I think an illuminating statistic for this topic is the ubers usage rates. If you think kingambit or great tusk is centralising you should take a look at what koraidon/miraidon is. That's what happens when a pokemon is way stronger than everything around it, you're forced to run It too, to even things out, or you'll be left behind. Those pokemon you mentioned, they're high viability in a metagame that's full of cover Legendaries, teambuilding would be thrown into a chokehold to manage them. It's all good to say flutter mane would stop archaludon for example, but who stops flutter mane??"There are too many threats so we have to ban them all to restore our perfectly balanced metagame"
Or maybe the solution lies in accepting the massive powercreep this generation has brought, and reevaluate the standards of competitive play ? Like, idk, accepting Flutter Mane, Iron Bundle, Palafin and other "broken" pokemons which could have regulated the powercreep. Like in VGC ("it's not the same format", I know, but they face powercreep too).
People have been constantly warning you since the very beginning of this generation, and here we are, countless of bans later, problems still are not solved.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
What I don't understand is
If we have the same amount of mons allowed in OU bar terapagos since the beginning of DLC2
Why the hell was the sentiment back then hey wow nothing seems too powerful this seems like a nice meta
And all of a sudden it's ohhh weee arch rain huwts me
Like either you're acknowledging that strategies have been found to be dominating, which then implies that with the pass of time new strategies will rise, and arch rain is just the team of the week
Or you're being completely disingenuous in your judgment of how things are going. Again, there has literally been no major change in the tier since DLC2 dropped. I was running arch rain by day one. it just happens to be really optimized and effective at this point in time. Next week is gonna be the triple dino sun team, the week after that its gonna be Gravity Lando-T for some reason, the other week is gonna be SneasBoom all over again... trends change, bros.
If we have the same amount of mons allowed in OU bar terapagos since the beginning of DLC2
Why the hell was the sentiment back then hey wow nothing seems too powerful this seems like a nice meta
And all of a sudden it's ohhh weee arch rain huwts me
Like either you're acknowledging that strategies have been found to be dominating, which then implies that with the pass of time new strategies will rise, and arch rain is just the team of the week
Or you're being completely disingenuous in your judgment of how things are going. Again, there has literally been no major change in the tier since DLC2 dropped. I was running arch rain by day one. it just happens to be really optimized and effective at this point in time. Next week is gonna be the triple dino sun team, the week after that its gonna be Gravity Lando-T for some reason, the other week is gonna be SneasBoom all over again... trends change, bros.
Strategies obviously pop up and refine themselves as time goes. The metagame now is different than the metagame a month ago or even a week ago. A lot of the exploits we see people discuss didn’t arise until January despite release being mid-December, for example.
But things being suspect tested have had time for the metagame to react and just lack the counterplay in the eyes of many. It’s not about having a flavor of the week — this is a matter of making consistent, competitive play possible and teambuilding with variety commonplace
the issue with this is that you are undermining the actual ripple effects of these developments even if usage appears volatile. sure, things are discovered, and some things are adapted to, but there are some things that are more easy and reasonable to adapt to than others. in the case of more oppressive developments (like sneasler rilla comps) they can either remain oppressive by adapting back, or in some cases, not needing to adapt back in order to leave a lingering impact just through raw strength and resilience (like kyurem or archaludon).
arch rain was not recognized to be as potent as it is until recently due to increased and optimized usage through spl and ladder, and having these empirical results demonstrate the dynamics that archaludon has with the tier, even after its impact has been felt. the ways in which its adapted to after that point are, debatably, not healthy in the context of the tier, and the ripple effects onto teambuilding patterns can leave a negative, monotonous, and imbalanced effect on battle dynamics over time. a bit of an extreme comparison, but think of dracovish and how many people were complacent to its power once the shock phase subsided because of how teambuilding and playing patterns were so radically controlled by the potential of it running over teams otherwise.
I feel like a perfect example of this is gen 8 kyurem. It at some point was RUBL, then it was eventually banned from OU both because people realised that it was mega cracked and there were other mons that were broken.
I could also talk about arena trap in Gen 4, which wasn't banned until years later when people realised how stupid it was, or what about Moltres in Gen 1. That took almost 2 decades for people to realise that it was decent and not a bad mon.
