Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v2 [Update on Post #5186]

[`ShadowTwo]

who cares? Garganacal can be healthy in UU without salt cure. Why not nerf Magearna by taking away Fleur Cannon? Lilligant in UU without Victory Dance? Even if Sneasler is 100% balanced without Dire Claw, the precedent of choosing to nerf Pokémon by removing signature moves instead of banning the Pokémon will ruin the integrity of tiering. If smogon gives into the pressure of people who don't understand how precedent works, we will never hear the end of "ban salt cure"

I'm a bit tired of seeing this kind of argument that puts Dire Claw on the same footing as incomparable competitive moves.

Fleur Cannon is just a Draco Meteor/Leaf Storm beast at 130BP, which remains fundamentally competitive in itself, since it's only one strong move among others, a lot of Pokémon have this kind of attack, even in sub-tier. In this case, it is obvious that it is the Poké which must be banned (especially when its best sets do not necessarily have Fleur Cannon).
Salt cure is a pseudo-status move that's competitively legit, the only problem being that it's given to a hyper bulky pokemon that can heal itself and is status immune, so can abuse it.

Victory Dance is just a strong boost move like Quiver Dance, which didn't get pokemon banned. The majority of Quiver Dancers are not viable in OU.

Dire Claw in itself presents potentially (I insist on the term "potentially") non-competitive aspects, hence the interest of discussing (not necessarily banishing, just discussing) on this move, while discussing on Fleur Cannon or Wicked Blow has absolutely no interest.

 

[superstrike66]

What are everyone's thoughts on Dialga Jr. aka H-Goodra? It seems like it could overall be a solid tank plus Body Press mon.

I personally don't like it as I utterly despise using walls without reliable recovery. While I don't think it'll be OU proper (I see it as more of a RU/UU mon), I do see it having a small niche as a check to some special attackers.

 

[pika pal]

What makes Dire Claw more unhealthy then other RNG mechanics in the game?

Dire Claw by nature subverts the typical Counterplay to sleep using Pokemon in that it circumvents Taunt (Spore/Sleep Power etc. being Status moves), has different immunities (Steels are the Only no-sell compared to Spore being stopped by Grass or certain Abilities like Overcoat or Good As Gold in this Gen), and the move isn't prone to whiffing a turn if Sleep doesn't work due to the Damage and other Status Procs.

(Disclaimer: I like Sneasler and think that Dire Claw shenanigans aside, the mon is a welcome presence in OU that would be throwing a baby out with the bath water.)

I agree with the thread's expressed sentiment that Dire Claw is inherently uncompetitive while having until-now unexplored interaction with how we handle Sleep Clause, whether in ruleset or Sim vs Cart. As a random forum-goer, I disagree personally with the dismissal of Dire Claw over a Complete-Sneasler radar (whether or not any action comes to the Weasel) on the following bases.

• Obviously a lot of tiering work and policy is based on precedent in this and past Gens, so I get why things like Last Respects and moves are approached very cautiously. At the same, time, Gamefreak has very much ramped up a focus on heavily-limited Distribution/Signature Moves since Gen 6-7, with practically every Pokemon having a move that they share with 0-2 other Lines at best for at least one generation's full run. The way mons are being designed into the game (even if not specifically for our Ruleset) is not necessarily the same as it was in Generation 3 or 4 (dear god we have 20 years worth of Game to build Metas out of), so while not a full overhaul I think there is consideration to be made that we can't tier things from 2022 the same way as mons designed for 2007 or 2012 and expect the same applicability. This one is obviously the most subjective as it's down to my rando perspective on how tiering is approached without being responsible for it, but I don't want to leave it off the table for context either.
• Compared to something like Last Respects or Rage Fist, Dire Claw is on peoples' radar specifically because it produces uncompetitive play. The move does not lower the skill threshold to win by providing disproportionate power, it removes skill from the equation all together, which seems much less "user-dependent" as far as judging the move itself.
• How many users does a move or ability need to possess before it is deemed the subject of tiering action instead of the users? Is it just down to the tradition of having a single user and removing the Mon without a second user? If it's more or less agreed that Dire Claw is an uncompetitive move that complicates Sleep Clause, Houndstone is our main precedent of "ban the one user until literally anything else gets the move)," with one move deriving from extreme damage output while the other is a mechanical behavior much more binary/quantified as a problem of the move's own working (Dire Claw would achieve its level of cheese on Smeargle for example much more easily than LR would). The willingness to take the Houndstone approach feels like a concession that the move is known to be the problem element and a slippery slope concern for things like the cited "ban moves from Ubers to drop them" example that might follow, which I find flawed in this case compared to LR because Dire Claw's breakage is rooted in the randomized effects that clearly do not contribute to Sneasler's most effective playstyles, nor would this be an incremental "nerf" like removing certain Damage moves from Ubers (i.e. Moonblast banned on Flutter Mane would weaken it but not fundamentally lock out a method of use)
• There is one past case for a Move ban I want to bring up. I won't go into Baton Pass because its mechanical interactions make it a very specific can of worms, but my example in mind then is Gen 6 and 7 Swagger to break up Swagplay strategies. Swagger obviously has much wider distribution than Dire Claw, yet the problem causers were a few Prankster users of the move, often made worse by having other tools like Thunder Wave or Foul Play. In spite of the big breakers coming from the move used as part of a strategy that involved multiple parts of a user, Swagger was banned rather than slapping Klefki or Thundurus as the users, presumably because they had contributions to the Meta besides unhealthy cheese.

