Metagame Metagame Discussion

[Arts and stuff]

well since diglett's about to be deleted from existence. lets see what'll happen to the meta (pre home expansion)
- pretty obviousone but without the tera flying tera blast of dig, its gonna lose one of its most common checks
- same thing here but just regular diglett
- glimmet's already in a good spot but not having to worry about the life-point deleting mole is always a plus
the speed tier in general- its gonna drop pretty hard considering the fastest is voltorb and everything else that's worth using is 18 and below
speaking of which, it now doesnt get destroyed by base diglett regardless if it teras
etc etc etc i think you get the point. basically, it's gonna be a lot easier to switch in and not get punished by the mario hill with a nose

 

[Doc Zoch]

I've been playing around with an offensive shroodle set to catch out some unsuspecting players on ladder. With the Oran Berry consumed or knocked off and Tera activated, it can OHKO Eviolite Toedscool from full health, a 50% OHKO on Eviolite Diglett, guaranteed OHKO on Life Orb Diglett and a 75% OHKO on Eviolite Crabrawler. It can also use Knock Off to do massive damage to Zorua Hisui, which is a 6.3% OHKO or 68.8% OHKO after Stealth Rock and 80-96% health of Drifloon, or guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock.

Any thoughts, improvements, mons to synergise with this set?

Shroodle @ Oran Berry
Ability: Unburden
Level: 5
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 36 HP / 236 Atk / 236 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Acrobatics
- U-turn
- Knock Off
- Swords Dance

 

[MuffinMelody]

I've been playing around with an offensive shroodle set to catch out some unsuspecting players on ladder. With the Oran Berry consumed or knocked off and Tera activated, it can OHKO Eviolite Toedscool from full health, a 50% OHKO on Eviolite Diglett, guaranteed OHKO on Life Orb Diglett and a 75% OHKO on Eviolite Crabrawler. It can also use Knock Off to do massive damage to Zorua Hisui, which is a 6.3% OHKO or 68.8% OHKO after Stealth Rock and 80-96% health of Drifloon, or guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock.

Any thoughts, improvements, mons to synergise with this set?

Shroodle @ Oran Berry
Ability: Unburden
Level: 5
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 36 HP / 236 Atk / 236 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Acrobatics
- U-turn
- Knock Off
- Swords Dance

unburden shroodle cannot really get better than this, very fun set that i have also enjoyed using for a long while now, i remember everyone using this during early rufflet meta sv lc
gets walled by a few things such as pawniard, mareanie and other common mons
as all shroodle sets it pairs well with diglett which can trap most of its checks

 

[Greedy_eb]

Hey y'all, I'm still in the process of getting reqs for the Diglett suspect but I wanted to make a post on things that I personally think will get better or worse in the meta if Diglett gets banned because why not. Enjoy all my speculations.

- would greatly appreciate Diglett being banned from the tier, as it can easily be trapped and killed by Rock Blast from Diglett or heavily pressured by Stealth Rocks that Eviolite/Focus Sash Diglett sets up. I think is more mixed in Diglett's potential removal from the tier, as while it loves Diglett's trapping abilities for or , it is often revenged killed by Diglett as it only needs 3 Rock Blast hits to kill Nymble after it takes chip from Life Orb recoil. I think the Nymble players will adapt by slotting on their teams to keep the trapping pressure, and potentially even using Tera Dark to avoid opposing traps from Gothita and for STAB Sucker Punch. Next, and Diglett have had an interesting relationship this generation, with each new set used to counter the other. Scarf Surskit should lose its niche as it was only used to beat Diglett, but overall Surskit and Sticky Webs viability should rise as it will no longer need to fear Life Orb Tera Blast Flying OHKOing it. Finally, Tera Bug on Scarf loses its tiny niche. I've used it to both hit and for at least neutral damage with Tera Blast while also resisting Earthquake from Diglett, but most of its use case disappears as the only useful trait I think it has is its Ground resistance.

- It goes without saying that if the best mon in the tier that is immune to your STAB is axed from the tier, it's good for you. and are already contenders for the top 10 mons in the meta with Diglett around, so without it, they could both turn into very problematic mons. Voltorb will have uncontested speed over the entire relevant metagame minus Scarfers, and Wattrel will no longer have to fear taking huge damage from LO Rock Blast or Tera Blast Ice. could even see a resurgence in usage as would no longer have to fear getting trapped by Diglett if their opponent predicts Volt Switch.

- Skipping over , I think , , and have a chance of seeing an increase in usage if Diglett gets banned. Fuecoco is basically forced to tera if Diglett ever comes in on it which is incredibly exploitable. Houndour would have to fear (my candidate for best mon after a Diglett ban), but no longer having to Tera to potentially escape a Diglett trap is huge. Finally, I've already lost to more Scarf Cyndaquils than I'd like to admit, but if Diglett is removed from the tier, Eviolite Cyndaquil, especially on webs could be threatening to teams.

- , , and all get better as they no longer have to deal with strong Rock Blast or Stone Edge from a mon faster than them. I think the birds and the balloon will be extremely annoying to go against in a metagame without Diglett as they already have favorable matchups with the other top-tier mons like , , and . I also think Tera Flying may lose some of its users to other types as the main thing it had going for it is the Ground immunity.

- Except for and , I think all Grass types actually get worse in a post-Diglett meta. Toedscool has already adapted to T-Blast Flying by running Max Defense in order to live from full hp (Tera Ice Digletts though ), but no longer having to fear losing your Rapid Spinner to a mon that you would check without Tera is good for its viability. Even then, however, I think the rise of Flying types and Tera Ice will seriously impact its viability. While I think Toedscool will be able to weather the storm due to its great support movepool, I think and will struggle to find a footing even more than they already do. Bramblin could become better than it already is as it has better matchups into Toedscool, , and . Finally, I think Tera Grass will lose some of its defensive users on mons like and for better types.

- and fans rejoice, you could potentially have the next-best offensive Ground type in the tier. Both of these mons would no longer have to compete with Diglett for a team slot. In my opinion, they will be the most effective on Sticky Webs teams so they can put immense pressure on the Flying types in the tier. might get better because it can opt for a better defensive type on Growth sets like Water, but could get worse due to Diglett trapping Haze is a necessity for it to sweep a team. could just sub in as Diglett's replacement, but I don't like facing or using this mon ever so let's just keep it in LC UUBL.

- Did I only make this category to talk about ? Yes. Hisuian Zorua is already a top 3 mon this generation in my opinion due to its great movepool like Knock Off, U-Turn, Will-O-Wisp, STAB Tera Blast before tera, and Hex, and amazing typing with 3 immunities. One of its least favorite matchups is Diglett as its Special Defense is good enough that it can always trade into Horua. Zorua-Hisui in a Diglett-less meta should be able to always force progress and can become a contender for the best mon in LC. at the bottom of B tier in the current viability rankings is criminal, this mon is so good and annoying. Its best counter is Tera Dark Diglett as you can't Prankster Parting Shot to escape, but without that Shroodle will make progress into enemy teams with moves like Knock Off, Encore, Copycat, Parting Shot, Metronome, and U-Turn. If the Shroodle becomes annoying enough I think with Tera Dark will be the next best trapper of it until the Shroodle also clicks Tera Dark.

- At first, I thought the Poison types of LC would thrive in a tier without Diglett, and to be fair some of them would. would no longer need to fear a Diglett coming hard into their STABs or Stealth Rocks and needing to use their Tera or sack. no longer needs to Tera out of its Ground weakness on Life Orb Diglett. After using lots of on Sticky Webs teams, I think it would have a decent spot in the meta without Webs in a meta where Diglett no longer exists. Poison has 5 resistances with Bug and Fighting being the most notable, so teams really struggling for a check or a second backup Toxic Spikes absorber would greatly appreciate it. But after I started writing this, I realized that the stocks are gonna go through the roof. I would not be surprised if Gothita cements itself as a top 10, maybe even top 5 in the LC meta if Diglett gets banned. will at least be immune to its STAB Psychic, but I think the rest of the Poison types will have to switch from making sure they don't lose to Diglett to Gothita. Overall, I think the Diglett ban will be beneficial to most Poison types in the tier but will be short-lived when the (Girlboss) Gothitas users rise up from the ashes.

- Hey remember when got banned and we all thought that was going to take the tier by storm? Well, it's 4 months later but the prophecy might become true after all this time if Diglett gets banned. Great matchup into and the Poison types that get better with Diglett gone, and access to Tera Blast to help certain teams knock out whatever mon they want? I can absolutely see Gothita becoming the banworthy threat it has been in generations past. While not the greatest mons in the tier, I think the and enjoyers can find more success with these mons, and who knows with Tera maybe Psychic spam can become viable this generation as long as the teams have a good way at stopping and from steamrolling them.

- Steel is one of the best defensive Tera types with its 10 resistances and immunity to Poison, but with Diglett being the best mon in the tier it was almost impossible to justify as making yourself weak to its STAB Earthquake was a fast way to lose battles. If Diglett gets banned, I think it will have more use cases but still be hard to justify as I'm predicting to take Diglett's place as the best mon in the tier, and the other Ground types previously mentioned filling the power vacuum left by a Diglett ban. and should see an increase in viability, and I think will be able to start opting for different Tera types to adjust to the new meta they'd be in like Ghost or Fairy.

