Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [ survey results -- see post 21,221 ]

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I'm one of those people who think that for this gen we should tier around offense, not balance.
Obviously keep balance teams viable, as it is right now, but personally I'm pretty happy with the way SV OU is right now

i believe we shouldn't tier around any single playstyle. we should tier for a healthy diversity of all playstyles, with none being overwhelmingly strong or invalidated. the natural result of that seems to trend towards bulky offense and balance being the strongest playstyles (because they mix both good defensive options and good offensive options), other forms of offense being strong but not necessarily the dominant playstyle, and the niche picks being hard stall and gimmicky forms of hyper offense (webs, screens, etc). hence why i do agree with you that the current meta is approaching, but not yet reaching, an ideal state, at least for what can feasibly be done with community support

and if you really want to take tiering action we can look towards other routes e.g. retest Volc/Gouging, some box legend, or suspect Ting-Lu (will elaborate if asked, but ill just say this: if this isn't broken, neither are Lugia and Giratina-A.) instead of banning other offensive threats that are still susceptible to trends and get adapted to.

now this is where it goes off the rails. first off, retesting ubers is almost entirely off the table, especially ones that were banned from ou already and especially especially things like gouging fire, which was banned with upwards of a 90% ban margin, or volcarona, which was rejected from the tier in every way a mon can be (quickbanned, denied a drop, and suspect banned). second off, ting-lu is fine. the difference between it and the mons you mentioned is that lugia and giratina-a both have setup capability on top of their ridiculous bulk. ting very notably does not. and third, you don't seem to actually be trying to balance things with your choices. you just seem to be trying to make offense better without citing any problems that your tiering actions will answer besides "playstyle i like gets better, playstyle i dislike gets worse"

It is pretty clear to me that balance go-tos are given the benefit of the doubt compared to offense tools and the only thing I can do is to respect the will of the others while presenting my pov on why that's not necessarily the best action.

plenty of offensive tools are also "balance go-tos". the term you're looking for is "defensive tools", and the reason they're given the benefit of the doubt is because pokemon is a game in which strong offense is, and always has been, fundamentally better than strong defense. you need to make progress in this game. that's why hard stall tends to be more niche than all-out offense. it's also why it's really easy to create a mon with no defensive counters but really hard to create a mon with no offensive counters. so it's pretty difficult to actually have a good defensive tool be truly broken unless it's also got really really good ways to consistently make progress as well. the only time that something defensive was broken in ou for its defenses alone was gen 6 mega sableye. you could argue dlc1 gliscor, but that was more a case of its defensive prowess combined with its extremely cheap progress-making ability, with access to spikes, knock, sd facade, toxic, etc

We're living in times where we could use shorter games, for reasons which are not necessarily related to SV OU, but competition from other formats and culture as a whole.

jesus mary and joseph we are not going to start tiering based on the tiktok generation's short attention span

This is why setup sweepers being seen as these big fat boogeymen isn't compatible with my statement above. I get swept all the time when I misplay, same with other players, but maybe we can find better setups to prevent this from happening in the first place.

there are plenty of setup sweepers that aren't seen as "big fat boogeymen". there aren't serious complaints right now about darkrai, deo-s, torn-t, scizor, weavile, ceruledge, primarina, tusk, crown, hell, even valiant isn't attracting the ire it used to. people are actively celebrating several of these being here. there's two whole ogerpon forms that nobody's complaining about at all, one of which is arguably better at shredding fat balance structures than waterpon is. it's a very specific subset of setup sweepers that's problematic

I also find it that most of the time people who want a suspect will automatically vote for a ban without having the intention to switch their votes around. Same with your post towards Ogerpon-W, a good balance breaker. Because yes Ogerpon-W is great against balance teams and has a wide movepool. But who's to say it is ban worthy, when people can't agree on what its best fourth move is, and code it as "versatility"?

who's to say it's banworthy? me. i'm to say that. i'm saying it right now. and so have many, many people before me, who are much more knowledgeable about the tier than either of us. and why does it matter whether people "automatically" vote for a ban after calling for a suspect? not many people are going to call for a suspect with the intention of voting dnb. and it doesn't really matter if people have made up their minds before the suspect either. you seem to have your mind made up just fine. why is it not ok for people to go into a suspect intending to vote ban, but perfectly fine for you to go into a suspect intending to vote dnb?

Even if we've had Ogerpon-W for quite a while, you can't just present those hundreds of pages as one big book, a collection of arguments that does not properly address pro and anti ban arguments.

how does the collection of all arguments about waterpon in existence not properly address pro- and anti-ban arguments

Because you'll get bias, misinformation, fearmongering, and many arguments that contradict each other with a bit of poking.

bias like "we should tier around offense"? misinformation like "we need shorter games because vgc"? fearmongering like "but if we ban this, fat balance might become good"?

The metagame will continue to adapt until it is fully solved. That might happen tomorrow, post-CG or in a hundred years.

if you wanna wait a hundred years for the meta to be fully solved, go ahead. i, for one, think that if the meta hasn't been able to adapt to something for nearly two years, we should probably get rid of it instead of waiting the other 98

We don't have a game theory solver here, so the ban side doesn't make itself look good when complaining about pokemon a or b with such confidence, such "venom" competitively speaking.

there is no "ban side". almost every voter here has a varying record of votes on different things. in fact, thanks to the gouging fire suspects, a significant number of them have two different votes on the same mon. and you complaining about zap-king-lu with confidence doesn't make you look good either. just because you named yourself after tapu bulu doesn't mean you have to live in crippling fear of zapdos all the time

Keeping the status quo remains the best way forward, at least in SV. It doesn't mean i will vote DNB for each and every suspect going forward.

so wait. if keeping the status quo is the best way forward, why would you not vote to keep the status quo every time? you're not making any sense

 

[658Greninja]

I'm one of those people who think that for this gen we should tier around offense, not balance.
Obviously keep balance teams viable, as it is right now, but personally I'm pretty happy with the way SV OU is right now and if you really want to take tiering action we can look towards other routes e.g. retest Volc/Gouging, some box legend, or suspect Ting-Lu (will elaborate if asked, but ill just say this: if this isn't broken, neither are Lugia and Giratina-A.) instead of banning other offensive threats that are still susceptible to trends and get adapted to.

