Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[Just A Shroom God]

I HATE GARGANACL (an essay)​

I hate garganacl, and I don't think I'm alone in this. It's simultaneously infuriating to play against and with. Seriously, fuck this thing. It has just the right amount of variability where its checks don't feel check-y enough. An example would be Leftovers Tusk. On paper, this completely counters its Stealth Rock/Protect set, which it does, albeit taking some chip in the process. But what's this? Suddenly the Garganacl is fucking IronPress or Curse and has so now you can't kill it anymore and it destroys you with Body Press and Salt Cure damage. What about the unaware users of Dirge and Clod? Dirge has its sub broken and does 10% with torch song and Shadow Ball until it has to slack off in which case it gets you with the salt cure so you can't win against it in the long run. Clod's earthquake is literally outstalled by Salt Cure after it's Tera'd and it uses the opportunity to get to +6 so the next pokemon is destroyed by Body Press. That's not even to mention that it's 2HKO'd by earthquake if it's running curse set. Dondozo is literally fucking murdered by salt cure. Special attackers often can't even check it because of its ridiculous bulk. Naive Iron Valiant can't even 2HKO it with fucking Moonblast meanwhile it gets salt cure, STALLS OUT CLOSE COMBAT AT +2 WITHOUT TERAING and then you have to deal with +6 body press and salt cure with the rest of your team while it probably stills has 3-5 recovery PP which makes it really fucking impossible to kill. That's just to show that all the good special attackers can't really 1v1 it because they are stalled out. The only thing that can really deal with it is setup users with recovery like Hatterene or Choice Specs special attackers but even then they take a lot of chip and the garganacl user just switches to something that can deal with them because choice item lock and the free turns you just gave them so now your pokemon are threatened out by whatever switched in and garga is still healthy have I mentioned how much I HATE THIS POKEMON YET!!!!! And people say it's balanced because you can run Ghold with Covert Cloak (an objectively trash item) and ignore body press except they nail you with the +1 curse and you're fucking dead haha isn't that fun. That's not even to mention the stupidity of block sets to screw over stall completely and the COMPLETE IMMUNITY TO STATUS GAMEFREAK WHYYYYYY. You have to run answers to all of its sets and they're completely different and I hate it. PLEASE BAN THIS THING!!!!!

tl;dr too bulky, checks are bad, forces progress too easily and quickly

edit: this ended up being less of an essay than a place to voice my frustrations but please tell me i'm not alone in this. There have to be some people that don't want to run cloak on everything, right?
edit 2: this is why we need a disagree emote. I can't tell if people disagree with me or are just laughing at my rage.

 

[YubelVT]

i stole am using a team that 1LDK posted, and I honestly really enjoy it. if you're not matched up against a ground type once he's on the field it's just free speed and then you can just spam fiery dance

I've been saying for a bit that u always need to be faster than 350 but u don't always need to be at +3 (effectively)

 

[pika pal]

Great video; I'll leave a comment on the video itself shortly, but your demonstrating the rising usage of Tera Water Garg is one of the reasons why I've lately been gravitating and posting about using Pokemon like Breloom, Decidueye, and Electrode (writing another one of my huge posts on Electrode soon).

I humbly request an addendum about Hisuian-Electrode if that can be feasibly worked into the analysis, since by most measure I assume the typing and Grass STAB are strict benefits to how it can be played like base Electrode.

 

[Morkal]

I humbly request an addendum about Hisuian-Electrode if that can be feasibly worked into the analysis, since by most measure I assume the typing and Grass STAB are strict benefits to how it can be played like base Electrode.

I can throw in a little blurb about Hisuian Electrode near the end of the post - H-Electrode there are actually three different feasible OU sets that I can think of for it (compared to the one niche that regular Electrode has), it's a vastly superior Pokemon that can operate on multiple types of teams (while the regular Electrode I'm gonna be talking about only functions on two specific types of teams, it's a small niche but it's a strong niche that only Electrode itself can currently pull off, ironically enough H-Electrode will remove regular Electrode's niche when released)

 

[Karxrida]

doesn’t it get moonblast?

