GG Godly Gift

[hayedenn]

Hi just wanted to talk about a core I really like rn

(God)
Toxapex @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 192 Def / 64 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic Spikes / Surf / Chilling Water (if u really want an attacking move or smth)
- Recover
- Toxic
- Haze


Ting-Lu @ Leftovers (Spd)
Ability: Vessel of Ruin
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Earthquake
- Whirlwind / Ruination / Spikes

The idea behind this core is that Ting-lu is ridiculously bulky when given Toxapex SpD (155 hp/142 spd with Vessel of Ruin). RestTalk is mandatory imo just because you get worn down a lot over the course of a game. Earthquake lets you threaten out most of the things you want to check (Miraidon specifically) while Tera Grass is very important imo just so you can check stuff like Rotom-W in a pinch. I went Whirlwind last so you can phaze threatening stuff and also spread TSpikes but u can really go with anything there.

The team I've been using is a pretty standard Toxapex comp . Not completely optimal but good enough. I've been debating if this is enough stuff to check special attackers. I'm trying SpD Garganacl but idk :/ I haven't found a team I completely like yet.

 

[dhelmise]

More new gods time!

Yet ANOTHER base 135 Speed god has been unleashed! None of the stats bar Special Defense are lackluster; however, because of this, all but Attack and Speed appear more as dump slots than as actual beneficial slots for teammates, giving this practically the same team synergy as Marshadow last gen.

Stealing Houndstone's spot as the second lowest BST god, Espathra has an interesting spread. The fairly decent HP is nice for bulky teammates, and base 60 Attack makes for an easy dump spot for almost any special attacker, Which only leaves Espathra with one actively crippling slot in either 60 Defense or Special Defense. That being said, while the Espathra strats are never not fun, this stat spread causes Espathra to serve as a directly worse Chi-Yu, Miraidon, Iron Bundle, and Flutter Mane clone. So unless you're going for Stored Power memes (might I suggest the completely viable SpA slot Flittle?), it's probably not worth running this as a god.

 

[S-Dawg]

HP (Dugtrio) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Force
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Final Gambit
- Earthquake
- Night Slash
- Shadow Claw
This is OP with Annihilape

 

[dhelmise]

Walking Wake is banned from Godly Gift!​

	Kris	Lily	longhiep341	ponchlake	TPP	UT	Result
Walking Wake	Ban	Abstain	Abstain	Ban	Ban	Ban	Ban

After waiting until the OU suspect ended, the GG council has voted to ban Walking Wake! Already solid bulk and offenses that could be further bolstered under the sun was enough to get Walking Wake suspected in OU. Adding onto that a god that could give it an even higher attacking or speed stat made Walking Wake very difficult to switch into and revenge kill, and a signature Water STAB move that got boosted in both sun and rain in Hydro Steam meant that just running another weather setter to cripple opposing weather teams was no longer enough. A Water / Dragon typing is also very handy offensively and defensively, giving Walking Wake a very easy way to switch into most moves and hit most of the metagame. For the Pokemon that do resist its STABs, Walking Wake has access to Flamethrower to become even more of a threat under the sun and makes it that much harder for Pokemon that resist one or both of Walking Wake's STABs to come in.

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

How to "less break" godly gift.

I think we're all pretty aware at this point that Godly Gift is a shadow of its former self, and will unfortunately have to remain that way until home comes out, but there are some changes that could still be made now. Just because Godly Gift is missing the key things it would need to be great doesn't mean it couldnt be better. Some of these changes are, frankly, really obvious and have been needed a while, while others are a bit more controversial but it would be nice to hear some opinions on and ideally move forward on at least some of them.

1. Orthworm is far and away the fishiest thing in this tier, and makes every other broken setup sweeper at least twice as bad when it works. Playing around it either means running almost exclusively pokemon that shut it down, limiting and linearizing an already limited and linear metagame, or else conceding that you will sometimes just lose to it with nothing you can do about it. This shouldn't be too surprising since Shed Tail is one of the stupidest moves in the history of Pokemon but at least Cyclizar means you have to run it as a god and a good team will almost always win.

2. Speed kingambit is so strong it's not even funny. I'm sure we've all seen our fair share of OU games where the mon just 5 or 6 v 1 in a last mon scenario, and it's worse here since the support it needs is so easy to fit; hazards and screens are nice but not remotely needed, and there are only a handful of mons it needs checked. The closest things it has to a downside are that Scarf Koraidon kind of checks it and that it means you can't use one of the other broken speed stat mons, but it's by far the most broken of them anyway.

3. This mon is basically Kingambit if Kingambit was slightly less good and only worked on Korai teams. It's basically broken as is, only really held back by said opportunity cost of not running a different broken speed mon, and once Kingambit goes it's going to do the exact same thing in 80% of cases. I could see us holding off on it until after Kingambit gets the boot but I think it's pretty obvious it's not going to be okay to stay long term.

4. The more controversial. There are a bunch of other mons that are, while not quite as obviously blatantly broken, still pretty uncontrovertibly too strong for the metagame. Hatterene and Dragapult are probably the best examples of this, but Garganacl, Roaring Moon and Ting Lu aren't too far behind. I will admit they do work to an extent to limit the brokeness of the pokemon we can't exactly ban atm - our only 2 real gods - but I'd like to have at least plans to look into them in the future.

