Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

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People are talking about Chi Yu so much and I get it and I agree with most people that it's broken. That said I honestly think Chien Pao is more of a problem, like how do people switch into this thing? Whenever I play I just pray I don't face mega Weavile.
 
Chi-Yu with Specs feels like a super op Tapu Lele from Gen 8 - also I heard it had more stats before the Patch, which is even more stupid.
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I honestly wish they hadn’t nerfed Chi-Yu and Chien-Pao because I guarantee they’d already be gone by now if they were the tiniest bit stronger. Also, Ting-Lu with even more HP sounds oppressive as hell.
 
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I honestly wish they hadn’t nerfed Chi-Yu and Chien-Pao because I guarantee they’d already be gone by now if they were the tiniest bit stronger. Also, Ting-Lu with even more HP sounds oppressive as hell.
When was this patch, day one? And yeah, the fish would probably be gone by now. Blissey OHKOs might not have been a dream, but a living nightmare.
 
So I've been meaning to post this for a bit but between tera suspect and genera happenings I just haven't gotten around to it.

In any Meta where HO is heavy trick room will have a role, full trick room does however as always have some horrible problems in being matchup fishy and running out of turns and alot of setters are either A) Bad B) have other things they want to do or C) Stack massive weaknesses to things like Ghost/Dark which run rampant in the meta, so as a result of these things trick room is best as an independent aspect of a team but it needs to function without it. In Addition the meta is relatively ground weak and immunities are hard to come by, especially in a meta where tusk/treads run wild. Additionally I wanted a steel to help check things like Valiant and dragons and E Killer Dragonite. between these and other things I wanted/fit what I was doing so for a few weeks now (including to get reqs) I have been spamming a team featuring something I pulled out of the graveyard of DPP OU

:dp/bronzong:
@ Macho Brace
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock


So I'm just going to get this out of the way since this is the obvious question anyone asks.
:Gholdengo: is one of if not the best mons in the meta that fits on a ton of teams fairly easily and can be really annoying for teams to deal with once its in and has little or no truly bad matchups
:Corviknight: absolutely outclasses it on fatter teams and on some balance teams since its also a ground immune steel except it gets defog over rocks and roost for recovery plus u-turn to get in other threats on its team.
:Iron Treads: is also a very solid mon and can both set rocks and spin away hazards alongside a really good speed tier and stab EQ which is incredibly dangerous in the meta

So all these things considered you have to see what it is Bronzong can do to stand out, and in its unique bag of tools you can pull out an OTR set thats able to also set rocks and give grounds a bit of trouble, sort of a mix of the above combined into one with an extra wrinkle thrown in regarding the trick room aspect which none of them can replicate that enables some incredibly dangerous threats. I like to use it for rocks and hit and run early game against some bulkier teams and against more offensively inclined teams hold it in the back to come in and set up late game once certain mons are weakened/dead so a well timed trick room and can mow through multiple mons


Trick Room easy enough, its why its here its a huge part of what you have to offer if you don't use it then there is almost zero reason to use zong over the other 3 steels.
Earthquake is good coverage in general and the meta has been well documented as struggling with ground attacks
Stealth Rock can provide solid support so zong doesn't become dead weight in its bad matchups (more on these later) and is able to do something at all times. This can also open up a teamate like Ting Lu to not have to run rocks.
Gyro Ball is the true bread and butter here, With Zongs low natural speed and Macho Brace it is extremely easy to fire off 150 base power gyro balls at things which will absolutely tear through many offensive cores in the current meta. Backed up with Tera Steel and some of the damage numbers can be rather shocking.
Macho Brace gives off stronger gyros more regularly, brave OFC and max attack with rest in HP fairly simple

