Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[zantaRay]

I view tera as essentially a Z-move with no opportunity cost. Z-moves favoured offensive teams and were at times very frustrating, but possible, to play around. Tera Is all of that but without the cost of an item slot or any kind of commitment, it's usage can be entirely on a turn by turn basis, which further favours offensive play.

 

[Reviews2D]

Whether is obviously not as creative as Tera.

And 8g without Dynamax is still shit honestly, but that's not on Smogon fault.

Without Dynamax? The Dynamax era was horrible(hot take I know) games could be decided in a few turns because mons like Gyra, Crov, and even Togekiss would be able to snowball out of control. The best counters would be dynamizing or sending out a ditto once the dynamax was over.

Edit:Quick two cents on Terra although not clearly as overbearing as dynamax it could have a similar snowball effect as seen with mons like Dragonite or Roaring Moon and defensive options mostly befitting these same mons

 

[Vrin]

Since this claim has been used to defend Tera: do y'all even see the current metagame as "creative"? Like, it's still early so I'm sure this statement will age poorly, but I feel like we've explored the vast chunk of what Tera offers from a "creative setbuilding" perspective. Tera can be used to:

1. Boost STABs
2. Give mons whatever offensive type they want
3. Resist moves
4. Grant immunities to status effects
5. Spinblock with Tera Ghost (or if you're super afraid of Glimmora specifically, Tera Poison/Steel)

#1 is not really creative at all, it's just a bog-standard offensive boost. #3 is interesting insofar as choosing what you resist is a somewhat difficult problem (like Zoroark gimmicks on steroids), except most people have gravitated towards the same general types for defensive play — Fairy, Steel, Water, Poison being the big ones I've been seeing. It does open up creativity insofar as you can change what Pokemon your defensive mons check on-the-fly, but it doesn't really do so in a particularly exciting way (it's not like Z-moves where some came with cool abusable effects). #4 probably has the most creative potential, but right now it seems very niche; maybe someone will start running Tera Fire or Electric on a set-up sweeper to block burns and paralysis respectively, but I haven't seen that. #5 is even more niche, and while it was a cool concept initially, the fact that basically every lead can do it makes it feel more like it homogenizes gameplay rather than diversifies it.

That leaves #2, which in my opinion makes the game less creative. Rather than needing to find cool sets like SubDisable or whatever to bypass your defensive counterplay, you just... smack on a Tera Blast and blow through the tier. There's no creativity involved in this process: you identify what checks you and you throw on a move that's super effective against it. I think this actively lowers the amount of creativity that goes into building sets — why build a whacky Whirlpool lure for Pex when you can just make your DD sweeper Electric type? You get the gist.

Are there more applications of Tera I'm missing? Or as-yet-undiscovered angles? Since to me, the only one that seems really, well, creative is #3 (#4 has potential on paper but hasn't been tapped into much), and while I do like having more defensive counterplay to stuff, I think if your thesis is "Tera makes defensive counterplay more flexible" then you're clearly fighting a losing battle considering the best Tera abusers are currently offensive mons using it to eliminate defensive answers, not enable them.

[Edit: I guess something I didn't mention is using Tera to get around trapping? Like a Steel type using it to escape Magnet Pull, or anyone Tera'ing into Ghost to escape all trapping. This is definitely a thing, and maybe will be more relevant later in the generation, but I haven't seen anyone mention it yet — hence why I only just realized it's something that can be done.]

Admittedly, though, the rest of the metagame doesn't feel much better — a lot of mons right now feel like fakemons designed to minmax one or two traits, and they just end up running the "obvious" sets. I mean, two of our banned mons had massive speed and special attack stats, near-unresisted STAB coverage, and an ability that boosted their stats even more. The two Donphans are basically "what if the 'offensive tank' archetype that new players think exists in singles actually did exist?". Espathra is literally everything you could ever want on a Stored Power abuser — CM, Speed Boost, Psychic STAB... Cyclizar is nearly every utility pivot move smacked onto one Pokemon, and then it was given good defensive typing and Regenerator. Like, these sets genuinely build themselves.

