Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

1705806717525.png


Wanted to drop a fun Serperior set that I credit with getting me back into the 1800s.

Guinevere (Serperior) @ Heavy Duty Boots
252 Spa / 252 Spe / 4 Spd
Calm Nature
Tera Type: Ground
- Leaf Storm
- Tera Blast
- Glare
- Knock Off

I never felt that sub/lefties was the ideal Serp set, and I’ve found the changes above make a world of difference. With HDB, Serp slots excellently into boots hazard stack balance teams and provides a valuable late game win condition. Knock off is what really makes this set great. People don’t expect Knock Serp so you can get reliable item removal on switch-ins like Volcarona, Glowking, and Skeledirge. This enables Serp to pair excellently with hazard stack.

I welcome other Serperior enthusiasts to share their favorite sets!
 
Tera: No and No, tera doesn't feel broken at all right now and the defensive layer it provides is something I really like. Not going to go too in depth here because I'm open to ideas concerning tera but I don't think it's broken atm.

Sleep: 5 (not going to elaborate btw it's getting repetitive)

Kyurem: 3 (close to 4)
I think Kyurem is a really strong mon that is probably broken, and I almost gave it a 4, but I'm giving it a 3. A lot of people complain about the specs sets, but I think specs Kyurem is mid as hell, yes you kill things but bro literally dies to hazards. You 2 shot pretty much everything but balance teams can switch into it at least once, which is sometimes enough to punish the mon. That being said, there are some sets that are genuinely pretty concerning when it comes to Kyurem, but they use boots. I think what really makes this mon potentially banworthy is the boots set and the fact that it can freeze fish kinda easily, but the best Kyurem set can be a bit subjective and maybe I'm being controversial by calling the specs Kyurem set the most mid set.
The first set is scale shot + 3 special attacks, it's kinda popular but also not the most common set, it's pretty good and can still do enough damage to force some answers like Clefable to be in a sort of passive limbo where if the mon tries to play more actively it could die too soon, but if you play to passively, it could get frozen. Really hard to play around when it does this shit:
252 SpA Kyurem Freeze-Dry vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Clefable: 126-148 (31.9 - 37.5%) -- 0.2% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Kyurem Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Clefable: 160-190 (40.6 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Yeah you're gonna be clicking moonlight a ton against boots Kyurem, but you can sort of play around it I guess by being more aggressive.

The second set is just flat out underexplored and for no good reason really. Here's a set that I like:

Kyurem @ Heavy Duty Boots/Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 56 HP / 252 SpA / 200 Spe
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Freeze-Dry
- Earth Power
- Rock Slide/Ice Beam

This set might look really wack and the option of using leftovers might seem weird, but item aside, I think this is one of the best sets in my opinion because it does really well into some rain teams. You can substitute on some mons like Pelipper and then just take a kill which is pretty nice. Rock slide even allows you to own Volcarona or at least force it to tera which would otherwise own boots Kyurem sets.

Under normal circumstances I would give this thing probably a 4, but I think sleep and Archaludon should come first as well as the fact that it can do well against rain is something that's honestly pretty nice right now; if it can punish rain I'll be a bit lenient on it for now. Again, I don't think this mon will stay a 3 in my books for very long, as soon as rain goes I could see this thing easily being a 4 or honestly a 5, or maybe people experiment more with the fact that rain becomes less of a factor and it stays a genuine 3 (unlikely but I can't predict how the metagame will go). If you want to argue this mon is a 4 or a 5, I won't disagree with you because honestly it can be frustrating to play against at times.

Gouging Fire: 3
Mon can kinda own teams but also I think the reason why it's so strong into some teams is that there's not enough variety that can be done in balance, I think more variety would allow people to fit answers like Dondozo a lot easier, but it definitely feels pretty strong for sure. This one I would put as a genuine 3, I wouldn't really give this mon a 4 or a 5, I don't see it being a 5 but I can see it being a 4.

Roaring Moon: 2
Yeah taunt sets are probably the most broken set, otherwise Skarmory dumpsters it, but is it really that bad? It's not like Roaring Moon wants to tera and then take like half of its HP against Skarmory just to get ice sharded by like a Weavile, I just feel like normally that's not a great trade. Non-taunt sets aren't broken, walled by Skarmory which honestly is really good on balance right now anyways.

