholdengo also beats handily (or at least the Gholdengo on my team does, I can’t speak to your experience).

Why should one be allowed to blindly click Defog to remove hazards for free when them being up is the result of them being unable to exert any pressure on the hazard setters for 3-5 turns?

Setting up hazards doesn’t require any particular skill most of the time. (Source: I am able to set up hazards most of the time.) For something like Ting-Lu, if your opponent isn’t running one of the exactly two Magic Bounce mons (only one of which is good) and doesn’t have a Taunt user out, that’s a guaranteed Stealth Rock/layer of Spikes right there. Glimmora doesn’t even have to click anything to set Toxic Spikes.

 

[Avira]

The Calcs say that Modest Specs Chi-Yu is about a 3HKO on specially defensive Heatran with Leftovers. Less with Assault Vest. This obviously doesn't account for things like Tera, but Modest Specs is pretty heavy handed to run even for Chi-Yu. It would likely be either Timid or Scarf, which no longer guarantees a 3HKO on the Leftovers set. (Though Timid Specs is still over 99%.) The bigger problem is a lack of reliable recovery. So you'd either rely a lot on not good enough passive recovery turns from Protect or Assault Vest.

You messed up the calc badly.

252 SpA Choice Specs Chi-Yu Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 186-220 (48.1 - 56.9%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Heatran cannot switch into Specs Dark Pulse at all as Chi-Yu is extremely powerful. Therefore, Heatran returning to the meta wouldn't change Chi-Yu's viability too much although it would have some impact since the Scarf set wouldn't be as good with Heatran available, but then again, considering how common hazards are this gen, Heatran could get overwhelmed pretty quickly.

 

[escarlata]

Yes, and we’re trying not to go back to that. Progress generally goes forward, not backward.

Are those tools in the room with us right now? Because the most prominent one I’m seeing on ladder is “well, guess I’ll just learn to live with hazards on the field then”.

Setting up hazards doesn’t require any particular skill most of the time. If your opponent isn’t running one of the exactly two Magic Bounce mons (only one of which is good) and doesn’t have a Taunt user out, that’s a guaranteed Stealth Rock/layer of Spikes right there. Glimmora doesn’t even have to click anything to set Toxic Spikes.

Our best spinner alone single handedly beats 2 of our best hazard setter, our “best spinblocker” and forced them to run specific items/moves/Tera types to even have a chance of outplaying it, and somehow the “best spinblocker” is the problem?

If they lead their hazard setter and you don’t lead something that limits their ability to set up hazards, if they switch into their hazard setter on a something, if they read that you are going to use spin instead of Knock Off. if they made the right read and you don’t, they deserve to be rewarded for it.

 

[alephgalactus]

Our best spinner alone single handedly beats 2 of our best hazard setter, our “best spinblocker” and forced them to run specific items/moves/Tera types to even have a chance of outplaying it, and somehow the “best spinblocker” is the problem?

None of the other “spinblockers” outright deny the use of Defog, nor do they block the other spin move: Mortal Spin, which I’ve seen more and more on Glimmora as of late. Gholdengo isn’t just the best spinblocker, it’s the only spinblocker. Anything else blocks one spin or the other, but not both. Please don’t pretend Gholdengo isn’t the best spinblocker in the meta, or indeed ever created. It’s above Chi-Yu on the VR for a reason.

 

[Bold School]

You messed up the calc badly.

252 SpA Choice Specs Chi-Yu Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 186-220 (48.1 - 56.9%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Heatran cannot switch into Specs Dark Pulse at all as Chi-Yu is extremely powerful. Therefore, Heatran returning to the meta wouldn't change Chi-Yu's viability too much although it would have some impact since the Scarf set wouldn't be as good with Heatran available, but then again, considering how common hazards are this gen, Heatran could get overwhelmed pretty quickly.

I used this damage calculator: https://calc.pokemonshowdown.com/

I don't know if Beads of Ruin isn't updated or what. It's in the drop down Menu. I thought I tested for that earlier and there was a difference. But when I tried just now there was no difference in damage when I swapped abilities from Beads of Ruin to something else. So if it's not that, I don't know. But I certainly never forgot to put Beads of Ruin as the ability.

