All good points. But I do want to point out that a game doesn't have to be highly predictable to be competitive. We might define a competitive game as something along the lines of "skilled and experienced players who use their knowledge and strategic thinking to outplay their opponents". Pokemon is an inherently unpredictable game. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have critical hits, and static paras, and 10% ice beam freezes. Part of the competitive skill in Pokemon is being able to play around these random events and unpredicted circumstances and still come out on top. Tera adds to the unpredictability, but being able to play around tera is a skill. So I don't think that tera in and of itself is necessarily making this gen less competitive, unless it's on the overbearing wincons that people are already calling to be banned. The hazard issue and broken stuff (Kingambit) are problematic certainly.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3
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All good points. But I do want to point out that a game doesn't have to be highly predictable to be competitive. We might define a competitive game as something along the lines of "skilled and experienced players who use their knowledge and strategic thinking to outplay their opponents". Pokemon is an inherently unpredictable game. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have critical hits, and static paras, and 10% ice beam freezes. Part of the competitive skill in Pokemon is being able to play around these random events and unpredicted circumstances and still come out on top. Tera adds to the unpredictability, but being able to play around tera is a skill. So I don't think that tera in and of itself is necessarily making this gen less competitive, unless it's on the overbearing wincons that people are already calling to be banned. The hazard issue and broken stuff (Kingambit) are problematic certainly.
My point was that tera makes these already existing issues far worse is my point, yeah gambit is a problem sure but its a Volcarona type case where without tera dealing with it would be actually feasible, the hazard issue and other brokens are definitely made worse by tera though since gliscor and Gholdengo can limit their counterplay and make themselves harder to deal with.
idk why most are saying Tusk has a big 4MSS.
Off the bat, EQ and Ice Spinner. Ground/Ice coverage is fantastic coming from its attack stat. Then it’s Rapid Spin and imo, either Substitute or Taunt to shut down Gliscor. Substitute is preferable imo cause it also helps with mindgames vs Ghold. With a bit of HP investment, what is Gliscor gonna even do to Tusk behind a sub? Start running Dual Wingbeat? Please. As for the other options, I don’t think you really need most of them.
Knock Off? Half the tier can run it, including tier king Gliscor himself.
Close Combat? Is there anything notable that you’re hitting with CC on utility sets besides Wastom and Tera Normal Dnite? Didn’t think so.
Bulk Up? Ok, not being able to run Bulk Up sucks, I’ll give you that.
I think Tusk’s mu into Gliscor is fine if you can muster a safe switch. Also again, if you run Defensive Tusk in a metagame like this, you’re only creating problems for yourself.
Off the bat, EQ and Ice Spinner. Ground/Ice coverage is fantastic coming from its attack stat. Then it’s Rapid Spin and imo, either Substitute or Taunt to shut down Gliscor. Substitute is preferable imo cause it also helps with mindgames vs Ghold. With a bit of HP investment, what is Gliscor gonna even do to Tusk behind a sub? Start running Dual Wingbeat? Please. As for the other options, I don’t think you really need most of them.
Knock Off? Half the tier can run it, including tier king Gliscor himself.
Close Combat? Is there anything notable that you’re hitting with CC on utility sets besides Wastom and Tera Normal Dnite? Didn’t think so.
Bulk Up? Ok, not being able to run Bulk Up sucks, I’ll give you that.
I think Tusk’s mu into Gliscor is fine if you can muster a safe switch. Also again, if you run Defensive Tusk in a metagame like this, you’re only creating problems for yourself.
I agree that tera makes gliscor and gholdengo more difficult to deal with in some situations, but both of these mons would still be problematic in the absence of tera in the meta we have now. For what it's worth, I rarely see gliscor tera in most games. Gholdengo does abuse tera quite readily. But again, I feel that it is the mon that is the root of the problem here.
