Originally I was gonna make this teamdump like a couple weeks ago but I got busy with work/irl so... here we are. Since discussion about the tier has also sparked up I thought I'd give my two cents on the tier currently and what I'd like to see banned/happen, and while I may not be a top player I'd like to think I'm not dogshit atleast so hopefully these thoughts aren't too nonsense. With that said, teamdump time :D
Teamdump (Click on the teams for paste):
Gonna first start with saying that playing OMPL this year was kinda meh, I'd consider STAB to be my weakest tier that I'd play and on top of the tier being horribly unbalanced I didn't play or prep as well as I would've liked, but such is life, I'm still very thankful I got drafted at all and despite the fact that my STAB record ended 1-2 I atleast managed to make us go positive in the end with 4-3. All of these teams were built as me as I was basically solo-building with some occasional help from teammates. (Was gonna say use with caution, but like half of these are illegal/suck so just don't lol)
(W)
Before I even had started I knew I wanted to go with something a bit slower, as this was just after Tera Ban and the tier was all over the place, and as such I was expecting a lot of Offense to be brought. Weavile was a great fit as the main progress maker, as it didn't require to much support in order to break through stuff. Rest of team is fairly boring barring the Hydrapple set which I thought was really cool, as it was able to check a large portion of physical attackers, mainly the Ogerpons and Kingambit. The match itself was very anticlimatic, as I only won thanks to a Critical Hit so :/
(W)
Second week I wasn't playing, as I was busy graduating (lame, I know), but I had started to notice that everyone, including me, were being awfully lazy with their defensive cores, and were relying a lot on Toxapex + Lando-T/Ting-Lu, so I knew I wanted to bring something to take advantage of that and settled on SubDD Gyarados, who could easily set up on both. It didn't end up doing as much as it could've in the match, and CB Valiant carried instead.
(L)
I can't lie, I don't know what happened with this team, as it was very rushed. The only thing I recall is seeing that DD Kyurem looked cool so I wanted to try bringing it. Well, it turned out that I had completely overlooked Kingambit, as my only switchin was Lando-T, and as I didn't wanna risk triggering Defiant I kinda just played horrible and threw (I also didn't notice this looked almost identical to my week1 team until Fissure pointed it out in-game so...) It was at this point I knew I had to start actually prepping a bit more seriously and not be lazy with my defensive cores like I'd been earlier.
(L)
I was still very high on abusing the enormous Toxapex usage going around, so I wanted to try broken Substitute user #3: Volcanion. Ogerpon-H also looked very promising, as Wellspring & Latios had just been banned. Rounded the team off with some speed control in Walking Wake & Booster Valiant aswell as a basic defensive core (that wasn't LandoPex :o ). Unfortunately my Ogerpon got crit by Beak Blast through Defense boost which sealed the game for me, which was very demotivating as I had spent a lot more effort on this team, but such is life.
(W)
Since I was no longer playing and instead just supporting I had a bit more time prepping & looking at the meta again, and I noticed that a lot of teams were simply not prepping for Rillaboom, like at all. Specs Kyurem also looked busted as there were virtually no defensive answers, so I had a core to go for. Admittedly I went for Ting-Lu/Pex again but this time I used Eject Pex, as it would both give Rillabom & Kyurem more opportunities as well as making the team overall play a bit faster. Hearthflame was still broken and paired well with Gterrain and last was Booster Tusk, who could come in, set hazards/remove them, and the kill off a random wall. Match went well, and we won with few issues.
(L)
People had finally started to pick up on the fact that Rain was kinda bullshit, so I wanted to give my spin on it. I had some other versions that ran Keldeo/Tatsugiri over Urshifu-R, but in short this team was in my humble opinion one of my best teams; it did well in testing, it had the tempo to keep up with HO while also having an out versus almost all matchups (PS please don't use CB Barraskewda it's so shit, use pads or atleast gloves it's much better trust me) Shuca Berry Bolt was mostly cause a lot of people were relying on Ting-Lu/Lando-T in order to check Electro Shot, and this set just gave the middle finger to both. Match unfortunately didn't go as well which sucked and we lost (I originally had Beak Blast on Pelipper but dropped it last minute, guess who was regretting that ;-;)
(W)
At this point we were basically out so I just decided to say fuck it, and sent Screens HO. Lead Great Tusk ensured we didn't immediately play versus hazards and also gave us Final Gambit opportunity, and the rest were just broken setup sweepers. Thankfully we did win, as Gyarados finally got to shine and show how fucking broken it was.
