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

[moore's law]

What do people think about using Chandelure to counter the screens outbreak? I think it is a decent anti lead into HO, but especially into screens with infiltrator + trick room. Something like this:

Chandelure @ Focus Sash
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 240 HP / 252 SpA / 16 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast/Flamethrower
- Shadow Ball
- Trick Room
- Haze

Flamethrower gets the job done against most of OU, but Fire Blast has a good chance to OHKO offensive Great Tusk on the switch and 2 shot Zamazenta. Haze prevents any setup cheese with fast sweepers once Chandelure has been brought down to sash, so they're forced to kill you, especially if you got trick room off. Modest nature + 16 speed EVs means you outspeed all adamant gambits, letting you neuter it in the end game by switching hard into Chandelure and hazing away any boosts. It's also decent into Ceruledge provided sash has been preserved, because Chandelure can chip it down without triggering Weak Armor and deny significant bitter blade recovery, letting a teammate finish it off.

It is food for Ting-Lu, so it has to be paired with something like Taunt Wellspring or Taunt Gliscor. Gambit is always a good teammate and can be very threatening with a few trick room turns.

I think random Trick Room for disruption in general can mess up a lot of offense teams. Glowking's 4th moveslot is usually a mystery, you can easily slap trick room over there instead of t-wave/ice beam/toxic if you run stuff like specs Kyurem to cover for ground types and other mons for status. Hatterene can also do this, but it usually doesn't have a moveslot for Trick Room outside of dedicated Trick Room teams, but post #21201 above has an excellent example describing the thought process.

 

[Eviolite Bisharp]

I've been trying on a rain build this last days and i've been really surprised by how effective it is at some matchups. I can definitively see potential on this mon on the rain archetype and even outside of it.

Iron Jugulis @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Tera Type: Ghost
Timid Nature
- Hurricane
- Dark Pulse
- Earth Power
- Taunt

First, speed basically outspeeds the entire meta besides Booster and some niche scarfers like . Second, Hurricane is extremely spammable in rain and there are very few things that resist it, hitting hard a lot of the Grass and Fighting centered meta, and the Steel types and who would want to take Hurricanes are hit very hard by Earth Power. Taunt allows it to beat 1v1 walls like or , opening holes on the defensive core of the opposing team for a partner like or . It is also a full on check to under rain thanks to . Some hazard stack structures also like to use Knock Off instead of Dark Pulse but i think that are better abusers of this strategy like

It Is also a very decent anti-lead against HO teams. Considering specifcally the default HO Vert Screens team, Mugulis can beat , and , and force tera in , Tera Fairy or .

 

[Bold School]

What do people think about using Chandelure to counter the screens outbreak? I think it is a decent anti lead into HO, but especially into screens with infiltrator + trick room. Something like this:

Chandelure @ Focus Sash
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 240 HP / 252 SpA / 16 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast/Flamethrower
- Shadow Ball
- Trick Room
- Haze

Flamethrower gets the job done against most of OU, but Fire Blast has a good chance to OHKO offensive Great Tusk on the switch and 2 shot Zamazenta. Haze prevents any setup cheese with fast sweepers once Chandelure has been brought down to sash, so they're forced to kill you, especially if you got trick room off. Modest nature + 16 speed EVs means you outspeed all adamant gambits, letting you neuter it in the end game by switching hard into Chandelure and hazing away any boosts. It's also decent into Ceruledge provided sash has been preserved, because Chandelure can chip it down without triggering Weak Armor and deny significant bitter blade recovery, letting a teammate finish it off.

It is food for Ting-Lu, so it has to be paired with something like Taunt Wellspring or Taunt Gliscor. Gambit is always a good teammate and can be very threatening with a few trick room turns.

I think random Trick Room for disruption in general can mess up a lot of offense teams. Glowking's 4th moveslot is usually a mystery, you can easily slap trick room over there instead of t-wave/ice beam/toxic if you run stuff like specs Kyurem to cover for ground types and other mons for status. Hatterene can also do this, but it usually doesn't have a moveslot for Trick Room outside of dedicated Trick Room teams, but post #21201 above has an excellent example describing the thought process.

Chandelure isn't great. It is the third best Fire/Ghost type. It would be fourth if A-wak was in the game to also be better on TR. If you want a special attacking Fire/Ghost, use the faster H-phlosion with the threat of Eruption. And if you want an Infiltrator Ghost type, just use Pult.

