-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
- Status
Probably rillaboom sneasler now that great tusk doesn't have to run ice spinner specifically for gliscor. Or it still could, GT is pretty customizable.
For spikers, I expect H samu or ting liu to have a resurgence in usage, but I'm just speculating.
Sneasler @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
Tera Type: Dark / Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Gunk Shot
- Lash Out / Shadow Claw
Appreciate this is nothing new, but would have thought this would be preferred over Acrobatics sets. OHKOing Zapdos and hitting Gholdengo would provide more than Acrobatics would (Amoonguss is usually OHKO'd by Gunk Shot). I'm certainly getting mullered by it, anyway. Outside of putting Dondozo / Pex on my team, I'm a bit stumped on what to do. I've seen Corv mentioned, but Brave Bird doesn't even 2HKO after Grassy Seed and Lash Out / Close Combat KO's. Has anyone used any unusual sets, especially for an offensive team, which has been able to go against it?
Ability: Unburden
Tera Type: Dark / Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Gunk Shot
- Lash Out / Shadow Claw
Appreciate this is nothing new, but would have thought this would be preferred over Acrobatics sets. OHKOing Zapdos and hitting Gholdengo would provide more than Acrobatics would (Amoonguss is usually OHKO'd by Gunk Shot). I'm certainly getting mullered by it, anyway. Outside of putting Dondozo / Pex on my team, I'm a bit stumped on what to do. I've seen Corv mentioned, but Brave Bird doesn't even 2HKO after Grassy Seed and Lash Out / Close Combat KO's. Has anyone used any unusual sets, especially for an offensive team, which has been able to go against it?
Dengo is probably staying gone realistically if it gets banned since it would definitely get banned by a big margin so that point doesn't necessarily hold up well at all
phlog and I built some balance with Ting-Lu and it isn't bad but being susceptible to status and spikes along with no reliable recovery hurts so much
no, they stopped playing because they dropped half of ubers when crown tundra dropped, making the first several months of the meta a horrific, unbalanced nightmare. kind of like this gen, but instead of the council holding the meta together, they were the ones who blew it apart in the first place
Gliscor itself made a lot of Pokemon worse or run very specific sets. I think Sandy Shocks, Landorus-T, and Great Tusk will all improve with its ban. Cinderace also improves, as it could have trouble making progress vs Gliscor.
Ting-Lu and Hammy are both more desirable options with Gliscor out of the picture. Both were fine picks previously, but Gliscors longevity and additional utility made it feel like a vastly better pick for most general teams .
Poison Touch and Toxic Chain mons like Pads Sneasler and Okidogi are a bit better but have some other issues in the meta that likely will still make them fringe picks. Amoonguss gets better, but has issues into Gholdengo.
Moltres and Zapdos get better, as their contact punishing abilities have more use into some other picks like some Sneasler variants. They both had poor MUs into Gliscor IMO.
Zama's general sets will have more utility now. Previously, the sub ID set was the best due to its good Gliscor MU, but with that Pokemon gone, its HDB sets will be able to put more consistent work rather than being deadweight as long as Gliscor is alive.
Not a bad point but let’s face it, this is entirely speculative as none of these bans have happened yet. You are speculating months in advance as if the meta is a vacuum. We’re going to get DC2 in the winter, quite possibly in just a month from now. At that point we will have new mons, possibly some drops from ubers, and a more informed take on tera can be made.
Magcargo had some good thoughts on this. To add to that, Skeledirge loves not having to worry about Gliscor’s toxic while it can now click Wisp more freely. Clodsire becomes a bit more useable too since it was unredeemably hardwalled by Gliscor. Heatran I think is on an uptick; other bulky grounds like Landorus don’t have the longevity to switch into multiple magma storms over the course of the match like Gliscor did. Lastly, Glowking sets can diversify a bit as they are no longer forced into running ice beam, making it more versatile overall.
Last edited:
Glad Gliscor is gone, but this meta is still bullshit. Manaphy setting up on Thundurus-Therian? When will people realize the problem is not in individual mons. Its in this craptastic mechanic.
Dude I'm not even a fan of the mechanic exactly but you could at least try and go more than five posts without bitching about Tera.
this has the same tone as an old guy being shocked and appalled at a man with painted nails. if you don't want to accept progress, there are 8 other gens you can play
Well, it is true that Manaphy wouldn't even remotely be a problem without Tera. It'd be pretty easy to revenge kill if it couldn't flip its defensive profile. when the user decides it is time. Tera is what is causing Manaphy to end up on the surveys when it otherwise would be a lot easier to handle in a format without it.
