Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)

Finchinator

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Tapu Lele is going to be very good. One offensive and one defensive check being out of the way opens the whole metagame up for it. I am excited to see Choice Specs and CM+3A sets thrive in the new metagame. I am curious if we will see an uptick in SDef Corviknight, Jirachi, or even Aegislash for Tapu Lele, the aforementioned Latios, and others.
 

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Agreed. I'm even using expert belt Tapu Lele over choice specs because predicting hurts my brain. I just love the surprise factor when I suddenly switch moves since they usually assume its scarfed lol

Oh god not Weavile. That thing is probably gonna get more usage since Garchomp and Rillaboom are probably gonna dominate this meta, not that they weren't dominant mons already

Although with Magearna's ban, I'm really furious to see that stupid Clefable suddenly rise in usage. If it was up to me I'd ban it to ubers if for no other reason that to see it get pounded into dust by Calyrex. The only reason I ever use Cinderace is when I just want a last minute addition or one to kill this blasted blob

I will say this though, I'm rather surprised that Cinderace was quick banned considering that it was mostly a four that had the most votes while two and five were rather close and there were a lot of neutral on it. I think it should have been suspected at least but then again, everyone's just gonna vote to ban it

And I still think we should suspect boots. The fact that mons that use it get unpunished switch ins is just irritating and it's not like it's as simple as clicking knock off to remove them
 

ausma

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Hey all, I figured to stop by and give some thoughts on some winners of the Cinderace and Magearna quickbans, and explain some things I've toyed around with a bit!



Tapu Lele

Tapu Lele is a gigantic winner of these bans; namely, the Magearna ban. Magearna was one of Tapu Lele's better checks thanks to keen resistances to its dual STABs and a neutrality to Thunderbolt and Focus Blast. More prominently, though, Tapu Lele was setup/switch fodder for Magearna, which made it considerably more risky to use against Magearna teams. Without Magearna around, though, it is a lot more free to use a Choice Specs set, which makes me wonder if the use of SpDef Steel-types will grow over time, such as the aforementioned SpDef Corviknight and a resurgence of SpDef Heatran/AV Melmetal/Jirachi. Cinderace being banned is also pretty nice for it too, as now it is less pressed to run a Choice Scarf to revenge kill it; though, Choice Scarf will still be fairly solid given Tapu Lele's positive matchup against faster metagame threats like Dragapult and Hydreigon, and situationally Tornadus-T. Regardless of what happens, Tapu Lele was a major winner that I expect will considerably rise in usage.


Latios

A lot of people know I'm pretty enthusiastic about Latios's potential in this metagame, and the Magearna ban is absolutely monumental for it. Latios is now much less pressed to run Mystical Fire to cover the Magearna matchup and can more freely afford Aura Sphere, and now it is even more free to nuke with its STAB-boosted Draco Meteor and Psychic-type STAB. Likewise, I feel as though Future Sight has grown to become a more viable option for it as well, as now Magearna is not freely invited in whenever it wants to launch one. With Cinderace gone, its speed tier is even nicer, too, and it's no longer fodder to its U-turn. Though, I can see it competing with Tapu Lele as a Psychic-type wallbreaker; regardless, it still has some pretty great attributes we don't see with Tapu Lele, such as Draco Meteor, a better speed tier, longevity, better resistances, and Trick. I think Latios has always had potential, and it's without a doubt a Pokemon I expect to see as well now that its moveslots are more open regardless of the competition.


Kyurem

Alongside Tapu Lele, Kyurem is a major reason that I speculate that Jirachi is going to see an uptick in usage as both a special wall and cleric. Kyurem's stallbreaking competition in Cinderace has been banned, and one of Kyurem's better checks is gone now, too. Even with these Pokemon in the tier, though, Kyurem has seen a bit more use as of late with its terrifying Freeze-Dry + Earth Power + Draco Meteor, and I imagine it has the potential to become a legit wallbreaker again. Without Magearna, its Substitute + Roost + Toxic + Freeze-Dry set is a bit more freed up, too, but I don't imagine it will be as effective as its Choice Specs variant.