It is pretty clear to me that balance go-tos are given the benefit of the doubt compared to offense tools and the only thing I can do is to respect the will of the others while presenting my pov on why that's not necessarily the best action. We're living in times where we could use shorter games, for reasons which are not necessarily related to SV OU, but competition from other formats and culture as a whole. This is why setup sweepers being seen as these big fat boogeymen isn't compatible with my statement above. I get swept all the time when I misplay, same with other players, but maybe we can find better setups to prevent this from happening in the first place.

I also find it that most of the time people who want a suspect will automatically vote for a ban without having the intention to switch their votes around. Same with your post towards Ogerpon-W, a good balance breaker. Because yes Ogerpon-W is great against balance teams and has a wide movepool. But who's to say it is ban worthy, when people can't agree on what its best fourth move is, and code it as "versatility"?

Even if we've had Ogerpon-W for quite a while, you can't just present those hundreds of pages as one big book, a collection of arguments that does not properly address pro and anti ban arguments. Because you'll get bias, misinformation, fearmongering, and many arguments that contradict each other with a bit of poking. The metagame will continue to adapt until it is fully solved. That might happen tomorrow, post-CG or in a hundred years. We don't have a game theory solver here, so the ban side doesn't make itself look good when complaining about pokemon a or b with such confidence, such "venom" competitively speaking.

Keeping the status quo remains the best way forward, at least in SV. It doesn't mean i will vote DNB for each and every suspect going forward.

You’re overestimating how good Balance teams would be without Wellspring. Obviously they would improve with Wellspring gone, but Offense’s options vs Balance teams aren’t limited. Darkrai, Kyurem, Hatterene, and Primarina are all excellent wallbreakers that do fit on Offense and the list goes beyond these guys.

Since we’re talking about balancing the tier around Offense, I’d like to point out bulky SD Trailblaze Wellspring which with Tera and a Trailblaze boost it becomes difficult to revenge kill, while having an incredibly flexible 4th moveslot between
Play Rough to hit Dragons or Synthesis to boost up in front of random special hits/avoid being in Sucker Punch range. This set doesn’t really sacrifice its wallbreaking potential because Cudgel is just that clickable of a button.

 

[Magcargo]

Oger can be annoying but I just feel like meta will just shift to other, cheesier balance breakers that don't have to deal with the same limitations Oger has. Manaphy is even more oppressive to a lot of fat / balance teams due to not making contact with all its moves + having Tera & item flexibility - we saw it mentioned a lot during DLC1 Surveys for a reason (where Oger was also legal) & even now a lot of the teams & cores we see get easily dismantled by it. I think Meowscarada / Weavile are also similarly difficult to stop since they have Boots for big longevity, better speed, and a similar toolkit, with SD in Weavile's case and U-Turn + Spikes in Meow's case in addition to more dangerous STAB combos. Other mons like Samu-H also get stronger in post Woger Metagame, as does Mola + unkillable wallbreaker cores w/ mons like Ursaluna, Hoopa-U, etc (which I also find quite difficult for many balance teams to handle, even more than Woger). All this is to say that I do not feel Woger is egrigiously worse to deal with than a lot of existing threats & I do not think its ban will have the intended effect of "freeing building up" like many claim.

Even with Ivy Cudgel not making contact, it is still a physical move at the end of the day, and fast Wispers such as Dragapult, Darkrai, & Cinderace all still are able to neutralize it. SV's physical walls like Pecharunt, Zamazenta, etc are much stronger than the special walls that are tasked with dealing with Manaphy / Hydrappl / whatever special breaker and do a fine job vs Ogerpon. And even then, two entire types resist Ogerpon's STAB combo, which players have access to at a press of a button if worst comes to worst. Most of these other sets like Trailblaze, Synthesis, etc. while good in their own way, are clearly sacrificing something in the process, whether it be coverage, utility, etc. The main element of this mon I think could be broken is just Ivy Cudgel critting and maybe Knock Off also being too free of a click, but I do not think these elements are egrigious enough fo me to vote ban, should a suspect occur in the future.

I think Dragonite has more of a case to be broken because of how variable it can be, which is more problmetic of a speed boosting sweeper, but eh, it also keeps a lot of cheesy offensive mons in check with its powerful priority, Encore is great utility for a lot of teams, it provides some valuable defensive integrity to many team with its key resistances, etc. These greedy Tera Blast sets are annoying, but also fishy af, with a few variations being overly greedy since you need to commit to it as a Tera sink - which can be generally fine, but presents its own issues.

IDK, I just don't think many mons atm can be safely banned without hurting the metagame in other ways or just not having an effect on the metagame at all. Like, banning Darkrai for example just leads to its usage being funneled into Meow / Weavile, which are both only slightly worse and will largely do the same shit. Gambit ban will make a lot of things in the meta harder to contain given that its bulk + Tera / item flexibility lets it check a wide variety of specifc threats + assist in limiting various offensive cheesers, Ghold ban leads to similar issues (scarf is a great mid-ground pivot & check to many Pokemon), Zama ban destablizes a lot of the meta imo, etc.

 

[Avira]

Even with Ivy Cudgel not making contact, it is still a physical move at the end of the day, and fast Wispers such as Dragapult, Darkrai, & Cinderace all still are able to neutralize it. SV's physical walls like Pecharunt, Zamazenta, etc are much stronger than the special walls that are tasked with dealing with Manaphy / Hydrappl / whatever special breaker and do a fine job vs Ogerpon. And even then, two entire types resist Ogerpon's STAB combo, which players have access to at a press of a button if worst comes to worst. Most of these other sets like Trailblaze, Synthesis, etc. while good in their own way, are clearly sacrificing something in the process, whether it be coverage, utility, etc. The main element of this mon I think could be broken is just Ivy Cudgel critting and maybe Knock Off also being too free of a click, but I do not think these elements are egrigious enough fo me to vote ban, should a suspect occur in the future.

IDK, I just don't think many mons atm can be safely banned without hurting the metagame in other ways or just not having an effect on the metagame at all. Like, banning Darkrai for example just leads to its usage being funneled into Meow / Weavile, which are both only slightly worse and will largely do the same shit. Gambit ban will make a lot of things in the meta harder to contain given that its bulk + Tera / item flexibility lets it check a wide variety of specifc threats + assist in limiting various offensive cheesers, Ghold ban leads to similar issues (scarf is a great mid-ground pivot & check to many Pokemon), Zama ban destablizes a lot of the meta imo, etc.