Problem is, dropping fighting stab on Tusk makes it frustratingly exploitable by the other top spikers in Samurott and Ting Lu. Especially Ting Lu which fears nothing from fighting stab less Tusk and wears it down incredibly easily over a game. No fighting stab also sucks vs Wellspring which you could at least pressure with CC to deter totally free switch ins. And yeah Washtom is annoying to thus into while not having a fighting stab to help dissuade tera normal dnite sucks also.
Also nonstab ice coverage alongside ground stab isn't especially amazing when it's such a middling BP move AND you're not boosting it.
I am hoping to (and working on) formalizing write-ups of a survey results post which includes not just this past one, but also comparing some scores across multiple recent surveys.
I did promise I would disclose results from this past survey this week and while I paraphrased them on discord and in a prior post, I wanted to formally make them known (note these are all qualified, but there was only one big outlier with the general):
I did promise I would disclose results from this past survey this week and while I paraphrased them on discord and in a prior post, I wanted to formally make them known (note these are all qualified, but there was only one big outlier with the general):
- Roaring Moon was a 3.68 / 5
- Gliscor was a 3.39 / 5
- Manaphy was a 3.37 / 5
- Kingambit was a 3.28 / 5
- Ogerpon-Wellspring was a 3.22 / 5
- Gholdengo was a 3.11 / 5
- Sneasler was a 2.22 / 5
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ting-lu is in danger of falling to uu (well, uubl, let's not kid ourselves) next month and hamurott went from the fifth most used mon in the tier pre-dlc to not even in the top 20. there are no top spikers not named gliscor anymore
Honestly, the only ranking that surprised me was sneasler being ranked higher than gholdengo and Manaphy higher than kingambit, though both are only by about a .1 margin so eh
If we follow these results for the next suspect, and if we're lucky a third one, then its gliscor, then manaphy, gambit lives another day
EDIT: nvm Sneasler was a 2.22, which makes total sense
this was a typo and it is fixed lol, sneasler was only a 2.2 -- it was the lowest ranked by a considerable margin. apologies
You're seriously pulling ladder usage stats that were quite influenced by new toy syndrome? Ting Lu and Samurott are both still A rank on the VR, a VR that is very recent too. Both are still great pokemon in their own right. Gliscor being the best doesn't mean these also great spikers don't suddenly exist. Both are still seeing a comfortable amount of usage and success in SCL
I remember when Gliscor was first put up as being potentially problematic and people laughing about it, so it being second is something to behold. Though a .02 point difference is essentially negligible and honestly the general closeness of the next two highest I think speaks to the general imbalance of the tier and that the four are relatively the same in terms of how problematic they are.
Not being the best spiker doesn't mean you aren't a top spiker. Especially when Hamurott exists in a VERY difference space from Glis.
Not being the best spiker doesn't mean you aren't a top spiker. Especially when Hamurott exists in a VERY difference space from Glis.
i think gambit and manaphy might benefit more from moon being gone than gliscor will, and that might change the data a bit, but of course we can't know that unless moon actually gets banned. either way, gliscor should definitely be the next thing focused on unless the moon ban suddenly turns some other mon into a massive problem
yeah, i was a gliscor denier at first but then i picked up a team with it during the bloodmoon suspect and realized "hey wait a minute, i can follow an actual flowchart when gliscor is on the field and still pick up games". it didn't even have ghold on it
I'm gonna push back against the heart of this message here: why are we framing the inherent unpredictability of Pokemon as a good thing? This is smogon, where we try our best to make this game as competitive as possible while being faithful to cartridge. If we wanted to embrace the unpredictable nature we'd legalize double team, legalize swagger, legalize OHKO moves, and much more. It's just "competitive skill" to play around OHKO moves right? lmao ofc not. The reason we banned all that bullshit is because we do not want unpredictability in a competitive game. To the greatest extent possible, we want to minimize rng skill-free nonsense.