5. Terastal. I get that it's a key part of the Ubers feel of GG but it definitely does make the too many threats problem we already have way worse. I would want a suspect test but GG ladder is far and away too dead for that to be readily doable, so I'd settle for a quickban to be resuspected later once say home comes out.

 

[ponchlake]

How to "less break" godly gift.

I think we're all pretty aware at this point that Godly Gift is a shadow of its former self, and will unfortunately have to remain that way until home comes out, but there are some changes that could still be made now. Just because Godly Gift is missing the key things it would need to be great doesn't mean it couldnt be better. Some of these changes are, frankly, really obvious and have been needed a while, while others are a bit more controversial but it would be nice to hear some opinions on and ideally move forward on at least some of them.

1. Orthworm is far and away the fishiest thing in this tier, and makes every other broken setup sweeper at least twice as bad when it works. Playing around it either means running almost exclusively pokemon that shut it down, limiting and linearizing an already limited and linear metagame, or else conceding that you will sometimes just lose to it with nothing you can do about it. This shouldn't be too surprising since Shed Tail is one of the stupidest moves in the history of Pokemon but at least Cyclizar means you have to run it as a god and a good team will almost always win.

2. Speed kingambit is so strong it's not even funny. I'm sure we've all seen our fair share of OU games where the mon just 5 or 6 v 1 in a last mon scenario, since the support it needs is so easy to fit; hazards and screens are nice but not remotely needed, and there are only a handful of mons it needs checked. The closest things it has to a downside are that Scarf Koraidon kind of checks it and that it means you can't use one of the other broken speed stat mons, but it's by far the most broken of them anyway.

3. This mon is basically Kingambit if Kingambit was slightly less good and only worked on Korai teams. It's basically broken as is, only really held back by said opportunity cost of not running a different broken speed mon, and once Kingambit goes it's going to do the exact same thing in 80% of cases. I could see us holding off on it until after Kingambit gets the boot but I think it's pretty obvious it's not going to be okay to stay long term.

4. The more controversial. There are a bunch of other mons that are, while not quite as obviously blatantly broken, still pretty uncontrovertibly too strong for the metagame. Hatterene and Dragapult are probably the best examples of this, but Garganacl, Roaring Moon and Ting Lu aren't too far behind. I will admit they do work to an extent to limit the brokeness of the pokemon we can't exactly ban atm - our only 2 real gods - but I'd like to have at least plans to look into them in the future.

5. Terastal. I get that it's a key part of the Ubers feel of GG but it definitely does make the too many threats problem we already have way worse. I would want a suspect test but GG ladder is far and away too dead for that to be readily doable, so I'd settle for a quickban to be resuspected later once say home comes out.

I'll address some of the points since I am speaking for myself here, and I will mostly be speaking on Kingambit.

1. Err.. yeah this thing needs to go. Greybaum put it best. It's the same Kingambit from OU but with 135 speed, except I don't think it suffers being in such a cluttered speedtier as much as other mons do bc of Sucker Punch. Quite frankly, I'm hardpressed to name any checks to it that isn't halfbaked beyond Dondozo (I personally think this thing is trash atm). Everything is very susceptible to getting worn down or losing 1v1 to it once it gets SO boosts or just from +2. Besides having to run Dondozo, keeping Koraidon healthy (also untera'd to resist Sucker Punch), and trying to burn it, your only other options is a well timed tera or simply outplaying it. Both of which aren't reliable. This doesn't take into account Kingambit's own tera..

2. Addressing point #4, I'm personally pushing for tiering action some of those mons (Garganacl/Ting Lu/Toxapex to name a few) whenever HOME arrives. I feel like they are bearable in the current state, but once HOME arrives, it'll be a different story.

3. This is much like the previous point. It's my hope that we can have it suspect tested once HOME arrives and we have a decent enough ladder population .

 

[dhelmise]

Kingambit and Orthworm are now banned from Godly Gift!​

	Kris	Lily	longhiep	ponchlake	TPP	UT	Result
Hatterene	DNB	ABS	DNB	BAN	BAN	DNB	DNB
Kingambit	BAN	ABS	BAN	BAN	BAN	BAN	BAN
Orthworm	BAN	ABS	BAN	BAN	BAN	BAN	BAN
Ting-Lu	DNB	ABS	DNB	DNB	DNB	DNB	DNB
Iron Moth	DNB	ABS	DNB	DNB	DNB	DNB	DNB
Roaring Moon	DNB	ABS	DNB	DNB	DNB	DNB	DNB

These pokemon are undeniably powerhouses in the current metagame. However, there were bigger threats to be addressed at the time of this slate, and we'd rather re-vote on it later after we get these threats out.



Already given insane bulk and offenses with an ability naturally made for a revenge killer, Kingambit in a Speed slot made it nigh unbeatable in the aforementioned role and could easily turn 1-6 matchups into 1-0 with Swords Dance, a well preserved Tera type, and strong priority with Sucker Punch.



Despite not having Regenerator or a naturally high Speed stat like Cyclizar, a high Defense stat and the ability to suck up hits easily when slotted in HP and easily get in sweepers made Orthworm one of the most essential Pokemon to have on a team. Combine this with a naturally high Defense stat and access to Body Press and Coil, and Orthworm can act as a late-game cleaner all in one role.



While Ting-Lu's bulk is super hard to break through, it's somewhat of a necessary evil at this point because it's one of two Pokemon that are able to check Miraidon comfortably. We will revisit this Pokemon when Home comes out.

Re: Terastallization

We won't be voting on this until we're comfortable enough with Godly Gift's activity to run a suspect at the very least.

