Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion (Usage stats in post #944)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Goth is faster, but Nasty Plot isn't needed on Hatterene because it has a base special attack stat that's over 40 points higher than Gothitelle's, and Magic Bounce is a much better ability than Competitive in this OU metagame right now
true, I use calm mind on my hat and she does well. Nasty Plot helps goth a lot it seems, plus she is naturally bulkier, but this meta seems to be focusing on hyper offense or super tank, no mix huh?
 

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
I've been trying to get brightpowder banned under evasion clause for like 5 years, and that's an item that exists solely to introduce more RNG in the game. The fact of the matter is, nobody really cares about inconsequential albeit uncompetitive mechanics (like brightpowder), and that's fine, imo. There's merit to minimizing the amount of times someone clicks "find battle" and gets told their team is invalid in OU because of some non-pokemon ban.

Is moody glalie really the hill yall want to die on here? Ive yet to see any compelling evidence that glalie is broken, or even decent, with evasion boosts out of the picture. It's not like you have to make any particularly tough decisions when glalie is on the field. If you made a wrong guess when handling mega medicham, kartana, mega mawile, etc, you could instantly lose a mon or get outright swept. Glalie takes so long to come online that I struggle to understand the "no counterplay" arguments. It's fairly mediocre and unreliable compared to the "gg bro" unkillable boosters of the past (cp/cm clef, sub cm mega lati, iron defense reuni, etc.) while having many of the same answers.

I think a lot of the hype is confirmation bias, tbh. You can find a bunch of replays of anything sweeping (remember flail Magikarp in Ubers?), but it's easy to forget all of the battles where it didn't put in work. This is especially true considering how encounters with glalie are generally drawn-out and annoying, like old-school subseeding.

Is anyone seriously more afraid of getting swept by glalie than they are of dracapult, Gyarados, Hawlucha, or any of the major other offensive powerhouses in the tier? Yeah, fighting Glalie is unfun, but that's not a good enough reason to ban it. I'd give it til after the dynamax suspect before taking a firm position. Wait for the new-toy hype (hi sigilyph) to wear off a bit.
 
Last edited:

Colonel M

I COULD BE BORED!
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
So really I spent an hour making a very good thread fo Gothitelle and just instant locked and shes not gertting her own thread... why is that? Nasty Plot does help her a ton... and I honestly think the Shadow Tag Ban is a little much. Yes is strong but with so many moves now to escape its not as bad.

Still, I think She can be better without shadow tag thanks to Nasty plot. It raises her a ton with Competitive too, to hit even harder.

But can she make it to OU, or will she just be UU?
Gothitelle has myriad amount of problems with it. It's not very fast, Competitive is an okay ability but it will only activate in niche situations (Clefable's Moonblast, Defog). Gothitelle is also pretty frail in terms of physical Defense. The reason it was so good was because of Shadow Tag. Without it, Goth kind of struggles to apply pressure. Missing out on Hidden Powers are big too - this means Pokemon like Ferrothorn are quite annoying for it without resorting to Dynamaxing. There are many more efficient Psychic-types that can setup (Reuniclus, Hatterne) and there are far more effective Nasty Plot users (Hydreigon, Gengar, Togekiss) in the tier. I'd say Gothitelle's niche is not something that's really wanted in the tier. It can certainly "work", but you're arguably crippling yourself by attempting to use something that just doesn't have the same amount of results and crosses into the argument of "fun vs efficient".
 

Apagogie

Zee you later
is a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
Is anyone seriously more afraid of getting swept by glalie than they are of dracapult, Gyarados, Hawlucha, or any of the major other offensive powerhouses in the tier? Yeah, fighting Glalie is unfun, but that's not a good enough reason to ban it. I'd give it til after the dynamax suspect before taking a firm position. Wait for the new-toy hype (hi sigilyph) to wear off a bit.
Yeah, definitely. You know how to deal with Dragapult, Hawlucha or Gyarados. According to your team and the set they use, you are more or less weak to them but you know what do you need to counter them or how to play around. This is impossible with Glalie because it only depends on RNG. During my ladder session for the reqs, I had a game where I did all I was able to do to prevent Glalie to set up for free and I stacked hazards to prevent if to come for free. At the end of the battle, I did what was necessary to have my Hawlucha with Unburden activated against a Glalie a mid-life without any boost. It beats me and the rest of the team thanks to a double def rise after a double protect.

You could say it was pretty a pretty bad probably for me to face this situation but the concept of Glalie is to rely on probabilities. If a player focuses during the all the battle to beat a mon and which still wins battles because it wins the lottery is not a healthy situation. Would you like to have any game of tournament which are decided by Glalie ? This mon is not a gimmick, people have done reqs in using it and it requires no skill at all. I don't even understand why you compare it with Magikarp because it has never been used seriously in any actual tier and relies fully on the team behind and the fact that your opponent is bad.

Glalie is a trash mon without Moddy but Moddy is available so it's a different story. Yeah, in some match ups, it will be useless such as Evasion is useless if your opponent hits moves or when you use baton pass and your opponent has a counterplay. It is unhealthy, we can discuss about the level of unhealthyness it has but I think everybody here could agree that sitting behind a sub and clicking protect until the probabilities award you require no skill at all and if it's viable, it's terrible for the competitive aspect of the metagame.
 

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
At the end of the battle, I did what was necessary to have my Hawlucha with Unburden activated against a Glalie a mid-life without any boost. It beats me and the rest of the team thanks to a double def rise after a double protect.
I don't think Moody is a notable problem in this example. There's a ~4% chance for Moody to give +4 def over two turns, which is the particular combo that screwed you over.

That's lower than the chance to get a crit. It's much lower than the chance to miss a fire blast or twave. It's much, much lower than the chance to burn with scald or get 2 protects. Those are all things that could easily halt or enable a sweep because of RNG.

What's the difference between those and Moody except that Moody is more memorable? A lot of these anti-moody comments feel like a frustration with RNG elements rather than of a critique of Moody itself.
 
Last edited:
I don't understand how Moody is the problem in this example. There's a ~4% chance for Moody to give +4 def over two turns, which is the particular combo that screwed you over.

