Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v6 (Usage stats in post #408)

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I'd like to share my oppinion: Urshifu Single Strike isn't broken. I wouldn't like it to be gone, it can be checked nicely without having to rely on sacking your entire team. If you are running life orb, it takes a lot of chip, and if it's bulk up life orb you have to give up on either jab, close combat or sucker punch, it's not overwhelming at all, that's my point, and if it's not life orb it's basically locked in a move so it isn't a threat if you don't run a team that gets 6-0 by wicked blow . I don't use it that much just cause of the reasons explained and therefore, I don't think it's banworthy. I have more thoughts but for now I will just post this.
 
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However, I agree extremely with your first point. They're waiting for OLT to finish to start any suspects, but i'd like to (again) reiterate that the majority of smogon players are not Tournament Players. The council isn't even trying to hide that they're catering 100% towards the upper crust of smogon. Quickbanning Cinderace, suspecting nothing, and countless other things. Cinderace especially. The council wasn't willing to listen to players argue and present their points on Cinderace, simply because a small portion of the playerbase would be playing a ladder tournament, and only a smaller portion of that would actually be playing in it with any hope of winning. What if the Cinderace resuspect finds that it is balanced? That means that the council took out a viable, threatening, and balanced threat simply because they were scared that it would mess up OLT, which I'm confident 100% of the council plays in but an extremely small amount of the playerbase plays in otherwise. They would be messing with the metagame for the non-tournament players simply so the tournament players might have a better time. I'm trying to be nice with this, trying to see it from the council's point of view in a way where the non-tournament player's perspective is taken into account but it isn't possible. Is Smogon just for the 80-odd people out there that play in tournaments, or the thousands of players who follow smogon as a whole? I'd really like to hear the council's point of view on this subject. I've commented about this maybe 2-3 times and the council has remained silent, which is uncharacteristic seeing as the council members are so quick to defend themselves against criticism from newer or VGC players.

Excellent point. The SS OU suspect decisions seem to be based entirely on the whims of tournament players. In the thread I linked below, you can see the survey results the council posted that was only given to Wcop participants. And purely based on the survey results, suspect decisions were taken. It is not really fair to let the biased preferences of around 100 players dictate a metagame that is played and enjoyed by a few thousand.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ou-survey-results.3667647/

I understand the need to ensure that the opinions are coming from a skilled playerbase who has the right understanding and judgment of the metagame. However, tournament participation has a lot to do with choice and not just skill. The skilled non-tournament playing playerbase greatly outnumbers the number of tournament participants. Even then, it is not right to completely exclude the opinions of the slightly newer players either.
 

The Dragon Master

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While Toxapex is a problem the first three (particularly the first two) points you've made need more depth and clarification because they can easily be argued against or misused with them being so barebones.

The example with Keldeo because it was good in ORAS and BW doesn't really hold up as well. Some pokemon are just naturally going to fall off with the addition of new generation (while some may become amazing *cough*Clefable*cough*). This can be because of several reasons. Not just from Pokemon but stat shifts, new items, moves, abilities, etc.

If we're going to use this argument one needs to list more than just 1 Pokemon and all of them need to have a good shot at being OU worthy in a space where the suspect doesn't exist. Gen 6 Aegislash prominence keeping several megas, Jirachi, etc is a perfect example.

Also, several pokemon rising because they can beat Pex isn't as clear as well. In any meta for any game when a certain strategy becomes dominant, whatever strategy, or characters, that beat it will also rise. That's just how metas naturally work. But it's whether or not those Pokemon can operate decently outside of Toxapex meta that determines whether or not their value is carried only by Pex.

Going back to Gen 6 again, the relationship between Arcanine and M-Mawile. My memory might be hazy but I remember Arcanine being only being ranked at one point because it worked as a check to M-Mawile when it was dominant before being banned.

For the third point, would those Pokemon stop running those moves if Pex was removed or are their other things they can use them against. Ex: Aegislash and M-Pinsir and Earthquake.
You really should not be older gen mons as arguments for a discussion on this meta. But I'll answer the rest of your points.

