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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
People oversell the difficulty of hazard removal in the meta, but we have Tusk, Treads, Corv, and GWeezing who are all premier forms of removal with their own niches. And Boots Spam is the strongest it has ever been.
Those three are indeed strong, but they're almost mandatory. It's been eons since the last time I was building a team and I thought "hey, I could fit here Landorus-Therian" because Great Tusk is almost mandatory on every team I make. And even if bootspam is stronger than before, it's still not great. Your wallbreakers can't use the Choice Band/Specs, your sweepers can't use the Life Orb, etc.
I can Understand Kyurem (Because of Ballon and Scarf Dengo) but how Keep Gholdengo, Pech in Check?! (I mean is Pech even Broken Without Dengo). Also Run Most Zamas not Crunch in their Set to Hit Pech and Dengo, or Am I missing something?
Roaring Moon discussions are still going on. Seems possible something happens.
Why are these discussions so internal? What is the importance of a roaring moon suspect that it can’t be decided by if the community wants to see roaring moon suspected down
We have had plenty of surveys and discussions with the public all generation. Up until last generation, suspects or decisions were just posted without consultation altogether. I’m providing transparency into what we are looking at, but forum posters don’t all qualify to dictate suspects, and even less so for retests. That’s what the council is installed for. If we are needing support, we will post a survey like we have done dozens of times.
This isn't a "Gholdengo is causing problems" issue, though, it's a "Defog distribution got chopped up like Thanksgiving roast" problem.
I mean, really, this is the list of Defog users available in SV.
Corviknight is doing fine in OU, utility Scizor is a thing though not its best set, Talonflame is mostly a stall option but works there, and Weezing-Galar allows Gholdengo in but reliably gets off the Defog.
Mandibuzz is B- on the VR and invites Gholdengo in, so that's genuinely a Gholdengo victim.
There's a bunch of these mons who are usable in OU, but not in a role that functions with Defog, like Hawlucha or Liligant-Hisui. Other than Mandibuzz, which mons would reach even borderline viability as an OU Defogger without Gholdengo?
i think the hazard meta's actually gotten a lot better over the course of the gen. lando-t's still got a healthy amount of usage, it's been floating at around 10% for a good while (and seems to be on the rise recently even), and it's also sitting at a respectable a on the vr. there's plenty of room for it in builder, and plenty of room for teams without tusk. in this regard, lando-t's typical hazard control partner is cinderace, which wasn't even on the initial list; a lot of times lando can also stuff out hazards on his own through usage of taunt
i'd also like to push back on the notion that bootspam is limiting item options. yes, boots do tend to be better than a lot of other options on pretty much everything if hazard resilience is your priority, but this was true last gen when defog was more widely distributed, gholdengo didn't exist, and we didn't have ting-lu, hamurott or gliscor throwing spikes around everywhere. and of course the existence of boots doesn't prevent anything from running the items you mentioned if you're willing to be proactive with hazard prevention, aggressive with hazard control, or both. as of the end of august, these guys were running them enough to be recorded in the stats page (and common enough to be considered ou by usage):
- :choice band:: :zamazenta::dragonite::samurott-hisui::cinderace::dragapult::ogerpon::rillaboom:
- :choice specs:: :raging bolt::kyurem::iron valiant::dragapult::iron moth::darkrai::walking wake::zapdos::enamorus::iron crown::tornadus-therian:
- :life orb:: :zamazenta::dragonite::raging bolt::dragapult::darkrai::ceruledge::moltres: (wait seriously?) :clefable::enamorus::deoxys-speed::rillaboom::tornadus-therian:
I think a Light Clay ban makes no sense because screens is not an issue or broken, its just easy and consistent. Removing options is the last thing we want for SV OU, which is the mistake we made with Tera Blast Ban.
I didn't talk much during the Tera Blast Ban debacle but i think the Tera Blast Ban was a mistake, because it did not fix anything, just took out options for no reason. Fundamentally the ban itself was to remove the randomness of the tier that would catch people off-guard and get a Gotcha moment on its counters. This hasn't changed at all, effectively all it did was nerf tera blast reliant mons like Iron moth, Enamorus, Thundurus-T.
The pokemon that Tera Blast ban was supposed to nerf and make the meta more palatable are still Dominant. Dragonite still has endless options with its move set, Kingambit can still counter everything with the right item and tera, Cresselia finally got the respect it deserved for a long time even without tera blast, and mons still carry random tera or sets to counter its counters. Nothings changed.