Archaludon: 5
Join the fucking wave guys down with Big Rain™ Investments. Show them their place.
Okay but actually rain is a busted playstyle that's carried by this mon. I agree with Akalli pretty much that it's a no skill cheap ass mon that always goes at least 1 for 1.
1705807333154.png


Gholdengo: 5
Fuck this mon lol
Okay hear me out, we ban Gholdengo so people can use more Corviknight balances and people get more options for balance teams instead of Skarm Ting/Gliscor Meow/Weavile. That would be really fire ngl because Corviknight is a baller mon that feels like it can own an entire team centered around hstack if there is no Gholdengo.

Kingambit: 2
Can be annoying with its sweepies but honestly tera feels even more balanced than it already is, all balances at this point in time have a built in check in Skarmory, so you don't need to account for it nearly as much as you used to. Nice ghost resist too and I like more darks in the tier because the ghost type feels broken without them. If Gholdengo gets banned I could see the idea of a Kingambit ban get entertained though.

Deoxys-Speed: 1
Get his ass off the surveys oh my god he literally needs to beat the mid allegations because all people ever do with him is make him get up rocks and watch him fucking die

Anything else: Tera blast ban probably tbh, not that impactful but I'm open to that ban. Don't think it's necessary rn tho but I would be supportive of it. I didn't wanna say Yes and No on tera because I feel like tera blast is a bit separate than what the first question was asking, I don't want any major restrictions to tera.
 
If banning sleep because of darkrai is okay, banning booster energy because of roaring moon is okay.

If banning booster energy is okay, banning light clay is okay…

etc.

“Breloom won’t miss it”, “why do we need to preserve Amoonguss viability”.

“Raging bolt won’t miss it”, “why do we need to preserve iron valiant viability”.



“but it takes away agency for the other player, you’re rolling dice on 1-2 free turns that you get to use, breloom gets to throw bullet seeds more”

“but it takes away agency for the other player, you’re rolling dice on the 4 move slots you have, with 50% more speed and them not knowing which valiant it’s gonna be”

-

“But it made darkrai debatably Ubers, we could keep darkrai in OU and all we have to do is get rid of sleep!”

“but it made roaring moon debatably Ubers, we could keep roaring moon in OU and all we have to do is get rid of booster energy”

-

In short:

If darkrai is broken because it can get 25%+ chip and 1-2 free turns, 40% of the time, ban darkrai. Getting rid of something because of “hax” needs to be like Moody or evasion, completely unplayable against. Not unplayable against with 1 pokemon, 40% of the time it’s used.
 
Last edited:
If banning sleep because of darkrai is okay, banning booster energy because of roaring moon is okay.

If banning booster energy is okay, banning light clay is okay…

etc.

“Breloom won’t miss it”, “why do we need to preserve Amoonguss viability”.

“Raging bolt won’t miss it”, “why do we need to preserve iron valiant viability”.



“but it takes away agency for the other player, you’re rolling dice on 1-2 free turns that you get to use, breloom gets to throw bullet seeds more”

“but it takes away agency for the other player, you’re rolling dice on the 4 move slots you have, with 50% more speed and them not knowing which valiant it’s gonna be”

-

“But it made darkrai debatably Ubers, we could keep darkrai in OU and all we have to do is get rid of sleep!”

“but it made roaring moon debatably Ubers, we could keep roaring moon in OU and all we have to do is get rid of booster energy”

-

In short:

If darkrai is broken because it can get 25%+ chip and 1-2 free turns, 40% of the time, ban darkrai. Getting rid of something because of “hax” needs to be like Moody or evasion, completely unplayable against. Not unplayable against with 1 pokemon, 40% of the time it’s used.
This is a bad argument. The problem with sleep is that it's random, both in whether it hits (for moves not named Spore) and in how many turns it lasts. What moves an opponent brings or whether a person runs Booster Energy is not random, it's a conscious decision made in the teambuilder. Thus, this is a false analogy.
 
If banning sleep because of darkrai is okay, banning booster energy because of roaring moon is okay.

If banning booster energy is okay, banning light clay is okay…

etc.

“Breloom won’t miss it”, “why do we need to preserve Amoonguss viability”.

“Raging bolt won’t miss it”, “why do we need to preserve iron valiant viability”.



“but it takes away agency for the other player, you’re rolling dice on 1-2 free turns that you get to use, breloom gets to throw bullet seeds more”

“but it takes away agency for the other player, you’re rolling dice on the 4 move slots you have, with 50% more speed and them not knowing which valiant it’s gonna be”

-

“But it made darkrai debatably Ubers, we could keep darkrai in OU and all we have to do is get rid of sleep!”