I also don't see how a Ghost type slower than Ceruledge can be anti-meta to it. If you face Sash + Sneak, you just lose any situation. If you switch in with Flash Fire to absorb the Bitter Blade, you still need a turn to set up TR. Or you just take a Ghost move to the face first afterwards. It is possible you could maybe do something with Scarf/Trick, but the speed tier is pretty bad for an OU metagame where many mons with speed over base 80 use Booster Energy.

Surprise TR is interesting. Athough, base 80 is a bit awkward for this. Either way, I do think there is merit inpacking surprise TR to beat faster offensive teams. It is likely an under the radar tactic.

 

[Karxrida]

Surprise TR is interesting. Athough, base 80 is a bit awkward for this. Either way, I do think there is merit inpacking surprise TR to beat faster offensive teams. It is likely an under the radar tactic.

The problem with surprise Trick Room (outside of all the already existing issues with the move in Singles) is that there's a very good chance you'd want to run it on a team that doesn't telegraph and/or commit to it. So if something goes wrong you could very easily cripple your team for a couple turns because the non-TR abusers are very likely too fast. Imagine giving an enemy Kingambit an easier chance to reverse sweep because you put TR up, for instance.

 

[ArcadianSkies]

Chandelure isn't great. It is the third best Fire/Ghost type. It would be fourth if A-wak was in the game to also be better on TR. If you want a special attacking Fire/Ghost, use the faster H-phlosion with the threat of Eruption. And if you want an Infiltrator Ghost type, just use Pult.

I also don't see how a Ghost type slower than Ceruledge can be anti-meta to it. If you face Sash + Sneak, you just lose any situation. If you switch in with Flash Fire to absorb the Bitter Blade, you still need a turn to set up TR. Or you just take a Ghost move to the face first afterwards. It is possible you could maybe do something with Scarf/Trick, but the speed tier is pretty bad for an OU metagame where many mons with speed over base 80 use Booster Energy.

Surprise TR is interesting. Athough, base 80 is a bit awkward for this. Either way, I do think there is merit inpacking surprise TR to beat faster offensive teams. It is likely an under the radar tactic.

I agree with all of this, but to add on further, I think the gimmick that Chandelure will get the most value out of is the Blunder Policy Inferno set

 

[Eviolite Bisharp]

The problem with surprise Trick Room (outside of all the already existing issues with the move in Singles) is that there's a very good chance you'd want to run it on a team that doesn't telegraph and/or commit to it. So if something goes wrong you could very easily cripple your team for a couple turns because the non-TR abusers are very likely too fast. Imagine giving an enemy Kingambit an easier chance to reverse sweep because you put TR up, for instance.

Maybe of way of dealing with this Is using one slow wallbreaker that also sees usage outside of TR like Ursaluna or Hatterene, that way you could take advantage of the surprise factor

 

[Karxrida]

Maybe of way of dealing with this Is using one slow wallbreaker that also sees usage outside of TR like Ursaluna or Hatterene, that way you could take advantage of the surprise factor

Ursaluna is unable to set its own Trick Room and needs something else to do it. Hard to make TR a surprise that way.

I'd rather just use any given Hatterene set with Nuzzle to spread Paralysis for more permanent Speed control over it being solo Trick Room.

 

[Insolence]

OTR has been used a fair bit this generation, the setup is some kind of LO breaker paired with gambit, the most common being LO hatt, reun (see this RMT for an example), or hoopa-u.
You have a threatening breaker that sets TR and if they tera/trade with turns left gambit comes in to clean up.

Ursa and lebron aren't great on these teams, you need hazard chip and OTR usually only goes up once, so you don't see much benefit running more abusers - 90% of the time gambit wants to come in after the setter dies.
If you want to use them it's better to just run a dedicated TR setter and commit to either hard trick room or semi trick room (think the enam-t glowking structures). You can also just run them on standard offense, like the glim/gambit/pult/hands or ursa teams.

OTR teams are quite mediocre atm, they always struggled a lot into screens (particularly ceru ones, which is on every screens team atm), and since they rely so heavily on hazards for fat the rise of hatt/ace/geezing hurts them as well. Not sure about chandelure though - its coverage is a lot worse than the alternatives (no real way to hit ttar/lu), and weakness to rocks really hurts it in the endgame (where you want to be saving TR for).