I think this is enough proof that the Tera Blast ban was a failure, at the highest level the problems its supposed to solve hasnt changed and at the casual level, people can't use random pokemon for fun anymore like tblast fairy thundurus-t or shitmons like tblast fighting g-articuno for example. We didn't ban a broken random bullshit go mechanic because the random bullshit go-ness is still here, Tera, so we just removed options for no reason and it impacted the fun on ladder immensely, not only that you also removed more options against these dominant mons. Encore Tera Blast dragonite was a staple of the meta and without it, CM Cress became dominant, both these mons were already good pre-tblast ban but with tblast ban its just more polarizing. Theres more options too like tera ice lando helping vs the suffocating balance or tera blast poison ting lu to help with ogerpon wellspring. These are known sets as options to BEAT the dominant pokemon of the tier, and without it, the dominant pokemon are STILL dominant, but we just have less options, making people forced to run encore spam, fat kyurem and less options for expressive building.
A light clay ban would do the same, the broken pokemon thats broken under screens, Ceruledge, Gambit, Ogerpon, Cresselia are still going to be broken, why? because these pokemon are run on HO without screens anyways, the "broken HO package" of :ogerpon-wellspring::ceruledge::cresselia: Ogerpon Wellspring/Ceru/Cress works with any HO team so people would just adapt and use the broken combo with spike stack, offense spam, webs, etc (just look at olt, some people just use the broken ho package with 3 more set up sweepers and it was still effective).
You're effectively removing options for the sake of having an easier time to be lazy in the builder, because you still have to take into account the broken HO package but u dont have to worry about screens anymore, the same way you still have to worry about random bs sets with mons like Dragonite, gambit and cress but you don't have to worry about Tera Blast anymore.
Screens and Tera Blast are objectively more fun and brings more positive than negative, the meta is stale anyways so removing options that are not even broken in the first place but just have "too much variance" is a terrible idea. We don't only need to take into account of the competitive health of the meta, but also the fun of it considering we are this many years into SV.
I support a Tera Blast re-test as the number 1 priority, i am against a roaring moon re test because it would make reversing this mistake harder because moon was a broken pokemon that uses tera blast. Light Clay ban should never be taken seriously at all.
I didn't talk much during the Tera Blast Ban debacle but i think the Tera Blast Ban was a mistake, because it did not fix anything, just took out options for no reason. Fundamentally the ban itself was to remove the randomness of the tier that would catch people off-guard and get a Gotcha moment on its counters. This hasn't changed at all, effectively all it did was nerf tera blast reliant mons like Iron moth, Enamorus, Thundurus-T.
The pokemon that Tera Blast ban was supposed to nerf and make the meta more palatable are still Dominant. Dragonite still has endless options with its move set, Kingambit can still counter everything with the right item and tera, Cresselia finally got the respect it deserved for a long time even without tera blast, and mons still carry random tera or sets to counter its counters. Nothings changed.
I think this is enough proof that the Tera Blast ban was a failure, at the highest level the problems its supposed to solve hasnt changed and at the casual level, people can't use random pokemon for fun anymore like tblast fairy thundurus-t or shitmons like tblast fighting g-articuno for example. We didn't ban a broken random bullshit go mechanic because the random bullshit go-ness is still here, Tera, so we just removed options for no reason and it impacted the fun on ladder immensely, not only that you also removed more options against these dominant mons. Encore Tera Blast dragonite was a staple of the meta and without it, CM Cress became dominant, both these mons were already good pre-tblast ban but with tblast ban its just more polarizing. Theres more options too like tera ice lando helping vs the suffocating balance or tera blast poison ting lu to help with ogerpon wellspring. These are known sets as options to BEAT the dominant pokemon of the tier, and without it, the dominant pokemon are STILL dominant, but we just have less options, making people forced to run encore spam, fat kyurem and less options for expressive building.
A light clay ban would do the same, the broken pokemon thats broken under screens, Ceruledge, Gambit, Ogerpon, Cresselia are still going to be broken, why? because these pokemon are run on HO without screens anyways, the "broken HO package" of :ogerpon-wellspring::ceruledge::cresselia: Ogerpon Wellspring/Ceru/Cress works with any HO team so people would just adapt and use the broken combo with spike stack, offense spam, webs, etc (just look at olt, some people just use the broken ho package with 3 more set up sweepers and it was still effective).