I could try to do it manually instead of relying on a site. But I'm honestly too lazy to bother right now. Tell me what you are doing for your calc and we'll figure out where the error is.

 

[escarlata]

None of the other “spinblockers” outright deny the use of Defog, nor do they block the other spin move: Mortal Spin, which I’ve seen more and more on Glimmora as of late. Gholdengo isn’t just the best spinblocker, it’s the only spinblocker. Anything else blocks one spin or the other, but not both. Please don’t pretend Gholdengo isn’t the best spinblocker in the meta, or indeed ever created. It’s above Chi-Yu on the VR for a reason.

Spin blocker specifically refers to the blocking rapid spin. It’s not the best spin blocker when every rapid spinner beats it unless it runs a specific Tera, a specific item, and often a specific move. It doesn’t even always beat Corviknight unless paired with Annihilape to punish U-turn.

Being the highest ranked mon doesn’t make it broken. It is ranked highly because it is highly adaptable in a lot of play styles, while also being the best support for the arguably most oppressive playstyle. But that doesn’t mean it single handedly enables the play style, especially not when there are so many successful spike stacking teams that don’t use Gholdengo.

Ban Gholdengo and people are just going to find other ways to punish hazard removal. The current Spike stackers we have are strong enough for people to bend over backwards to enable it as a play style. Case in point Gholdengo himself is the best example, considering all the good things he can do, but people are willing to commit to using a suboptimal item, a suboptimal Tera type, and arguably even suboptimal moveset on him just so that he can do his designated job.

Spike stacking itself is here to stay even if Gholdengo gets the boot, and even if we get more Defoggers. People just need to learn to admit that they messed up when they gave the opponent the opportunity to set up 2+ layers of Spikes on top of SR, instead of clinging on to the metal bird. “My opponent committed 2.5 team slots to enable to playstyle, but I’m salty because I can’t click the light blue button on my metal bird”

Many other posters already presented a lot of ways for people to remove hazards in the face of Gholdengo. If you refuse to adopt any of them, then you just have to suck it up and live with hazards, even if Gholdengo does get the boot.

 

[Goodbye & Thanks]

I largely agree with many of the other posters but I just want to say that from my perspective, there are many factors that have lead to hazard stacking being so prevalent, and I don’t think that it’s worth much to compare current gen to past gens. I’m also not saying that it’s impossible to remove hazards and the meta has/will adapt, but I’m just talking about hazard stacking clearly being a good playstyle in SV. Some of the factors that I feel most contribute to hazard stacking in SV are the removal/lack of return of Pursuit, the increased distribution of Spikes, Glimmora/Toxic Debris, the decreased distribution of Defog, Gholdengo blocking Defog, and possibly most importantly, how many strong breakers are in the tier that benefit from hazard stacking. Of those aspects, the only ones that could possibly be changed through tiering action would be testing/banning Gholdengo and/or testing/banning some of the major offensive threats. If Gholdengo were to go, I feel like the main thing it would do is freeing up Corviknight to Defog, which would be huge and I think it’s a good reason as to why Gholdengo should be on the radar, but I agree with what Finch said about how there are other more prominent threats (like Chi-Yu) that should be looked into first before Gholdengo is considered further. If the overall level of offense decreases, hazard stacking may become manageable enough that Gholdengo blanking Corviknight isn’t considered unhealthy. Obviously it isn’t worth analyzing any of this at the moment where the outcome of the Tera suspect is uncertain, so in general, I think everyone should take a pause on Gholdengo for the moment and return to it down the line if hazard stack still seems oppressive after subsequent bans/Tera being being touched in some way, both of which appear to be probable. Anyway, now I actually will go back to being inactive lol; have a good one, everyone!

 

[awyp]

I used this damage calculator: https://calc.pokemonshowdown.com/

I don't know if Beads of Ruin isn't updated or what. It's in the drop down Menu. I thought I tested for that earlier and there was a difference. But when I tried just now there was no difference in damage when I swapped abilities from Beads of Ruin to something else. So if it's not that, I don't know. But I certainly never forgot to put Beads of Ruin as the ability.

