Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3

[DaddyBuzzwole]

smogon "most laugh reacts in 10 minutes" category world record holder

i think i might actually hold that record

(before anyone says anything, i checked and lavos only got like 6 laugh reacts on his rant the day he posted it)

If Lando-T were in his prime in now, I think it would get banned.

not true. lando-t was never banworthy, even at his prime. omnipresent? yes. annoying? no doubt about it. unbelievably versatile? certainly. suspect-worthy in gen 7? potentially, but so was half the tier. lando-t has always had a plethora of both checks and counters in the tier that kept him from ever being overbearing

 

[Moyashi]

I've tried playing Gen 8 again these past few days, and you guys must have forgotten how garbage that meta was, with fat Stall mons on every single team and bulky cores with Teleport and Wish literally everywhere,

Oh were still pushing this narrative about gen 8? Gen8 was balance heavy.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

Idk what you need to consider a pokemon as a defensive stall mon, but Alomomola, Corviknight, Toxapex, The weird monkey Fighting/Poison, Clefable, Blissey, Dondozo, Ting-Lu, I think that's enough no ?

These sound like fat balance, Okidogi and Dirge are both offensive setup sweepers that have a good defensive presence, and Garg doesn't really have a place on full stall due to Tera reliance, it also applies much more offensive pressure than stall teams do

A full stall team functions and succeeds by playing reactively, eg responding defensively to what the opponent does. Balance relies on double and forced switches to create setup or breaking opportunities and therefore is a more proactive playstyle.

Fat balance creates these opportunities through forcing switches by walling Pokémon. Stall has no need for these opportunities and does not seek them out, but instead wins through chip damage over several turns. Fat balance may feel the same as stall when you're playing against it but they play very differently

 

[viivian]

Oh were still pushing this narrative about gen 8? Gen8 was balance heavy.

yeah i have not seen much stall teams in SWSH OU, in stark contrast to the amount of balance and bulky offense teams running around in that format. was the metagame slow? yes, moreso than any generation in a very long time. but was it supposedly dominated by stall builds? not by any means

 

[Cheryl.]

OU players hate to see balance cores actually become somewhat viable, did I really just see someone calling OKIDOGI a sign of "stall meta"?

 

[Garance]

OU players hate to see balance cores actually become somewhat viable, did I really just see someone calling OKIDOGI a sign of "stall meta"?

I've never said that ? But 5 defensives mons (Blissey, Alomomola, Clefable, Dondozo, Corviknight) + Okidogi with KOff, Toxic and Taunt is not a BALANCE.
And i've seen the exact same one replacing Okidogi with Toxapex. This is still not a BALANCE.

These sound like fat balance, Okidogi and Dirge are both offensive setup sweepers that have a good defensive presence, and Garg doesn't really have a place on full stall due to Tera reliance, it also applies much more offensive pressure than stall teams do

Yes; I said 8 stalls and 5 balance in approx a dozen games.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I've never said that ? But 5 defensives mons (Blissey, Alomomola, Clefable, Dondozo, Corviknight) + Okidogi with KOff, Toxic and Taunt is not a BALANCE.
And i've seen the exact same one replacing Okidogi with Toxapex. This is still not a BALANCE.



Yes; I said 8 stalls and 5 balance in approx a dozen games.

i'm just going to say what we're all thinking: you don't know what stall is

 

[Garance]

i'm just going to say what we're all thinking: you don't know what stall is

Ok, I'm gonna assume I am really really bad, and this is not a stall but a Balance, thanks for the advices and the clarification.
Sorry for sharing my thoughts.

 

[Eeveeto]

Ok, I'm gonna assume I am really really bad, and this is not a stall but a Balance, thanks for the advices and the clarification.
Sorry for sharing my thoughts.

View attachment 572512

AV Alomomola, Curse Dondozo, CM Blissey, LO Clefable, BU Corviknight and BandPex, clearly a bulky offense team.

 

[viivian]

OU players hate to see balance cores actually become somewhat viable, did I really just see someone calling OKIDOGI a sign of "stall meta"?

the possibility of okidogi being a legitimate OU pokemon is something we as a playerbase must strive to build towards. last week we banned gliscor, last night we banned sneasler, tonight we must ban gholdengo. it will never be okidogover on our watch.

I've never said that ? But 5 defensives mons (Blissey, Alomomola, Clefable, Dondozo, Corviknight) + Okidogi with KOff, Toxic and Taunt is not a BALANCE.
And i've seen the exact same one replacing Okidogi with Toxapex. This is still not a BALANCE.

hating on stall/fat with a milotic PFP kinda crazy but i digress. you clearly implied okidogi was a stall pokemon when you responded to someone pointing out that skeledirge and garganacl arent stall pokemon. not sure why youre trying to deny it as if you didnt outright state that okidogi is a stall pokemon not even an hour ago. and contrary to your beliefs okidogi does actually fit on balance teams and not stall teams. what you described is indeed a balance team!