Rillaboom

This one has already been talked about a bit, and it's without question that Rillaboom definitely won, as the two slated Pokemon were ones willing to take on its Grassy Glides and threaten it out. Though, I don't feel as though these bans are necessarily a gamechanger for it regardless. Rillaboom still has the same targets, the same functions, and the same fundamental checks; although its Grassy Glides are a bit more reliable and easier to click, they aren't necessarily going to surge Rillaboom into a higher place in the metagame, though Rillaboom certainly isn't complaining whatsoever.


Blaziken

A major reason people avoided using Blaziken much, alongside its poop matchup against a majority of the metagame's premier physical walls, is because Cinderace was literally better than it in every way, shape, and form. Although it still faces the same issues it did prior to Cinderace's ban, I imagine people will start to use Blaziken as a way to try and compensate for the general lack of viable Fighting-types in the current metagame; though, I still don't think it's at all consistent outside of Screens HO. But, I think if there's a time for Blaziken to rise in effectiveness, it'll probably be now.


Jirachi

Jirachi, in my eyes, always had potential in the metagame, with solid resistances and neutralities and bevy of utility in U-turn, Wish, Healing Wish, and Stealth Rock. However, I think it was one of the big winners of these bans that will see steady use over time, as now without Magearna we will see Tapu Lele, Kyurem, and Latios as much greater threats, and Jirachi's neutrality to Fighting-type and Electric-type coverage lets it perform a fairly one-of-a-kind role as a special wall in the tier. I'm not sure if it will be a great Stealth Rock user since it doesn't really beat most forms of removal in the tier, but I think as a Wish cleric and a Choice Scarf user with access to great coverage and Healing Wish, it has quite a bit of potential.


Clefable

Clefable was complete Cinderace and Magearna fodder when it didn't click Knock Off, and to either the joy or frustration of many, that is no longer the case! While Knock Off was really annoying for these two for sure, I think we're likely to see a more variety in Clefable--namely with Calm Mind--now that it is more free to provide utility to teams and doesn't have to avoid giving either of these Pokemon an easy wallbreaking opportunity.


Corviknight

Corviknight has already been seeing a rise in use lately due to its amazing defensive typing and great removal abilities, and the Cinderace ban is gigantic for it, given that Cinderace was one of the primary ways of applying pressure to Corviknight teams. With this, Corviknight faces a lot less pressure and can afford to find more switch-in/removal opportunities; it also enjoys not having to soak Choice Specs Magearna's Trick/Volt Switch for the same reasons. It appears to be a solid check to Thunderbolt-less Tapu Lele and Latios variants, too, giving its defensive typing even more utility in the current metagame.
 
Agreed. I'm even using expert belt Tapu Lele over choice specs because predicting hurts my brain. I just love the surprise factor when I suddenly switch moves since they usually assume its scarfed lol
Tbf, Expert belt has the advantage of being able to stay out longer in an engagement. Specs can lock you into a move like Moonblast against a Heatran, which can be scouted with protect. It also keeps your item ambiguous too, unlike Life Orb, so it isn’t entirely about predictions.
 
:ss/jirachi:

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 180 SpD / 76 Spe
Careful Nature
- U-turn / Body Slam
- Iron Head
- Wish / Healing Wish
- Protect / Stealth Rock / Body Slam​

Toyed a bit with Jirachi, since I think it will be one of those mon who will rise in usage just to counter Lele and Latios. On this mon you can run whatever you want or need, being the only mandatory move Iron Head. For more defensive teams, Body Slam + WishTect is neat to get those paraflinches on things like Landorus-T and Heatran. For more offensive teams, you can run Healing Wish + Stealth Rock and more speed.
The spread is to ensure LO Latios' Mystical Fire is a 3HKO with rocks up, while also tanking Specs Lele's Focus Blast like a champion, the spread also ensures that Modest Choice Specs Kyurem's Focus Blast is a 3HKO, but be sure to scout for Earth Power first; on the other hand the speed investment hits 255, which outspeeds everything up to 144 EV speed Landorus-T, allowing you to hit U-turn or whatever move.
I think this mon will raise for sure because of not being weak to Fighting and Electric, giving an edge over Heatran and Corviknight on the task of checking Lele, Latios and Kyurem.

