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

[Sexual Fresh Green]

So, you're saying that the broken element is all of those together? and thus, the pokemon itself is the broken element? In that case, obviously, the pokemon should be banned.

i mean sure, if you want. i'm just not a huge fan of banning pokemon outright when banning grassy glide only affects Rillaboom

 

[gye5]

i mean sure, if you want. i'm just not a huge fan of banning pokemon outright when banning grassy glide only affects Rillaboom

With that logic ar gonna ban things until Zacian is healthy in ZU

 

[gye5]

The issue with banning specific move from mons, is that with that logic u would make every mon not broken, for example banning Zacian from using physical move because that make its good, or letting kyogre in OU but it cant use water move

 

[|Powerman|]

i mean sure, if you want. i'm just not a huge fan of banning pokemon outright when banning grassy glide only affects Rillaboom

Thats the point, it ONLY affects rillaboom, it would make no sense to ban a move with one user like with fiseous rend Dracovish but Artovish is floundering helplessly or with Gorilla Tactics G-Darm that is known as a strictly inferior Hugh Power.

 

[Ehmcee]

i mean sure, if you want. i'm just not a huge fan of banning pokemon outright when banning grassy glide only affects Rillaboom

It doesn't only affect Rillaboom, a lot of people seem to forget that the effects of bans in OU will trickle down to lower tiers as well.
There are plenty of pokemon that learn grassy glide, and might want to use that move in lower tiers.
Just because it isn't used in OU, doesn't mean that it won't be useful in other tiers.

This is one of the main reasons that banning mons is usually much more preferred, since they don't affect lower tiers as badly. (Not to mention that grassy glide as a move isn't that broken)

 

[gye5]

It doesn't only affect Rillaboom, a lot of people seem to forget that the effects of bans in OU will trickle down to lower tiers as well.
There are plenty of pokemon that learn grassy glide, and might want to use that move in lower tiers.
Just because it isn't used in OU, doesn't mean that it won't be useful in other tiers.

This is one of the main reasons that banning mons is usually much more preferred, since they don't affect lower tiers as badly. (Not to mention that grassy glide as a move isn't that broken)

Agreed, grassy glide is not a move that deserves ban as a whole, there move that would fit more for that criteria, for example switching moves or even scald, because there can be very powerful despite the user of these moves

 

[Contrary Servine]

I've been getting many counterarguments that look very similar, and I would like to address them here. Please read before further discussing Rillaboom, I'd appreciate it! :)

1.) "HO is always adapting to the meta, and most HO pokemon resist grass anyway."

This is simply not accurate, if you look back at past HOs. HO does counter the meta generally, and it is one of the most fluctuating playstyles. That being said, there hasn't been such little variation in HO teams for several generations. Offense and Hyper Offense teams of many styles have never looked so similar, and Rillaboom is singularly to blame for this. Many HOs don't run lots of grass resists-- and then they do poorly. If you look at the current top HO teams, they have at least 4 grass resists. Innovative HO teams that DON'T spam grass resists like Dragapult, Kartana, Hydreigon, Bisharp, Hawlucha, etc. end up too inconsistent to perform well.

2.) "Rillaboom has enough checks and counters on both the offensive and defensive side: Zapdos, Corviknight, Kyurem, Tornadus, Ferrothorn, etc."

Correct, it DOES have enough checks not to be banworthy for it's breaking capability. Rillaboom is NOT broken because of how it performs in games, it is broken COMBINED with how it performs in games AND how it has forced almost every single non-grass resisting sweeper out of the tier and into the non viable territory. These issues together are what make it banworthy, so please don't make any more "BuT wHaT aBoUt ZaPdOs AnD CoRvIkNiGhT?" comments-- I am aware it has sufficient checks and counters.

3.) "The pokemon you listed suck for other reasons, Rillaboom isn't why they are bad."

After testing all of the pokemon and playstyles on that list, I can confirm that Rillaboom is the most major factor for almost all pokemon on the list. Sticky Webs were hurt more by Boots than by Rillaboom, and Gengar was hurt more by the presence of Dragapult than by Rillaboom, but the consistent fact is that Rillaboom is a major factor responsible for pushing all of those pokemon into a state of non viability or near non viability. Note that I AM NOT CLAIMING that Omastar, Alolan Raichu, and Gyarados will be S tiers or even A tiers once Rillaboom is gone-- they will simply be real and viable threats that are consistent enough to use at a high level-- which they currenlty are not.

Lastly, I would like to reiterate that Rillaboom is not broken because of how it performs in games. It is very good, but it's not banworthy based on how it performs in games. Rillaboom will not sweep you like Magearna, it won't chip away your walls like an Urshifu, and it won't clean your whole team like Cinderace. What makes a very good pokemon like Rillaboom banworthy is what it FORCES YOU TO RUN. If you only play balance, sure, Rillaboom isn't a problem for you. But I must say, whether you play Offense and Hyper Offense or not: we cannot ignore that Rillaboom has forced all offensive playstyles to become more constrained and standard than ever before-- if this kind of restrictive building was placed on balance or fat teams, Rillaboom would've been gone months ago.

Many of you don't build teams, so it's no wonder you don't think Rillaboom is a big problem. If you don't build teams, talk to your friends who do-- Rillaboom is the #1 enemy of anyone trying to create any kind of innovative offense build.

The three reasons for stuff to banned is a) it‘s too powerful and has no reliable counterplay, b) it’s inherently uncompetitive, or c) it constrains team building more than is healthy.
You freely admit that Rillaboom isn’t banworthy under a), because it has plenty of reliable checks and counters. It obviously isn’t broken under b), since Rillaboom is no more luck-based than any other offensive mon. That leaves c), which is what you seem to be trying to argue.
First of all, I don’t believe it’s true that Rillaboom forces you to run set mons on Offense or Hyper Offense, given the fact that there are so many mons that aren’t OHKOed by Grassy Glide but having sweeping potential. Secondly, the entire point of HO is to overwhelm the opponent with powerful sweepers until one of them gets through. In other words, you don’t need every single mon to be good against Rillaboom, provided you have two or three you can usually stop it. Rillaboom won’t be on every team you face, so it just means that stuff like Azumarill and Crawdaunt won’t be as good against teams with Rillaboom. I do build teams, by the way, and though I usually build Balance, I have built a few Offense teams, and Rillaboom is no more a factor than in team building than Lele or Pult.
Rillaboom is a very powerful mon that’s good in this meta, so of course it has an effect on teambuilding. Even if it does make stuff like HO less consistent, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing and I don’t think you can ban Rillaboom based on something like that. Different playstyles are more effective in different metas, and while Rillaboom has significant impact on that, so do many other mons. Rillaboom is nowhere near as centralising as Spectrier or Urshifu-S, which forced every team to run one of two or three mons. It’s not banworthy because it makes certain playstyles weaker.

 

[TPP]

No new moves are being banned, please move on

Edit @ below: It's already banned and it's a special case because of how it involves stat passing.

 

[gye5]

No moves are being banned, please move on

It is ban even without passing

 

[Gomi]

A grass type with the strongest priority I the game that can instakill half a sand team which every other Grass type either can't do or needs to sacrifice heavily to do

If you can name a generation where sand doesn't require a sturdy Grass resist to stave off pokemon that would otherwise absolutely steamroll them by abusing its common staples while dismantling most of the required pieces to the playstyle, I would LOVE to hear it.

I mean hey let's delude ourselves even further, Kartana should be banned too for forcing sand to run actual resists to it instead of being able to stack pokemon with common weaknesses and only run a bulky water to shore it up

 

[gye5]

If you can name a generation where sand doesn't require a sturdy Grass resist to stave off pokemon that would otherwise absolutely steamroll them by abusing its common staples while dismantling most of the required pieces to the playstyle, I would LOVE to hear it.

I mean let's delude ourselves even further, Kartana should be banned too for forcing sand to run actual resists to it instead of being able to stack pokemon with common weaknesses and only run a bulky water to shore it up

I have to agree that grassy glide is what makes boom more dangeorus that kart, for example kart is 2ko by barrakesda liqui, boom too, but it has glide to become a threat for faster mons, the same aplies for exca

 

[pulsar512b]

It doesn't only affect Rillaboom, a lot of people seem to forget that the effects of bans in OU will trickle down to lower tiers as well.
There are plenty of pokemon that learn grassy glide, and might want to use that move in lower tiers.
Just because it isn't used in OU, doesn't mean that it won't be useful in other tiers.

