Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[Bold School]

IMO, the community failed with Tera if it ends like this. Or if they finally decide years later that it was problematic. Either way, it simply isn't good for balance. I know this is an unpopular opinion. But if you play the wait and see game until many of the folks who were against it are no longer invested, it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. To be clear, I'm not even sure there would have been enough support even without that given how generally popular the mechanic is. It's just that waiting as long as we did doesn't help that. I will say less since the rest all been discussed to death before.

Either way, gen 9 has insane power creep and is nearly impossible to tier from a balance standpoint. The new trend of pay to win DLCs don't help, either. The DLC metas have been... interesting. Regardless of what we think of all the decisions made, many wouldn't find the meta enjoyable because GF gave us quite an evolving mess this gen.

Personally, I can't really even disagree with most of the decisions made. Outside of Tera and the Gliscor ban, I don't think there was anything I have strongly disagreed with. I didn't love the sleep decision, but I understand it and am glad Iron Valiant is still in the tier. I guess I was against banning Cyclizar over Shed Tail and Houndstone over Last Respects because it seemed obvious to me the moves were the problem. That played out the same way in the long run anyways. Really reaching the bottom of the barrel now. Not sure there was really anything else. Like I'm not sure there was a single even slightly wrong pokemon ban, in my personal opinion, that I haven't mentioned. If anything, we need more bans after Gouging Fire because we are keeping Tera.

I say all this to say gen 9 is rough. Smogon is in a no win situation with this one.

 

[Finchinator]

bluntly, DLC demands more quickbans to create an actually playable meta faster. Period

We had more quickbans and having quickbans can be a very good thing.

The point is applying proper logic to them. Quickbanning Volcarona without survey support, for example, is bad. Quickbanning Chien Pao after it was already banned via suspect during a prior release or Terapagos after the tier went to shit within a day is good. It’s just about applying the optimal process.

 

[UnusualBoy]

Random thoughts moment, can you imagine what the tier would look like if no duplicate items were allowed? I mean, no more than 1 mon holding bots or life orb or choice items per team.

 

[viivian]

Although my "enjoyable" level is minimal, I don't blame the council for anything, it's been hard work and the community itself differs in several aspects and everything is ok about that.
I can only mention that dropping Magearna, Roaring Moon and suspecting Gliscor instead of Gholdengo in dlc1 were my least favorite actions.
I think I've already knocked my King off the board but I hope I'm wrong.
From a positive point of view, it can't get any worse than it already is.

i'm convinced magearna is the william afton of competitive pokemon at this point. shit always comes back like every gen somehow

What's funny about Eleki is two things.
1. The nerfed the ability and despite us not knowing at the time, it probably would still be banned.
2. They didn't nerf regidrago's similar ability, despite them being counterparts, which has never happened before I think with nerfs. They literally did nerf zamazenta for zacian's crimes, so the doggo ain't having a good day.

on a more positive note, at least we get this cool new legendary to use in OU. not to mention zamazenta actually holds back a lot of these offensive teams from bowling everything over, meanwhile defensive counterplay to it is plentiful and thus makes it manageable for bulkier playstyles to deal with

 

[Heatranator]

Random thoughts moment, can you imagine what the tier would look like if no duplicate items were allowed? I mean, no more than 1 mon holding bots or life orb or choice items per team.

Okay, to be more serious, no duplicate items would be cool, but in this gen would be horrible. HDB are our saviour, as while that may cause some spikers to remain in the tier, the explosion of spikes would mean we either have to ban spikes (something that would mean both offense and defense are a lot harder to deal with, and would make things much more powercrept) or ban a large number of spikers if we removed HDB.

 

[tommytt22]

Random thoughts moment, can you imagine what the tier would look like if no duplicate items were allowed? I mean, no more than 1 mon holding bots or life orb or choice items per team.

As a thought experiment i like it. you have to really consider the trade off for each mon. having said that it could not exist with gholdengo in the tier. hazards would be everywhere again. the fact that you MIGHT encounter a boots spam team is the only thing stopping hazards from overunning again

 

[Dragonair Bot]

The point is applying proper logic to them. Quickbanning Volcarona without survey support, for example, is bad. Quickbanning Chien Pao after it was already banned via suspect during a prior release or Terapagos after the tier went to shit within a day is good. It’s just about applying the optimal process.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I practically never post, but with the rapid changes this metagame and all the tier changes all the communication from the Council has been fantastic and easy to follow, which is helpful for me, as I am not a great player, but do really enjoy playing.

I also agree with removing tera ban from the surveys, although I have wanted it banned every survey since the first DLC. I think openly stating it is done being considered for the foreseeable future is helpful to balancing the metagame we have now, which I believe would drastically shift (debatable to square 1) if tera was banned. Let the meta completely settle before considering it again. One of the most common responses I see about tera is that it is a skill check, and since I'm not that good a player (pretty steadily mid 1400s) it would make sense that this is a frustrating mechanic for me personally, but not necessarily be uncompetitive. It is possible a small category of ppl are voting ban/dnb with a hope in the back of their head for a change to tera.

