Brother the fact that you have to run 2-3 checks for ONE (1) pokemon means it has warped the format. Kingambit is still overpowered and uncompetitive, people have just followed the bend.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3
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Can confirm Glowking is really nice right now. Haven't tried it with Garg yet, but I've been running AV with both psychock and future sight to surprise some specially bulky mons. As you say, partnering with Rilla is awesome, but I find that Tusk really appreciates it taking many of the special attacks that it can't take, such as moth's energy ball/psychic, Valiant's moonblast, even Ribombee's attacks.
It's just a solid glue, and I've replaced Codsire with it on any bulkier teams since I appreciate that it isn't passive like clod. Take my words with a grain (or a mountain) of salt though since I'm lowladder.
My brother in allah, he was basically saying its been unhealthy for so long that having of half of your team be checks to it just to be shafted by tera most of time is seen as normal
good set lad, its ok to run speed evs on defensive zapdos, but to the extent of only having 231 defense just to outspeed tusk? thats abit too far imo
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Gen 9 OU if Tera still remained but Kingambit and Gholdengo were banned:
Tera should also be banned, really. But we’ve already had that conversation a ton, so let’s wait until we see what Tera 19 does in DLC 2.
OU if Gholdengo stays legal
OU if Gholdengo gets banned
Kind of a no win situation here. Really think Gholdengo needs to get banned, but also is going to make the format way worse short term. Long term it's incredibly unhealthy, ruins format diversity, and creates a bad interaction with hazards. Short term it's also checking a bunch of stuff that are borderline too strong. Banning it is gonna unleash the gates of hell, but it'll be worth it long term.
Also I'd bet money that even if tera type 19 let you tera 3 mons and hit everything super effectively, tera would still not be banned, we'd just complex ban tera type 19 the same way MRay was banned from mega evolving using dragon's ascent. Tera is way too popular of a mechanic to ban wholesale, and I think if a ban was going to come down, it needed to come down early on in the generation. It's too little too late now.
OU if Gholdengo gets banned
Kind of a no win situation here. Really think Gholdengo needs to get banned, but also is going to make the format way worse short term. Long term it's incredibly unhealthy, ruins format diversity, and creates a bad interaction with hazards. Short term it's also checking a bunch of stuff that are borderline too strong. Banning it is gonna unleash the gates of hell, but it'll be worth it long term.
Also I'd bet money that even if tera type 19 let you tera 3 mons and hit everything super effectively, tera would still not be banned, we'd just complex ban tera type 19 the same way MRay was banned from mega evolving using dragon's ascent. Tera is way too popular of a mechanic to ban wholesale, and I think if a ban was going to come down, it needed to come down early on in the generation. It's too little too late now.
>Plays vs a hazard stacking team without Ghold
>Sends out Tusk against a burnt Hamu
“Removing these hazards should be easy :clueless:”
>Tera Ghost Hamu
>Tusk dies and hazards stay up
*forfeits match*
This would be prevented if we didn’t rely on Tusk to spin every game. Ban Ghold so we can have access to Defoggers and we don’t have to play a cat and mouse game with spooky ghosts.
edit: also for all you stall fearmongers out there. If you ban Ghold, wallbreakers become easier to use cause there is less opportunity to wear them down with chip dmg.
>Sends out Tusk against a burnt Hamu
“Removing these hazards should be easy :clueless:”
>Tera Ghost Hamu
>Tusk dies and hazards stay up
*forfeits match*
This would be prevented if we didn’t rely on Tusk to spin every game. Ban Ghold so we can have access to Defoggers and we don’t have to play a cat and mouse game with spooky ghosts.
edit: also for all you stall fearmongers out there. If you ban Ghold, wallbreakers become easier to use cause there is less opportunity to wear them down with chip dmg.
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This was what I was afraid of from that start of this gen. That these sorts of things would become popularity contests instead of focusing on just balance. And balance is supposed to be the whole point of Smogon. It's ok to ban Dynamax for being broken because it isn't well liked. It's not ok to ban Tera for being broken because it is well liked. That's not what we should be striving for.
As much as I appreciate the more collaborative approach Smogon leadership has taken in as far involving and considering the community more than ever, the community needs to make sure we don't undermine everything just to play favorites or to get rid of our pet peeve flavor of the moment.