This is one of the main reasons that banning mons is usually much more preferred, since they don't affect lower tiers as badly. (Not to mention that grassy glide as a move isn't that broken)

a funny example of this is grookey, which is quite good in lower tiers :)

 

[gye5]

a funny example of this is grookey, which is quite good in lower tiers :)

U mean thwakey, because is available in the lowest tier

 

[Fusion Flare]

Gee. Sand really does look like it doesnt like rillaboom and kartana! If only they could use a pokemon able to repeatedly pivot in on said grass types, along with miscellaneous threats to sand over the course of a game while making progress against switch ins with knock off and actually usable offenses!
Gee...if only...

Tangrowth
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Giga Drain / Leaf Storm
- Knock Off
- Focus Blast
- Sludge Bomb / status n shit

Itemless is a cool option to dunk on knockers like dark stab mons like bisharp and daunt (+2 adaptability knock one shots otherwise) but if you purely care about the grasses then rocky helmet is just as good as it always was. I chose to go 4 attacks since i ran this on a koko team, and by doing this you simultaneously cover both grasses with super effective hits. Of course you can always choose to go powder if you wish. You can go giga drain but DEAR GOD is it weak vs the grass neutral grounds. you can always go leaf storm to smack them.
This has been your daily Tangrowth shameless plug. We now return to your regularly scheduled Grassy Glide Ban.

 

[Pinkacross]

The three reasons for stuff to banned is a) it‘s too powerful and has no reliable counterplay, b) it’s inherently uncompetitive, or c) it constrains team building more than is healthy.
You freely admit that Rillaboom isn’t banworthy under a), because it has plenty of reliable checks and counters. It obviously isn’t broken under b), since Rillaboom is no more luck-based than any other offensive mon. That leaves c), which is what you seem to be trying to argue.
First of all, I don’t believe it’s true that Rillaboom forces you to run set mons on Offense or Hyper Offense, given the fact that there are so many mons that aren’t OHKOed by Grassy Glide but having sweeping potential. Secondly, the entire point of HO is to overwhelm the opponent with powerful sweepers until one of them gets through. In other words, you don’t need every single mon to be good against Rillaboom, provided you have two or three you can usually stop it. Rillaboom won’t be on every team you face, so it just means that stuff like Azumarill and Crawdaunt won’t be as good against teams with Rillaboom. I do build teams, by the way, and though I usually build Balance, I have built a few Offense teams, and Rillaboom is no more a factor than in team building than Lele or Pult.
Rillaboom is a very powerful mon that’s good in this meta, so of course it has an effect on teambuilding. Even if it does make stuff like HO less consistent, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing and I don’t think you can ban Rillaboom based on something like that. Different playstyles are more effective in different metas, and while Rillaboom has significant impact on that, so do many other mons. Rillaboom is nowhere near as centralising as Spectrier or Urshifu-S, which forced every team to run one of two or three mons. It’s not banworthy because it makes certain playstyles weaker.

It doesn't seem you fully comprehend how HO works at a high level. You're entirely right in the sense that it's goal is to overwhelm the opponent before it loses. However, you don't seem to grasp how huge it is when a single pokemon forces out half of your already frail offensive team. Rillaboom won't be on every team you face, but it's common enough that there are many offensive pokemon that simply aren't worth using due to it. If you construct HO teams and you think about Lele or Dragapult just as much as Rillaboom, you can't be building great HOs. I've constructed hundreds of HOs and thousands of Offense teams, and if you're not good against Rillaboom, really good against Rillaboom, you don't have a good squad. I understand that you don't believe it has made offensive builds too constrained and too standard, but there simply isn't data to back up that claim. I know of absolutely no successful HO teams that don't have loads of grass resists, and don't utilize extremely standard pokemon. The most creative thing that works is "Oh I added a Scizor" or "Look this one has a Gengar" which is great, but to say that offense isn't overly constrained by Rillaboom is absurd-- and indicative of a lack of experience building and playing HOs. Not a single pokemon has constrained offense in the way Rillaboom has, which makes perfect sense given that it has an unconditional stab base power 91 priority move, and a base 125 attack stat. Lots of time spent on the ladder, as well as information recieved from other top ladder players backs up the claim that HO has been forced to become overly standard.

 

[Tushar Cool]

A grass type with the strongest priority I the game that can instakill half a sand team which every other Grass type either can't do or needs to sacrifice heavily to do

If you're using a sand team with no grass resists then the problem is you, not the meta.

Gomi said it quite well.

If you can name a generation where sand doesn't require a sturdy Grass resist to stave off pokemon that would otherwise absolutely steamroll them by abusing its common staples while dismantling most of the required pieces to the playstyle, I would LOVE to hear it.

I mean hey let's delude ourselves even further, Kartana should be banned too for forcing sand to run actual resists to it instead of being able to stack pokemon with common weaknesses and only run a bulky water to shore it up

Edit - They didn't like one liners

 

[ausma]

Hey everyone, I'm noticing an uptick in one-liners and consecutive back-to-back posts. I want to remind you all that, while this discussion is a really productive one, to keep double posts and one-liners that don't contribute anything to the discussion to a minimum. Thank you!

That being said, I have to say that I'm a pretty big fan of this discussion point. Even if I personally don't feel as though Rillaboom should be suspected, at least for the meantime, I think the points being brought up do bring an honest emphasis on the state of offense in general, and how many offensive teams seem to be adapting their offensive proponents toward the advent of defensive role compression. We've seen this especially with Pokemon like Bisharp and Scizor, which are solid checks to Dragapult and Tapu Lele respectively, and also have the ability to check Rillaboom. Additionally, they boast some great options to enforce progress in the form of Knock Off, and even perform as apt win conditions. Role compression is the name of the game right now, and although Rillaboom is a symptom of that, I don't feel as though it's exactly contained to just Rillaboom itself since there are quite a few offensive threats with polarity to bat.

 

[astralydia]

Given the Rillaboom discussion, I'd like to put my two cents into the pool and give my opinion on what Rillaboom really does to the metagame and the decisions that I'd take towards the current banlist regarding Rillaboom and a bunch of other threats. Note that I do not think the mons listed here are inherently broken, but I do think there should be more discussion regarding them.

Rillaboom:


I think this monke is honestly not that bad. Though the effects in Pinkacross' post are notable for some of the less used offensive Pokemon on Hyper Offense, such as Gyarados, these Pokemon already suffer from other problems that are relevant to the metagame, such as difficulties breaking common defensive cores, having issues with sweeping due to other, faster revenge killers like Dragapult, Zeraora and Tapu Koko, and having general issues getting on the field in the first place. However, there are three things that I believe that the post overlooks greatly with respect to Rillaboom's presence regarding offense:

1) Other variants of HOs are happily capable of using neutrals, such as Garchomp variants.

FV's Garchomp HO is an example of a HO I could consider that actually uses a few neutrals that take a large amount of damage from Rillaboom's Grassy Glide but are still none-the-less effective in the current metagame. Scale Shot Garchomp's matchups vs the majority of the metagame, even when taking into account Rillaboom matchups is still incredibly good, and this seriously offsets the disadvantage of being easily revenge killed by Rillaboom. The main issue with the other mons listed such as Gengar or Tapu Lele is that they don't provide a lot of power to clean - they are pretty good wallbreakers, but nothing that offense cannot easily handle, which more-so makes them attempts at stall counter-teams on HO structures.

2) The majority of Pokemon usable on HO are already Grass-resistant regardless of Rillaboom's presence, and pivots on less offensive builds would be common regardless due to their ability to role compress.

Think of staples like Bisharp, Dragonite, Hawlucha, Kartana, Scizor, Volcarona, etc. Regardless if the purpose for these mons were to be Rillaboom resistant, these mons would still be very good regardless of if Rillaboom were in the metagame, and still have pretty excellent synergy with a lot of other commonly used HO mons.

3) Rillaboom actually buffs HO rather than nerfs it; it is possibly the single best cleaner in the entire metagame and its presence strongly assists a bunch of HO staples like Hawlucha.

Even if Rillaboom takes a lot away from some of the more niche mons on HO, it actually adds a lot of potential on HOs and offenses itself. Rillaboom being the single best role compressor for hyper offense structures and its general ability to strongly wear down Flying-type resists makes it an excellent partner for HO in general and especially appreciates partners like Bisharp and Scizor rising as they give another form of priority for HO to abuse alongside Rillaboom. It's also highly adaptable to what needs a HO may need and honestly benefits the metagame health in this way more than any other mon does.

