Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)

[Finchinator]

First, I think you have done a great job this gen managing the tier and interacting with the community. I just don't buy your argument here though.

most recent stats -

1,187,084 OU games
155,434 UU games (86% less games than OU or about .13 the number of OU games)
36,911 RU games (96% less games than OU or about .03 the number of OU games)

These lower tiers have a tiny fraction of the OU playerbase and yet they function just fine. I don't think cutting the base in half (which is an extremely unlikely option tbh) would really be that big of a deal. We couldn't make usable inferences with half a million games a month? I think this should be put in a future survey for community input.

They do not function just fine. Have you seen how crazy the tier shifts have been all generation, hardly being playable half the time? Imagine making that even more crazy. I am more than ok including this in the survey (if the rest of the council wants it) because I am always fine hearing public input and believe basing everything off of one opinion is silly, but your response does not do your side any justice whatsoever and splintering the ladder would amplify problems.

If everyone else wants it, I'm not going to be the one stepping in the way and saying no, but I do fear it will not have the impact we desire and instead work out poorly.

 

[Wizarus]

Like others have said, while Urshifu is the main abuser of futureport, it leaving will barely Mitigate the issue. There are too many offensive breakers that benefit from this play style that we would be better off just banning the slowtwins instead to have less bans in the tier. Slowtwins are the problem here, not the breakers. It’s like if a weather has too many abusers, do you want to ban the auto weather or the 5-6 abusers of it. It’s pretty clear we want as many Pokémon to be as playable as possible, and should we proceed with action o this issue the best solution would be to ban the slowtwins. Also I personally think that things like pheromosa and spectrier warrant being looked at before the slowtwins but it all depends on what happens these next few weeks before the playerbase gets an idea of what to take action on first.

It's ok if wallbreakers benefit from FuturePort, but I don't think the FuturePort strategy is broken without Urshifu. Slowbro already had FuturePort last expansion and it fell to UU, and Slowking this expansion is out of UU and there is no shortage of powerful wallbreakers in UU right now. Urshifu is already suspect worthy without the Slowline as soon as it was in OU, and nothing has changed much since.

 

[Hugin]

So, just for information, I went ahead and checked the stats. I used 1695 for OU, 1630 for other tiers.* Apologies if I missed anything, I mostly relied on ctrl-f and assuming that all Psychics and only Psychics were potential Future Sight users. Also, the info is by necessity completely out-of-date, this can be much more accurate in a week. (I'll let someone else compile that info though, I'll be back at work)

So, in the latest OU moveset stats, there are only two OU psychics, Latios and Slowbro. Latios does not get a switching move, and Future Sight does not show up in it's moveset stats. Slowbro uses Future Sight 65% of the time and Teleport 92.7% of the time.
Other relevant Psychics**: Tapu Lele gets FS, does not get a switching move, 0 FS usage. Slowking, Teleport 90%, FS 88%. Hatterene, gets FS, only switching move is Healing Wish, does not use FS***. Latias, gets FS, only switching move is Healing Wish, does not use FS. Cresselia, gets FS, only switching move is Lunar Dance, does not use FS. Mew, gets all switching moves, gets FS, does not use FS. Victini, gets FS, gets U-turn, does not use FS. Slowking-G, uses FS 41%, does not get a switching move. Jirachi, uses Doom Desire 18% of the time, does not use FS, uses U-Turn 54% and Healing Wish 25%.
So in OU, all of the Slows use Regenerator+Future Sight+Tele, but basically nothing else does. There's plenty of psychics who use FS+Tele at less than 0.5% usage, but most of them the move usage is under 10%, so I would assume that's not relevant. Shout-out to Reunicles, the exception that has Regenerator+FS and uses FS 33% of it's 0.308% usage.