That's lower than the chance to get a crit. It's much lower than the chance to miss a fire blast or twave. It's much, much lower than the chance to burn with scald or get 2 protects. Those are all things that could easily halt or enable a sweep because of RNG.

What's the difference between those and Moody except that Moody is more memorable? A lot of these anti-moody comments feel like a frustration with RNG elements rather than of a critique of Moody itself.
There is no reason to keep moody around though. It's just an element of RNG that has the potential to lose you a game and we can easily get rid of it without changing built-in game mechanics. Why keep it around? I have the same feelings about blunder policy as well.
 

Apagogie

Zee you later
is a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
I don't understand how Moody is the problem in this example. There's a ~4% chance for Moody to give +4 def over two turns, which is the particular combo that screwed you over.

That's lower than the chance to get a crit. It's much lower than the chance to miss a fire blast or twave. It's much, much lower than the chance to burn with scald or get 2 protects. Those are all things that could easily halt or enable a sweep because of RNG.

What's the difference between those and Moody except that Moody is more memorable? A lot of these anti-moody comments feel like a frustration with RNG elements rather than of a critique of Moody itself.
A double speed boost would have been the same.

Pokemons which rely on having a critical hit every turn are less powerful because critical hits only offer a +0,5 boost on every move (SD does more for example). At the contrary, Moody relies on having boosts of x2 in power every turn randomly and in still being able to attack and so to stall.

The problem here is not the haxx, it's the concept of the strategy which uncompetitive and absurdly strong. It is difficult to get rid of Glalie behind a substitute and with protect which means it can stall dozen of turns in waiting to reach the good buffs. It's not haxx, it's just probabilities. My story just told why Glalie is far more threaten for me than any other mon. Even when I think to have the situation in control, the concept of Moody can still get me without I can do anything.

It's the same thing with evasion. We didn't ban it because it's frustrating, otherwise stall would have been banned for dozen of years. We banned it because it relies on probabilities which gives the user of the unhealthy mon an invincibility according to the circumstances.

A mon which uses critical hits every turn such as Kingdra just has a move 1,5 more powerful. It's powerful in some tier for sure but it never has been a problem considering mons with protean or adaptability basically do the same thing and it's manageable.
And if your argument was "You can lose against Glalie with double boost of defense, it also happens to lose against critical hits", yeah, for sure but mons such as Dragapult or Darmanitan are not based on getting a crit every turn. It's the concept of Moody and its application which is fundamentally unhealthy and uncompetitive. Once again, a competitive battle shouldn't reward the person who sits behind a sub and spamming protect every turn, a strategy which requires no skill at all. This strategy is viable as we have seen it in mid/high ladder, during the suspect, and maybe for the next tournaments.
 
Last edited:
Really? Just one? It's hard to seriously discuss counterplay when most people who are whining about the lack of options to deal with Moody also seem to be ignoring every chance to actually explore what these options really might be. To be blunt, it is starting to seem like excuses to me. I'm going to suggest for a third time in this thread that people actually try to examine all these potential counterplay options in more depth before crying that there are none. And this time, let's be really clear about making a list so we can cross things off that don't really work. I will get it started so it actually happens. So far, I have seen a few potential methods that have been suggested for countering Moody and/or Moody Glalie.

Potential Moody Counterplay:
  1. Counter Abilities - To counter ability with ability.
  2. Prankster - For priority status.
  3. Infiltrator - For Substitute.
  4. Priority Damage - To priority 1HKO.
  5. Roar - To phase out stat boosted pokemon.
  6. Whirlwind - Also to phase out stat boosted pokemon.
I'll also add Unaware just to see if we can rule it out easier. If anyone can think of anything else to add, please say so. Unfortunately, I won't have quite enough time to get to Haze and sound based moves like Hyper Voice before I post this. So we can examine that after. For each potential counterplay method, I will list every pokemon that is the highest in their evolution line that is available in Gen 8 and can do one of these things to maybe possibly provide some sort of counter play to Moody. Before I do that, I just want to explain some things...

First, Roar and Whirlwind could be harder to stop once Dynamax is likely banned. In the same vein, I'm only going to post pokemon with a speed of 80+ for Roar and Whirlwind since Glalie also has a speed of 80. The assumption is that Glalie gets enough boosts to take out most walls, so you likely have to outspeed it with Choice Scarf or whatnot.

Next is the symbols I will use as shorthand. Pokemon with an * next to their name will have a potential hidden ability that hasn't be released yet, but could be potential options in the future. Pokemon with a + next to their name are in multiple lists, and thus should only be counted once in the total list. Pokemon with names crossed out are almost certainly too low tier and/or lacking to be effective in OU with this strategy. Keep in mind I'll be mostly extremely lenient at first with crossing out UU names just so we can be sure to examine them fairly.

Lists of Pokemon with these Capabilities:

  1. Weezing-Galar (Neutralizing Gas)
  2. Runerigus - (Wandering Spirit)
  3. Cofagrigus (Mummy)
Available and Potentially Viable: 3
  1. Sableye
  2. Riolu
  3. Liepard*
  4. Whimsicott+
  5. Meowstic*
  6. Grimmsnarl
Available and Potentially Viable: 3
  1. Ninjask
  2. Whimsicott+
  3. Chandelure
  4. Meowstic
  5. Malamar
  6. Noivern+
  7. Dragapult
Available and Potentially Viable: 6
  1. Lucario+ (Mach Punch/Bullet Punch/Extreme Speed)
  2. Conkeldurr (Mach Punch + Guts)
  3. Hitmonlee (Mach Punch + Bullet Punch)
  4. Hitmonchan (Mach Punch + Bullet Punch + Iron Fist)
  5. Hitmontop (Mach Punch + Bullet Punch + Technician)
  6. Arcanine+ (Extreme Speed)
  7. Raichu (Extreme Speed)
  8. Toxicroak (Bullet Punch)
  9. Machamp (Bullet Punch)
  10. Pangoro (Bullet Punch + Iron Fist)
Available and Potentially Viable: 9
  1. Jolteon
  2. Boltund
  3. Persian
  4. Manectric
  5. Charizard
  6. Ninetails
  7. Mew+
  8. Hydreigon
  9. Haxorus
  10. Arcanine+
  11. Drapion+
  12. Leafeon
  13. Silvally
  14. Lucario+
  15. Skunktank
  16. Gyarados
  17. Mamoswine
Available and Potentially Viable: 15
  1. Noivern+
  2. Mew+
  3. Sigilyph
  4. Drapion+
  5. Shiftry
  6. Braviary
  7. Mandibuzz
Available and Potentially Viable: 5
  1. Swoobat
  2. Clefable*
  3. Quagsire
  4. Pyukumuku
Available and Potentially Viable: 1