 

[YubelVT]

Don't do anything with these numbers, because it doesn't actually mean anything. Just look at them. A little less than half of what we banned are thriving in Ubers. And i'm sure someone will figure out some cracked Electric Seed Sneasler build up there where it can do exactly what it did in OU, but actually have to answer to something faster than it even after Unburden.

Take it from the guy that tried to use sneasler as an anti scarfer in ubers, Offensive Trick Room Calyrex Ice does what sneasler wants to do but better and can also take a hit in a pinch

 

[Garance]

the possibility of okidogi being a legitimate OU pokemon is something we as a playerbase must strive to build towards. last week we banned gliscor, last night we banned sneasler, tonight we must ban gholdengo. it will never be okidogover on our watch.



hating on stall/fat with a milotic PFP kinda crazy but i digress. you clearly implied okidogi was a stall pokemon when you responded to someone pointing out that skeledirge and garganacl arent stall pokemon. not sure why youre trying to deny it as if you didnt outright state that okidogi is a stall pokemon not even an hour ago. and contrary to your beliefs okidogi does actually fit on balance teams and not stall teams. what you described is indeed a balance team!

Yeah OK but if we are just commenting PfP to give arguments, am gonna stop there. Thanks for the clarification once more and sorry for the misunderstanding :)

 

[viivian]

i was just making a lighthearted joke, my bad

 

[1LDK]

I don't care how many hahas I will get from this straight-up ignorant one-liner in the eyes of many, but 99% of the time, fat balance is just stall but with a CM mon added, either CM Clef or CM Mega-Latias (gen 7 exclusive), right now there's some variety at least with garganacl, curse donzo, skeledirge, gliscor when he was on the tier, NP Torn-T or whatever the fuck new evil machination comes out of the stall empire

Which btw, who wants to collab for Nasty Plot Glowking, I know you guys want it, it screams for you

 

[Kin+ak (✧∇✧)]

I don't care how many hahas I will get from this straight-up ignorant one-liner in the eyes of many, but 99% of the time, fat balance is just stall but with a CM mon added, either CM Clef or CM Mega-Latias (gen 7 exclusive), right now there's some variety at least with garganacl, curse donzo, skeledirge, gliscor when he was on the tier, NP Torn-T or whatever the fuck new evil machination comes out of the stall empire

Which btw, who wants to collab for Nasty Plot Glowking, I know you guys want it, it screams for you

"one liner". Let me teach u what's a one liner

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I don't care how many hahas I will get from this straight-up ignorant one-liner in the eyes of many, but 99% of the time, fat balance is just stall but with a CM mon added, either CM Clef or CM Mega-Latias (gen 7 exclusive), right now there's some variety at least with garganacl, curse donzo, skeledirge, gliscor when he was on the tier, NP Torn-T or whatever the fuck new evil machination comes out of the stall empire

Which btw, who wants to collab for Nasty Plot Glowking, I know you guys want it, it screams for you

well, you're not entirely wrong, "fat balance" is just a way to say "semistall" without looking like a stall player, but there's usually at least two non-stallmons on those kinds of teams; saying that they're just stall + calm mind is an oversimplification

"one liner". Let me teach u what's a one liner

this is the boldest thing i've seen anyone do on the entire forum and i hope it stays up just because of the sheer audacity

 

[RedShiftS]

Now that Sneasler is banned, I can stop run dondozo now.

But iron valiant will become problematic in the future, but for now the meta is pretty good, just ban Gholdengo and garganacl kingambit and the meta will be a 9/10 for me

 

[bumboclaat]

I don't care how many hahas I will get from this straight-up ignorant one-liner in the eyes of many, but 99% of the time, fat balance is just stall but with a CM mon added, either CM Clef or CM Mega-Latias (gen 7 exclusive), right now there's some variety at least with garganacl, curse donzo, skeledirge, gliscor when he was on the tier, NP Torn-T or whatever the fuck new evil machination comes out of the stall empire

Which btw, who wants to collab for Nasty Plot Glowking, I know you guys want it, it screams for you

It may be my memory failing but when I think back to gen 6/7 semistall structures it is more full stall with something like as a 6th mon compared to structures which usually contain mons such as and which are never found on stalls.