As I will stress again, I can't dictate the council's tiering decisions, nor do I have the responsibility or herculean task they do of balancing nonsense like OU in the wake of Gamefreak design. All the same I don't want to leave my perspective unsaid regarding this Pokemon both out of personal bias and not being in complete agreement with the tiering precedent it is both subject to and likely to set/reinforce.

I spoke in defense of the Last Respects approach because I considered that a numbers game that would want verification and the Council had already all-but-confirmed that the move would go when Basculegion came out, but Dire Claw is an example I think you can call fundamentally uncompetitive on the concept before explaining the user (or later users maybe).

At the minimum I will say that in the event any test or action is proposed, my support is going to fall behind any option that hits Dire Claw before Sneasler itself, as any like of the mon aside, I do consider the move itself to be the centerpiece of the hubbub and think that would be best addressed rather than obfuscated arguing Sneasler's other traits (i.e. even if Sneasler is banned, I want it clear it is because of forum precedent and Dire Claw as the uncompetitive element that it simply can't separate from under Smogon Policy)

i think dire claw's uncompetitiveness is invalidated a bit by having a hard counter in the form of steel types. you can argue that sneasler's fighting stab makes that not a factor, but then suddenly the issue is sneasler using dire claw and not the move on its own.

on the other hand, there might be some merit in looking into the move on the basis of sleep clause. while sleep clause mod does prevent the move from sleeping multiple mons at once, that's an implementation that isn't cart accurate at all. i feel like it might be worth discussing dire claw or sleep clause itself just because this implementation is so inaccurate and different from how it is in the actual game. i wouldn't blame the council for just banning the mon though

The Counter argument I would have to the "Countered by Steels -> Sneasler Fighting beats Steels -> Dire Claw is only uncompetitive on Sneasler" approach is that Last Respects on Houndstone would be hard stopped by Normal types that it was ill-equipped to remove itself. The move having limited counterplay that Sneasler itself allows the player to circumvent doesn't necessarily make the move itself less of an unhealthy element, even if it makes Sneasler's usage stronger.

This isn’t entirely true. Meloetta’s Relic Song has a chance to inflict sleep of 20% (because Meloetta has Serene Grace), which I believe is actually higher than Dire Claw. I don’t believe there has ever been a movement to ban the move on that basis, even in tiers where Meloetta has been relevant.

I think the separator here is that Relic Song can only inflict Sleep, whereas Dire Claw can inflict other Status effects alongside its damage, meaning that uncompetitive arguments aside, there are significantly more scenarios where Dire Claw is your optimal move to click even with no concern or intent of triggering sleep, not to mention Sleep as its only Status condition made it easy to evaluate under Sleep Clause.

Yet on the flip side of the argument, Relic Song includes a major function besides Sleep with the form change, whereas Dire Claw as an attacking move is fairly easily substituted for Poison Jab in terms of attacking (much less Gunk Shot on the specific user) that makes the procs the main reason to run the former instead of the latter.

I'm a bit tired of seeing this kind of argument that puts Dire Claw on the same footing as incomparable competitive moves.

Fleur Cannon is just a Draco Meteor/Leaf Storm beast at 130BP, which remains fundamentally competitive in itself, since it's only one strong move among others, a lot of Pokémon have this kind of attack, even in sub-tier. In this case, it is obvious that it is the Poké which must be banned (especially when its best sets do not necessarily have Fleur Cannon).
Salt cure is a pseudo-status move that's competitively legit, the only problem being that it's given to a hyper bulky pokemon that can heal itself and is status immune, so can abuse it.

Victory Dance is just a strong boost move like Quiver Dance, which didn't get pokemon banned. The majority of Quiver Dancers are not viable in OU.

Dire Claw in itself presents potentially non-competitive aspects, hence the interest of discussing (not necessarily banishing, just discussing) on this move, while discussing on Fleur Cannon or Wicked Blow has absolutely no interest.

This is sort of where I stand. Fleur Cannon and Salt Cure, even if we were to argue they were overbearing moves, are numbers games that we have seen in the past can be toned down by GF nerfing the moves if they agree, and are arguably mostly concerning because of where their numbers sit now.