 

[UltraSword]

Welp I am bored, so I am going to try to start some conversation here.

What do you all think about Meowscarada? It has been a while since it dropped to UU (and then got banned a few weeks later which was really funny) and since then I haven't really heard anything about it. I still think it is overall a bit too weak and even a bit slow to be an OU staple but is there anything cool that I am missing?

 

[Eviolite Bisharp]

I'm also bored so...

Hot takes on the state of SVOU rn? In my opinion Calm Mind is overrated outside of Grassy Terrain. In like 95% of decent teams there is a Ground type that checks it, and it's not a great abuser of tera, but it needs it to trade with Ground types, while in the offensive structures it finds it's place in there are better tera abuser sweepers that are deprived of that option because of Bolt having to trade with Tusk.

Ofc in Grassy Terrain this thing is a nightmare, specially with Grassy Seed, but outside of this archetype and maybe Sticky Web there are better sweepers and breakers less tera reliant

 

[Rekka's Backend]

95% of decent teams there is a Ground type that checks it, and it's not a great abuser of tera

Longneck has it's problems but I've won a monstrous amount of games by effectively treating CM like a glorified Gambit. When you treat it carefully or use it to force out answers this thing really has nothing that wants to come in on a +1 or even +2. A lot of my teams naturally have answers to Gking or Tinglu so by the time this thing rears its neck it kinda claps or just clicks Tbolt 3 times in a row.

Bulky enough to withstand multiple hits and depending on your Tera Type, can completely get a free turn up that turns into a massive advantage. I think Specs is too matchup fishy imo, scarf is a meme, and Booster with CM can be a huge pressure advantage on the other player if you can position it right. But I think lefties or a berry is prolly best. I tried Custap Berry for a hot minute and it was kinda fucking funny with CM.

 

[moore's law]

Chandelure isn't great. It is the third best Fire/Ghost type. It would be fourth if A-wak was in the game to also be better on TR. If you want a special attacking Fire/Ghost, use the faster H-phlosion with the threat of Eruption. And if you want an Infiltrator Ghost type, just use Pult.

I also don't see how a Ghost type slower than Ceruledge can be anti-meta to it. If you face Sash + Sneak, you just lose any situation. If you switch in with Flash Fire to absorb the Bitter Blade, you still need a turn to set up TR. Or you just take a Ghost move to the face first afterwards. It is possible you could maybe do something with Scarf/Trick, but the speed tier is pretty bad for an OU metagame where many mons with speed over base 80 use Booster Energy.

Surprise TR is interesting. Athough, base 80 is a bit awkward for this. Either way, I do think there is merit inpacking surprise TR to beat faster offensive teams. It is likely an under the radar tactic.

It isn't anti meta into Ceruledge. I did not at any point say that it was a counter to Ceruledge. It is anti meta into screens. As mentioned by Insolence later, OTR teams suck into screens and anti hazard techs, most of which chandelure is good into. You are not supposed to set up trick room on ceruledge - you are supposed to lead into deoxys, set up trick room (or kill it with shadow ball) and chunk whatever comes in next. Ceruledge does not want to switch into it and cannot set up on it.

All three of those (Highphlosion, Pult and Ceruledge) fill different roles. Pult is the closest, and yes - I am not claiming Chandelure is the best or most splashable mon in the tier, Pult is going to be better on 99% of the teams you would run.

OTR has been used a fair bit this generation, the setup is some kind of LO breaker paired with gambit, the most common being LO hatt, reun (see this RMT for an example), or hoopa-u.
You have a threatening breaker that sets TR and if they tera/trade with turns left gambit comes in to clean up.

Ursa and lebron aren't great on these teams, you need hazard chip and OTR usually only goes up once, so you don't see much benefit running more abusers - 90% of the time gambit wants to come in after the setter dies.
If you want to use them it's better to just run a dedicated TR setter and commit to either hard trick room or semi trick room (think the enam-t glowking structures). You can also just run them on standard offense, like the glim/gambit/pult/hands or ursa teams.

OTR teams are quite mediocre atm, they always struggled a lot into screens (particularly ceru ones, which is on every screens team atm), and since they rely so heavily on hazards for fat the rise of hatt/ace/geezing hurts them as well. Not sure about chandelure though - its coverage is a lot worse than the alternatives (no real way to hit ttar/lu), and weakness to rocks really hurts it in the endgame (where you want to be saving TR for).