Exactly, and how is this good for competitive mons? I have no confidence at all in my Electric or Grass types ability to actually beat Manaphy. Cause they don't. They just lose. I'll gladly stop bitching about it when the game becomes competitive again.
Can we please get a suspect test for Sneasler ASAP? I would prefer a quickban, but given that's unlikely, a suspect test would make do.
But please, get this done quickly so we can finally test Gholdengo.
But please, get this done quickly so we can finally test Gholdengo.
There's only room for 1 more suspect test before the DLC, so if we suspect Sneasler, we don't get a test on Gholdengo. If you want a test on Gholdengo, you should hope for a Sneasler quickban instead. I would really hate if the next suspect candidate isn't Gholdengo as it is a blight on the meta.
I do want quickban. But given that Ursaluna Blood Moon had to wait for suspect (a Mon that got 95% ban votes), Sneasler getting quickbanned is highly unlikely.
If I had to choose between Sneasler and Gholdengo, I would choose Sneasler to get nuked first.
Ursaluna-Bloodmoon was a suspect because its survey scores were low. On the other hand, people are starting to wake up to Sneasler's brokenness, so it could very well have a high enough score for a quickban next week.
Rilla + Sneasler was broken af even in Gliscor meta. Glisc wasn't even a Sneasler check in the first place.
0 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. +1 172 HP / 4 Def Grassy Seed Sneasler in Grassy Terrain: 104-126 (30.2 - 36.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
The supposed "check" was setup fodder.
Sneasler's movepool is varied enough that it leads to no semi-consistent counterplay apart from Dondozo which is complete Rilla food, the very specific ID Mandibuzz, and Toxapex which has fallen off hard. The latter two are subject to the mercy of Dire Claw (oh and ID Buzz can't stop a Sneasler who's at +2 , it gets 2HKOd as it IDs) which I still maintain is not worth running over moves but hey, and Dondozo is 3HKOd by Tera Fighting CC or Tera Poison Gunk Shot which means Dozo cannot Rest else it will be mowed past by it.
Tusk + Gholdengo is beat by Acro + Shadow Claw/Lash Out. Ting Lu + Zap/Molt + Gholdengo is beat by CC + Gunk + Lash Out/S Claw. Common bulky cores just get shredded apart by it with utter ease. In my experience it rarely needs to Tera unless you're trying to lock in a sweep vs say a Zama (although you can boost past it with non Tera flying Acro too especially if it's Boots 4a which I expect to become better post Glisc ban), which means you can hold Tera for a teammate to take advantage on the holes Sneasler has left in the opposing team.
Trying to out offense it is hilariously unreliable since Rilla can easily U Turn to bring Sneasler in on a favourable matchup and it's gg from there.
I agree that Gholdengo needs to be suspected. But Sneasler was broken even in the spikes centric Glisc meta that cut into Rilla's longevity, and it's still broken now. If we suspect Ghold now, having to deal with this thing for that entire time would be absolutely awful.
The ideal situation is that we QB Sneasler after the next survey and then waste no time in suspecting Ghold. That's why I encourage everyone to vote as high as possible on both Sneasler and Ghold, so that we can QB Sneasler and then suspect Ghold in peace.
0 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. +1 172 HP / 4 Def Grassy Seed Sneasler in Grassy Terrain: 104-126 (30.2 - 36.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
The supposed "check" was setup fodder.
Sneasler's movepool is varied enough that it leads to no semi-consistent counterplay apart from Dondozo which is complete Rilla food, the very specific ID Mandibuzz, and Toxapex which has fallen off hard. The latter two are subject to the mercy of Dire Claw (oh and ID Buzz can't stop a Sneasler who's at +2 , it gets 2HKOd as it IDs) which I still maintain is not worth running over moves but hey, and Dondozo is 3HKOd by Tera Fighting CC or Tera Poison Gunk Shot which means Dozo cannot Rest else it will be mowed past by it.