I also do not personally consider changing the majority needed to ban in need of adjusting. This is coming from a person who wouldve voted ban on everything suspected so far if I could qualify. I think that the process has worked extremely well this gen, and this is the Gen I've followed most closely since x/y. I think we can see that even when there have been votes that have ended up DNB ex king Gambit and kyurem, the meta has continued to adjust and evolve relatively rapidly with other suspect tests. Even if I grow frustrated with OU and switch to another metagame, I can just switch back a couple of weeks later and the meta feels fresh again, at least to me.

I agree with something finch said a while back about in-between stable metals have a post about some tiering considerations, such as kocoloco or 55/45 etc. I agree that that would be the time to do those things, and not now in the midst of a volatile meta where there are still clear suspect candidates that should take the communities attention.

I'm not saying it's a waste to discuss it before, but I think that the council, and the community already us putting a ton if effort into creating a fun metagame and that should be the focus for the foreseeable future.

Again, I just want to say thank you to everyone involved, especially the council and the people who set up the sample team threads, because without them I would not be able to have nearly as much fun playing.

 

[DaRotomMachine]

View attachment 612613
Okay, to be more serious, no duplicate items would be cool, but in this gen would be horrible. HDB are our saviour, as while that may cause some spikers to remain in the tier, the explosion of spikes would mean we either have to ban spikes (something that would mean both offense and defense are a lot harder to deal with, and would make things much more powercrept) or ban a large number of spikers if we removed HDB.

Also the fact that Knock Off would be potentially devasting to any Stall team even more that it actually is.
but besides hazards, if only one mon got leftovers the rest would be suffering because they don't have a passive way to heal health.

 

[SweetLou32]

What are the chances we can play in a meta without Tera for a week? I think there's hesitancy to do anything about Tera and I think it would be productive to have tera gone for a little to see if Showdown becomes more enjoyable. I see no real harm in doing this and afterward, actual voting can happen instead of this constant back and forth about it. I personally would really enjoy a meta without tera and I'm sure others would too.

 

[Carl_the_turtle]

What are the chances we can play in a meta without Tera for a week? I think there's hesitancy to do anything about Tera and I think it would be productive to have tera gone for a little to see if Showdown becomes more enjoyable. I see no real harm in doing this and afterward, actual voting can happen instead of this constant back and forth about it. I personally would really enjoy a meta without tera and I'm sure others would too.

Axing it from the main tier for a week of gameplay is absolutely out of the question, changing the status quo that abruptly with no warning or process is insane.
Alternative ladders have been proposed and shot down in the past for splitting the playerbase and generally dying out (ex. DW OU)
If you want to play OU without tera, I’d suggest finding a server of people to play with, or (politely) asking if you can get a teraless roomtour up with admins.

 

[YubelVT]

Axing it from the main tier for a week of gameplay is absolutely out of the question, changing the status quo that abruptly with no warning or process is insane.
Alternative ladders have been proposed and shot down in the past for splitting the playerbase and generally dying out (ex. DW OU)
If you want to play OU without tera, I’d suggest finding a server of people to play with, or (politely) asking if you can get a teraless roomtour up with admins.

this being said petition to replace gen 8 randbats with dynamaxless gen 8 randbats because that is objectively better

 

[Alternator]

What are the chances we can play in a meta without Tera for a week? I think there's hesitancy to do anything about Tera and I think it would be productive to have tera gone for a little to see if Showdown becomes more enjoyable. I see no real harm in doing this and afterward, actual voting can happen instead of this constant back and forth about it. I personally would really enjoy a meta without tera and I'm sure others would too.

As noted, zero on the main ladder. You could organize an unofficial group with friends and play via challenges, and a big streamer could probably organize an unofficial tourney, but unless something along those lines caught on like a wildfire (to the point of impacting OU games played, beyond normal month-to-month fluctuations) it'd never get official support.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

There's no use in beating a dead horse.

isn't that why we banned spectrier

 

[tommytt22]

What are the chances we can play in a meta without Tera for a week? I think there's hesitancy to do anything about Tera and I think it would be productive to have tera gone for a little to see if Showdown becomes more enjoyable. I see no real harm in doing this and afterward, actual voting can happen instead of this constant back and forth about it. I personally would really enjoy a meta without tera and I'm sure others would too.

when the suspect happened i pleaded with them to set up a second ladder for the purpose of the suspect only. fell on deaf ears. still a bit salty about it to be honest, i think we all deserved to see what we were voting on, and i wouldve been more ready to accept the outcome if we had all experienced it.