The example with Keldeo because it was good in ORAS and BW doesn't really hold up as well. Some pokemon are just naturally going to fall off with the addition of new generation (while some may become amazing *cough*Clefable*cough*). This can be because of several reasons. Not just from Pokemon but stat shifts, new items, moves, abilities, etc.
Yes mons rise and fall based on other factors but keldeo didn't get any nerf between gens 6 and 8 but it's viability has dropped off a cliff . Why? Pex

Other examples are not as extreme, for example rain and hawlucha would be far better if pex was gone.


Also, several pokemon rising because they can beat Pex isn't as clear as well. In any meta for any game when a certain strategy becomes dominant, whatever strategy, or characters, that beat it will also rise. That's just how metas naturally work. But it's whether or not those Pokemon can operate decently outside of Toxapex meta that determines whether or not their value is carried only by Pex.
Reuniclus would be far worse as a stallbreaker, atmost a C rank mon if not for pex.



For the third point, would those Pokemon stop running those moves if Pex was removed or are their other things they can use them against. Ex: Aegislash and M-Pinsir and Earthquake.
Why should volc run psychic if not for pex?

And finally it's not one of these points that make a mon broken. It's a combination of them. For example magic guard mons can not take residual dmg , unaware mons can stuff setup and like you said many mons force you to run stuff to kill them but they don't fulfil all the other criteria so they are not banworthy.
 

Perish Song

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They're waiting for OLT to finish to start any suspects, but i'd like to (again) reiterate that the majority of smogon players are not Tournament Players. The council isn't even trying to hide that they're catering 100% towards the upper crust of smogon.
The majority of players not being tournament players has nothing to do with how the whole suspect process functions. Smogon was never a democracy nor it should be because some of us would rather be guided by people who play this game at the higher end and know it good enough to make decisions for all of us. Being consistent in tournaments is one way to show that, so its very understandable why feedback of a tournament player is much more valuable than an average player struggling to get out of the low ladder. It really shouldn't be shocking that tournament players are favored more. Quoting this from Tiering Policy Framework.

II.) We cater to both ladder players (the higher end of the ladder) and tournament players.
  • For actions to be taken in tiering policy, it is important to show how that action affects BOTH the ladder scene, and the tournament scene.
  • Stats for both will be highly emphasized but not the sole determining factor.
Quickbanning Cinderace, suspecting nothing, and countless other things. Cinderace especially. The council wasn't willing to listen to players argue and present their points on Cinderace, simply because a small portion of the playerbase would be playing a ladder tournament, and only a smaller portion of that would actually be playing in it with any hope of winning. What if the Cinderace resuspect finds that it is balanced?
That means that the council took out a viable, threatening, and balanced threat simply because they were scared that it would mess up OLT, which I'm confident 100% of the council plays in but an extremely small amount of the playerbase plays in otherwise. They would be messing with the metagame for the non-tournament players simply so the tournament players might have a better time.
There will be time for you to argue and present your points about Cinderace during the retest. A quick ban doesn't mean the end of the world, and it has been stated millions of times that it will be retested. If the community finds it balanced, then it will be freed. (Which is something you'll have a say in it, hooray!) I also think that it's a valid concern to have for tournaments to run smoothly, especially during OLT because we've seen how things change at the speed of light. If you follow the OLT Discussion thread, you can see that every week there is something new being used, trends change incredibly fast and the metagame is very volatile. Lastly, Cinderace didn't become problematic overnight, its been discussed ever since the introduction of Libero and has been top 3 consistently in ladder usage ever since Libero, and had %34 usage in WCOP.


Feel free to pm me or reply here if u wanna discuss anything.
 

Pluim

formerly goodra4thewin
You really should not be older gen mons as arguments for a discussion on this meta. But I'll answer the rest of your points.



Yes mons rise and fall based on other factors but keldeo didn't get any nerf between gens 6 and 8 but it's viability has dropped off a cliff . Why? Pex

Other examples are not as extreme, for example rain and hawlucha would be far better if pex was gone.




Reuniclus would be far worse as a stallbreaker, atmost a C rank mon if not for pex.





Why should volc run psychic if not for pex?

