Metagame Convergence [OM of the Month (New Bans post #465)]

[dehzao]

raikou with cotton guard, calm mind, parabolic charge and stored power should be banned. It's fast and can easily boost out of control within 2 or 3 turns, it has recovery while also destroying the opponent with parabolic charge, and can nuke anything that isnt a dark type with stored power. not that it needs recovery when its nigh unkillable

Hahahaha... I've found it extremely creative, imo. It takes at least 3 turns for it to build up. It's different than something broken. A simple Prankster with Haze or an Unaware Pokémon put it to the ground.

 

[Dorsia]

Hello everyone, could you let me know your opinion on these movesets?

G-Zapdos

Zapdos-Galar @ Leftovers
Ability: Scrappy
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- High Jump Kick / Close Combat
- Dual Wingbeat / Brave Bird
- Substitute / Knock Off / Encore
- Hone Claws / Swords Dance

This set was made to hit anything behind your substitute and to avoid being WoW'ed or Strength Sap'ed. Hone Claws work well with Dual Wingbeat and HJK but you might just go SD with CC and Brave Bird for immediate power. If Fluffy or Unaware are an issue, you can run Mold Breaker instead.

Kyurem

Kyurem @ Loaded Dice
Ability: Thermal Exchange
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Scale Shot
- Icicle Spear
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance
I may be wrong but I'm surprised nobody talked about it. It's basically Baxcalibur but faster and bulkier.

Azelf

Azelf @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Photon Geyser / Lumina Crash
- Close Combat / Moonblast
- Knock Off / Ice Beam / Fire Blast / Encore
This is a decent pivot, that could be special, physical or even mixed if you feel so.

Iron T-Tar

Iron Thorns @ Magnet
Ability: Galvanize
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Double-Edge / Body Slam
- Stone Edge / Earthquake / Ice Punch
- Earthquake / Explosion
- Dragon Dance
Yea I know this mon is shit but defensive Water types are popular so let's give it a try. One DD is enough to reach 400 Speed, with a massive STAB Double Edge reaching a strong base power of 187.2. Also it can run Explosion hehehe.

Also I'm glad Umbreon is gone because it was a pain to deal with honestly.

 

[jodiethecrobat]

I really wish the banlist would be updated so I wouldn't have to guess what's banneddddduhhh #observing

 

[Ziek_Freek]

My first serious team i theory crafted while trynna find some good breaking tools and started with future sight because that's a classic until i shortly remembered doom desire is cheap just on a usually bad Jirachi so i scrapped my og test team idea and started building this. For my ladder run i had a initial version for a couple of the games but scrapped it after i got belt to ass by a stamina body press Hippodown lol. Two of my losses had me genuinely tweaking out with losing to sub 0.01% odds but that's Pokémon(cope)
https://pokepast.es/21b22e37f051f076

Iron Crown @ Assault Vest
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 216 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 12 SpD / 24 Spe
Modest Nature
- Doom Desire
- Tachyon Cutter
- Psychic Noise
- U-turn

The star of the show using the cheap doom desire. Can come in on every fairy mon to set up doom desire to ensure a basically guaranteed ko with scrappy Gapdos/ dragon maw Goodra or a less guaranteed kill but more consistent option of adapt gren. Does normal iron crown stuff also like denying healing with psychic noise and Ohkoing some sash steel weak fairies with tachyon cutter. levitate lets u take drastically less stealth rock damage as you resist stealth rock. Also lets you switch in on non knock off lando t's. Max special attack for the most possible damage and making it nearly impossible for a mon with switch into your teams attack combined with doom desire. You might be asking that the rest of the evs are for and my answer to that would be i don't fucking know. Didn't want it to be fast to get a slower pivot and its slower than everything fast and faster than everything slow without speed investment so i just threw it around to make it look pretty. Pretty sure i just vaguely remembered a National dex set that has like 32 speed? And made it from memory while tired. Can you optimize it better than i did? yea, but will i? Nah. Any strong breaker with doom desire is getting kills tbh its not hard or mon dependent.