 

[Ironcondria]

With Sneasler gone I'll say this, Ogerpon-water is the next one on the chopping block. It'll take it's place in ho with both of them having sd, a speed stat of 350 beating nearly everything in the ou tier, and easy setup opportunities such as using Alomamola. There isn't anything that can check Ogerpon-water well because it can basically 2-shot almost anything with an sd and some sort of damaging entry hazard. Even the most physically defensive mons are forced to tera just to have a chance at it. Ivy Cudgel is just insane, the high crit rate and spamability of this move makes it super easy to end games with just 1 crit killing blowing past a potential check or even outright killing it. I almost forgot to mention that it can tera water increasing the power of ivy cudgel as well as making faster mons such as specs Dragapult unable to kill it with that spedef boost. The fact that it also has 0 drawbacks and isn't contact makes it hard to chip or cripple pon. The way I would see people trying to beat Sneasler was to either hope for a paralysis from Zapdos, outright tank it(although dire claw could mess you up), or you would use priority with his weakened defenses such as gambit. Speaking of priority, it's defensive typing and stats are great, being able to take powerful hits such as banded Rillaboom grassy-glide clocking in at 85.7% or even A-ninetails 4x super effective STAB freeze dry only having a 12.5% chance to ohko. You might say that a little chip is all it takes to take pon down with it having no way of passive healing. But there is one move that although isn't the standard, fits really well with his kit, horn leech. While on the weaker side, horn-leech does a great job at allowing it to not get revenge killed by priority and continue it's sweep but if that's not your cup of tea, trailblaze also works allowing it to out-speed every pokemon after a single boost besides be Valiant. I almost also forgot to mention that pon's allies enable it to easily snowball teams such as Gholdengo who can take all the super-effective hits that would kill pon and prevent hazard removal and Zapdos who can switch in and cripple pon's checks.
TL;DR:The combination of amazing offense and speed, great defenses and typing, the abundance of hazard stacking, and setup opportunities makes me think that pon is next to be suspected or outright banned.
Although, one could make the argument that Gholdengo would be next because of it's presence allowing hazard stacking.

 

[Roshino]

"one liner". Let me teach u what's a one liner

God damn LMAO

-

Now, on the whole stall vs semistall vs BO vs (...) thing

I mean, those words are all ways to (intentionally) simplify very abstract concepts, right? Nomenclature is just a means to the end of a meaningful discussion.
IMO stall isn't that much of a problem, it is just plain and straight boring to play against and I share that sentiment, regardless of how skillful it may or may not be. Garganacl for instance may not be a full stallmon if we go through naming conventions but it shares the gameplay frame of "take little to no damage, grind down the enemy quite slowly".

Detaching the whole power dynamics from the discussion, I'm sure most non-stall players agree it is a chore to play 150 turns against a heavily defensive team - by the end, losing or winning I'm just glad it's over

 

[arnimacarni]

AV Alomomola, Curse Dondozo, CM Blissey, LO Clefable, BU Corviknight and BandPex, clearly a bulky offense team.

In all seriousness, although BandPex is clearly bad, it's a set that I had some fun with last gen, and I wish Merciless was more available, I feel like thats such a cool concept for an ability.

 

[viivian]

"one liner". Let me teach u what's a one liner

my man is cooking with some grease goddamn

With Sneasler gone I'll say this, Ogerpon-water is the next one on the chopping block. It'll take it's place in ho with both of them having sd, a speed stat of 350 beating nearly everything in the ou tier, and easy setup opportunities such as using Alomamola. There isn't anything that can check Ogerpon-water well because it can basically 2-shot almost anything with an sd and some sort of damaging entry hazard. Even the most physically defensive mons are forced to tera just to have a chance at it. Ivy Cudgel is just insane, the high crit rate and spamability of this move makes it super easy to end games with just 1 crit killing blowing past a potential check or even outright killing it. I almost forgot to mention that it can tera water increasing the power of ivy cudgel as well as making faster mons such as specs Dragapult unable to kill it with that spedef boost. The fact that it also has 0 drawbacks and isn't contact makes it hard to chip or cripple pon. The way I would see people trying to beat Sneasler was to either hope for a paralysis from Zapdos, outright tank it(although dire claw could mess you up), or you would use priority with his weakened defenses such as gambit. Speaking of priority, it's defensive typing and stats are great, being able to take powerful hits such as banded Rillaboom grassy-glide clocking in at 85.7% or even A-ninetails 4x super effective STAB freeze dry only having a 12.5% chance to ohko. You might say that a little chip is all it takes to take pon down with it having no way of passive healing. But there is one move that although isn't the standard, fits really well with his kit, horn leech. While on the weaker side, horn-leech does a great job at allowing it to not get revenge killed by priority and continue it's sweep but if that's not your cup of tea, trailblaze also works allowing it to out-speed every pokemon after a single boost besides be Valiant. I almost also forgot to mention that pon's allies enable it to easily snowball teams such as Gholdengo who can take all the super-effective hits that would kill pon and prevent hazard removal and Zapdos who can switch in and cripple pon's checks.
TL;DR:The combination of amazing offense and speed, great defenses and typing, the abundance of hazard stacking, and setup opportunities makes me think that pon is next to be suspected or outright banned.
Although, one could make the argument that Gholdengo would be next because of it's presence allowing hazard stacking.

