A sample size of one is not a pattern. Do you know the saying, "Once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a pattern"? You can't say based off of one instance (Gen 9) of the Gen 6 box art legendary Pokemon not being in SV OU that the Gen 10 games won't have the Gen 7 box art legendary Pokemon as there's no real established repetitions to make that claim. It defies all sense. Let's not get ahead of ourselves with a claim like this. It is very likely that Xerneas, Yveltal, and Zygarde weren't in SV OU even after the DLCs 'cause Gamefreak wanted to give them a special focus in Legends: Z-A.
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Metagame OU + Solgaleo Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter FayaWizard
- Start date
A sample size of one is not a pattern. Do you know the saying, "Once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a pattern"? You can't say based off of one instance (Gen 9) of the Gen 6 box art legendary Pokemon not being in SV OU that the Gen 10 games won't have the Gen 7 box art legendary Pokemon as there's no real established repetitions to make that claim. It defies all sense. Let's not get ahead of ourselves with a claim like this. It is very likely that Xerneas, Yveltal, and Zygarde weren't in SV OU even after the DLCs 'cause Gamefreak wanted to give them a special focus in Legends: Z-A.
Hey, I agree that it might not be a pattern. I just think it could become a pattern. I have actually thought this for a long time and in hindsight maybe I should have taken the hint when Legends ZA was announced. However, while I think it is more likely that this omission was because of Legends ZA, I think that it is possible this might become a pattern in the future. It might even be possible that both can happen at the same time and the gen 7 box arts will also get their own game in gen 10. Is this really an unreasonable thought process?
If this ladder and the potential success of this experiment by the end of the month potentially leads to solgaleo maybe being tested proper, at least we know that the goal of the ladder was very successful in showing that solgaleo is not a meta slaughtering monster at the end of the day.
Looking forward to future developments regarding Solgaleo and further exploration players decide to do with it
Looking forward to future developments regarding Solgaleo and further exploration players decide to do with it
If the suspect song isn't The Lion Sleeps Tonight, I will have a meltdown.
That being said, I am glad the community voted on Solgaleo to look at in this sample ladder instead of anything else, because to be blunt, this ladder has been a great success. The goal of this ladder, at least in my opinion, was to present a reasonable doubt that Solgaleo was broken in OU. From my experience on ladder and watching games, I do not think its this easy cut and dry broken mon. My initial worry was with all the hype around the mon, it would be centralizing as heck and we would be unable to get a clear picture. That being said, I have seen a lot of teams cut Solgaleo.
Why have they cut it? Well, I think there's two main reasons. The cynic in me wants to say that building with an unknown element is harder than building without one, but even that brings me to the conclusion that Solgaleo just isn't that overbearing. It is not some nuclear bomb able to muscle through entire teams or this end all be all glue mon. Could it be? Maybe? we are only ten days into this ladder, which is assuredly going to lean casual just due to the novelty of Solgaleo in OU. But right now I am just kind of lukewarm on the mon.
That isn't to say its bad though: far from it. It is an amazing swiss army knife. I originally wrote off Band sets as just a better Metagross. Turns out giving Metagross a lot more bulk and an actual speed stat is pretty good. It can go mixed very reasonably. It is extremely bulky and self sufficient. That is the biggest thing that gives me pause. Solgaleo can do so much that it can be hard to scout for so far. It is getting easier; by looking at the comp i can tell a little more whether its going to lean physical or special, but it is so versatile that I can see it being overbearing in the long term. It is fun to mess with though, given it's versatility.
Overall, a very fun ladder and in my opinion, a far more productive one than when we retested Palafin. That mon was so much more overbearing in builder and in practice. Even when I lose to Solgaleo, it does not feel like I lost to Solgaleo.
That being said, I am glad the community voted on Solgaleo to look at in this sample ladder instead of anything else, because to be blunt, this ladder has been a great success. The goal of this ladder, at least in my opinion, was to present a reasonable doubt that Solgaleo was broken in OU. From my experience on ladder and watching games, I do not think its this easy cut and dry broken mon. My initial worry was with all the hype around the mon, it would be centralizing as heck and we would be unable to get a clear picture. That being said, I have seen a lot of teams cut Solgaleo.