You bring up 10% ice beam freezes, but the only reason we haven't gotten rid of that is because there's no way to do so on cartridge. You could argue critical hits are "balanced" in a way that it punishes passive bulky set up, and honestly banning static/flame body would be great but we're not ready to cross that bridge yet.
Tera adds to the unpredictability, but that feels less overwhelming as the meta drags on and we get a feel for things. The minimal unpredictability that tera adds is not a good thing, it's just not bad enough to be the main reason to ban it anymore. That would be "too much burden on teambuilder for a healthy meta."
what is this pagliacci-ass take bro. even if it were possible to go into the sv options menu and toggle global warming to "on", freezing just doesn't happen often enough to consider a ban on the entire status condition. there's no real way to abuse or exploit it like you can with all of the banned rng-related things or unclaused sleep
Doesn't Sleep Clause as it's implemented on Showdown literally conflict with cart mechanics? Dire Claw and Relic Song both outright lose their ability to put something to sleep if another enemy 'mon is already asleep when they use it.
I can definitely agree with the sentiment that sticking to cart as closely as possible is the best course, but it's not like they're above ignoring it's rules when it's deemed beneficial.
in the defense of sleep clause, it does have precedent in the stadium games and battle revolution (and for the record, those games are bangers and they should make a new one)
Yeah, but this isn't Stadium or Battle Revolution, it's Gen 9 where no such mechanic exists, and thus isn't "as close to cart as possible". It's a conscious decision to maintain this incongruity with the official game for the sake of keeping Singles formats healthy-which I don't think is a bad thing mind you, it's just kinda silly that cart accuracy is being touted as a reason we can't do x y or z when one of the main clauses of Singles has directly conflicted with it for well over a decade now.
I see and understand your take, but I disagree with you. I don't want Pokemon to become as skill based as possible. I don't want to have to put in so much effort figure out the best way to find the perfect series of events so my opponent can do nothing against me. If I wanted that, I would spend a lot more time playing chess. But I'm choosing to play Pokemon, where there is an inherent amount of VGC, where getting one critical hit can make your game sometimes. It sucks when I'm on the other side of it, but I accept that because I accept it's part of the game.
Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad evasion and OHKO moves are GONE. But getting rid of elements like static and flame body makes it feel like a level of counterplay that is only found in Pokemon is being taken away. Without this inherent unpredictability, it won't be Pokemon anymore. And I like Pokemon, so I don't want that part to change.
In 2021 or 22 (can't believe I can't remember lol), I participated in one of the online tournaments for VGC. It was the one where one restricted Pokemon was allowed and I brought a Kyogre team. I ended up facing a Palkia at one point who I had no experience battling or practice against. I was getting rolled until Kyogre froze the Palkia with ice beam. I popped off and won. If I was the opponent, yes I would've been livid, but I also know that this is Pokemon, ice beam is a common move on Kyogre, and so this sh-t happens. Heck, in the same tournament, I faced a sun team with sleep powder Venusaur and I lost because two of my Pokemon (I think Kyogre and my Garchomp iirc) both had 3 turn sleeps. It sucked, but that's part of Pokemon, and frankly, I can accept a loss like that because I accept the rng part of it (don't get me wrong, I'm not calling for the revoking of sleep clause).
I am happy with steps Smogon has taken to make Pokemon more skill based. But I don't want what you're calling for in taking all of that rng away. It makes it exciting and fun when the "unexpected" happens and when a match gets flipped on its head.
While not SV OU, in ADV the switching mechanics were changed to be something impossible on cart because they were uncompetitive.
In ADV cartridge, one player always switches first and by extension the other always switches second.
On showdown, it's based on speed (random if speed tie).
In DPP we lack acid rain.
In GSC showdown implements RNG incorrectly.
In ADV cartridge, one player always switches first and by extension the other always switches second.
On showdown, it's based on speed (random if speed tie).
In DPP we lack acid rain.
In GSC showdown implements RNG incorrectly.