I find that the wall of calcs also misses the point with regards to HO: most HOs can easily get around these weaknesses with the likes of Screens support, and even with regards to this, HO has a fair amount of hard resists that Rillaboom is either scared to touch or doesn't really appreciate getting on the field. With regards to just general offenses, the likes of pivots such as defensive Landorus-Therian, Rocky Helmet Garchomp, or other Flying-type tanks like Zapdos just make Rillaboom rather difficult to utilize against them.

Onto other threats: these are mons I think have the potential to actually be broken right now.


Kartana:

I mentioned how Rillaboom has good resists in the metagame; but I did not mention how its often compared comrade, Kartana, often has easy ways of getting around these counters. CB Kartana's damage is just simply monstrous in the current metagame, especially when paired with Future Sight support - there are practically no resists to Kartana if it predicts perfectly, and even if it doesn't, it can simply spam Knock Off on most of its answers and not only remove their item but threaten a 2HKO on almost every relevant resist. Life Orb + Swords Dance variants are also pretty difficult to resist, and given the use of more passive answers like Corviknight as an answer to Choice Band, these resistances don't really fare too well if surprised by Swords Dance, as Knock Off will do surprisingly high amounts of damage to it, almost crippling it for the entire game for a partner like Garchomp to exploit. Kartana even has Synthesis; making it a decently sustainable answer to the likes of Garchomp and Landorus-Therian if the teamcomp calls for an improv Ground resist unlike Rillaboom. This one is something I'm definitely undecided on for now but I think if anything it is the single scariest breaker around right now, and out of the three mons people have been calling "actual breakers" (Kartana, Tapu Lele, Kyurem) I think this is the one that has the least counterplay of all of them and is the most suspectable by extension.

Tornadus-Therian:

I used to hate this mon but honestly I believe as my experience of the metagame has gotten better, this mon has seemed less and less borderline and more of a threat that I'd need to have at the top of my priority list for checking wallbreakers. Nasty Plot seemingly has only 2 counters in Tapu Koko and Zapdos, but there are more options that exist to either status or offensively check Tornadus-Therian. Slowking + Revenge Killer is probably one of the best methods to deal with Tornadus-Therian as it is almost universal to its set versatility and is capable of being splashed on many teams. Some other checks like Toxapex, Blissey (run SpD bias!) and Corviknight are all pretty good at pivoting around it and either crippling it or stalling it out. Because of Regenerator, this mon tends not to care about those, but because it cannot easily make lasting progress vs these three either, it tends to suffer from being easily stalemated and tends not to be the optimal way to break through teams. It is strong due to Regenerator and can employ some ways of getting around pivots (Taunt & Substitute are great answers) but then it lacks the ability to chip the actual hard counters through Knock Off. It's a difficult mon to properly evaluate in the metagame because of its weird accuracy problems and I feel like it's not the first thing I'd suspect anymore now; however I don't really have a doubt that it will show itself as broken in the future because of Regenerator and the ability for it to make progress vs pretty much every check.

Dragapult:

OK so you know how the general complaint towards Rillaboom was how it invalidated offensive teams by forcing almost every mon to resist it? Well here's a mon that offense finds extremely difficult to resist at all. Dragapult is an uncivilized savage that barely has any guaranteed resists for a mon with 142 Speed, and has all of the tools to get momentum out of just about any situation. I'd like to split this into two points, to get down why this mon could be potentially broken.

1: Choice Specs

Dragapult @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Shadow Ball
- Thunder
- U-turn

Get rid of all of those other options. Hex? Lame, imagine being able to break a team when well supported. Fire Blast? Ferrothorn and Corviknight aren't checking you that well anyway. Scald? OK Scald > U-turn w Hex over Thunder is actually the real deal but don't tell anyone I said that
All you need is this single set to just mash past most of the metagame. Thunder is capable of hitting the few mons that actually do check you decently, either by 2HKO or, if you're lucky enough to get yourself into a long game, it is capable of being a decent wincon through paralysis on counters like Clefable and unkillable pivots like SpD Toxapex. This mon effectively only has 3 good answers, two of which are very easy to abuse with U-turn + a breaker like Kartana or Pads Melmetal. This is a stupid offensive threat honestly and I think it should at least be looked into to some degree in the future, likely after a Zamazenta-C suspect.

2: Serperior Incarnate (Hex)

Dragapult @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid / Naive Nature
- Draco Meteor / Dragon Darts
- Hex
- Thunder Wave / Will-O-Wisp
- Substitute / U-turn

This set is just not fun to load into. This mon is just straight up better than Serperior at cheesing wins with Thunder Wave; it not only has U-turn to try and fish for a para after doing 35% with Hex to its desired target, but it can do even better by utilizing Substitute to force paralysis and break teams in an uncompetitive way that lies outside of the player's control. Even the aforementioned SpD Clefable is vulnerable to this. This does have a few more mons that can provide partial counterplay like Mandibuzz, SpD Hippowdon / Landorus-Therian and Tyranitar, but these are all vulnerable to secondary options and are exceedingly easy to punish. If your build is capable of dealing with Specs just fine, then Thunder Wave Dragapult is likely to cause issues that you wouldn't expect to be issues. Its counterplay is almost entirely centralized around Thunder Wave just not paralyzing and that's super unhealthy for competitive play.

The influence these two sets have on offense is astronomical and I honestly think that is grounds for a ban given how little actually resists Dragapult, especially safely, and given how its offensive counterplay is practically non-existent I just don't think that's healthy.



Toxapex:

This mon is not broken, but rather a mon I would consider unhealthy for the metagame, no matter how the metagame changes to mold around it. It is probably the first mon I'd want to suspect throughout this entire list as the ways it has around its checks are plentiful and because of Regenerator, punishes towards it are often moot because Toxapex can very easily just tank super effective hits and recover back. The likes of Zeraora and Tapu Koko often find it difficult to break it reliably without any form of punish through Knock Off / Toxic / Toxic Spikes, and other ways of dealing with Toxapex tend to result in sluggish gameplay (i.e Reuniclus / Clefable are answers that cannot be punished further than their item getting removed) that make the game inherently unfun for players facing Toxapex, regardless of if they're using a breaker that is completely walled by Toxapex or not, like Keldeo or Urshifu-R.

Due to the difficulty in making theory connect with actual evidence, I've decided to add some replays that showcase some of Toxapex (or other mons listed here) in action, where they might have some unhealthy aspects showcased.

replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-549932 Garay Oak may have had the early game advantage here, with Dragapult + Slowking + Ferrothorn causing serious issues for Toxapex and Corviknight, making pivoting rather difficult, but in the end, Toxapex is capable of tanking even a crit Future Sight and stalling out a Slowking to win the endgame. Due to Knock Off and Scald's pressure, Slowking is also incapable of setting Future Sight throughout the game easily in order to pressure with Dragapult easily, especially with Hydreigon being able to stomach Future Sight hits and pressure Slowking with enough damage to force it into low range with a flinch. Even with a Spike and a Stealth Rock up, because of how Toxapex can pressure Slowking, Dragapult is incapable of forcing enough damage onto Toxapex, and is incapable of preventing it from regenerating the damage that it took.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-549945 {This tour game is confusing, I'm not sure whether Boots, Toxapex or the teamcomp end up being the issue here)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-547956 Even despite Rumor's Slowking + Urshifu-R, because of Toxapex, Gastrodon and Corviknight working together, and Clefable being able to wall a Surging Strikeless Urshifu in the endgame, Rumor is unable to deal enough damage to the Toxapex before Surging Strikes gets low in PP, resulting in Aurella's team winning out due to a lack of paralysis on Clefable.