You're effectively removing options for the sake of having an easier time to be lazy in the builder, because you still have to take into account the broken HO package but u dont have to worry about screens anymore, the same way you still have to worry about random bs sets with mons like Dragonite, gambit and cress but you don't have to worry about Tera Blast anymore.
Screens and Tera Blast are objectively more fun and brings more positive than negative, the meta is stale anyways so removing options that are not even broken in the first place but just have "too much variance" is a terrible idea. We don't only need to take into account of the competitive health of the meta, but also the fun of it considering we are this many years into SV.
I support a Tera Blast re-test as the number 1 priority, i am against a roaring moon re test because it would make reversing this mistake harder because moon was a broken pokemon that uses tera blast. Light Clay ban should never be taken seriously at all.
It feels to me that many of the biggest issues with hazard control seem to come back to a problem that Smogon can't really solve; the absolute gutting of defog distribution has had a larger impact on hazard control than the presence of Gholdengo. Outside of complex-ing the turtle, there aren't really many reasonable avenues to a reducing of the effect that hazards have on the metagame.
Ghold is only uniquely restricting against teams that rely on defog for hazard control, which means that in practice you're primarily blocking Corviknight fog anyway. It's been argued that we would see more of mandibuzz/scizor/talonflame if ghold was banned, but I really doubt it. In every other case, it doesn't uniquely exacerbate the hazard problem; it doesn't set its own hazards, it doesn't prevent your setter from being taunted, it doesn't prevent magic bounce or court change, and I would argue it's somewhat middling in comparison to the other ghosts purely as a spinblocker. Pecharunt, Dragapult, and especially Sinistcha absolutely mog it in that department (even though Gholdengo obviously has other unrelated benefits over the other ghosts, obviously).
Gholdengo is sort of just the cherry on top to what was already going to be a hazard-centric metagame. It was inevitably going to be tougher to slot removal on your team, and I don't see it getting THAT much easier to remove hazards in a theoretical post-ghold metagame.
Ghold is only uniquely restricting against teams that rely on defog for hazard control, which means that in practice you're primarily blocking Corviknight fog anyway. It's been argued that we would see more of mandibuzz/scizor/talonflame if ghold was banned, but I really doubt it. In every other case, it doesn't uniquely exacerbate the hazard problem; it doesn't set its own hazards, it doesn't prevent your setter from being taunted, it doesn't prevent magic bounce or court change, and I would argue it's somewhat middling in comparison to the other ghosts purely as a spinblocker. Pecharunt, Dragapult, and especially Sinistcha absolutely mog it in that department (even though Gholdengo obviously has other unrelated benefits over the other ghosts, obviously).
Gholdengo is sort of just the cherry on top to what was already going to be a hazard-centric metagame. It was inevitably going to be tougher to slot removal on your team, and I don't see it getting THAT much easier to remove hazards in a theoretical post-ghold metagame.
I think having experienced a Champions OU that suffers from hazard stack even with Gholdengo banned has reinforced this opinion for me beyond a shadow of a doubt--hazard control simply got giga-nerfed in Generation 9 and we just have to deal with it.
Holy shit reading this just made me have to respond, this post is some top tier grievance disguised as a psyop.
“The Pokémon we wanted to nerf are still dominant”
“therefore the Tera Blast ban was a failure.”
Those aren’t equivalent. A ban doesn’t necessarily need to make every Pokémon it affects stop being dominant. The relevant question is whether removing Tera Blast actually removed a specific problematic dimension of those Pokémon.
For example, Dragonite still having a lot of viable sets doesn’t establish that the Tera Blast ban was unnecessary. It could simply mean that Dragonite is strong for reasons that exist independently of Tera Blast. The same applies to Kingambit, Cresselia, etc. You’d need to show that the specific gameplay problems Tera Blast created are essentially unchanged without it before concluding that the ban failed.
And we all know that isn’t the case. Tera Blast being gone has fundamentally changed what these Pokémon can and can’t do, even if they remain strong afterwards. So using their continued dominance as evidence that the ban “failed” is just bad framing & advocating for a Tera Blast retest based on this line of reasoning is honestly even worse nonsense.
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Anyway since I haven't been here in a long time I'll add my thoughts on the recent topics
Now if we're talking about it on competitive level, I actually still don't have a big problem with it because from what I've seen the better player that game is still going to win. But it's getting kinda boring to me when u see guys overly rely on this cheese strat when u know they can do better. For instance this olt, we had a fair share of games come down to who the better cress player is and I'm just wondering why you would do that to yourself. I'm sure if we check the win rate, more cress players lost than won so you guys better step it up really.