UU has Tapu Lele, Latias, Alakazam, Hatterene, Victini, Jirachi, Mew, and Azelf. The first user of FS in the moveset stats is Slowking-Galar, which does not get a switching move, at 3.94% usage and using FS 75% of the time. Jirachi notably does not use either FS or Doom Desire to any detectable degree.
RU has Slowking, Gardevoir, Starmie, Indeedee, Espeon. Slowking is the only mon in the tier at all that uses FS, at 80%, with Tele at 90%. Glancing at their threads, Slowking is definitely on the chopping block, but no one is mentioning other FS abusers.
NU has Gallade, Mesprit, and Claydol, and the first FS user is Beheeyem at 0.39%(with FS on 70% of it's movesets).
PU has Jynx, Kadabra, Mr. Rime. Jynx has Tele and FS at 17% usage each, no other FS users in the tier are viable.
Also worth noting that RU and OU are the only tiers who appear to be discussing Future Sight at all, and RU is fairly certain that Slowking is the problem.

So what does that mean? There are a lot of mons that get Future Sight+Teleport or another switching move, and Tele in particular has a lot of overlap with STAB FS. But the only users of this in OU are the Slows and Jirachi(kinda). And Future Sight/Teleport are generally not viewed as problems in other tiers, just in OU. That says to me that the mons are the problem, not the move. I'll refrain from discussing Urshifu vs Slowbro.

*I realize only OU is relevant here, but I also like more information in general. All my conclusions are based on the OU numbers alone.
**Over 1% usage in OU+Jirachi because it's at .98%. Yes, this is arbitrary.
***Between Healing Wish and Trick Room, I would expect Hatterene/Latias/Cress to be really good for Future Sight shenanigans, but they are not used for that.

 

[Bugboy]

They do not function just fine. Have you seen how crazy the tier shifts have been all generation, hardly being playable half the time? Imagine making that even more crazy. I am more than ok including this in the survey (if the rest of the council wants it) because I am always fine hearing public input and believe basing everything off of one opinion is silly, but your response does not do your side any justice whatsoever and splintering the ladder would amplify problems.

If everyone else wants it, I'm not going to be the one stepping in the way and saying no, but I do fear it will not have the impact we desire and instead work out poorly.

Is there potential for a test ladder that isn’t really a ladder? Like where it is unranked and you never gain or lose points, it’s only goal is gathering statistics. This would likely allow for OUs playerbase to stay almost entirely on the main ladder, where the test ladder only exists to allow for experimentation and data-driven decisions. It wouldn’t split the playerbase nearly as much because the people who want to climb will continue to play the ladder that allows you to climb.

kinda like what the PBE server in league & TFT does. Nobody plays those as their main server b/c you can’t climb, they play when they want to learn about the next patch or help gather data. People are only slightly incentivized to play it if they want to stay ahead of the curve on the meta. Something like this would possibly allow the council to gather a lot of data on experimental decisions while not splitting the playerbase.

 

[Finchinator]

Is there potential for a test ladder that isn’t really a ladder? Like where it is unranked and you never gain or lose points, it’s only goal is gathering statistics. This would likely allow for OUs playerbase to stay almost entirely on the main ladder, where the test ladder only exists to allow for experimentation and data-driven decisions. It wouldn’t split the playerbase nearly as much because the people who want to climb will continue to play the ladder that allows you to climb.

This runs into all of the same problems I outlined above about splintering the ladder -- we still have the same number of players with twice as many ladders, but also there would be no incentive to ladder if there were no rankings or points. And besides, having everything unranked is a disaster as you cannot gain much tangible evidence off of the ladder about the metagame until 1600+ish as is (and that's being generous). The odds of two people who actually know what they are doing getting each other on that ladder would be so slim that it would just be a complete waste of resources.

 

[Chameleon]

Dark types with Fake Out are the hardest stop to Future Sight, handling both Unseen Fist and the potential setup opportunity while you go for Protect. Unfortunately, Urshifu forces them all out the next turn.

Despite there being many FuturePort abusers, Urshifu may still be the main problem. Protect is strong counterplay to FuturePort but is hindered in its usual duties (scouting choice moves and stalling for passive healing / damage) by Urshifu. Some of Protect's decline on mons like Ferrothorn and Heatran has been Close Combat taking the place of Hi Jump Kick, but Urshifu certainly contributes.

 

[hmsa2012]

Surprised hardly anyone is talking about Magearna, but its still a pretty good mon and just got better after the recent bans. This is the set I've been using on mostly Screens HO to much success after the metagame adaptions. It's nothing innovative, but once its starts racking up stats, it becomes a problem for balanced teams.