 

[Heatranator]

isn't that why we banned spectrier

We were also fishing in an empty barrel, so I guess that is the reason why we banned Palafin.

 

[Rekka's Backend]

Shooting this into the void but I find it extremely strange seeing some of the suspect test votes. Over the many suspects I've witnessed since returning to Smogon the very peculiar subset of people that are seemingly adamant on voting DNB based on... I don't know what you'd call it, headstrong attitudes? Bizarre leaps in logic? utterly deranged sentiments? is so bizarre to me. Even on a vote as clear cut as Bloodmoon there were DNB warriors marching to defend it under the guise of the classic "it's broken but other things are too" which is very strange to me.

If something is upsetting the meta, and especially proves to be difficult to parse due to its disastrously strong role or in some cases, wide variety, it should at least be considered on its own merits and not just its relation to other, arguably broken threats and/or bastards. Sure, people may disagree for vibes alone but I still find it strange. While I will likely not get recs myself due to time/life/etc I find some of these weirdly persistent sentiments to be 'interesting' in the way you could find a bug outside.

...Only without the 'cool bug' energy associated with it.

 

[Heatranator]

Shooting this into the void but I find it extremely strange seeing some of the suspect test votes. Over the many suspects I've witnessed since returning to Smogon the very peculiar subset of people that are seemingly adamant on voting DNB based on... I don't know what you'd call it, headstrong attitudes? Bizarre leaps in logic? utterly deranged sentiments? is so bizarre to me. Even on a vote as clear cut as Bloodmoon there were DNB warriors marching to defend it under the guise of the classic "it's broken but other things are too" which is very strange to me.

If something is upsetting the meta, and especially proves to be difficult to parse due to its disastrously strong role or in some cases, wide variety, it should at least be considered on its own merits and not just its relation to other, arguably broken threats and/or bastards. Sure, people may disagree for vibes alone but I still find it strange. While I will likely not get recs myself due to time/life/etc I find some of these weirdly persistent sentiments to be 'interesting' in the way you could find a bug outside.

...Only without the 'cool bug' energy associated with it.

And like a bug you should squash it /jk (Don't squash bugs and be nice to the people with differing opinions, this is just a joke.)
But for real, it seems like these people tend to use the context of the metagame too much. Like context is important, but it isn't the only thing that determines a mons brokeness. You should look at it as well by its core traits and how that makes it broken/not broken. Then you can inject context into the mon, and see whether that power level is reasonable for everything around it. Furthermore, you should look at the whole metagame and not just compare it to a few specific mons, because all of them may be broken even if they are on the same level. Finally, just because other mons are broken, doesn't make something else less broken. There isn't a reason to keep something around if keeping it will not improve the meta at all. Keeping the mon will just start a cycle of potentially nothing getting banned if people thought the same way.
TLDR, context is important, but not the only thing, look at the whole metagame and ban what's broken because the mon is broken, not what else is broken.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

And like a bug you should squash it /jk (Don't squash bugs and be nice to the people with differing opinions, this is just a joke.)

i'm not gonna squash a bug if it's outside where it belongs, minding its own business and not bothering anyone, but if it comes into my house or starts buzzing around my food, it's fair game. this both is and isn't a metaphor

 

[RaikouLover]

What are the chances we can play in a meta without Tera for a week? I think there's hesitancy to do anything about Tera and I think it would be productive to have tera gone for a little to see if Showdown becomes more enjoyable. I see no real harm in doing this and afterward, actual voting can happen instead of this constant back and forth about it. I personally would really enjoy a meta without tera and I'm sure others would too.

We can dream but it is likely not going to happen. There is no will to act on Tera. People have gotten used to the chaos meta. Can't fault the council in any of this.... It is what the people voted for.

A fun ladder we used to have was the OU blitz ladder. It was an unofficial ladder for quick battles. Super fun. A tera-free ladder would be a breath of fresh air... but would split the player base.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

We can dream but it is likely not going to happen. There is no will to act on Tera. People have gotten used to the chaos meta. Can't fault the council in any of this.... It is what the people voted for.

A fun ladder we used to have was the OU blitz ladder. It was an unofficial ladder for quick battles. Super fun. A tera-free ladder would be a breath of fresh air... but would split the player base.

i mean, if there's enough interest for it, it could happen. get people together, organize a discord, if your numbers are big enough maybe you can eventually get an unofficial ladder like uubers did. hell, natdex is a glorified pet mod that people thought would split the playerbase, there's way less justification to approve it than a no-tera ladder, but there it is anyway

 

[FayaWizard]

i mean, if there's enough interest for it, it could happen. get people together, organize a discord, if your numbers are big enough maybe you can eventually get an unofficial ladder like uubers did. hell, natdex is a glorified pet mod that people thought would split the playerbase, there's way less justification to approve it than a no-tera ladder, but there it is anyway

"Way less justification" is wild
Natdex brings back two generational mechanics, one of which was incredibly popular, and cut mons and movepools that bring viability back to a lot of mons. As a result, the landscape of Natdex is drastically different from regular OU, with mons barely viable/non-existent in regular OU sitting at the top in Natdex, like Tapu Lele, Ferrothorn, Heatran, Tornadus Therian, and more.

