Metagame OU + Solgaleo Metagame Discussion

[Bold School]

I think I may have just boken Solgaleo. Remember the troll Roar/Future set I came up with on page 4? Well, I have done more testing on that since then and it is legit stupid. Here are a few replays for reference:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ousolgaleo-2522148273-73t7wr3d7f4mwq2ctaxr2sjofjp56tupw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ousolgaleo-2522157312-7ftvqq5516cpgww47sbtafw1j9aa959pw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ousolgaleo-2522174811-igm1eu7gx266uoveuwdur8f4qb55pnlpw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ousolgaleo-2521708011-2dxgr3lkifomcuf4p7nrd3ha71kbjd9pw

I would go so far as to say it is uncompetitive. Facing it, you have no control over what gets phased in on the Future Sight turn. If the wrong thing gets phased in, you just lose. If the right thing gets phased in, it still might not matter because Solgaleo can just sit there with its massive bulk (and maybe Tera) and keep trying. Everything favors the Solgaleo player here. Throat Spray also really ups the power, making it a much more threatening Future Sight than mons like Glowking.

Another issue is the crits. It's not actually as rare as I thought to Future Sight crit. Losing a mon to Future Sight crit after Roar is game altering. And because of the nature of Sogaleo just sitting there fishing for a good Future Sight phasing, you often have many chances at it. It's kind of like how Sub/Tect Kyurem can just fish for freezes. Faster, offensive team structures can pressure you into not being able to do it as much. But against balance or other slower structures, they are basically at your mercy. And at least one person already mentioned how the Agility sets can just wreck an HO team. So I find the combination of those two possibilities to be, potentially, even more problematic for the builder.

The biggest problem I see is there really isn't any counterplay. Gholdengo gets destroyed by Fire attacks. There isn't a serious Soundproof mon for OU. The closest thing would be Komoo-o, which doesn't want to take a Future Sight anyways. Things like Ingrain or Suction Cups aren't real here. Want to switch in a Dark type? Cool. Gambit is outsped and destroyed by Flamethrower. Oh, Ting-Lu was brought in? Cool. Solg can often just sit there on it all day. And Solgaleo even has the faster phasing, so that isn't a reliable way to slow you down.

Keep in mind a few things:

1. The team isn't even hazard stack.

Literally, the only hazard I packed on the team was T-spikes. This was by design. I wanted to test how good the set would be without relying on much hazard cheese. The fact the results were this good without additional hazard pressure suggests it's quite a strong set. It isn't reliant on hazards, but boy do I expect it could abuse them.

2. The team I used was janky, but very consistent in testing.

I originally made it to test the double Future Sight thing. You could maybe say that the stacked weaknesses on the defensive core aren't optimal, but I was mostly able to cover for that. You could also say that a team with this Solgaleo set and Sub/Tect Kyurem is evil. I wouldn't even disagree.

The original Solg was Teleport, not Roar, and played on an unregistered alt. I soon disovered that Future Sight + Teleport was too passive and tempo draining. However, Roar + Future Sight cared less about tempo and put a lot more pressure on opposing teams. So Roar was put in and the item was changed to Throat Spray. I then tried the Roar version on my alt account and immidiately noticed improvement in the team's performance, getting top 60 or so. Following that, I used one of my named accounts to both further test and get replays. And since I did less concept testing, the GXE was a bit better.

When they were close, I took a screenshot of both my account and the unregistered alt on the ladder:

Proof of consistency

The unregistered alt had decayed a little bit, but it was still easily top 75. You can see bold school and mynameswerestolen in the highlighted section on the ladder in the screenshot. The touhouku account isn't mine. Also, this wasn't the peak of either account. However, neither of my accounts quite made 1300 before I stopped.

I originally intended to ladder this team up further, but I don't have that much time. I want to use the remaining time I do have in this ladder to test other concepts. I may make a RMT page of this specific team if I get to it.

3. The dead ladder isn't everything.

I know we have some people already saying that this isn't proof of anything because the level of competition isn't that high. Well, you can still tell some things by getting in actual games. You can see Solgaleo just take all kinds of hits. You can still see the stuff it does and feel if a matchup is good or bad. The math stays the same. Some things just work. And some things that wouldn't even work in Ubers could work in OU with lower power levels.

I actually believe that, if more good players and builders were focused on this, we would get more out of Solgaleo than we already have. Not less. One month is simply not enough time to fully refine a mon anyways. However, we can still get a bit of an idea. And I think I've already seen enough to say Solgaleo would become problematic. The fact that this is a support set, and not even an offensive set, should be a warning sign.

For those of you who might focus on what this ladder doesn't have, or maybe nitpick replays of games that weren't at the highest level of regular OU, that would be missing the point. It's purely about what Solgaleo can do. We all know the best players could do even more with it.

 

[TheTraininator]

I think I may have just boken Solgaleo. Remember the troll Roar/Future set I came up with on page 4? Well, I have done more testing on that since then and it is legit stupid.