Slowbrothers / Future Sight / Teleport / Regenerator / Heavy-Duty Boots:

As it is difficult to pinpoint just what the issue is with these mons (and the addition of Toxapex in some cases), I figured I'd lump all of these points into one single area of discussion. The sluggish nature of the metagame to some is really what people have been blaming on Heavy-Duty Boots this entire time, but if I'm honest; I think it's more of an issue with Regenerator pivots, because in most cases, Stealth Rock barely impacts these mons abilities to check certain targets. Yes; I admit that this is missing the point with Zeraora, Tapu Koko (and Cinderace) in the metagame, but if I'm honest those pivots show the contrary as a result of the metagame and the ability for these Pokemon to continually shuffle is more of a representative of player skill differential to me. But not really with the Slowbrothers + Toxapex. Between these three mons, progress can easily be halted due to their access to both Regenerator and reliable recovery, making it not only very difficult to chip down these mons, but also very easy for them to make progress. All three of them slow down the game pretty significantly, even regardless of if the opponent can lay down enough hazard pressure on them. Here are some replays showcasing some potential issues that might regard these 5:

replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-544656 It can be hard to pinpoint whether the issue is Kartana or a Future Sight user here, but the outcome is evident in this replay that whilst Sacri's team is capable of dealing with most of these threats, when coupled with an ease of access Future Sight user, they become extremely difficult to answer. Case in point from Kartana - a crit Future Sight puts Skarmory in range of a Knock Off, which spirals the game from there.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-545664 Even with a Tapu Bulu, Slowking takes advantage of Kommo-o's inability to hurt Slowking by attempting to inflict burns, and successfully manages to get up a Future Sight early. This results in the Bisharp being capable of taking advantage of the situation, restricting the amount of plays that the opposing team could make against such a team. This subsequently made it difficult for reiku to resist Seperation's Heatran, allowing Separation's team to crush reiku.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-545738 Due to Serene Grace being unable to harm John W's Slowking immediately, John W can play aggressively with Slowking, allowing it to pivot out, set Future Sight and check Pokemon like Slowking-Galar that would otherwise cause a need for prediction. Because of John W's Heal Bell Dragonite, Serene Grace is unable to get lasting damage on Slowking and the rest of John W's supporting team. Whilst Serene Grace's Garchomp got a lucky break, it was not enough to stop Slowking from doing its business and allowing John W to effortlessly break Serene Grace's weakened team.

The 50/50s: The mons I am rather undecided on as to if they'll ever be banworthy.


The Chomper:

Garchomp is a difficult mon to consider. For me, it hasn't really been broken for a long while, ever since counterplay settled down towards the likes of the SD + Scale Shot set; as Garchomps have started to run Leftovers more, some other checks like Clefable can be used as decent answers, and as long as Garchomp isn't Fire Fang, some answers like Kartana and Substitute + Bulk Up Corviknight are also capable of either walling it out or significantly chipping Garchomp to the point where it is incapable of sweeping. The mixed set still doesn't have enough damage capability to fully get through Corviknight either, and the likes of Rillaboom and other revenge killers tend to limit Garchomp's ability to wallbreak effectively. But, for Life Orb variants or some variants with different coverage, i.e Aqua Tail, it can be difficult to find consistent checks in any meaningful form to Garchomp and that is really what makes it potentially broken. For now, however, I think it's just generally checkable and doesn't really force a whole lot on teams, aside from the occasional Ice Beam carrying bulky water.



The Heatman:

Heatran is obnoxious and has a lot of ways around its supposed counters, but it also has a lot of ways that both offensive and defensive counterplay can screw it over. Is Heatran's inability to be effectively countered broken? Possibly, but I also find that it takes quite a bit of time for Heatran to pull off some of the feats that it does, and it often needs to be at full health to perform them. Some examples of excellent checks are:

Shed Shell Toxapex: Can just dodge pretty much every one of Heatran's shenanigans; even Earth Power variants don't do enough damage.
Slowking: Excellent pivot, but prone to being worn down via Toxic + Taunt and Scald often doesn't do enough damage to SpDef Heatran to perform the role correctly.
Garchomp: Lacks longevity; but Rest variants are practically hard counters.
Hydreigon: Can have issues dealing with Body Press and Toxic in tandem, but otherwise a counter.
Heal Bell Dragonite: Perfect counter but lets Stealth Rock through. Crippled by Toxic if it's Defog however.
Swampert: Lacks longevity but a perfect answer on faster paced builds.
Tapu Fini: Can have issues vs Heavy Slam variants, but also a decent short-term answer.

The main issues with most of these mons are that Heatran can very easily get past them given enough time and prediction, but this is really what a stallbreaker should do; and it's not like the counters listed here are exactly the end to what you can use against Heatran, especially on stall. There are enough wallbreakers and offensive checks that can easily switch into Heatran and pressure it to the point where offense shouldn't really struggle against Heatran, and both sides have enough variant checks for this mon to not cause building to become a boring slouch unlike some of the breakers listed here. Good mon - would not like to see this mon banned for a while, but I can see its set versatility becoming an issue later on.


The Doggo (Crowned version):

A hot topic in recent discussion, Zamazenta-Crowned is a mon I would also indeed like to see suspected. Between the current viability of Ground-types, the bulky Regenerator cores that tend to blank out its coverage, and all the other elements like Rocky Helmet that this mon hates, I'm starting to believe this could be an OK addition to OU now. However, if you can cope with not being able to outspeed Tornadus-Therian, this might make you reconsider:

Zamazenta-Crowned @ Rusted Shield
Ability: Dauntless Shield
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Behemoth Bash
- Wild Charge / Psychic Fangs
- Howl

Adamant nature Zamazenta-C is really what makes me look into it and think "are you sure this mon could be OK?" however. With an Adamant nature, certain physical resists start losing HP on cycles trying to deal with this mon, such as Slowbro and Toxapex. Both of these mons take ~60% average from Wild Charge, which makes it easy for Zamazenta-C to spam Wild Charge / Psychic Fangs in the case of Toxapex for the next switchin. It starts becoming dangerous for these mons to check it - and it already is dangerous for others like Zapdos, Landorus-Therian and Garchomp - they're all losing if Zamazenta-C can get on the field at full HP, and in the case of Zapdos, manage to dodge paralysis. I think to make a further decision on this mon I'd like to see it in action, because although these calcs in theory make Zamazenta-C seem broken, it is unlikely that this will carry on into the actual game.

Originally, there was a paragraph about Zamazenta's Hero forme here, but that forme actually has the ability to completely screw over offensive teams, as its higher immediate power gives it a better chance at screwing over Pokemon like Rillaboom & Scizor.

Bonus threats: these are mons I'd disagree on being banworthy even if the metagame were to change from the others being banned - I just think that their list of checks are big enough and their offensive counterplay is easy enough to fit to the point where they won't be hurting building too much.

Kyurem:

I've been hearing a lot of discussion over Kyurem recently as being a potentially banworthy threat, but I don't really see it? SubRoost is super easy to play around with enough offensive pressure, and even if Kyurem does manage to get a Substitute up, the existence of Dragapult as well as other common defensive pivots like SpD Clefable, Ferrothorn and Corviknight make Kyurem a tough mon to even use against these Pokemon. Specs is dangerous as any other breaker but the likes of Clefable, Corviknight, Toxapex, Slowking and Blissey at least allow for some ways of dissuading Kyurem from clicking X move and taking one, even if they are heavily damaged by Specs Freeze-Dry. There are also decent pivots like AV Slowking-Galar, Scizor, Ferrothorn, Volcarona, Tyranitar and Melmetal that can make Kyurem difficult to use properly due to the ridiculous amount of prediction it needs to make to make only a little bit of progress. It is indeed strong, and could be seen as a broken mon on paper, but the amount of pivots that exist in the metagame right now make Kyurem a little difficult to justify as being broken.

Blissey isn't 2HKO'd by Specs Focus Blast if you use 252 Def / 252 SpD btw.


Tapu Lele:

I've also heard discussion about a potential Tapu Lele ban, but for the most part, Tapu Lele is also fine as a wallbreaker, and unlike Kyurem, it has some practically true counters - it cannot really punch past Corviknight and Slowking without Thunder, and dropping Thunder is crippling Tapu Lele's ability to go mindless and just click Psychic / Psyshock as it has to choose one of the two to not end up getting walled by the plethora of Steel-types available. These mons are also still capable of pivoting around Tapu Lele - this is not to mention Tapu Lele's fairly extensive offensive counterplay list and the more niche counters like Jirachi, Aegislash and Victini that can be used if there is a need for a hard Lele answer. The main difference about Tapu Lele's checks is that they don't all have reliable recovery, which means that Tapu Lele can get through them much easier without the need for much prediction, which arguably makes it worse than Kyurem to deal with.



Zeraora:

Zeraora is an interesting mon to list, and I mostly lump this in with Boots, but like a few mons on this list, if it has been given enough time, it can get through practically the entire metagame through Toxic, Knock Off, and Volt Switch alone. However, my main issue with this logic is not only are there good counters that can tank most, if not everything Zeraora can do - especially given Heal Bell support, but the fact that this mon takes a very long time to get to where it is offensively. Boots help it pull that off, but I'll be honest: I think if a player can indeed click Knock Off and Volt Switch on the right turns consecutively, over the course of the game, and come in multiple times without being hit, often times in the double digits, I believe that the player who just pulled that off should have the right to win the game. It's a difficult thing to do properly, but when done properly it's sweet and rewarding. I don't really think Zeraora being able to pull off that amount of shuffling and being able to win from it is exactly banworthy, but I've heard a few people express major distaste for this mon.