- Water looks like it will be a mixed bag for the winners and losers of a Diglett ban. Starting with the losers first, and would greatly miss Focus Sash Diglett, as its combination of trapping, setting up Stealth Rocks, and clicking Memento is basically essential for smash-spam teams. I think gets worse due to and becoming better, but should still maintain its use case as a bulky Rapid Spinner with reliable recovery. Now for the winners. , , and should most likely see increased viability for the reasons listed earlier. and I think will not change and still be stuck in the B tier as most players know the matchup well, but some innovations could be made to make Rain teams more viable. should get better as it no longer has to worry about LO Diglett Earthquake killing it with any chip, but I don't like going against this mon so don't use it please. Tera Water as a defensive type will still be good but all the Electric types getting better will make it harder to justify.

- For all the other random things in my head for the current/future meta. Tera Dragon and Fairy should be used more often, they have really good resists for the tier and their weaknesses are easy to play around. Tera Rock I am not as confident in as it still has 5 weaknesses, but hey the Fire and Flying resistance could be pretty useful on the right mon. Sticky Webs should get better post-Diglett now that the offensive Poison types can be used to absorb Toxic Spikes, I'm tired of running Defog or a Rapid Spinner on my webs team. Very excited to use, when Home drops. coming back without Grassy Glide will be interesting for the tier, curious if it will be as good as it was in Generation 8 (Grassy Seed incoming). I hope Knock Off stays nonexistent in the tier. I think Tera might have to be restricted in some way or outright banned at some point, which is a shame I do think it makes the generation unique. If Tera does get banned, I think Diglett and maybe could come back.

 

[Éric]

Hey y'all, I'm still in the process of getting reqs for the Diglett suspect but I wanted to make a post on things that I personally think will get better or worse in the meta if Diglett gets banned because why not. Enjoy all my speculations.

View attachment 515462 - would greatly appreciate Diglett being banned from the tier, as it can easily be trapped and killed by Rock Blast from Diglett or heavily pressured by Stealth Rocks that Eviolite/Focus Sash Diglett sets up. I think is more mixed in Diglett's potential removal from the tier, as while it loves Diglett's trapping abilities for or , it is often revenged killed by Diglett as it only needs 3 Rock Blast hits to kill Nymble after it takes chip from Life Orb recoil. I think the Nymble players will adapt by slotting on their teams to keep the trapping pressure, and potentially even using Tera Dark to avoid opposing traps from Gothita and for STAB Sucker Punch. Next, and Diglett have had an interesting relationship this generation, with each new set used to counter the other. Scarf Surskit should lose its niche as it was only used to beat Diglett, but overall Surskit and Sticky Webs viability should rise as it will no longer need to fear Life Orb Tera Blast Flying OHKOing it. Finally, Tera Bug on Scarf loses its tiny niche. I've used it to both hit and for at least neutral damage with Tera Blast while also resisting Earthquake from Diglett, but most of its use case disappears as the only useful trait I think it has is its Ground resistance.

View attachment 515467 - It goes without saying that if the best mon in the tier that is immune to your STAB is axed from the tier, it's good for you. and are already contenders for the top 10 mons in the meta with Diglett around, so without it, they could both turn into very problematic mons. Voltorb will have uncontested speed over the entire relevant metagame minus Scarfers, and Wattrel will no longer have to fear taking huge damage from LO Rock Blast or Tera Blast Ice. could even see a resurgence in usage as would no longer have to fear getting trapped by Diglett if their opponent predicts Volt Switch.

View attachment 515469 - Skipping over , I think , , and have a chance of seeing an increase in usage if Diglett gets banned. Fuecoco is basically forced to tera if Diglett ever comes in on it which is incredibly exploitable. Houndour would have to fear (my candidate for best mon after a Diglett ban), but no longer having to Tera to potentially escape a Diglett trap is huge. Finally, I've already lost to more Scarf Cyndaquils than I'd like to admit, but if Diglett is removed from the tier, Eviolite Cyndaquil, especially on webs could be threatening to teams.

View attachment 515476 - , , and all get better as they no longer have to deal with strong Rock Blast or Stone Edge from a mon faster than them. I think the birds and the balloon will be extremely annoying to go against in a metagame without Diglett as they already have favorable matchups with the other top-tier mons like , , and . I also think Tera Flying may lose some of its users to other types as the main thing it had going for it is the Ground immunity.

View attachment 515482 - Except for and , I think all Grass types actually get worse in a post-Diglett meta. Toedscool has already adapted to T-Blast Flying by running Max Defense in order to live from full hp (Tera Ice Digletts though ), but no longer having to fear losing your Rapid Spinner to a mon that you would check without Tera is good for its viability. Even then, however, I think the rise of Flying types and Tera Ice will seriously impact its viability. While I think Toedscool will be able to weather the storm due to its great support movepool, I think and will struggle to find a footing even more than they already do. Bramblin could become better than it already is as it has better matchups into Toedscool, , and . Finally, I think Tera Grass will lose some of its defensive users on mons like and for better types.

View attachment 515487 - and fans rejoice, you could potentially have the next-best offensive Ground type in the tier. Both of these mons would no longer have to compete with Diglett for a team slot. In my opinion, they will be the most effective on Sticky Webs teams so they can put immense pressure on the Flying types in the tier. might get better because it can opt for a better defensive type on Growth sets like Water, but could get worse due to Diglett trapping Haze is a necessity for it to sweep a team. could just sub in as Diglett's replacement, but I don't like facing or using this mon ever so let's just keep it in LC UUBL.

View attachment 515491 - Did I only make this category to talk about ? Yes. Hisuian Zorua is already a top 3 mon this generation in my opinion due to its great movepool like Knock Off, U-Turn, Will-O-Wisp, STAB Tera Blast before tera, and Hex, and amazing typing with 3 immunities. One of its least favorite matchups is Diglett as its Special Defense is good enough that it can always trade into Horua. Zorua-Hisui in a Diglett-less meta should be able to always force progress and can become a contender for the best mon in LC. at the bottom of B tier in the current viability rankings is criminal, this mon is so good and annoying. Its best counter is Tera Dark Diglett as you can't Prankster Parting Shot to escape, but without that Shroodle will make progress into enemy teams with moves like Knock Off, Encore, Copycat, Parting Shot, Metronome, and U-Turn. If the Shroodle becomes annoying enough I think with Tera Dark will be the next best trapper of it until the Shroodle also clicks Tera Dark.

View attachment 515494 - At first, I thought the Poison types of LC would thrive in a tier without Diglett, and to be fair some of them would. would no longer need to fear a Diglett coming hard into their STABs or Stealth Rocks and needing to use their Tera or sack. no longer needs to Tera out of its Ground weakness on Life Orb Diglett. After using lots of on Sticky Webs teams, I think it would have a decent spot in the meta without Webs in a meta where Diglett no longer exists. Poison has 5 resistances with Bug and Fighting being the most notable, so teams really struggling for a check or a second backup Toxic Spikes absorber would greatly appreciate it. But after I started writing this, I realized that the stocks are gonna go through the roof. I would not be surprised if Gothita cements itself as a top 10, maybe even top 5 in the LC meta if Diglett gets banned. will at least be immune to its STAB Psychic, but I think the rest of the Poison types will have to switch from making sure they don't lose to Diglett to Gothita. Overall, I think the Diglett ban will be beneficial to most Poison types in the tier but will be short-lived when the (Girlboss) Gothitas users rise up from the ashes.

View attachment 515496 - Hey remember when got banned and we all thought that was going to take the tier by storm? Well, it's 4 months later but the prophecy might become true after all this time if Diglett gets banned. Great matchup into and the Poison types that get better with Diglett gone, and access to Tera Blast to help certain teams knock out whatever mon they want? I can absolutely see Gothita becoming the banworthy threat it has been in generations past. While not the greatest mons in the tier, I think the and enjoyers can find more success with these mons, and who knows with Tera maybe Psychic spam can become viable this generation as long as the teams have a good way at stopping and from steamrolling them.

View attachment 515498 - Steel is one of the best defensive Tera types with its 10 resistances and immunity to Poison, but with Diglett being the best mon in the tier it was almost impossible to justify as making yourself weak to its STAB Earthquake was a fast way to lose battles. If Diglett gets banned, I think it will have more use cases but still be hard to justify as I'm predicting to take Diglett's place as the best mon in the tier, and the other Ground types previously mentioned filling the power vacuum left by a Diglett ban. and should see an increase in viability, and I think will be able to start opting for different Tera types to adjust to the new meta they'd be in like Ghost or Fairy.

View attachment 515500 - Water looks like it will be a mixed bag for the winners and losers of a Diglett ban. Starting with the losers first, and would greatly miss Focus Sash Diglett, as its combination of trapping, setting up Stealth Rocks, and clicking Memento is basically essential for smash-spam teams. I think gets worse due to and becoming better, but should still maintain its use case as a bulky Rapid Spinner with reliable recovery. Now for the winners. , , and should most likely see increased viability for the reasons listed earlier. and I think will not change and still be stuck in the B tier as most players know the matchup well, but some innovations could be made to make Rain teams more viable. should get better as it no longer has to worry about LO Diglett Earthquake killing it with any chip, but I don't like going against this mon so don't use it please. Tera Water as a defensive type will still be good but all the Electric types getting better will make it harder to justify.