The point I'm trying to make is that a metagame shift constantly and even 'solved' metagames can have large changes.
I could also talk about arena trap in Gen 4, which wasn't banned until years later when people realised how stupid it was, or what about Moltres in Gen 1. That took almost 2 decades for people to realise that it was decent and not a bad mon.
The point I'm trying to make is that a metagame shift constantly and even 'solved' metagames can have large changes.
Thank you for your posts. I understand where you're coming from, and in retrospect my argument kinda seems in bad faith (I just woke up, but then I took a shower and the world seems different). I still kinda believe that there is some counterplay to this new strat and that something will appear to counter it, and I kinda feel the suspect comes a bit too soon, but oh well what do I know. I just miss arch discussion being "haha its a bridge" and not "dont banned arch". Let's see what the suspect brings around.
Going off on a tangent, is there not some channel like Chess.com or Gothamchess for Smogon Tours? Like I feel thats where the big disconnect comes from for me and many others, I never find out when there are tours or where to watch them or what the new strats are. All major Smogon-related yt channels mainly focus on past gens or on "DUDUNSPARCE just got a HUGE buff and might be BROKEN. Here's WHY." and with a channel like Gothamchess I know that in a calendar year you get Tata Steel, Sinquefield, the Candidates, the World Cup, Norway Chess, the CCT... and I know who the top players at any given moment are, what their style is like, what the format they're playing is... by the time y'all are discussing arch rain as overcentralizing i'm on ladder not seeing any of that, ofc I'm gonna think it's an exaggeration.
Wouldn't necessarely say there's that much Tournament Focused Showdown channels out there, however a lot of the bigger ones occasionally cover some of their tournament games from time to time, as well as talk quite a bit about the current state of the metagame, if you're looking for recommendations, the big channels I'd suggest blunder, pokeaimMD and Freezai. However if you want some current SPL content, the main large tournament happening right now, Savouras is covering their SPL games in some neat videos, I'd check em out :)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2053716566
What was this match??? I stalled out three mons with just sinistcha, nearly including blissey if I had got a few burns.
What was this match??? I stalled out three mons with just sinistcha, nearly including blissey if I had got a few burns.
I have found the solution to rain and a good chuck of ou:
OUr Savor (Clodsire) @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Recover
- Amnesia
This clod ignores most rain mons and from testing it's able to deal with a lot of top mons:
Gholdengo, specs Dragapult, Walking wake, Raging Bolt, Kyurem with tera, special Iron Valiants, Clefable, Darkrai, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Volcarona depending on its set, Enamorus, Primarina, Archaludon, Alomomola.
Its 1v1ed physical mons with and without tera like Valiant, Dozo, Barraskewda, Cinderace, and two different Kingambits (Don't ask how it won Idk)
Archaludon
252+ SpA Archaludon Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 163-193 (35.1 - 41.5%) -- 77.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Archaludon Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 102-120 (21.9 - 25.8%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
+6 0 Def Archaludon Body Press vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Clodsire: 215-254 (46.3 - 54.7%) -- 8.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Archaludon can't touch this clod, recover or set up on draco, immune to electro, flash cannon does nothing, standard av 6+ body press is a roll for 50%
Barraskewda
252+ Atk Choice Band Barraskewda Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Clodsire: 155-183 (33.4 - 39.4%) -- 16.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Without the rare option of coverage of crunch/psychic fangs, it does noting to this clod and will die to toxic eq
Kingdra
252 SpA Choice Specs Kingdra Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fire Clodsire: 186-219 (40 - 47.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Kingdra Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 170-202 (36.6 - 43.5%) -- 98.6% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Rare rain option but still doesn't do too much
Ogerpon-Wellspring
252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tera Fire Clodsire: 167-197 (35.9 - 42.4%) -- 93% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Not really a good check to sd but can shrug it off when not set up and get a toxic off
Walking Wake
244 SpA Choice Specs Walking Wake Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 222-262 (47.8 - 56.4%) -- 32% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
244 SpA Choice Specs Walking Wake Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire in Sun: 153-181 (32.9 - 39%) -- 8.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Absolutely counters WW, recover/set up on draco
Raging Bolt
252+ SpA Raging Bolt Dragon Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 115-136 (24.7 - 29.3%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Raging Bolt Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 175-207 (37.7 - 44.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Recover/set up on draco
Kyurem
252 SpA Choice Specs Kyurem Freeze-Dry vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fire Clodsire: 62-73 (13.3 - 15.7%) -- possibly the worst move ever
252 SpA Choice Specs Kyurem Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fire Clodsire: 80-94 (17.2 - 20.2%) -- possible 7HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Kyurem Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 214-252 (46.1 - 54.3%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Specs earth power could be scary but one amnesia will make it a non issue
Dragapult
252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fire Clodsire: 192-226 (41.3 - 48.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fire Clodsire: 118-139 (25.4 - 29.9%) -- 0.1% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Non issue, recover/set up on draco
Volcarona
Not gonna put calcs here because its an absolute set up war and there's too many, but with amnesia, recover, toxic, it can 1v1 most sets especially ones without tera blast.