Total List:

  1. Weezing-Galar
  2. Runerigus
  3. Cofagrigus
  4. Sableye
  5. Whimsicott+
  6. Grimmsnarl
  7. Ninjask
  8. Chandelure
  9. Meowstic
  10. Malamar
  11. Dragapult
  12. Lucario+
  13. Conkeldurr
  14. Hitmonlee
  15. Hitmonchan
  16. Hitmontop
  17. Arcanine+
  18. Toxicroak
  19. Machamp
  20. Pangoro
  21. Jolteon
  22. Boltund
  23. Charizard
  24. Ninetails
  25. Mew+
  26. Hydreigon
  27. Haxorus
  28. Drapion+
  29. Leafeon
  30. Silvally
  31. Skunktank
  32. Gyarados
  33. Mamoswine
  34. Sigilyph
  35. Shiftry
  36. Mandibuzz
  37. Pyukumuku

Conclusion:

I spent a few hours searching on Pokemon Showdown and compiling all this, and I found nearly 40 pokemon that could potentially have some counterplay against Moody according to various strategies. And I haven't even gotten into Haze or sound based moves yet. Will all of these pokemon I listed actually be viable options in OU while also being viable checks or counter to Moody? No! Of course not. Many of them, if not most of them, should be crossed off as we go through them with more scrutiny. On the other hand, some of them could be good options.

So the next time someone comes on here whining about how there are not enough options for Moody counterplay, please take a hard look at this list before you arbitrarily dismiss most of the emerging metagame.

And to prevent any potential misunderstandings, I will emphasize that I am not here to make an argument that all of these pokemon will definitely be good counters for Moody in OU. The actual point is for us to start really ruling things out so that we have an idea of how many (or few) truly viable options there actually are.
All these methods of counterplay can apply to Baton Pass chains as well. But the reason that BP is banned is not because there's no counterplay. It's because, even if everything goes wrong for the BP user and the opponent has sufficient counterplay, the BP user still has more options available to them, as countering that strategy requires specific counterplay that can be seen from a mile away and the BP user can play around it.

Moody is the same way. I've seen many of the things you listed used against Moody. However, as the opponent has to play quickly to stop Moody, it's easy to predict what they'll try to do and play accordingly. Even if the opponent can get their counter safely in, the Moody user has options like Disable that means that the Glalie user can still get on top. Notably, none of the methods of counterplay prevent Glalie from boosting or coming in again, meaning even if you're playing your best the Glalie user can still get on top.

With sweepers like Hawlucha and Gyarados, the onus is on you to act quickly, as defensive measures and status can easily stop their sweep or put it on a timer and they thus need to KO opponents quickly. But with BP and Moody, the pressure is on your opponent because unless they stop you quickly, you win in the long run. Ultimately BP was banned for this reason even though it had counterplay on paper, and I think Moody should go for similar reasons.
 
Gothitelle has myriad amount of problems with it. It's not very fast, Competitive is an okay ability but it will only activate in niche situations (Clefable's Moonblast, Defog). Gothitelle is also pretty frail in terms of physical Defense. The reason it was so good was because of Shadow Tag. Without it, Goth kind of struggles to apply pressure. Missing out on Hidden Powers are big too - this means Pokemon like Ferrothorn are quite annoying for it without resorting to Dynamaxing. There are many more efficient Psychic-types that can setup (Reuniclus, Hatterne) and there are far more effective Nasty Plot users (Hydreigon, Gengar, Togekiss) in the tier. I'd say Gothitelle's niche is not something that's really wanted in the tier. It can certainly "work", but you're arguably crippling yourself by attempting to use something that just doesn't have the same amount of results and crosses into the argument of "fun vs efficient".
Yeah those are all true. Man, if only shadow tag wasnt banned, this would make her a super unique pokemon in the smogon ou, able to freely set up and attack if you put it in against the right pokemon. Shame it could be too strong if you have no way to kill it when it comes in.

Still, i think she is better the PU as smogon lists for last gen. She should be UU easily, as i dont think there are bulky nasty ploters in that braket right? All the ones you listed are OU right?

Also, you could still get boosts from intimidate and sticky web. The later seems more popular right now.
 
Yeah those are all true. Man, if only shadow tag wasnt banned, this would make her a super unique pokemon in the smogon ou, able to freely set up and attack if you put it in against the right pokemon. Shame it could be too strong if you have no way to kill it when it comes in.

Still, i think she is better the PU as smogon lists for last gen. She should be UU easily, as i dont think there are bulky nasty ploters in that braket right? All the ones you listed are OU right?

Also, you could still get boosts from intimidate and sticky web. The later seems more popular right now.
Shadow Tag was banned because it was as broken as last gen and it was basically who can get in their gotithelle first in the right time because then you win. And you're right about it being too strong.
And there are so many more mons in UU rn, it's also not helping her case that Dynamaxing doesn't really do much for her because than you lose Stored Power boosts. With so many mons getting Darkiast Lariat (such as Lax and Bewear) plus Obstagoon being everywhere plus Crawdaunt and Gengar, the meta's just really mean to Gotithelle w/out Shadow Tag. I'm no expert UU player and I'm not pretending to be one or an expert player in general, but you can read all this is in the UU metagame discussion where stuff like this should really be I think. (not trying to minimod but this is OU metagame discussion and not UU metagame discussion)
 
Shadow Tag was banned because it was as broken as last gen and it was basically who can get in their gotithelle first in the right time because then you win. And you're right about it being too strong.
And there are so many more mons in UU rn, it's also not helping her case that Dynamaxing doesn't really do much for her because than you lose Stored Power boosts. With so many mons getting Darkiast Lariat (such as Lax and Bewear) plus Obstagoon being everywhere plus Crawdaunt and Gengar, the meta's just really mean to Gotithelle w/out Shadow Tag. I'm no expert UU player and I'm not pretending to be one or an expert player in general, but you can read all this is in the UU metagame discussion where stuff like this should really be I think. (not trying to minimod but this is OU metagame discussion and not UU metagame discussion)
Nods. Gotcha. Sorry, i just got exceited to use Gothitelle.