If you are feeling the heat, you could try Doom Desire!


252+ SpA Choice Specs Kyurem Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 180+ SpD Jirachi: 164-194 (40.5 - 48%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Life Orb Latios Mystical Fire vs. 252 HP / 180+ SpD Jirachi: 164-195 (40.5 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 180+ SpD Jirachi: 150-177 (37.1 - 43.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
 
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Gonna go delete all my teams rn. I’ll probably do something with Corv + Clef + Pex because they really enjoy not having to deal with Cinderace and Magearna. Then I might slap on SD Garchomp and banded Rillaboom for the same reasons. I’m expecting those 5 mins to be very dominant while the meta develops. After that, maybe specs Kyurem? Finch mentioned it in the SPL thread and it sounds really frightening on paper now that its two biggest checks are gone.
 
Gonna go delete all my teams rn. I’ll probably do something with Corv + Clef + Pex because they really enjoy not having to deal with Cinderace and Magearna. Then I might slap on SD Garchomp and banded Rillaboom for the same reasons. I’m expecting those 5 mins to be very dominant while the meta develops. After that, maybe specs Kyurem? Finch mentioned it in the SPL thread and it sounds really frightening on paper now that its two biggest checks are gone.
Why Pex tho. Like scroll through the OU tier and look realistically at what you are going to use Pex to wall. Urshifu Rapid Strike? Galarian Zapdos? Weavile? Like, Grass, ground, Psychic, and electric moves are being thrown around so much right now I'm finding it hard to even justify Pex oftentimes. Also, good luck using Life Orb chomp to switch in to Heatran consistently.
 
Why Pex tho.
Pex is still one of the most brain dead, glue-eating mons in the tier and can pivot into most attackers to scout options and then click Scald, Knock Off, Toxic, etc as needed. It checks Heatran as well. It may or may not be the most optimal choice for this team but I still think it’s very valuable in general. Especially if I want to turn my brain off while I play.
 
Pex is still one of the most brain dead, glue-eating mons in the tier and can pivot into most attackers to scout options and then click Scald, Knock Off, Toxic, etc as needed. It checks Heatran as well. It may or may not be the most optimal choice for this team but I still think it’s very valuable in general. Especially if I want to turn my brain off while I play.
The reputation of Pex as "brain dead" and "always good" isn't always true. Sure, it used to be amazing, but at the moment there are often simply better alternatives such as Slowking, Slowbro, and Swampert, Toxapex only at the moment being the most useful out of the above three at walling Tornadus-Therian and offensive dark types. By "pivot into most attackers" that usually means getting 2HKOed or letting a mon like Hydreigon or Volcarona set up. It's also hard to check Heatran when even if you switch in on full health you're getting trapped and KOed easily.

Pex has been getting a lot of bad rep as an unkillable, S+++ tier wall that literally is incapable of dying but this was only ever true in the past, if ever. Usually, you want your bulky water type to switch into opposing Heatran. Slowking, Slowbro, and Swampert all do this to an extent while honestly providing more utility than pex: don't get me wrong, knock and burns are good but the Slows have Future Sight support and are amazing Pivots while Swampert is a volt-switch immunity, rocker, and decent pivot. Pex kinda just sits there, so if the opponent has a burn/knock sack then it's easy momentum all game.

IMO if you're gonna run Pex run Baneful Bunker for Rillaboom, Kartana, Fighting types, dark types, and U-turn.
 