Why have they cut it? Well, I think there's two main reasons. The cynic in me wants to say that building with an unknown element is harder than building without one, but even that brings me to the conclusion that Solgaleo just isn't that overbearing. It is not some nuclear bomb able to muscle through entire teams or this end all be all glue mon. Could it be? Maybe? we are only ten days into this ladder, which is assuredly going to lean casual just due to the novelty of Solgaleo in OU. But right now I am just kind of lukewarm on the mon.
That isn't to say its bad though: far from it. It is an amazing swiss army knife. I originally wrote off Band sets as just a better Metagross. Turns out giving Metagross a lot more bulk and an actual speed stat is pretty good. It can go mixed very reasonably. It is extremely bulky and self sufficient. That is the biggest thing that gives me pause. Solgaleo can do so much that it can be hard to scout for so far. It is getting easier; by looking at the comp i can tell a little more whether its going to lean physical or special, but it is so versatile that I can see it being overbearing in the long term. It is fun to mess with though, given it's versatility.
Overall, a very fun ladder and in my opinion, a far more productive one than when we retested Palafin. That mon was so much more overbearing in builder and in practice. Even when I lose to Solgaleo, it does not feel like I lost to Solgaleo.
Yeah, Solgaleo is hard to scout for given it can do so much, but it is getting a bit easier to scout for.
Personally, I am not fond of the Solgaleo due to how much sun there is on the ladder. I agree with you that this is a more productive endeavor than when Palafin was suspected since Palafin was obviously broken and was much more meta-warping than Solgaleo is. I always did say that a Solgaleo suspect would be more productive during the 2024 Likeshop, and that's why I didn't contribute any of my reacts to suspect Palafin as I knew it'd have a horrible effect on the meta.
This probably comes as a result of me not try harding much - but I still haven't found this mon to be anything special compared to various other flavor mons of the day like Empoleon or Jirachi. That's not to say Solgaleo is bad or outclassed (CC, Knock, and Clear Body are all highly relevant tools it can use to give it better match-ups across that board than the aforementioned mons) but its niche does feel like it would slot it in similar roles as the aforementioned mons as an alternative steel with some side benefits - in some cases being a bit more awkward to slot onto a team due to a lack of Rocks compared to Empoleon / Jirachi (so sets like Shuca rocks are off the table).
It's still early but this is disappointing. I was hoping this mon would be more of a Swiss army utility knife mon like Magearna, with multiple roles it can fulfill. I suppose Empoleon / Jirachi also have those qualities to a degree as well - but they are second rate compared to Magearna for key reasons - between their significantly worse 4MSS, worse MU spread across the board, etc.
And yes, this comes after me seeing SG Pokemon use Shuca Jirachi in place of Solgaleo on that CB Weavile team & it arguably providing more utility due to rocks + running Shuca Psychic Noise to let it lure & KO Tusk lmao.
It's still early but this is disappointing. I was hoping this mon would be more of a Swiss army utility knife mon like Magearna, with multiple roles it can fulfill. I suppose Empoleon / Jirachi also have those qualities to a degree as well - but they are second rate compared to Magearna for key reasons - between their significantly worse 4MSS, worse MU spread across the board, etc.
And yes, this comes after me seeing SG Pokemon use Shuca Jirachi in place of Solgaleo on that CB Weavile team & it arguably providing more utility due to rocks + running Shuca Psychic Noise to let it lure & KO Tusk lmao.
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What exactly are you expecting? Of all the doomer takes I have seen for Solgaleo, this one is the most wild. Empoleon and Jirachi are RU mons. And you think they are better team fits because they get Rocks? Ok...
Here is a list of all the OU rated mons that get Stealth Rock:
- Clefable
- Deoxys-Speed
- Garganacl
- Glimmora
- Gliscor
- Great Tusk
- Heatran
- Iron Treads
- Kingambit
- Landorus-Therian
- Ting-Lu
- Tyranitar
- Garchomp
- Kommo-o
- Arcanine-Hisui
- Clodsire
- Cobalion
- Donphan
- Excadrill
- Hippowdon
- Metagross
- Sandy Shocks
- Skarmory
- Tinkaton
- Hydreigon
- Mamoswine
That's 26 mons before you even get to RU. Most of those at least are usable in OU on the right circumstances. Some are even quite good. What do you mean you can't fit Rocks and Solg on your team? What teams are you building?