I agree, it has interesting options like memento for killing itself/bring gambit in to sweep up late game as well, but generally, Hatt is going to be much better (they actually have similar bulk, but Hatt has a much better defensive typing for OU.) It may have a niche in that it is good into most of those structures that you mentioned OTR sucks into.

That's all I have to say about this, I am not the biggest Chandelure fan in the world or anything, just thought it had a neat combination of not being passive, unique support options and anti screens tech. At the end of the day it is still Chandelure, a mon that has been niche at best in prior OU gens.

I'm also noted so...

Hot takes on the state of SVOU rn? In my opinion Calm Mind is overrated outside of Grassy Terrain. In like 95% of decent teams there is a Ground type that checks it, and it's not a great abuser of tera, but it needs it to trade with Ground types, while in the offensive structures it finds it's place in there are better tera abuser sweepers that are deprived of that option because of Bolt having to trade with Tusk.

Ofc in Grassy Terrain this thing is a nightmare, specially with Grassy Seed, but outside of this archetype and maybe Sticky Web there are better sweepers and breakers less tera reliant

Bolt (as a breaker) is good on most weather structures as well. Weather ball destroys most switch ins. On both rain and sun, you get pseudo stab on it because of the weather boost; Chilly Reception + Weather Ball has also seen use. It also gets funny options like Solar Beam on sun. I don't think its an unfair mon or anything but I hate facing it, it feels like it always gets at least 3 kills if I don't have spdef treads or something.

 

[Eviolite Bisharp]

Longneck has it's problems but I've won a monstrous amount of games by effectively treating CM like a glorified Gambit. When you treat it carefully or use it to force out answers this thing really has nothing that wants to come in on a +1 or even +2. A lot of my teams naturally have answers to Gking or Tinglu so by the time this thing rears its neck it kinda claps or just clicks Tbolt 3 times in a row.

Bulky enough to withstand multiple hits and depending on your Tera Type, can completely get a free turn up that turns into a massive advantage. I think Specs is too matchup fishy imo, scarf is a meme, and Booster with CM can be a huge pressure advantage on the other player if you can position it right. But I think lefties or a berry is prolly best. I tried Custap Berry for a hot minute and it was kinda fucking funny with CM.

To be fair i have to admit that my take is kinda biased because i don't usually have problems dealing with CM Bolt.

I think the most consistent set is the Modest boots pivot with bulk investment and enough speed to outpace Jolly Gambit, really cool set in my opinion

 

[Bold School]

It isn't anti meta into Ceruledge. I did not at any point say that it was a counter to Ceruledge. It is anti meta into screens. As mentioned by Insolence later, OTR teams suck into screens and anti hazard techs, most of which chandelure is good into. You are not supposed to set up trick room on ceruledge - you are supposed to lead into deoxys, set up trick room (or kill it with shadow ball) and chunk whatever comes in next. Ceruledge does not want to switch into it and cannot set up on it.

All three of those (Highphlosion, Pult and Ceruledge) fill different roles. Pult is the closest, and yes - I am not claiming Chandelure is the best or most splashable mon in the tier, Pult is going to be better on 99% of the teams you would run.

Leading into D-Speed is kind of risky considering it could be any number of sets, from hazards, to screens, to mixed attacking with Knock Off. Taunt is also pretty common on lead D-speed, making TR a gamble. And without TR, you don't really have the speed tier to chunk most of what comes in next besides against really slow teams without non-Normal type priority.

It's probably a good trade to lose Chandelure for D-speed. But I can think of other pokemon that can probably do this a little better, like Pult or Darkrai.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood your point about Ceruledge. These were your words:

It's also decent into Ceruledge provided sash has been preserved, because Chandelure can chip it down without triggering Weak Armor and deny significant bitter blade recovery, letting a teammate finish it off.

It looks like I overstated what you were saying. I think most of them will just SS you, but it's true that Sash mons can help. Although, those Sash mons don't have to be this one.

I do wonder if it is worth running any defensive investment? Chandelure does have decent defensive stats besides HP. If you can live a +2 SS, that would actually help. Maybe you don't worry about it because you have Sash, but I'm curious now... The answer to that is no. With Tera you can live with no investment. As a Ghost type, you die either way. Defensive investment doesn't seem to matter much. Nevermind.

