I think you’re overthinking it, honestly, and it’s quite a simple process. The main responsible for metagame changes is high level play. The more a metagame is played at a high level, the more it will develop and warp around itself. Since OU is played at a high level a lot more frequently than other tiers, it evolves faster. The best way to keep up, from my experience, is to watch high-level recent games of OU. Any official tour going on atm? Just go to the replay thread and watch the last batch of replays, you’ll get the picture of the metagame quickly! Hope I helped brother, glad you’re interested in OU.
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Resource Simple Questions, Simple Answers Thread (read the op before posting a thread)
- Thread starter Celticpride
- Start date
I don't know if that's quite fair to say. High-level tournament play is a bit divorced from high-level ladder play. Ladder is particularly susceptible to cheese and strategies that can farm wins on matchup like stall, veil and terrain spam. You'll see a bunch of this from like 1400-1800 on showdown ladders, which is where most competitive players will reside. Also at top of ladder you'll see random crap that just won't work against cookie cutter stuff at lower level; it's suited for the environment at top of ladder.
Watching tour play is definitely NOT the best way to keep up with the "meta" if laddering is your goal -- teams there are catered to specific players and opponents for a small series of games.. If you're just interested in the meta shared by a few individuals or aspire for tour play yourself than yeah, go for it. Otherwise, best way is to just play a bunch of ladder and adapt your teams to what you see.
you're kinda overblowing the "made for a specific player" argument. teams in tour still need to be able to cover as large a portion of the meta as possible, whilst also being good against your opponent's general "style", so to speak. those 2 aren't mutually exclusively but rather go hand in hand.
tour play is also extremely influential on ladder play, and that's simply because tour is where most of new techs or even mons will catch on. there's a TON of examples of this, but to say some of the biggest recent ones: mega alakazam, z-move heatran, sd tapu bulu, RH tornadus.
those are all pretty recent, started in tour and have cemented themselves as absolutely top of the meta in both tour & ladder. the only time where ladder will have any influence on tour is generally OLT, but even then few trends really solidify. as is evident with this OLT; the only mons that gathered real usage in OLT first and continue on an upwards trend are M-Mawile, Rotom-W & offensive Scarf Lando, whilst things like serp, gyara, HO in general obviously did not. even stall trends started in tour but caught on now.
tl;dr tour play influences ladder play and outside of OLT the reverse generally just doesn't happen.
Right. I never suggested strategy is mostly "trickle-up", merely that high-ladder/tour is different from what most players experience. Unless the OP is 1900+ or a tour player, they are not going to gain much useful information by observing a metagame that is different from that on ladder. I dislike the premise that something isnt "meta" until validated at high-level. It entirely depends on what a player's goals are. If you want to ladder, build appropriate for ladder.. If you want to play tours than study tour play. There's not a chasm between the two areas of play, but it's a considerable enough difference enough to warrant mention to anyone looking to learn.
i think u kinda completely missed my point. the "difference" ur talking abt is only because ladder FOLLOWS tour in trends, which means tour trends, when used early will be more effective than any "ladder meta", since they're made to adapt to that "previous" meta.
another thing, in ladder elo is more a matter of the player than the team. u can use just about any team u want to get pretty decently high up, thus using good teams = easier to get higher up & good teams will come from tours significantly more often than anywhere else.
Ehhh I think you overstate the influence of tour on ladder. There are many players that use the PS simulator without knowledge of Smogon, let alone tour play. Kind of narrow minded to describe tour play as defining the meta when it is only experienced by a few dozen individuals.
people use something in tour -> people in higher elos see that and use it -> people in lower elos see THEM use it and use it themselves -> etc
all the while people talk abt them in forums, rooms and they eventually spread no matter what
the people who use PS that don't know of smogon's existence are the ones in the lowest parts of the ladder who don't care about what's good, which DOES NOT represent the meta in any way and falls in my last point.
Last post on this because this is off track...
Again, I agree that tournament play has an influence on ladder, but I don't think it's the lifeblood that you're making it out to be (or perhaps you're not, and we're in agreement). People just playing on ladder is what causes trends to develop. It's stuff like OLT or new gens that drives surges in activity.