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IPF

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The reputation of Pex as "brain dead" and "always good" isn't always true. Sure, it used to be amazing, but at the moment there are often simply better alternatives such as Slowking, Slowbro, and Swampert, Toxapex only at the moment being the most useful out of the above three at walling Tornadus-Therian and offensive dark types. By "pivot into most attackers" that usually means getting 2HKOed or letting a mon like Hydreigon or Volcarona set up. It's also hard to check Heatran when even if you switch in on full health you're getting trapped and KOed easily.
You greatly underestimate the value of Knock support, ability to Toxic mons and one of the main reasons to use Pex, Haze. Its ability to eat hits in this tier is unrivalled and it will still remain a premier defensive mon. Swampert has horrible longevity and Slowbro cannot switch into Heatran reliably either. Pex will do Pex things, that will never change.

the Slows have Future Sight support and are amazing Pivots while Swampert is a volt-switch immunity, rocker, and decent pivot. Pex kinda just sits there, so if the opponent has a burn/knock sack then it's easy momentum all game.
Agree with this, pretty much the only reason you should consider Slowtwins over Pex

Edit: not adding this because of JTD but i've heard other people say that pex is banworthy because "they've never built a team without some sort of check to pex" bruh youve never ever built a team without a check to ledian is ledian broken now?
Word of advice, edit this out. Dumb point and detracts from any decent discussion happening
 

Finchinator

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I have had a handful of people ask me why I specifically supported the Cinderace quickban over a suspect. Note this is still just my personal opinion, not the entire council, but I do want to be transparent about my opinion, even if I have alluded to my pro-ban stance before as being pro-ban and pro-quick ban is arguably a bit different.

I believed Cinderace was worth quick banning because there was consistent support across the survey, with a slight emphasis on the qualified demographic, and a lot of people wrote about wanting quickbans to be used more liberally when justified in this and last survey — I read through every written answer I could across both surveys to be sure of this and more, too. Given the amount of support this decision seems to be getting, I am glad we used the surveys as we did.

The people deserve to play a role in tiering decisions. Sometimes it is done through suspects, but when presented with a survey, it can take other forms as we see here. That’s why we have the questions we did on it, including the open ended ones at the end.

Cinderace specifically stood out a lot in battle to me. It had no hard counters and very few situational checks. I wrote up the reasoning in the ban post on it and I stand by all of it: Cinderace’s pivot set was far too much for the metagame. I personally felt it was in the same tier of brokenness as Magearna, but I recognize this is a less popular stance to take. Regardless, the question of if it was worth banning was not really in question for me and the support for more aggressive and prompt tiering action from the council was clear, so I supported this line of action.

I will note that I do not think quickbans will always be used this liberally, especially in the middle of metagames like this, but if we have overwhelming support and the pokemon have been banned for similar reasons before in the same generation, then there is absolutely more room to make pro-quickban arguments, which we saw here.

I also believe there is a good chance we see a retest down the line, but the timeline of that is not something we know anything about quite yet. Finally, seeing as the decision is already made, this is not opening the thread to Cinderace discussion — it is now an Uber after all. If you want to discuss our decisions further, PM me or the entire council. I promise I will respond so long as your message is reasonable! I am always open to constructive criticism and hearing from the active players of the metagame.
 
The reputation of Pex as "brain dead" and "always good" isn't always true. Sure, it used to be amazing, but at the moment there are often simply better alternatives such as Slowking, Slowbro, and Swampert, Toxapex only at the moment being the most useful out of the above three at walling Tornadus-Therian and offensive dark types. By "pivot into most attackers" that usually means getting 2HKOed or letting a mon like Hydreigon or Volcarona set up. It's also hard to check Heatran when even if you switch in on full health you're getting trapped and KOed easily.

Pex has been getting a lot of bad rep as an unkillable, S+++ tier wall that literally is incapable of dying but this was only ever true in the past, if ever. Usually, you want your bulky water type to switch into opposing Heatran. Slowking, Slowbro, and Swampert all do this to an extent while honestly providing more utility than pex: don't get me wrong, knock and burns are good but the Slows have Future Sight support and are amazing Pivots while Swampert is a volt-switch immunity, rocker, and decent pivot. Pex kinda just sits there, so if the opponent has a burn/knock sack then it's easy momentum all game.