Can you not accomplish a similar set with Latias in regular OU? It lacks a good chunk of physical bulk in comparison and doesn’t get Mystical Fire in SV, but otherwise it has comparable special bulk, comparable special attack, shares recovery, shares STAB on Future Sight, possesses a better speed tier, and if you’re willing to commit to Tera Steel, it has an even better defensive profile thanks to Levitate. I just bring it up because I haven’t seen Future Sight + Roar Latias prove a problem in the past despite a lot of overlap.

 

[Avira]

I think I may have just boken Solgaleo. Remember the troll Roar/Future set I came up with on page 4? Well, I have done more testing on that since then and it is legit stupid. Here are a few replays for reference:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ousolgaleo-2522148273-73t7wr3d7f4mwq2ctaxr2sjofjp56tupw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ousolgaleo-2522157312-7ftvqq5516cpgww47sbtafw1j9aa959pw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ousolgaleo-2522174811-igm1eu7gx266uoveuwdur8f4qb55pnlpw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ousolgaleo-2521708011-2dxgr3lkifomcuf4p7nrd3ha71kbjd9pw


3. The dead ladder isn't everything.

I know we have some people already saying that this isn't proof of anything because the level of competition isn't that high. Well, you can still tell some things by getting in actual games. You can see Solgaleo just take all kinds of hits. You can still see the stuff it does and feel if a matchup is good or bad. The math stays the same. Some things just work. And some things that wouldn't even work in Ubers could work in OU with lower power levels.

With all due respect, none of these replays proved Solgaleo is broken. Every replay aside from one was in the 1000s range with either horrible teams and/or horrible play, and for the one which was in the 1200s, your opponent didn't remember how Future Sight worked and let Weezing-Galar get KOed for no reason. Anything can look broken if used against people who don't know what they're doing

 

[Bold School]

Can you not accomplish a similar set with Latias in regular OU? It lacks a good chunk of physical bulk in comparison and doesn’t get Mystical Fire in SV, but otherwise it has comparable special bulk, comparable special attack, shares recovery, shares STAB on Future Sight, possesses a better speed tier, and if you’re willing to commit to Tera Steel, it has an even better defensive profile thanks to Levitate. I just bring it up because I haven’t seen Future Sight + Roar Latias prove a problem in the past despite a lot of overlap.

This is a great question. It could be that nobody thought of it. The mon is also a bit lower tier. As you stated, the bulk is one problem. Part of what makes Solgaleo so dangerous is that its bulk allows it to stay in and keep firing off Future Sights. The more chances you have at it, the more chances something could break. I don't know if Latias can just stay in there like that.

The even bigger issue is how Latias has no Fire attacks, meaning you have to use Tera Blast. This causes two related problems:

First, Latias becomes way more of a Tera hog. Where Solgaleo can fire off Flamethrowers even without Tera, Latias doesn't have that option. I will say that Tera Fire is quite good with Levitate. But without Tera, Latias is basically doing nothing to potentially threaten what is right in front of it.

Second, the base power is lower. Although the special attack is close, something like Flamethrower has 15 more BP. Furthermore, there is a slight Burn chance that Solgaleo can get which Tera Blast doesn't have. Flamethrower is a much stronger move. Although, the Latias calcs were not too bad against Gambit and Ghold with the Throat Spray boost up. Those are big ones. But you need both that and Tera Fire to do anything.

Latias is the best of the rest from what I could find. And I do think there could be something with Tera Fire and Levitate. However, it looks to me like you really have to design a specific team around for a set that probably isn't as good as Solgaleo's equivilant. My testing for Solgalo showed that it was far less reliant on specific team aerchetypes like hazard stack. Latias doesn't seem quite versatile enough with this to fit on so many different kinds of teams, which probably makes it less broken. I'll admit that I haven't tested it enough, though.

And before anyone asks, yes, I also looked into other possible mons because I was curious. There were 3 mons that probably can't do it at an OU level, but can maybe technically do it. Farigaraf, Mew, and Hisuian-Braviary. Each one has what appears to be a fatal flaw or 3, at least for the OU level. I have no idea if this could trickle down to lower tiers, though.

Mew has good all around stats, natural Fire moves, and is the only one of the 3 with the speed tier to always outspeed Gambit with no speed investment like Solg does. This is important so that you can also invest more EVs into bulk/power. The problem is your only recovery move is Rest. You can't really afford to run Rest/Sleep Talk, either. This makes your staying power poor. Ultimately, I don't think Mew is a viable alternative due to the lack of a good recovery move.

Farigaraf doesn't have any natural Fire moves. However, it is a Normal type special attacker. So it's not the worst thing for it to use Tera Blast. The speed stat is also a concern for Gambit. Armor Tail could be great to block Sucker Punch, but it doesn't matter if you aren't faster. You don't really have room to invest in speed for a set like this since you need bulk and power. For bulk, the base 120 HP stat is also quite good. The base 70 defenses aren't, though, and the only non-Rest recovery move you get is Wish. In a set where you need two turns to Heal and can't fit Protect, that's not a viable option. Maybe it could work with some screens supports, but I don't think it is worth the time. Don't me wrong, Farigaraf is not a bad mon in general. I have seen it used even in OU. Just not in this way. There are probably several better uses for it at minimum.