Jirachi gets no Teleport, no phasing, and no Agility. It also gets no Fire moves and worse offensive stats, meaning it isn't nearly as potent offensively. The only form of healing Jirachi gets is Wish, which means you also need to run Protect. Also, the only pivot it gets is U-turn. Slow U-turn ain't happening much at base 100 speed. This is also a problem when Jirachi wants to be a TR setter, but with worse bulk and pivoting. I guess you can try Healing Wish once, but it's far better to Teleport a few times. And I'm not here to completely throw Jirachi under the bus. It's a cool mon with awesome niches. But everything you actually run Solgaleo for with defense or utility, it's better at. It has better bullk and better moves for the function of TR setter, phaser, slow pivot, or even as a wall. This is not even getting into its offensive sets, of which Agility seems the best so far.
Empoleon does get Agility, but it's not great at base 60 speed. The low speed tier does help with slow pivoting and Flip Turn. Watch out for Wellspring! Too bad Empoleon doesn't get Wish or Trick Room to take advantadge of that Flip Turn. It does get Rocks, though. Where else can you find that? Anyways, Empoleon does actually have some good support moves. It gets Roar for phasing. Roost is a good recovery move. Haze is also great for all the setup mons around, although I would still argue phasing is better in almost all cases. The stats are way worse across the board besides a little bit of spdef. It's not enough to make up for the rest.
I guess if you wanted to combine phasing + Rocks in a single mon for role compression, and for some reason wasn't running Ting-Lu, Empoleon might be a better fit on a very specific team than Solgaleo. It's RU for a reason. Solgaleo won't be below OU for a reason.
A Shuca Tusk lure is a gimmick. It's a neat one to be sure. You can't seriously be basing most of your opinion on just that, can you? It's not even something Solgaleo can't do, albeit in a different way. This take feels reactionary.
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Most mons - generally speaking - don't want to run Rocks, particularly among OU's strongest. They run rocks as a "necessary evil" but I find this gen particularly, It leads to some key MUs being sacrificed - esp with Tera being accounted for.
- Clefable IMO is not great Rocks user. I find that it rarely finds oppurtunities to setup rocks in the first places (gets pressured too easily + can struggle with some of the removers like Treads, Glimm, Cind, Hatt while not being amazing into Tusk either). That said, I also find these utility sets in general to be much weaker than CM sets - which are more easily able to win the game and has better match-ups into threats such as Raging Bolt, Walking Wake, Kyurem, etc.
- Garganacl is a decent Rocks user, having good MUs into most of the common hazard removers. That said, I find these Rocks sets Garg typically runs to be exponentially easier to handle than Curse Garganacl, which can set up alongside some of the key threats Garganacl is tasked with handling, and defeat much of its typical counterplay.
- Great Tusk and Iron Treads are component Rocks setters, but you typically need to sacrifice running a key move on these rocks sets, usually Knock Off, which really hurts both Treads / Tusks MUs into key switch-ins like Corv, Moltres, Zapdos, etc. Both mons have a lot of other useful moves they would rather run as well - CC for Tera Normal Gliscor, Supercell Slam for Tera Water mons / Corv + bolt beam coverage, Temper Flare occassionally, etc. I personally hate it when I am forced to run Rocks on Great Tusk.
- Tyranitar is a decent Rocks setter - i guess, but I find slotting that mon in general to be a bit tough + I feel it already has 4MSS as is (you want Low Kick for Gambit, Rock move for Kyurem / Moth / birds, and Knock off already, and an Ice move or thunder wave occassionally. Even then, I don't feel its easy for this mon to set up rocks at all given its general poor MU spread into other big threats like Lando-T, Valiant, Samurott, Ogerpon-W, Zamazenta, etc so I typically don't get many oppurtunities to click the move when I run Ttar.
- Gliscor / Ting-lu are fine Rocks users, but they usually need to drop a move (in Ting-lu's case usually Earthquake for double hazards, while Gliscor needs to drop Spikes - which isn't ideal).