IMO if you're gonna run Pex run Baneful Bunker for Rillaboom, Kartana, Fighting types, dark types, and U-turn.
If this is how you feel about Toxapex then I would say you haven't grasped the reason why a suspect for Toxapex would ever be considered in the first place. The reputation of Toxapex being "always good" is virtually always true; this is why it has maintained such a high position in viability rankings across different phases of the metagame. While truly well built teams will have some way of dealing with it, its good qualities also ensure that it will put in a ton of work against most good teams. However, this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what makes Toxapex potentially banworthy. I can start by saying I rated Toxapex a 3 on the survey; it remains to be seen whether the metagame can over time adapt to Toxapex in a way that is healthy. The potential problem with Toxapex is two-fold: 1) it overcentralizes the offensive metagame against it and 2) it alleviates prediction errors on the Toxapex user's part with its absurd bulk + Regenerator. To classify any of Slowking, Slowbro, or Swampert as better alternatives is absurd (if you mean in general) and only sometimes correct (if you mean situationally). Swampert can easily be lured with a mispredicted Grass-type move from the opponent, which it can't reliably heal off. What Toxapex lacks considerably in offensive presence that the Slow twins bring, it makes up for with absolute defensive superiority. I do think there's a good enough variety of Pokemon to deal with Toxapex, at the moment, to keep it in the metagame. But the arguments for banning it don't center around it being unkillable. I do think it's pretty "brain dead", though that's not a reason to ban it.
 
If this is how you feel about Toxapex then I would say you haven't grasped the reason why a suspect for Toxapex would ever be considered in the first place. The reputation of Toxapex being "always good" is virtually always true; this is why it has maintained such a high position in viability rankings across different phases of the metagame. While truly well built teams will have some way of dealing with it, its good qualities also ensure that it will put in a ton of work against most good teams. However, this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what makes Toxapex potentially banworthy. I can start by saying I rated Toxapex a 3 on the survey; it remains to be seen whether the metagame can over time adapt to Toxapex in a way that is healthy. The potential problem with Toxapex is two-fold: 1) it overcentralizes the offensive metagame against it and 2) it alleviates prediction errors on the Toxapex user's part with its absurd bulk + Regenerator. To classify any of Slowking, Slowbro, or Swampert as better alternatives is absurd (if you mean in general) and only sometimes correct (if you mean situationally). Swampert can easily be lured with a mispredicted Grass-type move from the opponent, which it can't reliably heal off. What Toxapex lacks considerably in offensive presence that the Slow twins bring, it makes up for with absolute defensive superiority. I do think there's a good enough variety of Pokemon to deal with Toxapex, at the moment, to keep it in the metagame. But the arguments for banning it don't center around it being unkillable. I do think it's pretty "brain dead", though that's not a reason to ban it.
Okay, from what I understood about Toxapex suspect prospects it was that it was not easy to kill, but mostly because the combination of Scald+Knock Off+ potential Toxic meant that nothing that could kill it could reliably switch into it. Especially because this was most relevant when Clef couldn't run Teleport and Slowbro was UU. It became a huge headache whenever it got in and whenever it was in you usually had to end up in pp wars with your Amoongus or Clefable or your own Pex because there was no way for anything else to switch in without losing their ability to eventually break pex. That's why we saw a rise of Block+Spite Pex as a means of reliably taking out opposing Pex. However ever since DLC2 release this has been less of a problem as we've seen more and more power in the tier, which could reliably scare out Pex such as Tapu Koko, Tapu Lele, QD Mosa, Naganadel, and Nidoking, all of which don't care about a burn or a knock in the 1v1 scenario, as well as the rise of defoggers that can situationally beat Pex like Zapdos and Torn-T (at least Pex can't always switch in), common Tspikes absorbers, and the overall decreased passivity of the tier. Of course, this says nothing about how things will turn out, but that's the nature of mons. At least, the above is how I understood the idea of a Pex suspect, although it seems like that may not be the case.