View attachment 515502 - For all the other random things in my head for the current/future meta. Tera Dragon and Fairy should be used more often, they have really good resists for the tier and their weaknesses are easy to play around. Tera Rock I am not as confident in as it still has 5 weaknesses, but hey the Fire and Flying resistance could be pretty useful on the right mon. Sticky Webs should get better post-Diglett now that the offensive Poison types can be used to absorb Toxic Spikes, I'm tired of running Defog or a Rapid Spinner on my webs team. Very excited to use, when Home drops. coming back without Grassy Glide will be interesting for the tier, curious if it will be as good as it was in Generation 8 (Grassy Seed incoming). I hope Knock Off stays nonexistent in the tier. I think Tera might have to be restricted in some way or outright banned at some point, which is a shame I do think it makes the generation unique. If Tera does get banned, I think Diglett and maybe could come back.

dude you just said every single mon gets better

 

[Greedy_eb]

dude you just said every single mon gets better

True, just needed the attention grabbing headline though. TL:DR everybody wins

 

[Baloochi]

I've been playing around with an offensive shroodle set to catch out some unsuspecting players on ladder. With the Oran Berry consumed or knocked off and Tera activated, it can OHKO Eviolite Toedscool from full health, a 50% OHKO on Eviolite Diglett, guaranteed OHKO on Life Orb Diglett and a 75% OHKO on Eviolite Crabrawler. It can also use Knock Off to do massive damage to Zorua Hisui, which is a 6.3% OHKO or 68.8% OHKO after Stealth Rock and 80-96% health of Drifloon, or guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock.

Any thoughts, improvements, mons to synergise with this set?

Shroodle @ Oran Berry
Ability: Unburden
Level: 5
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 36 HP / 236 Atk / 236 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Acrobatics
- U-turn
- Knock Off
- Swords Dance

Why not run Super fang? As dealing a 50-ish% damage can allow shroodle to get kills after a knock off on targets that can’t hurt it much. I understand that the move slots are limited but I think the variation maybe instead of SD could be helpful on shroodle HO.

 

[MuffinMelody]

Why not run Super fang? As dealing a 50-ish% damage can allow shroodle to get kills after a knock off on targets that can’t hurt it much. I understand that the move slots are limited but I think the variation maybe instead of SD could be helpful on shroodle HO.

super fang in LC is unviable because of the way level 5 calcs things, ur never dealing half
tis also a waste of a slot - unburden shroodle runs acrobatics, gunk shot, knock off and swords dance (Doc Zoch ran u-turn over gunk shot, eww)
unburden shroodle without swords dance is just dumb, even with super fang it does not threaten anything at all

 

[NoobHereWaddup]

Admittedly, i'm not the most knowleadgable when it comes to this tier, but i gotta say:

Terastalizing is not ok and, at the very least, deserves a suspect test​

I believe we have come to a point where terastalizing is no longer a healthy presence in the metagame, if it ever was healthy to begin with(hard to say back if tera was the problem when flittle was legal lol).
In every other metagame pokemon are all set to a default of level 100, this allows tera to be used in multiple ways, the most common being: To make a pokemon's STAB even stronger, to give them an additional STAB, to cover one of their weaknesses, or to give them an ideal defensive typing.
This statement would apply to every tier almost perfectly, except little cup. Due to every pokemon having a max level of 5, there's hardly any bulk in the tier. Eviolite is a necessity for pokemon if they want to live the hits they want to live and the nature of a metagame with level 5 pokemon allows cleaners and sweepers to become incredibily deadly presences if they're not dealt with.
This is specially true in gen9 lc, where the metagame has adapted to become a very offensively oriented metagame, at least, compared to the experience i have in gen 8 lc. Speaking from my experience laddering, it is incredibly rare to see more than 2 pokemon fully dedicated to being defensive in the same team, usually teams will carry a spinner and an additional bulky pokemon like greavard, marenie or foongus, but it is also common for only one bulky pokemon per team or just none at all.

The 2 uses of tera you'll see 95% of the time are:
1. Tera to further boost a stab
2. Tera to cover a weakness and allow easier setups (this also allows for futher coverage with tera blast)
The second one is easily the most problematic, on a tier where defensive counterplay to an offensive threat is almost none existant, having an enemy pokemon get out of control is pretty much a death sentence. Usually it isnt an issue because most pokemon can be answered by other offensive pokemon, if they didn't, they would've been banned already. But its exactly here where tera comes in.
It is incredibly rare to have a pokemon have reliable movesets where they can answer every single tera possibility at once on a pokemon they're supposed to check. So it turns into a massive prediction game where one good tera instantly puts the user into a massive advantage, the pokemon you sent out to check said threat can no longer check it, so it dies, and you send a check to the pokemon's brand new typing, and even then this can result in your pokemon getting reversed checked because the opposing pokemon that tera'd still has STAB on the type that your brand new "check" is weak too.
Let's look at a couple of examples:

Little knife dude can fly now

In my opinion the stupidest tera abuser in the tier, after diglett but that guy probably got banned by the time I post this. By itself pawniard is a great pokemon, unique dark/steel typing and a dangerous offensive presence in swords dance + iron head and night slash, as well as sucker punch for faster opponents.
It has a glaring ground and fighting weakness, which usually keep it in check pretty much every time. But gen 9 doesn't like that :( so instead it usually decides to do one of two things.
Little dude decides to fly: If it does tera flying, it completely removes one of its weaknesses and turns another one into a resistance, this seems to be the most common one because it allows it to wall popular pokemon in the tier like toedscool and use it as setup fodder. The only pokemon that doesnt particularly lose instantly to this is crabrawler, who still is faster and can use ice punch to hit it super effectively, but good luck if you don't have a healthy crab on your team.
Little dude goes to the afterlife: Tera ghost is the other popular alternative, where it works best if you *really* want to mess with fighting types like scarf mankey. Of course this one comes with its downsides in that you only gain an immunity instead of an immunity and a resistance that you would've gotten if you did tera flying, but now crabrawler can't hit you for super effective damage! yay! fun!
By terastalizing, pawniard can easily beat the fighting types it once feared, as well as put the ground types that threatened it into an uncomfortable situation or use them as setup fodder.

Regieleki's grandson (or grandpa?) now has coverage

HE GETS COVERAGE NOW EVERYBODY RUN!!!1! oh wait, you can't. 20 speed behemoth, now no longer having to worry about diglett, Voltorb can hit everyone in your team, and when it can't, it does tera ice to get the only move it could've ever wished for coverage, so it CAN and WILL hit your mons. The legendary BoltBeam STAB combination makes it so the few pokemon that want to switch into an electric type now are scared of getting hit by an ice tera blast. Nearly no pokemon wants to switch into BoltBeam, with the only exception in the tier that comes to mind being magnemite. Tera has turned this previously unviable mon into one of the biggest threats of the tier, only having to worry about scarf users and priority users like nymble.
By terastalizing, voltorb suddenly has 0 defensive counterplay, minus magnemite, and becomes an almost untouchable mon, keeping itself safe with the common protect and volt switch.

yet another case of who let this guy have the ideal stab combination

I'm gonna tackle this two together since they both abuse tera in pretty similar ways, give them tera blast fighting and suddenly they have another legendary STAB combination in ghost/fighting, both are scary in different ways, with zorua having insane coverage with fighting/ghost or normal/ghost before tera, which only opposing zorua-hisui can deal with (and even then zorua learns knock off lol) and drifloon becoming a very scary presence once unburden is activated. Other than that the tera usages are different for both mons, but generally you only see tera fighting or other defensive typing like tera fairy on zorua or tera electric on drifloon, which are some i've seen/used myself.
By terastalizing, zorua-h and drifloon can improve their already amazing offensive capabilities giving them near perfect coverage and/or utility.

out of the banlist tera blasting its way through

A previously banned pokemon, now not banned, can now use tera blast fighting in a similar way zorua-hisui does. Use it to deal with the only type that deals with gothita reliably. Long gone are the days where pawniard just sucker punches you. Now gothita can be even more braindead while trapping opposing pokemon, knowing that tera can easily deal with what would usually counter it's shadow tag shenanigans, nice! With that ugly dark type gone your ghost type partners have one less idiot to worry about. Oh, and theres no ferroseed to worry about either.
By terastalizing, gothita can now safely trap every pokemon in the metagame, only really having to worry about predicting opposing tera.

*chomp*

This is imo a better tera abuser than shellder, and thats not saying shellder isn't a bad tera user. At first glance giving this little dude tera dark is weird, but it gives its already strong jaw boosted crunch a STAB boost. Not only that, it also gives it a resistance to two common forms of priority in the tier, sucker punch and shadow sneak.
But i see you, saying "well doesn't it insta lose to nymble now?" well true, but nothing is stopping chewtle from sacrificing coverage to run protect and let nymble turn from a counter into the pokemon getting countered. That being said, tera dark is nice but you can still run other types like tera water to further boost that water STAB, or tera ice to get a boost on ice fang.
By terastalizing, chewtle boosts its offensive capabilities that were already boosted by shell smash + strong jaw.

I think thats it on noticiable cases of pokemon abusing tera to extreme levels. There are some notable cases like glimmet and surskit using tera defensively to guarantee setting the hazards they very much need to set. But the examples i've given should be enough to get the point across on how tera is mostly used in little cup.
Although i dont have any replays to prove it, I would hardly say this are "on paper" scenarios, the amount of times i've seen pawniard terastalize in front of my crabrawler in an attempt to sweep more times than i can count, voltorb pretty much always terastalizes on the presence of a ground type. Glimmet and surskit will tera if they notice their respective hazards provide a massive advantage. The banned diglett could always find ways to abuse its respective tera type (one of the main reasons it was banned), i've had games where my opponent could've easily won with tera dark chewtle since it outsped all of my pokemon and it resists common priority moves, i could keep going.

TLDR, tera too good, sweepers and cleaners can take advantage of the very limited counterplay available to threaten their opponents even more and remove their supposed counters. One good tera is all it takes for a player to instantly be in an incredibly advantageous spot, usually resulting in the opponent having to attack the threat and KO it as soon as possible, since defensive counterplay is limited in the tier.