- Glimmora is decent but typically relegated to HO.
- Tinkaton is decent rocks setters, but can be annoyed by Treads, Tusk, Cind. Still, it usually has all the utility it needs on rocks sets.
- Landorus-T is good rocks setter, probably one of the most ideal ones. Could be argued that dropping Stone Edge or Grass Knot (or Psychic for Zama / Tusk) isn't ideal, but not much can be done there.
- Heatran probably is one of the best Rocks setters because isn't really dropping any important move it needs - MAYBE Will-O-Wisp, but Heatran mostly is fine with Fire Move / Earth Power / Taunt, so being able to setup Rocks for it is pretty huge.
- I normally don't use Deo-S. It is pretty decent entry hazard setter from what I've seen, but typically on more HO focused teams, usually running it alongside Dual Screens.
As for Rachi / Empoleon, I can't speak towards Jirachi (but from what I've seen it is solid), but Empoleon has been a pretty goated alternative rocker on a bulky offensive team I like running. Blocks Parting Shot from Pecharunt and Mortal Spin from Glimmora in addition to luring and KOing Great Tusk / Lando-T with help from Shuca Berry, even punishes Defog hard from Corv. It brings some unique resistances too, namely its resistances to Water and Dragon, which imo is pretty notable given that Primarina can be a trade machine against some bulky offenses. Its definetly not perfect - it too has some of the worst 4MSS I have ever seen in a mon since you want Rocks / Knock / Flash Cannon / Ice Beam / Air Slash / Surf / Roost / Roar / Haze, etc., its stats aren't the best either, but it has impressed me far more than I was expecting.
That said, I do think I did overstate how Solgaleo would be "difficult" to fit compared to Empoleon / Rachi. Rather, I think the correct phrasing is "more boring". A lot of the sets that are popular just don't seem very fun or interesting to use even if they are effective- generic bander (with bad STABs so using it is annoying), infernape Larp with random 4 moves as coverage + a shiton more bulk (which is admittingly nice), generic Veil cheeser that gets phased out and screwed over by Ting-Lu like its buddies Moltres-Galar, Raging Bolt, Iron Moth, Latias, etc. Trick Room + Teleport is admittingly cool, though it does suck that Solgaleo itself doesn't benefit much from the TR (plus I am not sure how much better this is that something like Lagging Tail Slowking, but I'm not a TR player). I genuinely thought what would have made this mon stand out as a nice option in the builder was those alterative utility tools - with stuff like Colbur or Shuca to help check certain threats like Darkrai, Gambit, etc. or running Roar + its collossal bulk to phaze out key threats on veil / webs (which is pretty big), but these don't seem to be common options, which is a shame. So far, in both these offensive and defensive roles, what's mainly let Solgaleo stand out is its ability to trade + difficulty to scout - which are both no doubt valuable in its own right, and I think I agree with others assessment this mon would probably be in the A/A- range based on these alone. But its also not as tier warping as I was hoping (specifically in the ability to check threats + condense utility where I feel its more comparable to Empoleon / Jirachi, than something like Magearna).
That's fair. Far be it from me of all people to diss the appeal of building with niche mons or strategies. I would argue, as you already pointed out, that Solgaleo probably would feel more restrictive running Rocks as well. It has been my experience that Solg sets need to be made very efficiently to get the best out of it. So I would rather have, say, Roar + Morning Sun and 2 attacks than to try and fit Rocks on that as well. This would also lead me to look to set hazards with something else.
I made a post on page 4 about what my early impressions are with Solgaleo. It doesn't seem to play like a brute force mon, but more of a technical one where the EVs and moveset need to be focused. I hate Band on it. Agility feels much better. Even CM seems better. And I think if it got Rocks, personally, I would never run that on it based on my experience trying to cut through the fat of its good movepool to make sets on it actually work. Sure, it would still be nice to have the option. I guess I could see a set SR/Roar set with Knock Off as the only attacking move working out.