Magearna-Original @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 30 Atk
- Shift Gear
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power
- Draining Kiss

Modest would be the go-to Nature for Magearna cuz of power, but Scarf Lando is starting to rack up its presence in the metagame, so Timid would allow it to outspeed it after a Shift Gear. Calm Mind has a slight edge over Iron Defense cuz it allows Magearna to win the 1v1 advantage over Blissey and other fat special defensive walls. The only consistent problem mons have been Heatran and Assault Vest Melmetal, with the latter outright killing it with Double Iron Bash after screens are gone. Overall, I'm really enjoying using this to cheese out wins after its teammates deal with the problem matchups. Just glad Zygarde and Kyurem are gone only for this demon to rise.

 

[Cuddly]

Surprised hardly anyone is talking about Magearna, but its still a pretty good mon and just got better after the recent bans. This is the set I've been using on mostly Screens HO to much success after the metagame adaptions. It's nothing innovative, but once its starts racking up stats, it becomes a problem for balanced teams.

Magearna-Original @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 30 Atk
- Shift Gear
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power
- Draining Kiss

Modest would be the go-to Nature for Magearna cuz of power, but Scarf Lando is starting to rack up its presence in the metagame, so Timid would allow it to outspeed it after a Shift Gear. Calm Mind has a slight edge over Iron Defense cuz it allows Magearna to win the 1v1 advantage over Blissey and other fat special defensive walls. The only consistent problem mons have been Heatran and Assault Vest Melmetal, with the latter outright killing it with Double Iron Bash after screens are gone. Overall, I'm really enjoying using this to cheese out wins after its teammates deal with the problem matchups. Just glad Zygarde and Kyurem are gone only for this demon to rise.

I would actually recommend this stat spread for Magearna
EVs: 4 HP / 24 Def / 244 SpA / 236 Spe
The 4 HP and 24 Def guarantees Magearna lives 1 Close Combat from Banded Jolly Urshifu regularly, 2 Wicked Blows 100% of the time, and 2 Close Combats behind Reflect.
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 4 HP / 24 Def Magearna on a critical hit: 127-150 (42 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 24 Def Magearna: 255-301 (84.4 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 24 Def Magearna through Reflect: 127-150 (42 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
The 236 Speed let's Magearna outspeed +1/Scarf Base 100s after a Shift Gear.

Funnily enough, I presented a similar spread in the Magearna thread back at the IoA DLC being released, with the only difference is that Magearna has 1 extra point in speed now (idk what I was thinking back then tbh).

Also, is there any reason to why Magearna here has 30 Atk IVs?

 

[musiquepkmn]

I would actually recommend this stat spread for Magearna
EVs: 4 HP / 24 Def / 244 SpA / 236 Spe
The 4 HP and 24 Def guarantees Magearna lives 1 Close Combat from Banded Jolly Urshifu regularly, 2 Wicked Blows 100% of the time, and 2 Close Combats behind Reflect.
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 4 HP / 24 Def Magearna on a critical hit: 127-150 (42 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 24 Def Magearna: 255-301 (84.4 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 24 Def Magearna through Reflect: 127-150 (42 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
The 236 Speed let's Magearna outspeed +1/Scarf Base 100s after a Shift Gear.

Funnily enough, I presented a similar spread in the Magearna thread back at the IoA DLC being released, with the only difference is that Magearna has 1 extra point in speed now (idk what I was thinking back then tbh).

Also, is there any reason to why Magearna here has 30 Atk IVs?

Another thing: It's better to run 28 HP EVs on Magearna. It's the same EV investment, and it achieves the same effect, but it's better because it also gives you more towards Spdef. Another very niche thing but its still advisable.

 

[Cuddly]

Another thing: It's better to run 28 HP EVs on Magearna. It's the same EV investment, and it achieves the same effect, but it's better because it also gives you more towards Spdef. Another very niche thing but its still advisable.

Yeah, and now that I think about it, having 248 Timid speed would be better, as it would outspeed Modest Regieleki after Shift Gear.