 

[Contrary Servine]

It doesn't seem you fully comprehend how HO works at a high level. You're entirely right in the sense that it's goal is to overwhelm the opponent before it loses. However, you don't seem to grasp how huge it is when a single pokemon forces out half of your already frail offensive team. Rillaboom won't be on every team you face, but it's common enough that there are many offensive pokemon that simply aren't worth using due to it. If you construct HO teams and you think about Lele or Dragapult just as much as Rillaboom, you can't be building great HOs. I've constructed hundreds of HOs and thousands of Offense teams, and if you're not good against Rillaboom, really good against Rillaboom, you don't have a good squad. I understand that you don't believe it has made offensive builds too constrained and too standard, but there simply isn't data to back up that claim. I know of absolutely no successful HO teams that don't have loads of grass resists, and don't utilize extremely standard pokemon. The most creative thing that works is "Oh I added a Scizor" or "Look this one has a Gengar" which is great, but to say that offense isn't overly constrained by Rillaboom is absurd-- and indicative of a lack of experience building and playing HOs. Not a single pokemon has constrained offense in the way Rillaboom has, which makes perfect sense given that it has an unconditional stab base power 91 priority move, and a base 125 attack stat. Lots of time spent on the ladder, as well as information recieved from other top ladder players backs up the claim that HO has been forced to become overly standard.

I never said I built HO, I said I had built Offense, usually with a couple of defensive pivots and then four offensive mons. I admit I‘m no expert on HO, and I’m sure you’re probably a better player than me-I saw and really enjoyed using your Arctozolt Hail team. I don’t usually play HO simply because I don’t like it as a playstyle, but if your current sweeper (say Garchomp) gets a kill and Rillaboom switches in, can’t you just sack Chomp? And then go Volcarona or something and set up in its face? I’m just saying you don’t need an entire team of Grass resists on HO, which is what you seem to be implying. Also, I think you missed the main point of my post, which was that if Rillaboom makes HO and Offense slightly worse, why is that a bad thing? I respect your opinion as an excellent player and teambuilder, but I’m gonna have to disagree with you here.

 

[Melanie goes boating]

So, Rillaboom makes things tough for HO when RillaLucha HO has been a valid and perfectly fine team style for a while now? You cannot make a team that doesn't lose to anything in Pokémon, that is the charm of this game. If you have to make an HO that consists of multiple grass resists so you don't lose to Rillaboom, but then the team wins matches consistently anyways, what's the problem? Should we also take a look at Kartana because it also forces grass resists into teams? Should we take a look at Urshifu and/or rain teams because they make a sturdy water resist very needed in most teams? Should we take a look at Magnezone because it can invalidate some Rillaboom counters with a well timed U-Turn?

Where do we draw the line between a mon being very good and therefore obviously having to be taken into account during teambuilding and it being actually broken? There is a lot of viable grass resists, and most good teams should have at least one or two without affecting their integrity.

It's fine if you just want to make teambuilding easier, but i don't think we should point our fingers at non broken mons to accomplish it. Potentially testing and then having the possibility of banning mons that don't deserve it just to make a team style or two that are already valid and viable better shouldn't be a thing. Bans are supposed to help the whole picture.

I would agree with the idea of Rilla being a problem and deserving a test if it just ohkoed the whole tier once it's few checks(if rilla only had very few checks like vish did) like Dracovish was able to do with almost no effort. Even if Rillaboom, and a bit more when paired with Magnezone, can be painful for teams that rely on having just one metal bird as a ground and almost everything answer, or teams that rely on a Ferrothorn as a kind of blanket answer to a majority of attackers, i think it is a fair mon to have around.

I do find this discussion interesting and will be checking it out to see if some post changes my mind, however. Cheers!

 

[Liquidocelot]

If you're using a sand team with no grass resists then the problem is you, not the meta.

Gomi said it quite well.

If you can name a generation where sand doesn't require a sturdy Grass resist to stave off pokemon that would otherwise absolutely steamroll them by abusing its common staples while dismantling most of the required pieces to the playstyle, I would LOVE to hear it.

I mean hey let's delude ourselves even further, Kartana should be banned too for forcing sand to run actual resists to it instead of being able to stack pokemon with common weaknesses and only run a bulky water to shore it up

Edit - They didn't like one liners

The difference between Boom and Kartana is boom always goes first and hits hard. Kartana loses to Drill and Zolt in sand if it doesn't run scarf, it loses to chomp and Hippo is it is scarf.

Meanwhile Grassy Glide beats Drill 100% of the time 2hko's Zolt after SR (who does resist Grass btw) so your forced to run 2-3 grass resists. On a sand team which in turn makes you incredibly weak to other types.

But no you're right? Let's totally overexaggerate and take my points out of context to strawman! That'll make ya look good.

 

[gye5]

Given the Rillaboom discussion, I'd like to put my two cents into the pool and give my opinion on what Rillaboom really does to the metagame and the decisions that I'd take towards the current banlist regarding Rillaboom and a bunch of other threats. Note that I do not think the mons listed here are inherently broken, but I do think there should be more discussion regarding them.

Rillaboom:


I think this monke is honestly not that bad. Though the effects in Pinkacross' post are notable for some of the less used offensive Pokemon on Hyper Offense, such as Gyarados, these Pokemon already suffer from other problems that are relevant to the metagame, such as difficulties breaking common defensive cores, having issues with sweeping due to other, faster revenge killers like Dragapult, Zeraora and Tapu Koko, and having general issues getting on the field in the first place. However, there are three things that I believe that the post overlooks greatly with respect to Rillaboom's presence regarding offense:

1) Other variants of HOs are happily capable of using neutrals, such as Garchomp variants.

FV's Garchomp HO is an example of a HO I could consider that actually uses a few neutrals that take a large amount of damage from Rillaboom's Grassy Glide but are still none-the-less effective in the current metagame. Scale Shot Garchomp's matchups vs the majority of the metagame, even when taking into account Rillaboom matchups is still incredibly good, and this seriously offsets the disadvantage of being easily revenge killed by Rillaboom. The main issue with the other mons listed such as Gengar or Tapu Lele is that they don't provide a lot of power to clean - they are pretty good wallbreakers, but nothing that offense cannot easily handle, which more-so makes them attempts at stall counter-teams on HO structures.

2) The majority of Pokemon usable on HO are already Grass-resistant regardless of Rillaboom's presence, and pivots on less offensive builds would be common regardless due to their ability to role compress.

Think of staples like Bisharp, Dragonite, Hawlucha, Kartana, Scizor, Volcarona, etc. Regardless if the purpose for these mons were to be Rillaboom resistant, these mons would still be very good regardless of if Rillaboom were in the metagame, and still have pretty excellent synergy with a lot of other commonly used HO mons.

3) Rillaboom actually buffs HO rather than nerfs it; it is possibly the single best cleaner in the entire metagame and its presence strongly assists a bunch of HO staples like Hawlucha.

Even if Rillaboom takes a lot away from some of the more niche mons on HO, it actually adds a lot of potential on HOs and offenses itself. Rillaboom being the single best role compressor for hyper offense structures and its general ability to strongly wear down Flying-type resists makes it an excellent partner for HO in general and especially appreciates partners like Bisharp and Scizor rising as they give another form of priority for HO to abuse alongside Rillaboom. It's also highly adaptable to what needs a HO may need and honestly benefits the metagame health in this way more than any other mon does.

I find that the wall of calcs also misses the point with regards to HO: most HOs can easily get around these weaknesses with the likes of Screens support, and even with regards to this, HO has a fair amount of hard resists that Rillaboom is either scared to touch or doesn't really appreciate getting on the field. With regards to just general offenses, the likes of pivots such as defensive Landorus-Therian, Rocky Helmet Garchomp, or other Flying-type tanks like Zapdos just make Rillaboom rather difficult to utilize against them.

Onto other threats: these are mons I think have the potential to actually be broken right now.