EDIT: post below me has some pretty valid criticism, my post was made with the idea that an offensive pokemon using tera to cover its weaknesses is something that is considered "offensive use" of tera, which probably should've been classified as defensive. Classifying uses of tera is somewhat difficult because, looking back, "offensively" and "defensively" are way too general, some pokemon just have extremely specific, yet viable, uses for it. Some can use tera fire exclusively to avoid burns, others can tera ghost exclusively to block rapid spin, i feel like "defensively", gives an idea of what it does, but doesn't really do justice to those specific uses. What i think is unhealthy are offensive pokemon using tera to change their weaknesses and allow easier setups, while offensive pokemon using tera to gain additional coverage with tera blast is also a very powerful use of tera.
In fairness, i didn't give defensive pokemon the credit they deserve, some can use tera pretty effectively, toedscool, foongus and mareanie are some examples.
Additionally there are checks to some of the great tera abusers i mentioned that i just, for some reason, completely forgot about, WoW zorua-h is one that can check pawniard before it uses tera and tera water wattrel can deal with tera ice voltorb, i should've mentioned those.

 

[yellowfin]

ok i agree with the general sentiment expressed in NoobHereWaddup 's post that tera is a problem with the metagame, but i do think that 1) the argument made against tera isn't the greatest and 2) the examples of tera abusers are not the best .

In every other metagame pokemon are all set to a default of level 100, this allows tera to be used in multiple ways, the most common being: To make a pokemon's STAB even stronger, to give them an additional STAB, to cover one of their weaknesses, or to give them an ideal defensive typing.
This statement would apply to every tier almost perfectly, except little cup.

numerous pokemon in the tier use tera defensively. out of the 14 current pokemon in A+, A, or A- on the viability rankings, 5 of them (toedscool, mareanie, glimmet, wattrel, and wingull) use their teras exclusively defensively, and pawniard, crabrawler, quaxly, and zorua-h use their teras defensively a large portion of the time. i also think approaching it as "little cup pokemon only use tera OFFENSIVELY" is wrong -- bulky pokemon checking other pokemon at the cost of a ton of their HP has been a thing forever esp in LC, and terastalizing to take 40% instead of dying seems to be an extension of this idea. i agree that oftentimes, checks cannot check every possible tera that a pokemon may have. however, when considering the fact that terastalization is such a strong tool (due to its unpredictability), using tera as a gotcha and dodging one move is almost never worth it when you no longer have the surprise factor for the rest of the game. there will usually be other members of a team to help check the pokemon that used tera, and i find that most endgame scenarios where there are a few pokemon left on both sides w/ tera tend to gravitate towards safer/more standard tera options (ones that cover more of the opponent's plays) anyways.

i do agree that tera making a lot of sweepers dumb good pushes it over the edge, but not the ones that you listed. im not going to go over every example you provided in detail but the pawniard example is bad because most teams have a will-o-wisper that owns pawniard regardless of whether or not it teras, drifloon generally wants to use a defogger set but if it wants to set up i think tera ground acrobatics is better, zorua-h's best set is an offensive pivot set that can run tera blast but often opts not to, and tect chewtle is a little bit awkward but i do think that guy is good (however the non tera dark sets are pretty bad because some of the best defensive mons in the tier are bulky water-types). anyways here are some of the prime suspects w/ tera that i think push it into being unhealthy:



crabrawler is so strong with tera in the tier. wow immunity w/ fire and flying resist with electric (now that diglett is gone) are both gonna be super viable, and it can already win games basically by itself just by virtue of the fact we have very few strong special attackers. even like tera dark probably gets rly cute in the near future if goth gets as popular as we think it'll be.



shellder is "weak" to sucker punch but so so so dumb outside of that. tera rock is super strong, but even surprise sets like tera ground or tera electric can put in work and work really well off of shellder's ability to force out tera steels to deal w/ rock blast in the mid- and lategame. shard also lets it not get completely owned by sucker punch, forcing 50/50s before it is able to be revenged.

nonsweeper teras that are also potentially unhealthy:



wattrel is my sleeper pick for most annoying mon in the tier. tera water makes it so that you are only weak to grass type moves and you smack those w/ hurricane anyways so who really cares about that. generates so much momentum thru pivoting moves and hurricane+tbolt hits the entire tier really hard. me calling it broken is mostly a meme but i think it is definitely super good and a non-traditional but strong tera "abuser".



i also think that gothita will see a huge uptick in usage and viability but i obviously haven't seen what people will be cooking with tera; i am not incredibly high on goth the way other people are but the high variance afforded to it from tera means that it will be filling a weaker but similar niche that diglett used to occupy. it also will definitely suffer from some 4mss, both for calm mind sets and for scarf sets (wants like psychic + trick + three tera types on scarf and cm + rest + three or four different coverage moves on the cm set), but i don't really know if this is something that'll restrict it too much.

i think tera is probably too strong even in current meta, but obviously we will have to see how this meta evolves and i do think that tera has gotten much more manageable with the loss of diglett. the fact that both sides get to tera is a really big equalizer

(i am soooooo excited to use nymble once diglett gets banned off ladder)

 

[Altariel von Sweep]

i have no time for introductions, so i am going right to the point. warning, i might be wrong, but so far these are my thoughts:

this mon is easily one of the most splashable pokemon in the meta game right now because of its amazing typing combination and two key inmunities in electric and ground, meaning that by running this pokemon you can circumvent too many issues, specially with voltorb and toedscool being way more prominent than before. it can hit everything neutrally and generates a lot of momentum for its teammates, hell, i have even tried agility sets (i don't know whose idea it was) with tera electric which take advantage of the momentum it generates so it can act as a lategame cleaner as well as bulkier than the standard set. diglett gone means a lot since the biggest risk for it right now will probably be mudbray and tera ice sandile, among certain threats.

you gotta be puffin' back a fat dart the size of your arm if you believe this bastard is not good right now. among with the momentum wattrel provides, nymble is right now the best rkiller in the metagame, and even more so not that diglett is gone, so that means no more revenge killing nymble by trapping. it also appreciates the momentum generated by stuff like gothita shutting down defensive threats like mareanie, and thanks to that it can generate even more momentum hitting resists for a lot of damage. it has to watch out for pokemon that use protect (voltorb, chewtle, sandile), but overall it is really easy to use and abuse.

i heavily dislike using glimmet as my usual toxic spikes absorber/setter, so why not use one that is much bulkier and can stop several setup sweepers on the go? diglett gone is great for mareanie, since it can now live longer, but is forced to choose between tera water to remove the ground weakness against sandile/mudbray or ghost to avoid getting trapped by gothita. i prefer the latter since you can also prevent rapid spinners from taking out hazards. tip: running coverage on mareanie is useless. the best combo it can run imo is tspikes + haze, so you can threaten glimmet and put up your own toxic spikes, while haze takes care of a plethora of pokemon: crabrawler, shellder, chewtle, numel (especially the body press variant), etc. easily a much better pokemon with diglett gone but gothita will still pose a huge deal.

i was expecting to run this little creature on a team, and brother, it did not disappoint. typing gives it a really great inmunity to volt switch and resistance to sucker punch, while it can act as a moxie wallbreaker/cleaner in mid-to-late game denting most of the metagame. it is also a really good tera user thanks to tera ice/flying to cherry pick which mons to take out between toedscool + crabrawler/wattrel. eviolite sets in webs are great too, probably the best variant since it frees up a spot to run protect and avoid getting revenge killed by nymble, stacking up attack boosts and sweep the entire opponent's team.

damn. i am sorry i doubted bramblin, this pokemon is actually fun to use and fits in many teams, specially with tinkatink, wind rider provides a great inmunity to hurricane, meaning it can check wattrel, and can also deal with ground types fairly good. on top of that, it can spinblock, spin and get spikes up, meaning the weight on the opponent can be greater. still... i feel it can crumble on itself at times and turbo-loses to pawniard, but what can we do about it?

i am not fond on this little girl but tinkatink is decent, i guess? it has rocks, thunder wave, knock off... so much to provide for a utility mon, and diglett being gone is amazing since it is one of the best nymble checks there are with its fairy/steel typing. pickpocket is a monster of an ability, as it simply makes tinkatink the ONLY knock off absorber to exist in the metagame, and tera grass helps it improve the matchup against toedscool/mudbray. only issue is, with how common crabrawler is, you gotta think about running play rough to hit it, or ice hammer to deal damage to toedscool and wattrel. but fear not, the utility provided has a great effect in the long run.

i am still trying shroodle but the quickest conclusion is that diglett being gone helped it a lot. tera dark diglett is no more meaning it can switch out more freely with parting shot, and it can absorb toxic spikes much easier while putting up a lot of work with encore + knock off. copycat is also great since you can use move that the opponent did, but encore right now seems to do much more for shroodle's team by encoring setup sweepers.

i am tired of writing, so i'll leave this here and go.

 

[gali]

ICYMI, we now have a date for HOME, and it's in less than a week! With the meta about to undergo some big changes, I wanted to quickly talk about the new stuff we'll getting and how I'll think it'll impact the meta:

A week ago, I didn't think Alolan Diglett would be the most impactful mon we're getting, but here we are. It'll have a big role in the meta as a Wattrel answer that isn't Wattrel itself, but that isn't all it does. It'll fill the "fast Ground-type attacker" role that Diglett left vacant, but will be significantly less overbearing due to the lack of Arena Trap and its defensive utility leading it to usually running Eviolite. It'll most likely run SR+3 attacks or a Swords Dance set using its amazing typing.