What about a potential ban of Kyurem? I believe Kyurem leaving would free up building a lot due to how checks to the Choice Specs/physical DD/mixed DD, and SubProtect sets not having great overlap with one another. Kyurem leaving would also make building with Grass and Dragon-type Pokemon easier, which would make it easier to deal with Ogerpon-Wellspring. I agree with you that the Trailblaze, SD, Ivy Cudgel, and one of Play Rough or Synthesis sets with bulk are overhyped and have clear weaknesses given how much you have to sacrifice to set up and use them appropriately. I've always been of the mind that a Kyurem ban would have the healthiest metagame impact of all possible potential bans from here on out by freeing up building all while having the least amount of collateral damage in enabling cheese sweepers after its ban.

 

[Moyashi]

Oger can be annoying but I just feel like meta will just shift to other, cheesier balance breakers that don't have to deal with the same limitations Oger has. Manaphy is even more oppressive to a lot of fat / balance teams due to not making contact with all its moves + having Tera & item flexibility - we saw it mentioned a lot during DLC1 Surveys for a reason (where Oger was also legal) & even now a lot of the teams & cores we see get easily dismantled by it. I think Meowscarada / Weavile are also similarly difficult to stop since they have Boots for big longevity, better speed, and a similar toolkit, with SD in Weavile's case and U-Turn + Spikes in Meow's case in addition to more dangerous STAB combos. Other mons like Samu-H also get stronger in post Woger Metagame, as does Mola + unkillable wallbreaker cores w/ mons like Ursaluna, Hoopa-U, etc (which I also find quite difficult for many balance teams to handle, even more than Woger). All this is to say that I do not feel Woger is egrigiously worse to deal with than a lot of existing threats & I do not think its ban will have the intended effect of "freeing building up" like many claim.

Even with Ivy Cudgel not making contact, it is still a physical move at the end of the day, and fast Wispers such as Dragapult, Darkrai, & Cinderace all still are able to neutralize it. SV's physical walls like Pecharunt, Zamazenta, etc are much stronger than the special walls that are tasked with dealing with Manaphy / Hydrappl / whatever special breaker and do a fine job vs Ogerpon. And even then, two entire types resist Ogerpon's STAB combo, which players have access to at a press of a button if worst comes to worst. Most of these other sets like Trailblaze, Synthesis, etc. while good in their own way, are clearly sacrificing something in the process, whether it be coverage, utility, etc. The main element of this mon I think could be broken is just Ivy Cudgel critting and maybe Knock Off also being too free of a click, but I do not think these elements are egrigious enough fo me to vote ban, should a suspect occur in the future.

I think Dragonite has more of a case to be broken because of how variable it can be, which is more problmetic of a speed boosting sweeper, but eh, it also keeps a lot of cheesy offensive mons in check with its powerful priority, Encore is great utility for a lot of teams, it provides some valuable defensive integrity to many team with its key resistances, etc. These greedy Tera Blast sets are annoying, but also fishy af, with a few variations being overly greedy since you need to commit to it as a Tera sink - which can be generally fine, but presents its own issues.

IDK, I just don't think many mons atm can be safely banned without hurting the metagame in other ways or just not having an effect on the metagame at all. Like, banning Darkrai for example just leads to its usage being funneled into Meow / Weavile, which are both only slightly worse and will largely do the same shit. Gambit ban will make a lot of things in the meta harder to contain given that its bulk + Tera / item flexibility lets it check a wide variety of specifc threats + assist in limiting various offensive cheesers, Ghold ban leads to similar issues (scarf is a great mid-ground pivot & check to many Pokemon), Zama ban destablizes a lot of the meta imo, etc.

We saw Manaphy mentioned back then because it was a lower power level meta and quite early on. There’s a reason it died out on survey write ins and isn’t really seen much, or thought about much right now. Manaphy struggles with the speed tier and not being very scary unboosted, which makes it hard to force the switches it needs to set up. It also just has a hard time picking the right moves whereas Wellspring can run just Ivy Cudgel and pick whatever it wants because Cudgel is a broken unbalanced piece of shit move.

I don’t really agree with the takes on either dark tbh. Meowscarada is weak without a boosting item and is too easy to punish via contact effects and helmet, while Weavile struggles with Booster threats and being a Mon particularly annoyed by sudden defensive Tera.

Ursaluna, Volcanion, Keldeo, Walking Wake, stuff like this all improve without Wellspring either by not fearing having their stabs blanked and thus letting it in, or simply not being threatened out by it so easily. I’d also disagree about Zama and Pecha being super amazing into it. Pecha has to be very healthy to take boosted Cudgels and Zama is one crit away from not being a good check anymore. If Zama switches in early and eats a crit cudgel, it can’t switch in again later.

I’d also argue that Wellspring even when it doesn’t auto blow down teams, still easily enables its own offensive teammates ridiculously easily thanks to how almost effortless its progress making talents are and it’s so good at wearing teams down for something else to take advantage of. This aspect I think is worth thinking about.

 

[Duckular]

1:

These three are a given. Torn-T is incredibly versatile with Boots Taunt, NP, and AV. You can legit lead with Torn most of the time because it outspeeds a vast majority of the tier and guarantees progress with Knock/U-Turn. Heatran is a consistent rock setter that frees up team-building slots and synergizes scarily well with Wellspring. With Rillaboom, its basically cause of Terrain Offense regaining its footing in big 2025. I think people need to branch out of Tera Grass. SD LO Rilla with a defensive Tera or Tera Dark is stronk. Also Wellspring with Grassy Glide is funny (and broken).



These are some OU mons I found are being used more. With Torn usage at its peak and Gliscor being more uncommon, Zapdos is truly the best birb. It the best matchup into Wellspring compared to Molt. Offensive Roost Three Attacks recontextualizes Zapdos’ role while still packing defensive utility (Static is broken 1LDK is right on that). The third move can be Heat Wave to secure big dmg on Gholdengo/Gambit or any Tblast like Ice, Fairy, Fighting, etc. Kyurem takes advantage of alot of current meta trends, so it makes sense to see it a li’l more often. Huge fan of the AV set btw. Fast pivots are disgusting and Cinderace is arguably one of the best. Outside of Cinderace’s role at deterring hazards, it’s great at forcing awkward positions and enabling every wallbreaker under the sun.

2:

Araquanid is projected to drop out of OU, but this will change if Duckular releases another Webs + Shitmon RMT.

3: SV OU likes to rotate through the Seasons. Spring saw Balance as the most popular, then during the Summer heat it became Offense, and now I believe Balance and Offense will mingle for the top spot. Personally all the major playstyles are on equal terms rn, which is a sign that the metagame is healing, but work needs to be done.