With all this talk about moody, i am assuming acupressure is still going to be banned right?
 
Many many mons from your lists are not effective.
- Cofag/rune need to make contact and glalie does not make contact.
- Prankster is not counterplay? It's an ability. And besides, there are videos of paralyzed/statused glalie still going HAM and living everything. And glalie probly already has a sub up.
- Infiltrator, yeah it helps with the sub, doesn't help with protect into disable tho.
- Priority sure, just make sure he didn't get enough defense boosts before you make your move. Also maybe all you get to do is break it's sub. Or maybe it protect + disables again.
Thank you! This is exactly the kind of constructive criticism I was hoping for. The better we can narrow down the list to what actually works and what doesn't, the more we can settle the whole counterplay thing. I'm glad at least one person on here actually took this seriously. If you can follow up with a list of the mons you think aren't competitive, I could start crossing off at least most of them.

I think Protect + Disable can be played around if you can get through the sub. Most of the pokemon listed with Priority are also types that are naturally super effective against Glalie and can carry another move to threaten to break the sub. Not sure about the pokemon with Infiltrator. I'll have to go through them again.

As far as Cofagrigus and Runerigus go, their abilities can sort of spread like a chain reaction before Glalie even hits the field. Not sure if it is reliable enough but you can sometimes prevent a pokemon like Glalie from switching in due to threat of losing the ability. I have been using Future Sight as a sort of psuedo counter to Substitute sets, and that tends to kick in and cause some havoc or lure in dark/steel types. If Future Sight were combined with Cofagrigus or Runerigus, then they might be able to make contact on the sub. The thought of Runerigus stealing Moody boosts was particularly appealing to me. It might still be too sketchy to rely on future sight hitting on the substitute turn. To be honest, I don't totally mind crossing them both off. But I feel like they may still have potential somehow with their abilities and Trick Room.

- Phazing, yes, this is 100% valid counterplay. nice. Sidenote, speed does not matter on a phazer, roar and whirlwind have -6 priority and will always go last.
This might have been an early bug, but my Choice scarf Ninetails didn't seem to go second with Roar in some of my games. This was really weird now that I actually think about it. So I legitimately forgot about the -6 priority thing. You at least should be right, though. This means I both need to update my Ninetails set and my lists. I guess I should focus on tanks that can take a hit for Roar and Whirlwind just like I would for Haze.

All these methods of counterplay can apply to Baton Pass chains as well. But the reason that BP is banned is not because there's no counterplay. It's because, even if everything goes wrong for the BP user and the opponent has sufficient counterplay, the BP user still has more options available to them, as countering that strategy requires specific counterplay that can be seen from a mile away and the BP user can play around it.
Most of the arguments I have seen around Moody being hard to counter or able to counter the counterplay involve the Protect/Sub/Disable set. There are a few major flaws with this set:
  1. It's extremely predictable.
  2. Disable can only disable one move at a time. It cannot prevent two moves that could beat Glalie.
  3. There is only room for a single attack on this set. Usually Freeze Dry for Glalie. A single attack set is inherently somewhat vulnerable to counterplay.
  4. You can do a boosting move or some other support move on the predicted protect.
After a certain point, an exchange of threats, counterplay, and counter-counterplay is part of the game. I don't believe the counter-counterplay on these sets is nearly as broken as you make it out to be. By all means, it could definitely eliminate some of the things I listed. Not all of them.

Notably, none of the methods of counterplay prevent Glalie from boosting or coming in again, meaning even if you're playing your best the Glalie user can still get on top.
Neutralizing Gas does prevent Glalie from boosting. Just switch in Galarian Weezing and it stops. I don't believe the fact that Glalie can sometimes try again or get lucky to get on top is inherently different from anything else in the game.
 
I’m still concerned and confused about this luck-based argument regarding Moody. It really doesn’t make sense. It’s seems like people just don’t like playing against it.

What about a set like Sniper Drapion with Scope Lens and Night Slash/Cross Poison. You’re basically relying on a 50/50 coin flip to sweep with critical hits. Does this constitute a skill-less, luck-based strategy that should be removed from the game?

Last Gen people had concerns about Z-Hypnosis Xurkitree and other similar Z-Hypnosis sets that basically came down to if you managed to hit Hypnosis with 60% accuracy, you won the game. Now this Gen we will have Hypnosis Blunder Policy which is a similar concept. Is this too luck-based?

I’m still struggling to see where you draw the line with RNG luck based concepts in this game. It’s so inconsistent.
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
I’m still concerned and confused about this luck-based argument regarding Moody. It really doesn’t make sense. It’s seems like people just don’t like playing against it.

What about a set like Sniper Drapion with Scope Lens and Night Slash/Cross Poison. You’re basically relying on a 50/50 coin flip to sweep with critical hits. Does this constitute a skill-less, luck-based strategy that should be removed from the game?

Last Gen people had concerns about Z-Hypnosis Xurkitree and other similar Z-Hypnosis sets that basically came down to if you managed to hit Hypnosis with 60% accuracy, you won the game. Now this Gen we will have Hypnosis Blunder Policy which is a similar concept. Is this too luck-based?

I’m still struggling to see where you draw the line with RNG luck based concepts in this game. It’s so inconsistent.
Mainly because those luck-based strategies are pretty mediocre even if the luck ends up in your favor, whereas moody (at least in theory) can win a game with a few good boosts.