Hisuian-Braviary is quite interesting. It has similar defensive stats to Farigaraf, actually, with Base 110 HP and base 70s is defenses. Not great, but not as bad as you might expect. It also gets Roost, which gives it a viable recovery move for this strat. Heat Wave gives it a viable Fire attack, too. Tinted Lense and Sheer Force are both potentially huge for boosting power. But in a scenario where a high base power move like Future Sight is applied at random, I think Tinted Lense for the resists makes more sense. The idea of a Tinted Lense Future Sight is intruiging enough that it may be worth looking into. The fatal flaw is the speed. Base 65 speed isn't enough to guarentee outrunning Gambit without tons of investment, and you can't really afford the EVs. H-Braviary has its issues, but it is probably the only other one outside of Latias even worth considering in this role some capacity. I'm not sure if that makes it viable, but I at least can't eliminate it outright before testing.

There was also Latios and Espeon, but even without looking into it, I don't know why you would use either over Latias for this role.
...

With all due respect, none of these replays proved Solgaleo is broken. Every replay aside from one was in the 1000s range with either horrible teams and/or horrible play, and for the one which was in the 1200s, your opponent didn't remember how Future Sight worked and let Weezing-Galar get KOed for no reason. Anything can look broken if used against people who don't know what they're doing

I knew there would be at least one. There always is. You even quoted part of my point 3. section while completely cutting off the ending paragraph specifically aimed at people like you who missed the point. With all due respect, I chose those replays to show what Solgaleo can do with this set. Not to satisfy a fetish for high level games. I also don't have endless time to get perfect replays, either. The replays I did have should have been enough to get the point across.

You didn't even bother to ignore all the things Solgaleo actually did to nitpick at the strategy. You just wanted to toss away the whole thing because lOw LAdDeR and bAD GamEs. For example, I showed you Gliscor getting 1 shot from full after a Roar. This can still happen just as easily in high level play. Where is your actual counterplay to this? No, low ladder or bad player isn't an acceptable answer. You actually have to demonstrate how it is possible to stop it. If it isn't, even the best players can't do it.

You say Weezing-Galar, which was already not a great matchup into my team, only got KO'd due to bad play? So what? The same exact thing can happen after Future Sight + Roar. You should have seen Solgaleo just staying in on Ting-Lu and Tera Dark Zapdos in that game, right? They didn't even matter. That right there is why I even included that game. (Every game I included had a reason.) The only reason why the onslaught didn't continue in that game was because my opponent surrendered. Had the game continued, I could have kept firing off the Future Sights. How do you know Zama or Geezing wouldn't have been hit then? You don't. And there is no way they could have stopped it. This is the fundamental problem.

Why are you even here at this point?

This whole ladder isn't high level. We all knew this going into the event. So why keep complaining about it? The cap for highest rated is under 1400. If that's not enough for you then nothing that happens here will matter. At least nothing will matter to you. There is still value here to be had if you want to find it. It's up to you.

 

[HoothootLover]

Not the best set I ever made, but thought it would be interesting (keep in mind I may suck at distributing evs lol)
Solgaleo @ Leftovers
Ability: Full Metal Body
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 hp, 252 attack, 4 special defense.
Adamant Nature
- Psychic Fangs
- Sunsteel Strike
- Close Combat
- Teleport
Tried to make it a attacker and tank, but I feel like this could be one of the worst solgaleo sets ever made.

 

[Avira]

I knew there would be at least one. There always is. You even quoted part of my point 3. section while completely cutting off the ending paragraph specifically aimed at people like you who missed the point. With all due respect, I chose those replays to show what Solgaleo can do with this set. Not to satisfy a fetish for high level games. I also don't have endless time to get perfect replays, either. The replays I did have should have been enough to get the point across.

You didn't even bother to ignore all the things Solgaleo actually did to nitpick at the strategy. You just wanted to toss away the whole thing because lOw LAdDeR and bAD GamEs. For example, I showed you Gliscor getting 1 shot from full after a Roar. This can still happen just as easily in high level play. Where is your actual counterplay to this? No, low ladder or bad player isn't an acceptable answer. You actually have to demonstrate how it is possible to stop it. If it isn't, even the best players can't do it.

You say Weezing-Galar, which was already not a great matchup into my team, only got KO'd due to bad play? So what? The same exact thing can happen after Future Sight + Roar. You should have seen Solgaleo just staying in on Ting-Lu and Tera Dark Zapdos in that game, right? They didn't even matter. That right there is why I even included that game. (Every game I included had a reason.) The only reason why the onslaught didn't continue in that game was because my opponent surrendered. Had the game continued, I could have kept firing off the Future Sights. How do you know Zama or Geezing wouldn't have been hit then? You don't. And there is no way they could have stopped it. This is the fundamental problem.

Why are you even here at this point?