I don't disagree with your point, but acid rain is a glitch on cart, not an intentional mechanic, that has the potential to create an endless unplayable battle. That's not implemented on Showdown for an entirely different reason than everything else here. Just looking at "differences between cart and Showdown" is a little too broad.
I feel you are hyperbolizing a bit here. Nobody is doubting that OHKO moves are uncompetitive. There is obviously such thing as too much randomness and by definition, a competitive game cannot exist if it's completely stochastic.
I brought up ice beam freezes to demonstrate that there is baseline unpredictability in this game and that it's here to stay. There is immense unpredictability in this game, from damage rolls, to secondary effects, to every move that doesn't have 100% accuracy. All of this isn't going anywhere, because it's part of what Pokemon is. You're right that the game would be more competitive if we got rid of all the sources of RNG, but for the better or worse this isn't going to happen. I personally am not adverse to this kind of RNG because in some ways it makes the game more "exciting" as Gondre19Wedj mentioned. But I recognize that this is a matter of personal preference.
Second, I think it's important to differentiate between random RNG and the kind of unpredictability that has human agency behind it. An ice beam freeze is different from clicking an unexpected tera because one was a decision by the server's RNG and the other was a conscious decision by a player. The former absolutely detracts from the competitiveness of the game, but the latter is a more nuanced case. Playing around an unexpected move by your opponent takes skill, as does making moves that you believe your opponent won't predict. This, in my opinion, does not detract from the competitiveness of the game. And by definition, it is only possible if there is room for unpredictability.
If we wanted Pokemon to be like competitive chess, then why don't we release open team sheets on Showdown like in the VGC tournaments? We don't because "competitive" is not as black and white as you are portraying. There is skill to be had in designing unexpected sets in the builder and taking advantage of the inherent surprise factor in-game. It's for the benefit of the game that people can surprise their opponent with an Energy Ball Jellicent, or revenge kill the opponent's Dragapult with an unexpected choice scarfer, or take the time to scout opponents' sets to gain an informational asset. If that is what you want to get rid of, then it seems that we have inherently different personal philosophies on the matter.
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Pokemon Platinum is 15 years old, nobody is playing OU on cart anymore in any of these gens - that's why things like this happen (with the most notable example being the unbanning of psywave in rby when it was discovered that a legitimately relevant move was found to also cause desyncs, since nobody plays rby on cart anymore they just fixed the moves).
Did you just say you don't want a competitive game to be competitive?
The addition of a freeze clause in RBY and the reworking of freeze to frostbite in the official games establish a precedent. Considering this, there might be grounds for a freeze ban or Smogon transitioning to Frostbite to align with these changes.
Nope. Sorry I didn’t put a TLDR
I don’t want 100% of RNG removed from Pokémon as the original poster whom I quoted implied they wanted if Smogon wasn’t bound to cartridge mechanics.
The real order is :
1. Flutter Mane & Houndstone quickban simultaneously
2. Palafin & Iron Bundle quickban simultaneously
3. Suspect test Tera, no action
4. Chi-Yu, Anihilape and Cyclizar quickban simultaneously
5. Suspect test Chien-Pao, ban in the end, Espathra quickban in the same time
6. Walking Wake suspect test, no ban
7. Shed Tail quickban, Cyclizar unbanned
8. Pokémon Home, Last Respects quickban and Houndstone unbanned. Landorus-I, Urshifu-S, Spectrier Uber, Chien-Pao unbanned, Magearna and both Zamazenta started in OU
9. Regieleki quickban
10. Magearna quickban
11. Chien-Pao and Zamazenta-C quickban simultaneously
12. Urshifu-R and Volcarona quickban simultaneously
13. Zamazenta-H suspect test, no ban
14. Kingambit suspect test, no ban
15. Teal Mask DLC, Darkrai and Shaymin-S started in Uber, Volcarona remain Uber
16. Baxcalibur quickban
17. Ogerpon-H quickban
18. Suspect test Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, ban
19. Actually suspect test Roaring Moon
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