Sniper Drapion is still decently weak and can be walled or revenged killed. Xurk is revenged by literally any Scarfers. Same doesn’t quite apply with Moody’s much more extreme boosts
 
If you read through the posts of people arguing to ban Moody with a word replacer swapping "Glalie" and "Moody" for "Serperior" and "Contrary", a couple things happen:

  1. These posts become really, really funny
  2. Somehow the arguments actually make more sense
I’m still concerned and confused about this luck-based argument regarding Moody. It really doesn’t make sense. It’s seems like people just don’t like playing against it.
These are my exact thoughts as well. Moody is honestly extremely consistent at what it does, which is gradually raising all of the stats of the pokemon gradually and fairly evenly. If you let Glalie spam Protect and Substitute for 7 turns, it will accumulate a lot of boosts. You didn't get unlucky against Glalie. You let it kill your opponent's momentum completely unpunished for 7 turns while their Glalie got big. I'm honestly baffled at how many posts in here do nothing but attest for how powerful and game breaking and uncounterable and this and that Glalie is. Are we playing the same game? Are we using and playing against the same Glalie?

The irony of arguments against "Moody" being primarily anecdotal evidence used to stir emotional responses certainly isn't lost on me. Moody. Ha.

Some food for thought for those who need to put their arguments under slightly more analytical lenses. The standard Glalie set atm runs 8 SpA EVs, hitting a gargantuan... 198 points of SpA. At +4, Glalie's Special Attack hits 594. Hatterene 252+ at +1 hits 612 SpA. One of those things takes one turn.
 
It’s seems like people just don’t like playing against it.
i'm pretty sure there's a metric fuck ton of shit that would be gone if this was the sole reason for anything to be removed. It doesn't matter if somebody "hates to see it", all that matters is if its broken and if its detrimental to competitive gameplay.


What about a set like Sniper Drapion with Scope Lens and Night Slash/Cross Poison. You’re basically relying on a 50/50 coin flip to sweep with critical hits. Does this constitute a skill-less, luck-based strategy that should be removed from the game?
No, because you'd still play out the situation of it landing the crit. Everything can crit, if you're vs. sniper drapion you can just assume it will and bring in anything that can sponge the crit and check it. Hell sniper drapion isn't much stronger than your typical +2 OU sweeper after an SD anyway, excadrill puts it to shame when under sand.

Last Gen people had concerns about Z-Hypnosis Xurkitree and other similar Z-Hypnosis sets that basically came down to if you managed to hit Hypnosis with 60% accuracy, you won the game. Now this Gen we will have Hypnosis Blunder Policy which is a similar concept. Is this too luck-based?
No because if it does hit, there's still counter measures to it. Hypnosis hitting puts the player in no different of a situation than if a spore, sleep powder, or fucking rest talk psycho shift if you're a psychopath hits. Everybody can play around it happening regardless of if they have a specific counter measure to sleep built into their team. The only time this would be considered broken is if xurk could sleep a counter, tail glow, then 1v6 with the opponent being unable to stop it, but that's far from the truth due to its speed tier, walls like chansey, unaware clefable, and sleep clause limiting it from doing it twice. Even then if hypnosis broke xurk, it would have to play out that same scenario for other hypnosis users (which it doesn't since most hypnosis users can't sweep or got revenge killed), it was mainly xurk who could pull it off but didn't pull it off strong enough, in comparison to swagger where the majority of users who got it (and its distribution being fucking massive), ended up being broken with it.

Glalie can use RNG to win the entire match, unless you carry very specific counter measures (just prankster taunt and haze, cause like somebody already replied to Bold School, glalie can still get around its counters.. even phazing if it's saved as a last mon and corners itself, the stars have to alline for you to counter this thing and you can't forcibly make them alline.) When you're put in a situation where glalie gets a boost and your RKer can't ohko and gets disabled, and then glalie hides behind a sub, racks up enough boost to tank+disable counter measure #2, there's no favorable situations for you unless you have a phazer and the glalie user leads with the strat. You also have to factor in even if you do carry the counters, glalie isn't the only pokemon on a team, there's still options to remove that one haze user you're carrying just for this thing, if you teambuild around just the glalie, you're going to get massacred by something else, making glalie overcentralizing.


Sacred Sword aegislash and neutralizing gas is an overlooked consideration, but that assumes you're always carrying weezing and/or SS aegislash.

The only question regarding if moody is broken, is if its just Glalie and not octillery and, in the future, the bidoof line, since I don't believe they have the option of disabling moves, opening up more favorable situations. Pretty sure the RNG would still be too much but at least we're looking at octillery with stats that can still be outsped even at +2 by various taunt users. Unforunately tho sacred sword isn't an option given oct's coverage and typing.
 
Last edited:
One of the chief objectives of a competitive ruleset is to reduce the effects of RNG. Moody runs directly counter to that philosophy. While it's true that there are other aspects of RNG that Smogon hasn't addressed, the big difference there lies in the practicality of doing so. Innacurate moves are RNG, but there are so many of them and they are so commonly dispersed that it's impossible to do anything about them without drastically changing the game. Moody however, is different- as a little distributed ability, it's much easier for it to be eliminated from the ruleset without damaging anything else. The line is drawn where it's actually practical to get rid of the RNG in question, and it would be very easy here.

Furthermore, Moody's RNG is extremely impactful. It will get you past counters with luck- better hope the Moody mon doesn't get a bunch of relevant defensive boosts! Seriously, so many of the "counters" proposed have a bunch of "but" and "if" and "maybe" attached to them (which automatically makes them checks, not counters). Alternate attacking moves to get past disable, but only if they don't get defensive boosts! Give them Wandering Spirit/Mummy- those two abilities that don't work through Sub, are on two 'mons that are garbage in OU, and which don't get rid of the boosts already accrued. I mean, really- using Future Sight, switching in an Ice-weak pokemon, and maybe getting off a hit on the turn Future Sight hits, as long as the Glalie doesn't use Protect, hasn't gotten enough SpDef boosts, and hasn't gotten enough SpA boosts? "Just get good RNG" is not an interesting response to RNG. "Just predict the Protect and set up" also isn't too great of an argument. "Just outplay them" is something that has been brought up in every single ban discussion ever, and it has never worked, because prediction goes both ways. They predicted your setup, now they have their sub back up or got off an attack, and your "counter" might not be anymore. Use Infiltrator, but don't switch in Dragapult on Freeze Dry and hope they didn't get enough Speed and SpA boosts so they don't oneshot you or Protect+Disable! More "if, but, maybe". And Choice Scarf+Roar Ninetails... yeah, I'll use Boomburst Porygon-Z instead.