 

[hmsa2012]

I would actually recommend this stat spread for Magearna
EVs: 4 HP / 24 Def / 244 SpA / 236 Spe
The 4 HP and 24 Def guarantees Magearna lives 1 Close Combat from Banded Jolly Urshifu regularly, 2 Wicked Blows 100% of the time, and 2 Close Combats behind Reflect.
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 4 HP / 24 Def Magearna on a critical hit: 127-150 (42 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 24 Def Magearna: 255-301 (84.4 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 24 Def Magearna through Reflect: 127-150 (42 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
The 236 Speed let's Magearna outspeed +1/Scarf Base 100s after a Shift Gear.

Funnily enough, I presented a similar spread in the Magearna thread back at the IoA DLC being released, with the only difference is that Magearna has 1 extra point in speed now (idk what I was thinking back then tbh).

Also, is there any reason to why Magearna here has 30 Atk IVs?

Original Magearna can only have 30 IVs as minimum. Dont reall think Foul play damage matters cuz by then Magearna would be having boosted draining kisses. And Original ball looks cool lol

And Timid does outspeed modest regieleki after +2. Forgot to mention that.

 

[SwaggySammy44]

Time to talk about a pokemon I've loved using since the zyg/kyub ban

Nidoking

After its rise to OU, Nidoking looks like it's here to stay, asserting itself as a elite wallbreaker in the tier. It's sheer force boosted moves rip through lots of defensive cores and put a lot of pressure on your opponent. It's also got great coverage.

Nidoking @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Sludge Wave
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt

This is my favorite set. Sheer force means all of its moves have at least 117 bp and life orb jacks up its power even more. Sludge Wave and Earth Power give it two extremely hard hitting stab moves and Ice Beam and Thunderbolt give it sheer force boosted boltbeam coverage. It also has access to Flamethrower or Fire Blast for fire coverage. Because of this, it nails many of the OU's most popular defensive mons.

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Nidoking Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clefable: 307-361 (77.9 - 91.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Nidoking Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Toxapex: 276-328 (90.7 - 107.8%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Nidoking Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Zapdos: 211-250 (54.9 - 65.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Nidoking Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 176+ SpD Heatran: 551-655 (142.7 - 169.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Nidoking Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Slowbro: 299-354 (75.8 - 89.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

It also does this to Magearna: 252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Nidoking Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Magearna: 330-393 (90.6 - 107.9%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

While it may have a hard time dealing with faster attackers, the purpose of a wall breaker is to, well, break walls, which Nidoking excels at. None of the mons mentioned above can do anything to hit Nidoking back before it kills them. It pairs great with dragon types whose fairy weakness it can cover, and give it future sight support from slowbro and it becomes even harder to stop. This thing kicks all kinds of ass and I expect it to continue to be a premier offensive threat in the tier going forward.

 

[Red Raven]

Where are people getting the idea that I was suggesting to ban the slow twins? Jesus, I'm gonna have to spell it out. The slow twins are absolutely NOT broken. They have a useful role in the game, especially Slowbro as it has the bulk to shrug off the many earthquakes, which eases the pressure on someone like Buzzwall so it can focus on other stuff like Kartana or Urshifu. What I am suggesting is banning future sight and future sight only, nothing more, nothing less, assuming that people don't want complex bans

The reason I say this is, as some have mentioned, future sight + teleport + regenerator makes for one hell of a combination which strong wall breakers like Blaziken or Urshifu can take advantage of as I mentioned before, since they force out nearly everything that doesn't mind the future sight. Urshifu in particular abuses this incredibly hard since it is common and protect does nothing against it. So, let's break down that combination. Banning regenerator is completely out of the question. Why should innocents like Amoonguss or Tangrowth, both of which are not even ou but are somewhat usable, instantly lose any sense of viability just because of the slow twins? Banning teleport would NOT solve anything. A slow twin can simply use future sight then switch out manually to Urshifu or Blaziken, or any powerful wall breakers really like Garchomp. Even if you use protect to block the future sight, it would just end up giving a free boost to the breaker in question and I'm not even sure if protect actually blocks future sight. Either way, it is a lose lose situation for the one on the sight's receiving end. That only leaves future sight as the remaining sus. If it does get banned, all the pokemon who use it like Gardevoir, slow twins and whoever else, do not instantly lose their viability in any tier whatsoever. Future sight is just another tool to choose from the shed which they can take IF they really want it