This has been discussed a bunch already, but Hisuian Voltorb is basically a direct upgrade over Kantonian Voltorb. STAB Giga Drain and/or Leaf Storm let it smack Ground-types around, and it no longer has to contend with Diglett in the 20 Speed tier. I wouldn't be shocked to see it still run Tera Blast Ice for Wattrel, but it doesn't strictly need it to function.


Another 17 Speed mon, yay! Grookey lost Grassy Glide, but it still going to be a strong wallbreaker with Terrain-boosted Grass attacks and great coverage in Knock Off and Drain Punch. SD sets probably won't be as effective without priority, but I can see Life Orb and Choice Scarf sets both being very good.


Hisuian Growlithe will certainly be fun, although I'm not convinced it'll be amazing. It loves Diglett being gone, letting it fire off its crazy strong STABs without fearing getting trapped. More offensive teams are going to get flattened by Choice Scarf sets, but it hates fat mons like Mareanie and especially Mudbray.


This thing is going to be better than people are giving it credit for. While ostensibly facing competition from the much faster Stunky, Alolan Grimer is much stronger and bulkier while not having to deal with its biggest nemesis in Diglett anymore. 18 Attack STAB Knock Off is going to be tough to switch into even before factoring in Poison Touch, and it gets great coverage options like Drain Punch or even Fire Punch if you're concerned about Tinkatink. It's gonna miss Shadow Sneak, but not that much.

edit: Totally missed the part about old moves coming back. Ignore what I said about Grookey lol
fiend edit: got pokemon'ed

 

[ShaunShen]

Really psyched up to try out some of the new HOME transfers, but there is one Pokémon that really stands out to me and I've seen some people discuss it here. That Pokémon being Hisuian Voltorb.

This little bundle of joy is a straight upgrade over its Kantonian Counterpart due to the Grass STAB which I think is tremendous for it. Being able to smack around Ground Types with hard Giga Drain/Energy Ball makes it wayyy better in my eyes, but enough about why I like it a ton, now I need to back up my claim that it could be considered a top 3 Pokémon in this tier.

First off, 20 Base Speed is a fantastic speed tier, and since Diglett was banned, it is now the fastest Pokémon in this tier. This allows it to outspeed other Pokemon in this tier that can be considered a threat such as Crabrawler and Wingull. In fact, I believe the best part of H-Voltorb is how it can beat Crabrawler pretty handily. It always lives an Adamant Iron Fist Ice Punch from Crabrawler, and since it outspeeds the Crab, you can either use it as pivot fodder for a teammate, my personal favorite teammate to use with H-Voltorb is Wattrel due to how well of a VoltTurn Core they make together, or you can taunt Crab and remove it from being able to bulk up.

Next up, I wanna talk about its offensive potential because I think that it could be really good. I know that a lot of people wanna run Tera Ice for the BoltBeam Coverage, but since you have BoltDrain STAB, I think it would be better to run Tera Fire. I'm gonna share a set that I have been running with my Voltorb right now. https://pokepast.es/ac6db502a2af6c84

Being able to run a nice Defensive Tera that also allows you to handle Toedscool really well, one of the better checks to H-Voltorb, makes it feel like the best Tera Type for H-Voltorb. Plus Fire Typing is nice defensively, and you can handle the Fire Weaknesses thanks to your Grass STAB. Yes the Rock weakness kinda sucks, but I am more than willing to make that trade any day of the week.

So yeah, that's my reasoning for why I believe that H-Voltorb will be top tier for quite a while, but once DLC drops, we'll see if our little jovial wooden ball does well with more Pokemon.

 

[Altariel von Sweep]

first impressions about HOME metagame!

easily my favourite pokemon right now. tera grass grassy terrain wood hammer can be one hell of a nuke reaching a whopping >300 BP stab able to even 2hko key resists in the metagame such as drifloon, hisuian voltorb, and netting the ohko most of the time against neutral pokemon like hisuian growlithe after stealth rocks, wingull... it also has access to two useful moves in knock off and u-turn to provide both utility and momentum, chipping down resists that would otherwise check it such as alolan grimer and foongus, and drain punch lets it deal with pawniard. as such, i have been trying a scarf set with some success being able to act as a wallbreaker/late game cleaner able to pick up resists when chipped. the issue it has is that losing grassy glide is incredibly awful, meaning it can no longer act as a proper revenge killer, and it is very frail to sucker punch from common pokemon, as well as prone to get rkilled by nymble, so it has a little case of 4mss where it would want to run protect to both avoid rkills and scout for scarf + teras. another crazy thing is how spamming wood hammer comes with very little drawback since the passive recovery from the field allows it to have some kind of longevity alongside drain punch, helping it being healthy and check ground types efficiently.

i also have to add how important grassy terrain is since it means unburden shroodle and drifloon can take very different approaches to the metagame as offensive threats. but i'll address them in their respective points.

shroodle is a really solid unburden setup sweeper, where it takes advantage of both grassy seed defensive boost, grassy terrain and SD to setup and start blasting through many teams. since it is still weak to sucker punch, it now runs tera fighting to cut through pawniard, hisui-growlithe, larvitar, among others. it is a very straighforward set, but shroodle's fragility makes it so it has to get support from pokemon like gothita shutting down defensive threats via trick and/or trapping, and grookey checking ground-types, respectively.

drifloon's offensive stance compared to the acehunter scarf set is different since it's the first time it can set up with calm mind, having a much better defense stat through the grassy seed boost. drifloon's stab combo of sball + tera blast fighting lets it deal with amost common pokemon, at the cost of sacrificing its defensive utility. however, unlike shroodle, it has a severe 4mss where it wants to run icy wind to hit grass and ground-types for very effective damage and keep faster threats in check, and tbolt to hit quaxly who is right now on the rise. its offensive presence pales in comparison to its defensive utility where it now acts as a very solid defogger able to check mudbray and the common spinners in this meta, while dbond stock rise as a way to face the ever rising amount of scarf users and faster threats this meta now has.

hisuian growlithe has proved to be quite insane thanks to both stabs dealing a lot without no punishment from recoil, meaning it can almost always get a kill everytime it gets in or take a huge chunk of health away from the switch-in. its typing lets it hit everything for neutral damage, meaning most teams are forced to run mudbray or larvitar (or gible! i will elaborate later, still trying it) or try to revenge kill it with aqua jet quaxly to have a chance to deal with it, or even worse, having to win the ditto or double switching. rock head is a big deal since it means no recoil = much harder to revenge kill, with pawniard not even being able to ohko it after rocks, so this pokemon has to be weakened gradually. i can see a possible test, but it's still day 1/2 of the meta, and soon to speak about how great it actually is.

now this is what a true upgrade feels like. although it has a 4mss where running tbolt puts it in a huge disadvantage at the tera scouting game, being one of the fastest pokemon in the meta with a nearly unresisted stab combo + coverage makes it incredibly annoying to deal with. it can non-chalantly check ground-types like larvitar, mudbray and toedscool, and it can pick up opposing h-torb and watt with tera ice. this mon alone has forced the use of tera steel on watt, since it has become so common to the point where it has almost replaced its kantonian counterpart. grass stabs on voltorb are very good, especially leaf storm being a strong neutral hit on most of the meta. there are checks to it in magnemite and alolan grimer, but both of them get pivoted on, advancing the game and putting too much pressure with the opponent's switch in. it is also a great partner for grookey, forming a strong grass spam that can check each other's threats, with grookey severely denting pawniard which can revenge kill h-torb, and h-torb reciprocally killing flying-types in wingull, drifloon and non-tera watt. not having tbolt is sometimes a drag though, but it will always put enough pressure on the opponent, to the point of becoming overwhelming.

this takes me back to sm, except we have no pursuit. even so, it is able to check a plethora of pokemon: non-sd pawniard, hisuian-zorua, drifloon, toedscool, foongus, hisuian voltorb, grookey... although some of these pokemon just pivot on alolan grimer, and can deal chip damage to it, the value of its knock off is huge, and poison touch can be an influential ability to turn the tides on pokemon that can actually check it like stealth rock mudbray. nonetheless, being slow hurts it in a meta full of fast pokemon and, even if it checks most ghost-types, getting burned ends up being inconvenient more than helpful.

larvitar was on the rise before home meta checking wattrel, but the inclusion of hisuian growlithe and alolan grimer made it really valuable as a hard check thanks to its typing and guts, being able to setup on both of them and force them out. since edgequake + tera blast flying coverage is almost unrivaled, it gets many setup opportunities by threatening many pokemon out such as non hex floon, wattrel... and become a decent setup sweeper. by using this factor, you can also slap stealth rock in and provide a very useful support to take chip damage on the opposing enemy, though it comes with the cost of forfeiting one of its stabs. even so, its problems are still glaring, as its bulk is not precisely phenomenal and is prone to take a lot from neutral hits and priority. on top of that, hisuian voltorb and grookey being really prominent threats is also a huge drawback it has to look out for.

the stocks for mudbray have risen thanks to its natural bulk and typing coupled with stamina, meaning hisuian growlith has nothing on it and can effectively check the former and alolan grimer thanks to the resurgeance of the resttalk set. those same traits make it a solid stealth rock setter that can also keep wattrel in check, and has enough offensive presence to be a menace to account for. but, as i said before, hisuian voltorb is really everywhere, meaning tera steel has to be managed carefully if it becomes too much for it to handle grass stabs.