At the moment, however, you'd usually want your bulky water to be able to deal with offensive grounds like Landorus-T and Garchomp, as well as fire types like Heatran, and pex can do neither. This means it usually ends up dealing with more miscellaneous threats like Pivot Pult, Torn-T (if you're gonna run pex at least run some spdef for these two), Melmetal, Scizor, Aegislash, and the seemingly more common Weavile. If you scroll through the VR list, once you pass pult and torn, which admittedly are very good, you have to go all the way back to the B+ rank's steel types in order to find anything that Toxapex could reliably wall
 
Okay, from what I understood about Toxapex suspect prospects it was that it was not easy to kill, but mostly because the combination of Scald+Knock Off+ potential Toxic meant that nothing that could kill it could reliably switch into it. Especially because this was most relevant when Clef couldn't run Teleport and Slowbro was UU. It became a huge headache whenever it got in and whenever it was in you usually had to end up in pp wars with your Amoongus or Clefable or your own Pex because there was no way for anything else to switch in without losing their ability to eventually break pex. That's why we saw a rise of Block+Spite Pex as a means of reliably taking out opposing Pex. However ever since DLC2 release this has been less of a problem as we've seen more and more power in the tier, which could reliably scare out Pex such as Tapu Koko, Tapu Lele, QD Mosa, Naganadel, and Nidoking, all of which don't care about a burn or a knock in the 1v1 scenario, as well as the rise of defoggers that can situationally beat Pex like Zapdos and Torn-T (at least Pex can't always switch in), common Tspikes absorbers, and the overall decreased passivity of the tier. Of course, this says nothing about how things will turn out, but that's the nature of mons. At least, the above is how I understood the idea of a Pex suspect, although it seems like that may not be the case.

At the moment, however, you'd usually want your bulky water to be able to deal with offensive grounds like Landorus-T and Garchomp, as well as fire types like Heatran, and pex can do neither. This means it usually ends up dealing with more miscellaneous threats like Pivot Pult, Torn-T (if you're gonna run pex at least run some spdef for these two), Melmetal, Scizor, Aegislash, and the seemingly more common Weavile. If you scroll through the VR list, once you pass pult and torn, which admittedly are very good, you have to go all the way back to the B+ rank's steel types in order to find anything that Toxapex could reliably wall
This post is from DLC 1, but I wanted to link it bc I feel like it's still relevant. Besides Rilla, Hydra, and Kart (I count Kyurem Freeze Dry as SE stab) this post still holds true. Even against mons like Koko, Nidoking and Lele, they HATE having their boots (koko) or boosting items knocked off. Zap and torn both become far worse when knocked off, Rilla for example can body both of them once their boots are knocked off. I haven't watched as much SPL lately but from what I have seen in addition to my experience on ladder, Toxic Spikes isn't good and Toxic is preferred due to the prevalence of HDB and Hydreigon.

Also you touched on it but almost as a negative, the reason Pex is so good is that similar to other top mons like Heatran and Torn-T it blanket checks many mons in the metagame. I think you're underestimating the value of a mon that almost nothing can switch into without taking significant long term risk. Its also very hard to make permanent progress against Pex due to its stupid bulk, stupid regen, and Toxic immunity.

I don't think Pex is a broken mon atm, but I'd say its the epitome of unhealthy. One of the biggest things keeping it in check was FuturePort+brokenass mon (Urshifu was the main one but Ace was really good with that too), but the broken abusers getting banned makes the strategy a lot less brainless that it used to be (still dumb but less instawin setups).

Also forgot this when writing but Pert kinda sucks and Haze is also amazing.
 