Now, if the slow twins are banned, then many physical breakers will have their jobs much easier. Blaziken no longer has to run thunder punch and just has to use earthquake to deal with Toxapex. Urshifu will most likely remain the same as the sight is just added power to its absolute bullshit wicked blow while sd Garchomp and Landorus will have one less annoyance to deal with. Buzzwall would probably get overwhelmed since it now has to deal with the ground types as well as Urshifu as Toxapex cannot reliably handle them and that is just to name a few pokemon in the game

So, as I mentioned before, it now comes to a choice. Either ban the slow twins, or just future sight unless you want some random complex ban. Bottomline, slow twins are not broken, future sight on its own is not broken but future sight + fighting type is as it makes playing around the incoming sight rather tricky and it puts you into a lose lose situation as even if you send out a pokemon faster than the opposing dark type, future sight will take a chunk of hp from it. I already made my stand and I think future sight should be banned. Sure, not everybody uses it but it is difficult to play with unless the future sight user doesn't have a fighting type teammate

 

[KamenOH]

Well, the main concern is how several breakers are boosted by Slowbro and future sight/Teleport. This immediately makes me wonder which part, or parts even, are broken.
Slowbro has Regenerator, Future Sight, and Teleport all adding up to make a great addition to a breaker's team. First, to get it out of the way, Regenerator is not the broken piece, since,

Banning regenerator is completely out of the question. Why should innocents like Amoonguss or Tangrowth, both of which are not even ou but are somewhat usable, instantly lose any sense of viability...

Both are notable Regnerator users, but are not causing problems due to what the aforementioned ability does. This means that only Slowbro is using this 33% heal every switchout with great success.
Next up are the moves Future Sight and Teleport, which send a delayed base 120 or so attack, and switches the user out with hella negative priority, respectively. I feel as though Hugin covered them best with,

So, in the latest OU moveset stats, there are only two OU psychics, Latios and Slowbro. Latios does not get a switching move, and Future Sight does not show up in it's moveset stats. Slowbro uses Future Sight 65% of the time and Teleport 92.7% of the time.

and later goes on to say that because only Slowbro, and with very little usage Jirachi, uses Teleport and Future Sight to great success, it means that the moves themselves are not the issue, but that the pokemon using them are.
One, not anyone in particular but a thought-up being, might then say, "well, maybe it's the breakers that are supported by it that are broken," and cite, i dunno, Urshifu and Pheromosa as examples. Well, I would then have to differ to Monky25 and their,

It’s like if a weather has too many abusers, do you want to ban the auto weather or the 5-6 abusers of it. It’s pretty clear we want as many Pokémon to be as playable as possible...

And i must agree, because they are supported by it much the same way swift swim is supported by rain, or any good core relies on switch-ins to its counters and checks. Slowbro uses these breakers to boost the effectiveness of its Future Sight, using Teleport to guarantee as safe a switch in as possible, and healing a good chunk of damage with Regenerator.
It is a combination of these factors, which have minor or no usage alone, that make it, in my eyes, broken.

 

[Ehmcee]

I've seen a few people throwing this around.

Protect does not block future sight.

but it definitely is useful for protecting itself from a strong breakers hit.

 

[viol and bass]

Here's what sets the Slowtwins apart. You're used to breakers being kinda frail and prediction-reliant, but your breaker isn't frail if it's brought in via a fat Regen mon using Teleport, and it's not prediction-reliant if the switch-in has to eat two powerful moves on the same turn. If you use Slowbro or Slowking, you're not sacrificing longevity for the sake of breaking power. You get to have both.

You can use Future Sight+Teleport Gardevoir, but then you have the breaking power with none of the longevity. That's not a failure on Gardevoir's part. It's still probably usable. But Slowbro and Slowking are in a world of their own.

 

[Steel With It]

So, there've been a lot of bandwagon waves this gen, coming and going with the DLCs: "Ban Clefable," "Ban Magic Guard + Teleport," "Ban Wish + Teleport," "Ban [breaker] + Teleport," "Ban the Slows," "Ban Regenerator + Teleport," "Ban Future Sight + Teleport," etc.

You might've noticed a theme by now.

The problem is Teleport. Not Clefable, Slowbro, Wish, Future Sight, whatever. Teleport.