As for it being too late, it's not too late at all. If it is decided that Tera is broken once and for all, they can take action any time. They can even do a slower, multi-stage process. It won't happen until after the next DLC comes out, but this isn't even that far off by now. It's not like people can say Smogon didn't give the mechanic a shot this time.
I know they do different things but I've really been enjoying the 301 speed defensive zapdos. The 290-300 speed tier is so crowded and being able to outspeed stuff like tusk, ghold, glimm, and sammurott is soo useful. I think post gliscor ban zapdos has been one of the best pokemon in the tier and could definitely hold together some balance structures. It really struggles vs ogerpon rock though, and even your proposed teammates for zap get cooked by it (that thing is seriously underrated imo).
it’ll always turn into a popularity contest tho.
it’s no secret that Tera on its own isn’t broken, we’ve used the examples before… when was the last time zapdos using Tera bothered you?
it’s always the highest power threats that go up another gear thanks to Tera.. the face of it has been kingambit all generation, and it’s almost obvious at this point that the Tera discourse will go down a lot if gambit is banned.
and the argument has always been:
option 1: keep Tera, and sack more pokemon from OU
option 2: ban or restrict Tera, in an attempt to preserve more pokemon in OU
at least they're actually right about a (potential) ban being a W for stall this time
658Greninja artificialdeath
both of these statements are true:
stall rarely uses gholdengo to block your hazard removal
Gholdengo is conveniently useful verse stall
both of these statements are true:
stall rarely uses gholdengo to block your hazard removal
Gholdengo is conveniently useful verse stall
Why should it always be a popularity contest? Why can't we have the same standards for things? What is the point of making an as balanced as GF makes possible system for competitive Pokémon with Smogon if we are just going to undo all those principles just because of what is popular or not?
Either something is broken or it isn't. Popularity shouldn't dictate what we are lenient towards or not.
I don't want to turn this into an argument about Tera because we have had plenty of those those, and this likely isn't the time, but the Dynamax gen didn't have 20+ bans in the tier. Soon to be 25 at this pace. Heck, it will probably be 30+ if Tera isn't banned. You can argue many of these bans so far were broken outside of Tera, but certainly not all of them. This won't get better as time goes on, bans increase, and more things that were overshadowed by prior broken things reveal themselves to also be broken.
By this logic, Dynamax Tapu Fini isn't broken.
If you want another faulty analogy, imagine banning every Max Airstream user in gen 8 just to try to justify not banning the Dynamax mechanic.
And that's exactly what I've been doing as well. I run Tusk, Lando AND an Heatran specifically EV'd to outspeed Gambit itself, and yet the second my opponent gets enough chip on my mons (because unless you kill Gambit immediately you will end up with some of your teammates weakened, it's just how the game goes) this absolute fucker manages to turn the tables of the match by itself. Sure, it may not happen frequently, but it happens enough to be a constant worry whenever facing that mon, which just so happens to be the most popular mon in the tier right now (at least as of last month). This has now lead me to change my Waterpon set to include Encore as well, JUST to have an ulterior check to Gambit. Now, I don't pretend to be the best player around, but I do hang in the 1900s (1920 or something on the ladder as I'm writing this post) and I refuse to believe that I'm the problem here. There HAS to be some kind of impact that Kingambit is leaving on the meta, and I find it absurd to simply ignore this fact. And of course, it doesn't help that Gambit's longevity gets significantly increased by all of its defensive Teras. It's the worst feeling ever when your opponent hasn't Tera'd any of its mons yet and you don't know if the Gambit in front of you is gonna end up switching because of your Tusk, Tera Flying to become almost untouchable unless you run Ice Spinner, or Tera Fairy to straight up hit you with a Tera Blast and knock the shit outta your check.
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Hey so I know Sneasler is banned, but I need to understand something:
Why did Sneasler invest in max speed? It only needed 164 EVs to outspeed even Scarf Pult after Unburden.
Could those EVs have been better allocated into extra bulk?
I know it's irrelevant for Sneasler now, but since I'm a menace using Unburden Grafaiai, I'm trying to understand why it matters if I'm only ever using the unbridled nonsense of the Unburdened speed.