Notable calcs
252+ SpA Iron Crown Doom Desire vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Skarmory: 160-189 (47.9 - 56.5%) -- 85.9% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Iron Crown Doom Desire vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Scream Tail: 426-504 (98.1 - 116.1%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Iron Crown Doom Desire vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Azelf: 322-379 (110.6 - 130.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Iron Crown Doom Desire vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Cresselia: 205-243 (46.1 - 54.7%) -- 59.8% chance to 2HKO

/

Skarmory @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- U-turn
- Body Press
- Roost
- Roar

Alomomola @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- U-turn
- Wish
- Roar
- Rapid Spin

Both Mola and Skarm both generally have the same roll both each just cover different mons but main difference being skarm being "more offensive" and mola being more support. The notable move on both mons is roar. Roar lets you snipe mons when slow bulky pivots try to hard switch on crown because its faster than all of them to get a free move mostly being knock off. Roar is also helpful for the sheer amount of setup in the tier and people love to click dragon dance right in front of mola's face thinking its just gonna pivot. I've had multiple games where roar just auto wins me a game because it snipes a frail offensive mon or their fairy and then they have no way to deal with the rest of my team. Cool thing to point out is that scream tail is mostly always magic bounce so even if they predict the roar it would switch yourself out still leaving scream tail to die still. makes it very annoying on the opponent as they have to add another prediction and pray the wrong doesn't come in when getting roared.
The rest of the team is pretty standard. Poison heal Lando-t wit taunt and bulk up lets you beat the steal birds always and the max spdef is helpful for taking as little chip as possible from mons like draining kiss florges(while thats still legal) and scald regenvesters. Fez is cool for poison heal and regen mons without recovery and a lot of people keep hard switching physical attackers onto fez and W.O.W can cripple them making them useless the whole game. heres some replays for some insight on how i play the team
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9convergence-2493584135-m908by27sdten1ebry1mt46y30unc2opw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9convergence-2493666101-epk117wicys3m2x7q9rxpp7e55ogpoipw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9convergence-2493454152-lmuyqqnv3xvsy4ybgni8y1turthrp4ppw?p2 9 (earlier version of team)

i got a lot more techs n ideas i just don't like sharing stuff if i haven't generally proved to be good. stay tuned

 

[G-Luke]

I really wish the banlist would be updated so I wouldn't have to guess what's banneddddduhhh #observing

My apologies, what part of the Banlist hasn't been updated? Please let me know in case I skipped over something.

 

[krispykremepettingzoo]

My apologies, what part of the Banlist hasn't been updated? Please let me know in case I skipped over something.

I think they might be referring to unimplemented bans

 

[Cuddly]

Looks like the teambuilding validator is working correctly now.

Cinderace @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Drought
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sacred Fire
- U-turn
- Rapid Spin
- Recover
Tested it with this Cinderace set. Getting Drought from Vulpix, Sacred Fire from Entei, Rapid Spin form Torkoal, and Recover from Slugma.

 

[RematchNevera]

Looks like the teambuilding validator is working correctly now.

Cinderace @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Drought
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sacred Fire
- U-turn
- Rapid Spin
- Recover
Tested it with this Cinderace set. Getting Drought from Vulpix, Sacred Fire from Entei, Rapid Spin form Torkoal, and Recover from Slugma.

Wouldn't you prefer morning sun in sun?

Also not all validating has been solved, I tried putting rapid spin & secret sword on Keldeo which didn't work for the longest until a showdown user told me to switch the order of the moves which solved it eventually but it was a pain in the ass. (Had the same issue with scream tail)

 

[Dorsia]

Wouldn't you prefer morning sun in sun?

Also not all validating has been solved, I tried putting rapid spin & secret sword on Keldeo which didn't work for the longest until a showdown user told me to switch the order of the moves which solved it eventually but it was a pain in the ass. (Had the same issue with scream tail)

Strangely, it works in that order :

Scream Tail @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Teleport
- Encore
- Wish
- Nuzzle

But should you swap Nuzzle and Teleport, it's incompatible for some reason.