Light clay : I don't remember or experience screens as that big of an issue to where light clay has to be banned at this moment. There are plenty ways to disrupt your opp from just doing what he wants. Knock off, taunt, court change & phazing just to name some examples.
& speaking bout retests/unbans, whatsup with holding Solgaleo hostage like that? As per the Pkmn Right to Liberty and Security:
“No Pokémon shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” So free Solgaleo from Ubers right now man, we all know it can only do more good than harm.
I still cant get my head around the idea that the council is discussing roaring moon before terapagos, a pokemon that will likely not have any possitive impact in a metagame already flooded with strong and unpredictable tera sweepers will drop before a pokemon the meta and the player base have been begging for months.
The reason for not unbanning the turtle is bc that old rule of complex banning. I get the idea but aplying this rule here is a nonsense. Terapagos clicking the tera batton is basically the same as, lets say, salamence clicking the mega batton. In the first case we ban both and in the second case we ban just the overpowered form. I dont see the difference, especially because terapagos isnt really using tera the same way the rest of the pokemon do, it literally becomes another pokemon, but we choose to ban both when the qualities that regular terapagos has are like if GF had looked at gen9 OU and gave us that mon just to fix it, but no, just because a stupid use of an already controversial rule we are here starving fot the turtle that would save SV.
The reason for not unbanning the turtle is bc that old rule of complex banning. I get the idea but aplying this rule here is a nonsense. Terapagos clicking the tera batton is basically the same as, lets say, salamence clicking the mega batton. In the first case we ban both and in the second case we ban just the overpowered form. I dont see the difference, especially because terapagos isnt really using tera the same way the rest of the pokemon do, it literally becomes another pokemon, but we choose to ban both when the qualities that regular terapagos has are like if GF had looked at gen9 OU and gave us that mon just to fix it, but no, just because a stupid use of an already controversial rule we are here starving fot the turtle that would save SV.
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Hard agree. I support not doing complex bans, but Terapagos Stellar is a different pokemon than Terapagos Terastall, in regards to tiering. Same way Ogerpon is tiered differently despite being the exact same pokemon but holding different items. It changes its type, but not stats. Terapagos becomes Stellar type and has a significant boost in stats, same as any mega. The healthiest decision that could be made is tiering the forms differently. Terapagos Terastal should be OU, Stellar should be Ubers, and NOT consider this a complex ban.
I agree that tera blast should have never been banned and reversing this decision would make me interested in SV OU again. Especially since all it proves is that the voters decided the Pokemon that were abusing it were the problem and not the move itself.
Static Zapdos is more responsible for variance then tera blast ever was.
Light clay should go imo though, it only really promotes cheese. I hope no other pokemon gets banned and I think people really should be more open to retests
Static Zapdos is more responsible for variance then tera blast ever was.
Light clay should go imo though, it only really promotes cheese. I hope no other pokemon gets banned and I think people really should be more open to retests
I think quite the opposite, Gholdengo is indeed a strong mon and one of the best among all, but broken? I really don't feel that he is broken, is a pokemon with very solid counterplay and weaknesses, the only part that i don't like is it blocking defog, this is mad annoying. Also i found it's contributions to the tier very valuable, i think the meta will be far worse without it running around
The implementation of Terapagos in OU has been discussed at nauseum and it's association with Mega Evolution, while not unfounded, is not the same. At the implementation level, the teambuilder bans the Mega Stones that allow Mega Evolution to happen (alongside the actual Mega Evolution Pokémon in the teambuilder, for accurate tiering). The ban happens before a battle ever happens, which is simply not the same for Terapagos.
The only accurate ban precedent for Terapagos is Mega Rayquaza, which could transform without an item and ended up in a Complex Ban from both the ORAS and USUM Ubers tiers, implementing the Mega Rayquaza Clause. (Technically a Dragon Ascent ban couldve fixed it, but nonetheless the complex ban option was chosen.)
This ruling was controversial, and it has been repeatedly said to not be proper precedent for a decision involving current tiering philosophy for the OU tier. To have Terapagos in the tier you'd be forced to implement a "Terapagos Clause".
The only accurate ban precedent for Terapagos is Mega Rayquaza, which could transform without an item and ended up in a Complex Ban from both the ORAS and USUM Ubers tiers, implementing the Mega Rayquaza Clause. (Technically a Dragon Ascent ban couldve fixed it, but nonetheless the complex ban option was chosen.)