quaxly is becoming more and more common as a spinner thanks to tera grass aqua jet sets, which are able to handle grookey and non-tera hisuian voltorb, while it also has the ability to revenge kill hisuian growlithe. encore can also be used to check the rising ground-types in mudbray and larvitar, as well as locking in the mu against toedscool. i gotta keep using it and see how good can it be, but that's my impression from watching people use it.

i know you might want me to stfu but please, hear me out. wattrel still does its job as always, but please, consider running tera steel from now on. the surge of grookey and hisuian voltorb means tera water leaves wattrel vulnerable to their grass-type stabs, even if it checks tera blast ice h-torb, so tera steel does the job better in this metagame by hard countering every notable electric type in the metagame at the cost of being more easy to be killed by ground-types, but just as an emergency counter to them.

why would you use this. look it might look like a gastly clone but it is no worth playing, because it has severely restricted coverage alongside shadow ball, a terrible bulk and the inability to beat hisuian zorua without tera. i'd just use alolan meowth as a shitty nasty plot sweeper, and it isn't even worth mentioning so i'll just finish this post with my next contribution.

i am still omw to try it but on paper dragon/ground + rough skin is huge for checking hisuian growlithe while being able to act as a decent check to alolan grimer, hisuian voltorb and wattrel thanks to tera steel, which also helps in avoiding coverage moves like ice punch or tera blast ice. though it isn't as good as it look and being outclassed by mudbray and larvitar, i can see it forming a niche of its own setting rocks up and putting speed control via rock tomb, but let's see what happens.

edit: for the love of god free alolan diglett already i want to try it

 

[Eeveeto]

Altariel von Sweep what is that Mon above Gible? Where can I find info about it?

 

[Altariel von Sweep]

Altariel von Sweep what is that Mon above Gible? Where can I find info about it?

Not sure if it's a joke or serious, but just in case, it's Gimmighoul-Roaming, the only "viable" version of Gimmighoul.

 

[Eeveeto]

Not sure if it's a joke or serious, but just in case, it's Gimmighoul-Roaming, the only "viable" version of Gimmighoul.

Lmao, completely forgot that Mon had 2 forms.

 

[Fiend]

​

Some housekeeping points:

• Basculin-White-Striped, Sneasel-Hisui, Qwilfish-Hisui, and Stantler were quickbanned before the release of Home.
• Basculin-White-Striped is in contention for the most broken Pokemon to be LC eligible off the back of great stats, typing, and move pool. Last Respects alone is crazy, but even without access this Pokemon is still one of the bigger threats that will never make sense in a competitive LC.
• Sneasel-Hisui is a menace, though is substantially worse than what is expected of a Sneasel clone. However, is another Pokemon which appears to be entirely incompatible with a competitive LC primarily due to its BST and stat distribution.
• A Stantler from SV can finally evolve (yes, Eviolite worked on it prior), and thus it has been officially deemed LC eligible and promptly banned. This is another story of too good stats and a good enough movepool. Psyshield Bash is an excellent move to have on a 19 Speed Pokemon, and there are enough tools available for Stantler to bully essentially the entire LC pool.
• Qwilfish-Hisui is almost assuredly the least broken Pokemon included here, but a 19 Speed Spike setter cannot be bad. Dark/Poison is a long loved typing in LC, but historically stopped short by Diglett. Yet Diglett is currently banned and the major downside of the typing isn't nearly as important. Qwilfish-H would be a very difficult Pokemon to kill for how good at making progress it would be.

 

[TheTraininator]

View attachment 521297
why would you use this.

Hear me out

what if I used

TWO Ghost types? Drifloon isn’t real shut up

 

[NotJackewu]

Currently there are 61 Pokemon mentioned in the SV LC Viability Rankings. I have gone over 60 of them to see how theyre able to deal with Hisuian-Growlithe. I have not considered terastilization. This is mainly because any pokemon could run a tera type to counter Hisuian-Growlithe, but this doesnt seem realistic and above all doesnt feel like a healthy thing for the metagame.

The main problem I have run into and see other people talk about is that Hisuian-Growlithe is too strong to be reliably dealt with. For my research I have calced Head Smash and Flare Blitz (both with and without tera fire) to see which pokemon are able to take 2 hits from Hisuian-Growlithe. I find this important because I personally think that any pokemon should have a reliable answer. A reliable answer, to me, is a pokemon that can switch in and take its hits well enough to possibly kill it. Currently there are a few pokemon that can do so. It is worth to note however that these mons are all ranked C tier or below on the viability rankings, some maybe even ranked this high purely because they are decent answers to Hisuian-Growlithe.

Amount of pokemon that can live 2 hits of Hisuian-Growlithe or live 1 hit and threathen it after: 5 (Technically 7 if you count rain sweepers).
Amount of pokemon that die after 1 or 2 hits: 55 (or 53 depending on if you count rain).

Currently there are 6 pokemon that could come in on Hisuian-Growlithe and threathen to kill it. These pokemon are:

• can tank both of Hisuian-Growlithes STAB's and threathen it with Earthquake. Having enough bulk to switch into Hisuian-Growlithe multiple times and Rough Skin it is, in my opinion, the best counter to Hisuian-Growlithe.
• can tank both of Hisuian-Growlithes STAB's and threathen it with Earthquake or even set up a dragon dance.
• can tank both of Hisuian-Growlithes STAB's and threathen it with it's own STAB's. It can also safely recover off any damage received and start setting up hazards, further limiting Hisuian-Growlithe as it cant freely keep switching in and out of battle.
• Some people have started to adapt by running Aqua Jet on their Quaxly. Since Quaxly can Tank both of Hisuian-Growlithes STAB's it can come in and force it out. This is probably not how you will be using Quaxly however, as it is too valueable as a rapid spinner. You will probably still be forced to sack whatever pokemon Hisuian-Growlithe sets its eyes on and threathen it after. Quaxly is then easily walled by the likes of Foongus and Mareanie as they are not bothered by a Quaxly that is missing Brave Bird.
• and Can outspeed with rain. Not much to say about this.
• (Editted to add this mon also) is able to tank two hits of Hisuian-Growlithe by using its ability Stamina. Most common roll on +0 defense: 14. Most common roll on +1 defense: 10 With an HP stat of 25, Mudbray would be able to switch into hgrowl and take another flare blitz as long as no hazards are up. It could then Rest and Sleep Talk its way through the enemy team. I hope youre luckier than I am!

What other notable options are there?

• You've probably heard of them before, but it turns out that Hisuian-Growlithes Fire typing makes it weak to Stealth Rocks and other hazards! By setting up hazards early on you can really limit Hisuian-Growlithes onslaught. After a few rotation it can be revenge killed by priority moves.
• Speaking of priority moves, we have a couple of Pokemon that can use those! Most of these pokemon can kill Hisuian-Growlithe after its taken atleast 2 rounds of Stealth Rock damage.
  • 54-70% with Sucker Punch
  • 100+% with Tera Bug First Impression
  • 40-54% with Life Orb + Sucker Punch. This pokemon should probably not be running Sucker Punch though.
  • and 54-68% with Sucker Punch
  • if you're feeling funny.
• Start shell smashing. Both and can afford to tank one hit of Hisuian-Growlithes STAB's and set up to sweep.
• Start running protect. Argument is very valid, by scouting what the Hisuian-Growlithe is going to use you can switch into a pokemon accordingly. Sadly there is an Agility variant running around which I have personally used several times to set up an Agility in Hisuian-Voltorbs face as it tries to scout what move I am going for with Protect.
• Start using 17 speed scarfers yourself, examples include:
  • tera grass Wood Hammer is insane.
  • Close Combat away, risky with all the ghost types running around. Predicting wrong has massive consequences so I find this exchange favored for the Hisuian-Growlithe player.
  • was a menace before on webs and I am sure that can be extended for its scarf variant as well. Since toedscool is a lot less prevalent in the current meta it has an easier time clicking Earthquake.

I need to somehow end this post after dumping a bunch of info on you so here's my attempt.
I think Hisuian-Growlithe is too big of a threat for the current meta to handle. The limited amount of answers (5) force me to build a similair team time and time again. It also doesnt help that most of these answers are pokemon that are being put on your team because Hisuian-Growlithe is such an issue, otherwise these pokemon wouldnt see the light of day.
Hazards is the main thing stopping Hisuian-Growlithe from permanently revenge killing and switching out to safety afterwards. Problem with this is that in LC, 2-3 kills by a single mon is all you need to completely take control of the game.
While tera can serve as an answer to Hisuian-Growlithe, I cant help but feel like a lot of pokemon will have to start running a different tera type purely because Hisuian-Growlithe is such an issue.

There is no doubt in my mind that Hisuian-Growlithe will get banned as soon as a suspect test comes around. I am currently just waiting for it to drop. I would like to ask the SV LC Council to announce the suspect somewhat soon, as we are currently already suffering in both LC Open and LC Majors. I was hoping that we would not have to deal with Hisuian-Growlithe by the time the LC Majors pools were done, but it doesnt look like thats going to happen.
Here's to hoping the finals will atleast be Hisuian-Growlithe-less.

 

[Fiend]

For those who refuse to read further: It is my opinion that Sticky Web should be suspected as a first step to alleviating the problems of the tier. I am not speaking on the behalf of anyone else.

There's been plenty of general discussion about Sticky Web, Growlithe-Hisui, and less sustained complaints about Gothita and Crabrawler. I'm not sure anything else has been discussed in a serious manner, and I'm not really sure there's anything else worth discussion seriously at this point in time. Please lobby the rest of council regarding Tera, if you wish for it to return to serious consideration. I'm going to run through the list quickly in reverse.