Kartana:

I mentioned how Rillaboom has good resists in the metagame; but I did not mention how its often compared comrade, Kartana, often has easy ways of getting around these counters. CB Kartana's damage is just simply monstrous in the current metagame, especially when paired with Future Sight support - there are practically no resists to Kartana if it predicts perfectly, and even if it doesn't, it can simply spam Knock Off on most of its answers and not only remove their item but threaten a 2HKO on almost every relevant resist. Life Orb + Swords Dance variants are also pretty difficult to resist, and given the use of more passive answers like Corviknight as an answer to Choice Band, these resistances don't really fare too well if surprised by Swords Dance, as Knock Off will do surprisingly high amounts of damage to it, almost crippling it for the entire game for a partner like Garchomp to exploit. Kartana even has Synthesis; making it a decently sustainable answer to the likes of Garchomp and Landorus-Therian if the teamcomp calls for an improv Ground resist unlike Rillaboom. This one is something I'm definitely undecided on for now but I think if anything it is the single scariest breaker around right now, and out of the three mons people have been calling "actual breakers" (Kartana, Tapu Lele, Kyurem) I think this is the one that has the least counterplay of all of them and is the most suspectable by extension.

Tornadus-Therian:

I used to hate this mon but honestly I believe as my experience of the metagame has gotten better, this mon has seemed less and less borderline and more of a threat that I'd need to have at the top of my priority list for checking wallbreakers. Nasty Plot seemingly has only 2 counters in Tapu Koko and Zapdos, but there are more options that exist to either status or offensively check Tornadus-Therian. Slowking + Revenge Killer is probably one of the best methods to deal with Tornadus-Therian as it is almost universal to its set versatility and is capable of being splashed on many teams. Some other checks like Toxapex, Blissey (run SpD bias!) and Corviknight are all pretty good at pivoting around it and either crippling it or stalling it out. Because of Regenerator, this mon tends not to care about those, but because it cannot easily make lasting progress vs these three either, it tends to suffer from being easily stalemated and tends not to be the optimal way to break through teams. It is strong due to Regenerator and can employ some ways of getting around pivots (Taunt & Substitute are great answers) but then it lacks the ability to chip the actual hard counters through Knock Off. It's a difficult mon to properly evaluate in the metagame because of its weird accuracy problems and I feel like it's not the first thing I'd suspect anymore now; however I don't really have a doubt that it will show itself as broken in the future because of Regenerator and the ability for it to make progress vs pretty much every check.

Dragapult:

OK so you know how the general complaint towards Rillaboom was how it invalidated offensive teams by forcing almost every mon to resist it? Well here's a mon that offense finds extremely difficult to resist at all. Dragapult is an uncivilized savage that barely has any guaranteed resists for a mon with 142 Speed, and has all of the tools to get momentum out of just about any situation. I'd like to split this into two points, to get down why this mon could be potentially broken.

1: Choice Specs

Dragapult @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Shadow Ball
- Thunder
- U-turn

Get rid of all of those other options. Hex? Lame, imagine being able to break a team when well supported. Fire Blast? Ferrothorn and Corviknight aren't checking you that well anyway. Scald? OK Scald > U-turn w Hex over Thunder is actually the real deal but don't tell anyone I said that
All you need is this single set to just mash past most of the metagame. Thunder is capable of hitting the few mons that actually do check you decently, either by 2HKO or, if you're lucky enough to get yourself into a long game, it is capable of being a decent wincon through paralysis on counters like Clefable and unkillable pivots like SpD Toxapex. This mon effectively only has 3 good answers, two of which are very easy to abuse with U-turn + a breaker like Kartana or Pads Melmetal. This is a stupid offensive threat honestly and I think it should at least be looked into to some degree in the future, likely after a Zamazenta-C suspect.

2: Serperior Incarnate (Hex)

Dragapult @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid / Naive Nature
- Draco Meteor / Dragon Darts
- Hex
- Thunder Wave / Will-O-Wisp
- Substitute / U-turn

This set is just not fun to load into. This mon is just straight up better than Serperior at cheesing wins with Thunder Wave; it not only has U-turn to try and fish for a para after doing 35% with Hex to its desired target, but it can do even better by utilizing Substitute to force paralysis and break teams in an uncompetitive way that lies outside of the player's control. Even the aforementioned SpD Clefable is vulnerable to this. This does have a few more mons that can provide partial counterplay like Mandibuzz, SpD Hippowdon / Landorus-Therian and Tyranitar, but these are all vulnerable to secondary options and are exceedingly easy to punish. If your build is capable of dealing with Specs just fine, then Thunder Wave Dragapult is likely to cause issues that you wouldn't expect to be issues. Its counterplay is almost entirely centralized around Thunder Wave just not paralyzing and that's super unhealthy for competitive play.

The influence these two sets have on offense is astronomical and I honestly think that is grounds for a ban given how little actually resists Dragapult, especially safely, and given how its offensive counterplay is practically non-existent I just don't think that's healthy.



Toxapex:

This mon is not broken, but rather a mon I would consider unhealthy for the metagame, no matter how the metagame changes to mold around it. It is probably the first mon I'd want to suspect throughout this entire list as the ways it has around its checks are plentiful and because of Regenerator, punishes towards it are often moot because Toxapex can very easily just tank super effective hits and recover back. The likes of Zeraora and Tapu Koko often find it difficult to break it reliably without any form of punish through Knock Off / Toxic / Toxic Spikes, and other ways of dealing with Toxapex tend to result in sluggish gameplay (i.e Reuniclus / Clefable are answers that cannot be punished further than their item getting removed) that make the game inherently unfun for players facing Toxapex, regardless of if they're using a breaker that is completely walled by Toxapex or not, like Keldeo or Urshifu-R.

Due to the difficulty in making theory connect with actual evidence, I've decided to add some replays that showcase some of Toxapex (or other mons listed here) in action, where they might have some unhealthy aspects showcased.

replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-549932 Garay Oak may have had the early game advantage here, with Dragapult + Slowking + Ferrothorn causing serious issues for Toxapex and Corviknight, making pivoting rather difficult, but in the end, Toxapex is capable of tanking even a crit Future Sight and stalling out a Slowking to win the endgame. Due to Knock Off and Scald's pressure, Slowking is also incapable of setting Future Sight throughout the game easily in order to pressure with Dragapult easily, especially with Hydreigon being able to stomach Future Sight hits and pressure Slowking with enough damage to force it into low range with a flinch. Even with a Spike and a Stealth Rock up, because of how Toxapex can pressure Slowking, Dragapult is incapable of forcing enough damage onto Toxapex, and is incapable of preventing it from regenerating the damage that it took.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-549945 {This tour game is confusing, I'm not sure whether Boots, Toxapex or the teamcomp end up being the issue here)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-547956 Even despite Rumor's Slowking + Urshifu-R, because of Toxapex, Gastrodon and Corviknight working together, and Clefable being able to wall a Surging Strikeless Urshifu in the endgame, Rumor is unable to deal enough damage to the Toxapex before Surging Strikes gets low in PP, resulting in Aurella's team winning out due to a lack of paralysis on Clefable.

Slowbrothers / Future Sight / Teleport / Regenerator / Heavy-Duty Boots:

As it is difficult to pinpoint just what the issue is with these mons (and the addition of Toxapex in some cases), I figured I'd lump all of these points into one single area of discussion. The sluggish nature of the metagame to some is really what people have been blaming on Heavy-Duty Boots this entire time, but if I'm honest; I think it's more of an issue with Regenerator pivots, because in most cases, Stealth Rock barely impacts these mons abilities to check certain targets. Yes; I admit that this is missing the point with Zeraora, Tapu Koko (and Cinderace) in the metagame, but if I'm honest those pivots show the contrary as a result of the metagame and the ability for these Pokemon to continually shuffle is more of a representative of player skill differential to me. But not really with the Slowbrothers + Toxapex. Between these three mons, progress can easily be halted due to their access to both Regenerator and reliable recovery, making it not only very difficult to chip down these mons, but also very easy for them to make progress. All three of them slow down the game pretty significantly, even regardless of if the opponent can lay down enough hazard pressure on them. Here are some replays showcasing some potential issues that might regard these 5:

replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-544656 It can be hard to pinpoint whether the issue is Kartana or a Future Sight user here, but the outcome is evident in this replay that whilst Sacri's team is capable of dealing with most of these threats, when coupled with an ease of access Future Sight user, they become extremely difficult to answer. Case in point from Kartana - a crit Future Sight puts Skarmory in range of a Knock Off, which spirals the game from there.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-545664 Even with a Tapu Bulu, Slowking takes advantage of Kommo-o's inability to hurt Slowking by attempting to inflict burns, and successfully manages to get up a Future Sight early. This results in the Bisharp being capable of taking advantage of the situation, restricting the amount of plays that the opposing team could make against such a team. This subsequently made it difficult for reiku to resist Seperation's Heatran, allowing Separation's team to crush reiku.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-545738 Due to Serene Grace being unable to harm John W's Slowking immediately, John W can play aggressively with Slowking, allowing it to pivot out, set Future Sight and check Pokemon like Slowking-Galar that would otherwise cause a need for prediction. Because of John W's Heal Bell Dragonite, Serene Grace is unable to get lasting damage on Slowking and the rest of John W's supporting team. Whilst Serene Grace's Garchomp got a lucky break, it was not enough to stop Slowking from doing its business and allowing John W to effortlessly break Serene Grace's weakened team.