What I'm getting at is that Moody is the type of RNG that is very easily gotten rid of and whose checks require 'mons/abilities/moves that are garbage in OU or require your opponent to be a target dummy for you to make perfect hypothetical outplays against.
 
Moody has definitely caught the metagame unawares - but I don't think we should be so hasty to ban it.

I'm firmly in the camp that there's nothing strictly uncompetitive about Moody without accuracy/evasion boosts. The passive boosting is akin to the ability Speed Boost which while broken on some Pokemon (Blaziken) doesn't do enough to help others (Ninjask, even Sharpedo and Scolipede). I was an active player in Gen 4/5, back when there were some annoying as hell Speed Boost sets, especially with the combination of Protect/Substitute/Baton Pass, but they weren't completely unmanageable if you reacted quickly.

The passive nature of the Glalie set means you're given a lot of opportunity to quickly shut it down. I've been countering with a Sub-Disable Infiltrator Dracopult who laughs at this 'mon even with Freeze Dry. I've even found Excadrill can overwhelm its stall tactics, although admittedly I've never been in a situation where the opposing Glalie has gotten 2-3 favourable rolls while I break through its sub/protect.

These are Pokemon which I'd never intended to use as a check for Glalie but they work just fine. I'm sure when the dust has a chance to settle more teams will have an answer for Glalie and its success rates will nosedive. Remember less than a few weeks ago when everyone was calling for Dracovish to be banned? The meta has evolved with more players seeing the value of bulky water types and Dracovish feels a lot less threatening.

That being said, if Glalie is considered too much of a nuisance in OU, I'd be happy with it being relegated to Ubers like Blaziken was, where it will be quickly overwhelmed by the presence of C-Zacian, Zamazanta and C-Zamazanta. I don't see Octillery being any sort of threat in OU even if Glalie goes, and I'd much prefer we ban Pokemon over abilities.
 
Last edited:
There have been plenty of folks on here arguing about the lack of counterplay for Moody and listing it as a reason for why it should be banned. The actual point of my post was a response to that. In addition, it might be useful for those who are bothered by Moody right now when a ban hasn't happened yet and may not for awhile, if it even happens. So the other point of my post is to help people find solutions to this problem, even if it is only temporary.

You disagree that there is a lack of counterplay for Moody? Great. Then we agree on something.
I don't really care what arguments other people are using for it. Their posts are irrelevant to mine, and pointing them out doesn't really strengthen your own position. There are bad arguments on both sides of pretty much every controversial issue when it comes to Pokemon. Lack of counterplay is not a strong argument in my eyes. Being uncompetitive is (and still is after reading your post, so let's continue).

As far as it being uncompetative goes, I think that's largely a subjective and circular argument. To use your own words, I think you could apply that same argument to nearly any luck based mechanic in the entire game. Does that actually mean anything?
No, it's not really all that subjective. Uncompetitive has a functional definition, Moody fits it perfectly. Where does the subjectivity come into play? Maybe you could argue it's subjective to determine exactly how RNG-based a mechanic needs to be before it should be considered uncompetitive, and were we talking about other mechanics I might be inclined to agree with you, but in Moody's case it's not subjective at all because the entire mechanic is 100% based on luck. Nothing else is involved. So it doesn't matter where you think we should draw the line, as long as you think we should draw it anywhere before 100% luck based "strategies", Moody should go, and if you don't think we should be banning 100% luck based mechanics, Evasion and OHKO moves should be unbanned. I do notice that nowhere did you present an argument for unbanning Moody that can't also be applied to Evasion, like I asked... You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I assume we don't ban every one (like Quick Claw and Acupressure) because it's not practical. Mechanically, Moody is not all that different to me than any other sub + stat boosting build, except most of those tend to be more active instead of completely passive. Substitute + Acupressure is especially similar from an RNG standpoint. Obviously, the passive stat buff is a benefit there for Moody.
As I've said before in this thread, I'd actually support getting rid of RNG-based items too (and Acupressure now that you mention it) for exactly the same reasons. They aren't what's currently being discussed, though. Moody is. We'll deal with that can of worms when we collectively decide to open it. In the meantime, let's deal with the one we've already opened.


TBut without Evasion, is that aspect of Moody really all that different than any other stat boosting abilities like Speed Boost? I would argue Speed Boost is potentially far more problematic, particularly if Ninjask wasn't the only pokemon left with it in gen 8. Is Speed Boost competitive just because it isn't RNG? I think that would be a flawed way of looking at it.
Uh, yes? I'm sorry, but how does this even make sense to you? Of course it's different from Speed Boost, and if you actually read any of my posts you'd understand why. Moody relies purely on RNG to get the right boosts, Speed Boost does not. That makes Moody by definition less competitive than Speed Boost. You can argue Speed Boost is more broken than Moody, but as I tried to explain to you those two terms have very different definitions in the functional way we use them. I'm not sure you understand this, so let me re-iterate for like the 5th time this thread... Something is broken if it lacks a reasonable degree of counterplay (think Mega Rayquaza, or Mega Salamence in OU), something is uncompetitive if it takes an large amount of control over the game out of the hands of the players and places it at the mercy of RNG instead (such as Evasion, OHKO moves, and Moody). You could argue Speed Boost or Substitute + boosting move fit the definition of broken (I'd disagree, but that's besides the point) but it would be difficult to argue that it fits the definition of uncompetitive because there's literally zero RNG involved. You can think that's flawed all you want, but that's how we've been defining these terms for years now.
 
Last edited:
I don't really care what arguments other people are using for it. Their posts are irrelevant to mine, and pointing them out doesn't really strengthen your own position.
As I already stated, my responses for looking at counterplay was specifically for those people. If you think they are wrong then we agree. I'm not really sure why this is a point of contention then. It wasn't meant for you specifically. But then you made a straw man example and called it pointless so I responded with what the actual points of it were. Understand now?