Gothita is a fairly known quality. Tera is a mixed bag for it, and perhaps as a result the general approach to Gothita is largely unchanged from the past. The first real issues taken against Gothita were related to facilitating Diglett sweeps, and CM bulldozing on Sticky Web teams. Neither aspect is particularly good for LC, but Diglett has been banned and CM sweeps have dissipated. Complaints levied against Gothita are more about trapping as a broad mechanic than these are about Pokemon and its effect on the builder or in a match. I think the general sentiment is that Gothita is strong with sharp downsides. Being able to pry apart or effectively disrupt counter play to very threatening Pokemon (chiefly noted as Growlithe-H) is very compelling. FC has used Gothita in 85%+ of his LC games to great effect. In many matches, the threat of Gothita effectively trapping something is as important as Gothita actually trapping something, and this has lead to a few funny sequences (hacker vs kythr) and other funny showings (Tera Dragon Slowpoke?). Yet, some of the potency of Gothita is found only on paper and the dynamics of the tier are such that there is some ways to go before this is a popular concern. Honestly, the problem for Gothita might be that there's not enough critical defensive things to reliably trap. Or it may be a simple skill issue.

Crabrawler being mentioned here is going to surprise some of the more casual readers of #SV_LC but it is an encapsulation of one of the more broad frustrations had with the current generation. Crabrawler isn't a stats ball, nor does it have any particularly interesting abilities, and really only has one set. Yet its collective attributes end up being a perfect storm for this generation. The 17 Speed tier is choked with important and good Pokemon. Enter Crabrawler, which can facilitate turns where going for the Speed tie is difficult to punish or outright optimal. After a Bulk Up, games can be decided by winning and losing speed ties, which is an obviously undesirable outcome. There is something to be said about how teams are often built and how this should be considered more in the builder. This only goes so far given the available Pokemon, but is not something to entirely discount. The same metagame forces, in addition Crabrawler being the best Pawniard check, compel Crabrawler onto every Sticky Web team played these last few months. With Air Balloon Diglett gone, Wingull has ended up as the best catch-all webs answer which isn't exactly reliable against Crabrawler out of range of Surf. This has lead some to suggest banning Crabrawler for two benefits of relaxing the 17 Speed tier while removing some bite from Sticky Webs, though general traction on this idea is low.

Growlithe-H is the most controversial Pokemon currently legal. At 16 Speed, it often has a Choice Scarf to avoid being revenge killed by the top Pokemon in usage. Eviolite sets running Flame Charge appear regularly as well, and Sticky Web teams again finds another powerful ally. With Rock Head Head Smash and Flare Blitz, this guy is strong and prediction isn't the most important for the user. Many people are running frankly unviable Pokemon because they happen to resist its attacks, though beyond running Gible this does not seem to be continuing to the same extent. There's a handful of ways to deal with Growlithe-H, in addition to Head Smash simply missing. Given its hazard weakness, often intelligent maneuvering coupled with a splash of Speed ties of the mirror keep Growlithe-H at bay. The community consensus seems to have gathered around Growlithe-H being very good but probably not broken, though on the merits of warping the meta many favor a suspect. There are also a handful who view Growlithe-H as outright broken due to inadequate defensive resources in the tier. Given it is a new Pokemon, I have been generally inclined to let it play out and I've been glad to given the contrast in the day 0 reaction to the current opinions, though a suspect now is thoroughly justifiable. Just look at how some games go click to win | critical speed tie | doomed gible

Sticky Web is yet again a contentious part of the metagame. Due to the ability to Tera into a Ghost-type Rapid Spin is more inadequate than ever before. Toedscool isn't bad, and Quaxly is alright though both have issues spinning. Often they need to attack the spinblocker as it comes in instead of attempting removal. Defog is sparely distributed and available on only two Pokemon (Drifloon and Fomantis) which have ever been considered for qualities besides removal. Drifloon is generally pretty solid, but at 17 Speed it can struggle to remove against half of the Sticky Web team. Fomantis never clicks Defog, and is a fringe viable Pokemon. The next best if Rowlett, which isn't even particularly good at clicking Defog and only Acehunter1 brings it (and loses). Sticky Web stays up a pretty sizable amount of the time. There's a handful of people suggesting that webs are merely unfun and not broken, though in my experience the Sticky Web team ends up losing due to fairly obvious misplays or dubious sets rather than a failure of the structure. There's some new counter play with reliably activated Unburden Shroodle or surprising unstudied users with Rock Blast Growlithe-H, and the handful of old favorites such as Wingull, Pawniard, and, less so, Toxic Spikes are available. Not to mention you can use Fomantis if you wish. This is not an exhaustive list, and I do not wish to write one. Webs teams end up having enough flexibility to cover some of would-be counterplay, and pick their bad matchups. Sticky Web might be adequately defanged if Growlithe-H and Crabrawler were removed from the tier, but we've been down that road before. Already good offensive threats, regardless of which specific ones they are, get better when Sticky Web is up. Ultimately we resolved to ban Sticky Web in SM and SS due to its continuously powerful state, demonstrated by its frequency in tournament matches even after too strong beneficiaries were deleted. Specifics differ across these three generations, but the thesis for Sticky Web's ban appears as relevant now as it had then.

Sticky Web has been pretty common throughout the entire generation, and has cycled in and out and back into favor once already. There's been no permanent 6 which has been spammed en mass, and I am unconvinced that's an actual argument for it being in an acceptable state. SV LC hasn't been incredibly stable to facilitate this and new more threatening Pokemon keep being added. Someone smart will present Gastly as an alternative solution, and it is often agreed that Gastly (non-grounded Ghosts, more generally) does more to abate webs then assist. This is a marginal improvement and impossibly to prove and difficult to rely on. Gastly is suggested as a retest for the aforementioned cause with the additional reason that the tier has gained new counterplay since it was banned. This is true and a good to retest in the near future. However I do not believe the solution to current woes is to add another immensely threatening Pokemon back into the tier when all current gripes lead back to inadequate defensive tools and limited player agency. I think it is important to tackle the current woes with concrete actions, starting with hitting Sticky Web now.

 

[Drifting]

I agree that Sticky Web should go, but I disagree that a suspect test is necessary, indeed, it's hard for me to justify Sticky Web being overpowered in the conventional sense, and statistically it doesn't seem to be gamebreaking or anything (thank you Kaboom for the LC Majors statistics)

Stats

Rather, I think it makes more sense to have council vote to quickban it for being a degenerate component of the metagame.

Now, I don't argue that it's "degenerate" because it's completely brainless to use. There are plenty of HO teams that are entirely brainless and linear, including ones I've built myself for tournament games, and while the strength and prevalence of easy teams makes the meta less skillful/enjoyable in my opinion, it's pretty hard to justify banning something purely for being easy.

Instead, my problem with webs is that it makes games come down to guesses and luck, basically, and this RNGness is I suspect the same reason the winrate isn't too high. The reward you get for placing Sticky Web basically makes it extremely hard to lose without horrible luck, so your opponent is forced to divert resources and momentum to clearing up webs. This tier has three hazard removal options, Quaxly, Toedscool and Drifloon.

If you're using Quaxly or Toedscool, you have to make a 50/50 guess on whether you should spin or attack the ghost on the switch. This is nothing unique obviously, that's just how spin-blocking works, but the stakes regarding Sticky Web are simply so high that this guess can and does decide games, with no real skill-based input from either player. This is of course ignoring the fact that Illusion Zorua-H and Tera-Ghost users are a mainstay of webs and can make spinning risky to commit to.

Meanwhile, if you're using Drifloon (which might I add, most are, with Sticky Web inflating the mon's usage to ludicrous levels), it's not as simple as clicking Defog either. For one, basically every viable Webs team is aware of Drifloon and working around it, using mons like Crabrawler, Sandile, Stunky, Zorua-H and Wattrel to outspeed/tie with it and kill it. This essentially means thats either you're banking on a speed tie to not lose, or you're expending tera, AKA the most important resource in the game, which is probably gonna make you lose anyway. Either way, clicking Defog also ensures that you're giving up momentum and letting your opponent get a free hit on Drifloon, which means you're forfeiting the ability to use Drifloon later in the game, which sucks for such a versatile and useful Pokemon. Banning Sticky Web would stop Drifloon from having to be a mandatory Defog slave and allow more diversity in compositions and movesets for Drifloon itself. Also, if your opponent has Pawniard, then Defogging can literally lose you the game if it clicks Tera-Fire on the follow-up wisp or something.

Even after all this, if you guess right it's not like you win, it just means the game returns to a neutral state, which I think is super important to keep in mind. Of course webs teams are in theory weakened by having to use Surskit, but with the necessity of using time and resources to get rid of webs, it basically just ends up as an even tradeoff. This heavily swings the risk-reward in the favour of the webs user (either I get the hazard removal 50/50 right and win or I don't get it and return to an even state), and is what makes it degenerate and worth banning in my eyes. The fact that banning it also increases the necessity for skillful play is just a bonus for meta health.