Bonus: Who should be suspected? Oh let me tell you.



Ok I’m not gonna go into a 4-minute rant or anything, but just know I loathe this thing’s presence. It feels unfair whenever I use it. Wellspring just gets 2 kills minimum by simply existing. Now we’re reaching a point where the Wellsprings are starting to run bulk. They’re starting to run Synthesis. What’s worse is that some have incorporated Synthesis onto Trailblaze + SD, sparking trauma from the Moon/G-Fire meta. Its only able to get away with this mickey mouse ass moveset because Ivy Cudgel is so broken it humbles resists (especially with Tera).



Dnite could be a candidate for a suspect. The most busted variant is DD Roost Tblast Fairy. Fairy Blast and EQ hits everything except Molt/Corv, which have their own issues in the current meta. With Roost you turn your midground checks like Tusk, opposing Dnites, and Zama into setup fodder. Its repeating a trend we’ve seen with Roaring Moon (maybe the real culprit is not Tera Blast but Fairy Blast specifically lmao). Banning it would be disastrous for BO. Dnite checks a bunch of things with Multiscale and losing E-Speed would be losing a valuable tool against offense.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank this community for not suspecting anything for the past half year now, because of you guys I was able to win a $30 bet with my friend and got to cop Deltarune Chapter’s 3 & 4 for free, let’s keep the streak going guys I placed another wager and my ass is NOT paying for Silksong either

Oh and yeah you guys can let Araquanid drop now, he had a good run and I already claimed my get out of jail free card of “I got Araquanid to OU,” that combined with a Goku shirt basically makes me immortal when dealing with enemy Cartels. Now if you excuse me, I have beef with a certain aquatic and athletic horse I have to take care of, oh and good night tri state area

(Edit: oh my days I just realized this is the metagame discussion forum shit I might throw up ohh my days)

 

[ShieldPhoenix]

What are your thoughts on AV Kyurem? It sounds like, and might be a meme set but I’ve seen some use of it.

 

[Rekka's Backend]

I just feel like meta will just shift to other, cheesier balance breakers that don't have to deal with the same limitations Oger has.

I think the fact Ogerpon has only gotten more relevant with time vs less goes to show its not exactly going anywhere. It's had some downs, but overall it's stayed conssitently good and consistently around. Which is precisely the reason i think its worth investigating as Ogerpon innovations have only really increased.

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

i believe we shouldn't tier around any single playstyle. we should tier for a healthy diversity of all playstyles, with none being overwhelmingly strong or invalidated. the natural result of that seems to trend towards bulky offense and balance being the strongest playstyles (because they mix both good defensive options and good offensive options), other forms of offense being strong but not necessarily the dominant playstyle, and the niche picks being hard stall and gimmicky forms of hyper offense (webs, screens, etc). hence why i do agree with you that the current meta is approaching, but not yet reaching, an ideal state, at least for what can feasibly be done with community support

Well, yeah. I agree in principle. I'm sure it's a lot harder with tera around, though, and in realpolitik terms it's been proven that people don't agree on what should and should not be banned.

now this is where it goes off the rails. first off, retesting ubers is almost entirely off the table, especially ones that were banned from ou already and especially especially things like gouging fire, which was banned with upwards of a 90% ban margin, or volcarona, which was rejected from the tier in every way a mon can be (quickbanned, denied a drop, and suspect banned). second off, ting-lu is fine. the difference between it and the mons you mentioned is that lugia and giratina-a both have setup capability on top of their ridiculous bulk. ting very notably does not. and third, you don't seem to actually be trying to balance things with your choices. you just seem to be trying to make offense better without citing any problems that your tiering actions will answer besides "playstyle i like gets better, playstyle i dislike gets worse"

Please do not fearmonger. This is the fearmongering I was talking about earlier, which is far less productive imo than ZapKingLu / fat balance fearmongering.

Gouging Fire and Volcarona can be retested with many positive benefits. DM if you're interested.

As for Lugia and Giratina-A, this is the fearmongering I was pointing to. You bring up an outclassed calm mind set instead of focusing on their tremendous bulk and utility options. You have Lugia on the field, boost to +3 or something, fail to OHKO and get KOed back or statused.

Retesting one of these (or Solgaleo) would be much less time consuming, efficient, and healthier than dancing around and disagreeing on what should and should not be gone.

plenty of offensive tools are also "balance go-tos". the term you're looking for is "defensive tools", and the reason they're given the benefit of the doubt is because pokemon is a game in which strong offense is, and always has been, fundamentally better than strong defense. you need to make progress in this game. that's why hard stall tends to be more niche than all-out offense. it's also why it's really easy to create a mon with no defensive counters but really hard to create a mon with no offensive counters. so it's pretty difficult to actually have a good defensive tool be truly broken unless it's also got really really good ways to consistently make progress as well. the only time that something defensive was broken in ou for its defenses alone was gen 6 mega sableye. you could argue dlc1 gliscor, but that was more a case of its defensive prowess combined with its extremely cheap progress-making ability, with access to spikes, knock, sd facade, toxic, etc

Well, yeah, but you earlier disagreed that Lugia and Giratina-A are not broken, if Ting-Lu isn't. The way Lu can just trade with your opponent is insane. But since unbanning mons is pretty taboo on this site, you can't have both

jesus mary and joseph we are not going to start tiering based on the tiktok generation's short attention span

that's not what I said.

there are plenty of setup sweepers that aren't seen as "big fat boogeymen". there aren't serious complaints right now about darkrai, deo-s, torn-t, scizor, weavile, ceruledge, primarina, tusk, crown, hell, even valiant isn't attracting the ire it used to. people are actively celebrating several of these being here. there's two whole ogerpon forms that nobody's complaining about at all, one of which is arguably better at shredding fat balance structures than waterpon is. it's a very specific subset of setup sweepers that's problematic

Well, yeah. Setup sweepers will always be there. But it doesn't mean that Ogerpon-W should be banned...

who's to say it's banworthy? me. i'm to say that. i'm saying it right now. and so have many, many people before me, who are much more knowledgeable about the tier than either of us. and why does it matter whether people "automatically" vote for a ban after calling for a suspect? not many people are going to call for a suspect with the intention of voting dnb. and it doesn't really matter if people have made up their minds before the suspect either. you seem to have your mind made up just fine. why is it not ok for people to go into a suspect intending to vote ban, but perfectly fine for you to go into a suspect intending to vote dnb?