I could try to do it manually instead of relying on a site. But I'm honestly too lazy to bother right now. Tell me what you are doing for your calc and we'll figure out where the error is.

Side note: Beads of Ruin currently doesn’t work on the Showdown calculator. You have to manually reduce the opponents Pokémon special defense by 25% to give an accurate calc.

 

[SunCooled]

I could try to do it manually instead of relying on a site. But I'm honestly too lazy to bother right now. Tell me what you are doing for your calc and we'll figure out where the error is.

Side note: Beads of Ruin currently doesn’t work on the Showdown calculator. You have to manually reduce the opponents Pokémon special defense by 25% to give an accurate calc.

Until the normal damage calc is updated, use the BSS calculator. Just remember to to set the mon's levels to 100.
https://eisencalc.com/

Avira's calc is correct.

Spoiler

252 SpA Choice Specs Chi-Yu Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Ruin Heatran: 186-220 (48.1 - 56.9%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (41.00% chance to 2HKO after accuracy)

 

[1LDK]

Honeslty, with Glimmoraa alone, the hazard meta was already at peak, we have 6 mons with spikes on their moveset, and 12 rockers, Gholdengo is basically the freezer that keeps this fresh

STOP USING THE METAL BIRD
Tinkaton created Gholdengo just to shit on him!1111!!11!!1!!

but for real, Corviknight is overrated, I know that he has good capabilitys, he didnt change a bit in the gen shift, but the string cheese is everywhere, every single mon in A+ and S bar pult just detroys him on sight or sets up on him, unless people start running things like Bulk up + Power trip, then Corv is gonna be just akward

Gholdengo is frustrating but not broken, and the amount of hazard removal tools is understandably demoralazing
But its not that bad, Corv is only good right now on stall, because stall either has a Gholdengo on their own or because they are not inmideatly killed with hazards, so they can still take their time, start using donphan, thank me later

Also on a semi related note, since Gholdengo blocks everything, can we name him something else than a spin blocker? i propouse "The GoldBlocker"

 

[Bold School]

Side note: Beads of Ruin currently doesn’t work on the Showdown calculator. You have to manually reduce the opponents Pokémon special defense by 25% to give an accurate calc.

Until the normal damage calc is updated, use the BSS calculator. Just remember to to set the mon's levels to 100.
https://eisencalc.com/

Avira's calc is correct.

Spoiler

252 SpA Choice Specs Chi-Yu Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Ruin Heatran: 186-220 (48.1 - 56.9%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (41.00% chance to 2HKO after accuracy)

Thank you both. I didn't know.

 

[Piplz]

The tools we have are better overall against spikes than what we had in the aforementioned generations. It would be inaccurate to say our options are lesser just cause Corv couldn’t defog on it.

I don't disagree with that statement but it has to be put into balance with the fact it has never been easier to apply spikes and hazards in general.

In current gen, none of the hazards are as rare as they were in some of the examples you used. While SR has more or less always been very widely distributed, that wasn't the case for Spikes and TSpikes before. Scary mons that never had access to spikes before, like Garchomp as the most obvious example, get them now. Glimmora is capable of applying two hazards in the same turn and is not a passive blob. More generally speaking, many of the setters in general are not passive blobs which is a big difference compared to before in my opinion.

Altho these is not available yet, Ceaseless Edge and Stone Axe, which are coming soon™, will push the availability of hazards in that direction even more.

The counterplay against X strategy cannot be evaluated in a vacuum and has to be put in perpsective against the ease at which X strategy is being played. I feel like the opportunity cost of running spikes is a lot smaller than it used to be, when the main user was more or less Ferrothorn, or for older gens, dedicated users like Roserade/Froslass that didn't have much purpose beyond setting spikes, with offensive setters being rare enough that it was a very notable quality (ie: mamoswine and SR)

 

[Soiramio3000]

I tried making a team around gengar with both hex and venoshock.
unfortunately this gimmick is extreemely unviable.

I hope some day gamefreak will buff gengar's stats to that of a pseudo-legendery.
right now it is way too fragile for the metagame.

