Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3

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To all the Gholdengo apologist out there; what meta ending threats does Gholdengo keep in check that other Pokemon can’t? The one I see most often brought up is Iron Valiant, but I feel like there is a whole host of Pokemon that can check Valiant decently. Poison types like Amoongus, Toxapex, GKing, Clodsire all can check Valiant fairly well. forcing Valiant to run Psyshock/Tbolt which can hamper its utility by not being able to run Encore/DBond/Knock. Idk, I’m not the greatest player, but Gholdengo seems to hamper more than it provides.

not only is gholdengo a more consistent iron valiant check than everything else mentioned here besides slowking-G but it can also deal with the likes of sneasler, enamorus and zamazenta quite nicely (assuming its running air balloon when dealing w/ enamorus)
 
Its more so that gholdengo keeps entire styles in check. Its really good vs fat especially with covert cloak. I think that without it we would see a major stall/ semi stall takeover because garg and dozo are amazing new tools for fat that a lot off wallbreakers struggle with. I dont want to play another meta where its unkillable fat vs unkillable fat for 3000 years like it was in the gliscor meta, which is why I personally gave gholdengo a 2.
Edit: or maybe a 3 i dont remmember
Gholdengo isn’t the one thing keeping that from happening, its not gonna happen as long as ogerpon wellspring and cornerstone are legal, youre acting like gamefreak didn’t airdrop game ending nerfs onto the likes of blissey and pex and then proceed to introduce whole bunch of offensive menaces same gen, until the first dlc, hyper offense has literally been the premier playstyle of ou, gholdengo ain’t doing enough to justify making a STICKY WEB setter an ou pokemon
 
Gholdengo isn’t the one thing keeping that from happening, its not gonna happen as long as ogerpon wellspring and cornerstone are legal, youre acting like gamefreak didn’t airdrop game ending nerfs onto the likes of blissey and pex and then proceed to introduce whole bunch of offensive menaces same gen, until the first dlc, hyper offense has literally been the premier playstyle of ou, gholdengo ain’t doing enough to justify making a STICKY WEB setter an ou pokemon

Youre right, thats why I also voted a 2 or 3 on ogerpon wellspring. If those two get banned, what counterplay does offense have vs fat? + dozo can tera into a grass type and then counter both cornerstone and wellspring just fine. Maybe you can say tail glow mana can outboost blissey but people are calling for that to be banned as well. Black glasses gambit can break stall, but once again, many people want it banned. I think stall is a LOT closer to being unfun broken and uncounterable than people think. Plus are people forgetting we just came out of a stall/semi stall hellhole meta? With both gholdengo and ogerpon w.

Sticky web also isnt that overwhelming and aside from like 1 day after gliscor ban I havent seen it a single time.
 
Youre right, thats why I also voted a 2 or 3 on ogerpon wellspring. If those two get banned, what counterplay does offense have vs fat? + dozo can tera into a grass type and then counter both cornerstone and wellspring just fine. Maybe you can say tail glow mana can outboost blissey but people are calling for that to be banned as well. Black glasses gambit can break stall, but once again, many people want it banned. I think stall is a LOT closer to being unfun broken and uncounterable than people think. Plus are people forgetting we just came out of a stall/semi stall hellhole meta? With both gholdengo and ogerpon w.

Sticky web also isnt that overwhelming and aside from like 1 day after gliscor ban I havent seen it a single time.
In the case stall/fat gets that bad, then just ban whatever’s broken with that. It isn’t black and white “ban offense OR defense”, Gliscor was just banned because so many people hated the defensive matchups with it. Clefable was close to being suspected in the first SWSH DLC. If Dozo for example becomes a pain in the ass with all the offensive brokens gone, then there’s no problem in just getting it tf out.

Or getting Tera tf out so nothing can just casually turn into a different type and flip its counters onto their heads.
 
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1/5: Sleep hax 16% lol stop crying. Without tera is walled by so many things. Underperforms in non-terrain teams. If you choose to use gunk shot instead of dire claw, it's because: a) you are in a grassy terrain team that is walled by zapdos; b) you used the wrong move. Sneasler is cheese, one-trick pony, walled by so many physical walls, not to mention intimidate shenaningans. NO BAN.

What are the "so many physical walls"? Literally just Dondozo? How exactly are you intimidate cycling successfully?
 