It does, but Springtide Storm is a tiny bit stronger. I admittedly didn't bother running calcs for notable KOs the move secures (if any) over Moonblast and the accuracy is probably a deterrent, but it was still worth mentioning imo.

 

[pika pal]

It does, but Springtide Storm is a tiny bit stronger. I admittedly didn't bother running calcs for notable KOs the move secures (if any) over Moonblast and the accuracy is probably a deterrent, but it was still worth mentioning imo.

I can't spot too many myself (most you'll get is stuff like a better roll to 2HKO +1 Tera'd Volcarona). The power difference is really minute for going from 100% to Stone Edge 80% accuracy and a Phys instead of Special ATK drop chance.

 

[Just A Shroom God]

I can't spot too many myself (most you'll get is stuff like a better roll to 2HKO +1 Tera'd Volcarona). The power difference is really minute for going from 100% to Stone Edge 80% accuracy and a Phys instead of Special ATK drop chance.

sorry, quick correction. I think you mean 100% to 30%.

 

[pika pal]

sorry, quick correction. I think you mean 100% to 30%.

Let me put it this way: You will hit Springtide Storm as many times as you DON'T get burned by Scald.

 

[Eeveeto]

I support Garganacl Ban. I don,t think its broken or unhealthy at all, but I almost never use this thing and just don,t want to prepare for it and the 323232 other threats of OU at the same time. Yep, thats my only motivation for the Ban, reducing the number of annoying threats, even though this one isn,t really offensive.

 

[awyp]

I HATE GARGANACL (an essay)​

I hate garganacl, and I don't think I'm alone in this. It's simultaneously infuriating to play against and with. Seriously, fuck this thing. It has just the right amount of variability where its checks don't feel check-y enough. An example would be Leftovers Tusk. On paper, this completely counters its Stealth Rock/Protect set, which it does, albeit taking some chip in the process. But what's this? Suddenly the Garganacl is fucking IronPress or Curse and has so now you can't kill it anymore and it destroys you with Body Press and Salt Cure damage. What about the unaware users of Dirge and Clod? Dirge has its sub broken and does 10% with torch song and Shadow Ball until it has to slack off in which case it gets you with the salt cure so you can't win against it in the long run. Clod's earthquake is literally outstalled by Salt Cure after it's Tera'd and it uses the opportunity to get to +6 so the next pokemon is destroyed by Body Press. That's not even to mention that it's 2HKO'd by earthquake if it's running curse set. Dondozo is literally fucking murdered by salt cure. Special attackers often can't even check it because of its ridiculous bulk. Naive Iron Valiant can't even 2HKO it with fucking Moonblast meanwhile it gets salt cure, STALLS OUT CLOSE COMBAT AT +2 WITHOUT TERAING and then you have to deal with +6 body press and salt cure with the rest of your team while it probably stills has 3-5 recovery PP which makes it really fucking impossible to kill. That's just to show that all the good special attackers can't really 1v1 it because they are stalled out. The only thing that can really deal with it is setup users with recovery like Hatterene or Choice Specs special attackers but even then they take a lot of chip and the garganacl user just switches to something that can deal with them because choice item lock and the free turns you just gave them so now your pokemon are threatened out by whatever switched in and garga is still healthy have I mentioned how much I HATE THIS POKEMON YET!!!!! And people say it's balanced because you can run Ghold with Covert Cloak (an objectively trash item) and ignore body press except they nail you with the +1 curse and you're fucking dead haha isn't that fun. That's not even to mention the stupidity of block sets to screw over stall completely and the COMPLETE IMMUNITY TO STATUS GAMEFREAK WHYYYYYY. You have to run answers to all of its sets and they're completely different and I hate it. PLEASE BAN THIS THING!!!!!

tl;dr too bulky, checks are bad, forces progress too easily and quickly

edit: this ended up being less of an essay than a place to voice my frustrations but please tell me i'm not alone in this. There have to be some people that don't want to run cloak on everything, right?