Honestly, I've wondered the same about Hawlucha and Unburden users in general:
If the entire point is to lose your item and go to town, why are we bothering to over-invest into speed? Could those EVs go towards actually bulk so that the Unburden Sweeper can tank an extra hit?
And now a broader question: Do higher level players actually mess with EV spreads knowing the meta? Like besides generic 252/252 whatnot, are there tournament players who invest like VGC Landorus-T (212HP/36Atk/4Def/4SpDef/252Speed)?
Why did Sneasler invest in max speed? It only needed 164 EVs to outspeed even Scarf Pult after Unburden.
Could those EVs have been better allocated into extra bulk?
I know it's irrelevant for Sneasler now, but since I'm a menace using Unburden Grafaiai, I'm trying to understand why it matters if I'm only ever using the unbridled nonsense of the Unburdened speed.
Honestly, I've wondered the same about Hawlucha and Unburden users in general:
If the entire point is to lose your item and go to town, why are we bothering to over-invest into speed? Could those EVs go towards actually bulk so that the Unburden Sweeper can tank an extra hit?
And now a broader question: Do higher level players actually mess with EV spreads knowing the meta? Like besides generic 252/252 whatnot, are there tournament players who invest like VGC Landorus-T (212HP/36Atk/4Def/4SpDef/252Speed)?
well, since someone deleted my survey link, i'm going to have to cut it short and announce the results now:
so it seems that the general consensus among people who took the survey is that we should be looking at gambit instead of tera. now, this was an informal, unofficial, and half-in-jest poll, so the sample size is a lot smaller than the official surveys and there's no distinction between people who know what they're talking about and people who don't, but the unofficial nature of it means that respondents are more likely to be following this thread, and it's less likely to be botted or spammed because it won't officially lead to anything. i checked each individual response, and the time between most responses was usually a couple minutes or more; for the few exceptions where two or three answers were submitted at around the same time, the content of the responses varied. this indicates that the survey wasn't manipulated in a noticeable way—botting or spamming would result in a significant number of identical responses in a very short period of time. so i do think this data does provide some valuable insight on, at the very least, where regulars in this discussion thread stand on the gambit/tera question, which is important because it shows that statements like "everyone is sick of tera" or "everyone wants to see gambit gone" are inaccurate
as for whoever on the mod team deleted my initial post, apologies for it being a one-liner, i guess? i'm just trying to gauge people's feelings on what they think of tera vs gambit. if i accidentally stepped on any toes by making a survey, sorry for that. if it was just because you didn't think i was actually serious about the survey thing, yeah, i can't fault you for that, it's perfectly understandable
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competing against other unburden Sneaslers was the trend
Honestly? I'd rather focus on banning Gambit instead of Tera. Not only is the idea of a Tera suspect unpopular and contingent on whatever nonsense Aurora gets up to at this point, and therefore much harder to get off the ground to begin with, Gambit just annoys me so much at this point I want it gone. It's an uncompetitive coin flip that decides large swathes of what's OU and what's UU based on who can sometimes live a Sucker Punch. Bisharp has been one of my favorites for ages since I first played White and I always wished it was more consistently OU compatible, so watching myself slowly grow to hate seeing Bisharp But More is sad.
Some people liked running max Speed to make sure that they outsped some mons outside of Grassy Terrain just in case, or to outspeed opposing Sneaslers after Unburden, but I've personally always run max Atk Adamant because of how vital that extra damage felt. You could have EVd your Sneasler to be a bit more bulky, but at the end of the day it was very situational, and since the Grassy Seed already provided a boost to its Defense and any extra bulk on its Special Defense was pretty irrelevant most of the time, people just focused on its Atk and Speed. Again, if you wanna experiment with some different EV spreads you're free to do so, but you gotta consider how often those EVs will come in handy compared to a standard set.
Absolutely, hopping on the Damage Calculator to check your team and know your chances against the most common sets in the meta is a very important step of teambuilding. Once again your decision on how to properly EV a mon will depend on how you feel about certain matchups and situations, with rare occasional wins that may otherwise be losses not being worth it if they hinder your overall consistency with a mon/team.