 

[Cuddly]

Wouldn't you prefer morning sun in sun?

Also not all validating has been solved, I tried putting rapid spin & secret sword on Keldeo which didn't work for the longest until a showdown user told me to switch the order of the moves which solved it eventually but it was a pain in the ass. (Had the same issue with scream tail)

You could go either way. I did this for testing purposes and Recover has the benefit or healing normally in Sand or Snow at least. So it is up to you which you use.

To avoid double posting, I wanted to share this.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Solar Power Moltres Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) over 2 turns vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Palkia in Sun: 250-294 (77.8 - 91.5%) -- guaranteed KO in 2 turns after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery

 

[Ziek_Freek]

i do mean well i promise

is there a reason we need to release broken Ubers or moves into every metagame? this has been happening for most of the entire year and I'm only saying most because i don't remember every single month(maybe ff?). i think a lot of people for councils saw "this broken uber doesn't get anything from the format lets release it" and every single time it end up doing the exact same thing it got banned from ou from. why is gouging and bax free? the mons famously unwallable without unaware. it seems as if every single month we have to meet a quota of not pre banning something extremely obviously broken like sacred fire or belly drum(i dont know a metagame that allows it i mean its banned in bh for christ sake) and a completely unnecessary freeing of an uber. im not exactly blaming this council for this, Luke has been very active and we already have some bans but its just getting ridiculous having to do the same song and dance every month. are we supposed to have an unaware mon on every single team or like what? correct me if im wrong but the only two ubers that are purely circumstantial is espa and eleki with mu moth being both depending on who you ask

Please feel free to provide me any sort of real actual counterplay to bellydrum/bax/gouging thats not phasing it out over, priority(this can be valid counterplay but it shouldn't be needed against any mon), or unaware. i really only am complaining about this because i really have been enjoying conv and its crazy to me how this happens every month. maybe we should start voting early or something so the people for tiers can look at the banlist before it starts.

yall gave this thermal exchange, swords dance, earthquake, icicle crash and glaive rush lol(yes kyurem is the better mon,.just bax would not be fine)

 

[G-Luke]

i do mean well i promise

is there a reason we need to release broken Ubers or moves into every metagame? this has been happening for most of the entire year and I'm only saying most because i don't remember every single month(maybe ff?). i think a lot of people for councils saw "this broken uber doesn't get anything from the format lets release it" and every single time it end up doing the exact same thing it got banned from ou from. why is gouging and bax free? the mons famously unwallable without unaware. it seems as if every single month we have to meet a quota of not pre banning something extremely obviously broken like sacred fire or belly drum(i dont know a metagame that allows it i mean its banned in bh for christ sake) and a completely unnecessary freeing of an uber. im not exactly blaming this council for this, Luke has been very active and we already have some bans but its just getting ridiculous having to do the same song and dance every month. are we supposed to have an unaware mon on every single team or like what? correct me if im wrong but the only two ubers that are purely circumstantial is espa and eleki with mu moth being both depending on who you ask

Please feel free to provide me any sort of real actual counterplay to bellydrum/bax/gouging thats not phasing it out over, priority(this can be valid counterplay but it shouldn't be needed against any mon), or unaware. i really only am complaining about this because i really have been enjoying conv and its crazy to me how this happens every month. maybe we should start voting early or something so the people for tiers can look at the banlist before it starts.

View attachment 790941 yall gave this thermal exchange, swords dance, earthquake, icicle crash and glaive rush lol(yes kyurem is the better mon,.just bax would not be fine)

We can't make presumptions and make bans based on vibes. The plain truth to the matter is that Bax (and Kyurem) has been heavily outclassed as a Dragon typed set up sweeper for almost the entire mod's inception. Its chief competition Haxorus was just banned. Let's give a moment before lashing out, like as I promised, bans are on their way as needed and discussion on currently problematic elements are underway.