Dire Claw, in comparison, would present the same uncompetitive concern even if the status chance was 10% and 3% each status: That being that the move is suboptimal unless it is fishing for a random status proc that will totally shut down the target. Short of dropping all the way to 0%, this element of Dire Claw is always going to be present, and it is argued as the thing that makes the move itself a bad presence.

 

[Xufactor]

I'm a bit tired of seeing this kind of argument that puts Dire Claw on the same footing as incomparable competitive moves.

Fleur Cannon is just a Draco Meteor/Leaf Storm beast at 130BP, which remains fundamentally competitive in itself, since it's only one strong move among others, a lot of Pokémon have this kind of attack, even in sub-tier. In this case, it is obvious that it is the Poké which must be banned (especially when its best sets do not necessarily have Fleur Cannon).
Salt cure is a pseudo-status move that's competitively legit, the only problem being that it's given to a hyper bulky pokemon that can heal itself and is status immune, so can abuse it.

Victory Dance is just a strong boost move like Quiver Dance, which didn't get pokemon banned. The majority of Quiver Dancers are not viable in OU.

Dire Claw in itself presents potentially (I insist on the term "potentially") non-competitive aspects, hence the interest of discussing (not necessarily banishing, just discussing) on this move, while discussing on Fleur Cannon or Wicked Blow has absolutely no interest.

The reason Dire Claw would not be banned is that only one mon learns it, not because of “fundamental competitiveness.”

 

[Avira]

The solution is to change Sleep Cause so that sleeping 2 of your opponent's active Pokemon results in you automatically losing. Encore from the opponent would be unselectable the turn after the sleep move user has used a sleep move. Dire Claw possibly forcing people to autolose would make them think twice before using it. The way Smogon has implemented Sleep Clause is not ideal as Karxrida indicated last night.

 

[Mega Breloom]

The reason Dire Claw would not be banned is that only one mon learns it, not because of “fundamental competitiveness.”

Smeargle also will return on dlcs, but he can run better moves. Honestly I think that dire claw is not a good move on Sneasler, most of the time he prefers to click other moves, but for what I have seen players thought process is "I could click CC or acro to get a KO, but I'm going to click Dire claw and don't get the ko but will see if I get the hax for the laughs", it is normal because of the new toy syndrome and because the meta is kinda a joke rn, but I can see people playing "important" games don't even using dire claw. Personally I would wait to the new toy syndrome passes and then see what happens. Like others have mentioned, relic song already has a similar effect but haven't been considered to ban the move.

 

[thunderbug]

The solution is to change Sleep Cause so that sleeping 2 of your opponent's active Pokemon results in you automatically losing. Dire Claw possibly forcing people to autolose would make them think twice before using it. The way Smogon has implemented Sleep Clause is not ideal as Karxrida indicated last night.

This is just banning dire claw (and relic song) with extra steps

 

[Magcargo]

Smeargle also will return on dlcs, but he can run better moves. Honestly I think that dire claw is not a good move on Sneasler, most of the time he prefers to click other moves, but for what I have seen players thought process is "I could click CC or acro to get a KO, but I'm going to click Dire claw and don't get the ko but will see if I get the hax for the laughs", it is normal because of the new toy syndrome and because the meta is kinda a joke rn, but I can see people playing "important" games don't even using dire claw. Personally I would wait to the new toy syndrome passes and then see what happens. Like others have mentioned, relic song already has a similar effect but haven't been considered to ban the move.

Another issue might be that Garganacl usage has dropped off a cliff for some reason. Tera Poison Garganacl seems like it would completely own Dire Claw Sneaseler. Outside of Garganacl, other Pokemon like Rocky Helmet Slowking-G have solid match-up vs Sneaseler regardless of Dire Claw Status.

Sneaseler is pretty good on Screens and could be busted, but it isn't exclusively because of Dire Claw (though that move can be annoying).

 

[yomaalt]

The solution is to change Sleep Cause so that sleeping 2 of your opponent's active Pokemon results in you automatically losing. Dire Claw possibly forcing people to autolose would make them think twice before using it. The way Smogon has implemented Sleep Clause is not ideal as Karxrida indicated last night.

This is just... a dumb idea.
"Oh woops i accidentally rolled a sleep on X mon and now I immediately lost a game cause I tried using a stab move which can roll for para/poison hoorayy!!!!!"

 

[Avira]

This is just banning dire claw (and relic song) with extra steps

It wouldn't be banning them but reducing the incentive to use then. Dire Claw and Relic could still be used safely up until they sleep 1 enemy mon. It would force those moves to have a real drawback and also prevent Spore users from using Spore on a Natural Cure user and then clicking Spore again when the opponent switches. It would lead to more competitive play instead of allowing people to use moves that can cause sleep with no drawback since Smogon's rules protect then.

 

[Scarfire]

This is way too many posts for the most pointless discussion ever. Dire Claw ban is just not on the table at all, atleast discuss banning the mon as a whole.