“but it made roaring moon debatably Ubers, we could keep roaring moon in OU and all we have to do is get rid of booster energy”

-

In short:

If darkrai is broken because it can get 25%+ chip and 1-2 free turns, 40% of the time, ban darkrai. Getting rid of something because of “hax” needs to be like Moody or evasion, completely unplayable against. Not unplayable against with 1 pokemon, 40% of the time it’s used.
There isnt any booster mon thats broken and there arent any mons that are broken by booster energy. All the current paradox ubers are already broken without it. Also, theres at least 4 degenerate sleep fishers that turn the game into 60% slot sim, lilligant h venosaur iron valiant and darkrai. All four of them shouldnt suffer the sins of sleep(especially not valiant, it adds so much to the tier that losing it would be pretty massive).
 
As someone who has looked at the data and the outcomes here

if you're a qualified voter and you want to actually make change or keep the status quo vote 1 or 5 - don't bother mid-grounding, you're wasting your vote.

If you're not a qualified voter and you want to actually make change or keep the status quo, get qualified then do the above.

Won't elaborate.
Middle ground answers are important to keep any semblance of nuance and make actually informed small decisions, otherwise the surveys would be composed strictly of "yes" or "no" questions. This method risks ending up with blatantly broken shit getting similar scores to not-so-blatantly broken shit, muddling up tiering action sequence and consequence.

Plus, the purpose of the surveys is not to get a threshold on what to act immediately, otherwise QBing would be much more common. It is both to, well, survey - as in to see the current state of things - as well as to get community feedback, which includes non-qualified voters. Games are about fun, and you shouldn't have to be on the top-percentile to have fun and to give feedback and to voice your opinions, even if a middle-ladder player inevitably won't be as loud as a tournament one.
 
This is a bad argument. The problem with sleep is that it's random, both in whether it hits (for moves not named Spore) and in how many turns it lasts. What moves an opponent brings or whether a person runs Booster Energy is not random, it's a conscious decision made in the teambuilder. Thus, this is a false analogy.

^broken and uncompetitive are vastly different. There’s also not a clause already in place to balance booster energy as is. The whole analogy doesn’t track
point taken, but it doesn’t explain away the gist of the statement.

moody + evasion are completely unplayable against.

sleep in its current form, is completely okay until Darkrai reset the discussion. The darkrai discussion has happened because OU has discovered a viable pokemon that can get past checks 40% of the time. This is now analogous to when OU discovered a viable pokemon that could bypass checks about 40% of the time as well, with kings rock Cloyster. Kings rock was determined low-value and low-importance. Sleep is a little different, since it’s kinda peppered throughout various movesets, rather than an item that’s otherwise useless on all non-skill link Pokémon’s.

No one made a big deal out of other hax aspects of OU yet, such as paralysis and flinch yet.

trying to force iron valiant, lilligant, breloom and Venusaur into this argument isn’t doing it favours. The elephant in the room is Darkrai.

Because OU could really use another high speed reasonable power dark type, except this one’s “different” because it has some bulk and nasty plot.
 
Last edited:
No one made a big deal out of other hax aspects of OU yet, such as paralysis and flinch yet.
Because there are no status moves causing flinch, and paralysis never had a Paralysis Clause even in gens where it divided speed by 4, and Thunder Wave never missed.
 
trying to force iron valiant, lilligant, breloom and Venusaur into this argument isn’t doing it favours. The elephant in the room is Darkrai.
It’s not “forcing” them into the discussion when Valiant, Lilligant-H, and Amoonguss were literally listed by the OU council as reasons as to why the whole discussion was coming up to begin with. There’s been pretty extensive discussion up to now as to why Valiant and Lilligant-H are able to abuse sleep in the exact same way to the exact same degree as Darkrai, and Lilligant-H does so more consistently. Amoonguss is admittedly a different beast in how it approaches sleep, but I haven’t seen anyone yet who has bothered to examine why the red card set ISN’T a problem.
 
Sleep is different in this meta. Amoongus getting off a Spore can alter the game just like a Darkrai can. You want to keep your sleep sac? Better hope you don't need that later. Oops, too bad you let your guy get Spored that you needed for some late game Skeledirge that snowballs and cleans.