This whole ladder isn't high level. We all knew this going into the event. So why keep complaining about it? The cap for highest rated is under 1400. If that's not enough for you then nothing that happens here will matter. At least nothing will matter to you. There is still value here to be had if you want to find it. It's up to you.

I did read your entire post, but I cut off the rest of it because I didn't believe it was relevant given you used replays of horrible teams and horrible plays to argue that Solgaleo was broken. If I quote a post, I have read its entire contents and intentionally choose not to quote everything.

Gliscor getting one-shot from a crit is hax. Using the best-case scenario for yourself to scream broken doesn't mean it wasn't hax. Your opponent that match also made a horrible play on Turn 10 in using Ruination when Earthquake does twice the damage and had a chance to KO Solgaleo, and that's what allowed you to Roar multiple times again so freely. As much as you scream that the plays don't matter, they absolutely do.

The thing is that you had multiple very fortunate things go in your way, like your opponent sacking a mon for no reason, your opponent on Turn 28 staying in with Zapdos instead of going to Cinderace to force Slowking-Galar out and Court Change the Toxic Spikes, and even Turn 29 going Tera Dark without KOing Slowking-Galar was a horrible play. Your opponent's Cinderace also had Taunt and clearly used it against your Solgaleo the moment you revealed Roar for the first time, so your Future Sight Roar tactic is not great to begin with into that team. The play was just catastrophically bad from your opponent.

In the third replay, your opponent's team and plays were just shitty all around.

In that fourth replay, you haxed the guy's Iron Crown, and your opponent used Psychic Noise against Kyurem when Iron Crown thawed out, which was an abysmal play. Your opponent was throwing away his wincons.

As ausma said in Page 2 of this thread, you need to share replays, but it is implied just from being on Smogon itself that they should be high-quality replays and not with horrible teams and/or horrible plays as those aren't indicative of anything. If you want to prove anything about Solgaleo, the replays should be at the 1300s level on the Solgaleo ladder against another person in the 1300s as that would be comparable to the 1600-1700 range on the standard SV OU ladder.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Can you not accomplish a similar set with Latias in regular OU? It lacks a good chunk of physical bulk in comparison and doesn’t get Mystical Fire in SV, but otherwise it has comparable special bulk, comparable special attack, shares recovery, shares STAB on Future Sight, possesses a better speed tier, and if you’re willing to commit to Tera Steel, it has an even better defensive profile thanks to Levitate. I just bring it up because I haven’t seen Future Sight + Roar Latias prove a problem in the past despite a lot of overlap.

i'll be honest, i only just now realized that latias actually has that combo available (latios too if you like damage), so the reason it hasn't been accomplished may very well be because nobody thought of it

 

[Bold School]

Not the best set I ever made, but thought it would be interesting (keep in mind I may suck at distributing evs lol)
Solgaleo @ Leftovers
Ability: Full Metal Body
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 hp, 252 attack, 4 special defense.
Adamant Nature
- Psychic Fangs
- Sunsteel Strike
- Close Combat
- Teleport
Tried to make it a attacker and tank, but I feel like this could be one of the worst solgaleo sets ever made.

Teleport is hard to run without healing from Morning Sun. So you'll want to use a two attack combo when you drop one of your attacks for it. One STAB + a coverage move will hit more of the meta than the Steel/Psychic combination. So choose based on that. You don't use both STABs on most sets for this mon because they aren't great attacking types. If you don't know what to do, Fire/Psychic is really good for two move coverage. Although, you have to be a bit more careful with the physical Fire moves and you can make other things work.

The best move I found to go with Sunsteel Strike was Earthquake. This is because 4 types resist Steel: Water, Fire, Electric, annd Steel itself. All those types except Water are weak to ground. This still leaves you vulnerable to bulky waters and the defensive birds, though. With only two attacks, there won't be a great way to make up for this. So if you use that combination, you'll need to rely on using Teleport to bring in something to handle these situations. Personally, I never use Sunsteel Strike on sets with two attacks.

For the EVs, I don't think it's that bad. You may want to put some of your HP into special defense. The way defenses work, you can often get more mileage by investing in the lower stat. So if the HP is lower, do some of that. If the defenses are lower, invest in some of that. What I did was max my attacking stat and then try to get both defenses to hit 250. Solg's defense defaults to this, but you need 144 spdef EVs needed to hit 250. The remaining 112 can go in HP. At least this is what I did. I don't know if it is perfectly optimal, but it works pretty well without taking time I don't have to crunch all the specific math numbers.
...

Gliscor getting one-shot from a crit is hax. Using the best-case scenario for yourself to scream broken doesn't mean it wasn't hax.

I literally had a whole section, which you now loudly claim to have read, about crit fishing with Future Sight. I even made the comparison to Kyurem freeze fishing. Do you know why I did this? It's because you get multiple chances at it to increase the odds of something like this happening. To call it just luck or hax completely misses the point.

Your opponent that match also made a horrible play on Turn 10 in using Ruination when Earthquake does twice the damage and had a chance to KO Solgaleo, and that's what allowed you to Roar multiple times again so freely. As much as you scream that the plays don't matter, they absolutely do.