Tusk + Gholdengo is beat by Acro + Shadow Claw/Lash Out. Ting Lu + Zap/Molt + Gholdengo is beat by CC + Gunk + Lash Out/S Claw. Common bulky cores just get shredded apart by it with utter ease. In my experience it rarely needs to Tera unless you're trying to lock in a sweep vs say a Zama (although you can boost past it with non Tera flying Acro too especially if it's Boots 4a which I expect to become better post Glisc ban), which means you can hold Tera for a teammate to take advantage on the holes Sneasler has left in the opposing team.
Trying to out offense it is hilariously unreliable since Rilla can easily U Turn to bring Sneasler in on a favourable matchup and it's gg from there.
I agree that Gholdengo needs to be suspected. But Sneasler was broken even in the spikes centric Glisc meta that cut into Rilla's longevity, and it's still broken now. If we suspect Ghold now, having to deal with this thing for that entire time would be absolutely awful.
The ideal situation is that we QB Sneasler after the next survey and then waste no time in suspecting Ghold. That's why I encourage everyone to vote as high as possible on both Sneasler and Ghold, so that we can QB Sneasler and then suspect Ghold in peace.
the ideal situation is that we qb sneasler now while everyone is too distracted by the gliscor ban to whine about "le tyranny" or whatever, then throw up a suspect thread tomorrow for whatever the next-highest thing from the last survey was. let the meta settle during the test, and if the thing doesn't need to be banned once the dust settles (very unlikely), the votes will reflect that. let's just go wild with the banhammer and drop whatever gets enough survey votes to drop in dlc2
I understand that I may be a bit late to this conversation, but with all due respect, these moderators and metagame managers (that's a lot of Ms lol) are doing the best they can with the rough hand they've been dealt with Scarlet & Violet's insane power creep and... questionable game balance, to say the least. This generation's been flying at a breakneck pace much like the offensive metagame emphasis itself, and I think we as a playerbase can and should owe it to these guys for their hard work to just give them a break already. We still have a month until DLC2 drops, and even though this might be a hot take, I don't think anything should be suspect tested between now and then so the "post-Gliscor Teal Mask metagame" can at least try to stabilize while it still can. That way, when DLC2's inevitable power creep also shows up, the people running these tiers can have more time to evaluate other potentially problematic prospects.
Instead, I want to talk a bit more about Gliscor over the course of history in this post. Starting off with a genuine question... is this the best Gliscor's ever been? I'm serious- we're talking about a Ground/Flying juggernaut that's been around since Generation 4 that's never really had issues against offense and especially slower paced balance and/or stall teams. Like any Pokémon, it's obviously going to have its exploitable weaknesses, maybe a few checks and counters here and there, the usual. But when I look at what Gliscor's been able to do in the Teal Mask specifically across both OU and Ubers, I really do think we're looking at something special here. The OU metagame in particular had some other prospects to deal with at first in the forms of Baxcalibur and Ogerpon-Hearthflame respectively, but I honestly think that once those two were taken care of, Teal Mask Gliscor had an argument to be made as one of the most dominant OU Pokémon in history. It's not often that a Pokémon manages to be considered the best Pokémon in the tier and be considered banworthy simultaneously. For comparison, here's a list of other Top 1 Pokémon in OU's history that weren't ever banned:
-RBY Tauros
-GSC Snorlax
-Every iteration of Tyranitar
-Scizor, specifically starting in Platinum era of Gen 4
-DPP Jirachi
-Every iteration of Heatran
-BW2 Latios (provided it eventually fell to second place, but still)
-Every iteration of Landorus-Therian
-BDSP Weavile (probably would have been suspected if Pursuit still existed tbh)
-SV (base game) Great Tusk
You look at this thing in Ubers, too, and yeah, it wasn't nearly as good in Ubers as it was in OU, but it doesn't need to be. The fact it could still be considered viable in such a powerful metagame with competition from Landorus-Therian and the removal of Roost (even if it had it, Roost itself was also nerfed) feels like a testament to how this era feels like it was pretty much made for Gliscor from start to finish.