 

[dhelmise]

Orthworm is now banned from Godly Gift!

Shed Tail is now banned from Godly Gift!
Cyclizar and Orthworm are unbanned!​

	Kris	Lily	Longhiep	ponchlake	TPP	UT	Result
Shed Tail	BAN	BAN	BAN	BAN	BAN	BAN	BAN (6-0-0)
King's Rock	DNB	ABS	DNB	BAN	DNB	DNB	DNB (1-4-1)

With OU's recent tiering decision to ban Shed Tail and unban Cyclizar, there is now a precedent set that we would like to follow. In turn, we get two more Pokemon to use in an effort to make the metagame slightly more diverse, and Shed Tail pivot hell is eradicated.

We also voted on King's Rock but decided against action for the time being because the only Pokemon that really utilizes King's Rock right now is Cloyster, and we would rather vote on Cloyster itself if it becomes enough of an issue. Additionally, with HOME coming out any day now (I HOPE!!!), we'd like to see how the post-HOME metagame fares before voting on RNG items.

 

[ponchlake]

I think King's Rock should have been banned. Now I should preface that 1) these our my own personal thoughts independent from the council's and 2) I'm not making this post to cope and mald over the fact that it didn't get banned. We've voted on it already, so that matter is settled for the time being. I'm simply sharing my thoughts and potentially looking to start a discussion within the community on it.

King's Rock is uncompetitive. That's my entire stance on it. You can argue whether or not it's broken, but I don't think there are very many arguments you can make against it being uncompetitive. Pokemon is a numbers game in almost every aspect from damage rolls to secondary effects or accuracy to the lingering possibility that you can slapped in the face with a critical hit at any moment. You can get a game stolen from you at a moment's notice because of hax, making odds/hax management an important part of the game. However, I do not think that King's Rock or similar items like Bright Powder are apart of that or should be apart of that. It adds another layer of luck that you cannot account for, making it uncompetitive. Managing your odds is something like weighing if you should go for the 70% accurate Focus Blast, which puts you in a winning position if you hit, but loses you the game if you miss. This is something you can account for, which is completely disregarded with items like King's Rock. What value does King's Rock have besides unfairly add another element of luck that can completely skew the results of a battle through nothing but pure chance (loaded question moment)? What does King's Rock contribute to the competitive play of Godly Gift? You should be rewarded for playing well, but that goes completely out the window when you throw on something like King's Rock. The fact that you have a 10% chance to be rewarded for playing suboptimally or to be bailed out of any situation by simply clicking an attack is the definition of uncompetitive to me.

I'm going to address some counterarguments here.


1) Cloyster is the only viable abuser of it (at the moment)
Cloyster is the best user of it without a doubt. However, King's Rock is not an item exclusive to Cloyster. What stops me from putting it on anything and suddenly gaining the chance to flinch you without warning. I'm going to quote one of the best GG players (Greybaum) on this: "I think there's a difference between "it's only good on cloyster" and "it's only a stupid fishing item that can steal undeserved wins on cloyster." maybe the former is true but the latter isn't. I personally believe an ice shard flinch proves that." The incident in question is this. On turn 20, VoltyPichu clicks Ice Shard on Koraidon, flinching it and stopping its sweep. UT played to his win-con and VoltyPichu was unable to stop UT from setting up both a Swords Dance and Agility, as well as healing up to near full with his Koraidon. He was going to sweep and win the game, but lost due to a stray 10% that was completely out of his control. How do you account for that in any shape or form? If we're talking just Cloyster, I have a 41% to flinch you on my strongest attacks (Icicle Spear and Rock Blast), but also a 10% to flinch you on any other move like VoltyPichu had done in the replay.

Going back to the quote from Greybaum and my previous point, I can throw King's Rock onto Koraidon and spam CC and flinch your Pokemon while doing 60%.

Let's create an example scenario. Let's say you have physically defensive Rotom-Wash vs my Koraidon. You are fully aware of your sets and spread, but you are unsure of what I may have. If you stayed in with Rotom-Wash to try to burn my Koraidon, you'd effectively remove almost all of its potency. So you have an 85% to potentially neuter my Koraidon. However, in exchange you're going to take about 50% from Close Combat or 75% if I have Choice Band. There's also 6.25% for me to crit you, killing you if I have Choice Band. Well then there's also the possibility that I have Lum Berry or that I decide to Tera Fire and avoid the burn while doing massive amounts of damage to your Rotom. You decide to use Tera Fairy to resist my strongest attacks and lessen your potential punishment in the chance that 1) You miss Wil-O-Wisp 2) I have Lum Berry 3) I use Tera Fire. Well I stay in and click CC and flinch you instead. You end up losing the chance to burn me, and I've also successfully wasted your surprise Tera because of a stray 10% that is originally not possible to achieve without King's Rock. Now this scenario is by no means perfect since it doesn't take into account the possibility of any grounds or what the rest of the team might be. It does however highlight how King's Rock can skew a normally favorable position/situation for someone else simply because the other person decides to run King's Rock.