I didn't say they don't matter. I was saying Solgaleo can do certain things and showing them actually happening.

I also don't know why you think a 48% roll EQ was going to KO the next turn. It clearly wasn't attack invested. I was faster and could have just hit Morning Sun. Isn't it a bad gamble to go for a role if you don't get it? Well, that's what you said further down. Maybe you can argue it was a throw on my part not to Morning Sun there, but like, I made a read.

The thing is that you had multiple very fortunate things go in your way, like your opponent sacking a mon for no reason, your opponent on Turn 28 staying in with Zapdos instead of going to Cinderace to force Slowking-Galar out and Court Change the Toxic Spikes, and even Turn 29 going Tera Dark without KOing Slowking-Galar was a horrible play. Your opponent's Cinderace also had Taunt and clearly used it against your Solgaleo the moment you revealed Roar for the first time, so your Future Sight Roar tactic is not great to begin with into that team. The play was just catastrophically bad from your opponent.

The Geezing sac was already addressed last comment. Bad play; same result. Just sooner. I don't know why you think swapping their Ace in on turn 28 matters when I cicked Chilly Reception to gain momentum. Do you think risking Ace chip if I didn't T-spike was a good idea? Or why do you think T-spikes on my side is that bad when I have a Glowking and a Defog Corv? Solg also just comes in on it as a Steel type before Tera. Ace has Boots, which you can also tell from the replays. 4 of my 6 mons didn't care about it. Why is that the killer play? That play would have done nothing.

And you literally just criticized the other player for not going for said KO role on my Solg with their Ting-Lu, and now you say the Zapdos going for a similar role against a known Future Sight mon (and only T-spiker) is a disastrous play just because they didn't get it? Come on now.

Did you consider their Tera Dark might also have been for Future Sight, which they knew I had? Again, I included that game to show how Tera Dark in addition to a Dark type defensive mon didn't shut down the Future Sight strategy like it normally would. Be honest, most teams with two defensive Dark types would beat Future Sight spam. They didn't have a favorable matchup here because of Roar. It's a massive difference.

Why do you even think Taunt shuts down my Solgaleo? Ace isn't forcing it out at all after Tera Fire. I just spam Future Sight and Flamethrower until it dies or leaves. I literally stayed in after the Taunt in that game anyways. You watched the replay, right? You must have seen me stay in and Tera Fire. I just waited until the Taunt was gone. Solgaleo came in turn 30 and never left, dude. Even without T-spike chip, Stomping Tantrum was never going to do enough to force me out of my Roar cycle unless they got a really timely crit.

As ausma said in Page 2 of this thread, you need to share replays, but it is implied just from being on Smogon itself that they should be high-quality replays and not with horrible teams and/or horrible plays as those aren't indicative of anything. If you want to prove anything about Solgaleo, the replays should be at the 1300s level on the Solgaleo ladder against another person in the 1300s as that would be comparable to the 1600-1700 range on the standard SV OU ladder.

No. As I stated in multiple comments, I don't have infinite time to grind for perfect replays just to satisfy you. I want to do other things with my limited time before the ladder is gone. And I did get to like 1282 or something. It wasn't even that far off. Your focus on the bad plays still misses the point about actual counterplay. Also, many of them don't have the degree of impact you tried to paint.

I show those replays because it helps if you can see it happening real time. It's handy until somebody wants to nitpick. If I made a post with zero replays, my analyses might have been taken more seriously like it was on page four. But now I show some imperfect replays and it's an excuse to shut it down. Ok... Damned if I do, damned if I don't. But I did it anyways because I thought it might be more helpful to see it. While I understand the importance of quality replays, I reject the notion that you need perfect replays every time simply to prove a point.

 

[Avira]

...

I literally had a whole section, which you now loudly claim to have read, about crit fishing with Future Sight. I even made the comparison to Kyurem freeze fishing. Do you know why I did this? It's because you get multiple chances at it to increase the odds of something like this happening. To call it just luck or hax completely misses the point.

Crit fishing with Future Sight is not a real strategy given it doesn't have an increased crit chance. You have more of a chance to crit by throwing out 3 attacks over three turns rather than using a Future Sight strategy.

I didn't say they don't matter. I was saying Solgaleo can do certain things and showing them actually happening.

I also don't know why you think a 48% roll EQ was going to KO the next turn. It clearly wasn't attack invested. I was faster and could have just hit Morning Sun. Isn't it a bad gamble to go for a role if you don't get it? Well, that's what you said further down. Maybe you can argue it was a throw on my part not to Morning Sun there, but like, I made a read.

You can make a read as you say, but it doesn't make your opponent's play any less bad when Ruination does less damage the lower your target's HP is, which is a fact, meaning Ruination was far from a optimal play.

The Geezing sac was already addressed last comment. Bad play; same result. Just sooner. I don't know why you think swapping their Ace in on turn 28 matters when I cicked Chilly Reception to gain momentum. Do you think risking Ace chip if I didn't T-spike was a good idea? Or why do you think T-spikes on my side is that bad when I have a Glowking and a Defog Corv? Solg also just comes in on it as a Steel type before Tera. Ace has Boots, which you can also tell from the replays. 4 of my 6 mons didn't care about it. Why is that the killer play? That play would have done nothing.