Because you're changing the status quo, just like you're against me wanting to unban things. That's why it matters. I remember council members in other metagames (Fc) agreeing with suspecting things and then voting DNB, so it happens.

how does the collection of all arguments about waterpon in existence not properly address pro- and anti-ban arguments

bias like "we should tier around offense"? misinformation like "we need shorter games because vgc"? fearmongering like "but if we ban this, fat balance might become good"?

if you wanna wait a hundred years for the meta to be fully solved, go ahead. i, for one, think that if the meta hasn't been able to adapt to something for nearly two years, we should probably get rid of it instead of waiting the other 98

You're jumping on certain statements I made, but you need to address the whole argument. I believe the meta is in a pretty good place and it will always adapt towards new trends. I'm salty Magearna was never banned in Gen 7 but does that mean that metagame is still not adapting?

there is no "ban side". almost every voter here has a varying record of votes on different things. in fact, thanks to the gouging fire suspects, a significant number of them have two different votes on the same mon. and you complaining about zap-king-lu with confidence doesn't make you look good either. just because you named yourself after tapu bulu doesn't mean you have to live in crippling fear of zapdos all the time

so wait. if keeping the status quo is the best way forward, why would you not vote to keep the status quo every time? you're not making any sense

Because you don't need to have a 100% rate to make a point or maintain your own philosophy on tiering things... Also I can beat Zapdos with Stone Edge if I want to. Not that I need it.

 

[Karxrida]

As for Lugia and Giratina-A, this is the fearmongering I was pointing to. You bring up an outclassed calm mind set instead of focusing on their tremendous bulk and utility options. You have Lugia on the field, boost to +3 or something, fail to OHKO and get KOed back or statused.

God it's 4 in the morning but I can't sleep and am tired of your shit.

Lugia has Base 110 Speed, Base 90 SpA, Recover, Multiscale, and is so fucking fat behind that Multiscale that it can easily afford to run a max Speed Timid set. It would be a stupidly scary CM sweeper, and that's before even taking whatever bullshit Tera would provide. The idea that it would somehow get KO'd after setting up is laughable. Giratina is slower and lacks sustain but can punch holes a bit easier from the get go due to a better offensive typing and movepool (not that Lugia is slacking much there), plus it has Wisp and T-Wave to be such an annoying pest that even you would blush.

Ting Lu has none of those traits. It's just a fat ox thing that sits there to eat hits and mildly irritate people with Ruinations or well timed Whirlwinds.

Retesting one of these (or Solgaleo) would be much less time consuming, efficient, and healthier than dancing around and disagreeing on what should and should not be gone.

lol
lmao

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

God it's 4 in the morning but I can't sleep and am tired of your shit.

Lugia has Base 110 Speed, Base 90 SpA, Recover, Multiscale, and is so fucking fat behind that Multiscale that it can easily afford to run a max Speed Timid set. It would be a stupidly scary CM sweeper, and that's before even taking whatever bullshit Tera would provide. The idea that it would somehow get KO'd after setting up is laughable. Giratina is slower and lacks sustain but can punch holes a bit easier from the get go due to a better offensive typing and movepool (not that Lugia is slacking much there), plus it has Wisp and T-Wave to be such an annoying pest that even you would blush.

Ting Lu has none of those traits. It's just a fat ox thing that sits there to eat hits and mildly irritate people with Ruinations or well timed Whirlwinds.


lol
lmao

You are constrained by your item otherwise you die to rocks, you're weak to knock off, a weak 75 BP STAB move (or 8 PP, choose your poison), 8 PP recover, I mean the more I think about it I'd rather use Demon Latias since at least she can afford to run Weakness Policy. I'm pretty sure Lugia would not be a scary Calm Mind user and would just do its classic great wall capabilities.

That's enough Uber talk tbh, dm me if you're interested for more info but the fearmongering needed to be addressed, don't lose your cool when you hear the words "calm mind" and "quiver dance"

 

[JackRG]

Gouging Fire and Volcarona can be retested with many positive benefits. DM if you're interested.

Gouging Fire was banned with a 90% majority lmao, and if it was resuspected it would probably be even higher given how far removed we are from it atp. Volcarona wasn't particuarly close either with 76%. Not to mention this was with CTC pulling the strings as well. Safe to say the general playerbase does not want these two back.

I'm one of those people who think that for this gen we should tier around offense, not balance.

We've never tiered around a particular archetype and we never will lmao. Generally extremes like HO and stall tend to be less viable than standards like balance, BO, and offense tho.

Obviously keep balance teams viable, as it is right now, but personally I'm pretty happy with the way SV OU is right now and if you really want to take tiering action we can look towards other routes e.g. retest Volc/Gouging, some box legend, or suspect Ting-Lu (will elaborate if asked, but ill just say this: if this isn't broken, neither are Lugia and Giratina-A.) instead of banning other offensive threats that are still susceptible to trends and get adapted to.

Ting Lu is very different from Lugia and Giratina-A (and for the record, I don't think either of these two would be broken). Both Lugia and Giratina get calm mind and Lugia even gets recovery and giratina spinblocks, so if you find Ting Lu annoying, these two would be a million times worse. Finding Ting Lu is broken is a skill issue, it is very good but this metagame has numerous ways to the punish it and it can't even heal so wearing it down is a reliable method of dealing with it.

Retesting one of these (or Solgaleo) would be much less time consuming, efficient, and healthier than dancing around and disagreeing on what should and should not be gone.

This is based actually, but it's pretty easy to see why this is not a priority.

instead of banning other offensive threats that are still susceptible to trends and get adapted to.

Sure, the metagame can adapt to Ogerpon-W (We've seen guys like physdef hydrapple rise up), but with Ogerpon's movepool being as wide as it is with strong stabs, SD, play rough, knock off, uturn, taunt, and even recovery in synthesis and/or horn leech, it's pretty clear ogerpon has all the tools it needs to adapt in the face of metagame changes that may seem unfavorable at first glance.

We're living in times where we could use shorter games, for reasons which are not necessarily related to SV OU, but competition from other formats and culture as a whole.

Bro this is not an argument lmao, we don't tier around archetypes but something we should absolutely not tier around is tiktok attention spans. I'm convinced a single game of GSC might make your brain explode.

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

Bro this is not an argument lmao, we don't tier around archetypes but something we should absolutely not tier around is tiktok attention spans. I'm convinced a single game of GSC might make your brain explode.

