god bless big stall o7
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter TPP
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My friend, general consensus matters. I don’t agree with the result fully either, but I’d much rather that than 50.01% ramming through gameplay-defining tiering policy, or worse, the council making that big of a decision regarding a core game mechanic (outside of individual Pokémon, and even there the threshold is pretty high to avoid a suspect imo).
Fair is fair. Clearly a bare majority of the community wanted action, but there absolutely should be broad agreement on a pretty major decision like this. That consensus wasn’t there this time, so it’s best to look ahead at either:
A. How to make a balanced metagame from here,
OR
B. Ban individual broken elements within the confines of Terastilization (cough Chi-Yu).
If the time comes when there’s still pressing issues within a Tera metagame after numerous bans, perhaps that’s grounds to look at it again. At this point, it’s not worth being hasty until most over avenues have been explored.
Now that Tera is finally here to stay (God bless us), two main threats remain, and will probably be on the next radar.
Honorable mentions:
Before that, honorable mention to, first off Annihilape
and Dragapult 
, then Iron Valiant 
, Garganacl 
, Gholdengo 
, Volcarona 
and Dragonite 
.
For the last five, while I think some discussion and maybe proper testing down the line might be a due, they're currently not a fundamental problem. Although I'd like to point out that I'm convinced a lot of people seem to undervaluate Garganacl intentionally, as to keep using this strong as F monster.
For the first two, they're definitely third and fourth in threat order, but are in need of an analysis after the ban of the other two Pokémon I'll present in a sec. I think we need to observe how the metagame, and thus Tera playable on them, evolves, to assess action being taken on them. But it's a 75% probability of action at worse for them.
EDIT: Also a Shed Tail/Cyclizar
ban would fix a lot of the 'setup' problems, mostly Volc/Dnite, but also some Hands, Valiant, Quaqua or Garga comps, which abuse heavily on this setup assist to devastate defensive COREs. Altough that would come after Pult imo, in fifth place.
The tier-'ruining' problems:
No no no, we need to talk about the two real big guns from now on.
Chi-Yu
is broken, okay, we got it. I admit that it is really overwhelming in the builder, in-game not as much if you make the right calls to limit it in its actions. Still, a bit less than broken doesn't make you healthy.
Chien Pao
on the other end, is sooooo underrated as a banworthy Pokémon imo. I don't know how people keep calling it normal, when this Ice-Tera'd thing has no current SI with CB/LO. I may be hella biased because the team I ran to achieve requs was not what you'd call the best matchup against this exact set of CB Tera-Ice, but it definitely seems quite heavily broken, and I think it deserves the most attention after Chi-Yu, not the ridiculous Ape which can '''at least be checked with Special Attacker or be outsped''', if I'm being a bit hypocritical here. Pao is so damn fast it's ridiculous, seriously.
I'll continue to check on this thread as things go on, and will maybe make a few other comments.
TLDR: Tera kept is incredible, Ape and Flying Lizard need to wait until we ban two other things first, Shed Tail/Cycli should probably follow, Valiant/Salt/Ghold/Volc/ExtremeKiller2.0. need further investigation, and Goldfish/White Panther should be booted out.
Honorable mentions:
Before that, honorable mention to, first off Annihilape
and Dragapult , then Iron Valiant , Garganacl , Gholdengo , Volcarona and Dragonite .For the last five, while I think some discussion and maybe proper testing down the line might be a due, they're currently not a fundamental problem. Although I'd like to point out that I'm convinced a lot of people seem to undervaluate Garganacl intentionally, as to keep using this strong as F monster.
For the first two, they're definitely third and fourth in threat order, but are in need of an analysis after the ban of the other two Pokémon I'll present in a sec. I think we need to observe how the metagame, and thus Tera playable on them, evolves, to assess action being taken on them. But it's a 75% probability of action at worse for them.
EDIT: Also a Shed Tail/Cyclizar
ban would fix a lot of the 'setup' problems, mostly Volc/Dnite, but also some Hands, Valiant, Quaqua or Garga comps, which abuse heavily on this setup assist to devastate defensive COREs. Altough that would come after Pult imo, in fifth place.The tier-'ruining' problems:
No no no, we need to talk about the two real big guns from now on.