Well opportunity cost right? I chose to forgo running the multitude of good items on Cloyster or Koraidon for a small chance to get flinches rather than use something that is guaranteed to give me value like Heavy Duty Boots or Lum Berry. Well the point still stands.. How do you account for me running a luck based item like King's Rock? You can play around me having Choice Band or Lum Berry on my Koraidon, but how do you play around me having the 10% of skipping your turn anytime I click an attack? 10% is very small amount, but when it has the potential to completely steal games, it becomes a weighted cointoss. There is a distinct difference here between me clicking Iron Head to get a 30% to flinch vs me clicking whatever I want with King's Rock to get the 10%. Both scenarios I am banking on RNG, but make no mistake the former is competitive but the latter is not. The former involves making a conscious decision that the opponent knows when faced with a Pokemon that knows Iron Head in its learnset, even more so when Iron Head has been previously revealed. The latter, on the other hand, cannot be reasonably accounted for when determining counterplay to every attack. The opportunity cost of an item slot for the marginal chance to flinch on each attack is simply uncompetitive.

2) It is not consistent enough nor do we see it very often
It's uncompetitive. I don't consider consistency to be a valid point given the arguments I made above. It cannot be reasonable accounted for, and the small chances that it does occur, it can completely skew games like in the VoltyPichu vs UT replay. We haven't seen very much of it I agree, and the aforementioned replay is the first actual instance of it doing what I described in S/S Godly Gift tours. How much more do we really need to see though? We are already fully aware of what King's Rock does and how it can affect games given past generations. The fact of the matter is neither King's Rock nor Cloyster has not changed much since. I don't see why we'd have to see more of it before it becomes banworthy. We have the precedence of it being consistently uncompetitive the times you get it to work in various past generations with Generation 9 being no different, whether it's just UT getting flinched or if everyone in GG Open is running it.

My arguments also extend to other luck based items like Bright Powder as well (This is not a targetted ban towards Instruct because of his Houndstone team).

 

[longhiep341]

GG Open is finally over, so I guess it's time to teamdump and give some thoughts on the meta.
Pretty sure everybody can agree that Koraidon and Miraidon being overcentralized makes the meta pretty stale somewhat, as Pex and Ting-Lu are like on every team. While there are other answers for the two such as Clodsire, Toedscruel, Dachsbun and Skeledirge, Clodsire seems to have fallen out of favor (which is kind of weird considering it has reliable recovery and Toxic), and other answers are either too niche (Dachsbun) or still lose to some of the sets and require another check-in/Tera (Skeledirge is 2HKOed by Band Dragon Claw/Scarf Outrage or the rising Stomping Tantrum, Toedscruel and Iron Treads lose to Overheat from Miraidon).
The only way you can afford to go more lax on them is with offense, usually Web, but it's tough to still take all of their sets into account (Scarf especially), as we see many teams still have to run Ting-Lu on offense so it's limiting teambuilding to the extent that I feel not very healthy (but not much we can do when they are the only gods, the overcentralization is pretty much unavoidable pre-Home). There are definitely some underutilized Pokemon though, like Hippowdon which can handle Koraidon pretty well bar Band while also acting as Ground-type for Miraidon. Then you can opt for some pretty unique offensive threats as well, which I'll get to when dumping teams. Overall, there are still rooms for innovation, albeit limited. I'm really looking forward to Home and hope we can get a fresh look into just how great GG's potential in gen 9 is!
Now to the team dump part, do note that I will mark some of them as bad, so be careful when using them. I also already lost some teams, but only one of them is still legal.
- Start of gen 9 stall
I made this at the start of gen 9, but it still works pretty well now so I figure I can just keep it. It probably can be adjusted a bit for new meta like a sturdier Psychic answer but it fares pretty well even against some hazard stack teams.
- Smash spam
Remember my gen 8 Shell Smash team? Well currently there are only 4 FE Shell Smash users so I have to substitute one with Fillet Away which is close. You will want to focus on different order against threats. Veluza can more often than not clean fat/stall due to their overeliance on Unaware, Protect is not the most necessary but being able to scout for Choice Miraidon and Lokix can give it 2 Fillet Away, as well as improve the Lokix balance matchup. Against the standard Pex-Lu core, it will depend on what else they have but Torkoal will usually be your first sack to weaken Ting-Lu. The team definitely lacks a sturdy Miraidon answer which is why Drednaw, Torkoal and Veluza should carefully take advantage of Tera to sweep. Miraidon being a screen setter is pretty nice when opponent expects the usual set and goes Ting-Lu, allowing screens to go up pretty reliably. Drednaw and Veluza will be the main deterrent against Koraidon, especially when it's choice locked. When all else fails, hope Cloyster gets you out of jail with flinches.
- Psychic Terrain
While Miraidon's dominance makes Psychic Terrain a bit sketchy, it certainly can still work. Koraidon is obviously the only god to bolster Hawlucha and Armarouge (Armarouge can 2HKO Ting-Lu in sun). You might be able to get away with Weak Armor on Armarouge but I like having an extra Koraidon answer. Speaking of which, Tera Fairy on Pex is probably better for Koraidon, which can spam Dragon moves until Indeedee Tera. Do note that NEVER lead with Indeedee against Miraidon; if it's Scarf then it's ok, but if it's not you will reveal Scarf Indeedee and also have no terrain.
- Electric Terrain BO
This doesn't look that special, however do note I made this before AV Pex was a thing in OU. Otherwise though, there isn't much special about this. Tauros is a pretty decent secondary answer to Koraidon and Brute Bonnet as well. I went with Muscle Bond Iron Leaves cause I kinda hated LO recoil when Wild Charge is already there.
- MEME - Ultimate Necromancer
Inspired by my team from an OMM, I gave birth to this abomination. Meme rating:
Pro: 6-0 stall since you can just keep reviving and nuking, the surprise element can also claim an early kill or two against unaware opponents which means they might lack offensive gas after to prevent the necromancy. Con: Ting-Lu survives Final Gambit, much worse when your opponent knows what you are up to. It's a funny meme nonetheless, with Pawmot also preventing Miraidon from clicking Electric moves somewhat. Mabosstiff's Destiny Bond can be pretty rough as well, between Stakeout to discourage switches and Taunt to force Destiny Bond mindgame. Rabsca has Dig cause it can't be called by Sleep Talk.
- BAD - Pressure
I made a pretty annoying Pressure spam team in gen 8. This is pretty annoying as well, annoyingly bad that is. There simply are not enough Pressure mons atm, but Home will change it soon. Weak against both Koraidon, Miraidon and various other threats, you will lose before they run out of PP most of the time.
- UNTESTED - Dragonite balance
The idea is you overload the special walls for other special attackers. Iron Jugulis especially feasts on Ting-Lu and Clodsire with Taunt and Knock Off, which helps against Pex as well. Dragonite acts as the anti offense option and can clean depending on situations after forcing opponent to sack physical walls. The team still comes with nice defensive utility on offensive mons so even against stuffs like Tera Flying Gholdengo you have other mons to aid, but will need to be played faster. Iron Treads can take advantage of many Ground-weak teams, so be sure to utilize it carefully, as answers like Rotom-W, Ting-Lu and Corviknight don't like Knock Off + Volt Switch at all.
- Snow
Admittedly, this can use some tweaking cause Fire-types, especially with Koraidon, can seriously be problematic. Your best bet will be trying to win with Slowking into Beartic before getting overwhelmed. However, snow isn't very good to begin with due to Koraidon so not much you can do. Rotom will be the main tool to tear apart defense core and force Tera, as it's quite bulky under Snow and has very strong coverage. The last moveslot can be customized a bit, like Sub or WoW, but Idk what the best option is yet. Beartic similarly is tough to cover with Earthquake to hit Pex, Tera Blast is for Rotom-Wash and Dondozo basically. Decidueye is a pretty good hazard removal option since it can actually threaten Gholdengo with Knock, but still against hazard stack it's best trying to win first.