I will address your full post later but i just had to highlight this because you seriously think wanting shorter games is akin to accommodating "TikTok attention spans"...

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

Gouging Fire was banned with a 90% majority lmao, and if it was resuspected it would probably be even higher given how far removed we are from it atp. Volcarona wasn't particuarly close either with 76%. Not to mention this was with CTC pulling the strings as well. Safe to say the general playerbase does not want these two back.

Yes, back in August 2024. Nowadays, we can only *guess* what that percentage would be. That suspect is completely irrelevant to the situation one year later, just like this argument is used by the pro ban side when a pokemon gets suspected again.

We've never tiered around a particular archetype and we never will lmao. Generally extremes like HO and stall tend to be less viable than standards like balance, BO, and offense tho.



Ting Lu is very different from Lugia and Giratina-A (and for the record, I don't think either of these two would be broken). Both Lugia and Giratina get calm mind and Lugia even gets recovery and giratina spinblocks, so if you find Ting Lu annoying, these two would be a million times worse. Finding Ting Lu is broken is a skill issue, it is very good but this metagame has numerous ways to the punish it and it can't even heal so wearing it down is a reliable method of dealing with it.

"Finding ting lu broken is a skill issue" well, cheap shot cheap shot, but i can say this about any pokemon. You can't keep pointing at calm mind and say "well if we unban this it would break the metagame" while also not acknowledging the fat balance concerns should we ban a certain mon.


Lugia and Giratina-A are weak to gambit and can't stop volt switch.


This is based actually, but it's pretty easy to see why this is not a priority.

Sure, the metagame can adapt to Ogerpon-W (We've seen guys like physdef hydrapple rise up), but with Ogerpon's movepool being as wide as it is with strong stabs, SD, play rough, knock off, uturn, taunt, and even recovery in synthesis and/or horn leech, it's pretty clear ogerpon has all the tools it needs to adapt in the face of metagame changes that may seem unfavorable at first glance.

In my opinion, it is the SV OU culture being skeptical to unbans. Because there is no formal definition of a balanced metagame, and you just have to "lurk around" and join discord servers to possibly figure out your favourite meta to play. And in OU many more people get reqs and actively play the metagame than in other metas.



SV ZU is a tier i main and the special wall equivalent of Ting Lu, which btw got banned, is Porygon2. Since then I've seen more than one user wanting it unbanned because it "wasn't broken". This is the same pokemon that doesn't die to a tera grass, grassy surge-powered leaf storm from a choice specs 125 spA mon (Arboliva).

Bro this is not an argument lmao, we don't tier around archetypes but something we should absolutely not tier around is tiktok attention spans. I'm convinced a single game of GSC might make your brain explode.

Sure, but making the games shorter doesn't mean we should finish them in 6 turns or 10 turns so you can go back to TikTok. Nor is this a trend that should continue as the gen is winding down or next gens.

Also this is going to be my last post on this subject since it's obvious we disagree on many points and I don't want to be accused of derailing

 

[FayaWizard]

This conversation has, once again, long outlived any usefulness, and gone wildly off-topic. Reminder that unban discussion are not allowed on this thread, and for everyone to be more civil in their discussions.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

yeah let's go ahead and change the subject

i've had this question bouncing around in my head for a while and i wanted to ask everyone:

what are your hottest positive and negative viability-related takes?

i.e., what's the most obscure low-tier mon that everyone thinks is garbage but you think is great? and what's the biggest meta mon that everyone thinks is great but you think is garbage?

 

[UltraSword]

yeah let's go ahead and change the subject

i've had this question bouncing around in my head for a while and i wanted to ask everyone:

what are your hottest positive and negative viability-related takes?

i.e., what's the most obscure low-tier mon that everyone thinks is garbage but you think is great? and what's the biggest meta mon that everyone thinks is great but you think is garbage?

I don't particularly know if this is answering the question, but I think Clefable is currently ranked too high. I do not believe that Clefable is in the same tier of viability as pokemon like Hatterene or Alomomola (same for Walking Wake but that isn't my point). The only place I really see Clefable (though tbf I don't see it that often in general) is on stall teams which are not very good at the moment. Clefable's bulk is also not really the same anymore as thanks to power creep it is tanking a lot more powerful hits than in gens 6-8. We have such insane monsters like Wogerpon and Kingambit that are easily able to put the pressure on Clefable and there isn't that much it can do in return aside from spreading status and using knock off. Still though, both of those things are useful and Clefable still has good bulk so it isn't out right bad. I just don't think it deserves to be in A-. I think it could reasonably be ranked B as I feel the same about it as I feel a lot of pokemon ranked there (at least the ones that actually make sense there) but I would understand if it was ranked B+ instead.

 

[Insolence]

I think the fact Ogerpon has only gotten more relevant with time vs less goes to show its not exactly going anywhere. It's had some downs, but overall it's stayed conssitently good and consistently around. Which is precisely the reason i think its worth investigating as Ogerpon innovations have only really increased.

The removal of one of the only strong, splashable knock + pivoting options (Moon, who also served as a check to Woger) directly drives up the usage of it's competitors in that slot, Woger being by far the biggest one. Other beneficiaries of Moon's ban also indirectly benefit Woger, such as the rise of both Scarf and Metal Coat Ghold (the #2 and #3 most used items on Ghold during OLT). With Woger checking both of these sets, it also serves crucial defensive utility in some games. Woger-Glim-Gambit has also been a very notable core recently that helped multiple players qualify for OLT and also has won recently in tour, which is definitely healthier than webs and veil cheese.

We need to be very careful about bans going forward, because the tier relies on these interactions to keep threats in check. The term "broken checks broken" is thrown out a lot, but this is a situation where 'mons are preventing each other from reaching broken status by limiting usage or movesets (such as Kyurem/Bolt making Woger run PRough). These are healthy dynamics that need to be preserved to ensure that a variety of viable styles.

Woger's overall winrate also fails to paint it as this unstoppable threat: despite its high usage, it maintains a similar winrate to most other top tier Pokemon in WCoP, sitting comfortably around 50%. In fact, its usage and winrate actually dropped greatly during playoffs, winning only 8/20 games. This was despite the presence of plenty of balance, demonstrated by the high usage rates of bulky staples like Gliscor, Corviknight, Glowking, Ting-Lu, and Weezing-Galar. Usage was driven to it by the ban of its biggest teambuilding competitor, but that number is just an indicator that the tier needs its unique traits.