Lil cookie on the way to the tiering action... my votes and some reasoning behind them:

:sv/sneasler:
Sneasler: 4, Even with Lash Out as the only actual tiny buff to this mon given by the DLC, a combination of a much better Rillaboom and a meta where balance struggles to find a solid foothold (due to other mons on this survey) makes this very difficult for teams to handle, particularly frailer offence builds who often have to rely on defensive Tera to escape instant death. I don't see Poison Touch sets as broken at all, but Unburden and 130 / 120 offensive stats along with a respectable 80 / 60 / 80 bulk that can be enhanced by Grassy Seed + large HP investment is just not a reasonable mon to me. Not rating it a full 5 as I know many other qualified players have, as I'm not dead set that it's some uncounterable cheese that cannot ever be okay in the tier (Unburden sets are near useless into fat/stall unless you run what I think is a suboptimal Tera Fighting), but yeah this is insanely cheap and probably needs to go, I wouldn't be mad at a QB.

:sv/gholdengo:
Gholdengo: 4, I've been in the DnB Ghold camp for a while, particularly pre-DLC, but Good as Gold has a clear negative effect on a tier which already struggles with not much having removal. Literally the only reason I don't want it gone is because it's nice for dealing with fat teams that find it hard to consistently handle it or make progress vs it, but at a point it's hard to not just take a step back and look at what it's doing to a tier that already struggles with hazards. I don't enjoy the feeling of needing 5 boots mons + a knock absorber on any non-offence build for it to be a usable playstyle, and while yes, Defog and Rapid Spin have a limited number of users even in a post-Gholdengo world, I'd actually consider running Defog Mandi instead of like Foul Play - ID - Roost - Toxic to answer Zama (who may deserve to be on the next tiering survey) and the next mon on the list. It's impossible to argue that Gholdengo doesn't have a massive effect on the tier, likely more so than any other mon, and I'd like to see how a metagame feels without its presence.

:sv/kingambit:
Kingambit: 4, It's gotten less bad post-DLC but I still don't like Gambit in the tier, I seriously think people overrate its defensive value; as harsh as it sounds I don't see anyone who thinks it's what holds the tier back from a broken Dragapult as playing the game at a serious level, have fun being a switch in to Specs Flame or even worse Boots Wisp! Of course it does undeniably help to stop Shadow Ball spam, but it is not a good Pult switch-in. Any actual argument that I acknowledge on this thing has to hinge on it being not broken in itself and not a broken-checks-broken answer to something that it isnt even a good answer to, not saying there aren't other justifications for it but if I have to hear "nooo pult is broken with no gambit!!!" one more time I'm gonna break down in tears. Every team needs to pack multiple checks and counters to not just auto lose to it, and while I've had a friend compare this to past things like SM Lele I do think this is a different beast entirely that doesn't add enough value to the tier to justify.

:sv/manaphy:
Manaphy: 3, This is some real cheese that doesn't add anything to the tier at all, it constricts balance heavily by existing with both Tail Glow and Double Dance posing significant problems that are very hard to consistently account for while also loading well into the rest of the meta. Lack of recovery makes it much more manageable and so I won't rate it as high as some of these other mons here but balance has a very bad time trying to 'answer' it without either Tera'ing Skeledirge or geting the Haze and Mirror Coat turns right every time with a full health Milotic. It also struggles with speed control as it can be outsped by anything over base 100 (unless webs are up, so make sure you're packing boots on every fast mon! very cool!), but 100 / 100 / 100 bulk is very good especially with HP investment and reasonable answers to a full health Manaphy like Encore from Iron Valiant / Ogerpon can lose not only the mon but the game on the spot to actual usable techs like Mental Herb. I don't think this is as bad as the other mons on the survey, but that doesn't mean I don't think it may be too strong in this meta.

:sv/ogerpon_wellspring:
Ogerpon-W: 4, Balance gets owned by this thing, Mandi gets knocked and the next time it comes in it dies if they get the ~23.4% chance to crit one of their two Ivy Cudgels while you can't Roost in fear of Encore, Amoonguss gets its boots knocked and now comes in on hazards so gets worn down hard trying to come in repeatedly (although it's probably the best we have), and so many other would-be answers lose to Encore. Of course it's not like it can run 10 moves but you have to consider everything in the builder to not run into the wrong set, find out your counter loses to something you didn't consider real and start hemorrhaging mons til the game falls apart; thank you CheesyBrie for this post earlier in the thread because this feels to me like a similar case of a mon that people argue struggles with moveslots but more so appreciates having all of these barely-telegraphed options. This definitely feels overtuned, although I wouldn't really want a quickban on it as I know the general consensus is split; however, I'd definitely value some tiering action in future.