Chi-Yu
is broken, okay, we got it. I admit that it is really overwhelming in the builder, in-game not as much if you make the right calls to limit it in its actions. Still, a bit less than broken doesn't make you healthy.Chien Pao
on the other end, is sooooo underrated as a banworthy Pokémon imo. I don't know how people keep calling it normal, when this Ice-Tera'd thing has no current SI with CB/LO. I may be hella biased because the team I ran to achieve requs was not what you'd call the best matchup against this exact set of CB Tera-Ice, but it definitely seems quite heavily broken, and I think it deserves the most attention after Chi-Yu, not the ridiculous Ape which can '''at least be checked with Special Attacker or be outsped''', if I'm being a bit hypocritical here. Pao is so damn fast it's ridiculous, seriously.I'll continue to check on this thread as things go on, and will maybe make a few other comments.
TLDR: Tera kept is incredible, Ape and Flying Lizard need to wait until we ban two other things first, Shed Tail/Cycli should probably follow, Valiant/Salt/Ghold/Volc/ExtremeKiller2.0. need further investigation, and Goldfish/White Panther should be booted out.
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come on man, we waited 25 years for a good defensive rock-type, just let us have this
I LOVE Garganacl lol. I'm one of its biggest enjoyer. But even I have to admit that everyone is quite literally hiding this goat behind a rock, so no-one notices it.
Volcarona
TLDR: Tera kept is incredible, Ape and Flying Lizard need to wait until we ban two other things first, Knight/Salt/Gold/Butterfly/ExtremeKiller2.0. need further investigation, and Golfish/White Panther should be booted out.
Just wanted to poke in and say I'm like 90% sure you fix both volc and Dnite by banning cyclizar\shed tail, which imo is the major "do it now" you missed.
True forgot about those, will do a little thing in this post.
The fact that people started to use covert cloak just for it is something to consider (yeah, i know it has other uses but Garc is the main reason to use it).
Exaaaactly.
Sources reveal Garganacl will be on the tiering radar.
i mean, i personally think cloak is just an underrated item in general. aside from garg, it takes a lot of rng out of the game, which is always a good and noble thing. if, god forbid, scald comes back—or even worse, jirachi—it’ll see a lot more usage
ter a stalsiezr
another banger from ou leader mudkipnerd
Thank you, sources. Also know that I'm proud of what we achieved with this being a suspect test. The options to vote were fair to all, and we had more voters (=people caring for the tier) than ever before! Hard work on the tiering this Gen certainly doesn't go unnoticed, trust me.
It was about 70% in favor of team preview and 20% in favor of outright ban with one Pokemon barely registering and STAB hardly being a blip on the radar.
Ough, the fuck did I miss?
...nice.
Anyways, re: ape, why is it bad that it, and gholdengo, and most wallbreakers, break walls? Like, every "problem" pokemon ive seen for this gen, and do bring up any that arent this, are either wallbreakers, or dondozo/garganacl. Is the fish too much? Probably, I mean it hits harder than fucking mega mewtwo, and is fast enough to stream snipe hydreigon, and everything base 99.
Everything else, probably not as bad since the ape dies to being 2hko, the string cheese is dying to Landorus-Tusk, and... fuck thats all I can remember.
Anyways, wallbreakers in a meta deficit of walls. Isnt Toxapex UU? Could really use that wet bastich about now.
...nice.
Anyways, re: ape, why is it bad that it, and gholdengo, and most wallbreakers, break walls? Like, every "problem" pokemon ive seen for this gen, and do bring up any that arent this, are either wallbreakers, or dondozo/garganacl. Is the fish too much? Probably, I mean it hits harder than fucking mega mewtwo, and is fast enough to stream snipe hydreigon, and everything base 99.
Everything else, probably not as bad since the ape dies to being 2hko, the string cheese is dying to Landorus-Tusk, and... fuck thats all I can remember.
Anyways, wallbreakers in a meta deficit of walls. Isnt Toxapex UU? Could really use that wet bastich about now.
It is still Ou, however it isn't as good without scald.
Wow what a close call, not surprised that tera preview was the runner up, which I would of preferred but its over for now so no point dwelling on the past.
Personally I'm on team check cycilizar. I really like the idea of shed tail and think it could be fun, but regenerator along with it just gets crazy. Makes setting it up from a cool play to just free setups.
Personally I'm on team check cycilizar. I really like the idea of shed tail and think it could be fun, but regenerator along with it just gets crazy. Makes setting it up from a cool play to just free setups.