The 50/50s: The mons I am rather undecided on as to if they'll ever be banworthy.


The Chomper:

Garchomp is a difficult mon to consider. For me, it hasn't really been broken for a long while, ever since counterplay settled down towards the likes of the SD + Scale Shot set; as Garchomps have started to run Leftovers more, some other checks like Clefable can be used as decent answers, and as long as Garchomp isn't Fire Fang, some answers like Kartana and Substitute + Bulk Up Corviknight are also capable of either walling it out or significantly chipping Garchomp to the point where it is incapable of sweeping. The mixed set still doesn't have enough damage capability to fully get through Corviknight either, and the likes of Rillaboom and other revenge killers tend to limit Garchomp's ability to wallbreak effectively. But, for Life Orb variants or some variants with different coverage, i.e Aqua Tail, it can be difficult to find consistent checks in any meaningful form to Garchomp and that is really what makes it potentially broken. For now, however, I think it's just generally checkable and doesn't really force a whole lot on teams, aside from the occasional Ice Beam carrying bulky water.



The Heatman:

Heatran is obnoxious and has a lot of ways around its supposed counters, but it also has a lot of ways that both offensive and defensive counterplay can screw it over. Is Heatran's inability to be effectively countered broken? Possibly, but I also find that it takes quite a bit of time for Heatran to pull off some of the feats that it does, and it often needs to be at full health to perform them. Some examples of excellent checks are:

Shed Shell Toxapex: Can just dodge pretty much every one of Heatran's shenanigans; even Earth Power variants don't do enough damage.
Slowking: Excellent pivot, but prone to being worn down via Toxic + Taunt and Scald often doesn't do enough damage to SpDef Heatran to perform the role correctly.
Garchomp: Lacks longevity; but Rest variants are practically hard counters.
Hydreigon: Can have issues dealing with Body Press and Toxic in tandem, but otherwise a counter.
Heal Bell Dragonite: Perfect counter but lets Stealth Rock through. Crippled by Toxic if it's Defog however.
Swampert: Lacks longevity but a perfect answer on faster paced builds.
Tapu Fini: Can have issues vs Heavy Slam variants, but also a decent short-term answer.

The main issues with most of these mons are that Heatran can very easily get past them given enough time and prediction, but this is really what a stallbreaker should do; and it's not like the counters listed here are exactly the end to what you can use against Heatran, especially on stall. There are enough wallbreakers and offensive checks that can easily switch into Heatran and pressure it to the point where offense shouldn't really struggle against Heatran, and both sides have enough variant checks for this mon to not cause building to become a boring slouch unlike some of the breakers listed here. Good mon - would not like to see this mon banned for a while, but I can see its set versatility becoming an issue later on.


The Doggo (Crowned version):

A hot topic in recent discussion, Zamazenta-Crowned is a mon I would also indeed like to see suspected. Between the current viability of Ground-types, the bulky Regenerator cores that tend to blank out its coverage, and all the other elements like Rocky Helmet that this mon hates, I'm starting to believe this could be an OK addition to OU now. However, if you can cope with not being able to outspeed Tornadus-Therian, this might make you reconsider:

Zamazenta-Crowned @ Rusted Shield
Ability: Dauntless Shield
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Behemoth Bash
- Wild Charge / Psychic Fangs
- Howl

Adamant nature Zamazenta-C is really what makes me look into it and think "are you sure this mon could be OK?" however. With an Adamant nature, certain physical resists start losing HP on cycles trying to deal with this mon, such as Slowbro and Toxapex. Both of these mons take ~60% average from Wild Charge, which makes it easy for Zamazenta-C to spam Wild Charge / Psychic Fangs in the case of Toxapex for the next switchin. It starts becoming dangerous for these mons to check it - and it already is dangerous for others like Zapdos, Landorus-Therian and Garchomp - they're all losing if Zamazenta-C can get on the field at full HP, and in the case of Zapdos, manage to dodge paralysis. I think to make a further decision on this mon I'd like to see it in action, because although these calcs in theory make Zamazenta-C seem broken, it is unlikely that this will carry on into the actual game.

Originally, there was a paragraph about Zamazenta's Hero forme here, but that forme actually has the ability to completely screw over offensive teams, as its higher immediate power gives it a better chance at screwing over Pokemon like Rillaboom & Scizor.

Bonus threats: these are mons I'd disagree on being banworthy even if the metagame were to change from the others being banned - I just think that their list of checks are big enough and their offensive counterplay is easy enough to fit to the point where they won't be hurting building too much.

Kyurem:

I've been hearing a lot of discussion over Kyurem recently as being a potentially banworthy threat, but I don't really see it? SubRoost is super easy to play around with enough offensive pressure, and even if Kyurem does manage to get a Substitute up, the existence of Dragapult as well as other common defensive pivots like SpD Clefable, Ferrothorn and Corviknight make Kyurem a tough mon to even use against these Pokemon. Specs is dangerous as any other breaker but the likes of Clefable, Corviknight, Toxapex, Slowking and Blissey at least allow for some ways of dissuading Kyurem from clicking X move and taking one, even if they are heavily damaged by Specs Freeze-Dry. There are also decent pivots like AV Slowking-Galar, Scizor, Ferrothorn, Volcarona, Tyranitar and Melmetal that can make Kyurem difficult to use properly due to the ridiculous amount of prediction it needs to make to make only a little bit of progress. It is indeed strong, and could be seen as a broken mon on paper, but the amount of pivots that exist in the metagame right now make Kyurem a little difficult to justify as being broken.

Blissey isn't 2HKO'd by Specs Focus Blast if you use 252 Def / 252 SpD btw.


Tapu Lele:

I've also heard discussion about a potential Tapu Lele ban, but for the most part, Tapu Lele is also fine as a wallbreaker, and unlike Kyurem, it has some practically true counters - it cannot really punch past Corviknight and Slowking without Thunder, and dropping Thunder is crippling Tapu Lele's ability to go mindless and just click Psychic / Psyshock as it has to choose one of the two to not end up getting walled by the plethora of Steel-types available. These mons are also still capable of pivoting around Tapu Lele - this is not to mention Tapu Lele's fairly extensive offensive counterplay list and the more niche counters like Jirachi, Aegislash and Victini that can be used if there is a need for a hard Lele answer. The main difference about Tapu Lele's checks is that they don't all have reliable recovery, which means that Tapu Lele can get through them much easier without the need for much prediction, which arguably makes it worse than Kyurem to deal with.



Zeraora:

Zeraora is an interesting mon to list, and I mostly lump this in with Boots, but like a few mons on this list, if it has been given enough time, it can get through practically the entire metagame through Toxic, Knock Off, and Volt Switch alone. However, my main issue with this logic is not only are there good counters that can tank most, if not everything Zeraora can do - especially given Heal Bell support, but the fact that this mon takes a very long time to get to where it is offensively. Boots help it pull that off, but I'll be honest: I think if a player can indeed click Knock Off and Volt Switch on the right turns consecutively, over the course of the game, and come in multiple times without being hit, often times in the double digits, I believe that the player who just pulled that off should have the right to win the game. It's a difficult thing to do properly, but when done properly it's sweet and rewarding. I don't really think Zeraora being able to pull off that amount of shuffling and being able to win from it is exactly banworthy, but I've heard a few people express major distaste for this mon.

About Zeraora, boots make this mon so irritating, I like boots for mon that need it, but Zeraora competes for the most dead brain mon of all time with dracovish. Is knock off, volt switch or toxic, cripple something and runs away. Thats Zeraora in a nutshell

 

[Pinkacross]

So, Rillaboom makes things tough for HO when RillaLucha HO has been a valid and perfectly fine team style for a while now? You cannot make a team that doesn't lose to anything in Pokémon, that is the charm of this game. If you have to make an HO that consists of multiple grass resists so you don't lose to Rillaboom, but then the team wins matches consistently anyways, what's the problem? Should we also take a look at Kartana because it also forces grass resists into teams? Should we take a look at Urshifu and/or rain teams because they make a sturdy water resist very needed in most teams? Should we take a look at Magnezone because it can invalidate some Rillaboom counters with a well timed U-Turn?