Grouping these 2 together cause they are probably not very serious teams. Basically, I saw no reason to do anything truly innovative when QT not only kept using the same 2 teams, but also in the exact same order. Some takes can still be drawn here though: 1. Alomomola is pretty good, it can trap and annoy quite a fair share of mons, but needs to Tera often as Pex is still better at handling most mons. 2. Tera Flying Magic Bounce can be pretty broken, though here I initially wanted to run Morning Sun which is why I used Espeon instead of Hatterene, but since you really need all 3 attacks + Sub I eventually settled with Hatterene for later teams 3. You need to build Web with Hatterene in mind and prevent it from getting in constantly and the team must still be functional without Web. Here even if QT realized my blatant cteam and changed Washtom to Hatterene, Masquerain could still force chips on it with Air Slash + U-turn which eventually weakened it enough. 4. Volcarona can randomly 6-0 more often than you think.
- Wack Web
This time, I wanted an actual Web team since VoltyPichu used more teams but with no hazard removal outside of Hatt, but to divert a bit from Gholdengo I needed to spice things up. Spidops is here with Tera Ghost to not only spinblock, but also 252+ Atk Stakeout Tera Ghost Spidops Shadow Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hatterene: 386-456 (95.5 - 112.8%) -- 75% chance to OHKO. It can also act as an emergency revenge killer if somehow still alive. Bisharp punishes Defog, a pretty standard set from gen 8 except no Knock. Donphan is another emergency answer against boosted threats and also the team spinner. Ceruledge is just a good mon, especially with sun.
- Tinkaton + NP Slowbro
Continuing prepping for VoltyPichu, Rock Tinkaton seems like a surefire way to get hazards up. Remember NP Glowking in gen 9? Here's him now. The rest are pretty ordinary.
- UNTESTED - Regen
Sadly there's no Ho-Oh yet, but 5 Regen should be good enough. Slowbro and Miraidon will be the ones to force progress, while others just do what they are supposed to. Alomomola can also trap Pex and kill it with Psychic.
- Mixed Cinderace
While a centralized meta means it's not necessary to find a mixed attacker, getting one that works is still pretty nice. Even though I ended up not even sending it out, Cinderace can surprise Pex with Electro Ball, bonus point if in Terrain, and just chip Ting-Lu with U-turn for free. Hatt does what my Espeon did but better.
- MEME? - Unburden spam
Idk what compelled me to make this, but here it is. Turns out you might still need Ting-Lu in offense. The rest have a lot of Taunt to make sure walls stay low while we can set up without worrying about hazard. I expect this to just be a meme, but who knows, my memes sometimes work way beyond my expectations.
- Dual trappers
If you think this team looks crippingly weak to Ground, you are already one step into my trap, much like FC did. Roaring Moon is pretty similar to that Fluffy set it runs in AAA, but it still needs to run Max Attack cause turns out it needs +6 AND Protosynthesis to OHKO Koraidon from full. It can definitely just 6-0 though against something that expects its usual set like Ting-Lu. I did try finding the best item, from Lum Berry, Rocky Helmet to Leftovers. After the final, Covert Cloak seems like the most appealing option if the trend of AV Pex keeps up. Cyclizar is literally the definition of utility, it put in so much work and chip damage at the same time, I expect it to rise more in usage as well, with stuffs like SpD Vest and SpA utility Overheat+Draco. Gengar does exactly what it's meant to, walls switching in simply can't risk clicking Recover even if your opponent knows the set. In sun, it's solid against Pex and Sludge Bomb poison is just annoying. Once walls are weakened by Gengar, Koraidon will do the cleanup.