Yes??? I'm not even high level by any means, and I've definitely done a lot of calcs before to try and finetune specific EV spreads to minmax what a Pokemon can do. And I know Tournement players absolutely would because that kind of finetuning is even more important in high stakes games to get every bit of advantage you can
yes, a lot of high-level builders will fine-tune evs. if you know your mons' matchups and how commonly you'll see said matchups, you can optimize your evs to live certain hits, outspeed certain things, or score certain kos while having extra evs left over to put into something else. hell, i'm not the best with matchup spreads or building myself but even i tweak evs to more efficiently hit certain speed tiers
When teambuilding, I don't really care about calcs / EV spreads until I get messed up in battle and realize "Oh yeah, 32 speed evs on Toxapex to outspeed their hatterene would be pretty neat". Same deal with Tera types. The gravity of what match-ups having a certain Tera type for aren't really apparent until one plays and feels the pain themselves. For example, on Gholdengo, I typically default to the standard Tera Fairy sets, but lately I have been making teams that were either extremely weak to Dragapult Shadow Ball Spam or extremely weak to Heatran. Once I experience losing to those mons, I swap the Tera type to Tera Dark for Dragapult or Tera Water for Heatran.
In general, I am not the best teambuilder. I don't enjoy spending 40+ minutes in the planning stages and either not making any progress when building or scrapping whatever concept I have. This does tend to mean that whatever team I build does wind up having a lot of overlap in terms of concepts and perhaps I try to cook up too much at once, but experimentation by actually playing the game always feels like the easiest way to learn, rather than being locked to a specific building pattern (i.e. including Great Tusk on a team because hazard removal good. I don't like running Great Tusk because its weaknesses overlap so hard with various other mons I'm running like Ting-Lu and makes match-ups like Enamorus very difficult).
Regarding Tera, I've seen arguements that it both makes teambuilding easier and more difficult. I'm not really sure which camp I fall on in that debate. Some of the best defenseive options like Garganacl wouldn't be anywhere near as good without Tera, but Tera does make prepping for Pokemon like Kingambit harder. Lately, I haven't been feeling the pain of Kingambit as much though because most players I face opt to Tera another Pokemon. Players at the top feel otherwise and I'd imagine a well-played Kingambit is a significantly greater burden at the top of the ladder than the mid-1700s.
In general, I am not the best teambuilder. I don't enjoy spending 40+ minutes in the planning stages and either not making any progress when building or scrapping whatever concept I have. This does tend to mean that whatever team I build does wind up having a lot of overlap in terms of concepts and perhaps I try to cook up too much at once, but experimentation by actually playing the game always feels like the easiest way to learn, rather than being locked to a specific building pattern (i.e. including Great Tusk on a team because hazard removal good. I don't like running Great Tusk because its weaknesses overlap so hard with various other mons I'm running like Ting-Lu and makes match-ups like Enamorus very difficult).
Regarding Tera, I've seen arguements that it both makes teambuilding easier and more difficult. I'm not really sure which camp I fall on in that debate. Some of the best defenseive options like Garganacl wouldn't be anywhere near as good without Tera, but Tera does make prepping for Pokemon like Kingambit harder. Lately, I haven't been feeling the pain of Kingambit as much though because most players I face opt to Tera another Pokemon. Players at the top feel otherwise and I'd imagine a well-played Kingambit is a significantly greater burden at the top of the ladder than the mid-1700s.
Listen I'm all for the "fuck Kingambit" train but please stop calling it uncompetitive. I know this is me being semantic as hell, but "uncompetitive" has a specific connotation for removal of agency during battle (e.g. SwagPlay). There's full agency against Kingambit, it's just a stupidly strong Pokémon.
supreme overlord directly rewards you for losing the game. i know it doesn't fit the definition of "uncompetitive" that we use but i certainly wouldn't call that competitive
not a good argument imo. all things present within a match are decisive in who wins/loses. by your reasoning, everything would fall under “uncompetitive”.
gambit isn’t uncompetitive, it’s arguably overpowered.
Supreme Overlord and Last Respects are just extrapolations of moves like Reversal and Flail: High risk, high reward mechanics that require your Pokemon be in a losing position.
Then someone stepped on the keyboard when they were setting values for just how high the reward would be.
Then someone stepped on the keyboard when they were setting values for just how high the reward would be.
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