 

[tommytt22]

Tried the bullet seed liligant lead as an anti samurott lead/ anti sun with chloryphyll, it was awful. Tried cinccino instead, much better. I may swap tail slap for tidy up, you rarely click it and it's useful to have a last ditch screen cleaner or hazard removal.

252 Atk Technician Cinccino Bullet Seed (4 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Samurott-Hisui: 312-376 (97.1 - 117.1%) -- approx. 99.6% chance to OHKO

252 Atk Technician Cinccino Rock Blast (4 hits) vs. 248 HP / 248+ Def Moltres: 416-496 (108.6 - 129.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 Atk Technician Cinccino Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Great Tusk: 254-302 (68.4 - 81.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Technician Cinccino Bullet Seed (4 hits) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Great Tusk in Grassy Terrain: 272-328 (73.3 - 88.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

(Avoids rocky helmet)

Loaded dice has a neat interaction with triple axel where it only uses the first accuracy check instead of 3 separate ones. I've been using it on grass spam offense team so bullet seed is usually under grassy terrain. I don't use tera grass but if you did:

252 Atk Technician Tera Grass Cinccino Bullet Seed (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo in Grassy Terrain: 420-510 (83.3 - 101.1%) -- approx. 0.4% chance to OHKO

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2541897264-o9k9fwr7jgr1rqlutlkejapubcvhkcypw

 

[40kultra]

The thing with raging bolt is that ground types kinda just stop it from sweeping or snowballing teams. as long as your ground is in tact raging bolts sweeping potential is kinda limited. theres also a lot of decent midgrounds into raging bolt like glowking for example, which can just brainlessly click chilly reception and pivot into great tusk to force raging bolt out or force raging bolt to tera. There is also grounds like iron treads that just doesn't care about either stab moves either. raging bolt also has the same issues as other priority users like kingambit where attackers can easily just play around it with trick/encore/substitue to play around thunderclap. raging bolt also has similar issues to gambit where it has a lot of mons that run lure in sets for it like tera ground from iron moth,enamorus,volcanion, and much more. not to mention its very easy for mons to just speed creep max speed modest raging bolt. That's where it falls short

The positive thing is raging bolt is still raging bolt. a fucking nuke that is splashable on a lot of teams, especially the niche archetypes like rain,sun,veil, etc. yes it technically has counters but with the right support you can easily nuke past them. ting lu doesn't like taking on Raging bolt in Sun, Rain, or tera dragon choice specs. and it's fucking bulky too which makes it a mon that is very good into trading with other mons. imo my favourite Raging bolt is structures that utilize it on veil/gterrain. specs is fine but can lose a lot of momentum if you get the guessing game wrong. weather bolt braindead as usual. For me it's a solid A tier mon still.

 

[moore's law]

Leading into D-Speed is kind of risky considering it could be any number of sets, from hazards, to screens, to mixed attacking with Knock Off. Taunt is also pretty common on lead D-speed, making TR a gamble. And without TR, you don't really have the speed tier to chunk most of what comes in next besides against really slow teams without non-Normal type priority.

It's probably a good trade to lose Chandelure for D-speed. But I can think of other pokemon that can probably do this a little better, like Pult or Darkrai.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood your point about Ceruledge. These were your words:


It looks like I overstated what you were saying. I think most of them will just SS you, but it's true that Sash mons can help. Although, those Sash mons don't have to be this one.

I do wonder if it is worth running any defensive investment? Chandelure does have decent defensive stats besides HP. If you can live a +2 SS, that would actually help. Maybe you don't worry about it because you have Sash, but I'm curious now... The answer to that is no. With Tera you can live with no investment. As a Ghost type, you die either way. Defensive investment doesn't seem to matter much. Nevermind.

No worries, I think this topic has been discussed to death so I won't talk much further apart from one thing because I agree with a lot of what you've said generally.

Any taunt lead with such a matchup (wellspring threatens deoxys and lando similarly, or sub kyurem into a lot of stuff) is unlikely to click taunt against something that offensively threatens it to this degree - most people would expect a shadow ball to the face, so it is usually pretty safe to click status moves on lead in such a case because they are likely to hard switch out - they don't know your set, and even if they did, it would still be a huge risk.