To conclude, GameFreak hates Singles and a lot of these things have to go, regardless of Tera being in the tier or not. I'm not exactly a warrior either way on Tera but I do enjoy its presence and I really don't think that any of these issues I've described here barring Kingambit (who absolutely is a Tera abuser) would be solved without it, hazards would be just as oppressive, Sneasler would be just as cheap and both Manaphy and Waterpon would be doing the exact same thing that they do rn aside from Tail Glow Manaphy gaining one more consistent check in Rillaboom. Shoutout the community and the council for actually putting forward action on this shit, I know that people who don't actually play the tier love to hate but I've definitely been seeing improvements to the tier even if it falls short of how enjoyable pre-DLC was to me, and imo the current issues with finding balance (lol) in OU are more the fault of horrible balancing by Pokémon itself than anything else.
 
In the case stall/fat gets that bad, then just ban whatever’s broken with that. It isn’t black and white “ban offense OR defense”, Gliscor was just banned because so many people hated the defensive matchups with it. Clefable was close to being suspected in the first SWSH DLC. If Dozo for example becomes a pain in the ass with all the offensive brokens gone, then there’s no problem in just getting it tf out.

Or getting Tera tf out so nothing can just casually turn into a different type and flip its counters onto their heads.

It’s important to remember the context behind any tiering action right now. The meta is going to be completely changed in less then a month. Will we have time to ban what makes stall broken? Let’s say we spend a week on sneasler, then on ghold, and all of a sudden stall is broken. Cool, now we have to suffer through a horrible meta game for a week, and we barely even get to see the fruits of that suffering. Meta game is fine enough right now minus sneasler.
 
:Roaring Moon: is another 4 from me.

Roaring Moon @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Acrobatics
- Knock Off
- Brick Break / Roost / Taunt / Earthquake

This set is very hard to counter. Notice how I say counter as timely Tera types, priority stacked (especially if it lacks Roost), Sticky Webs, and other conditions can minimize it, even assuring it is limited in terms of entry and effect throughout an entire battle. Maybe it will not be useless, but with certain conditions, it is at least checked. The main thing is that forcing these conditions warps teambuilding and preserving them can warp gameplay when you are facing an onsalught of offensive pressure. I find this dynamic to be unhealthy and that is why I support a suspect test and potentially a ban on Roaring Moon.
:Gliscor: 5/5, this Pokemon is very annoying as it forces very specific measures to cover while still oftentimes forcing progress due to Spike, Knock, or status. This is not even mentioning how effective SD and pivoting sets can be or how few things regularly swap into Gliscor despite it living very long thanks to Poison Heal + Protect.
:Sneasler: 5 -- It is broken with or without Dire Claw at this point. Unburden variants on Grassy Terrain offense with Tera Ghost and Tera Fly are ridiculous. I would even support a quickban if it has a big majority as it does not add anything to the metagame aside from Toxic Spikes soaking, but it is a substantial pain in the ass to teambuilders across each playstyle. I would be fine with a suspect, too, and ultimately will defer to the results, but I am a firm 5 and believe this among the most broken things right now.
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I feel like this is shitty trollbait but whatever, I'll bite.

Let's pick one set. Tera Ghost Sneasler with Swords Dance, Gunk Shot, Close Combat, and Shadow Claw.

Defensive Dengo?
+2 252+ Atk Tera Ghost Sneasler Shadow Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gholdengo: 374-444 (98.9 - 117.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
Nope.

Zapdos?
+2 252+ Atk Tera Dark Sneasler Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 104 Def Zapdos: 438-516 (114 - 134.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Nope.

Defensive Tusk?
+2 252+ Atk Tera Dark Sneasler Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Great Tusk: 256-303 (58.9 - 69.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery
But wait! What can defensive tusk do in return?
0 Atk Great Tusk Earthquake vs. +1 0 HP / 4 Def Grassy Seed Tera Dark Sneasler in Grassy Terrain: 69-82 (22.9 - 27.2%) -- possible 5HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
Nope. Your Tusk is set up fodder!