The resist berry sets you are talking about seem more limited to me. The problem with lures is they rely entirely on the element of surprise. If you know about a lure set, you are far more likely to scout for it. I'm not sure if Weakness Policy is good, or at least consistent, on Solgaleo. Either way, it rarely dies in one hit. To me, the threat of WP has been a bigger deterrent to attacking it with supereffective moves than the possibility of a resist berry on a mon that is likely to live most moves from full anyways.
A tournament schedule that only allows OU to test drops during one month which never happens is a problem I would like to see addressed before the next generation. Solgaleo could have been here and that alters everything else. OU has been way too stagnant to stay interesting, in my opinion.
Looking through this forum it seems fine as of now. In between the first few days and now though there was a lot of arguments made that it was too broken for the tier given its stats and its set variety. However, if the lack of posts and the content of these posts over the last 2 or 3 days are indicative of anything then it seems opinion might be shifting towards it being mid? I am not completely sure though.
As for me I haven't been playing the ladder much despite being one of the main supporters of it because I suck at building. I wish there were sample teams but it would be ridiculous to expect that when the tier is only 13 days old and won't be a thing anymore in 18. I will probably try some regular OU teams here to see if that makes a difference but from what I have played I honestly think Solgaleo is alright. Certainly an A or A+ pokemon but not broken or metagame warping. Unfortunately, I am still not to sure it is healthy due to that Pecharunt interaction I mentioned a few pages back but I think one problem with the ladder compared to a suspect is that people aren't forced to play against Solgaleo if they don't want to since they can just play OU. We will see if anything changes but for right now I think it is fine despite my worries.
Thanks for telling me about this, I had the assumption it would be A to S-.
Yeah unfortunately it’s not looking like it would be a cheese/meta mon, it just can’t do everything it looks like it’s supposed to do. At first everyone was thinking it would be good since in theory it would make Wogerpon stronger by getting rid of Pecharaunt, but it was revealed to be so easy to play around with Solgaleos horrid Special Defense, and its attack-speed ratio without any real way to setup or even fit double dance on its moveset has led it to be nothing less than a sad B+ mon carried by its ability to output insane damage while taking one or 2 hits. If it were to drop, it would be the sad scizor of the tier.
Idk but last time I checked 137/89 is pretty good spdef
It has better special bulk than slowing galar. Stick to facts pls.
In theory, it can be similar in bulk to Glowking, but that isn’t as true in practice. Glowking doesn’t lose anything by investing in its bulk, but solgaelo loses a lot of firepower it desperately needs. This is exasperated even more since unlike Glowking, it can’t pivot and doesn’t have Regen. Combine that with a far worse recovery move and Glowking is gonna be tankier on average imo. Is it glassy? Heck no, that natural bulk is good. But it can’t abuse it to the fullest without making some hard sacrifices.
oh shit my apologies i could’ve sworn it was lower like 69, probably because i have not touched the ladder for a while prior to making that comment
yeah yeah my fault i got that wrong, regardless the point was that it can’t do anything it was predicted to do, which still stands despite me getting a stat wrong.
What do you refer to on "can't pivot"? I get most of the points but one of Solgaleo's big propaganda points was having Teleport.
Ngl I memory holed that due to how middling the teleport sets were lol. Thanks for correcting me.
Either way it’s a way worse pivot due to not having regen.
It has Morning Sun. While that's not as good as the passive from Regenerator, it's still pretty good healing. I also disagree Teleport sets are mid on Solg. It's quite good on Sun teams and Trick Room sets at the very least.
As for supposed mid Teleport sets, it depends on how you build. People can get into trouble when they build Solg too passive just because it's a defensive and/or utility set. The point is still to make progress, right? I don't think the TP sets with 3 non-attacks (besides Trick Room) and/or Knock Off are very efficient at all. But TP, Morning Sun, and two attacks? That's probably good. Just avoid the hidden tempo tax with Future Sight/Teleport combos. I tried that and it was too passive.