 

[Dark Koopatrol]

My team is really weak against HP pex, and I'm not quite sure how to fix it. What are some good ways to handle it?

 

[ponchlake]

Tweet

Ladies and gentlemen, HOME.

 

[UT]

With Home finally real, it's time to start discussing the initial banlist! Normal disclaimer of these are my views only, not the council, and I would love to hear feedback on what else should be banned, unbanned, or watchlisted!

Please ban these

Calyrex-S
This is an absolute no-brainer. It's the fastest god, it's the strongest god, it's a Ghost-type (with an even better Ghost move), it has effectively mixed coverage, and it has Nasty Plot. That's before taking into account Tera and its ability to delete its so-called checks. This is by far the easiest decision.


Ursaluna
Great STAB combination, amazing Attack and bulk, good ability, and poor Speed? Yeah slap this in the Speed slot and it will be silly.


Basculegion OR Last Respects
We will need to see what OU does here Finchinator if you feel like leaking lmk, but Adaptability-boosted Last Respects in the Speed slot will be incredibly oppressive. If OU bans Last Respects we will probably need to follow suit, or if they ban Basculegion then we don't need to do anything as this will be an awful god. If they ban neither, yeet the fish.


Hoopa-U
Similarly, Speed slot Hoopa-U would be beyond bonkers. 160 Atk, 170 SpA, Nasty Plot, and great coverage will be absolutely unmanagable as a receiver. If it's banned to Ubers, no harm here.


Toxapex
Wait, that's not a new mon with Home! It's not, but I think it's time to yeet the Pex. It is already a controversial mon and monopolizes the HP slot, but with better HP donors coming (Eternatus, Arceus, and Giratina in particular), it's time to go.

Top of my watchlist
Tera
While I won't advocate for a day zero quick ban, I think we need to talk about Tera early and often. Historically, balancing the gods in Godly Gift has always been a challenge; it's no surprise that checking Ubers in a mostly-OU format is difficult. Tera turns that up to eleven, as even bulky resists can crumble beneath super-STABs or powerful coverage. I do not expect Tera to be healthy in the post-Home metagame, and I think it will be hard to properly evaluate most gods until Tera is handled.


Arceus
To be clear, Arceus formes are tiered separately. This means is EKiller ends up being broken, we have the ability to ban it without banning the other 17 Arceus formes. As a donor Arceus gives amazing bulk, but only mediocre attacking stats and, surprisingly, not great Speed compared to other top-looking gods. I expect that with time EKiller will be broken, and maybe some other top formes like Ghost or Fairy, but I am pretty confident a significant number of Arceus formes will remain legal.


Miraidon
Ludicrous power and Speed, we are all familiar with Miraidon at this point. I do want to see how it handles the influx of new gods, and especially if Tera gets banned, but we still don't look to be flush with Miraidon checks.


Returning previously-banned gods
Zacian and Zacian-C received pretty heavy nerfs, which also significantly impact their abilities as donors. The Intrepid Sword nerf is also fairly dramatic, and it would not surprise me if they ended up finding a home within the metagame. Eternatus was a top and centralizing god last gen, but now its Speed is crept by Miraidon and Koraidon and Arceus competes with it for all-around stats. Kyogre will be utterly unwallable with Tera, but we may not have Tera and the metagame will be fast this generation.

Potential unbans
Honstly, I am not really sold on any unbans here. I think there is room to talk about Walking Wake and Iron Valiant, but nothing really makes them look more balanced to me. Once the metagame has settled down a bit, I would like to take a look at freeing Booster Energy since the paradox mons will have less of a stranglehold on our god mons, but I don't think that's a day one priority.

Is there anything else that should be banned? Unbanned? Watchlisted? Am I wildly off base with any of these? Please give me feedback!

 

[Finchinator]

Basculegion OR Last Respects
We will need to see what OU does here Finchinator if you feel like leaking lmk,

PM me this weekend, thanks

 

[Gimmicky]

Potential unbans
Honstly, I am not really sold on any unbans here. I think there is room to talk about Walking Wake and Iron Valiant, but nothing really makes them look more balanced to me.

Walking wake is much better off staying banned. We're getting both Kyogre and Groudon with home, both of which are gods Walking Wake can very heavily abuse-- Do we really want to see Wake with 150 Spatk (or even with 140 def, giving it no shortage of opportunities to switch in) firing off incredibly strong weather-boosted Hydro Steams? We aren't getting very many reliable answers, either. Answers to it's Water STAB, like Palkia and Kyogre, greatly fear Specs or LO boosted Draco Meteor. There's no Ferrothorn to cover both STABs. The closest we have is Dialga, and even that can be heavily pressured by any of Groudon, Kyogre, or Koraidon or the offense mons they enable. This isn't even taking into account that Wake can fit on other god structures as a dedicated weather counter.

I think Wake being unbanned would be a terrible idea, and I feel like most people would agree.

 

[kenn]

All da HOME stuff...

Well this aged like milk

sigh...I just wanna play my favorite OM properly...

 

[ponchlake]

Tweet

View attachment 517252

Ladies and gentlemen, HOME.