I'm gonna stop listing cause this would get too long, but you get the point most of OUs top special attackers and rain mons get trivialized by Clod (All of these calcs are without any set up on clods side btw). Obviously it's not perfect and gets slapped by most physical mons including the top 2 (Kingambit and Great Tusk), Iron Treads on rain is a big one, and it physically can not Corviknight, Skarmory, and steel types with a balloon. But you aren't limited to one pokemon, teammates like Great tusk, Kyurem, Landorus, physically bulky mons, and anything that can deal with floating steal types/Iron Treads will pair perfectly. With teammates that can deal with these issues, it can 1v1 a good 70ish% of OU mons.
OUr Savor (Clodsire) @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Recover
- Amnesia
This clod ignores most rain mons and from testing it's able to deal with a lot of top mons:
Gholdengo, specs Dragapult, Walking wake, Raging Bolt, Kyurem with tera, special Iron Valiants, Clefable, Darkrai, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Volcarona depending on its set, Enamorus, Primarina, Archaludon, Alomomola.
Its 1v1ed physical mons with and without tera like Valiant, Dozo, Barraskewda, Cinderace, and two different Kingambits (Don't ask how it won Idk)
Archaludon
252+ SpA Archaludon Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 163-193 (35.1 - 41.5%) -- 77.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Archaludon Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 102-120 (21.9 - 25.8%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
+6 0 Def Archaludon Body Press vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Clodsire: 215-254 (46.3 - 54.7%) -- 8.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Archaludon can't touch this clod, recover or set up on draco, immune to electro, flash cannon does nothing, standard av 6+ body press is a roll for 50%
Barraskewda
252+ Atk Choice Band Barraskewda Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Clodsire: 155-183 (33.4 - 39.4%) -- 16.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Without the rare option of coverage of crunch/psychic fangs, it does noting to this clod and will die to toxic eq
Kingdra
252 SpA Choice Specs Kingdra Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fire Clodsire: 186-219 (40 - 47.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Kingdra Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 170-202 (36.6 - 43.5%) -- 98.6% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Rare rain option but still doesn't do too much
Ogerpon-Wellspring
252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tera Fire Clodsire: 167-197 (35.9 - 42.4%) -- 93% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Not really a good check to sd but can shrug it off when not set up and get a toxic off
Walking Wake
244 SpA Choice Specs Walking Wake Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 222-262 (47.8 - 56.4%) -- 32% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
244 SpA Choice Specs Walking Wake Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire in Sun: 153-181 (32.9 - 39%) -- 8.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Absolutely counters WW, recover/set up on draco
Raging Bolt
252+ SpA Raging Bolt Dragon Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 115-136 (24.7 - 29.3%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Raging Bolt Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 175-207 (37.7 - 44.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Recover/set up on draco
Kyurem
252 SpA Choice Specs Kyurem Freeze-Dry vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fire Clodsire: 62-73 (13.3 - 15.7%) -- possibly the worst move ever
252 SpA Choice Specs Kyurem Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fire Clodsire: 80-94 (17.2 - 20.2%) -- possible 7HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Kyurem Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 214-252 (46.1 - 54.3%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Specs earth power could be scary but one amnesia will make it a non issue
Dragapult
252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fire Clodsire: 192-226 (41.3 - 48.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fire Clodsire: 118-139 (25.4 - 29.9%) -- 0.1% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Non issue, recover/set up on draco
Volcarona
Not gonna put calcs here because its an absolute set up war and there's too many, but with amnesia, recover, toxic, it can 1v1 most sets especially ones without tera blast.