This meta is fast-paced. Setup moves are clicked like, 1 in 3 turns. If your switch-ins are restricted, then yikes. Sometimes, you really need to be able to utilize all six of your mons. Also Unaware guys are restricted to Clef (ew), EQ weaks (:skeledirge: & :clodsire:), or Alomomola on tren (:dondozo:). They're good, but without Unaware (or Magic Guard in Clef's case) they'd all be UU at best
 
but I haven’t seen anyone yet who has bothered to examine why the red card set ISN’T a problem.
Easy: "Amoonguss wasn't a problem until players started pairing it with an RNG item to remove agency and invalidate traditional counterplay. Red Card is the problem and should be banned, just like King's Rock." But given what an RNG item discussion would do to this thread (see: Quick Claw), I vote we stick to the setup sweepers and leave Amoonguss alone. Plenty to discuss there without bringing in more confounding factors.
 
If banning sleep because of darkrai is okay, banning booster energy because of roaring moon is okay.

If banning booster energy is okay, banning light clay is okay…

etc.

“Breloom won’t miss it”, “why do we need to preserve Amoonguss viability”.

“Raging bolt won’t miss it”, “why do we need to preserve iron valiant viability”.



“but it takes away agency for the other player, you’re rolling dice on 1-2 free turns that you get to use, breloom gets to throw bullet seeds more”

“but it takes away agency for the other player, you’re rolling dice on the 4 move slots you have, with 50% more speed and them not knowing which valiant it’s gonna be”

-

“But it made darkrai debatably Ubers, we could keep darkrai in OU and all we have to do is get rid of sleep!”

“but it made roaring moon debatably Ubers, we could keep roaring moon in OU and all we have to do is get rid of booster energy”

-

In short:

If darkrai is broken because it can get 25%+ chip and 1-2 free turns, 40% of the time, ban darkrai. Getting rid of something because of “hax” needs to be like Moody or evasion, completely unplayable against. Not unplayable against with 1 pokemon, 40% of the time it’s used.
Difference is, like I said DOZENS OF TIMES, is that sleep is inherently a busted and uncompetitive mechanic that WOULD NOT have a super special clause you can't replicate on cart and is complex, and instead would have been banned out right.
I
Do
Not
Get
What's
So
Hard
To
Understand
About
This
It's
Very
Simple
This is what I meant when I said people literally don't know the "normal" for sleep moves, which is being able to sleep all 6 of your opponent's Pokemon if you're lucky enough. That's why 100 years ago Smogon just took sleep clause from the 3D and implemented them on Showdown in the first place. That was 100 years ago and with today's philosophy Sleep would just outright be banned entirely like it should have long ago.
 
Easy: "Amoonguss wasn't a problem until players started pairing it with an RNG item to remove agency and invalidate traditional counterplay. Red Card is the problem and should be banned, just like King's Rock." But given what an RNG item discussion would do to this thread (see: Quick Claw), I vote we stick to the setup sweepers and leave Amoonguss alone. Plenty to discuss there without bringing in more confounding factors.
no, no, we are not going down this road. we're not going to ban red card, a single-use item that requires the user to eat a hit, just because some people want to use the haha sus meme mon. we're not even going to discuss it. the anti-sleep-ban arguments have devolved from "well-intentioned but misinformed" to "bad faith" to "bad faith and not even trying to hide it" to "trying to bait people into talking about something else" and i refuse to let that strategy work. i'll turn the discussion back to sleep as many times as i need to until it's banned
 
no, no, we are not going down this road. we're not going to ban red card, a single-use item that requires the user to eat a hit, just because some people want to use the haha sus meme mon. we're not even going to discuss it. the anti-sleep-ban arguments have devolved from "well-intentioned but misinformed" to "bad faith" to "bad faith and not even trying to hide it" to "trying to bait people into talking about something else" and i refuse to let that strategy work. i'll turn the discussion back to sleep as many times as i need to until it's banned
I vote we stick to the setup sweepers and leave Amoonguss alone
Edit: You twist my words to accuse me of arguing in bad faith, then deflect when you get called out on it.
 
Last edited:
Alright. Here's my monthly salt post.

How much do you enjoy SV OU right now (with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best)?
4 - Some days the meta is fun but most days it's just a giant matchup fish. You go up against dozens of different strategies and at least 15 mons are borderline to broken as all crap with multiple sets and Teras.

How competitive do you find SV OU to be right now (with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best)?
2 - A meta based around sleep, infinite hazard spam, Tera, Sucker Punch / Thunderclap...

Do you support tiering action on sleep-inducing moves? 1 indicates these moves are balanced, 3 indicates they are potentially banworthy, and 5 indicates they are banworthy.
5 - Ban sleep.