Corviknight?
+2 252+ Atk Tera Ghost Sneasler Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 300-354 (75.1 - 88.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
A little bit of chip and you're dead. And what can Corv do in return?
0 Atk Corviknight Brave Bird vs. +1 0 HP / 4 Def Grassy Seed Tera Ghost Sneasler: 117-138 (38.8 - 45.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
Nope. That's a dead bird.

Defensive Lando-T?
0 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. +1 0 HP / 4 Def Grassy Seed Tera Ghost Sneasler in Grassy Terrain: 76-90 (25.2 - 29.9%) -- 0.1% chance to 4HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
Nope. Your Lando is set up fodder!

Moltres?
+2 252+ Atk Tera Ghost Sneasler Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 248+ Def Moltres: 333-393 (86.9 - 102.6%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
Good luck keeping your Moltres from taking 10% chip over the course of the match.
ehhhh.... nope.

"Tera" Clef?
0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tera Ghost Sneasler: 118-141 (39.2 - 46.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
Seriously, what can Clef do to this thing? I guess you could Tera Steel and try to Encore it into Gunk Shot? But Sneasler doesn't need to Gunk Shot, because
+2 252+ Atk Tera Ghost Sneasler Shadow Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 220-261 (55.8 - 66.2%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery
That's a nope from me dawg.

Dondozo?
Finally a real counter. Guess what else Sneasler teams run? That's right, Rillaboom.

Toxapex?
Guess who else gets messed up by Rillaboom. And I think you're in pretty bad straits if you're resorting to Pex, blud is suboptimal B on the VR on a good day.

Hotel?
Trivago.

oh come on, stop posting these apocalyptic calcs. People use them for the sake of the argument and they are, in the end, just plain cherry-picking.

first of all you need to SD to get your precious +2, which is not free: it leaves you vulnerable to dying, or be crippled.

second, and this is the real weakness of the weasel: if it has the wrong coverage, it’s forced to switch. You don’t want that because you lose your unburden bonus and it’s bye-bye sweep.

you all need to calm down and see how the meta evolves.
 
oh come on, stop posting these apocalyptic calcs. People use them for the sake of the argument and they are, in the end, just plain cherry-picking.

first of all you need to SD to get your precious +2, which is not free: it leaves you vulnerable to dying, or be crippled.

second, and this is the real weakness of the weasel: if it has the wrong coverage, it’s forced to switch. You don’t want that because you lose your unburden bonus and it’s bye-bye sweep.

you all need to calm down and see how the meta evolves.

"how will this mon that gets a free def boost, can invest in bulk, and can change its type ever get an SD off??"

Anyway, as for your second point, what if it has the right coverage? Do you just lose?
 
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oh come on, stop posting these apocalyptic calcs. People use them for the sake of the argument and they are, in the end, just plain cherry-picking.

first of all you need to SD to get your precious +2, which is not free: it leaves you vulnerable to dying, or be crippled.

second, and this is the real weakness of the weasel: if it has the wrong coverage, it’s forced to switch. You don’t want that because you lose your unburden bonus and it’s bye-bye sweep.

you all need to calm down and see how the meta evolves.
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I respectfully disagree with this a lot.

Gliscor ban has shifted a ton ranging from incremental moveset shifts like Ice Spinner’s fall in popularity to outright personnel changes involving other Ground types and Flying types seeing more usage. We have seen a renaissance of Sneasler and Grassy Terrain teams continued to see an uptick, Zapdos is quickly soaring up viability charts in my mind, and plenty of other smaller players are either being used more or at least within different applications. And Gliscor had advantages into specific Sneasler and Gholdengo sets, too, so there’s direct stuff as well.

We have been under fire before many times for not surveying too much after prior bans, especially when quickbans are on the table — and it’s possible they are now. It is important to establish expectations and let the metagame reset, meaning that the cadence we had established has been repeated here and the metagame has had a few days to now reset. Realistically some people on council didn’t even want to survey or act yet, so the fact that we even have action on the table and a survey out alone is good. Not having one and then expecting action isn’t realistic. Quite frankly normally at this stage with DLC2 a month out, we normally would wrap things up and not move much more, but I want to stick with my promise to keep focus and improvement on the current metagame, so yea.

Have the council considered quickbannijg Senasler if the survey numbers are high enough? Suspect test appears to be quite pointless at this point, and Sneasler is actively harming the stability of the tier until DLC2 drops
 
"how will this mon that gets a free def boost, can invest in bulk, and can change its type ever get and SD off??"