havent followed susladder at all, but has anyone actually tested cm solg yet? from my experience in other tiers this is the set that breaks solg consistently and would not be surprised if its the exact same here. main thing with cm solg is you cant easily determine the investment and therefore how to answer it, not to mention its coverage move and tera type making that even more annoying. not only will it almost always force a trade in the worst case scenario if not played stupidly but it can just run away with games if given even one turn. did you preserve your ting-lu? too bad, its offensive tera fighting and now you lose. how about cm rbolt? well first it beats you 1v1 anyway, but it may win faster because its psyshock. gambit? its flamethrower or fblast. heres a collection of sets of just cm solg, idk what other solg sets are running here rn but id imagine theyd make this guessing game even harder
my formatting is bad but im going to explain the problems with cm solg existing:
edit: i forgot to mention quite possibly the scariest part abt cm solg: the set flexibility. you do always need at least 80ev in speed bc rbolt is so important to outspeed (you do not want to be shut down by faster taunt from a mon that strong) but outside of that you can really customize. want to heal on lando eq and handle max ko gambit at full? you can do that. you want to use cm ival as setup fodder? you can do that. you want to stallbreak? you can technically do that, metronome is unironically usable on solg but thats a certainly unique way to use it? whatever floats your boat i guess. point is, you can do whatever on cm solg, and i feel like top level players will actually exploit this to strenuous degrees with some fuckass spread like 252hp/124+def/44spa/8spd/80spe + mental herb + tera fighting focus blast for example so that you lure and remove post-tera gambit instantly and 2hko lu @ +1 + lure and remove ival + woger or some black magic fuckery like that because you can. point is, cm solg is dumb as fuck and you can get away with pretty much anything if you try hard enough.
80spe to outspeed modest rbolt, any slower is 100% unviable
PhysDef (Solgaleo) @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots / Kee Berry
Ability: Full Metal Body
Tera Type: Water / Dark / Fairy / Fighting / Flying
EVs: 228 HP / 200 Def / 80 Spe
Bold Nature
- Psychic / Psyshock / Flash Cannon
- Flamethrower / Thunderbolt / Focus Blast / Tera Blast / Flash Cannon
- Calm Mind
- Morning Sun
HP + Spe (Solgaleo) @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots / Kee Berry
Ability: Full Metal Body
Tera Type: Water / Dark / Fairy / Fighting / Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psychic / Psyshock / Flash Cannon
- Flamethrower / Thunderbolt / Focus Blast / Tera Blast / Flash Cannon
- Calm Mind
- Morning Sun
SpA + SpE (Solgaleo) @ Leftovers / Life Orb / Heavy-Duty Boots / Kee Berry
Ability: Full Metal Body
Tera Type: Fire / Electric / Fighting / Water / Dark / Fairy / Flying
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psychic / Psyshock / Flash Cannon
- Flamethrower / Thunderbolt / Focus Blast / Tera Blast / Flash Cannon
- Calm Mind
- Morning Sun
Agility (Solgaleo) @ Weakness Policy / Life Orb
Ability: Full Metal Body
Tera Type: Fire / Electric / Fighting / Water / Dark / Fairy / Flying
EVs: 176 HP / 252 SpA / 80 Spe
Modest Nature
- Psychic / Psyshock / Flash Cannon
- Flamethrower / Thunderbolt / Focus Blast / Tera Blast / Flash Cannon
- Calm Mind
- Agility
PhysDef (Solgaleo) @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots / Kee Berry
Ability: Full Metal Body
Tera Type: Water / Dark / Fairy / Fighting / Flying
EVs: 228 HP / 200 Def / 80 Spe
Bold Nature
- Psychic / Psyshock / Flash Cannon
- Flamethrower / Thunderbolt / Focus Blast / Tera Blast / Flash Cannon
- Calm Mind
- Morning Sun
HP + Spe (Solgaleo) @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots / Kee Berry
Ability: Full Metal Body
Tera Type: Water / Dark / Fairy / Fighting / Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psychic / Psyshock / Flash Cannon
- Flamethrower / Thunderbolt / Focus Blast / Tera Blast / Flash Cannon
- Calm Mind
- Morning Sun
SpA + SpE (Solgaleo) @ Leftovers / Life Orb / Heavy-Duty Boots / Kee Berry
Ability: Full Metal Body
Tera Type: Fire / Electric / Fighting / Water / Dark / Fairy / Flying
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psychic / Psyshock / Flash Cannon
- Flamethrower / Thunderbolt / Focus Blast / Tera Blast / Flash Cannon
- Calm Mind
- Morning Sun
Agility (Solgaleo) @ Weakness Policy / Life Orb
Ability: Full Metal Body
Tera Type: Fire / Electric / Fighting / Water / Dark / Fairy / Flying
EVs: 176 HP / 252 SpA / 80 Spe
Modest Nature
- Psychic / Psyshock / Flash Cannon
- Flamethrower / Thunderbolt / Focus Blast / Tera Blast / Flash Cannon
- Calm Mind
- Agility
my formatting is bad but im going to explain the problems with cm solg existing:
- first, you actually need a mon to handle cm solg. most builds probably do have one way but it'll be unreliable and/or easily worn down, such as with tinglu, encore woger/ival, or gambit.
