Garganacl
is a disease in this current metagame with little to no cure. Salt Cure deals 1/8 max HP each turn; 1/4 on Steel, Water. This move has allowed Garganacl to effectively make an item that would have no usage without its presence actually have usage. That item would be Covert Cloak. Covert Cloak allows your Pokemon to ignore secondary damage Salt Cure deals. Covert Cloak isn't really practical as a measure towards Garganacl in the current metagame. Earlier in the SV metagame when Garganacls would generally only be Stealth Rock Protect Wall or Iron Defense Sweeper, it was okay for Covert Cloak Gholdengo or Toxapex to be viewed as a countermeasure as they had reliable recovery along with the ability to beat Gargancl 1v1. This was enough to keep it at bay for majority of SV OU, with it having some guest appearances on
surveys &
on the radar. It got multiple 3's not enough to support a suspect. Reasonably so, this tier has had larger issues, and considering
Garganacls mediocre usage along with mediocre win rate in tour play, it would be hard to justify focusing on it. With monsters such as Palafin, Chien Pao, and Espahtra plaguing the tier it's tough for
a rock to stand out.
Shed Tail no longer being in the metagame and its ban has been the catalyst that has led to
a rock being a plague on the tier. It isn't solely Shed Tail's ban though that has led us to the point we're at now. The metagame has evolved where Rocky Helmet Corviknight is needed over Cloak, Assault Vest Toxapex is needed over Cloak, Choice Scarf/Air Balloon Gholdengo is needed over Cloak. The Pokemon listed are able to help your team with multiple threats with the items listed, whereas Covert Cloak primarily only helps with Gargancl. With Shed Tail removed the metagame has slowed down from its fast-paced overwhelming nature, overwhelming Gargancl is arguably the best way to take it down, the longer the game lasts the more opportunities it has to salt cure its way to victory.
Gargancl currently has 2 extremely viable Terastallization types, Water
and Fairy
. These 2 different types make it generally quite difficult to prep for both forms with Amoongus being the only OU Pokemon that can handle both 1v1 and even then at times it needs Covet Cloak to handle properly instead of running a more conventional item such as Heavy Duty Boots or Red Card. Now, you're able to pressure Gargancl with strong moves, force it to waste its recovers, attempt to hazard stack so you wear it down over time, and knock off its leftovers to put it on its heels...all these things are easier said than done and it may already be too late in the match by the time you accomplish. This also doesn't account for the fact offensive teams generally can't afford to take its wearing down throughout the game and still be able to handle its teammates. I feel a lot of people view Gargancl as a singularity entity and don't take into consideration what it's able to accomplish that results in the point we play this game in the first place, a W.
Water Gargancl is able to take advantage of the lack of strong electric and grass types and even if the limited options choose to switch in they have to deal with the reality that each time they switch in they could lose a big chunk of their health along with generally just forcing it to switch out as competent players are switching out from getting hit with a super effective. There is also the reality that currently most of the "viable" grass and electric types in the metagame don't have a good place in the metagame. You could make the case that shows a larger problem with the current landscape but this conversation is about
a rock. Water Garg is able to run Physically Defensive and Specially Defensive based sets that are able to curse up on a majority of the metagame. The combination of Salt Cure + Earthquake leaves very few ways to handle this Pokemon. Popular counterplay to this combination is safely getting in Hydregion to sub up on it and abuse Garganacls position in the game due to Hydregions levitate making it immune to Earthquake and natural bulk allowing it to sub up on Salt Cure safely. There is also locking it into recover/salt cure with an encore from Pokemon like Scream Tail, Iron Valiant, & if you're desperate Azumarill. As I mentioned hazard stacking against Gargcancl teams (
pray they don't have court change) is a popular counterplay method with the help of Ting Lu Whirlwinding although it has to get worn down by Salt Cure each time it attempts this while also handling what other threats Garganacls teammates may be.
Fairy Gargancl is another fantastic typing that takes advantage of the lack of fairy typing in the tier. A lot of teams are equipped to simply take down fairy types that lack reliable recovery not
a rock with 100 HP, 130 Defense, and 90 Special Defense. It is able to take advantage of the amazing typing fairy that gives you, immunity to strong dragon types and of course resisting the power dark typing that has plagued SV from the very start. Fairy Garg is generally more so a defensive wall than the sweeper Water can become but it still can be as overwhelming. Fairy Garg is able to handle crazy threats such as Dragapult, Baxcalibur, Roaring Moon, Great Tusk, & more. It is able completely shut down current offensive archetypes once your opponent's generally easily worn down countermeasure has been removed from the game. It is able to set rocks along with cursing on removers such as great tusk making it impossible for it to remove the hazards set and ultimately if staying in losing the 1v1 battle. Countermeasures for this set are generally the same as mentioned above for Water but due to its Fairy typing in this case Gholdengo and Kingambit can also handle the job. Now for Gholdengo if it runs covet cloak it is a fantastic countermeasure for this set, if it lacks it, things get tricky. Kingambit doesn't run covet cloak generally (and if it does kinda shows the problem) as it's usually in the sweeper role or check role so you'll see it running items such as leftovers, lum, air balloon, etc all of which essentially don't prevent it from losing 25% of its health just to handle
a rock.
Garganacl
is also arguably keeping this tier together. It is able to handle most notably Dragapult which arguably would be on radar/surveys if it weren't for Garganacl's presence in the tier. It has been a notable Pokemon in keeping the weather Sun in check and to a lesser extent Rain. It is able to handle Sun threats such as Walking Wake's powerful Hydro Steams with Water
and Fairy
is able to handle Great Tusk, Brute Bonnet, and Roaring Moon while also being able to pivot into Walking Wake's powerful Dracos.
Garganacl is able to break down powerful balances like the
Shark 6 while also shutting down popular stalls with its block set preventing their counterplay to it being Pivoting around. Garganacl is able to be a consistent wall in this metagame and be productive in a majority of match ups where you rarely feel you're playing from behind Teraing early with it. Garganacl is able to generally handle the unaware monsters of Dondozo and Skelidirge with Salt Cure wearing down their recovery or at worse forcing a tera from them. Garganacl not being able to be statused makes it a nice switch into Willo's and Toxic's, along with it having such phenomenal bulk that even if your opponent predicts your switch in to avoid the status by attacking you can easily recover back the health loss.
Garganacl Water is generally able to handle OU threats such as:
Threats Handled
Gholdengo
Ceruledge
Cinderace
Dondozo
Gholdengo
Greninja
Iron Moth
Walking Wake
Skelidirge
Garganacl Fairy is generally able to handle OU threats such as:
Threats Handled
Baxcalibur
Dondozo
Dragapult
Dragonite
Garchomp
Water Gargancal
Great Tusk
Meowscarda
Roaring Moon
With each ban and with home on the horizon the OU Metagame is headed in the right direction in my opinion. I simply believe there are misconceptions about how "easy" it is to handle Garganacl and that an irrelevant item in the grand scheme of things doesn't solve this Pokemon. I'm sure players will figure out how to adapt to the current problem that Garganacl presents and we shall see what the solution is. The goal of this post isn't to advocate for a Garganacl suspect, I've listed simply what stands out to me with its presence in the metagame and how the meta could start to revolve around
a rock.