simple solution for your hatred:

'just covert cloak bro'

 

[Just A Shroom God]

simple solution for your hatred:

'just covert cloak bro'

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or serious, but I'll reply with my argument anyway

First off, covert cloak is just objectively a bad item over things like leftovers or HDB.
Secondly, the solution isn't just "run covert cloak." The solution is "run covert cloak on something that doesn't get mauled by one of its coverage options AND can outlast it over the course of a game. It has to be something that has recovery, that doesn't care about earthquake or boosted body press, and has to be not reliant on an item to remain sufficiently healthy like Tusk. This is a big reason for garganacl's A+ and soon-to-be S- rank. It just forces damage too easily, and the pool of pokemon that fit the above criteria is too small.

Let me put it this way: You will hit Springtide Storm as many times as you DON'T get burned by Scald.

so 0% of the time then got it

 

[MrE]

Garg is obviously busted and overly centralising if mons are being forced to use an item that they really don't want to use and there are 3 or 4 better items they should be using.

 

[Cuddly]

With how many people here hate Salt Cure, just imagine how much hate Dire Claw will get.

 

[turd2]

Well, that is exactly why the rival is using Hatt, that is not exclusive to Ting-Lu.

Plenty of hazard setters can get around Hatterene. Glimmora, Meowscarada, etc.

Double hazard Ting-Lu with whirlwind and earthquake never does.

 

[Just_Aaron]

With how many people here hate Salt Cure, just imagine how much hate Dire Claw will get.

Hey, at least one would have two reasons to run Covert Cloak instead lol

 

[KrazyKoopa95]

View attachment 516828

Couple of things to note for me.

Definitely not claiming to know who goes where for the lower tiers because I don't play them.

Most of this is just guesstimates based on stats, abilities, and moves in conjuncture because I don't know how the OU/UU meta will look like during Home, and I don't think placing a mon in a tier because how they'd stack up against what's available right now is an accurate judgement. TL;DR, I'm looking at the mons in a vacuum, so a grain of salt should be taken.

Urshifu (both) look like actual nightmares to handle. Doubt we'll see Water Bear for long and even moreso for Dark Bear. I'm pretty confident that SD is what pushes Water Bear over the edge, but I'm not 100% certain, as the meta remains to be seen.

A few mons I'm very much on the fence on are H-Goodra and and Mew, honestly not sure if they'll be OU or UU. I think they could go either, but I put them in OU because I feel like their kits might be too much for UU to handle. Again, take that with a grain of salt.

Otherwise, I think I have some reasonable takes? Always down to discuss anything I have misconceptions about though. :>

Where can I get the tier list to make one?

 

[artificialdeath]

Hey, at least one would have two reasons to run Covert Cloak instead lol

If Skymin comes back we should unban it to have a third! (srsly GF if you're making all the stuff from LA + gen 4 legends compatible why not bring back Shaymin/Darkrai/Manaphy)

To prevent this from being a stupid one-liner, how do you guys think Garganacl, and the best defensive mons in general (clod, dozo, dirge, lu, etc.), will fare going into the HOME meta? Bulkier teams have seemingly gotten more breathing room since the Shed Tail ban, but the meta's power level will, in all likelihood, increase even after the worst offenders are banned early on.

 

[KamenOH]

If Skymin comes back we should unban it to have a third! (srsly GF if you're making all the stuff from LA + gen 4 legends compatible why not bring back Shaymin/Darkrai/Manaphy)

To prevent this from being a stupid one-liner, how do you guys think Garganacl, and the best defensive mons in general (clod, dozo, dirge, lu, etc.), will fare going into the HOME meta? Bulkier teams have seemingly gotten more breathing room since the Shed Tail ban, but the meta's power level will, in all likelihood, increase even after the worst offenders are banned early on.