Pros
:Espathra:- Zong quad resist stored power before tera, resist dazzling gleam, and is neutral to tera blast fight in base form while being able to crush back with gyro ball and/or set up trick room to reverse the tables on speed boost single handedly taking care of an otherwise annoying win condition
:Cyclizar:/ :Grimmsnarl: so this kind of goes alongside the above, Zong completely destroys these 2 and most of their friends as well stopping them from being able to what they want to do and is able to usually cause major problems for their teammates as well
:Iron Valiant: Valiant is one of zongs best set up targets, choice sets have to predict right with shadow ball (if you come in off a sack this doesn't even matter) and booster sets need to predict and have chip on zong/get a roll (after rocks shadow ball has a 47% chance to 2HKO). Anything besides tera fire/electric will just fall over to gyro and even tera fire fire punch won't ko without solid chip.
:Dragonite: Dragonite is another very strong set up target outside of the odd tera fire set. Gyro is a 2 hit ko through multiscale without tera to standard D-Nite and +1 Fire Punch does not kill from full. If it doesn't have fire punch it cannot touch bronzong and just gets bullied by it.
Luring Darks: Mainly :Chi-Yu: / :Chien Pao: / :Roaring Moon:/ :Meowscarada: . Chi Yu takes 49% minimum from base gyro ball and EQ does 89.2-105.1 (31% OHKO chance). So with even the slightest chip it straight up dies or at least gets crushed to assist a teammate finish it off later and stop it from risking any future switch ins. Chien Pao and Roaring Moon will sometimes come in predicting rocks or to revenge kill and a properly timed tera steel (please ban tera) negates the dark weakness and suddenly you live the crunch/sucker and eliminate some of the most dangerous mons in the meta (Roaring Moon and Meow die to Tera Gyro Ball from full). This can also work on pult but is much risker due to it liking to click wisp.
:Annihilape: Ape cannot switch in to you, it gets blown up by gyro making it much easier for a teamate to clear out (depending on rolls/how brave you are you can possibly get a 2 hit ko but there is a chance it will survive the 2nd gyro after leftovers+ Bulk Up)
:Glimmora: Glimmora is completely unable to touch you and unlike balloon goldengo it can't hit you once then blow it up with earth power. This makes Glimmer one of your best points of entry/leads into it to get rocks up and/or start blasting (just be aware you will start with a rock and spike up plus 2 tspikes assuming sash so have a poison/plan for that)
:Clodsire: / :Toxapex: Clodsire and Pex are passive as is but can do literally nothing to zong except for chilling water allowing free rocks, attacks, or trick room. Also applies to Great Tusk/Treads lacking knock if any still exist.
:Hatterene: Hat is really popular right now to handle hazard spam and zong is easily able to switch into it and blow it up/force it out so you can get rocks. Hat's existence on sun teams is huge for zong as it provides it a point of entry to set up and zong can do a surprising amount of damage to sun teams under TR, the other common entry point is roaring moon locked into EQ/Dragon move/crunch if tera is available or banded slither wing after a Impression KO)
:Baxcalibur: Bax doesn't run a move to effectively hit bronzong making it an incredible counter and point to launch off attacks from. Tera Steel Bax still gets bullied by EQ

Cons
:Corviknight: Not only is corv heavy competition for the role of team steel it also is a hard counter to zong, immune to EQ, resist gyro with high defense and pressure it can roost off, defogs away rocks etc. If your using zong you need ways to bully and obliterate corv
:Dondozo: Big physically bulky water that doesn't care about EQ and certainly not gyro. Trick Room also makes curse dozo faster which is rather awkward
:Rotom-Wash: Immune to EQ, Quad Resist Gyro, Will-o-Wisp or trick. Yep
:Chi-yu: If your opp doubles into fish on you things can look very ugly very fast especially if its specs. Same can go for pao/moon if you already tera
:Great Tusk: Tusk isn't as bad as the other things listed but early game, especially phys def tusk, can be really annoying as it can spin rocks and/or spam knock or body press.
Tera Water: Things that tera water (garganacl or Hat for example) can make life brutal for zong as they now resist gyro ball and it can reverse some matchups (please vote ban tera)
:Volcarona: Fat Volcarona is very scary for zong as it can switch in pretty freely to gyro/EQ and morning sun off damage or start setting up. Also Flame Body is painful if it activates. Offensive volcs cannot switch in very well but can still do it especially with burn
:Skeledirge: Doesn't give a damn about gyro or EQ and burns back or just runs over with torch song
:Ting Lu: While it can chip ting lu and is immune to EQ it doesn't do enough early game and gives upfree hazards and a ruination can be devastating to defensive utility long term. Does however beat mono eq/ruination ting lu if its last mon alive

Here's a random table of various calcs against meta threats
Zong.png

:Iron Hands: Hands is naturally slow so if Zong can't do it itself you can always go out to him especially if its got SD. The raw bulk can allow hands to often easily trade 1 for 1 or better which can be key in weaking/eliminating certain problems such as corv
:Ting Lu: Another mon I used on my team, It can set spikes up, an incredible asset in games where preserving bronzong is key and can help put things like chi yu into kill range. Also is able to absorb many attacks naturally aimed at bronzongs way. I persoanlly liked Tera Water as it meant against rain/Sun I can tera Ting Lu and check major threats like chi yu or rain sweepers. Also is slow as shit so can take advantage of a turn or 2 in TR if need be.
:Rotom-Wash: One of the biggest hinderances to Bronzong can also be one of its best friends, can switch into and obliterate dondozo, dirge and corv which are some of the biggest problems for zong and can bring it in off a volt switch. Also burned mons can be turned into set up opportunities.
Wish support: While hard to pull off in the current meta game if you able to get wish off it can allowed you to play more recklessly with bronzong early game. I used :Sylveon: because it could also be an alternate win con with CM, :Dachsbun: on paper sounds like it would be good for its ability to attempt and slow down chi yu but I haven't tried it and feel like it would actually be a total disaster tying to fit both into a serious OU team


Conclusion
Bronzong isn't some secret top meta mon like Glaceon (jk please don't kill) but it can be fun, can work pretty well, and I think could be something to maybe explore a bit more as a random independent mon on some teams despite some of its horrendous matchups it also comes with. Hopefully at some point in this incoherent mess I was able to convince someone to give it a go/understand the idea

Team I Used: https://pokepast.es/e507509ebe5d5ed0 (I'm sure someone much better than me can come up with something better, but I've been able to hover around 1600-1700 and at one got to 1800 with this)

 
For the sake of clarity, if it were up to just me, I would have a few bans in the near future regardless of the Tera verdict.