I saw one post about this pokemon, and it was not a post based on him, so i would like to talk about Victini. I saw it a lot on the ladder, and on different replays i watched recently after the Mag and Cinderace bans. I feel like people use Victini to compensate the lost of Cinderace, with a "fast" fire pokemon with physical moves, a strong fire attack and U-Turn.
Do you think this mon, maybe more than others, could go back in OU ? Do you think Victini has the potential to make it in OU and be a real good mon, or it's a purpose due to the Cinderace ban, and this thing is gonna stay in UU ? I would like to have the opinion of people who played it in the actual metagame.
 

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I think we should gravitate away from discussing potential suspects just days after 2 major quickbans. Let the tier settle for a little bit and circle back to these thoughts once we have a better idea.

In the meantime, there are plenty of pokemon that got better or worse with the bans that we can discuss still!
 
I do agree with Finch
Let's stop discuss about potential bans and suspect, the metagame even don't fully developed yet, We should discuss about other mons and their potencial, also things like niche mons I would like to see in a discussion now, let's stop with the ban or suspect hammer for now, The Council already quickbanned 2 mons, so yea that's my opinion about all the Pex stuff, Pex is certainly good but we could not say about a suspect of it now, let's see how the metagame shifts before we discuss ban and suspects
 
All this talk about Toxapex really makes me think about how regenerator might be the best ability in the game. While pex has excellent bulk and a great defensive typing, I think the thing that makes it so annoying is regen. Regen is the thing that makes solid bulky mons unkillable. It's the reason why pex, when played right, lasts the entire battle. It's also one of the reasons why the slowtwins are so good. Remember that time when the combination of future sight, regen and teleport led to discussion about suspect testing slowbro? Regen on slowbro basically means teleport doubles as a recovery move, and gives it the longevity to fire off future sights throughout the battle. There are plenty of other good regen mons, Torn-t is solid in the meta, and Tangrowth and Amoonguss were both solid in the pre-dlc meta, and are good uu mons today. In a pivot heavy meta, an ability that heals a third of your health when switching out is incredibly good. I wouldn't go as far as to say the ability itself is broken, but it is so consistently good that I feel it is arguably the best ability in the game.
 
I think Knock Off, while very common, is still an underutilized tool for combating HDB strategies. Imo it's reasonable to run the move on two or more Pokémon in a single team given its wide distribution and high reward for use. What do people think is the best dual Knock Off core?

I'm a pretty big fan of Toxapex + Ferrothorn. The Slow twins can be invited in by Toxapex who chases out Fire types for Ferrothorn. Ferrothorn can then lure in these Fire types who might not expect both mons to be running the move.
 
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I think Knock Off is still an underutilized tool for combating HDB strategies. Imo it's reasonable to run the move on two or more Pokémon in a single team given its wide distribution and high reward for use. What do people think is the best dual Knock Off core?

I'm a pretty big fan of Toxapex + Ferrothorn. The Slow twins can be invited in by Toxapex who chases out Fire types for Ferrothorn. Ferrothorn can then lure in these Fire types who might not expect both mons to be running the move.
I think Knock Off is one of the most used moves on the game after staples like Stealth Rock and Defog. It is reasonable to run at least one or two Knock Off users on teams, especially if they share different checks, crippling more than one pokemon.
I like using ::Zeraora: + :Tangrowth: combo. Zeraora invites in Ground-types to get Knocked off, and Tangrowth just eats those Ground-types, meaning that the Ground-type potentially will switch out, and you can get another free Knock Off on something like a Flying-type, potentially removing HDB, making good progress on the game.