I'm gonna stop listing cause this would get too long, but you get the point most of OUs top special attackers and rain mons get trivialized by Clod (All of these calcs are without any set up on clods side btw). Obviously it's not perfect and gets slapped by most physical mons including the top 2 (Kingambit and Great Tusk), Iron Treads on rain is a big one, and it physically can not Corviknight, Skarmory, and steel types with a balloon. But you aren't limited to one pokemon, teammates like Great tusk, Kyurem, Landorus, physically bulky mons, and anything that can deal with floating steal types/Iron Treads will pair perfectly. With teammates that can deal with these issues, it can 1v1 a good 70ish% of OU mons.
Sorry to say, but clod has already been proven to deal quite effectively with rain, especially amnesia which is used on a hydrapple stall team which is popular. Though I do like the tera fire, that is a unique innovation.
Yeah ik not massively unique but I don't see many people pair amnesia with max special bulk, they try to split it and it ends up losing 1v1s it shouldn't.
I didn't know that they didn't use max special bulk, though there is a lot of special bulk used, 116 hp and 244 sp.Defense. It could have it's uses but don't be disheartened, sometimes the smallest innovations are the best ones.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2053789304
anyone else had a heart attack moment from upper hand before? this was mine...
anyone else had a heart attack moment from upper hand before? this was mine...
Flutter Mane has ben top 20 in ubers for the entire generation. Yes I'm aware ubers viability isn't 1:1 with a pokemon's banworthiness, however if a pokemon is that good in ubers after being broken in OU, it's still too good for OU most of the time. Iron Bundle might be mid (at best) in ubers but that's still not a reason to let it out. Same with Palafin even if there's kind of an argument there (that I don't want to listen to, fuck Palafin stupid evolution method ass). The literal only uber I can see being remotely ok in the current metagame is annihilape, and that's probably a bad idea too because annihilape is kinda really fucking dumb. Like the ubers are uber for a reason and I think it's a good thing if we add more to the list (i.e. moon gambit and ghold in that order) because the more dumb things we get out of the tier the more it resembles playable. I want to have fun in this tier again, I think most of us do, and letting the things we banned week 1 back into the tier back down just because it "regulates powercreep" is antithetical to that. Like sure chi yu is hosed by rain, but also beads of ruin tera fire choice specs overheat in sun is kind of ridiculous when sun is already pretty good if you're good at denying opposing weather and contending with opposing pastdoxes. Overall what this tier needs is more bans, not less, and if that means chain banning like 3 pokemon than so be it, but this tier is genuinely unfun most of the time."There are too many threats so we have to ban them all to restore our perfectly balanced metagame
Or maybe the solution lies in accepting the massive powercreep this generation has brought, and reevaluate the standards of competitive play ? Like, idk, accepting Flutter Mane, Iron Bundle, Palafin and other "broken" pokemons which could have regulated the powercreep. Like in VGC ("it's not the same format", I know, but they face powercreep too).
People have been constantly warning you since the very beginning of this generation, and here we are, countless of bans later, problems still are not solved.
Unrelated, but what I wouldn't give to ban glimmora. Unfortunately it's not actually banworthy
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"There are too many threats so we have to ban them all to restore our perfectly balanced metagame
Or maybe the solution lies in accepting the massive powercreep this generation has brought, and reevaluate the standards of competitive play ? Like, idk, accepting Flutter Mane, Iron Bundle, Palafin and other "broken" pokemons which could have regulated the powercreep. Like in VGC ("it's not the same format", I know, but they face powercreep too).