 

[Ziek_Freek]

We can't make presumptions and make bans based on vibes. The plain truth to the matter is that Bax (and Kyurem) has been heavily outclassed as a Dragon typed set up sweeper for almost the entire mod's inception. Its chief competition Haxorus was just banned. Let's give a moment before lashing out, like as I promised, bans are on their way as needed and discussion on currently problematic elements are underway.

this is where it becomes a very nuanced discussion where i both agree and disagree with u. something broken being outclassed doesnt make it not broken it makes it outclassed. if this was a perma ladder i would agree entirely with you but its not ou. its not your fault that it takes long sometimes but it has taken up to a week and a couple days the longest time i known for bans to be implemented. i think having the mindset of no preemptive action leads to oms like battlefields with tr/tw or twisted dimension with iron ball. bax i still think should've never existed in the first place but i do understand how other broken stuff was blinding from it but i really see no excuse for belly drum, sacred fire, and sleep. im not asking for you to quick ban everything u think could be broken but does it have to be never or always with this? apologies for if you think im being too harsh i have been really enjoying conv. i personally wouldve either never had bax free or quick ban it but i get why you wouldnt but belly drum? when has it ever not been broken? i really harshly disagree with this zero foresight approach. there has been thing i think have been broken before that i don't think should be auto banned and time would tell whether I've been right(sacred fire in abc) and wrong(rayquazza in formemons super early). we need more nuance in tiering. i don't know if u just joined or what the situation is with conv but purely reactionary tiering does not work. I'm not saying its easy or saying there is an exact answer but something like belly drum i see zero excuse for. i get that I'm on the more actionary side than most people but it does feel like a middle finger when this happens almost every single month of this year. again apologies if i ever come off as rude that's not my intent but we should not be shying away from discussion some stuff should be a layup.

 

[dehzao]

i do mean well i promise

is there a reason we need to release broken Ubers or moves into every metagame? this has been happening for most of the entire year and I'm only saying most because i don't remember every single month(maybe ff?). i think a lot of people for councils saw "this broken uber doesn't get anything from the format lets release it" and every single time it end up doing the exact same thing it got banned from ou from. why is gouging and bax free? the mons famously unwallable without unaware. it seems as if every single month we have to meet a quota of not pre banning something extremely obviously broken like sacred fire or belly drum(i dont know a metagame that allows it i mean its banned in bh for christ sake) and a completely unnecessary freeing of an uber. im not exactly blaming this council for this, Luke has been very active and we already have some bans but its just getting ridiculous having to do the same song and dance every month. are we supposed to have an unaware mon on every single team or like what? correct me if im wrong but the only two ubers that are purely circumstantial is espa and eleki with mu moth being both depending on who you ask

Please feel free to provide me any sort of real actual counterplay to bellydrum/bax/gouging thats not phasing it out over, priority(this can be valid counterplay but it shouldn't be needed against any mon), or unaware. i really only am complaining about this because i really have been enjoying conv and its crazy to me how this happens every month. maybe we should start voting early or something so the people for tiers can look at the banlist before it starts.

View attachment 790941 yall gave this thermal exchange, swords dance, earthquake, icicle crash and glaive rush lol(yes kyurem is the better mon,.just bax would not be fine)

I think the moderators are doing an excellent job entirely on the Convergence meta.

My honest opinion is that every stall-wall team player always wants to ban something that clearly is a counter to their style of play. Gourging Fire is the perfect counter to that boring set of Chansey-Skarmory, which is getting very old already. Hyper-offensive is a style and one made up intentionally to counter stall-wall strategies.

Plus, I don't see any problem in it. For Gourging to be THAT strong, he needs at least 2 DDs. You can stop it from dancing twice or use Unaware/Clear Smog/Haze. The poor guy doesn't have any other Fire/Dragon Pokemon to exchange abilities and moves with and you still want to ban him? He is not broken, just as Baxcalibur and Belly Drum are not.