 

[Magcargo]

The thing with raging bolt is that ground types kinda just stop it from sweeping or snowballing teams. as long as your ground is in tact raging bolts sweeping potential is kinda limited. theres also a lot of decent midgrounds into raging bolt like glowking for example, which can just brainlessly click chilly reception and pivot into great tusk to force raging bolt out or force raging bolt to tera. There is also grounds like iron treads that just doesn't care about either stab moves either. raging bolt also has the same issues as other priority users like kingambit where attackers can easily just play around it with trick/encore/substitue to play around thunderclap. raging bolt also has similar issues to gambit where it has a lot of mons that run lure in sets for it like tera ground from iron moth,enamorus,volcanion, and much more. not to mention its very easy for mons to just speed creep max speed modest raging bolt. That's where it falls short

The positive thing is raging bolt is still raging bolt. a fucking nuke that is splashable on a lot of teams, especially the niche archetypes like rain,sun,veil, etc. yes it technically has counters but with the right support you can easily nuke past them. ting lu doesn't like taking on Raging bolt in Sun, Rain, or tera dragon choice specs. and it's fucking bulky too which makes it a mon that is very good into trading with other mons. imo my favourite Raging bolt is structures that utilize it on veil/gterrain. specs is fine but can lose a lot of momentum if you get the guessing game wrong. weather bolt braindead as usual. For me it's a solid A tier mon still.

Specs Tera Blast Fairy is another fun set. TB Fairy on this mon is extremely spammabke since most teams are running few Fairy Resist, most players first intuition is to swap in their Ting-lu into Bolt which gets absolutely nuked by TB Fairy, and more reliable switch-in are very easy to volt switch out of.

 

[Finchinator]

Responses to the SV OU Tiering Survey are now up: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-tiering-surveys.3711911/page-2#post-10879252

 

[FayaWizard]

Another survey, another flop for Tera Blast support. Grass is green and water is wet.

Interesting to see continued support for a Roaring Moon unban, anyone want to chime in why?

 

[Finchinator]

My main takeaway from the back half of this generation and the last handful of surveys is that Tera formed a pretty enormous splinter in community perception and opinion. I am not sure our system can be improved fundamentally, but I am also not sure it was fully optimal for what was to come. This is not even just on "oh Tera should be banned, SV is a meme" crowd so much as it trickles down to individual Pokemon and move/concept opinions as well.

You get a lot of people who just like the tier and do not want much banned, but you also have a noteworthy amount of people who do want action. The surveys getting a good, but not great, deal of support for the current metagame shows this. A couple of Pokemon or topics registering, but failing to stand out, shows this. And so on. "Broken" is a definition that is in the eye of the beholder, but with the beholders more split than ever, reaching that bar was easier on this generation with the obvious, power-crept options and is less clear now than ever on the flip side arguably. Maybe this is a good thing -- I actually genuinely would not ban any Pokemon, for example. However, a lot of people reach out to me each survey cycle with hopes of X, Y, or Z surpassing the expected support and leading to something due to their metagame viewpoint. Almost every time these aspirations fall flat.

The issue is that you see these people more spread out than ever:

• you have a group who wants to ban Pokemon like Dragonite
• you have group of people who want to preserve Pokemon, instead wanting to banTera Blast or even Light Clay
• you have a group of people who wants to unban things rather than removing more from the pool of Pokemon

The issue is that a lot of linear discussion or basic surveys let these people splinter into exactly that: separate groups. You are never going to get enough support for one, even if a suspect somehow happened you would end up with a lot of people voting directionally some may argue. On top of this, there is no generic "do you want action?" type of question because of how controversial it was received during the initial Tera suspect, despite this being a vastly different circumstance, and because of how it really does not solve the fact that even if we get a soft majority "yes", then it does not unclutter the splintered ideologies of what action should come of that.

This is much easier to resolve as a council when we have more aggressive tools earlier in a generation -- releases of generations, DLCs, new games, etc. allow for more aggressive quickbanning, more liberal use of public suspect tests, and even more "flooding the box" with articulate and popular players sharing their strong POV, but the further we get from this, the harder it is for even the most articulate and capable players to see eye-to-eye.

I will be discussing this matter intetnally and seeking Policy Review or Tier Leader feedback before this generation closes, but with so much time left and us still actively working to improve SV OU, I do not really want much public reply yet. Just putting it out there for the sake of transparency right now.