And you literally just criticized the other player for not going for said KO role on my Solg with their Ting-Lu, and now you say the Zapdos going for a similar role against a known Future Sight mon (and only T-spiker) is a disastrous play just because they didn't get it? Come on now.

Did you consider their Tera Dark might also have been for Future Sight, which they knew I had? Again, I included that game to show how Tera Dark in addition to a Dark type defensive mon didn't shut down the Future Sight strategy like it normally would. Be honest, most teams with two defensive Dark types would beat Future Sight spam. They didn't have a favorable matchup here because of Roar. It's a massive difference.

There's no logical inconsistency with what I posted.

8 SpA Tera Dark Zapdos Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking-Galar: 144-170 (36.5 - 43.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
This never KOes Slowking-Galar at the HP & it was, so it was an outright terrible use of Tera. Rule #1 of using the Terastal mechanic is only use your Tera if you can deny your opponent progress or force progress against your opponent. Solgaleo's most common Tera Type is Fire, so since it walls Zapdos indefinitely, blowing Tera on Zapdos 'cause of Future Sight doesn't make sense. If it actually KOed Slowking-Galar, there would've been a teensy, smidgen of value from blowing Tera to do so, but it would still have been a very suboptimal play. The only mon your opponent had any business blowing his/her Tera on was Zamazenta to get rid of the weakness to Future Sight, and if Solgaleo was afflicted by Taunt, set up with Iron Defense since Solgaleo wouldn't be able to Roar it out.

Why do you even think Taunt shuts down my Solgaleo? Ace isn't forcing it out at all after Tera Fire. I just spam Future Sight and Flamethrower until it dies or leaves. I literally stayed in after the Taunt in that game anyways. You watched the replay, right? You must have seen me stay in and Tera Fire. I just waited until the Taunt was gone. Solgaleo came in turn 30 and never left, dude. Even without T-spike chip, Stomping Tantrum was never going to do enough to force me out of my Roar cycle unless they got a really timely crit.

I never said Taunt shuts down Solgaleo. What I meant is by Taunting Solgaleo and eventually sacking something to Solgaleo, your opponent would've eventually been able to setup with Zamazenta, forcing Solgaleo out and removing its Throat Spray boost. Yes, the game was almost certainly already lost for your opponent, but your opponent played horribly nonetheless despite your trying to suggest otherwise.

No. As I stated in multiple comments, I don't have infinite time to grind for perfect replays just to satisfy you. I want to do other things with my limited time before the ladder is gone. And I did get to like 1282 or something. It wasn't even that far off. Your focus on the bad plays still misses the point about actual counterplay. Also, many of them don't have the degree of impact you tried to paint.

I show those replays because it helps if you can see it happening real time. It's handy until somebody wants to nitpick. If I made a post with zero replays, my analyses might have been taken more seriously like it was on page four. But now I show some imperfect replays and it's an excuse to shut it down. Ok... Damned if I do, damned if I don't. But I did it anyways because I thought it might be more helpful to see it. While I understand the importance of quality replays, I reject the notion that you need perfect replays every time simply to prove a point.

Nobody said that you need perfect replays every time to prove a point, but literally none of your replays were quality replays, and all of them were low-quality.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

Just wanted to add that this thread has created a new Latias - I had a match with Phazing + FutureSight

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2523663090-x62aiqijwq95wa1h42a5vntwgr0tbpepw

Lowest of low rank test duel on ladder but I had to laugh at the fact that it worked at all. Of course I was lucky but that's kinda the point of the set?

Latias @ Throat Spray
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roar
- Future Sight
- Recover
- Aura Sphere


Also Mew can run Dragon Tail instead of Roar/Whirlwind. Circle Throw + FutureSight I cannot think of any mon:

Mew @ Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 128 HP / 252 SpA / 128 Spe
Modest Nature
- Future Sight
- Dragon Tail
- Flamethrower
- Aura Sphere

(enough Speed to outrun Gholdengo)

 

[Bold School]

Just wanted to add that this thread has created a new Latias - I had a match with Phazing + FutureSight

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2523663090-x62aiqijwq95wa1h42a5vntwgr0tbpepw

Lowest of low rank test duel on ladder but I had to laugh at the fact that it worked at all. Of course I was lucky but that's kinda the point of the set?

Latias @ Throat Spray
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roar
- Future Sight
- Recover
- Aura Sphere


Also Mew can run Dragon Tail instead of Roar/Whirlwind. Circle Throw + FutureSight I cannot think of any mon:

Mew @ Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 128 HP / 252 SpA / 128 Spe
Modest Nature
- Future Sight
- Dragon Tail
- Flamethrower
- Aura Sphere

(enough Speed to outrun Gholdengo)

That's sick. I love that others are trying this. Phase/Sight is slowly becoming a thing.