I'm sure that, with time, some more creative strategies will be uncovered, but man if the current state doesn't feel uninspired. Normally the beginning of a generation is a time of experimentation (remember the insane diversity of Fini sets when it was first released? remember SpDef Alowak?) and it's really concerning to me that the new Pokemon designs just... don't offer that.

 

[laborgay]

Since this claim has been used to defend Tera: do y'all even see the current metagame as "creative"? Like, it's still early so I'm sure this statement will age poorly, but I feel like we've explored the vast chunk of what Tera offers from a "creative setbuilding" perspective.

I think when (more like IF, obviously) Tera makes it to high level tournament play, we would start to see more creative and niche uses of it, but I think that goes for almost everything, ladder environment doesn't often reward creativity or very specific teambuilding decisions.
Do I think Tera will last that long? probably not, but I do think at minimum it warrants a suspect test rather than a quickban because of how central it is to the generation identity.

Echoing your thoughts on the new mons though, a lot of them give very heavy "this is my Donphan evolution for my Pokemon rom hack" vibes

 

[akuto]

#1 is not really creative at all, it's just a bog-standard offensive boost. #3 is interesting insofar as choosing what you resist is a somewhat difficult problem (like Zoroark gimmicks on steroids), except most people have gravitated towards the same general types for defensive play — Fairy, Steel, Water, Poison being the big ones I've been seeing. It does open up creativity insofar as you can change what Pokemon your defensive mons check on-the-fly, but it doesn't really do so in a particularly exciting way (it's not like Z-moves where some came with cool abusable effects). #4 probably has the most creative potential, but right now it seems very niche; maybe someone will start running Tera Fire or Electric on a set-up sweeper to block burns and paralysis respectively, but I haven't seen that. #5 is even more niche, and while it was a cool concept initially, the fact that basically every lead can do it makes it feel more like it homogenizes gameplay rather than diversifies it.

Feel like calling it uncreative is disingenuous to the mechanic. With a mechanic with 18 different variations per 6 pokemon on your team we've only now after about a week are seeing the common sets, what certain pokemon like to tera into and what-not to patch defensive or offensive holes in their team structures.

skeledirge-fairy, anihhilape-water, roaring moon-flying, volcarona-grass, theres so many examples of pokemon commonly running tera types that add alot to their team which to me is creative and interesting moreso than any Z-move could ever be lmao. If you wana say "well z-celebrate omniboosts victini and thats super interesting" then we have vastly different ideas of what a "interesting mechanic" is.

Given that I feel like this is a meta that needs time to be figured out fully, like in another week from now I don't think we're gonna be surprised by Gholdengo turning fighting to resist sucker punches or to ohko iron treads, we'll learn that Gholdengo likes running fighting or normal, adapt and be prepared for it, on that note if anything tera feels like its only helping your team building moreso than anything because of things like Gholdengo-fighting being able to resist threats like Chien-pao and kingambit

 

[paoisd]

With the two best water types in the tier being banned, I think it's time that the KING of Smogon Singles will be making a big appearance in the metagame

I think Tyranitar is a really good mon right now, mostly for the fact that it essentially hard counters (barring tera) Chi-Yu, who I think might be the new top offensive threat in the tier. Couple this with a general ability to counter/check a lot of ghost types which is so prevalent right now (like with Dragapult who I feel is seeing an increase in usage). He also counters a lot of niche mons that can be scary/have potential to improve in the meta like Iron Moth, Iron Jugulis, Esparatha etc. I'm not sure what his best set is but I really have been liking a very standard offensive stealth rock set with heavy duty boots and three attacks. With his standard strong attack and good coverage he can punch holes in opposing teams while still being more than bulky enough to reliably check what you need him to and also still be a reliable stealth rocker. The beauty of TTar ofc is that he has a million different sets you can run depending on what your team needs. Essentially regardless of what set he runs he still can check the threats that he needs to, and for that I think he will soon be seen as a top tier pick in the tier right now

 

[Vrin]

Given that I feel like this is a meta that needs time to be figured out fully, like in another week from now I don't think we're gonna be surprised by Gholdengo turning fighting to resist sucker punches or to ohko iron treads, we'll learn that Gholdengo likes running fighting or normal

I suppose this is a fair point, perhaps my framing was too narrow-minded and shallow considering it implicitly minimalized "mixed use cases" like this (ones that are probably the most interesting from a teambuilding and gameplay perspective). Thanks for pointing this out.