And finally it's not one of these points that make a mon broken. It's a combination of them. For example magic guard mons can not take residual dmg , unaware mons can stuff setup and like you said many mons force you to run stuff to kill them but they don't fulfil all the other criteria so they are not banworthy.
Keldeo didn't just get worse because of pex.
Power creep, the influence of Slowbro and Amoonguss both getting better, and faster threats.
Things being better if a mon is gone isn't an argument. If Clef was gone so many things would be better, is Dragapult goes things become better.
 
I think Toxapex is a bit much for the tier and honestly felt this way even in the massively power crept cesspool that was the previous Gen. Its best answers are the Magic Guard Psychic types but they still hate taking a Knock. I think Regen is what pushes it over the edge. The other Regen mons have weaknesses that are easier to exploit. Whereas the others will generally drop to a strong super effective hit from below 80%, Pex will often hang on by the skin of its teeth, switch out then come back in for more endless battle. It virtually mandates running a STAB EQ or psychic and it has options to screw with virtually any one of those you could run. Losing Cinderace, which ran ZHB solely for pex, makes it worse
 
The majority of players not being tournament players has nothing to do with how the whole suspect process functions. Smogon was never a democracy nor it should be because some of us would rather be guided by people who play this game at the higher end and know it good enough to make decisions for all of us. Being consistent in tournaments is one way to show that, so its very understandable why feedback of a tournament player is much more valuable than an average player struggling to get out of the low ladder. It really shouldn't be shocking that tournament players are favored more. Quoting this from Tiering Policy Framework.

II.) We cater to both ladder players (the higher end of the ladder) and tournament players.
Basically if you aren't in the top 15- 20% ( possibly even less IDK)of players in this game , you, your thoughts, opinions, and experiences can all fuck right off, you do not matter. That's just splendid.

Anyway. I've been seeing a ton more Ttar lately, I wonder why that is? Maybe the Big boi can make his way back to OU :D. Anyone know what its best set is RN btw? Rocker? Special wall? Band? It obviously depends on the team but something has to be better than others consistently .
 
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Ruft

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Anyway. I've been seeing a ton more Ttar lately, I wonder why that is? Maybe the Big boi can make his way back to OU :D. Anyone know what its best set is RN btw? Rocker? Special wall? Band? It obviously depends on the team but something has to be better than others consistently .
Rocker and special wall.

Tyranitar @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Rock Blast
- Rest
- Thunder Wave / Toxic

It can set sand for Excadrill and unlike Hippowdon Tyranitar can check special attackers like Volcarona, Rotom-H, Togekiss, and Choice Specs Dragapult very effectively. This makes it more feasible to add a physical wall like Amoonguss or Tangrowth as a teammate to deal with Rillaboom without stacking weaknesses to the aforementioned threats.
 
The majority of players not being tournament players has nothing to do with how the whole suspect process functions.
We all know this, that's the problem.
Smogon was never a democracy nor it should be because some of us would rather be guided by people who play this game at the higher end
You mean a very select few would, because well over 90% of people don't want that.
and know it good enough to make decisions for all of us.
Being good at the game doesn't equate to being good at debate. Which is what a lot of this has to do with in the first place. Debate. I've seen a lot of council members & higher end players lose in debates a lot yet, they are all fantastic players. Tons of people wish it was about debate mixed in with democracy because then these posts would actually mean something AND none of us know if the council is biased (which is something that a lot of us do wonder). This is why a lot of players like Finch, he talks to us & listens.

This was a bad take, to be honest. Because everyone knows that gen 6-7, as well as the first 6 months of gen 8 were horrible. So, if the council really knows best then, that shouldn't have happened. A lot of what the vast majority of players from smogon actually had good ideas that could have helped balance gen 6-8. And then of course, most players outside of the community have crazy ideas (like unbanning Mega Rayquaza, Zacian-C, and other clearly over powered threats from these gens).

How many times have the vast majority of smogon players have been right about certain threats being banned? And the council being slow on the uptake? Pheromosa (gen 7), Shadow Tag & Mega Sableye (gen 6), Arena Trap (every gen), Cinderace (this gen), Magearna (this gen), Dracovish (this gen), and the list goes on (I don't remember all bans). This is why I say being good at the game does not mean being good at debate.
 