The only thing I will say is that Mew gets no good recovery moves this gen. So the staying power probably isn't good enough. Maybe you could run Mola Wish support or something, but it seems kinda bad to me. Maybe it's less bad if you don't use Throat Spray?
...

Crit fishing with Future Sight is not a real strategy given it doesn't have an increased crit chance. You have more of a chance to crit by throwing out 3 attacks over three turns rather than using a Future Sight strategy.

Crit fishing is not the strategy, merely an added advantadge. Crit Future Site is a 1HKO on many mons who would otherwiseat least survive when they get haplessly phased in on the wrong turn. It's more common then you think is the main point in all this.

Kyurem Freeze has only a 10% chance. I know you were here for the suspects of Kyurem. We both saw those conversations of Sub/Tect Kyurem and the math around Freeze. And freezing was never the main strategy. It's just that if you do get frozen, it's essentially like a KO in most cases. This adds to the problem. The reason why I personally didn't think the Sub/Tect part of Kyurem was the broken bit was because there is actually some limited counterplay to freeze hax like Covert Cloak or Gholdengo. The only thing I'm aware of that stops crits are Battle Armor and Shell Armor, neither of which sees any use in the tier. Well, there is Lucky Chant but same difference.

Honestly, your point of view makes a lot sense if you have never seen it. I never even factored this in when I first made the set because I didn't think the default crit rate would be high enough to be relevant. It surprised me just how frequently it can proc. It's often disastrous when it does. This would make it unreliable cheese if the main strategy was crit reliant, but it isn't. This is just an added issue to the main strategy, which is the point you are missing.

You can make a read as you say, but it doesn't make your opponent's play any less bad when Ruination does less damage the lower your target's HP is, which is a fact, meaning Ruination was far from a optimal play.

This is pure hindsight from you knowing what actually happened. In game decisions aren't made in hindsight. If I make a more standard play to Morning Sun, and they waste an EQ against a team with two Pressure mons in the back to do less than half damage again, that isn't an optimal play. If I switch, EQ is also suboptimal because the EQ vulnerable mons like Glowking and Ace aren't coming in raw on a Ting-Lu. If they EQ and Pressure Corv switches in, that's not great. If that switch is Rillaboom, it is potentially disastrous. Ruination would at least compound with free Wood Hammer recoil, making the Rillaboom switch far less free.

Now let's talk about reads. I predicted that their read would be either switch or Morning Sun. Why? Because I was at about half. If the optimal play is to EQ again, and there is a chance to KO as you yourself say, it makes no sense for me to stay in there without also healing up. So instead, I stayed in to Roar. I played suboptimally to avoid predictability. But if you are actually predicting from their position, why would you ever predict the suboptimal play? You only know this happened because of hindsight.

There's no logical inconsistency with what I posted.

8 SpA Tera Dark Zapdos Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking-Galar: 144-170 (36.5 - 43.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
This never KOes Slowking-Galar at the HP & it was, so it was an outright terrible use of Tera. Rule #1 of using the Terastal mechanic is only use your Tera if you can deny your opponent progress or force progress against your opponent. Solgaleo's most common Tera Type is Fire, so since it walls Zapdos indefinitely, blowing Tera on Zapdos 'cause of Future Sight doesn't make sense. If it actually KOed Slowking-Galar, there would've been a teensy, smidgen of value from blowing Tera to do so, but it would still have been a very suboptimal play. The only mon your opponent had any business blowing his/her Tera on was Zamazenta to get rid of the weakness to Future Sight, and if Solgaleo was afflicted by Taunt, set up with Iron Defense since Solgaleo wouldn't be able to Roar it out.

Sorry, but your takes on the second replay are dreadful. I'm surprised to say this now because I think, generally, you know what's up. You seem to be pretty knowledgeable. I have to be fair. I can at least understand your point of view for the other stuff even if I disagree. Pretty much every take you have on the second replay is unsalvageable. You literally tried to tell me swapping T-spikes with Ace was the optimal play against a team with 4 mons that don't care about it. This isn't any better.

You keep emphasizing the Glowking KO, but this ignores that the combination of keeping Glowking low and countering Future Sight with Tera Dark could make sense. Like, you can't seriously tell me that Tera Dark against a Future Sight team is bad. This is at least disingenuous. I realize you have your skeptic meter turned up to max, but we both know you understand that Tera Dark against a Future Sight team is normally very good. The thing that changes that here is Roar. The player doesn't even know this at the time of the Tera. The only information the player had by that turn was Future Sight Glowking. Given the information they actually had at the time, Tera Dark Static actually makes a lot of sense as a defensive pivot. You only call it a bad play having the knowledge of hindsight and knowing the Solgaleo set was Roar/Future Sight.

What you don't have any knowledge of is their Zama set. It never even came in once during that game. Tera and set up ID? Don't you mean hope it is both the right Tera and ID set? And even something like Steel can't be the right Tera because Flamethrower just beats that. I'm assuming you want Roar, too, since the only thing that actually stops my Solgaleo set (kind of) is a faster phasing move. Ok... What a conveniant assumption on the set. But even if it's that set, doesn't it then kinda lose to Glowking unless it is also Crunch? I mean, sure, if you best case scenario an unknown set then there could often be more optimal plays. It's an unserious take.