Just to add a bit to the discussion, i would like to talk about how a monster is :kyurem:. It demands you to run things like fully specially defensive :corviknight:, if not, it will claim lifes everytime it has a free attack, however it has to predict correctly if the other team has more than one Ice/Dragon resist; for this reason the mon that i'm loving more and more is :jirachi: to check it, while also checking :latios: and :tapu lele:. For :jirachi: you can tailor its sets and run some weird things like Doom Desire, even double with Future Sight plus Protect and Wish to keep it healthy. Or if you wanna play it safely, Body Slam/U-turn + Iron Head. While I think it isn't splashable as many other mons, it gives you good things depending on what are you running. U-turn is great for obvious reasons and Body Slam is amazing in slower builds to cripple some Jirachi's checks like :Heatran:, :Landorus-Therian: and even :Corviknight:, which can result on it being overwhelmed if you start to fish for paraflinches. Other mons that pair great with it are :Toxapex: and SpDef :Hippowdon: to check :Heatran:; :Zapdos: to provide Defog support to not being overwhelmed by Spike stack while checking :Kartana: and :Rillaboom:; on the same vein, :Mandibuzz: provides Defog support, it also checks the aforementioned Grass-types and checks :Dragapult:, which Jirachi can invite in as Body Slam doesn't affect it. As Jirachi offers U-turn support, mons that can take advantage of it U-turning on its checks; things that can take advantage of Landorus-T, Heatran and Corviknight are good: comes to mind the same Kyurem, Aura Sphere Latios and Mixed Garchomp.

I'm really liking the current metagame, as it has a lot of room to creativity and freedom to run many playstyles and mons; even if some pokemon are going bonkers like Rillaboom and Garchomp, but at least we have clear defensive and in some cases, offensive counterplay and i feel they aren't unhealthy or broken or whatever, making the metagame very enjoyable.
 
I saw one post about this pokemon, and it was not a post based on him, so i would like to talk about Victini. I saw it a lot on the ladder, and on different replays i watched recently after the Mag and Cinderace bans. I feel like people use Victini to compensate the lost of Cinderace, with a "fast" fire pokemon with physical moves, a strong fire attack and U-Turn.
Do you think this mon, maybe more than others, could go back in OU ? Do you think Victini has the potential to make it in OU and be a real good mon, or it's a purpose due to the Cinderace ban, and this thing is gonna stay in UU ? I would like to have the opinion of people who played it in the actual metagame.
I used victini earlier in the meta and found it to be pretty good, but then I replaced it with cinderace, which was basically better at everything. Now that cinderace is gone, I think victini is probably the best mon to take its place. v-create is insane, but victini also has excellent coverage with bolt strike, and can pivot with u-turn. And unlike cinderace, it can also run special attacking sets. This things movepool is massive, and without cinderace to outclass it I think its definitely worth trying out.
 
I used victini earlier in the meta and found it to be pretty good, but then I replaced it with cinderace, which was basically better at everything. Now that cinderace is gone, I think victini is probably the best mon to take its place. v-create is insane, but victini also has excellent coverage with bolt strike, and can pivot with u-turn. And unlike cinderace, it can also run special attacking sets. This things movepool is massive, and without cinderace to outclass it I think its definitely worth trying out.
I'm liking victini a lot right now. I love using physical fire types, and with cinderace gone, I feel like people will either turn to victini or blaziken. I still expect to see more blaziken initally, but as the meta continues to develop it'll be interesting to see which of these 2 is used more.
 
I'm interested to see which Victini set will become the most prominent, and if it'll ever take the role that Cinderace has. Victini has a couple differences from Cinderace, being mostly that it's slower, weaker, and psychic typing. The psychic typing is really only a setback, because it leaves it open to the common Knock Off and neutral to U-turn, although it is a kind of neat resistance to fighting. However, it's slowness and weakness really holds it back when I've tested it out. Although Bolt Strike is a phenomenal coverage move (fire+electric is hard to resist, which is why I am really liking Rotom-Heat right now in theory), Victini's 100 base attack paired with the fact that it's non-stab means with HDB it isn't able to 2HKO things it should like Mandibuzz and Toxapex (Choiced sets being weak to rocks, of course, meaning they probably won't see wide use on balance and bulkier teams like Cinderace did). Finally, if you do run HDB Mini-Cinderace, what do you run as your fourth move after V-Create, Bolt Strike, and U-turn? I've seen a lot of options like Energy Ball and Scorching Sands, while things like Taunt, Encore, Will-o-wisp, or Toxic may be able to put in work.
 

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