The current metagame, while I find it boring, does not have any 'mons that I feel are currently banworthy. I agree with the sentiment above that we should look into retests instead for progression. Gen 9 is very unique as a tier and we should treat it as such.

 

[cat111ca]

yeah let's go ahead and change the subject

i've had this question bouncing around in my head for a while and i wanted to ask everyone:

what are your hottest positive and negative viability-related takes?

i.e., what's the most obscure low-tier mon that everyone thinks is garbage but you think is great? and what's the biggest meta mon that everyone thinks is great but you think is garbage?

1.

Meowscarada is A tier if not A+. It's able to enter on

and u turn to do Major damage, kill

and

with triple axel, flower trick can kill wellspring After tera, Garganacl and is in general great. And either knock off to, well.. Knock off or use scarf trick to practically destroy defensive pokemon while outspeeding even booster valiant or band to do GREAT damage. and yes. it has defensive counters. but by using choice trick it can beat them and...
2. I think Moltres and Zapdos are Overrated with a capital O. other than defensive utility Zapdos and especially Moltres are forced to use boots because of rocks. they aren't especially fast or bulky or want to use power. Moltres is horrible against wellspring (so there's a 25% chance Moltres is useless) and Zapdos just is really passive and a huge momentum sink

 

[LorisMasta17]

1.

Meowscarada is A tier if not A+. It's able to enter on View attachment 769614 and u turn to do Major damage, kill View attachment 769611View attachment 769612and View attachment 769613
with triple axel, flower trick can kill wellspring After tera, Garganacl and is in general great. And either knock off to, well.. Knock off or use scarf trick to practically destroy defensive pokemon while outspeeding even booster valiant or band to do GREAT damage. and yes. it has defensive counters. but by using choice trick it can beat them and...
2. I think Moltres and Zapdos are Overrated with a capital O. other than defensive utility Zapdos and especially Moltres are forced to use boots because of rocks. they aren't especially fast or bulky or want to use power. Moltres is horrible against wellspring (so there's a 25% chance Moltres is useless) and Zapdos just is really passive and a huge momentum sink

I mean, it's not like Moltres is letting Ogerpon come in every time bc of the possibility of Wisp or Brave Bird on switch in, and it also commonly runs U-turn or Roar with hazards as well. And even then if you're team ends up being weak to it you can always run tera Dragon + Wisp on Molt to turn the tables on it. I don't think a defensive pokemon is bad just because one of the biggest threats in the tier easily kills it. Nobody is saying Gliscor is bad because Ogerpon beats it.

 

[Moyashi]

1.

Meowscarada is A tier if not A+. It's able to enter on View attachment 769614 and u turn to do Major damage, kill View attachment 769611View attachment 769612and View attachment 769613
with triple axel, flower trick can kill wellspring After tera, Garganacl and is in general great. And either knock off to, well.. Knock off or use scarf trick to practically destroy defensive pokemon while outspeeding even booster valiant or band to do GREAT damage. and yes. it has defensive counters. but by using choice trick it can beat them and...
2. I think Moltres and Zapdos are Overrated with a capital O. other than defensive utility Zapdos and especially Moltres are forced to use boots because of rocks. they aren't especially fast or bulky or want to use power. Moltres is horrible against wellspring (so there's a 25% chance Moltres is useless) and Zapdos just is really passive and a huge momentum sink

Without a boosting item, Meow is actually quite underwhelming damage wise and doesn’t even OHKO Garganacl with Flower Trick. It doesn’t comfortably enter on Wellspring because of the risk of U-Turn as well as how much it takes from even resisted Ivy Cudgel. Scarf simply is too much of a set that gets punished for locking into moves, especially the wrong move from a bad prediction. Choice Band is the set to use, and is worthwhile in some teams but it’s still prediction heavy and teams are often loaded with enough pokemon to force that heavy prediction and wrong guesses make Meow very exploitable.

As for the Zap/Molt take, I can’t even understand it. They’re both bulky enough to do their job well, as evidenced by their continued success and tenure in this tier. Being forced to use boots is not the end of the world, they’re quite fast for the defensive pokemon they tend to be and even if they weren’t… why is that relevant? They’re doing their defensive duty well.

This idea of Moltres being potentially useless if Wellspring is on the other team just is wrong. Moltres doesn’t exactly let it come in freely due to the threats of flying stab as well as u-turn, wisp and roar with hazards down. Moltres still answers other threats on Wellspring’s team. And Zapdos is the furthest thing from passive let alone a momentum sink. And with people rediscovering offensive sets and how threatening those can be…

 

[PastaMechKaku]

yeah let's go ahead and change the subject

i've had this question bouncing around in my head for a while and i wanted to ask everyone:

what are your hottest positive and negative viability-related takes?

i.e., what's the most obscure low-tier mon that everyone thinks is garbage but you think is great? and what's the biggest meta mon that everyone thinks is great but you think is garbage?

I think Garchomp usage will rise simlar to Heatran as being an Stealth Rock/Spike setter with an offensive pulse is becoming more valuable as BO structures want to make progress on both a micro and macro level. That and Rough Skin + Helmet will always put inherent pressure on various pivots/breakers as losing up to 1/4 of a Pokemon's health is super gnarly. It still has extremely stiff competition with the more reliable ground types like Tusk, but Chomp's qualities will always give it home somewhere.


I think long term, this 'mon is going to end up like Tinkaton where it's usage fluctuates enough for it drop a tier as while what it brings to the table is valuable, its passivity and awkward sustain will hold it back (especially when more players are slotting in Taunt onto their offensive pieces).

 

[toshimelonhead]

1.

Meowscarada is A tier if not A+. It's able to enter on View attachment 769614 and u turn to do Major damage, kill View attachment 769611View attachment 769612and View attachment 769613
with triple axel, flower trick can kill wellspring After tera, Garganacl and is in general great. And either knock off to, well.. Knock off or use scarf trick to practically destroy defensive pokemon while outspeeding even booster valiant or band to do GREAT damage. and yes. it has defensive counters. but by using choice trick it can beat them and...
2. I think Moltres and Zapdos are Overrated with a capital O. other than defensive utility Zapdos and especially Moltres are forced to use boots because of rocks. they aren't especially fast or bulky or want to use power. Moltres is horrible against wellspring (so there's a 25% chance Moltres is useless) and Zapdos just is really passive and a huge momentum sink

Moltres and Zapdos are more pivots than breakers in SV OU right now. I don't think either are that overrated at all. Having Roost + U-turn + random status haxxing at the right moment always has a spot with their bulk (and yes, Zapdos does run U-turn over Volt Switch on some pivot sets to get out against bulky Ground types). I wouldn't switch Moltres on to Wellspring of course, but if I need to get chip on Tusk I'd roll the dice.