View attachment 517253

also screw you kenn

 

[dhelmise]

Toxapex and Volcarona are banned from Godly Gift!​

	Kris	Lily	Longhiep	ponchlake	TPP	UT	Result
Toxapex	BAN	DNB	DNB	BAN	BAN	BAN	BAN (4-2-0)
Volcarona	ABS	BAN	DNB	BAN	BAN	BAN	BAN (4-1-1)

We have decided to vote on two long-term threats in the GG metagame before OMPL started to make sure that we had a less obnoxious metagame for the tour before home comes. I don't have time to write reasons and just want to get this up before OMPL Week 1 goes up, so feel free to ask questions and one of the council members will gladly answer.

 

[ponchlake]

We have decided to vote on two long-term threats in the GG metagame before OMPL started to make sure that we had a less obnoxious metagame for the tour before home comes. I don't have time to write reasons and just want to get this up before OMPL Week 1 goes up, so feel free to ask questions and one of the council members will gladly answer.

Toxapex: Basically Toxapex is the best in slot for HP and it’s not remotely close. 100/152/142 bulk means that it can be tailored to beat just about anything in the meta when paired with Tera. It can also be teched into the SpA slot with AV to become an incredibly annoying threat that a lot of teams struggled to deal with. It can do this to lesser effect even in the HP slot. As a defensive option, it was suffocating and could 1v1 basically anything that wasn’t Miraidon (unless you were Tera Ground Toxapex that is) or Gholdengo. It did a good job of keeping some of the broken in check, like Koraidon, but it was too good defensively. You were fairly limited in the amount of mons you could actually bring unless you wanted your team to get 1v1’d.

Volcarona: The defensive cores are incredibly centralized right now with little room for deviation given how broken Koraidon and Miraidon are as Gods and stat distributors. Volcarona added even more pressure to defensive cores, and had fairly limited counterplay besides using a Tera on one of Toxapex, Clodsire, or Skeledirge. Volcarona often had to dedicate a Tera itself (Ground), but the payoff is you get access to arguably the strongest set-up sweeper in the tier. It is incredibly customizable and might not even be running Tera Blast either. It’s difficult to tell what the Volcarona set is upon first glance, which can often lose you the game if you make the wrong decision. Basically you don’t know the Volcarona set until it hits you or you hit it. The bulky sets can tank a hit from Scarf Koraidon or Miraidon, leading to more set-up or a kill. The offensive variants have good coverage options to choose from but can also run Roost to catch you off guard. Toxapex was its best answer as well, which we also voted on in this slate.

 

[Gimmicky]

Last Respects was just banned from OU! Assuming the same holds true for GG, we've lost 1 God and 2 potential Gods, but in exchange, we've gained potential recipients!

looks interesting, but niche. It lost a lot of offensive pressure,with 101 being an unimpressive Attack stat and 68 being a downright meager unboosted speed--meaning it is not much worth fixing either of these, in most cases. Houndstone's best bet right now is a bulky utility mon, as arguably the best user of Memento.

HP / DEF / SPD

Houndstone @ Leftovers
Ability: Fluffy
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Memento
- Shadow Sneak / Phantom Force
- Body Press
- Roar / Will-O-Wisp

is great, but not perfect. It's strong, 2hkoing almost any non-resist under rain with boosted Wave crash, but it lacks physical reliable Ghost STAB, and it doesn't particularly need a speed donation with Swift Swim-- though it may be appreciated, on some teams. What Basculegion is, though, is a great bulk recipient. This allows it to switch in with ease and fire off powerful Wave Crashes.

DEF / SPD

Basculegion (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Swift Swim
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def (or Spd) / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Phantom Force
- Wave Crash
- Psychic Fangs
- Crunch
and remember, 252 Atk Choice Band Basculegion Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arceus in Rain: 253-298 (56.9 - 67.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

actually looks like the best of the three Ghosts. It has great synergy with Kyogre, gladly taking it's Special Attack. It hits hard and fast on Kyogre teams, but there's generally better options for this. Don't underestimate the damage this can put out with a SPA donation, though. Under Rain, with 252+ speed, it is just fast enough to outspeed base 120 (Arceus and Palkia-O speed receivers) at +1

SPA

Basculegion-F (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Swift Swim
Tera Type: Water / Ground
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Hydro Pump / Surf
- Ice Beam
- Tera Blast / Surf / Whatever

EDIT: Both of the feesh can also run Adaptability in the Speed slot, on non-rain teams, but I feel like their main niche is Swift Swim

 

[dhelmise]

Hello here are our initial post-HOME banlist changes:

Existing banlist changes:

	Kris	Lily	longhiep	ponchlake	TPP	UT	Result
Blissey​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​
Chansey​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​
Great Tusk​	Unban​	Unban​	Unban​	Keep Banned​	Unban​	Keep Banned​	Unban​
Iron Hands​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Unban​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​
Iron Valiant​	Unban​	Unban​	Unban​	Unban​	Unban​	Unban​	Unban​
Kingambit​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​
Toxapex​	Keep Banned​	Unban​	Unban​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​	Keep Banned​
Volcarona​	Unban​	Unban​	Unban​	Unban​	Unban​	Keep Banned​	Unban​
Walking Wake​	Keep Banned​	Unban​	Unban​	Keep Banned​	Unban​	Unban​	Unban​

New banlist slate:

	Kris	Lily	longhiep	ponchlake	TPP	UT	Result
Calyrex-Shadow​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​
Hoopa-Unbound​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​
Ursaluna​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​
Last Respects​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Ban​
Chien-Pao​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​
Magearna​	Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Ban​	Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​
Regieleki​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​
Urshifu-Rapid-Strike​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​
Zamazenta​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​
Zamazenta-Crowned​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​	Do Not Ban​
Terastallization​	QB -> Resuspect​	Suspect​	Suspect​	QB -> Resuspect​	QB -> Resuspect​	QB -> Resuspect​	QB -> Resuspect​

Our Terastallization suspect won't be immediate because we'd like the playerbase to grow before holding a community vote of some sort and will likely need to do more tiering in the first bit after HOME is out. However, it is already enough of an issue and will be more of one with new gods like Arceus and followers like Regieleki around, so we want to get it out for OMPL.