 

[Hugin]

So, there've been a lot of bandwagon waves this gen, coming and going with the DLCs: "Ban Clefable," "Ban Magic Guard + Teleport," "Ban Wish + Teleport," "Ban [breaker] + Teleport," "Ban the Slows," "Ban Regenerator + Teleport," "Ban Future Sight + Teleport," etc.

You might've noticed a theme by now.

The problem is Teleport. Not Clefable, Slowbro, Wish, Future Sight, whatever. Teleport.

Is Teleport really significantly better than U-Turn, though? It's tauntable, doesn't do damage, and it's not like -6 priority is that big when the primary users wouldn't be outspeeding anything anyway.

 

[hmsa2012]

Is Teleport really significantly better than U-Turn, though? It's tauntable, doesn't do damage, and it's not like -6 priority is that big when the primary users wouldn't be outspeeding anything anyway.

Teleport is an incredible utility move that provides so much momentum for Pokemon like Clef and Slowbro. In previous gens, these Pokemon, while great at performing their respective roles, lacked necessary momentum and created awkward 1v1 situations unless you were a god at predicting switches and whatnot. Teleport essentially gave these type of mons huge momentum buffs and with stuff like Wish and Regenerator, it makes them so much better than they were last gen. Even though it's -6 priority, turn ending moves like Wish go through and you can pass HP onto your supposed teammate without it take unnecessary damage in crucial matchups (hard switching). Slowbro + Teleport + Regen prevents aggressive punishment for it and can easily just switch momentum and let its teammates break its problematic matchups. Heavy Duty Boots on Bro is becoming common so that it doesn't need to worry about hazards denting Regenerator.

 

[Hobie]

I've been seeing a lot of people talking about banning specific aspects of mons in order to no longer make them broken, and I'm going to post my thoughts about them again, I posted them about a month ago but with complex bans being discussed its worth bringing it up again. The similar thoughts I refer to are people wanting a complex ban (post #360 Page 15 if you want to see it)

I had similar thoughts earlier this year regarding the Cinderace suspect test and why Liberio wasn't being banned instead and a few people filled me in on why this isn't the case in this post and the couple of posts following it: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/simple-questions-simple-answers-thread.3656259/post-8606849
I especially recommend reading Zarels post as it is very insightful into the philosophy behind Smogons tiering, which essentially comes down to the idea that a mon should be judged as a whole, including all their abilities and moves, so a mon will be banned based on its totality rather than banning a specifically overpowered aspect. The only exception to this are things that are uncompetitive, such as evasion moves and trapping abilities. Those are banned due to being actively uncompetitive and either making the game entirely rng in the case of evasion boosting moves, or removing a key aspect of the game in switching with respect to trapping abilities. Copy pasting from a dm between Finchinator and myself he said:
"fwiw, there are not even complex bans on trapping and evasion (anymore -- there used to be, but we undid the complexities over the generations due to the inconsistency it had with the tiering policy). now we just outright ban evasion moves and abilities/trapping abilities like atrap and stag.

unless an ability or move is similarly uncompetitive (emphasis on uncompetitive, not broken), then we will likely focus on the pokemon. but yes, when it comes to something like cinderace, we want to focus on the pokemon to avoid the slippery slope or the derailing of our tiering practices."

tl:dr Smogon bans mons based on their entirety, not just banning an overpowered aspect. Also read Zarels post

I would like to say that I'm not opposed to the idea of complex bans, however smogon does not work like that. If people want that to change this isn't the place to bring it up, as this is the place to talk about the OU metagame and not how smogon tiers work. Also read Zarels post.

 

[Empress Mobile]

So, there've been a lot of bandwagon waves this gen, coming and going with the DLCs: "Ban Clefable," "Ban Magic Guard + Teleport," "Ban Wish + Teleport," "Ban [breaker] + Teleport," "Ban the Slows," "Ban Regenerator + Teleport," "Ban Future Sight + Teleport," etc.

You might've noticed a theme by now.

The problem is Teleport. Not Clefable, Slowbro, Wish, Future Sight, whatever. Teleport.