Instead, I want to talk a bit more about Gliscor over the course of history in this post. Starting off with a genuine question... is this the best Gliscor's ever been? I'm serious- we're talking about a Ground/Flying juggernaut that's been around since Generation 4 that's never really had issues against offense and especially slower paced balance and/or stall teams. Like any Pokémon, it's obviously going to have its exploitable weaknesses, maybe a few checks and counters here and there, the usual. But when I look at what Gliscor's been able to do in the Teal Mask specifically across both OU and Ubers, I really do think we're looking at something special here. The OU metagame in particular had some other prospects to deal with at first in the forms of Baxcalibur and Ogerpon-Hearthflame respectively, but I honestly think that once those two were taken care of, Teal Mask Gliscor had an argument to be made as one of the most dominant OU Pokémon in history. It's not often that a Pokémon manages to be considered the best Pokémon in the tier and be considered banworthy simultaneously. For comparison, here's a list of other Top 1 Pokémon in OU's history that weren't ever banned:
-RBY Tauros
-GSC Snorlax
-Every iteration of Tyranitar
-Scizor, specifically starting in Platinum era of Gen 4
-DPP Jirachi
-Every iteration of Heatran
-BW2 Latios (provided it eventually fell to second place, but still)
-Every iteration of Landorus-Therian
-BDSP Weavile (probably would have been suspected if Pursuit still existed tbh)
-SV (base game) Great Tusk
You look at this thing in Ubers, too, and yeah, it wasn't nearly as good in Ubers as it was in OU, but it doesn't need to be. The fact it could still be considered viable in such a powerful metagame with competition from Landorus-Therian and the removal of Roost (even if it had it, Roost itself was also nerfed) feels like a testament to how this era feels like it was pretty much made for Gliscor from start to finish.
I'm pretty sure DLC2 comes out in a little over a month, so we'll either complete this process only for it to get completely reversed on the 14th or we'll get past Sneasler, Gholdengo, and Wellspring (low-key, Cornerstone without Ghold would be a giga threat as well) and then the meta will hard-reset thereafter. There's no amount of tiering action that'll make this current iteration of OU more playable that wouldn't just see all that progress undone on the 14th and that's a horrendous position for the Council to be in.
This gen is such a mess and it isn't the Council's fault in the slightest. I just feel like we were dealt somewhat of a rough hand with specific moveset inclusions/exclusions, the level of powercreep Gen 9 brought to the table, and the release cadence of big content drops. Until DLC2 rolls around (and even then, it's entirely possible that Raging Bolt/Iron Crown and whatever the Paradox Entei/Terrakion equivalents are can just drop mid-gen and warp the metagame as much as Walking Wake did), it's always going to be this issue of "the OU Council is aggresively suspecting or quickbanning the right mons yet somehow it just isn't fast enough despite tiering action happening at a breakneck pace."
I don't envy the Council whatsoever here, man. Even the most controversial thing (the early-HOME Volcarona quickban) that happened as far as tiering action goes was still the right answer to the right problem, and arguably still in the right way as well. I also don't feel like the Kokoloko tiering method (banning multiple problematic elements simultaneously and retesting each one individually) would be a good solution because I remember when this was tried in UU several generations ago after the Mega Latias ban and people (figuratively) crucified the UU Council for it even if it was, in hindsight, the right way to address the issue. Considering folks' reaction to the Volc quickban, I feel like doing something like that with the most well-known, widely-followed Smogon tier by a massive margin wouldn't be worth the shit-storm even if it would lead to a better metagame.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and damned no matter how quickly you wind up doing it.
i say the council should go for kokoloko tiering and just shadow-remove any posts complaining about it so they can point to the forum and go "see? look how popular it is, you can't argue with that, it's the will of the people". then wait about a month for everyone to see how much better the meta is, and they'll be too busy enjoying the game to realize that they got soviet-union'd (ignore the fact that when the soviets did this it didn't work and nothing improved)
of course, this is not a serious proposal in any capacity
Brambleghast is weirdly almost-appealing in the current meta as a spiker. Loses horribly to Cinderace, of course, but it outspeeds Great Tusk and Gholdengo while threatening both with a strong STAB, and Strength Sap is a fantastic move to partially offset its frailty. It also has a good matchup into both Samurott-H (outspeed and OHKO with Power Whip) and Ting-Lu (grass STAB + recovery), the likely two top spikers, which is nice when it can run Rapid Spin, preventing the spikes from coming right back up. It has all the hallmarks of a lower tier mon that will fit into one specific team that becomes popular and suddenly it's pulling 3-4% usage on lower ladder.
Soiramio3000
Banned deucer.
Casual player here, I just moved to gen 9 since it is more recent, that's all.
I wouldn't go back to any of the previous generations even if tera got banned.
The nerf on stall makes gen 9 much less frustrating for us casuals.
I love tera I hope it stays legal.
Last edited:
- Status