it is most definitely gholdengo who will be suspected next, especially given the high support it recieved for tiering action in the latest survey. suspecting ogerpon-W now doesnt sit right with me, i also want tiering action on it but i think its important we go after other problematic pokemon such as gholdengo first

 

[YNM]

I don't care how many hahas I will get from this straight-up ignorant one-liner in the eyes of many, but 99% of the time, fat balance is just stall but with a CM mon added, either CM Clef or CM Mega-Latias (gen 7 exclusive), right now there's some variety at least with garganacl, curse donzo, skeledirge, gliscor when he was on the tier, NP Torn-T or whatever the fuck new evil machination comes out of the stall empire

Which btw, who wants to collab for Nasty Plot Glowking, I know you guys want it, it screams for you

I think the definitions of Bulky Balance and Semistall fade into each other depending on the way you approach the team you're building. In general, I've always considered a Balanced team a team that has a very straightforward and clear bulky core of roughly 2-3 mons, composed of fat walls/checks to support your strategy and slow down the opposing offensive momentum when they're switched in. An example of "fat balance" in Gen 9 could be something like this:

(despite this being pretty bad imo)
On the other hand, an actual Semistall team would emphasize more on the bulky mons to outstall any strategy other than actual Stall itself. It would also still have 1 or 2 offensive options to threaten the opposing team. Continuing with the example above, it would instead be something like this:

A full-on Stall team is pretty easy to recognize, because the sheer sight of one will either make you rejoice in happiness if you know that you're very likely to win against it (because you're packing a NP Psyshock Tera Flying Dengo in the back), or it's gonna deprive you of your very own appreciation for life itself. An easy example is this:

 

[somebodyuknow2]

A full-on Stall team is pretty easy to recognize, because the sheer sight of one will either make you rejoice in happiness if you know that you're very likely to win against it (because you're packing a NP Psyshock Tera Flying Dengo in the back), or it's gonna deprive you of your very own appreciation for life itself. An easy example is this:
View attachment 572566

1. This is semistall, adds no defensive value here, it's functioning as an alternate wincon
2. The whole thread is memeing that psyshock 6-0s stall but it's not quite that easy. You just need that psyshock + 1 other mon that forces stall to tera, like SD . Having only one of these mons can be solved by tera dark /tera grass .
3. As for a "stall resurgence" after ban, this is unlikely. Stall will most definitely get better, but more importantly, it will get more varied. warps the whole tier, and that includes stall. It's locked into 6 boots or 5 boots + rn, which leads to an already boring type of battle becoming even more repetitive as there is little room for variety in stall teambuilding. Getting rid of the golden menace would make the stall matchup more fun for both players, because the relevant interactions are less predictable. It reduces the matchup fishy aspect of stall by a ton, when stall teams have more room to innovate, and stall-breaking isn't as easily summarized as "bring these 2 already good pokemon and it beats all stall"

 

[ianlazerbeem]

I've never said that ? But 5 defensives mons (Blissey, Alomomola, Clefable, Dondozo, Corviknight) + Okidogi with KOff, Toxic and Taunt is not a BALANCE.
And i've seen the exact same one replacing Okidogi with Toxapex. This is still not a BALANCE.



Yes; I said 8 stalls and 5 balance in approx a dozen games.

Well, you might have to play against teams that aren't HO while laddering. Sorry

1. This is semistall, adds no defensive value here, it's functioning as an alternate wincon
2. The whole thread is memeing that psyshock 6-0s stall but it's not quite that easy. You just need that psyshock + 1 other mon that forces stall to tera, like SD . Having only one of these mons can be solved by tera dark /tera grass .
3. As for a "stall resurgence" after ban, this is unlikely. Stall will most definitely get better, but more importantly, it will get more varied. warps the whole tier, and that includes stall. It's locked into 6 boots or 5 boots + rn, which leads to an already boring type of battle becoming even more repetitive as there is little room for variety in stall teambuilding. Getting rid of the golden menace would make the stall matchup more fun for both players, because the relevant interactions are less predictable. It reduces the matchup fishy aspect of stall by a ton, when stall teams have more room to innovate, and stall-breaking isn't as easily summarized as "bring these 2 already good pokemon and it beats all stall"

Good post, agree with 99%, but notable is Ogerpon-W doesn't force Tera anymore for Leng Loi and HighVoltag3's team (which is the most popular stall right now) since it runs Amoonguss. However this is not without drawbacks as it loses to Tera Gambit if Bozo Sleep Talk calls the wrong moves and Rillaboom is annoying af if paired with spikes