So we are supposed to take the least common denominator of a bunch of bad suggestions and apply that to tiering policy? Teleport itself is not broken. It has given legitimacy to bringing previous momentum sinks like Porygon2 and Blissey onto more offensive builds. Clefable is a joke case honestly imo, it was never broken. The culprit in the Clefable dominated metagame was obviously Dracovish. Not only was its oppressive playstyle endlessly enabled by the Wishport antics, its preferred counter in Seismitoad practically mandated Wish support. As some predicted, Clefable's set diversity saw much improvement after the Dracovish ban and calls to ban Clefable dropped off.

I would venture to say that it's possible the Slow twins are only succeeding with this strategy so strongly because of the myriad breakers in the tier able to pressure their switch-ins so easily. The issues with these breakers won't go away limiting the Slow twins strategies. Once the metagame settles after what looks likely to be suspects of Pheromosa and Urshifu, among others, then this strategy might be worth another look. If Future Sight + Teleport + Regenerator proves still to be a problem, the only sound tiering strategy looks to be to banish the only Pokemon with this combination to Ubers.

 

[PimpParasect]

I saw talk earlier about a split ladder and imo I don't see the harm in making one.

We basically did a split ladder with National OU vs. Regular OU just for the sake of 'injecting as much as we can that was culled' in a ladder separate from the official OU one, stuff like that was basically a pet mod ladder in the past and those haven't 'divided' the playerbase either.

Assuming when we say 'separate' ladder we're referring to an experimental one, like suspect ladders or for most competitive games out there, public beta servers. Somewhere we can try random shit like unbanning zama, complex bans that normally wouldn't be done just to see how everyone reacts with them, pseudo-suspect test of old QBs just to see if the playerbase reacts any differently to warrante an actual suspect test (like how ace was a waste of time pre-DLC2 and we all knew it in advance.) etc.

I wouldn't worry about losing playerbase in official OU anymore than i'd worry about the official playerbase bailing OU for custom games so they can do their own thing. At least experimental ladders no one will take too seriously to only play on it due to how randomly you can make drastic changes to it.

 

[P3DS]

I saw talk earlier about a split ladder and imo I don't see the harm in making one.

We basically did a split ladder with National OU vs. Regular OU just for the sake of 'injecting as much as we can that was culled' in a ladder separate from the official OU one', stuff like that was basically a pet mod ladder in the past and those haven't 'divided' the playerbase either.

Assuming when we say 'separate' ladder we're referring to an experimental one, like suspect ladders or for most competitive games out there, public beta servers.

Nat Dex OU is way less of a separate ladder, and closer to an OM, that got way out of hand. And while it has similar style to OU, there are many differences that set it apart. For one, Z moves really broke a few pokemon (like Dragapult now having a very good one time nuke physical ghost STAB). It doesn't reflect actual cartridge play, as it's currently impossible to use megas and Z moves in sword and shield.

 

[Zneon]

Blaziken's Place in the Metagame

Hi guys, its me, I want to talk about Blaziken and its place in the metagame. Well, that's me being too nice, I want to go over the flaws of Blaziken, why I hate it using it so much and why its an overall disappointing Pokemon. This is pretty insane to way considering that its banned ever since gen 5 and now I think, and most of the playerbase thinks that it isn't close to broken, I mean the overwhelming amount of people who voted 1 on this Pokemon compared to the rest is insane. However they don't think its broken, however I don't think its broken or a very good Pokemon, I find it to be mediocre if anything. I've tried a lot of things outside of SD cause I don't find that good and the things I tried to use with this Pokemon are even worse. So I'm going go over exactly why I think its a disappointing Pokemon.

I. What changed for it from the transition?

Quite a lot of things happened for it, which isn't a good thing in its favour I feel. So in gen 7, there was no Teleport, no Heavy-Duty Boots and there were Z-Moves. What this meant is that Blaziken can very easily pull off a sweep because with hazards up, none of the Pokemon that check it now would stand up to it, especially Slowbro, which is common now. Whereas they are all here now, Heavy-Duty Boots and Teleport especially making defensive teams even better and with no Z-Moves and HP its pretty tough for it to legitimately overwhelm teams and I'll go over why.