This ruling was controversial, and it has been repeatedly said to not be proper precedent for a decision involving current tiering philosophy for the OU tier. To have Terapagos in the tier you'd be forced to implement a "Terapagos Clause".
I can be somewhat open to the thought that Gholdengo is not broken and I have accepted long ago that it won't be banned this Gen. However, I will never be convinced by the idea that it makes the meta better and is necessary for it to function. There are many Steels, there are many Ghosts, there are many stallbreakers, many Mons with Trick and many with Nasty Plot. If the ability blocked things like opponents using hazards too, then I maybe would agree to that being good for the meta, but as it is, it only blocks defensive status moves. It can be argued that the meta won't change much if it gets banned, but I don't see any reason by which the meta would become worse.
Regarding Terapagos, as much as I would like to see more removal, the ban is too complex for me. If we went with that, we would have reasons to ban any Ogerpon from Tera'ing too, that's too big of a rabbit hole to touch.
Regarding Terapagos, as much as I would like to see more removal, the ban is too complex for me. If we went with that, we would have reasons to ban any Ogerpon from Tera'ing too, that's too big of a rabbit hole to touch.
Personal opinion as council:
Roaring Moon deserves a test 100%. 1/4 RM’s on Ladder using TB is an insane number given some others: Kingambit <10%, Kyurem 13%, Dragonite 26%, Volcarona 63%, Gouging Fire 14%.
Tera Blast absolutely led to the most broken aspects of RM, especially in tournament play.
Terapagos:
It’s time to stop beating around the bush and get down to “complex” bans. This is a Pokemon that is collectively believed to benefit the OU metagame by adding a reliable Spinner (faster than Ghold), Offensive, & Defensive utility. It can serve as a boost to Offense and a boost to Defensive teams, as shown by Nat Dex and Draft.
I do not think it’s too complicated at all and the only reason it hasn’t happened is because of a subjective, fanmade rule (like everything on the site ofc which isn’t inherently bad).
Another argument is how it “opens up a can of worms” like this silly post above me talking about Ogerpons.. we’re talking about a literal 1/400 Pokemon with Mega Rayquaza and Big Zygarde being the only other drastic form changes. People complained about Mega Ray being banned, but it was broken and deserved it = we can keep Rayquaza. Seems good to me. Before Zygarde’s ban in SM OU, its ability that allowed it to transform was banned. This is the exact same thing as Terapagos.
Yes, it’s “weird” to have a “Terapagos Tera Clause”, sure, I guess? It’s also weird to me that we have a mon that can make the tier more fresh while absolutely contributing positively and we’re scared of nonissues. Showdown ladder is dying and the website itself is suffering from plays in our official formats. Now is the time to be creative with what would make our tier and site better, and random subjectivity around how annoying this clause would be is just accepting there’s nothing we can do and it is what it is.
Roaring Moon deserves a test 100%. 1/4 RM’s on Ladder using TB is an insane number given some others: Kingambit <10%, Kyurem 13%, Dragonite 26%, Volcarona 63%, Gouging Fire 14%.
Tera Blast absolutely led to the most broken aspects of RM, especially in tournament play.
Terapagos:
It’s time to stop beating around the bush and get down to “complex” bans. This is a Pokemon that is collectively believed to benefit the OU metagame by adding a reliable Spinner (faster than Ghold), Offensive, & Defensive utility. It can serve as a boost to Offense and a boost to Defensive teams, as shown by Nat Dex and Draft.
I do not think it’s too complicated at all and the only reason it hasn’t happened is because of a subjective, fanmade rule (like everything on the site ofc which isn’t inherently bad).
Another argument is how it “opens up a can of worms” like this silly post above me talking about Ogerpons.. we’re talking about a literal 1/400 Pokemon with Mega Rayquaza and Big Zygarde being the only other drastic form changes. People complained about Mega Ray being banned, but it was broken and deserved it = we can keep Rayquaza. Seems good to me. Before Zygarde’s ban in SM OU, its ability that allowed it to transform was banned. This is the exact same thing as Terapagos.
Yes, it’s “weird” to have a “Terapagos Tera Clause”, sure, I guess? It’s also weird to me that we have a mon that can make the tier more fresh while absolutely contributing positively and we’re scared of nonissues. Showdown ladder is dying and the website itself is suffering from plays in our official formats. Now is the time to be creative with what would make our tier and site better, and random subjectivity around how annoying this clause would be is just accepting there’s nothing we can do and it is what it is.