 

[Eviolite Bisharp]

My main takeaway from the back half of this generation and the last handful of surveys is that Tera formed a pretty enormous splinter in community perception and opinion. I am not sure our system can be improved fundamentally, but I am also not sure it was fully optimal for what was to come. This is not even just on "oh Tera should be banned, SV is a meme" crowd so much as it trickles down to individual Pokemon and move/concept opinions as well.

You get a lot of people who just like the tier and do not want much banned, but you also have a noteworthy amount of people who do want action. The surveys getting a good, but not great, deal of support for the current metagame shows this. A couple of Pokemon or topics registering, but failing to stand out, shows this. And so on. "Broken" is a definition that is in the eye of the beholder, but with the beholders more split than ever, reaching that bar was easier on this generation with the obvious, power-crept options and is less clear now than ever on the flip side arguably. Maybe this is a good thing -- I actually genuinely would not ban any Pokemon, for example. However, a lot of people reach out to me each survey cycle with hopes of X, Y, or Z surpassing the expected support and leading to something due to their metagame viewpoint. Almost every time these aspirations fall flat.

The issue is that you see these people more spread out than ever:

• you have a group who wants to ban Pokemon like Dragonite
• you have group of people who want to preserve Pokemon, instead wanting to banTera Blast or even Light Clay
• you have a group of people who wants to unban things rather than removing more from the pool of Pokemon

The issue is that a lot of linear discussion or basic surveys let these people splinter into exactly that: separate groups. You are never going to get enough support for one, even if a suspect somehow happened you would end up with a lot of people voting directionally some may argue. On top of this, there is no generic "do you want action?" type of question because of how controversial it was received during the initial Tera suspect, despite this being a vastly different circumstance, and because of how it really does not solve the fact that even if we get a soft majority "yes", then it does not unclutter the splintered ideologies of what action should come of that.

This is much easier to resolve as a council when we have more aggressive tools earlier in a generation -- releases of generations, DLCs, new games, etc. allow for more aggressive quickbanning, more liberal use of public suspect tests, and even more "flooding the box" with articulate and popular players sharing their strong POV, but the further we get from this, the harder it is for even the most articulate and capable players to see eye-to-eye.

I will be discussing this matter intetnally and seeking Policy Review or Tier Leader feedback before this generation closes, but with so much time left and us still actively working to improve SV OU, I do not really want much public reply yet. Just putting it out there for the sake of transparency right now.

Honestly Finch, you and the rest of the council had an astonishing work to make to balance the tier with all the powercreep, and althought there is a lot of disagreement between the playerbase and the actions that should be taken, i think that you guys made a great work to balance the tier to the point where it is now

Thank you for your hard work finch!

 

[Magcargo]

My main takeaway from the back half of this generation and the last handful of surveys is that Tera formed a pretty enormous splinter in community perception and opinion. I am not sure our system can be improved fundamentally, but I am also not sure it was fully optimal for what was to come. This is not even just on "oh Tera should be banned, SV is a meme" crowd so much as it trickles down to individual Pokemon and move/concept opinions as well.

You get a lot of people who just like the tier and do not want much banned, but you also have a noteworthy amount of people who do want action. The surveys getting a good, but not great, deal of support for the current metagame shows this. A couple of Pokemon or topics registering, but failing to stand out, shows this. And so on. "Broken" is a definition that is in the eye of the beholder, but with the beholders more split than ever, reaching that bar was easier on this generation with the obvious, power-crept options and is less clear now than ever on the flip side arguably. Maybe this is a good thing -- I actually genuinely would not ban any Pokemon, for example. However, a lot of people reach out to me each survey cycle with hopes of X, Y, or Z surpassing the expected support and leading to something due to their metagame viewpoint. Almost every time these aspirations fall flat.

The issue is that you see these people more spread out than ever:

• you have a group who wants to ban Pokemon like Dragonite
• you have group of people who want to preserve Pokemon, instead wanting to banTera Blast or even Light Clay
• you have a group of people who wants to unban things rather than removing more from the pool of Pokemon

The issue is that a lot of linear discussion or basic surveys let these people splinter into exactly that: separate groups. You are never going to get enough support for one, even if a suspect somehow happened you would end up with a lot of people voting directionally some may argue. On top of this, there is no generic "do you want action?" type of question because of how controversial it was received during the initial Tera suspect, despite this being a vastly different circumstance, and because of how it really does not solve the fact that even if we get a soft majority "yes", then it does not unclutter the splintered ideologies of what action should come of that.