Or other things, I personally would like to ask what mons people are finding super strong that ARENT on the radar rn and ones that people think will be pretty hard meta once bans pass and meta stabilizes.

I will start said convo by asking; what do you guys think about Baxcalibur right now, and how well do you see it doing in the future?

 

[DrPumpkinz]

This is just... a dumb idea.
"Oh woops i accidentally rolled a sleep on X mon and now I immediately lost a game cause I tried using a stab move which can roll for para/poison hoorayy!!!!!"

I mean, that's how it would work on cart.

Y'know, the thing Showdown is ostensibly trying to simulate.

 

[Pabloaram]

If Dire Claw is uncompetitive there's no choice that baning Sneasler because in the only mon that have Dire Claw as now in gen 9. Maybe DLC add another mon with Dire Claw and Sneasler could be free like Houndston is.
Similar case is Primeape having Rage Fist and being fine in RU so no reason to unban Anhilape and ban Rage Fist. If someone can show that Primeape of all Pokémons is broken in OU bc of Rage fist, there is a small chance. Small as Rage Fist Primeape viability in OU

 

[Xufactor]

It wouldn't be banning them but reducing the incentive to use then. Dire Claw and Relic could still be used safely up until they sleep 1 enemy mon. It would force those moves to have a real drawback and also prevent Spore users from using Spore on a Natural Cure user and then clicking Spore again when the opponent switches. It would lead to more competitive play instead of allowing people to use moves that can cause sleep with no drawback since Smogon's rules protect then.

Sure, but heavily punishes newcomers. At least with bans you can check for them in the teambuilder.

 

[Mega Breloom]

It wouldn't be banning them but reducing the incentive to use then. Dire Claw and Relic could still be used safely up until they sleep 1 enemy mon. It would force those moves to have a real drawback and also prevent Spore users from using Spore on a Natural Cure user and then clicking Spore again when the opponent switches. It would lead to more competitive play instead of allowing people to use moves that can cause sleep with no drawback since Smogon's rules protect then.

The sleep clause already "punishes" players by making lose their turn when they try to use status sleep moves, if they sleep clause "protected" them the mod won't let them click the move in the first place, for stuff like effect spore, dire claw and relic song it negates the sleep status. In my opinion that is more than enough considering the base game design (if anything, blame game freak not smogon). What do you propuse has some issues, a quick example I thought, what if a Breelom uses spore in a Rotom-H but the Rotom player predicted it and used sleep talk and rolled Volt-Switch brings Valiant to the field, the Breelom uses decides to stay because has sash but the Valiant uses encore. In that very especific scenario the Breloom player would auto lose without they intending to break the clause, doesn't matter how weird the circumstances for that to happen could be, but having the possibility of forcing your opponent to lose because of a rule sounds more umcompetitive than abuse sleep.

 

[Magcargo]

This is way too many posts for the most pointless discussion ever. Dire Claw ban is just not on the table at all, atleast discuss banning the mon as a whole.

Or other things, I personally would like to ask what mons people are finding super strong that ARENT on the radar rn and ones that people think will be pretty hard meta once bans pass and meta stabilizes.

I will start said convo by asking; what do you guys think about Baxcalibur right now, and how well do you see it doing in the future?

Samurott-H is broken, Ceaseless Edge is an OP af move that is only somewhat overshadowed by all the other OP stuff around + meta being offensive + sometimes missing

Slowking-G is an incredibly good & versatile Pokemon, can blanket check many physical and special attackers based on its set. Compresses utility like T-Wave too.

Lando-T is worse but more fun to use now that it lost brainless Toxic / Knock Off. Now it can use more unexplored options like Protect, Grass Knot, etc.

 

[Srn]

Alright there's been more fuckin stored power discourse in the OU room so let me just make a post here so I can link it later. I will refer to our favorite shift gear/calm mind/draining kiss/stored power set as "SP mage" from here on.

SP MAGE IS NOT THE ONLY REASON THAT MAGEARNA IS BROKEN

There has been this idea going around that "if only we could limit SP mage somehow by banning light clay or banning stored power, then we could enjoy the healthy presence of magearna in the tier for sure! It's only SP mage that's the issue here!"

Let me ask yall this: what if every magearna you ran into was 100% gauranteed to be SP mage? How hard would it be to deal with then?
There are actually quite a few ways to annoy SP mage or put off the problem until later. No doubt you need to break and kill it eventually, and that can be complicated with tera, but what kind of counterplay would SP mage alone have?