Perish Song

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We all know this, that's the problem.
I don't think it is a problem given everybody gets to vote on suspects, and every quick ban receives its re suspect later on. So you always have a say about everything in some way. I'll keep defending my point on why limiting decision making to a group of people is better for tiering because we don't really have a system or a way to have a system to get everyone involved without bias when it comes to tiering decisions.

You mean a very select few would, because well over 90% of people don't want that.
Can we trust that 90% when it comes to tiering decisions based on their metagame knowledge? I'll be quoting Socrates;

"In the Republic, Plato writes that Socrates was debating (well, more so lecturing about) the nature of the ideal state. At one point he asks his associate, Adeimantus, who he would rather have managing a voyage on the sea. Some random passenger, or a well-trained, educated, and experienced captain? After the captain is selected as the obvious choice, Socrates then extends the metaphor to the state, asking why we would let just anybody try to manage the ship of state."

Sorry, but you can't convince anyone that people who play casually or people who are not anywhere near what would we call high-end should have a say in tiering decisions, that is ridiculous.

Being good at the game doesn't equate to being good at debate. Which is what a lot of this has to do with in the first place. Debate. I've seen a lot of council members & higher end players lose in debates a lot yet, they are all fantastic players. Tons of people wish it was about debate mixed in with democracy because then these posts would actually mean something AND none of us know if the council is biased (which is something that a lot of us do wonder). This is why a lot of players like Finch, he talks to us & listens.
The posts will always mean something, u can be sure that the council and forum moderation team are big suckers for healthy and educated discussions here. It is just more common that the 90% u mentioned just comes here and wants Mega Rayquaza unbanned for no reason, or doesn't read anything at all and rants about how his favorite Pokemon got banned unjustly and it had some unknown hard counter only PU people knew about. There is nothing suggestive about more than half of players actually knows what they are saying, and just because of that there is no need to add those people in tiering decisions.

It is a terrible take to think posts made here are completely meaningless and we're trying to create an illusion to impose some sort of democracy feeling to the players.
 
Can ya'll stop with this nerdy stuff? This is a forum run by and for largely teenage volunteers. Of course there's going to be nonsensical opinions and decisions.

Just think for yourself and have fun playing the game. If you don't like Smogon OU, then play another tier; I can assure you it's not important outside this subforum.

---------------
:Slowbro-galar:

Galarian Slowbro is a super anti-meta Pokemon for me right now and think it has a ton of use for all of these sets: Regen+nasty plot, Regen+Specs/trick, quick draw belly drum.

Poison/Psychic/fire punches through pretty much everything, and thanks to it's typing and ability it also acts as a defensive pivot that can come in on all of the core balance staples -- notably it eats toxapex, which some have cried about above. On top of the defensive utility, not much wants to switch in on this either; specs side shell arm will KO urshifu after rocks.

Belly drum quick draw may look like cheap gimmick, but it steals games. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1178200731-fq2nn1a7ptql804tucml2jgae73592opw
 
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Finchinator

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However, I agree extremely with your first point. They're waiting for OLT to finish to start any suspects, but i'd like to (again) reiterate that the majority of smogon players are not Tournament Players. The council isn't even trying to hide that they're catering 100% towards the upper crust of smogon. Quickbanning Cinderace, suspecting nothing, and countless other things. Cinderace especially. The council wasn't willing to listen to players argue and present their points on Cinderace, simply because a small portion of the playerbase would be playing a ladder tournament, and only a smaller portion of that would actually be playing in it with any hope of winning. What if the Cinderace resuspect finds that it is balanced? That means that the council took out a viable, threatening, and balanced threat simply because they were scared that it would mess up OLT, which I'm confident 100% of the council plays in but an extremely small amount of the playerbase plays in otherwise. They would be messing with the metagame for the non-tournament players simply so the tournament players might have a better time.
If you are mad at the council for not holding a suspect during OLT, then I think you need to reassess your opinion. During OLT, regardless of if any bans happened prior or not, the metagame shifts rapidly each week, warping the norms that were previously established and amplifying the extremes of the metagame such as stall and HO. This would not be a fair time to have any suspect and the council would be doing a disservice to the entire playerbase -- tournament and ladder players alike -- by doing what you seem to be lobbying for us to have done.