Fish specifically is a problem because it can beatoffensive teams too by being fast and stupidly high output.
Dengo isn't a problem because it beats stall teams, arguably stall teams have a decent MU into string man because of Salt Cure and Clod being a good check. Dengo just makes hazards awful to clear for offensive\tempo teams, and it's main counter (chi-yu) needs to be banned.
Ape is MOSTLY for stall, yes. There's wallbreakers, and then there's "wallbreakers that 6-0 stall solo", but honestly you could argue ape needs testing because it CAN be beat by fast special offense, though with Chi-Yu going that's, again, a major counter gone.
When is the next announcement we will hear of any quickbans come if it does at all?
One last random thought/observation in the wake of today's result, it's interesting to think about how the format of the vote affected the outcome. As a No Action voter myself, I wouldn't have minded Team Preview winning at all--I think Tera has legitimate competitive merit in-game and in the Team Builder, but virtually none of it is derived from having to guess your opponent's Tera type. Indeed, had the vote been between No Action and Tera Preview, I might have gone with the latter--but I found the other options for restriction so onerous that I felt compelled to vote No Action in order to ensure Outright Ban and Tera Captain didn't win, and I'm sure there are others who feel the same.
I understand why the OU council formatted it the way they did--it wouldn't have been fair to pro-Ban voters if there were no Outright Ban option for this test. But now that it's clear Tera Preview is a far more popular restriction than the alternatives, maybe the next Tera Suspect (post-Home or whenever) should just be a matter of choosing between No Action or Tera Preview; ideally we would then get a better idea of how popular Tera Preview truly is in relation to leaving Tera alone. If there's significant outcry for further restrictions after that, well... can always just do another suspect lol
In any case, what's abundantly clear is that "Ban Non-STAB Tera" should never make a reappearance--no matter your stance on Tera, I don't think anyone wants to see it reduced to "Gain Adaptability for your wall breaker".
I understand why the OU council formatted it the way they did--it wouldn't have been fair to pro-Ban voters if there were no Outright Ban option for this test. But now that it's clear Tera Preview is a far more popular restriction than the alternatives, maybe the next Tera Suspect (post-Home or whenever) should just be a matter of choosing between No Action or Tera Preview; ideally we would then get a better idea of how popular Tera Preview truly is in relation to leaving Tera alone. If there's significant outcry for further restrictions after that, well... can always just do another suspect lol
In any case, what's abundantly clear is that "Ban Non-STAB Tera" should never make a reappearance--no matter your stance on Tera, I don't think anyone wants to see it reduced to "Gain Adaptability for your wall breaker".
I have to agree with Chi-yu and ape being primary targets for suspect test/bans/quickbans. I've tested random teams for OU and throwing one or both on a team or substitute other members out allowed me to make severe misplays and still pull victories often with little thought. Little thought Pokes may not instantly require banning, but that's not what makes these two so powerful at all.
Tera isn't the problem how I see it. It's certain broken mons still being in OU that makes tera devastating but those same mons are a hassle with or without tera. Merely most tera types aren't so ridiculous, with a few exceptions Saltnacl/Dozo is a prime example of this exception. I don't think either are completely broken, but I can see how the issue is raised.
Most tera runners are also often obvious, sure you get some janky situations once in a while, like when I ran a Ghost tera~CM Jolteon~Sub/CM/SB/TB sub being for predicting switches... It worked pretty well at removing Ghosts (including Ape), and other choice threats, but fraileon wasn't much use outside that niche on the team I ran so I stopped using it. Pretty amusing stuff though and one of the reasons I actually like tear a bit, allows garbagemons or power crept mons some utility and use.
My 2c
Tera isn't the problem how I see it. It's certain broken mons still being in OU that makes tera devastating but those same mons are a hassle with or without tera. Merely most tera types aren't so ridiculous, with a few exceptions Saltnacl/Dozo is a prime example of this exception. I don't think either are completely broken, but I can see how the issue is raised.
Most tera runners are also often obvious, sure you get some janky situations once in a while, like when I ran a Ghost tera~CM Jolteon~Sub/CM/SB/TB sub being for predicting switches... It worked pretty well at removing Ghosts (including Ape), and other choice threats, but fraileon wasn't much use outside that niche on the team I ran so I stopped using it. Pretty amusing stuff though and one of the reasons I actually like tear a bit, allows garbagemons or power crept mons some utility and use.
My 2c
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