II. Why I think Blaziken is just not that good right now.

Okay so my next point, Blaziken got nerfed indirectly quite a lot despite getting new good moves in CC and U-turn. So the first thing about this Pokemon is that it is pretty inconsistent, with Blaziken the mon basically kills itself trying to sweep and it doesn't sweep most of the time because its typing and bulk can never really let this Pokemon in and unlike Pheromosa, this Pokemon doesn't even force switches because its offensive typing is not all that threatening anymore. Fire / Fighting alone gets walled by Moltres, Slowbro, Latios and Toxapex and these are top tier Pokemon right now, so it needs to rely on its coverage in order to actually be threatening, and what's even worse is that Blaziken is neither really that strong nor does it have good versatility. Its a pretty one-dimensional Pokemon in what it can do and that in my opinion is the biggest flaw with Blaziken, its only viable set is really SD and because of that teams can easily just prevent the sweep because players know exactly what Blaziken is going to do. The versatility isn't there especially considering that its movepool isn't that good, especially with the lack of HP. So with all that rambling about why Blaziken sucks so bad, I'm going to go over what I TRIED to use to make Blaziken work and they all sounded so much better on paper cause in practice they just were not it chief.

III. What other sets I attempted to use on it.

So I was trying to think of a set other than SD to make work since I didn't like SD at all, so here are 2 that I made that I tried to make work, I tried to use Choice Band Blaziken, and Toxic + Protect Blaziken. So I'm going to explain both. Spoiler alert, neither of them worked at all.

Blaziken @ Choice Band
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Thunder Punch
- U-turn

So first set I tried to use was Choice Band. I thought that this would be the best set on Blaziken for some reason, because at that time I thought damn, a powerful wallbreaker that can also boost its Speed every turn? Amazing, except not really because like I said, its STABs are pretty easy to around and any good defensive structure can easily prevent this Blaziken set from ever actually doing anything, so I used this for a bit and I even tried to pair this with Future Sight Slowbro but it just did not work at all because even with a Future Sight up its pretty easy to pivot around and against so many teams the only thing its really doing is spamming U-turn, I mean there is a few games where it did something good I guess because it just wasn't consistent whatsoever unfortunately.

Blaziken @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Flamethrower
- Toxic
- Protect
- U-turn

This is a more of an offensive pivot like, Dragapult and Pheromosa like kind of set where after a protect its able to outspeed a vast majority of the tier which allows it to get a much more riskless U-turn off, but unlike Dragapult however, its STAB combo isn't as spammable and unlike Pheromosa, it needs to waste a moveslot to outspeed a lot of the tier, whereas Pheromosa outspeeds basically everything already. Another problem with this set most of the Pokemon that beat the other sets beat this and even more Pokemon that Blaziken is supposed to beat are able to wall this set pretty easily. Blissey, Clefable and Heatran are the biggest examples, all are outstanding in the metagame, and all can now just beat it. I don't think is more to be said.

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Hope you enjoyed me trashing on Blaziken and talking about why I don't like it whatsoever. I would like to know your thoughts on it too. Where do you think it is in the metagame? Do you think its good / bad? Do you think this Pokemon can become a problem in the future? To answer that question myself I'm honestly convinced that it won't be unless someone makes a whole new revolutionary set that makes this Pokemon insanely threatening. But idk about you. Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Hugin]

Teleport is an incredible utility move that provides so much momentum for Pokemon like Clef and Slowbro. In previous gens, these Pokemon, while great at performing their respective roles, lacked necessary momentum and created awkward 1v1 situations unless you were a god at predicting switches and whatnot. Teleport essentially gave these type of mons huge momentum buffs and with stuff like Wish and Regenerator, it makes them so much better than they were last gen. Even though it's -6 priority, turn ending moves like Wish go through and you can pass HP onto your supposed teammate without it take unnecessary damage in crucial matchups (hard switching). Slowbro + Teleport + Regen prevents aggressive punishment for it and can easily just switch momentum and let its teammates break its problematic matchups. Heavy Duty Boots on Bro is becoming common so that it doesn't need to worry about hazards denting Regenerator.

But wouldn't U-Turn be a clear improvement over Teleport for most of those mons? Calls for banning Tele strike me as being like banning Arena Trap without banning Shadow Tag. Either ban the broken mons, or ban all pivot moves(Tele, Baton Pass, U-Turn, Volt Switch). Teleport's problem has more to do with distribution than with the move itself being unusually good.