Do you feel that any tiering action at all (ban or restriction) is needed on the topic of Terastallization?
Yes. Ban Tera.

How do you feel about Kyurem?
3 - Dumb mon. However, it is rocks weak.

How do you feel about Gouging Fire?
5 - Mega-Entei is cracked.

How do you feel about Roaring Moon?
3 - Probably broken but priority / unaware / Iron Boulder is on every team

How do you feel about Archaludon?
5 - It's a brainless piece of trash.

How do you feel about Gholdengo?
2 - Gholdengo is a good mon, but not the cause of the hazard craze. Skarm / Gliscor / Ting-Lu in the hands of a skilled player and team are going to outlast our piss poor removal options whether Gholdengo exists or not.

How do you feel about Kingambit?
5 - F%&*#%@%#%!

How do you feel about Deoxys-S?
2 - Deoxys-S is not broken but I'll give it a slight mention for bringing the Gen4 mirror lead games into an already crazy metagame.

Is there anything else not already mentioned you would like to see the council look into?
Gliscor and Volcarona.
 
Easy: "Amoonguss wasn't a problem until players started pairing it with an RNG item to remove agency and invalidate traditional counterplay. Red Card is the problem and should be banned, just like King's Rock."
So you agree the Red Card set is a problem? Because that goes back to my original point then.
 
Been enjoying Hoopa-U in the current meta. AV Hoopa is bulky as hell, which is nice vs our strong special threats like kyurem and raging bolt. As a temporary answer on bulky offense teams, it's nice, esp if paired with parting shot pechurant and lando-T to bring it in safely. What's cool about hoopa is that you can tech wacky shit like grass knot for Ting-Lu or Focus blast for arch, but it will generally always be a consistent performer because of Knock. It also does well vs Kyurem's Tango partner Gking. CB Hoopa is also a nice mon rn, trivializing the stall match-up while having entry points vs stuff like GKing and various other mons on balance. Hoopa really benefits from less U-Turn in general.
 
Been enjoying Hoopa-U in the current meta. AV Hoopa is bulky as hell, which is nice vs our strong special threats like kyurem and raging bolt. As a temporary answer on bulky offense teams, it's nice, esp if paired with parting shot pechurant and lando-T to bring it in safely. What's cool about hoopa is that you can tech wacky shit like grass knot for Ting-Lu or Focus blast for arch, but it will generally always be a consistent performer because of Knock. It also does well vs Kyurem's Tango partner Gking. CB Hoopa is also a nice mon rn, trivializing the stall match-up while having entry points vs stuff like GKing and various other mons on balance. Hoopa really benefits from less U-Turn in general.
I've used a choice band set with grass knot to absolutely destroy dondozo, but it overall is only good into bulkier teams that can't outspeed it. But when it has a good matchup, oh boy, it destroys them. I didn't use the team that much because I didn't find that much success with it, but Hoopa-U will also be a great breaker.
 

Ehmcee

A Spoopy Ghost
is a Pre-Contributor
As for King Gambit, could we ban Supreme Overlord if needed?
As a general rule of thumb, as well as my personal opinion, any move/ability/item that directly boosts one's stats should very rarely be banned unless it does so to an egregious level. Supreme Overlord isn't a broken ability, on a physical Pokemon, Huge Power is objectively better. Now obviously, Huge Power isn't broken, due to it's distribution, ultimately any stat modifier like these depend on the base stats of the Pokemon they're based on. Another argument is that Speed Boost initially made Blaziken broken, but it wasn't uniquely due to Speed Boost being an insane ability, but also due to Blaziken's 120 Attack stat with access to SD, Yanmega has never been a problem as another example.

It's why I'm vehemently opposed to a Booster Energy ban, in practice, it's just a one time recoil-less Life Orb, or a lock-less scarf. If a Pokemon becomes broken due to it, it's most likely due to that Pokemon's insane stats on it's own as well as setup potential that's too strong.
 
So you agree the Red Card set is a problem? Because that goes back to my original point then.
I'm saying we shouldn't go there. If you want to have a serious discussion about whether Amoonguss is an example of sleep being uncompetitive, we can, but that's going to drag in the RNG baggage. If you're just looking to score cheap gotcha points using Amoonguss, then knock yourself out.

I just figured that Darkrai, Iron Valiant, two flavors of Lilligant, and apparently Venusaur would be enough sleep abusers to make your case without dragging in the one that's actually complicated.
 
Top