Chi-Yu is pretty much universally seen as broken. It practically has 197 SAtk with decent speed and enough STAB coverage to hit the vast majority of Pokemon. It has three good sets between scarf, specs, and NP. Boots on NP allow for hazard weakness to be mitigated while extra strength or speed on choiced sets allow for it to excel in other ways. Outside of Tyranitar and maybe a stray Blissey, you’re not containing ChiYu without incurring a substantial amount of risk or fodder. It dictates too many games and is not something we can keep in the metagame.

Cyclizar with Shed Tail abuses any form of passivity or defensive play beyond comfort or acceptability. People who want to keep it align it with Teleport or slowturn due to the fact that it generates free switches with minimal downside, which alone is probably a tolerable mechanism as we haven’t had much issue with these historically. What really amplified the issue is the Substitute component for me, which allows for Cyclizar teams to give their choice of timely offensive presence a consequence free entry against the variety of backfoot pivots in the metagame. With the combined resistances of common offensive cores (see: Dragonite + Espathra + Annihilape), it’s easy for one of them to get an opening against any given Pokenon that’s out initially against Cyclizar, thus getting a free switchin and a free turn for the substitute to break or counterplay to enter already. Perhaps their thread from there is amplified by Tera, which makes maneuvering around these types even harder from there for sure, but the concept doesn’t sit well with me and applications make games forcibly aggressive beyond anything we have seen before when it comes into play. I know this take isn’t as universal, but I’ve been pretty consistent in seeing Cyclizar as problematic and we got up to 5/9 votes last time. Maybe it won’t be a quickban if the support isn’t there and I won’t fight that since I am only one guy, but an eventual suspect would be appropriate at the very least.

And before someone asks, Cyclizar is the clear subject, not Shed Tail, which is a far cry from this level on the Worm and impossible to isolate otherwise. Fragmenting single Pokemon like this for the sake of preservation would lead to so many other bad things otherwise.

Finally, Annihilape is clearly too much with Tera, but without it, it’s still on my radar. That’s less clear cut as its functionality would shift. I admit that I may need more time on this depending on the suspect result — we shall see, but I find it important to keep a close eye on.
 
And before someone asks, Cyclizar is the clear subject, not Shed Tail, which is a far cry from this level on the Worm and impossible to isolate otherwise. Fragmenting single Pokemon like this for the sake of preservation would lead to so many other bad things otherwise.
Can you elaborate on this?
 
Can you elaborate on this?
Shed Tail isn’t broken stand-alone just because a single Pokemon is broken with it. The characteristics of being fast and having Regenerator enable that. The only other Pokémon with it is slower and has a good defensive presence, but clearly isn’t problematic. In a similar ilk: Rage Fist may help break Annihilape, but clearly Primeape is not close to broken. We would ban the Pokemon in this instance unless multiple Pokemon are broken directly because of the move.

Last Respects was a unique case because we knew another likely broken Pokemon was coming with Home and wanted to make an exception for this to save the formality, but even this we had to act on the Pokemon until it hit the necessary burden of proof. If we stopped following this, we could start arguing to preserve every Uber with certain abilities or moves banned. It would get wildly inconsistent too quickly.
 
so this is more than just a one-liner: how have people been finding clodsire right now, I seem to be finding an incline of people using it on ladder, and I'm curious to see what people think set it apart from the other spikers?
I tried Clodsire as the Stealth Rocker (on my Choice Band Ting-Lu balance team - Ting-Lu needs to surprise OHKO offensive mons and therefore can't really be the SR setter in this team), and Corviknight absolutely laughed at the standard Hazards/Recover/Earthquake/Toxic set. Combine that with Air Balloon Gholdengo being too common and Air Balloon non-lead Glimmora being completely underrated (and me clowning standard Clodsires with that set) and Clodsire left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Garganacl, Gastrodon, and even Dunsparce and Dudunsparce didn't give me as bad impressions as the SR user there (Blissey was too easily exploited when I tried her), although Garganacl stacks weaknesses nastily with Ting-Lu. Guess I could try 2 Attacks Clodsire, but that second attack can't seem to pose a threat to Corviknight at all.
 
which is uh disastrous to Smogon policy
Is it, though? If Finch loses and decides to go through with this, he can absolutely act as an advisor for Mudkip. A sort of Prime Minister or Grand Vizier of the OU Council, as it were. What I’m saying is, we can absolutely structure things so that we can have funny Pyukumuku man leading the tier but also keep things relatively under control.
 
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