I never said Taunt shuts down Solgaleo. What I meant is by Taunting Solgaleo and eventually sacking something to Solgaleo, your opponent would've eventually been able to setup with Zamazenta, forcing Solgaleo out and removing its Throat Spray boost.

Part 2? I already know you didn't do the calcs on this. So aside from what I said in the prior section about assuming the perfect Zama set, Zamazenta is literally one of my main Future Sight targets. I want it in on Solg. You talking it up like counterplay is wild to me. Switching it in to a mon that is going to click Future Sight on it can only possibly work with a specific Tera. What Tera? Well, there isn't actually much. I'll calc using the HP invested ID set you seem to want:

So the Tera needs to resist Future Sight. Because nearly everything else gets two shot. Even something neutral like Tera Ghost takes 66.7 - 78.8% from +1 Future Sight. That's assuming no crit, which 1 shots. Flamethrower would then finish it off. So that's not happening.

However, I'll go over it for Tera Fire since that's very good and common on Zama. Again, a neutral Future Sight does 66.7 - 78.8% to full HP invested Zama. A resisted +1 Flamethrower does 25 - 29.6%. There is a good chance that Flamethrower just kills after Future Sight damage. Even if it doesn't, the little remaining HP Zama has would really hamper it. Anyways, it's not really viable to hope for such low roles and still basically trade Tera and the mon for one phasing. That's a worse outcome than the Tera Dark Zapdos, which came in multiple times.

The only Teras that resist Psychic are Steel, Psychic, and Dark. Psychic Tera isn't real so I'll ignore it. Steel just loses to Flamethrower. It's a 1HKO. So it has to be Tera Dark. The problem is that neutral Flamethrower does 50.2 - 59.5% at +1. Nothing that doesn't resist Flamethrower ever survives 2 of them. So you really need a Tera Dark Zama + Roar. This is a very specifc combination that not every team running Zama has.

Furthermore, you have to Roar before you take a second Flamethrower or you die anyways. And because phasing is negative priority, you really have to Roar before a Flametrower is even launched at you. Because if you took one, it's already too late. The second one will go before your negative priority move and KO. You don't have time to ID and Roar unless you come in exactly on the turn after a Future Sight would hit. Even then, it's a 50/50 read at best on whether Solg clicks Future Sight or just goes for the 2HKO with Flamethrower.

Body Press is faster, but unlikely be a 2HKO at only +1. So you really need the ID, and then you need 2 more turns of BP. That's 3 turns total. You don't have 3 turns against this Solgaleo when you come in clean and still get 2 shot by Flamethrower. Phasing early is the only way, unless you come in on a hurt Solgaleo and can threaten the BP KO at only +1.

Ok... So what did we learn?

Only a very specific Tera Dark/Roar Zama can reliably slow down the Solgaleo... once. I don't know why you'd assume it was a Tera Dark Zama on a team that already had a Tera Dark Zapdos and a Ting-Lu, but ok... Zama comes in to Tera Dark Roar. Doesn't Solgaleo just come back in later in the game anyways? You stop the Throat Spray boost, but you still don't stop Future Sight from dealing good damage to a more worn down team. To sac Zama for that (after also sacrificing a mon to get it in cleanly, as you stated) probably just loses the game to Kyurem or something.

Yes, the game was almost certainly already lost for your opponent, but your opponent played horribly nonetheless despite your trying to suggest otherwise.

Nah, this game was lost in the builder. They would have had to play out of their minds to overcome it, and apparently, had the perfect Zama counterset to do anything. You blame bad play because you want to discredit the replays. But objectively, your takes on the second replay simply aren't good.

Nobody said that you need perfect replays every time to prove a point, but literally none of your replays were quality replays, and all of them were low-quality.

Aside from majorly doubting your judgement on the second replay, your expectations for this ladder are probably unrealistic. The activity is low. You get a ton of surrenders when the strat works. I tried this on multiple accounts and got similar results. The first account has no replays because it is unregistered. It's easy for you to say this when you don't have to grind for it yourself. You can just turn up your skeptic meter and put them under more scrutiny than is probably necesarry. Even high ladder players aren't perfect.

And I won't lie. I mainly included the third replay because I think it caught my peak elo on this account, which was something that I didn't catch on my initial screenshot. It's not a good game. However, it does show the general strategy working without a forfeit or time loss coming first. That alone was quite hard to capture. Every team included came at the Future Sight spam with more than one Dark type. And even the worst ones show Solg dealing damage and taking hits like a champ. As I said before, the math doesn't change.

Your emphases on the replays, which were primarily meant as bonus to the analyses I have done, continues to miss the main point about counterplay. When we actually get into the details about plays, your analyses is quite lacking. Although, maybe I would feel differently if we just threw out all your takes on the second replay. Either way, demonstrable counterplay is at best inconclusive.