Because SP mage doesn't have much immediate power, tinglu has room to lay a spike and then WW every time mage wants to try anything, wasting screens turns and making progress with hazards. You can throw in a ruination or tera steel/poison to keep it low.
Pretty underexplored but Corrosion Toxic Glimmora was legit even pre-home, and putting SP mage on a timer regardless of tera would be very easy to do since SP mage can't immediately threaten out glimmora. You just gotta make sure draining kiss recovery doesn't outpace Toxic damage as you're waiting for mage to kick the bucket. A mon like skeledirge would be a great partner to accomplish this.
This is sort of a broad way of talking about encore, but other users like iron valiant and dragonite don't switch into draining kisses too well. Encore easily shuts down SP mage as it has no immediate power and you can comfortably maneuver in a wallbreaker like ursaluna to blow it up.
I know I'm kind of breaking my own hypothetical here, but I've seen some Encore Magearna as well as Trick+Specs/Scarf variants that can easily cripple SP mage. Speaking of which...
Trick/Switcheroo+Choice item: There are countless examples of pokemon that can pull this off, some of which cannot switch into a draining kiss but some of which can. Meowscarada, Gholdengo, Sneasler, Iron Valiant, Zoroark-Hisui, Rotom-Wash, Hoopa-U, Greninja, and as I mentioned before Magearna itself can all run Trick+Choice sets to shut down SP mage.
Taunt: As with Trick, there are a wide variety of Taunt users that can stomach a draining kiss and threaten to kill an unboosted SP mage. Mons like Ceruledge, Heatran, Landorus-T, and Volcanion can viably run Taunt and do the job. There are a huge number of other unexplored taunt users as well.
This bastard is just too strong and powers up with SD a little too quickly for SG mage to get going, screens or no. It works well in complement with other strats mentioned.
Haze: Your viable users are pretty limited to Toxapex or Clodsire (and I guess quagsire?), so it's mostly just an option for fat teams. However, tera steel+haze is going to shut down every SP mage forever, regardless of screens support or tera or item. In many cases that tera steel won't even be needed.

Between Tera, Screens, and Weakness Policy it's hard to put down strong mons that can just offensively power through it. Despite that, you can see that there are a lot of ways to take advantage of a pokemon that has no immediate power, even when supported by screens+tera. SP mage as a standalone would still be a great mon, but I doubt it would be considered broken. There's just one little problem...

ALL OF THE SP MAGE COUNTERPLAY GETS BLOWN UP BY SPECS

Everybody gets Specs Fleur cannon'd or volt switched or tricked, and that's ignoring the one magillion coverage options it has. And therein lies the problem. To be fair, it's pretty easy to tell when you're fighting an SP mage, but that doesn't change the fact that you need to prepare for all possibilities in the builder. So let's stop acting like SP Mage is the only problem here, it's Magearna as a whole.

 

[June Heat]

This is way too many posts for the most pointless discussion ever. Dire Claw ban is just not on the table at all, atleast discuss banning the mon as a whole.

Or other things, I personally would like to ask what mons people are finding super strong that ARENT on the radar rn and ones that people think will be pretty hard meta once bans pass and meta stabilizes.

I will start said convo by asking; what do you guys think about Baxcalibur right now, and how well do you see it doing in the future?

As long as Chien Pao exists Baxcalibur has no real place in the meta imo. Bax just can’t compete with Pao raw power and speed, and most teams don’t have room for two hazard weak wall breakers

 

[Oshim]

View attachment 521360​

just hit #1 on the ladder last night, and i'd like to give my vision on what i think should happen tiering-wise. this might controversial, but i don't think magearna is THAT broken. before i get into more detail, i'd like to give a big shoutout to ausma as i thought her thoughts on the 'mon were well-written and ones i largely agree with. the only broken set that magearna has is its stored power cheese set and i believe there is a simple solution we can make to simultaneously nerf this 'mon and a lot of other borderline brokens such as zamazenta, ursaluna, sneasler, urshifu-rs, volcarona, etc... which is to ban light clay. before i get into why i believe screens are overpowered right now, i'd like to explain why magearna's other sets are not broken first:

re: magearna
specs was the set that made it broken in SS, but there are 5 key differences that make it less oppressive this gen:
1. SV's landscape is much faster & hostile than pussy SS
2. difficulty allocating ev's. without hp investment you die to 2 tera-dark crunch's from choice band chien-pao for example
3. high protect usage for scouting-- garganacl, dondozo, scream tail, rotom-w, etc. all of these 'mons that choice specs magearna technically exploits commonly ran protect even pre-home. protect usage will continue to rise even more now that trick room & slowking-galar future sight strategies are back
4. defensive + offensive tera's (magearna is slow) to heavily chip, if not outright remove it
5. larger pool of viable 'mons which makes it even more strapped for moveslots. you can't run all of trick, fleur cannon, volt switch, focus blast, ice beam, psyshock, flash cannon, and spikes on the same set for all of the 'mons below:

counter-play

outside of points 1-3 above, choice specs sets have defensive checks such trick + black sludge glowking, heatran, gholdengo, clodsire, toxapex, amoonguss, volcarona, iron moth, your own magearna, speedy skeledirge, rest-talk zamazenta-c, magnezone, ceruledge, blissey, tera-poison garganacl, slowking, and iron treads. iron treads is dope because there is less demand for great tusk now with all our new kingambit answers. we have a larger pool of viable ground-types too this generation ting-lu, landorus-t, iron treads, ursaluna, great tusk, garchomp, sandy shocks, and tera-ground users which allow flexibility when trying to outplay volt switch. while it is true that choice specs magearna can use shit like tera-fairy fleur cannon to bypass some of this counter-play, i don't find this as egregious as people are making it out to be. for one, it requires dropping your steel-typing which can put you at risk of getting swept by something like chien-pao or iron valiant later for example. second, it forgoes one of the most important skills you need for success in this tier: tera management. there is a massive difference between tera'ing magearna which sacrifices half of your defensive profile & is very slow, and something like chien-pao which can do similar damage but has that godly 405 speed tier

magearna's other sets are not broken either (imo), including trick room. this variant is only used to enable ursaluna. i'm not sure why people think magearna is the issue here and not the bear; even if magearna is banned, players will just fuck around with other trick room setters such as eject pack hoopa-u, chilly reception glowking, and cresselia. not to mention ursaluna is even more broken with screens support. no one is going to use trick room magearna as a stand-alone set if the bear is banned anyways as there's no more incentive to do so-- SV lacks both fairium-z and m-mawile as a teammate. shift gear + 3A is also another good set magearna can run, but once again i don't find this set anywhere close to broken due to the lack of z-moves and its reliance on tera blast. next, we have magearna's spikes sets which once again are not overpowered. and i'd even argue they add a lot of value to the metagame as a pivot that can blanket check many threats mainly chien-pao and dragapult. anyone who thinks defensive spikes magearna is broken is a clown, no offense

re: light clay
the only set that makes magearna broken is double dance. draining kiss + stored power is extremely cheap and while there is counter-play, most of it loses because it's often paired with screens support. screens also have little answers in terms of breaking and outplaying them. your best options are defog corviknight which requires a free turn vs set-up spam & can be blocked by gholdengo, curse dragapult, taunt grimmsnarl, etc., court change cinderace (good ngl), and less than optimal moves such as psychic fangs, brick break, and raging bull. and i am not proposing this ban just to potentially preserve magearna! i also find screens teams' other users to be highly problematic:

broken 'mons under screens

i'm not sure why people are calling this thing "mid." sneasler is extremely pussy and i consider it more broken than both zamazenta forms and possibly even the bear. being able to put up screens and reliably fish with dire claw multiple times is highly uncompetitive, even more-so than magearna mindlessly clicking shift gear + calm mind. i feel people have been using sneasler wrong. poison touch sets are good but i don't think they are broken. the best set is air balloon unburden and it's unmanageable behind screens due to its ability to fish multiple times per game and cheese its way through counter-play. replays: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
i think the bear hype has been dying down a bit and people have been learning how to position themselves around trick room turns, but this 'mon with screens support is just as ridiculous in my opinion. being able to screen up then come in on half the tier safely and claim 2-3 kills off rip is nonsense. add a defensive tera like -water or -fairy to fuck with urshifu's surging strikes or infiltrator dragapult's hydro pump and it's very cheap. tera-normal has been OD from my experience. replays: 1 / 2
volcarona is probably the most broken it has ever been. this is partially due to our wider dex making it harder to prep for, but also because of screens. offensive volcarona sets have been held back by its lack of bulk and having a reflect / light screen up lets it deal with common priority like chien-pao ice shard, urshifu-rs aqua jet, kingambit sucker punch, dragonite extreme speed... i'll leave some replays but tera blast-water, -ground, and even -fighting (AM put me on) are extremely broken. replays: 1 / 2
i'd be annoyed if this 'mon had to be banned solely for its iron defense sets as its choice band set is very chill. clicking screens and then bringing in iron defense zamazenta makes the match-up unplayable for offense and bulky offense as traditional checks such as slowking-g, zapdos, volcarona, iron valiant, iron moth, etc. all lose 1v1 to it via the support. replays: 1 / 2
i don't think this is as broken as people are making it out to be; it brings a lot of cool qualities to the tier defensively (trick, knock off immunity is beautiful) while being able to be out-offense'd or invalidated by common balance staples. very one-dimensional too. it's for sure centralizing but i haven't had too much trouble beating it personally. just mentioning it because behind screens it's dumb for the same reasons hero's iron defense sets are, if not more
njnp and i always joke around about how the chien-pao ban lowkey did more harm than good, but i'm glad that it's back. i think it's important for SV to have some type of premium offensively so i have it as low priority on my list so far. that said, screens solves everything that has made swords dance + black glasses chien-pao a bit of a fish in the past-- who cares about 4MSS when you can safely stay in on a magearna and 1v1 it?
swords dance is already lowkey broken. now add screens. dondozo is your only answer lol