Quickbanning Cinderace was absolutely justified. We had unanimous support within the council, which alone is enough, but we also surveyed hundreds of people and got >3/4 support. In the future, we will also be including ladder players in this survey, too, which addresses most concerns stated, but Cinderace was clearly broken in any SS OU metagame in the eyes of the council. If you do not think we have the power to act in this fashion, then you should be protesting the tiering infrastructure we have in place as opposed to this specific decision. And this is most definitely not the place for that.

Finally, the way you divide things up so distinctly between tournament and ladder players is unfair and unnatural. There absolutely is a division, but a lot of people play both. Personally, I play SS OU tournaments actively and have logged thousands of ladder games in. I found Cinderace even less tolerable on the ladder than in tournaments, posted about it in threads like this repeatedly, and lobbied for action in the council discussion. As far as I am concerned, me acting in that fashion and the remainder of council following suit similarly is us doing our jobs in the proper fashion. Things like the survey and future outreach to ladder players will also help expand our process and help us do a better job for everyone, which is a step in the right direction. I am very happy about the direction of SS OU tiering.

I'm trying to be nice with this, trying to see it from the council's point of view in a way where the non-tournament player's perspective is taken into account but it isn't possible. Is Smogon just for the 80-odd people out there that play in tournaments, or the thousands of players who follow smogon as a whole? I'd really like to hear the council's point of view on this subject. I've commented about this maybe 2-3 times and the council has remained silent, which is uncharacteristic seeing as the council members are so quick to defend themselves against criticism from newer or VGC players.
I have not remained silent at any point this generation and I am an active council member. I read every post in these threads and respond on a regular basis. I would be happy to discuss anything further with you either in this thread if it pertains to metagame discussion or in PM if it pertains to tiering discussion. In addition, you seem to be implying that we have a nature of being overly defensive in the last sentence of your post, but have you ever considered the fact that your implications that we have a secret agenda are actually offensive and part of the problem instead? Just some food for thought.
 
If I may (I know this isn't exactly pertinent to the thread but feel it warrants saying in some form) literally everyone has the ability to be heard on virtually every suspect when the problem in question is discussed on the forums. This is a relatively new aspect of the forums and actually provides a lot of input to everyone playing the game. While it's certainly true that high skilled players don't seek out advice from less experienced players, the posts made during discussion do help shape early consensus around suspects and may even influence what teams and strategies use during the suspect, thereby impacting the actual voting pool for the suspect. So while I would never want to overstate the impact of any one individual's words, this can make a huge difference in the long run if a good number of people make high quality posts in support of a certain topic. Being dismissive of highly skilled players is liable to have the opposite impact on your preferred outcome.

To pivot back to metagame discussion, I do like the idea of Glowbro as an antimeta pick, though I can't fathom using Quick Draw with how situational it is. I do like its decent match up against Pex, though wish it had a bit more firepower behind its attacks. Its immunity to T spikes and decent Pex match up could make it a niche choice for rain teams as well.
 
If I may (I know this isn't exactly pertinent to the thread but feel it warrants saying in some form) literally everyone has the ability to be heard on virtually every suspect when the problem in question is discussed on the forums. This is a relatively new aspect of the forums and actually provides a lot of input to everyone playing the game. While it's certainly true that high skilled players don't seek out advice from less experienced players, the posts made during discussion do help shape early consensus around suspects and may even influence what teams and strategies use during the suspect, thereby impacting the actual voting pool for the suspect. So while I would never want to overstate the impact of any one individual's words, this can make a huge difference in the long run if a good number of people make high quality posts in support of a certain topic. Being dismissive of highly skilled players is liable to have the opposite impact on your preferred outcome.