 

[DaemonChop]

I've seen it pop up on here, but I don't think Tera and Dynamax are remotely comparable. Dynamax was a stupid chicken game of "can I max airstream and instantly win or will I get destroyed by my opponent's dynamax". Terra at its absolute worst is still not an instant sweep button, it allows for at least the bare minimum of player expression

"He who dynamaxes first, loses first" was a saying for a reason and this doesn't have anything to do with dealing with terastallize but I think we have forgotten a bit how degenerate maxing was irt even remotely comparing them

 

[Baloor]

While I agree there are some creative applications to tera-typing, I seriously doubt at a tournament level we will see some innovative tech that changes the way we use the mechanic. The best way to use it will always be to cheese past your offensive or defensive checks. There's a few exceptions such as Normal DNite, however, the use of this basically falls into cheesing past your offensive checks as ESpeed is easily one of the best priority moves a mon can get allowing you to out-priority most other forms of priority. Pokemon will have their common terra types but its physically impossible to account for every single viable type the top mons can turn into within 6 slots, even if your own teras. This is due to the general randomness and freedom Tera gives a person to do whatever they want when compared to something like Z-Moves and Megas where you were limited to one user in a team and could typically deduce who was the Mechanic Abuser. If Tera was item locked similar to Z-Moves I believe the mechanic would be more than fine but unfortunately, that is not the world we live in. The guessing game is inherently uncompetitive and gives one person too much of an advantage on a single turn and doesn't give the other player many chances to play around it until it has already happened.

 

[zantaRay]

While it's true that terastalisation technically creates a nearly limitless number of options, I think in reality it reduces them, by lowering the number of viable checks and counters to a pokemon. In the same way that banning an overcentralising pokemon technically reduces your options, but meaninfully increases them. I think it will drive walls and other defensive options especially, to be forced to check things with raw stats, rather than a combination of their stats and typing. Defensive tera typing also often doesn't circumvent these issues, as it's not accidental that the best attackers naturally run coverage options that it's hard for a single type to resist.

 

[Parrot6632]

I started running a 6 boots balance team as a meme out of frustration over gholdengo and the endless hazard spam, but it’s actually been working surprisingly well at ~1500. Not having leftovers can hurt mons like clod and dozo but the freedom to switch out whenever you want to whoever you want without taking a quarter of your health in passive damage is worth it. Especially when 90% of the teams you run into on ladder will happily sacrifice their lead for rocks and 3 layers of spikes, putting you way up in the exchange.

The only other option I’ve found that consistently works is talonflame, who can threaten an ohko on the cheese stick with overheat and act as a bootleg moltres pivot otherwise. The Donphans are great, but pretty prediction reliant and really easy to wear down over the course of the game. Especially with the advent of balloon gholdengo, meaning you'll need to hit it with knock off or something first, then kill it, then manage to get a spin off, and at that point you've likely taken way too much passive damage from the hazards anyways for spinning to do anything.

6 boots new meta

Iron Hands @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Ice Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Drain Punch
- Earthquake

Sylveon @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pixilate
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Wish
- Calm Mind
- Protect

Kingambit @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Supreme Overlord
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Kowtow Cleave
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance

Dragapult @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Darts
- Tera Blast
- Psychic Fangs

Dondozo @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Crunch
- Curse
- Liquidation
- Rest

Clodsire @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Toxic
- Amnesia
- Recover
- Poison Jab

 

[Deesu]

1500+ is where I started to see the same exact HO screens team by 5 different people. it's not even in the bazaar thread, it's just people slapping on the easiest and most braindead shit and it just works. even rain teams which have always known to look the same have more diversity. why innovate when you can get easy wins at every point of the ladder?