combine this with the booster 'mons we had previously and screens are beyond broken as an archetype. imagine what will happen once screens users start making variations with iron valiant, baxcalibur, encore dragonite, and roaring moon. new toy syndrome is going to fade away soon kek. banning light clay will be able to nerf the above pokemon and potentially preserve magearna

cheese magearna counter-play if light clay is banned

taunt heatran
standard fat leftovers kingambit
skeledirge (wisp + hex)
ting-lu to phase
iron treads
haze 'mons like clodsire, toxapex, and volcanion
boosting alongside it-- ceruledge, specially defensive dondozo, tera-normal dragonite, zamazenta-c, scizor, volcarona
trick & switcheroo users-- iron valiant, gholdengo, magearna, rotom-w, sneasler, glowking (black sludge)
brute force as screens won't be able to save it + you can tera to compound stab
encore users like iron valiant, dragonite, scream tail, azumarill, magearna,...

if we can adapt to garganacl which was clearly bullshit and unhealthy for the first 3 months of SV, then best believe we can also adapt to cheese magearna without screens support too. i guarantee you we will find more shit over time and the 'mons i listed above are just the tip of the iceberg

i really enjoy magearna's presence defensively; the 'mon brings a lot of stability to the tier. i think it should be given a chance in a light clay-less metagame. but even if magearna is quickban'd, i still find light clay to be unbalanced due to its synergy with 'mons such as sneasler, volcarona, and ursaluna. banning light clay is not a complex ban. you're just banning an item. it has been done before in other tiers and should be added to the radar in my opinion

thank you for reading. here is the team i used: https://pokepast.es/a600cbf703bffa30

I too agree that light clay is broken and unhealthy for the meta, but after hours and hours of black coffee, intellectual exercise, and laddering, I have finally found the counter to this broken annihilation.

The fact that multiple mons have to run knock off just to counter light clay strats speaks volumes about the brokenness of the item. Many other pokemon that would otherwise run different moves are forced into running knock just to counter this playstyle, which is very unhealthy for the meta

 

[Cuddly]

The sleep clause already "punishes" players by making lose their turn when they try to use status sleep moves

This is an extremely fringe and niche scenario that ultimately still helps the player anyways. Only time you would ever use Spore (or any sleep non-attacking move) after putting something to sleep is when you predict that they’re waking up that turn while also not switching. For attacking moves, you’re still attacking the opponent and in Dire Claw’s case still fishing for Paralysis and Poison.
Besides, accidentally wasting a turn is always better than accidentally losing a match.

I think the solution is to have Sleep Clause change so that sleep inducing moves (including ones that call Sleep like Metronome and Assist when it can call sleep) should be greyed out after putting something to sleep. Not just to nerf Sneasler, but also to make Showdown more cart accurate.

 

[Avira]

What do you propuse has some issues, a quick example I thought, what if a Breelom uses spore in a Rotom-H but the Rotom player predicted it and used sleep talk and rolled Volt-Switch brings Valiant to the field, the Breelom uses decides to stay because has sash but the Valiant uses encore. In that very especific scenario the Breloom player would auto lose without they intending to break the clause, doesn't matter how weird the circumstances for that to happen could be, but having the possibility of forcing your opponent to lose because of a rule sounds more umcompetitive than abuse sleep.

We could account for this in our Sleep Clause by making it all about player choice. In this scenario, people who choose to use Relic Song, Dire Claw, Effect Spore, Metronome, or Assist know they can put a second Pokemon to sleep and automatically lose, so they do so knowing that it could happen.

Since Encoring something that used Spore goes against what the Spore user considered a reasonable possibility, there would be an exception in this case in that Encore would be unselectable by the opponent on that turn after something uses Spore because it would take away the Spore user's agency. This would protect against people looking to force people to lose against their will.

 

[Mega Breloom]

This is an extremely fringe and niche scenario that ultimately still helps the player anyways. Only time you would ever use Spore (or any sleep non-attacking move) after putting something to sleep is when you predict that they’re waking up that turn while also not switching. For attacking moves, you’re still attacking the opponent and in Dire Claw’s case still fishing for Paralysis and Poison.
Besides, accidentally wasting a turn is always better than accidentally losing a match.

I think the solution is to have Sleep Clause change so that sleep inducing moves (including ones that call Sleep like Metronome and Assist when it can call sleep) should be greyed out after putting something to sleep. Not just to nerf Sneasler, but also to make Showdown more cart accurate.

Is a niche scenario but still can happen, the idea is that the idea of your losing for a rule that you didn't mean to break is something that shouldn't happen in any kind of competence. What you say also doesn't make the game be more cart accurate since that doesn't happen in the cart.