To pivot back to metagame discussion, I do like the idea of Glowbro as an antimeta pick, though I can't fathom using Quick Draw with how situational it is. I do like its decent match up against Pex, though wish it had a bit more firepower behind its attacks. Its immunity to T spikes and decent Pex match up could make it a niche choice for rain teams as well.
Quick Draw might be situational, but it turns a lot of bad matchups into 50 / 50s, especially if Slowbro gets a Nasty Plot boost off. Most of the time, you can't reliably revenge kill this mon outside of something like Urshifu's Sucker Punch because it can OHKO you back. For example, Excadrill is usually a reliable check to Slowbro, but 44% of the time it'll get OHKO'd by a +2 Flamethrower. The potential reward of snagging 2 - 3 additional kills that Slowbro would never usually get is IMO worth the lack of consistency. Its not something that you can rely on, but at the same time, its not something the opponent can prepare for & can flip the outcome of the game if they lose an important mon like Excadrill or Kyurem. I actually think its worth testing / banning Quick Draw + Quick Claw for this very reason.
 
Quick Draw might be situational, but it turns a lot of bad matchups into 50 / 50s, especially if Slowbro gets a Nasty Plot boost off. Most of the time, you can't reliably revenge kill this mon outside of something like Urshifu's Sucker Punch because it can OHKO you back. For example, Excadrill is usually a reliable check to Slowbro, but 44% of the time it'll get OHKO'd by a +2 Flamethrower. The potential reward of snagging 2 - 3 additional kills that Slowbro would never usually get is IMO worth the lack of consistency. Its not something that you can rely on, but at the same time, its not something the opponent can prepare for & can flip the outcome of the game if they lose an important mon like Excadrill or Kyurem. I actually think its worth testing / banning Quick Draw + Quick Claw for this very reason.
Honestly I find myself somewhat agreeing with this. The quick draw + quick claw combo makes a seemingly obvious outcome to a situation become a coinflip as you can't guarantee that your gengar won't be blown away by a +2 psychic or kill it with a shadow ball. It's definitely not broken, the coin will land on the opposite side just as often as it will the side you want, but it is certainly uncompetitive. Slowbro-g can either leave the opponents team with very little counterplay to it or do nothing as it is heavily dependant on chance and requires virtually no skill to execute.
 
Honestly I find myself somewhat agreeing with this. The quick draw + quick claw combo makes a seemingly obvious outcome to a situation become a coinflip as you can't guarantee that your gengar won't be blown away by a +2 psychic or kill it with a shadow ball. It's definitely not broken, the coin will land on the opposite side just as often as it will the side you want, but it is certainly uncompetitive. Slowbro-g can either leave the opponents team with very little counterplay to it or do nothing as it is heavily dependant on chance and requires virtually no skill to execute.
That is true, but I can think of ways that glowbro can be countered, it's a lot situational but is a chance somewhat, if it g-slow switches to you, ferro or pex or any knock off user can knock him on the switch, in case of the +2 scenario, priority like sucker punch can deal with it if your mon is faster.
 
Basically if you aren't in the top 15- 20% ( possibly even less IDK)of players in this game , you, your thoughts, opinions, and experiences can all fuck right off, you do not matter. That's just splendid.
I've been playing this stupid child's game since Red and Blue were banned from elementary school recess. I've been lurking at Smogon since 2007 and in the entire time I've been around I have noticed one thing consistent between generations, and that thing is bad players are really, REALLY bad and should go nowhere near any sort of tiering decisions unless they can actively demonstrate that they are able to play at a high enough level and that they understand the current meta. You say top 15-20% but globally counting all online Pokemon players I'd estimate that only the top 1% go anywhere near Smogon tiering decisions.

Pokemon is very odd among competitive games. Most games have a single player aspect and once you complete that you generally will be competent enough to enter PVP at least at the lowest level. Starcraft campaign teaches you resource management, unit types, and base building. Call of Duty single player teaches you the shooty shoot. Play literally any shooter and you can hop on Overwatch and play without any prior practice besides the 5 minute tutorial.