(and for sprites feel free to use :pokemon: to make it easy with the pokemon you want the sprite for where the pokemon is :) )

 

[JackRG]

The removal of one of the only strong, splashable knock + pivoting options (Moon, who also served as a check to Woger) directly drives up the usage of it's competitors in that slot, Woger being by far the biggest one. Other beneficiaries of Moon's ban also indirectly benefit Woger, such as the rise of both Scarf and Metal Coat Ghold (the #2 and #3 most used items on Ghold during OLT). With Woger checking both of these sets, it also serves crucial defensive utility in some games. Woger-Glim-Gambit has also been a very notable core recently that helped multiple players qualify for OLT and also has won recently in tour, which is definitely healthier than webs and veil cheese.

Woger does provide defensive utility yes, however is that worth keeping such an oppressive Pokémon in the tier? Aside from the fact that most people, myself included don't consider Gholdengo to be broken (and the main argument for it's brokeness is its ability to block defog, not ghold itself). In fact Woger's ability to switch into guys like Great Tusk, Iron Treads, Hrott, and Walking Wake (none of which are anywhere near passive) is part of what makes it so difficult to deal with, since these pokemon, especially the first two, are so essential to so many teams.

We need to be very careful about bans going forward, because the tier relies on these interactions to keep threats in check. The term "broken checks broken" is thrown out a lot, but this is a situation where 'mons are preventing each other from reaching broken status by limiting usage or movesets (such as Kyurem/Bolt making Woger run PRough). These are healthy dynamics that need to be preserved to ensure that a variety of viable styles.

Woger hardly needs perfect coverage honestly. Let's take your example of play rough. Even without it, resists like kyurem and bolt (especially the former with it's SR weakness, struggle to switch into Ivy cudgel more than once and both despise knock off. Not to mention you don't even know it's set to begin with.

Woger's overall winrate also fails to paint it as this unstoppable threat: despite its high usage, it maintains a similar winrate to most other top tier Pokemon in WCoP, sitting comfortably around 50%. In fact, its usage and winrate actually dropped greatly during playoffs, winning only 8/20 games. This was despite the presence of plenty of balance, demonstrated by the high usage rates of bulky staples like Gliscor, Corviknight, Glowking, Ting-Lu, and Weezing-Galar. Usage was driven to it by the ban of its biggest teambuilding competitor, but that number is just an indicator that the tier needs its unique traits.

Winrate isn't as important as you might think. After all the "best" pokemon in the tier, Zamazenta, is consistently posting winrates around 40-50%. Not to mention 20 games isn't even close to a sufficient sample size. It's effectiveness is undeniable and is reflected in how it has risen to the #2 pokemon on ladder and is always near the top in tours as well. It's clear winrate is a shaky metric to determine brokenness atp.

The current metagame, while I find it boring, does not have any 'mons that I feel are currently banworthy. I agree with the sentiment above that we should look into retests instead for progression. Gen 9 is very unique as a tier and we should treat it as such.

Instead of just saying this, what should we be retesting? Gouging and Volcarona where overwhelmingly banned, and despite what CTC glazers would like you to believe a retest won't change that. The idea of freeing moon is also asinine, considering it was banned only a few months ago and it's vote wasn't particularly close either.

 

[KamenOH]

Instead of just saying this, what should we be retesting?

Not them, but I'm going through the list of Tiering Actions, and unless you can convince a majority of, well lets just go with Qualified Voters on a Survey given these were all either =<70% ban support or 7/9 council bans, to unban Iron Bundle, Annihilape, Ogerpon-H, or Roaring Moon (this one is the least likely because it "just" happened), I don't think any of them will actually happen.

i.e., what's the most obscure low-tier mon that everyone thinks is garbage but you think is great? and what's the biggest meta mon that everyone thinks is great but you think is garbage?

My low-tier that's good is Hydrapple, and my meta that's shit has got to be Pecharunt. Being walled by Steel types which are quite common on teams has to suck.

 

[Alternator]

yeah let's go ahead and change the subject

i've had this question bouncing around in my head for a while and i wanted to ask everyone:

what are your hottest positive and negative viability-related takes?

i.e., what's the most obscure low-tier mon that everyone thinks is garbage but you think is great? and what's the biggest meta mon that everyone thinks is great but you think is garbage?

My beloved shitmon is Maushold, because it has a shocking number of OHKO and 2HKO rolls.

252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 240-280 (47.6 - 55.5%) -- approx. 85.2% chance to 2HKO

Leftovers sets are a guaranteed 2HKO if there's any hazards on the field, and a 3HKO if there isn't. Even factoring in imperfect accuracy, if you read the switch in correctly, Dondozo just loses - and even if you don't, unless Dondozo has Body Press instead of Waterfall, you win the 1v1.

252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 400-480 (132.8 - 159.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Outspeed and remove Ogerpon, though a hard switch in relies on reading a Swords Dance correctly, otherwise you just drop dead (Ivy Cudgel, Power Whip), get outsped (Trailblaze), or are neutered (Knock Off).

It's also the "fast Encore" that helps stop a Kingambit sweep by locking it into Sucker Punch, and if the opponent doesn't have Rocky Helmet, Flame Body, or a Sinistcha, it's actually really hard to switch into, because a +1 Tera Dark Bite will kill offensive Gholdengo, 2HKO defensive Ghold while surviving its attacks, and deals almost 50% to Pecharunt.

It requires a good bit of support, but when used as an offensive mon first and hazard control second, it's more dangerous than expected. Support reliant, yes, but dangerous.

RE: Ogerpon-Wellspring, while it's a centralizing force, I remember earlier in the generation where the lack of such centralizing mons caused problems. While I am not a competent team building (I am quite terrible at it, in fact), I'd rather have one centralizing mon to build around than zero centralizing mons, so long as there's a reasonable variety of options to handle it. I'm just not seeing the secondary signs of problematic overcentralization from Ogerpon: nothing crashing in usage because of an unplayable matchup, no terrible mons being dragged up to deal with it, no play styles rendered utterly unviable by its presence, etc.