TLDR:

Unbans:
Bans: + Last Respects, Terastallization

 

[Tea Guzzler]

some HOME thoughts:


Kyogre @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drizzle
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Water Spout
- Ice Beam
- Thunder
- Origin Pulse

doesn't really have any consistent walls... like at all. your best bet is probably gastro but that only fills a specific role, and otherwise doesn't do a ton. even bulky resists need investment to eat specs spout, which you can see here with it OHKOing an etern. the main drawback is that, with how fast everything is, you're almost always moving second without being brought in on a pivot move; with tusk free, webs is significantly harder to pull off.


Zacian @ Rusted Sword
Ability: Intrepid Sword
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Close Combat
- Iron Head / Wild Charge

geat speed tier and offensive potential. even with the supposed nerfs, it can be very hard to stop this spiralling out of control, only really kept in check by hp slot rotom and def slot clodsire, both of which can fall after slight chip / rotom with a wisp miss. behemoth blade doesn't hit anything in particular but is this mon's strongest option without risking prough accuracy, while wild charge nukes corv.


Regieleki @ Magnet
Ability: Transistor
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Mild Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion

really not scary when you consider how good the grounds are and the fact that, with tera banned, this is still forced into basically mono-electric. if you encounter a team with no grounds then this just wins on the spot, but the chances of that happening are basically zero.


why is this free again

 

[Jrdn]

why is this free again

My guess: Since it got banned 19 different Arceus' with Wisp, 2 Fairy/Flying legendaries, Chesnaught, Moltres, and Intim Lando all were introduced.

Godly Gift as a meta has shifted far more than any other OM with home (don't quote me). It seems to me that there are plenty of reasons for many of the banned pokemon to be re-introduced

 

[ponchlake]

This shouldn't come as a surprise, but Miradon is still reaaaally good. I'd argue it is even better in the current meta than before HOME even without Tera. I'd say it's more detrimental to your opponent, bc now there are no more mindgames and they can't emergency Tera to check you. 135 speedties are also mostly a thing of the past unless you happen to run into another Miraidon or Koraidon, allowing you to outrun anything that isn't Zacian.

Set

Miraidon @ Life Orb
Ability: Hadron Engine
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Electro Drift
- Calm Mind
- Draco Meteor
- Overheat

This is the set that I've been running for the most part. At +1 you are a tactical nuke to put it simply. I'm going to attach some calcs, but I don't find this thing any easier to deal with. It is easier to run in some aspects even for the reasons I mentioned above.

Calcs

+1 252 SpA Life Orb Hadron Engine Miraidon Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 407-481 (87.9 - 103.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Hadron Engine Miraidon Electro Drift vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus in Electric Terrain: 485-571 (109.2 - 128.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Hadron Engine Miraidon Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus: 485-571 (109.2 - 128.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Hadron Engine Miraidon Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Arceus-Ground: 360-425 (81 - 95.7%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Hadron Engine Miraidon Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu (120 Spdef): 270-320 (52.5 - 62.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Hadron Engine Miraidon Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu (150 Spdef): 230-270 (44.7 - 52.5%) -- 81.6% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Hadron Engine Miraidon Electro Drift vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Giratina in Electric Terrain: 242-285 (48 - 56.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Hadron Engine Miraidon Electro Drift vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned in Electric Terrain: 335-395 (103 - 121.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

These are just a few funny calcs that doesn't take into account the other potential sets that Miraidon can run. It also gains some crazy inherits for the Speed slot as well like Urshifu-Rapid, Great Tusks, Glastrier, Iron Valiant, and Zapdos-G along with the stuff we were already running before HOME. This doesn't take into account what it can run in the SpA slot either. This thing is still ludicrously powerful, and it can get even crazier with random techs like Agility. CM + Agility and Drift/Draco is something I'm messing around with and it works perfectly fine. Modest LO is enough to just walk through some teams without a CM. Modest Electro Drift just blows through most of the tier if you can weaken their Ground types, which is a lot easier now with the aforementioned Speed inherits we gained. Anyways the funny future dragon is broken, and expect some tiering action on it soon (I hope we do at least).

 

[UT]

I have several teams all built in other five minutes; nothing perfect, but some starter ideas for the post-Home meta.

Etern + Hatt + Pult Offense
Hawlucha + Ray Offense
EKiller + Double Ghost Balance-ish
Specs Ogre + pivots
This team is bad but it has a Zac-C so

My early thoughts:
Great Tusk, Magearna, Dragapult, Hawlucha are all silly.
Tera being gone is a nice change.
There aren't any Ubers I want to quick ban, but Zac-C, Etern, EKiller, and Miraidon are all watch-list-able. Kyogre kinda is, but the speed of the meta is very unkind to it.