But Pokemon? Beat the Elite 4 and side bosses then take that team online and you will get fucking destroyed by even the lowest ladder players. Pokemon single player teaches a lot of useless skills. HM allocation, PP vs power, coverage for types that beat you (eg Psychic on Umbreon, Bite on Espeon), items like Shell Bell vs Leftovers etc. Not just this but playing Pokemon requires ridiculous knowledge of stats and movepools as well as the enormous hurdle of learning EVs, IVs, natures, tiers, and if you're on cartridge, breeding.

Even if a player learns all that, forgets their single player bad habits, and is granted a decent competitive team it still doesn't mean that player is any good. A lot of newer players don't understand risk vs reward, win conditions, or any sort of long term planning. They just click super effective moves or predict as often as possible even when there's no reason to do so. Maybe a lower ladder player doesn't understand why Urshifu restricts team building because they don't even understand how to handle one if it's well played, but they only play against randoms at ~1300 who switch Ushifu in on Draco Meteors. Or maybe Magearna isn't explicitly overwhelming to a team that's equally weak to almost everything else. If a player doesn't have enough experience to keep themselves from losing from Dragapult then maybe they can't see how Cinderace is any worse. Then those players STILL lack the experience of meta trends and past examples from Smogon's history. How many players simply don't understand why Cinderace was banned, instead of Protean especially after a Shadow Tag ban? I guess what I'm saying is just because a player understand EVs and OU doesn't mean they have all the experience required to vote on bans or unbans.

Balancing 6v6 Pokemon is very difficult. Some Pokemon like Toxapex are not "violently" broken but would arguably make the meta more fun with its removal while some things like Dynamax are "fun" but terrible for anything resembling a competitive game. It takes a LOT of experience to understand the fallout that comes from a ban or unban. If Smogon wanted to rapid fire ban Pex + Urshifu like a lot of the community wants they could. However the meta changes almost weekly and there's going to be 100+ mons injected into this game in a few months, many of who might be broken in their own right, or might invalidate pex / urs. Newer players with less experience with the fallout of bans might just want to snap their fingers and pop pop Pex / urs are gone. But who knows, maybe that would reduce the meta to Teleport Clefable + Amoongus + Defog bird.

I'm not going to pretend I know what's best for the meta. I play this terrible game maybe 15 minutes per week and ONLY while very drunk. If anyone knows it's likely the people who play the most, which are tournament players and OU council members. The OU council could certainly be a little more proactive with communicating with the rest of Smogon, and maybe be a bit more proactive with tests and bans. Dugtrio and Magearna should have been quick banned once the problem was evident and Urshifu should have been tested. But even so the experienced players generally make the right decisions eventually.

tl;dr new players are awful, mediocre players think they're better than they really are, and even most good players require years of experience to fully understand the "economics" driving a Pokemon metagame. Leave it to the good players who can prove themselves and when voting begins just get reqs if you're super determined to make an impact.

also I've been drinking 190 proof Everclear as I type this so if I get off topic or mis-type I'm sorry.
 
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Quick Draw might be situational, but it turns a lot of bad matchups into 50 / 50s, especially if Slowbro gets a Nasty Plot boost off. Most of the time, you can't reliably revenge kill this mon outside of something like Urshifu's Sucker Punch because it can OHKO you back. For example, Excadrill is usually a reliable check to Slowbro, but 44% of the time it'll get OHKO'd by a +2 Flamethrower. The potential reward of snagging 2 - 3 additional kills that Slowbro would never usually get is IMO worth the lack of consistency. Its not something that you can rely on, but at the same time, its not something the opponent can prepare for & can flip the outcome of the game if they lose an important mon like Excadrill or Kyurem. I actually think its worth testing / banning Quick Draw + Quick Claw for this very reason.
I think it could work in some situations but I find the idea of a complex ban for such a specific case to be unnecessary. First the Glowbro user is still slightly unfavored for any given turn as it's only a 44% chance to move first I believe even when QD and QC. It's also reliant on activation on the correct turn; moving first on the turn it uses NP for instance would be useless. It misses out on a large number of OHKO's at +2 especially with its horrid STAB combination and only decent SpA for OU. And probably most important is the huge opportunity cost losing both Regenerator and Leftovers/HDB making it easy to force out and wear down.
 