I hope they are still OU, but not like, top OU, you get me? They are insane to break through, and for the first time in my life, I hope the 145 Atk god Landorus does something offensive, rather than be an obnoxious pivoting mess that wont utilize its best stat.
Meanwhile, for the three days it is in the tier, Regieleki will cut down on Big Ground teras with its insane 200 speed Tera Ice boltbeam fuckery. Essentially unresisted (Lightningrod + Ice Resist but thats literally only Lanturn iirc) coverage, both STABs, will make Dondozo hurt. It is raw Specs pain, and it can run Modest because it hits 499 speed. It OHKOS DONDOZO, 252 SpD edition.
Anyways besides like Magearna or Urshifu I cant think of anything that will make life worse for defensive teams.
Hope for less defense, expect cresselia × heatran spam

 

[UnusualBoy]

Not the Garga meltdowns coming back again, give it up Delishis…

 

[Slowpoke Fan]

Great video; I'll leave a comment on the video itself shortly, but your demonstrating the rising usage of Tera Water Garg is one of the reasons why I've lately been gravitating and posting about using Pokemon like Breloom, Decidueye, and Electrode (writing another one of my huge posts on Electrode soon).

Base Rock (or even Rock with certain secondaries) + Tera together is scary in of itself, but Garg is so perfectly synergistic with its succinctly tailored stats/movepool that it is just a nature pressure extruder. I feel like Pokemon Home will drop several mons that can pressure it more, but until then Garg is going to keep getting explored and diversified more and more

And if certain leaks about transfer moves are correct, we will finally see ability shield Garganacl to counter mould breaker toxic...

 

[MegaScizor32]

I HATE GARGANACL (an essay)​

I hate garganacl, and I don't think I'm alone in this. It's simultaneously infuriating to play against and with. Seriously, fuck this thing. It has just the right amount of variability where its checks don't feel check-y enough. An example would be Leftovers Tusk. On paper, this completely counters its Stealth Rock/Protect set, which it does, albeit taking some chip in the process. But what's this? Suddenly the Garganacl is fucking IronPress or Curse and has so now you can't kill it anymore and it destroys you with Body Press and Salt Cure damage. What about the unaware users of Dirge and Clod? Dirge has its sub broken and does 10% with torch song and Shadow Ball until it has to slack off in which case it gets you with the salt cure so you can't win against it in the long run. Clod's earthquake is literally outstalled by Salt Cure after it's Tera'd and it uses the opportunity to get to +6 so the next pokemon is destroyed by Body Press. That's not even to mention that it's 2HKO'd by earthquake if it's running curse set. Dondozo is literally fucking murdered by salt cure. Special attackers often can't even check it because of its ridiculous bulk. Naive Iron Valiant can't even 2HKO it with fucking Moonblast meanwhile it gets salt cure, STALLS OUT CLOSE COMBAT AT +2 WITHOUT TERAING and then you have to deal with +6 body press and salt cure with the rest of your team while it probably stills has 3-5 recovery PP which makes it really fucking impossible to kill. That's just to show that all the good special attackers can't really 1v1 it because they are stalled out. The only thing that can really deal with it is setup users with recovery like Hatterene or Choice Specs special attackers but even then they take a lot of chip and the garganacl user just switches to something that can deal with them because choice item lock and the free turns you just gave them so now your pokemon are threatened out by whatever switched in and garga is still healthy have I mentioned how much I HATE THIS POKEMON YET!!!!! And people say it's balanced because you can run Ghold with Covert Cloak (an objectively trash item) and ignore body press except they nail you with the +1 curse and you're fucking dead haha isn't that fun. That's not even to mention the stupidity of block sets to screw over stall completely and the COMPLETE IMMUNITY TO STATUS GAMEFREAK WHYYYYYY. You have to run answers to all of its sets and they're completely different and I hate it. PLEASE BAN THIS THING!!!!!

tl;dr too bulky, checks are bad, forces progress too easily and quickly

edit: this ended up being less of an essay than a place to voice my frustrations but please tell me i'm not alone in this. There have to be some people that don't want to run cloak on everything, right?
edit 2: this is why we need a disagree emote. I can't tell if people disagree with me or are just laughing at my rage.