I might be forgetting something that I'll edit in later but I think that's about it.

tl;dr: quickban webs

 

[Éric]

The community consensus seems to have gathered around Growlithe-H being very good but probably not broken

honeslty id love to know how did you get this impression when every other message i see is “ban the dog” (and ban it, please)
as per webs, i know you know i dont think they are broken, but i only wanna present one counterpoint since i dont have much time:
you do not automatically lose the game if webs are up. its okay if your spinner doesnt remove them, really. you can (and should) build your team in a way that allows you to position yourself to not lose to webs, and if that doesnt have to do with defogging them away, thats okay. you have fast flyings like gull watt and floon, bulky mons that take any hit and ko back like bray crab grimer mareanie zorua grookey, a pawn that makes the webs user even think twice about setting them up, even stuff thats not as splashable but maybe even more effective like tspikes or seed shroodle. i know none of these individually is like a webs killer of course, that doesnt exist (just like a bulky offense killer doesnt exist either). but using a combination of these gives you outs. if you allow yourself to get webs up, but get womething in return (like rocks up) and use your evio mons to not allow your opponent set up, you are good. webs teams can with or without webs of course, youre using a combination of good mons at the end of the day, but webs up arent the end of the world.
as a sidenote, i guess i dont have to convince fiend about this, since he does know better than i do, but webs, even if i dont think are broken, shouldnt get quickbanned. qbs are supposed to happen when that element of the metagame is completely agreed on being too good (like the dog)/too centralizing (like the dog)/too toxic, or if it improves too fast for the metagame to handle (like the dog). if you think webs are remotely like that, idk l2r or something.
tldr: ban the dog.

 

[jcbc]

honeslty id love to know how did you get this impression when every other message i see is “ban the dog” (and ban it, please)
as per webs, i know you know i dont think they are broken, but i only wanna present one counterpoint since i dont have much time:
you do not automatically lose the game if webs are up. its okay if your spinner doesnt remove them, really. you can (and should) build your team in a way that allows you to position yourself to not lose to webs, and if that doesnt have to do with defogging them away, thats okay. you have fast flyings like gull watt and floon, bulky mons that take any hit and ko back like bray crab grimer mareanie zorua grookey, a pawn that makes the webs user even think twice about setting them up, even stuff thats not as splashable but maybe even more effective like tspikes or seed shroodle. if you allow yourself to get webs up, but get womething in return (like rocks up) and use your evio mons to not allow your opponent set up, you are good. webs teams can with or without webs of course, youre using a combination of good mons at the end of the day, but webs up arent the end of the world.
as a sidenote, i guess i dont have to convince fiend about this, since he does know better than i do, but webs, even if i dont think are broken, shouldnt get quickbanned. qbs are supposed to happen when that element of the metagame is completely agreed on being too good (like the dog)/too centralizing (like the dog)/too toxic, or if it improves too fast for the metagame to handle (like the dog). if you think webs are remotely like that, idk l2r or something.
tldr: ban the dog.

I totally second this.
I find the issue to be on the abusers of webs (Crabrawler and Growlithe-Hisui) not the webs itself. I would support action on Growlithe before than webs honestly and afterwards crab if needed (or teras which also fixes variance on how u check/counter some things).
I would go farther into explaining but what i think has been already said by eric in his post.

Or Jack who disserted very well growlithe-H in this post. More than half of this said "checks" are iffy at best because they are so weird and some would be terrible and unused in a none growlithe metagame.

Currently there are 61 Pokemon mentioned in the SV LC Viability Rankings. I have gone over 60 of them to see how theyre able to deal with Hisuian-Growlithe. I have not considered terastilization. This is mainly because any pokemon could run a tera type to counter Hisuian-Growlithe, but this doesnt seem realistic and above all doesnt feel like a healthy thing for the metagame.

The main problem I have run into and see other people talk about is that Hisuian-Growlithe is too strong to be reliably dealt with. For my research I have calced Head Smash and Flare Blitz (both with and without tera fire) to see which pokemon are able to take 2 hits from Hisuian-Growlithe. I find this important because I personally think that any pokemon should have a reliable answer. A reliable answer, to me, is a pokemon that can switch in and take its hits well enough to possibly kill it. Currently there are a few pokemon that can do so. It is worth to note however that these mons are all ranked C tier or below on the viability rankings, some maybe even ranked this high purely because they are decent answers to Hisuian-Growlithe.

Amount of pokemon that can live 2 hits of Hisuian-Growlithe or live 1 hit and threathen it after: 5 (Technically 7 if you count rain sweepers).
Amount of pokemon that die after 1 or 2 hits: 55 (or 53 depending on if you count rain).

Currently there are 6 pokemon that could come in on Hisuian-Growlithe and threathen to kill it. These pokemon are:

• can tank both of Hisuian-Growlithes STAB's and threathen it with Earthquake. Having enough bulk to switch into Hisuian-Growlithe multiple times and Rough Skin it is, in my opinion, the best counter to Hisuian-Growlithe.
• can tank both of Hisuian-Growlithes STAB's and threathen it with Earthquake or even set up a dragon dance.
• can tank both of Hisuian-Growlithes STAB's and threathen it with it's own STAB's. It can also safely recover off any damage received and start setting up hazards, further limiting Hisuian-Growlithe as it cant freely keep switching in and out of battle.
• Some people have started to adapt by running Aqua Jet on their Quaxly. Since Quaxly can Tank both of Hisuian-Growlithes STAB's it can come in and force it out. This is probably not how you will be using Quaxly however, as it is too valueable as a rapid spinner. You will probably still be forced to sack whatever pokemon Hisuian-Growlithe sets its eyes on and threathen it after. Quaxly is then easily walled by the likes of Foongus and Mareanie as they are not bothered by a Quaxly that is missing Brave Bird.
• and Can outspeed with rain. Not much to say about this.
• (Editted to add this mon also) is able to tank two hits of Hisuian-Growlithe by using its ability Stamina. Most common roll on +0 defense: 14. Most common roll on +1 defense: 10 With an HP stat of 25, Mudbray would be able to switch into hgrowl and take another flare blitz as long as no hazards are up. It could then Rest and Sleep Talk its way through the enemy team. I hope youre luckier than I am!

What other notable options are there?

• You've probably heard of them before, but it turns out that Hisuian-Growlithes Fire typing makes it weak to Stealth Rocks and other hazards! By setting up hazards early on you can really limit Hisuian-Growlithes onslaught. After a few rotation it can be revenge killed by priority moves.
• Speaking of priority moves, we have a couple of Pokemon that can use those! Most of these pokemon can kill Hisuian-Growlithe after its taken atleast 2 rounds of Stealth Rock damage.
  • 54-70% with Sucker Punch
  • 100+% with Tera Bug First Impression
  • 40-54% with Life Orb + Sucker Punch. This pokemon should probably not be running Sucker Punch though.
  • and 54-68% with Sucker Punch
  • if you're feeling funny.
• Start shell smashing. Both and can afford to tank one hit of Hisuian-Growlithes STAB's and set up to sweep.
• Start running protect. Argument is very valid, by scouting what the Hisuian-Growlithe is going to use you can switch into a pokemon accordingly. Sadly there is an Agility variant running around which I have personally used several times to set up an Agility in Hisuian-Voltorbs face as it tries to scout what move I am going for with Protect.
• Start using 17 speed scarfers yourself, examples include:
  • tera grass Wood Hammer is insane.
  • Close Combat away, risky with all the ghost types running around. Predicting wrong has massive consequences so I find this exchange favored for the Hisuian-Growlithe player.
  • was a menace before on webs and I am sure that can be extended for its scarf variant as well. Since toedscool is a lot less prevalent in the current meta it has an easier time clicking Earthquake.

I need to somehow end this post after dumping a bunch of info on you so here's my attempt.
I think Hisuian-Growlithe is too big of a threat for the current meta to handle. The limited amount of answers (5) force me to build a similair team time and time again. It also doesnt help that most of these answers are pokemon that are being put on your team because Hisuian-Growlithe is such an issue, otherwise these pokemon wouldnt see the light of day.
Hazards is the main thing stopping Hisuian-Growlithe from permanently revenge killing and switching out to safety afterwards. Problem with this is that in LC, 2-3 kills by a single mon is all you need to completely take control of the game.
While tera can serve as an answer to Hisuian-Growlithe, I cant help but feel like a lot of pokemon will have to start running a different tera type purely because Hisuian-Growlithe is such an issue.

There is no doubt in my mind that Hisuian-Growlithe will get banned as soon as a suspect test comes around. I am currently just waiting for it to drop. I would like to ask the SV LC Council to announce the suspect somewhat soon, as we are currently already suffering in both LC Open and LC Majors. I was hoping that we would not have to deal with Hisuian-Growlithe by the time the LC Majors pools were done, but it doesnt look like thats going to happen.
Here's to hoping the finals will atleast be Hisuian-Growlithe-less.

tldr: Growlithe-Hisui action>>Crabrawler action>>>Surskit action to me

 

[Colin]

Imo, webs is dumb and so is growlithe, and I'd be slightly surprised if either was healthy for the tier without the other, although I do admit having dog in the tier makes it much harder to run anti webs stuff when wingull isn't an adequate fire resist, and the other flyers are dependably punished by it, and specific fat grounds are forced on teams. Growlithe obviously enjoys being on webs, but banning webs won't suddenly make you stop having to use specific cores like fire resist + bulky bray, or gible. I think growlithe is more broken, but both deserve a suspect in the tier's current state.

This isn't the biggest reason why webs are broken, but it's perhaps the most annoying to me. Webs has an extremely easy time teching for its techs/counters. There's the obvious thing of Tera boosted sweepers, but there are also options like tpunch crab to be a gamewinner into wingull teams, the many teammates webs can pick, and the many surskit lead sets. Examples for surskit lead counter teching include running scarf vs rock blast growlithe, running higher BP ice coverage plus investment to Ohko people who run drifloon spreads to take half from low investment icy wind, and more. Obviously the most consistent sets will be the best and most common, but it's still extremely easy to tech things as a webs user. This combined with the fact that you get to use mons that are good outside webs and that can trade well is a big factor in making webs too good in my eyes.