I agree that the council needs to be a bit more transparent or at least share their thoughts on the metagame is this thread or somewhere. I've only ever seen Finch do it. I'd suggest maybe doing something like Council minutes similar to what UU and PU are doing.

As for the metagame, it's not fun at all right now but that it's to be expected during OLT. All teams on the ladder are either Rillaboom HO or Blissey ditto spikes. Only one more cycle is remaining thankfully. Pex is extremely annoying and forces you to run either your own pex or clef to have a safe switch in (nothing else really switches into knock/scald/toxic combo) and I think the meta overall would be more fun without it. As for Urshifu SS, I think the metagame handles it decently with combo of pex + dark resist which are on every non HO team. It can be argued that Urshifu is forcing these kind of team structures so I wouldn't be completely opposed to a suspect.
 
I agree that the council needs to be a bit more transparent or at least share their thoughts on the metagame is this thread or somewhere. I've only ever seen Finch do it. I'd suggest maybe doing something like Council minutes similar to what UU and PU are doing.

As for the metagame, it's not fun at all right now but that it's to be expected during OLT. All teams on the ladder are either Rillaboom HO or Blissey ditto spikes. Only one more cycle is remaining thankfully. Pex is extremely annoying and forces you to run either your own pex or clef to have a safe switch in (nothing else really switches into knock/scald/toxic combo) and I think the meta overall would be more fun without it. As for Urshifu SS, I think the metagame handles it decently with combo of pex + dark resist which are on every non HO team. It can be argued that Urshifu is forcing these kind of team structures so I wouldn't be completely opposed to a suspect.

Woah woah woah, FUN?! FUN? fun doesn't matter! You can't quantify fun! Why the fuck would anyone want a game to be FUN?! Some people these days I swear....

Anyway I always have a conundrum when choosing between running sucker punch or CC/drain punch on LO Urshifu. Does +1 CC nuke anything noteworthy that +1 wicked blow couldn't? Besides mandibuzz but if its not Brave bird who cares.
 

Pluim

formerly goodra4thewin
Woah woah woah, FUN?! FUN? fun doesn't matter! You can't quantify fun! Why the fuck would anyone want a game to be FUN?! Some people these days I swear....

Anyway I always have a conundrum when choosing between running sucker punch or CC/drain punch on LO Urshifu. Does +1 CC nuke anything noteworthy that +1 wicked blow couldn't? Besides mandibuzz but if its not Brave bird who cares.
You need CC. Kommo, Urshifu, Mandibuzz, does more to steels like ferro.
 
OU Tier Leader has spoken!

So, Shifting gears (but still on topic):
What do you think are the most defining moves of the current OU meta?
I'm thinking moves that are on EVERY team in some way shape or form.

I'd say they are U-turn and Knock Off.
U-turn is just insane pivoting power with solid damage and no immunities (unlike volt switch).
It's spammable because at the very least it's chip damage on whatever check switches in.

Knock Off is just a ludicrously strong move on paper: 130 Base damage from a Dark move. AND it removes the opponent's' item.
And since everyone runs an item, it's almost guaranteed to hit whatever switches into it the first time for solid damage. It's especially crippling to pokemon heavily reliant on their item (looking at you, Fire Moth), but it's honestly just always a good move to spam into a revolving door.
The only real punish for it would be the Four Swords (Terrakion, Cobalion, Virizion, and Keldeo), but all of those are sitting in UU (or lower in Virizion's case).

I'd love to hear everyone else's thoughts on what moves define this meta, because I'm sure there's more that paints a pretty picture (certain unnamed hazards, for example).

Hope everyone is having a good day!
 
Actually this is the situation:
If we ban :toxapex: urshifu will be the most potent threat at the moment
If we ban :urshifu: toxapex will be very difficult to beat
If we unban :cinderace: and then we ban toxapex, urshifu and cinderace will be too good for the OU standard.
So... if we suspect this 3 mons all together?
The vote will be very easy to know:
ban/unban :cinderace:
ban/no ban :toxapex:
ban/no ban :urshifu:

We have no time for 3 suspect, and the olt has the 4th cycle to do. Is this possible? Tell me what do you think
 
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