Simply put, the problem is that Rillaboom has overcentralized and over standardized offensive building, and made it almost impossible to create successful teams that don't use the standard HO grass resists. Why does this make Rillaboom a problem and not Kartana? Choice Banded Rillaboom Grassy Glide is a priority move, and it is FAR stronger than Scarf Kartana leaf blade. If a Dragapult sets up a Dragon Dance, Scarf Kartana is no longer a threat. If a Cloyster sets up a Shell Smash, Scarf Kartana is no longer a threat. Rillaboom, however, is vastly different. You can't compare a Scarf pokemon with base 109 speed to a priority move, especially when the priority move is almost 1.5x as strong as the scarfer's main stab. If your point is valid, then it would be logical that other pokemon ALSO force playstyles to run lots of resists. So, I would ask, name me a single other pokemon that forces as much preparation as Rillaboom does with HO. Just a single one. Feel free to look, but I already have-- and nothing comes close.

I never said I built HO, I said I had built Offense, usually with a couple of defensive pivots and then four offensive mons. I admit I‘m no expert on HO, and I’m sure you’re probably a better player than me-I saw and really enjoyed using your Arctozolt Hail team. I don’t usually play HO simply because I don’t like it as a playstyle, but if your current sweeper (say Garchomp) gets a kill and Rillaboom switches in, can’t you just sack Chomp? And then go Volcarona or something and set up in its face? I’m just saying you don’t need an entire team of Grass resists on HO, which is what you seem to be implying. Also, I think you missed the main point of my post, which was that if Rillaboom makes HO and Offense slightly worse, why is that a bad thing? I respect your opinion as an excellent player and teambuilder, but I’m gonna have to disagree with you here.

You're talking about in practice. In practice, Rillaboom isn't broken and it hasn't made HO worse in my opinion-- it's just forced it to be standard and run loads of grass resists. The main problem is, why are you running that Volcarona in the first place? Because you have to. As for not needing a whole team of grass resists... you sort of DO need a full team of grass resists. Not a single HO has managed to get away with functioning consistently at a high level without loads of grass resists. I'd love to see you prove me wrong, if you could show me HO teams that succeeded without having intentionally anti-rilla setup sweepers, but I highly doubt such a thing exists. Your opinion is not bad nor is it ignorant, but data generally doesn't back up your claims. Thank you for being so polite in your responses, however, and I'm glad you enjoyed the Arctozolt hail! :]

Given the Rillaboom discussion, I'd like to put my two cents into the pool and give my opinion on what Rillaboom really does to the metagame and the decisions that I'd take towards the current banlist regarding Rillaboom and a bunch of other threats. Note that I do not think the mons listed here are inherently broken, but I do think there should be more discussion regarding them.

Rillaboom:


I think this monke is honestly not that bad. Though the effects in Pinkacross' post are notable for some of the less used offensive Pokemon on Hyper Offense, such as Gyarados, these Pokemon already suffer from other problems that are relevant to the metagame, such as difficulties breaking common defensive cores, having issues with sweeping due to other, faster revenge killers like Dragapult, Zeraora and Tapu Koko, and having general issues getting on the field in the first place. However, there are three things that I believe that the post overlooks greatly with respect to Rillaboom's presence regarding offense:

1) Other variants of HOs are happily capable of using neutrals, such as Garchomp variants.

FV's Garchomp HO is an example of a HO I could consider that actually uses a few neutrals that take a large amount of damage from Rillaboom's Grassy Glide but are still none-the-less effective in the current metagame. Scale Shot Garchomp's matchups vs the majority of the metagame, even when taking into account Rillaboom matchups is still incredibly good, and this seriously offsets the disadvantage of being easily revenge killed by Rillaboom. The main issue with the other mons listed such as Gengar or Tapu Lele is that they don't provide a lot of power to clean - they are pretty good wallbreakers, but nothing that offense cannot easily handle, which more-so makes them attempts at stall counter-teams on HO structures.

2) The majority of Pokemon usable on HO are already Grass-resistant regardless of Rillaboom's presence, and pivots on less offensive builds would be common regardless due to their ability to role compress.

Think of staples like Bisharp, Dragonite, Hawlucha, Kartana, Scizor, Volcarona, etc. Regardless if the purpose for these mons were to be Rillaboom resistant, these mons would still be very good regardless of if Rillaboom were in the metagame, and still have pretty excellent synergy with a lot of other commonly used HO mons.

3) Rillaboom actually buffs HO rather than nerfs it; it is possibly the single best cleaner in the entire metagame and its presence strongly assists a bunch of HO staples like Hawlucha.

Even if Rillaboom takes a lot away from some of the more niche mons on HO, it actually adds a lot of potential on HOs and offenses itself. Rillaboom being the single best role compressor for hyper offense structures and its general ability to strongly wear down Flying-type resists makes it an excellent partner for HO in general and especially appreciates partners like Bisharp and Scizor rising as they give another form of priority for HO to abuse alongside Rillaboom. It's also highly adaptable to what needs a HO may need and honestly benefits the metagame health in this way more than any other mon does.

I find that the wall of calcs also misses the point with regards to HO: most HOs can easily get around these weaknesses with the likes of Screens support, and even with regards to this, HO has a fair amount of hard resists that Rillaboom is either scared to touch or doesn't really appreciate getting on the field. With regards to just general offenses, the likes of pivots such as defensive Landorus-Therian, Rocky Helmet Garchomp, or other Flying-type tanks like Zapdos just make Rillaboom rather difficult to utilize against them.

Onto other threats: these are mons I think have the potential to actually be broken right now.

1. Yes, HO can afford to run a couple neutral resists, especially Garchomp, because Garchomp shreds balance teams and rarely goes down without scoring a kill, making it a great choice for HO, especially combined with its natural bulk. That being said, I didn't say ALL pokemon needed to be anti-rillaboom, just the vast majority, which; based on looking at successful HO builds, this is a difficult point to refute.

2. Sorry, don't agree with this one at all. The reason that those pokemon are staples in the first place is BECAUSE of Rillaboom. If Rillaboom were not here, Volcarona would be quite rare, actually. It's hard walled by Heatran, Toxapex shuts it down, rain destroys it... Volcarona is mainly on HO builds for Rillaboom. Scizor is a fairly new addition to HO that was only popularized at the time when Rillaboom recieved Grassy Glide, and this is not a coincidence. Furthermore, like Volcarona, Dragonite is quite a lackluster sweeper and many are starting to abandon it on HO builds, as it rarely manages to get even a single kill, being easily shut down by Toxic + any defensive wall. Bisharp, Kartana, and Hawlucha would likely be on HOs somewhat commonly without Rillaboom, though if you were to try making a team with just these as the Rillaboom grass resists, you would be disappointed.

3. You are correct. Rillaboom does make HO better. I never said it made HO worse. The problem is that it ties HO down to using a very small set of pokemon, killing the diversity and innovation of all offensive teams.

To get a more accurate picture of WHY Rillaboom should be banned, I recommend reading my initial post, as well as my shorter clarification post at the top of this page.

 

[Tushar Cool]

The difference between Boom and Kartana is boom always goes first and hits hard. Kartana loses to Drill and Zolt in sand if it doesn't run scarf, it loses to chomp and Hippo is it is scarf.

Meanwhile Grassy Glide beats Drill 100% of the time 2hko's Zolt after SR (who does resist Grass btw) so your forced to run 2-3 grass resists. On a sand team which in turn makes you incredibly weak to other types.

But no you're right? Let's totally overexaggerate and take my points out of context to strawman! That'll make ya look good.

So you're telling me you won't run any grass resists in a sand team after Rilla gets banned?

Honestly you're comparing it the worst way possible , you can't just straight up say things like "Excadrill beats kart in sand"(actually it depends) , and I don't know how Kart loses to hippo. Further I'd like to add that it's not how you build teams or judge mons , Rillaboom gets walled by the grass type counter you run and also Rillaboom can't ohko Dracozolt (Don't know why you brought up Dracozolt for kart argument but not for Rilla argument).

By your logic even Barraskewda should be banned because that also beats half of a sand team with it's priority aqua jet.

 

[pulsar512b]

U mean thwakey, because is available in the lowest tier

mb i misremembered- i know Grookey is good in LC at least.

Anyway, I think Rilla is not really a problem, and if anything there are bigger issues right now, such as Dragapult and possibly Garchomp (probably not tho tbh lol)