- second, you need to actually guess that its cm in the first place. if its not, you lose a mon most likely
- third, you need to know what its set is. is it physdef? is it hp/spe? is it offensive? or is it agility? whats the stab move? whats the coverage move? how about tera type? is it actually hidden kee berry?
- fourth, are there screens up? this is a relevant question, since if there's screens up then you need either cb tera ghost infilpult (a very bad set), a very healthy ting-lu, a very healthy gambit with them already burning tera, a well-timed encore, or a stall team. anything else, and youre most likely losing if you dont crit or they throw spectacularly.
edit: i forgot to mention quite possibly the scariest part abt cm solg: the set flexibility. you do always need at least 80ev in speed bc rbolt is so important to outspeed (you do not want to be shut down by faster taunt from a mon that strong) but outside of that you can really customize. want to heal on lando eq and handle max ko gambit at full? you can do that. you want to use cm ival as setup fodder? you can do that. you want to stallbreak? you can technically do that, metronome is unironically usable on solg but thats a certainly unique way to use it? whatever floats your boat i guess. point is, you can do whatever on cm solg, and i feel like top level players will actually exploit this to strenuous degrees with some fuckass spread like 252hp/124+def/44spa/8spd/80spe + mental herb + tera fighting focus blast for example so that you lure and remove post-tera gambit instantly and 2hko lu @ +1 + lure and remove ival + woger or some black magic fuckery like that because you can. point is, cm solg is dumb as fuck and you can get away with pretty much anything if you try hard enough.
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It's a good mon, but it's not a must-use, and no one set is dominating - all of which was expected. The credible concern was always that set variety would be the problem, with a secondary concern of being versatile enough (physical? special? mixed? defensive?) that nothing can blanket check all sets.
That hasn't been an issue because no set is game-ending if you mispredict; giving up a free Calm Mind to Solgaleo is much less punishing than giving up a free Dragon Dance to Kyurem. A free Agility might end an HO team, but HO has always been vulnerable to running into a hard counter and auto-losing, that's a weakness of HO rather than a problem with Solgaleo.
A huge factor is that Psychic + Steel is a trash STAB combo, so Solgaleo is more reliant than most on coverage moves, and while it does have excellent options available, no combination can cover everything and it can't power through off neutral coverage. Sunsteel Strike could be that guy, but it synergizes poorly with other coverage moves meaning you're actually losing something to retain that mid-ground play. Psychic STAB has better synergy with its coverage, but the immunity and lower BP means it's less effective as a general progress maker.
It's still fast, bulky, and has good attacking stats, so Solgaleo is rarely to never going to be dead weight. It's a good mon, just not a dominating or over-centralizing one. I contributed to the Like Shop thinking this would prove Solgaleo shouldn't be tested, but I've come out convinced the opposite is true, that it's fine for OU. Tournament scheduling means I don't expect that test to happen, but I do hope that it's given a chance in Gen 10.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, this ladder has very low activity with the #1 on the ladder not even cracking 1400. The best players and best builders are largely not playing this meta at all, so it's not going to be reflective of Solgaleo's full potential. While I consider testing Solgaleo after DLC2 of Gen 10 to be fair game, dropping it this gen based off of a ladder almost nobody is playing doesn't make sense, and so I agree with the OU Council not promising a suspect for Solgaleo based on views on Solgaleo's ability on this unserious ladder when SV OU still has its own problems that need to be resolved as of right now.