 

[earl]

tera stinks and if we don’t ban it now we’re gonna be banning shit like Volcarona a year from now

 

[akuto]

While I agree there are some creative applications to tera-typing, I seriously doubt at a tournament level we will see some innovative tech that changes the way we use the mechanic.

I feel like this argument would be one of the best arguments AGAINST TERA in the fact that in tournament is one of the places where we'd see the most variations in teraing to cteam or to target very specific pokemon you know your opponent likes using or styles. That is one thing I think would be a little degenerate about terraing is you bringing some very odd one off team that uses weird teras to counter your opponent. Ladder is the place where you see less variation I feel like

 

[alephgalactus]

1500+ is where I started to see the same exact HO screens team by 5 different people. it's not even in the bazaar thread, it's just people slapping on the easiest and most braindead shit and it just works. even rain teams which have always known to look the same have more diversity. why innovate when you can get easy wins at every point of the ladder?

Yeah, I’ve noticed that Gholdengo hazard spam and Grimmsnarl screens are basically the only two team archetypes now

 

[Gondre19Wedj]

Yeah, I’ve noticed that Gholdengo hazard spam and Grimmsnarl screens are basically the only two team archetypes now

Does this warrant Grimm, Ghold, and Glim (the hazard one, I can't remember its name) being looked at?

 

[rosesscythes]

4 Quickbans seem pretty standard fare.

I do have to point out as well: in contrast to OU, with its stable of viable options that have stayed from last generation as well as obvious "good not broken" newbies such as Great Tusk, Glimmora, Baxcalubur, etc, Ubers got pretty much nuked in terms of Pokemon bar Koraidon/Miraidon. I'd daresay that from a simple game design perspective, it was inevitable that GameFreak otherwise include Pokemon as good as its cover legendaries, especially as it allows those legendaries in VGC.

 

[Gondre19Wedj]

I do have to point out as well: in contrast to OU, with its stable of viable options that have stayed from last generation as well as obvious "good not broken" newbies such as Great Tusk, Glimmora, Baxcalubur, etc, Ubers got pretty much nuked in terms of Pokemon bar Koraidon/Miraidon. I'd daresay that from a simple game design perspective, it was inevitable that GameFreak otherwise include Pokemon as good as its cover legendaries, especially as it allows those legendaries in VGC.

Just gonna quickly clarify: Vgc goes through its own evolutions.
For the most part it follows a pattern: In year one of the generation, only the regional pokedex is allowed. In year two, it expands (in gens 6 and 7 it was to almost the full national dex).
The only pokemon banned in those 2 years are big legendary pokemon (box arts and such) and mythical pokemon.
In the 3rd year of the generation is when 2 "restricted" Pokemon are allowed on each team. Mythical pokemon are not allowed.
Gen 8 was different because of the pandemic, so only 1 world championship event occured, but the online events that TPC hosted followed similar formatting, generally following what was available in the DLCs.

 

[Rothj]

This is my first post on these forums. I was about 1400 pre bans, and iron bundle and palafin were annoying but you did have ways to outplay them. Meta was pretty diverse.

Imo the problem with a lot of these bans is that there aren't that many good pokemon right now that you can actually use, in general. So when you ban iron bundle, what's left if you want a fast special attacker? Chi-yu. And then chi-yu becomes dominant and we have to counter that... or people find some sort of walls that make it impossible to break through and that becomes the meta. Or that gets banned too. Like right now there are only a couple water pokemon after the bans that you can really use... the pool is pretty limited. I feel like at some point every decent pokemon that does anything interesting is going to be gone and we will have a stale meta with all the new pokemon banned.

There was massive power creep this gen, the reality is that you have to be using pokemon with 550 bst on average because they introduced so many of them and so many overpowered abilities. Just banning everything new that is decent isn't going to change that. I also think banning the new generation's gimmick, terastalization, would be just unfun in general. I could see it being banned in national dex but I think it's weird to just ban it from a brand new format where it's one of the main things keeping the game interesting.