Low ladder doesn't count, obviously, but again I think you're misjudging the reach of smogon/tournaments. Purely anecdotally, I played on ps since XY consistently over 1600. I didn't know about smogon until SM and still don't use it much beyond finding ideas from funny RMT.
Feel free to pm me further
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That set is not really popular. The more common bulk up set is a sp def set that looks like this in order to take hits from koko, lele, and ash gren better.
Tapu Bulu @ Leftovers
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Bulk Up
- Horn Leech
- Superpower
- Protect/ synthesis
However, don't feel like you cannot run a impish set. Have something in mind that an impish bulu can deal with and ev bulu so it can take on that said mon better. Also the pokemon showdown damage calculator is a good place to see what the perfect evs are for testing new mons.
trying to build a team with av ttar but dont know an ideal ev spread. anyone?
There really isnt a definitive "best AV Tar" set rn. The most popular is just max hp max spdef as it helps it take on sp atkers the best like tran, blaceph, etc. (Basically can wall any special attacker w/o focus blast or stab super effective stab move)
It sorta depends on the team - one situational benchmark to hit is enough HP to survive two Earthquakes from Mega Latios, but it depends if your team needs it or not. Anyway, here's one ABR has used in the past:
Tyranitar @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 224 HP / 124 Atk / 160 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Earthquake
- Pursuit
It's bulky enough to take a +1 Z Bug Buzz from Volcarona and the rest goes into Atk. As I said, it depends on the team - I've seen ones run nearly max SpDef Careful nature before but it's up to you.
Z-Move sets in general have been getting a lot more recognition recently. A lot of people still run Choice Scarf though, and it's definitely still a very good set.
What are some good Weavile cores, preferably hyper offense ones?
Weavilles niche is a great speed tier and ability to pursuit trap. So stuff that enjoys pursuit trapping and can deal with bulky steels are most notable. Zard Y is a great partner as it can deal with Magerena, steela, Heatran (to an extent). At the same time weaville can pursuit trap Lati@s. This is likely a better balance/ bulky offense, but there are other options. Weaville can also be paired up with volc as well as volc fits better in HO. However, make sure u have a good way to get rid of hazards as both are weak to SR. Just to list some more that could work there is koko/lucha, lopunny, M Herra, M Medi. Also Weaville is a much better fit on Balance or Bulky offense, but is definitely usable in HO because of its speed and pursuit trap ability.
Also this is a 2 part question.
First is why is Ash Gren and Greninja considered 2 different pokemon? Like why isn't Greninja just considered a mon with 3 abilities?
And the 2nd part is if Protean Gren dropped below 3.41%, would protean Gren drop to UU (assuming it didn't get banned)?
First is why is Ash Gren and Greninja considered 2 different pokemon? Like why isn't Greninja just considered a mon with 3 abilities?
And the 2nd part is if Protean Gren dropped below 3.41%, would protean Gren drop to UU (assuming it didn't get banned)?
1) they're considered different formes within the game's code (like deoxys-attack & deoxys-speed, reference here)
2) i'm assuming u mean battle bond in either part of your question, it works both ways & the simple answer is no. protean+torrent greninja will only drop to UU if protean+torrent have a combined usage less than 3,41% while Ash Gren would drop to UU only if battle bond had below 3,41% usage
Been out of the competitive meta for the better part of three years. I'm starting to read through the Sample Teams & Viability Threads now but anyone have any good suggestions or resources for me to hit up to ease back in? This can include anything, like Youtube videos or podcasts along with forum posts. Anything is appreciated!
Welcome back. If you're rusty, I'd recommend watching PDC's video's, which are of very high quality and amazingly helpful. If you're looking for other resources than the Sample Teams & VR thread, I'd recommend looking at the USM cores thread, the metagame discussion, and the USM sets VR as well. Of course, you can find other useful threads in the sub forum as well.
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Thank you so much!
I already have Koko and Hawlucha, so thats good!
Can Mega Charizard X or Mega Pinsir work?
I could see both of them working. Weaville generally works well with Fire types and a web team with pinsir could work. However, make sure you bring good defogger/spinner.
I saw an Excadrill revamp being writed; is sand getting better or is it Just for adapt the analysis for the current meta?
Both.