This is much easier to resolve as a council when we have more aggressive tools earlier in a generation -- releases of generations, DLCs, new games, etc. allow for more aggressive quickbanning, more liberal use of public suspect tests, and even more "flooding the box" with articulate and popular players sharing their strong POV, but the further we get from this, the harder it is for even the most articulate and capable players to see eye-to-eye.

I will be discussing this matter intetnally and seeking Policy Review or Tier Leader feedback before this generation closes, but with so much time left and us still actively working to improve SV OU, I do not really want much public reply yet. Just putting it out there for the sake of transparency right now.

I feel like this is an issue that was somewhat carried over from generation 7, where the amount of options & configurations available at one's fingertips make it more difficult to pinpoint what exactly can be improved in the tier. I was never an active player in 7 when it was current, but I did see - when looking at past threads - that there were a lot of similar complaints based on "match-up", where a fair few Pokemon could feel broken because of the guessing games you needed to play against certain sets, or being pushed to ridiculous heights with certain team support. Depending on the MU & meta state, a lot of Pokemon fluctuate heavily on whether they are broken or manageable. Regardless of the issues present, it does seem like the SV meta can find workable adaptations to whatever threat is popping off. This even applied to previously banned Pokemon like Gouging fire which saw adaptations like Tickle Alomomola. The issue isnt whether or not we have the tools to adapt to something, but whether or not those tools are both consistent enough on their own & dont harm your matchups in other areas too greatly. But with how tightly games in SV can swing when facing certain threats, it makes difficult to build a truly consistent team, but on the flipping, it also makes it difficult for these threats themselves to be entirely consistent. The best example off the top of my head is Walking Wake Sun, which feels like it has many difficult MUs, but can also dominate standard structures very hard.

I do feel that determining what is traditionally broken under this lens is difficult as a result. Game-to-game interactions aren't as straightforward as they were in the past - sequencing & properly planning out how yo play certain lines, or taking key midgrounds feel like they are more important than ever. Tera itself largely plays into these decisions, as its timing is key to not lose the game in many positions. That's somewhat why I feel that focusing on core elements like weather rocks or screens or certain moves that can lead to these insta-lose checkmate scenarios more easily would be preferable to simply banning Pokemon, when never feels like it has the impact it should in SV - as every banned threat has a replacement waiting under its wings that hasn't been explored. Ceruledge's crazy rise after Goug / Roaring Moon's ban, for example. But that's just my opinion, and I'm sure many others have different opinions on how things should be handled as well.

 

[Bold School]

Responses to the SV OU Tiering Survey are now up: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-tiering-surveys.3711911/page-2#post-10879252

I'm disappointed, but not surprised. All gen our ability to agree on things as a community has been shaky. Now that most of the low hanging fruit is gone, we are in a stale mate. People want action. They just can't agree on the path forward. This is also the limit of surveys.

Interesting to see continued support for a Roaring Moon unban, anyone want to chime in why?

Probably the same reason why people were upset with the Gouging Fire ban. Or the Volc ban. Or any other ban of a mon that can boost speed + power in a single setup move in a Tera Blast meta.

Moon is dumb in a Tera metagame. It would be even dumber brute forcing DD + BE with Tera behind screens. No need to bring that back with the screens fad.

 

[Baharoth]

I believe most of peoples complaints on this gen are actually rooted in the tera mechanic. Dragonite, Kinggambit, Terablast and in part even Ogerpon likely wouldn't be on this survey if not for the fact that they can turn their matchups upside down using tera. Dnite/Gambit getting fairy coverage isn't that big of a deal by itself, them becoming fairy types on top turning super effective moves into resists is a big deal. Ogerpon being able to ohko otherwise safe counters like Corviknight and Gweezing is also due to tera.

On the team builder it forces you to include multiple checks to the most prevalent set up sweepers and in game it can lead to you losing games to a sweeper where you thought you are totally save because of some tera/set you didn't account for. It's probably a large part of those "matchup dependency" complaints too if you look at the roots and it's also the reason why it's so hard to make defensive cores that perform somewhat reliably. You can't possibly plan for and cover all possible tera options for every pokemon so you are bound to get screwed over eventually despite having packed multiple answers to a threat. It's honestly depressing imo.

Not asking for action on tera this late in the game, just posting my impression.