I have an Unaware Cresselia with Haze in my team, no Belly Drum mon ever got to hit me with a 4x... EVER! Just use counters.

The most annoying broken things are the hyper-defensive walls. They exploit a lot of this meta, way more than offensive mons. We have Regenerator Assault Vest Suicunes walking around Flip Turning to a Rocky Helmet Defensive Walls all the time... There MUST be some mons available to counter this.

About the Kyurem... I have just faced one against my Sheer Force Regice in Snow... He didn't have Iron Head, probably Scale, SD, Glaive and Earthquake/Icicle Crash. I've survived a 2x Attack Glaive Rush and Moonblasted him to death.

Besides, I can think of many other counters to him: the classic Unaware, Earth Eater Steel types, Body Press Skarmory, Prankster mons setting Rain to a Swift Swim Water-type, Sashed mons with Haze/Clear Smog... The list is infinite.

Convergence is being very nice exactly because of that... It is not totally filled with hyper-defensive sets because some hyper-offensive ones can exist.

There are many sets Thunder Waving, using Toxic and switching endlessly until the game ends, just like Sneasler, that were banned just because of her Toxic Chain / Dire Claw, when a simple scarfed Pokemon with Psychic, Earthquake or Brave Bird could OHKO her.

I do get it that there are people that enjoy more using hyper-defensive teams, but lots of players have these wild ideas exactly to counter these teams... And when it finally catches up, the solution cannot be "ban", should be to adapt. That's my humble opinion.

 

[dehzao]

And finally... All the moves and mons you mentioned are not broken. I laugh at all Belly Drum sets.

 

[Ziek_Freek]

The most annoying broken things are the hyper-defensive walls. They exploit a lot of this meta, way more than offensive mons. We have Regenerator Assault Vest Suicunes walking around Flip Turning to a Rocky Helmet Defensive Walls all the time... There MUST be some mons available to counter this.

Now i am in no way implying that everyone that disagrees with me is just bad at the game nor am i implying that top players should be the only opinion. i do however have a sneaking suspicion from this statement that you are not good at the game. there is nothing wrong with that its not like being bad at conv is the worse sin known to man. i just very much notice a trend across showdown that often time someone says something along the lines of this for oms. would you be so kind to show me your gxe? now ofc i wouldn't say that without showing mine .
ive seen multiple people high ladder with me agree belly drum being broken and again not saying bad players should have zero voice at all but like c'mon man. i promise yall i never talk out of my neck and say things without having any credibility at all. "i cant break regenvest" is like c'mon lol . c'mon..
are all opinions valued the same?

I do agree though council has been doing a fine job. while i cant say i agree with every decision or lack there of i do respects action. its never my intent to say they are doing a bad job cause they aren't

 

[dehzao]

Besides, you have 37 Convergence games? I have 250... I presume you use an account to test teams, right? That would be a way to focus solely on the GXE, something I don't do... But if it were to count Convergence steadyness, my opinion would "value" more than yours.

Now i am in no way implying that everyone that disagrees with me is just bad at the game nor am i implying that top players should be the only opinion. i do however have a sneaking suspicion from this statement that you are not good at the game. there is nothing wrong with that its not like being bad at conv is the worse sin known to man. i just very much notice a trend across showdown that often time someone says something along the lines of this for oms. would you be so kind to show me your gxe? now ofc i wouldn't say that without showing mine .
ive seen multiple people high ladder with me agree belly drum being broken and again not saying bad players should have zero voice at all but like c'mon man. i promise yall i never talk out of my neck and say things without having any credibility at all. "i cant break regenvest" is like c'mon lol . c'mon..
are all opinions valued the same?

I do agree though council has been doing a fine job. while i cant say i agree with every decision or lack there of i do respects action. its never my intent to say they are doing a bad job cause they aren't
View attachment 790955

Hahahahaha... And yet, you can't beat a simple Belly Drum set and complain that Kyurem received SD, Glaive Rush and Earthquake.

Welcome to Convergence.