 

[pika pal]

Cinderace interests me, as it heavily discourages a reliance specifically on Suicide Leads for your hazards by having the hardest-to-prevent Hazard "Removal" move available (quotes because it's technically only removing the ones you have vs the other side at the time), which I've seen more than a few instances of like Glimmora and how some people employ sets for Chomp or such on HO. It also affects screens in a similar way on this and the next facet.

Where most anti-hazard and screens options remove them, Cinderace is in a rare category (only shared with a Magic Bounce prediction) where it outright reverses the momentum of the Hazard game if it gets a Court Change off successfully. Not having Hazards on the opposing field is one thing for a HO team to struggle with, but now consider the effects of in one turn going from nothing to Stealth Rock and 1-3 layers of Normal/Toxic spikes if you were just trying to go ham. Cinderace in theory is almost to Hazard setting what Gholdengo and Ape are to removal: just by existing it almost discourages the attempt because if you answer wrong, the ball's out of your court for a while (pun totally intended), wrong sport or not.

And it's not like this is some weird C-Rank niche that the mon doesn't exist without. Getting the chance to Court Change is facilitated by an extremely solid Speed tier and Attack stat given Ace's coverage options and Libero (even with the nerf it has the hit-and-run potential of a non-locked Choice Band boost). Pre-Home there seems like a good shot at managing a B+ performance with this kit while Gholdengo Spike Stackers realizing they stacked the wrong side.

 

[VTMagno]

For those talking about suspecting Ghold. It is annoying, yes, but how is this hazard stacking metagame any different from other metagames with very limited hazard control like Gen 5 NU or Gen 4 OU?

I am very much on the fence about whether getting rid of Gholdengo would be the way to go, but limited hazard removal being fine in other tiers is absolutely not how it should be justified. Even if we assume that hazard stacking was always completely fair (which some BW OU players would not agree with you on lmao), the context of this tier is completely different. The power level has increased a lot between generations before the Defog buff and now, and Entry Hazards make them even tougher to switch into. Also, this generation introduced a ton of excellent hazard setters, such as Ting-Lu, Glimmora and Spikes Garchomp. If we choose to ban or not ban Gholdengo, it should be based on its effect on the meta, not how it compares to similar effects in other metagames.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Yes, and we’re trying not to go back to that. Progress generally goes forward, not backward. If you don’t like how hazard removal works in modern gens, you can still play the old ones.

You might not want that but that doesn't make you right. Defog becoming easily accessible costless hazards clearing is what directly contributed to the frequent absolutely terrible defensively focused metas of the last several generations because of how much more difficult it was to make meaningful progress.

Returning to a meta state where entry hazard control is a meaningful objective for making and preventing progress is a major reason I'm enjoying the current meta as much as I am, tera included, and I know I'm far from alone on that front.

 

[MeddlinKidz]

This was my first time trying for a suspect test, but getting reqs has been brutal. I have tried several different team structures and cores but can rarely make it past 8 games without eating multiple losses. I started with a team that was 8-1 or so before the suspect test and that ended up losing within the first few games multiple times. I even tried some cheesy stuff like Screens HO to make it through the first 10-15 games but have had no luck so far. Are they always this hard?

 

[MudkipNerd]

hi im here to become an ou council member so uhh hand it over right now

 

[Finchinator]

hi im here to become an ou council member so uhh hand it over right now

Only if you beat me in a battle

 

[Athyestic]

hi im here to become an ou council member so uhh hand it over right now

Only if you beat me in a battle

Make sure to post the watch link somewhere accessible, we all need to see this historic, glorious, match!

 

[MudkipNerd]

Only if you beat me in a battle

alr bet

tomorrow at 5pm est

:)))))

 

[Finchinator]

alr bet

tomorrow at 5pm est

:)))))

I’m busy then actually. How about today at 5pm EST or Wednesday at the same time?

 

[MudkipNerd]

I’m busy then actually. How about today at 5pm EST or Wednesday at the same time?

sure, wednesday at 5pm est works

 

[Chameleon]

alr bet

tomorrow at 5pm est

:)))))

Just warning you, you're not the first to try and take over Smogon by battling Finch. It's said those who failed were banished to NatDex, never to return.

 

[Finchinator]

sure, wednesday at 5pm est works

See you then~