Lol i destroy garg with my Poison Hydreigon. It lets me setup for free

 

[luckie]

Where can I get the tier list to make one?

https://tiermaker.com/create/pokemon-home-tiering-15764991

Here you go :>

 

[dunderguy]

Thoughts on Corrosion Glimmora and/or Salazzle? I feel like Toxic on any type is great in this metagame right now, because of the lack of Magic Guard, Heal Bell, and Aromatherapy this gen. The only way you could cleanse/avoid Toxic from Corrosion mons is if you’re Rest (mainly Dondozo), Magic Bounce (Hatterene), being Garganacl with Purifying Salt, or being Gholdengo with Good as Gold. However, Glimmora is somewhat good against all four, but gets severe 4MSS with all the moves it wants. (Substitute, Spiky Shield, Toxic, Sludge Wave for Hatterene, Energy Ball for Garganacl/Dondozo, Earth Power for Gholdengo).

 

[CheesyBrie]

Let me preface this by making a blanket statement that I will not be debating:
It is, and always will continue to be my personal opinion that Role Compression and Excessive Versatility makes a pokemon inherently unhealthy for a metagame. Landorus-T and now Great Tusk are the de-facto examples of this. They aren't "unga bunga Garmanitan double choice band" broken, but they create an extreme stranglehold on every meta in which they are present. Why use any other pokemon when you could, and almost always should, just use Great Tusk or Landorus-T? If usage stats shape the tier, and one pokemon is HALF THE TIER by usage, that means it is overcentralizing. Just saying.
Again, I'm not debating this. This is just my opinion, and has been for generations. Moving on to actual thoughts about home.

I actually want to talk about Goltres, which is a much-needed Ghost resist on a pokemon that isn't a passive deadweight. I think Goltres could actually produce some results being relatively good into Great Tusk and Gholdengo, and having fire coverage for Kingambit as well. i'm not going to run calcs, because I don't know the first thing about using Goltres, but I want to acknowledge that maybe it does something with the meta in its current state?
I'm not really sure "Why" Zadpdos and Gapdos will be OU. That's just sort of a gut feeling? Good mons last gen, probably good this gen since nothing really changed.
I do think UU will slam ban a half dozen of these 'mons if/when they drop.
I'm half suspecting that Last Respects won't be banned and whichever dumb ghost fish gets it will be QB'd alongside the results of the first post-home suspect.
I think Zarude miiiiiight actually have a niche? Also thanks to decent typing, but garbage elsewhere (it's like what... the fifth Grass Dark type this gen?), so maybe it's bulk might find a place in lieu of Meow if speed tiers aren't an issue for it?

I'm not sure about Ursaluna in OU. I just don't see it, and I'm not sure why. I'm also wondering if there's a world where guts Ursaring can be used as an eviolite tank status absorber? Again, that's probably not OU matrerial, but maybe impactful in the lower tiers.

 

[awyp]

Thoughts on Corrosion Glimmora and/or Salazzle? I feel like Toxic on any type is great in this metagame right now, because of the lack of Magic Guard, Heal Bell, and Aromatherapy this gen. The only way you could cleanse/avoid Toxic from Corrosion mons is if you’re Rest (mainly Dondozo), Magic Bounce (Hatterene), being Garganacl with Purifying Salt, or being Gholdengo with Good as Gold. However, Glimmora is somewhat good against all four, but gets severe 4MSS with all the moves it wants. (Substitute, Spiky Shield, Toxic, Sludge Wave for Hatterene, Energy Ball for Garganacl/Dondozo, Earth Power for Gholdengo).

I feel like it isn't bad I tried it early in Gen 9, it's a gimmick for sure but it can still be viable because honestly there's a lot of toxic absorbing users (In terms of Toxic Debris), so tbh it might be worth it. I might explore it again just because I think Toxic Debris can be a bit useless depending on matchup ofc, the only thing that gets toxic'd is usually Tusk switching into Rapid Spin.