Anyway, as for your second point, what if it has the right coverage? Do you just lose?
Sneasler can invest in bulk? Thats pretty odd, i guess people want that swords dance
oh come on, stop posting these apocalyptic calcs. People use them for the sake of the argument and they are, in the end, just plain cherry-picking.

first of all you need to SD to get your precious +2, which is not free: it leaves you vulnerable to dying, or be crippled.

second, and this is the real weakness of the weasel: if it has the wrong coverage, it’s forced to switch. You don’t want that because you lose your unburden bonus and it’s bye-bye sweep.

you all need to calm down and see how the meta evolves.
that is the main flaw of sneasler, if you force a sneasler switch, you basically beat sneasler, but grassy seed and terrain lets sneasler set up swords dance in the face of earthquakers, i personally don’t take issue with sneasler but its not this useless overhyped gimmick mon that you demand everyone think it is
 
You guys ever lose to something then try and counter it with your team -- only to realize you've gotten worse because of the change? That's how I feel the metagame is. The departure of Gliscor really has opened up the way for Sneasler stuffs to prove its worth. That's not to forget the facts of Kingambit and Gholdengo being persistent issues. DLC 2 in all fairness only has a Tera Type, a few new pokemon, and some sparce old friends returning to shake up OU assuming we don't have the Ultra Beasts and Tapus. I don't think much is going to change but as always there will be riots. There will be emotion. And Heads Will Roll.
 
first of all you need to SD to get your precious +2, which is not free: it leaves you vulnerable to dying, or be crippled.

it kind of is free since theyre usually coming in as you set one up. if you force them into their sneasler "check" then you literally get an extra turn for said +2, if that isnt free i dont know what is. unless by "not free" you mean "sneasler gets paid to grab a turn to set up" in which case i agree. the only matchup where it doesnt get a free SD without burning tera is against offense which it already runs over without boosts anyway
 
Sneasler can invest in bulk? Thats pretty odd, i guess people want that swords dance

You dont need any speed evs to outrun +1 valiant after unburden, which is the fastest mon that youll see in the meta aside from like transformed ash gren and some swift swimmers. Most sneaslers just throw a lot of it or all of it into hp, since those guys get fried by rilla anyway.
 
Corviknight?
+2 252+ Atk Tera Ghost Sneasler Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 300-354 (75.1 - 88.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
A little bit of chip and you're dead. And what can Corv do in return?
0 Atk Corviknight Brave Bird vs. +1 0 HP / 4 Def Grassy Seed Tera Ghost Sneasler: 117-138 (38.8 - 45.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
Nope. That's a dead bird.
Minor nitpick, but shouldn't Sneasler be at +0 Def after a close combat here? Unless Corviknight is outspeeding (somehow), I think the calc should be:

0 Atk Corviknight Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Grassy Seed Tera Ghost Sneasler: 172-204 (57.1 - 67.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

Everything else seems accurate though.
 
Its more so that gholdengo keeps entire styles in check. Its really good vs fat especially with covert cloak. I think that without it we would see a major stall/ semi stall takeover because garg and dozo are amazing new tools for fat that a lot of wallbreakers struggle with. I dont want to play another meta where its unkillable fat vs unkillable fat for 3000 years like it was in the gliscor meta, which is why I personally gave gholdengo a 2.
Edit: or maybe a 3 i dont remmember
Ok so genuinely curious, in your mind, what's the difference between "keeping a style in check" and "making a whole playstyle unviable". Like, I think the platonic ideal everyone strives towards is a balanced metagame with lots of viable options and playstyles. Other people winning with a playstyle I don't like or think is boring isn't a problem to me, what would really suck is if I had to run that same, limited playstyle to have any competative success. So what do you think is the dividing line? How effectively does a single mon have to counter a certain playstyle before it becomes suffocating and meta-warping?
 
Summary of the 34 (and me) people who posted in this thread so far:


Average
Gholdengo4.20
Sneasler4.14
Kingambit3.46
Manaphy2.94
Ogerpon-W3.31

A few 1s are pulling Sneasler down. And Gholdengo got a funny number.
Gholdengo might actually go before sneasler, we may actually be winning folks

i deleted my last post becuase i realised i sound like an attention seeker, sorry guys
 
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