People have been constantly warning you since the very beginning of this generation, and here we are, countless of bans later, problems still are not solved.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 248 HP / 36 SpD Pelipper in Rain: 152-179 (47 - 55.4%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO
Ugh I hate it when my clodsire physically cannot corviknight, big oversight on gamefreak's part frfr
jk though, clod is actually my 3rd favorite mon of this generation and i'm so happy he's at least a little good
Fuck I'm really gonna start putting serp on literally every single team I build now. I'm so fucking tired of webs I'm so fucking tired of kingambit I'm so fucking tired of this format in general. The moment I think I'm having fun I encounter random bullshit sets by some anti-meta best of 1 abuser and then I find webs and then I find the suspect player on their 7th alt doing low ladder cheese so they can actually play the game later. This format is genuinely terrible and quite honestly the council should be more heavy handed in the bans they do. Optics be damned just ban things and fix this fucking format, or make the gen 7 ladder active again.
Not a YT channel but there is the Tournaments subforum, where you can keep track of official tours, for SPL, here is the SPL replays thread, you can see rain teams from week 1.
You don’t reveal it and you can get an extra boost to SpD and extra chip damage.
By how I see things, we'll gonna end this gen with close to 30 bans because after Archaludon the list of problematic things follows as: Kyurem, Roaring Moon, Gambit, Gholdengo, Gouging Fire, hell some have even complained about Gliscor and Volcarona again. With this I'm not saying they're broken but they're the ones I've heard more complaints about.
Maybe it's just me but I hope for gen 10, they dexit the paradox pokemon (I mean they did it with the tapus, can't see why they can't with these), most of them are the broken shit from this gen
Maybe it's just me but I hope for gen 10, they dexit the paradox pokemon (I mean they did it with the tapus, can't see why they can't with these), most of them are the broken shit from this gen
I'm going to be real, the way the VGC metagame is handled is terrible. This isn't even just me talking from the perspective of a Smogon's singles player, this is me talking from the perspective of a gamer in general.
Speaking from just a balance perspective (TheMantyke made a great post yesterday on the accessibility issues, so for that reason and the fact that's it not super relevant to what I want to say, I won't touch on them), everything is ass backwards. Balance patches, a staple of any competitive game since the late 2000s, are completely absent from Pokemon. Any problematic elements in regards to balance are completely ignored until the next generation of games, so the only time you will see stuff change mid-gen is when they want to fix some glitches.
This would be fine if Gamefreak instead choose to operate with a dynamic banlist, which you often see in most card games, many very old competitive games still being played today (Such as Melee or TF2), and even the website we are on right now, but they don't have that either. As long as you aren't a cover legendary, or are restricted to some limited time event, you are considered fair game. So stuff like Urshifu is just allowed to completely rip the metagame a new asshole, and there's nothing that's going to be done about it.
There are other issues I could address too, such as the lack of communication with the playerbase, and the fact that controversial changes are never undone (Dark Void's over nerf comes to mind), but that should be enough to illustrate my point.
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I've come to the conclusion that 30 bans is too little. In no particluar order, the following pokemon are a bit problematic at best and need to go asap at worst: kingambit, gholdengo, roaring moon, raging bolt, volcarona, archaludon, iron valiant, gouging fire, iron boulder, gliscor, deoxys-speed, waterpon, and zamazenta. Note that some of these hinge entirely on other things being banned but I genuinely think that excising the tier and starting from scratch after a nuclear banning would benefit the tier greatly.By how I see things, we'll gonna end this gen with close to 30 bans because after Archaludon the list of problematic things follows as: Kyurem, Roaring Moon, Gambit, Gholdengo, Gouging Fire, hell some have even complained about Gliscor and Volcarona again. With this I'm not saying they're broken but they're the ones I've heard more complaints about.
Maybe it's just me but I hope for gen 10, they dexit the paradox pokemon (I mean they did it with the tapus, can't see why they can't with these), most of them are the broken shit from this gen
Honestly a good reason to ban tera since it means we can start over and unban and ban stuff one more time to get a better tier.
But really OU could be better off without tera, we saw Natdex UU ban tera and Natdex UU ended up becoming a far better tier because of that and the effects that a tera ban had
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As much as I enjoy tera as a mechanic, I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that it's not healthy. I'm not at the stage where an outright ban is what I want, but I wouldn't be so beat up over losing it if it meant the tier became fun again
When people don’t know how to close the tab and play a different game