We could account for this in our Sleep Clause by making it all about player choice. In this scenario, people who choose to use Relic Song, Dire Claw, or Effect Spore know they can put a second Pokemon to sleep and automatically lose. Since Encoring something that used Spore goes against what the Spore user intended, there would be an exception in this case in that Encore would be unselectable on that turn after something uses Spore because it would take away the Spore user's agency. This would protect against people looking to force people to lose against their will.

Blocking encore has some issues too: the other user might use a priority move or just be faster, that is something you couldn't tell for sure in some scenarios depending on spreads, idk, it just sounds like making stuff more complex when we already got something that works, the implementation of mods that do stuff that can't happen in cart is something that will happen unless GF fixes all the possible problematic stuff.

 

[viivian]

Samurott-H is broken, Ceaseless Edge is an OP af move that is only somewhat overshadowed by all the other OP stuff around + meta being offensive + sometimes missing

i really don't see how samurott-H is that good. i'm by no means saying it's outright bad but it feels much better on paper than it is in practice.

on paper, a pokemon being able to lay spikes via attacking is huge in regards to the momentum gained from simply clicking ceaseless edge, and being able to compress spikes into an attacking moveslot is really nice and gives it an edge over other spike setters, especially since samurott can more easily abuse its colorful movepool without sacrificing a slot to spikes like the similar greninja does. samurott's balanced offenses go really well with this and makes it more flexible with its coverage options. all of this seems really good on paper but then you get into its flaws and how samurott plays out in an actual game and then it starts to kind of fall apart.

while its offensive stats are very nice, it's very lackluster in every other stat department, being too frail to reliably take hits with uninvested 95/85/70 defenses with 5 common weaknesses. but this ordinarily wouldn't be much of an issue for samurott-H if it weren't for its painfully middling speed tier of 85, which is not at all fast enough for how easy it is to kill. being so easy to outspeed and pick off, i usually see this pokemon die off to some strong attack before actually fulfilling its role, something that you really don't want for an offensive spike setter. another problem i have with it are that its offenses, while good, just aren't good enough at times. 108 attack and 100 special attack are by no means terrible but without a boosting item, they quickly become underwhelming, especially with all the other stronger (and usually faster) offensive threats in the current metagame. if you run choice band/specs or LO then the speed tier issue becomes far more apparent, whereas running choice scarf means you can sometimes miss out on some big KOs due to the lack of a boost.

of course, ceaseless edge ensures that, at least until post-DLC, samurott-H will still have a niche in the tier. but i think the size of this niche is ridiculously overblown by the playerbase sometimes.

I think the solution is to have Sleep Clause change so that sleep inducing moves (including ones that call Sleep like Metronome and Assist when it can call sleep) should be greyed out after putting something to sleep. Not just to nerf Sneasler, but also to make Showdown more cart accurate.

so if dire claw puts something to sleep, sneasler just........can't use the move? until the sleeping pokemon wakes up? this feels like it'd make pokemon showdown less accurate to the games it's emulating rather than the other way around

 

[Scarfire]

As long as Chien Pao exists Baxcalibur has no real place in the meta imo. Bax just can’t compete with Pao raw power and speed, and most teams don’t have room for two hazard weak wall breakers

Don't entirely agree, while Bax may have picked up hard after initial Chien ban, its exploration had already started during its time in OU. During that time there was those balance teams w/bunker pex + flame body wisp volc + garganacl, which chien struggled to break without getting pivoted on or crippled. Other good breakers like gambit also didnt appreciate getting fbodied, but baxcalibur rly tore into those teams.

I think burn immunity cant be stressed enough as a physical attacker especially in this meta where there is no end to the amount of valuable wisp users. His bulk and tera options also make it super good mid-late game with dd, as opposed to chien who 9 times out of 10 is just crunching over and over (still effective/broken obviously), but point is I think baxcalibur can distinguish itself even now.

Def will prefer chien being gone tho.

 

[Karxrida]

The sleep clause already "punishes" players by making lose their turn when they try to use status sleep moves, if they sleep clause "protected" them the mod won't let them click the move in the first place, for stuff like effect spore, dire claw and relic song it negates the sleep status. In my opinion that is more than enough considering the base game design (if anything, blame game freak not smogon). What do you propuse has some issues, a quick example I thought, what if a Breelom uses spore in a Rotom-H but the Rotom player predicted it and used sleep talk and rolled Volt-Switch brings Valiant to the field, the Breelom uses decides to stay because has sash but the Valiant uses encore. In that very especific scenario the Breloom player would auto lose without they intending to break the clause, doesn't matter how weird the circumstances for that to happen could be, but having the possibility of forcing your opponent to lose because of a rule sounds more umcompetitive than abuse sleep.

The fact that the mod lets your select the sleep move but wastes your turn actually enables impossible interactions on cart, such as stalling Sucker Punch PP (unrealistic example but still) or spamming on something asleep that might wake up with no consequences if the opponent decides to switch.