So it doesn't matter where you think we should draw the line, as long as you think we should draw it anywhere before 100% luck based "strategies", Moody should go, and if you don't think we should be banning 100% luck based mechanics, Evasion and OHKO moves should be unbanned.
Personally, I don't even look at it that way. I wouldn't ban anything purely because it was 100% luck based. And neither does Smogon based on all the 100% luck things that are still in the game and have been and survived over multiple generations. If you want to go on a personal crusade against all those things at some point, well, you just think differently than I do.

The idea that everything is on a sliding scale of how much luck we should tolerate per move or ability is a misguided premise. I would only ban things if they are too overpowered or unhealthy for the metagame. And my personal philosophy is to lean towards banning as little as possible to promote more diversity in builds. Not saying if Moody is or isn't unhealthy for the metagame or even too overpowered. It still might be. I just find the idea of hyperfocusing on luck to be completely missing the point when plenty of things seem to rely entirely on luck without being bad for the metagame.

So as I keep asking, what is really the problem with Moody? What is the problem beyond just the luck?

I do notice that nowhere did you present an argument for unbanning Moody that can't also be applied to Evasion, like I asked... You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Not sure why you keep bringing this up when every argument you make for Moody being uncompetitive can be applied to any luck based mechanic in the game. Evasion specifically lowers your ability to hit the target. It's entirely different mechanically than Moody is now without Evasion. I never argued for or against Evasion when it was banned. Any argument I would make in favor of banning Evasion or not would be about its impact on the Metagame.

Uh, yes? I'm sorry, but how does this even make sense to you? Of course it's different from Speed Boost, and if you actually read any of my posts you'd understand why. Moody relies purely on RNG to get the right boosts, Speed Boost does not.
I did read your post. If you actually read my post, you know that I was speaking in terms of mechanics in that section. The comparison for Speed Boost to Moody was entirely about the passive stat boosts. I was alluding to if passive stat boosts were the thing that put this RNG based mechanic over the top.

Something is broken if it lacks a reasonable degree of counterplay (think Mega Rayquaza, or Mega Salamence in OU), something is uncompetitive if it takes an large amount of control over the game out of the hands of the players and places it at the mercy of RNG instead (such as Evasion, OHKO moves, and Moody).
Yes, there is a difference between RNG and non-RNG abilities. We all know this. The problem I have, and the message I'm trying to convey to you, is that arguments purely about RNG are highly subjective. They become circular in nature. Is everything with RNG just inherently uncompetitive? No. At least not to a degree where it requires any sort of action. So what is really the key part in that definition? Is "takes a large control out of the players hands" the thing that we should focus on instead? What really makes an RNG mechanic intolerable?
 
Last edited:
Jgnore evasion for a minute. I think a better equivalent to what Glalie does Pokemon that have the ability to pick and choose their own checks, like Greninja in Gen VI and Zygarde in Gen VII.

There's a similar mindset of "I can check it with this Pokemon unless this very plausible scenario happens in which case it's useless". Whether that Zygarde you're facing has Iron Tail or Toxic is about as random as whether that Glalie will get a Special Attack or Special Defense boost. In the former, the die is rolled before the game starts. In the latter, it's while the game is in progress. Either way, there's no predictable counterplay.
 
Last edited:
Thank you! This is exactly the kind of constructive criticism I was hoping for. The better we can narrow down the list to what actually works and what doesn't, the more we can settle the whole counterplay thing. I'm glad at least one person on here actually took this seriously. If you can follow up with a list of the mons you think aren't competitive, I could start crossing off at least most of them.

I think Protect + Disable can be played around if you can get through the sub. Most of the pokemon listed with Priority are also types that are naturally super effective against Glalie and can carry another move to threaten to break the sub. Not sure about the pokemon with Infiltrator. I'll have to go through them again.

As far as Cofagrigus and Runerigus go, their abilities can sort of spread like a chain reaction before Glalie even hits the field. Not sure if it is reliable enough but you can sometimes prevent a pokemon like Glalie from switching in due to threat of losing the ability. I have been using Future Sight as a sort of psuedo counter to Substitute sets, and that tends to kick in and cause some havoc or lure in dark/steel types. If Future Sight were combined with Cofagrigus or Runerigus, then they might be able to make contact on the sub. The thought of Runerigus stealing Moody boosts was particularly appealing to me. It might still be too sketchy to rely on future sight hitting on the substitute turn. To be honest, I don't totally mind crossing them both off. But I feel like they may still have potential somehow with their abilities and Trick Room.



This might have been an early bug, but my Choice scarf Ninetails didn't seem to go second with Roar in some of my games. This was really weird now that I actually think about it. So I legitimately forgot about the -6 priority thing. You at least should be right, though. This means I both need to update my Ninetails set and my lists. I guess I should focus on tanks that can take a hit for Roar and Whirlwind just like I would for Haze.



Most of the arguments I have seen around Moody being hard to counter or able to counter the counterplay involve the Protect/Sub/Disable set. There are a few major flaws with this set:
  1. It's extremely predictable.
  2. Disable can only disable one move at a time. It cannot prevent two moves that could beat Glalie.
  3. There is only room for a single attack on this set. Usually Freeze Dry for Glalie. A single attack set is inherently somewhat vulnerable to counterplay.
  4. You can do a boosting move or some other support move on the predicted protect.
After a certain point, an exchange of threats, counterplay, and counter-counterplay is part of the game. I don't believe the counter-counterplay on these sets is nearly as broken as you make it out to be. By all means, it could definitely eliminate some of the things I listed. Not all of them.



Neutralizing Gas does prevent Glalie from boosting. Just switch in Galarian Weezing and it stops. I don't believe the fact that Glalie can sometimes try again or get lucky to get on top is inherently different from anything else in the game.
The fact that you should be forced to carry two moves for Glalie screams broken.
And it doesn't matter that it's one move if it can reach insane amounts of power.
Also Galarian Weezing is, hands down, garbage right now so the fact you're forced to use it to check a pokemon tells you something. This is basically the Dynamax argument so don't try to argue against me here.
And if you examine the list you quoted only Conkeldurr Arcanine and Mew are legimimate options in OU. That's 3 options for Glalie.
 