 

[alephgalactus]

Does this warrant Grimm, Ghold, and Glim (the hazard one, I can't remember its name) being looked at?

Grimm definitely needs to be looked at. Prankster Screens + Parting Shot is not OK and was never OK. It virtually guarantees both screens by merit of moving first, which is honestly fine in and of itself—it did the same thing last gen and so did Regieleki sometimes—but having a priority move that also gives your opponent -1 and switches out is absurd. Dark-types prevent it from Parting Shotting, sure, but a lot of them lose to Grimm anyway because it gets Fairy STAB and it’s fat enough to 1v1 damn near any behind screens.

Gholdengo should probably be looked at as well, but I maintain that banning it won’t accomplish much because the real problem is a lack of viable Defoggers—the current climate of the meta is still very unfriendly to Scizor and Corviknight, both of which are weak to Fire, the type that just had its two biggest answers removed. Come to think of it, the lack of viable Defoggers can also explain the prevalence of Grimmsnarl’s no-brain screen nonsense. If these two go, they need to be retested if more Defoggers are ever introduced into the meta.

Glimmora is, in my opinion, honestly fine. There are a lot of other hazard setters that people are using too—I’m increasingly seeing Ting-Lu and Clodsire as Spikes setters. I can only imagine that Glimmora’s usage will plummet when Home comes back and Lando-T is reintroduced anyway.

 

[zantaRay]

It's been less than a week and we've only had 4 egreigous offenders banned. Maybe don't go all doom and gloom yet. Chi-yu is a strong offensive threat with robust answers in the meta, and the things that wall it have answers. Not every best threat is equal

 

[Rothj]

It's been less than a week and we've only had 4 egreigous offenders banned. Maybe don't go all doom and gloom yet. Chi-yu is a strong offensive threat with robust answers in the meta, and the things that wall it have answers. Not every best threat is equal

Broken stuff is balanced by using other broken stuff to beat it. An issue I have is that basically people want to ban anything interesting at all, when it's pretty clear the intention was to make this gen have strong mons with interesting abilities. Like people want grimmsnarl gone, gholdengo, cyclizar, and so many others... eventually we will just have dragons basically? It's going to create a weird meta if people just keep calling for bans on everything.

 

[alephgalactus]

Broken stuff is balanced by using other broken stuff to beat it.

That’s specifically contradicted by OU tiering policy. “Broken checking broken” is not a valid reason to keep something in the tier.

 

[Ctann]

It's been less than a week and we've only had 4 egreigous offenders banned. Maybe don't go all doom and gloom yet. Chi-yu is a strong offensive threat with robust answers in the meta, and the things that wall it have answers. Not every best threat is equal

chi yu might be okay in a vaccuum, but it’s genuinely a problem when you’re trying to put together diverse 6-Pokémon teams.

it’s just really really good.. and has a similar effect to what paladin and iron bundle had, just less egregious.

it’s kinda interesting seeing so many high power or high utility Pokémon being released at once. Seriously, golden go must be one of the most useful and customisable utility mons ever!

 

[zantaRay]

Broken stuff is balanced by using other broken stuff to beat it. An issue I have is that basically people want to ban anything interesting at all, when it's pretty clear the intention was to make this gen have strong mons with interesting abilities. Like people want grimmsnarl gone, gholdengo, cyclizar, and so many others... eventually we will just have dragons basically? It's going to create a weird meta if people just keep calling for bans on everything.

I mean people always complain. But random people in a thread isn't the same as The Council indicating they're planning to ban things. When they say they plan to look at tera, and are keeping an eye on things, they mean exactly that. They're going to look at it, without necessarily having the intent to ban it. You complain that if they keep banning things you won't have interesting stuff happening, but if you don't ban anything the format becomes solvable because there's a clear best pokemon to build around, and you end up with like 3 viable teams, all abusing bundle and trying to counter each other.

quick edit: For anyone struggling with grimsnarl offence ting-lu with spikes and whirlwind actually just shits all over it. Grimsnarl cannot touch it even with stab fairy, and you get 2 layers of spikes for free and then whirlwind whatever tries to set up.