Meanwhile, a Teraless ladder would remove a defining generational and split the playerbase, for what? A meta that's still dominated by mostly the same mons? Great Tusk is still going to be an incredibly splashable mon whether or not it can turn Water type. Iron Valiant is still going to outspeed 98% of the metagame whether or not it is secretly a Steel type. The only mons that would really take a hit are Kingambit, Garganacl, Serperior, and debatably Volcarona, but they would all still be semi-viable to good. Heck, it's not even a very popular idea: Natdex brings in around 45% of games played compared to OU (650,000 to 1,400,000). That's 17% more than the percentage on the survey which voted for Tera's ban: 28%. And that's assuming everyone who voted ban would proportionally represent all of OU's playerbase, as well as all migrate over to the Teraless ladder.

 

[mrsuslawl]

Idk man, I just slapped it on because contrary gives it a defense boost. I probably would have chosen body slam, but idk it's funny so I'm going to go with it.

virgin "set must be meta relevant" vs "it's funny so i'll use it"

 

[Heatranator]

"Way less justification" is wild
Natdex brings back two generational mechanics, one of which was incredibly popular, and cut mons and movepools that bring viability back to a lot of mons. As a result, the landscape of Natdex is drastically different from regular OU, with mons barely viable/non-existent in regular OU sitting at the top in Natdex, like Tapu Lele, Ferrothorn, Heatran, Tornadus Therian, and more.

Meanwhile, a Teraless ladder would remove a defining generational and split the playerbase, for what? A meta that's still dominated by mostly the same mons? Great Tusk is still going to be an incredibly splashable mon whether or not it can turn Water type. Iron Valiant is still going to outspeed 98% of the metagame whether or not it is secretly a Steel type. The only mons that would really take a hit are Kingambit, Garganacl, Serperior, and debatably Volcarona, but they would all still be semi-viable to good. Heck, it's not even a very popular idea: Natdex brings in around 45% of games played compared to OU (650,000 to 1,400,000). That's 17% more than the percentage on the survey which voted for Tera's ban: 28%. And that's assuming everyone who voted ban would proportionally represent all of OU's playerbase, as well as all migrate over to the Teraless ladder.

While I agree with most of your points, I think saying it will divide the playerbase is wrong. You say in your post that 28% support a tera ban, and while that is a large amount, that I don't think is enough to 'divide' the playerbase. People can play both metas you do realise. I bet half of Natdex's playerbase also plays OU to some degree. You can't say its not a very popular idea and also that it would split the playerbase, it's either one or the other.

Though I do like the idea of a teraless meta, I don't think it is worth it for the length of time it would be. Natdex at least could be run for as long as showdown runs, a teraless meta would go on for around the length of Gen 9, which is a lot less time.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Heck, it's not even a very popular idea: Natdex brings in around 45% of games played compared to OU (650,000 to 1,400,000). That's 17% more than the percentage on the survey which voted for Tera's ban: 28%. And that's assuming everyone who voted ban would proportionally represent all of OU's playerbase, as well as all migrate over to the Teraless ladder.

so what you're saying is that a teraless ladder wouldn't split the playerbase in a significantly harmful way? if it's not that popular, there's no risk of that, right?

Though I do like the idea of a teraless meta, I don't think it is worth it for the length of time it would be. Natdex at least could be run for as long as showdown runs, a teraless meta would go on for around the length of Gen 9, which is a lot less time.

i mean, oms are never guaranteed to exist for more than a single gen and we get plenty of new ones approved. hell, some even use or alter a generational mechanic. remember ultimate z? yeah, neither does anyone else, but it got a ladder. and it's not like tera donation is gonna be a thing in 2026. sure, oms are a different thing, but a no-tera ladder is basically an om in fancy clothes (but the om people would probably never approve it because "it's too close to ou" or something). i don't even want a tera ban, i just support the idea of making a no-tera ladder just to see what it'd be like and then to gloat when i'm right and it turns out to be a hyper-offense matchup-fish hellhole

 

[FayaWizard]

so what you're saying is that a teraless ladder wouldn't split the playerbase in a significantly harmful way? if it's not that popular, there's no risk of that, right?

Even if we say only 10% migrates over, that still is pretty harmful to the playerbase. The standards for "popular" and "percentage of players that if leaving would harm a tier" are two very different ones. If 30% of a tier leaves said tier because they did not like a change, their opinion is not popular, but it would sure hurt the playerbase.