The fact that you should be forced to carry two moves for Glalie screams broken.
Well it depends on what you are carrying and why. Most Conkeldurr sets probably inherently carry Mach Punch and a move like Drain Punch and would probably carry those even without Glalie in the meta. If it's just for Glalie and has no other application in the tier then you would be correct. That is not the case for every option.

And it doesn't matter that it's one move if it can reach insane amounts of power.
It does when it comes to pokemon that can take a hit. For instance, a Stored Power snowball build is totally countered by dark types. There is no ice type immunity. But there are resistances for it. Freeze Dry takes away the water resist option. But that still leaves fire, steel, and other ice types. Sure, after a certain point of boosts it should break through just about everything. Arguably, you shouldn't be letting it get that many boosts. Although, I guess that depends on the counterplay situation. I would still like to examine that in greater detail.

There is also disable and cursed body.

Also Galarian Weezing is, hands down, garbage right now so the fact you're forced to use it to check a pokemon tells you something.
I have tried Galarian Weezing and it's actually pretty handy as a physical wall, general support pokemon, and for countering common dragon and dark types. It just gets wrecked to crap by psychic moves and Excadrill, which are very common right now. So if you are running it, you have to have a team that has actual synergy with it. I wouldn't call it garbage.

This is basically the Dynamax argument so don't try to argue against me here.
Dynamax usually comes at you far faster and with much less warning. If they send in Glalie, you basically know what to expect. Dynamax can be used on literally anything on the opposing team at any time.

But while we are at it, Dynamax hasn't been banned yet. It's only under suspect for now. Even if most of us assume it will be banned, that doesn't actually guarantee anything. I supposed I should mentioned that I'm low key slightly in favor of keeping Dynamax just because I find it interesting. Sure, it's incredibly dumb. I wouldn't exactly cry about it if it gets banned, either.

And if you examine the list you quoted only Conkeldurr Arcanine and Mew are legimimate options in OU. That's 3 options for Glalie.
So how many viable options would you need to consider it not a problem? What if we found 10 total? Would that be enough to at least admit counterplay isn't the issue? Some of the biggest threats in the tier don't have 10 viable checks and/or counters.

For the record, every generation has pokemon from lower tiers that are not strictly speaking ranked OU yet still effective in it. It's not uncommon for certain UU pokemon in particular to be used. Furthermore, the generation is so new that these rankings haven't even been finalized yet. It doesn't necesarrily mean much that something is currently ranked UU instead of OU.
 
Last edited:
In this post, I'd like to talk about some defensive cores in the current metagame. If you've been playing and building lately, I'm sure you've seen these everywhere.



I talked about Seismitoad in a different post, but in short, Seismitoad is one of the best Stealth Rock setters right now, being capable of checking Dracovish, Rotom-W, and Rotom-H while also being annoying to deal with in general thanks to its access to Toxic and good STAB moves. Because of this, it synergizes very well with Corviknight, which is greatly annoyed by Electric-types such as Rotom-W and Rotom-H. Besides Corviknight, not a lot of Pokemon can check Excadrill super well, so it can provide these teams with very useful utility as well, be it as a potential Bulk Up wincon, Defogger, or even both. If it's running Taunt, Corviknight is also incredibly good at shutting down opposing Corviknight, which can often be difficult to do otherwise.

Good Teammates



Clefable synergizes very well with this core. In particular, I've really liked specially defensive Clefable with these two. Seismitoad and Corviknight can struggle with Pokemon such as Dragapult and Life Orb Clefable, so a Pokemon that can check both of them, such as Clefable, is of incredible value. On top of that, Clefable supplement Seismitoad with a lot of longevity through Wish, which can make it very frustrating to actually KO Seismitoad in order to make progress.



Mandibuzz is another Pokemon that has great synergy with this core. It frees up Corviknight to run Bulk Up sets, as Mandibuzz is one of the best Defoggers in the tier, while checking Pokemon like Dragapult, Hydreigon, and Gengar, which can be hard to deal with for Seismitoad and Corviknight. On top of that, it also frees you up a little by allowing you to run Life Orb Clefable if you so wish, which is a very potent wallbreaker right now.

:ditto:

It's Ditto, so of course it fits.



Another notable core that I've been encountering more is this core. It's capable of covering a pretty wide variety of Pokemon, like Life Orb Clefable, Dragapult, and Dracovish. Specially defensive Hippowdon is an amazing anti-meta call right now, as it's capable of annoying a lot of common wallbreakers and can hamper progress really well. Together with Ferrothorn, they can form a very good hazard stacking core that can be really hard to break down if the opponent doesn't have any specific way of pressuring them, such as with Dracovish, Barraskewda, and Hydreigon. Although it's unable to check Hydreigon, Jellicent rounds this core out very nicely by dealing with threats like Dracovish and Barraskewda pretty well. On top of that, it alleviates some of the passivity issues that this core can run into otherwise.

Good Teammates


As I pointed out, this core is particularly weak to Hydreigon, so Mandibuzz makes for a great partner to these Pokemon, especially when run alongside another Pokemon such as Galarian Darmanitan or Dragapult.

I would also like to talk about a few Pokemon in particular.



Rotom-H is a very interesting Pokemon right now, being one of the few good checks to Life Orb Clefable, Corviknight, and Togekiss, especially when backed up by Wish support. It's quite annoying to deal with consistently, as Thunder Wave and Will-O-Wisp can cripple its checks pretty easily. Beyond Seismitoad, a lot of teams struggle to check Nasty Plot variants, and it gets many opportunities to set up against Pokemon such as Ferrothorn and Corviknight.



In my opinion, Toxapex is pretty underwhelming right now. Toxapex feels really insufficient as a defensive Water-type right now because it's not a good check to Dracovish, which you basically need your defensive Water-type to be able to check at the moment. To mitigate this issue, I've been running some Toxapex + Seismitoad balances, but honestly, you could get a lot more out of that slot than Toxapex. Another issue with Toxapex right now is that it's really easy to take advantage of with prevalent wallbreakers such as Hydreigon, Hatterene, and Clefable.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 1)

Top