My thoughts on the Meta:
To the surprise of hopefully nobody I'm currently not the biggest fan of the meta, as there is currently too many things to account for all while having to resort to super niche and specific scenarios in order to not lose vs stuff. Earlier this was much bearable due to Tera being in the meta, as you could use your defensive mons to check a larger variety of mons, easing up the building process but since Tera got banned (biggest mistake ever) but with that gone there is simply no way for Balance or even BO to be able to handle or even have an out vs all mons in the meta. Despite this, I think the biggest issue currently is STABmons identity: what do we want to be the "main" archetype in the tier? Currently, we can see that it's 99% Hyper-offense and Bulky-offense, which makes sense, as STABmons is a meta that introduces a lot of new offensive tools, making almost all offensive threats hit harder, so naturally it'd lean towards that. However, if we want Balance to return as the "main" archetype (like in gen 8 from what I can gather) then there needs to be a fuckton of bans happening on both mons & moves in order to give Balance enough breathing room to start developing, as currently it is extremely hard to make it work consistently. But sometimes, and maybe this is a Zoomer take idk, I wonder if all metas really need to be centered around balance, and if there actually needs to occur such a large amount of bans in order for the meta to become fun. I'm aware that the shift from gen 8 to gen 9 has made Offense
a lot more potent, but eventually I think it's time to maybe accept that some metas will indeed be skewing to Offenses favour, and that balance doesn't in fact have to be the staple archetype.
Now, with all that said I still think bans need to happen, cause while I'd favour a more offense-oriented meta personally I don't think Balance should be as dogshit as it is right now, and instead of immediately listing my thoughts I thought I'd go over all the suggestions and give my personal take.
Moves:
Ceaseless Edge: Ban, this is one of the moves I think should definetly go, as it generates too much progress at virtually no cost while also being able to be used multiple times unlike Stone Axe. Setting Spikes in a meta where removal is kinda scuffed (I'll adress that later) is very powerful, and would help against almost all structures, but especially balance, as it often lacks the firepower to fight back before being worn down enough.
Flower Trick: I'm a bit iffy on this one. On one hand, having a move that guaranteed crits paired with reasonably strong breakers makes it a nightmare to prep against defensively, but on the other hand I don't think that the majority of abusers are particulary broken or unfair, it's mainly Ogerpon-W, Ogerpon-H, and Lilligant-Hisui. If it went then I wouldn't be particulary sad but I'd prefer if Heartflame got gutted instead, as I believe that is the main problem currently.
Surging Strikes: Kind of in a similar boat as Flower Trick, but instead it's a better typing at the cost of being more contact-weak, but despite that I'd be in favour of banning the move, would also tone done the power of Rain that people still think is bad for some reason. Only reason I'm hesitant is because the abusers list is kind of short, only really consisting of Barraskewda, Urshifu-R, Palafin-H and
maybe Gyarados, but again, I wouldn't be mad if it went.
Jet Punch: This one however, I think is fine and I'm honestly kinda unsure what abuses this. It's basically just the former squad of Barraskewda, Urshifu-R, Palafin-H and Gyarados, except that 1) Barraskewda & Gyarados don't exactly need it to be potent, as both can boost their Speed already, and 2) it's a lot weaker than something like Surging Strikes. If we're trying to make Balance have an easier time handling these then I don't think a Jet Punch ban would do much.
Water Shuriken: A bit ironic perhaps to say this, but I actually think Water Shuriken is the most broken move on the list here and is the one that should go immediately/get quickbanned. What differs between Water Shuriken and Jet Punch for me is that Water Shuriken has way better abusers that can take advantage of Special walls a lot easier, on top of almost all user having access to powerful boosting moves, ranging from banned deucers Manaphy & Araquanid with Tail Glow to Volcanion using Torch Song to Greninja using Nasty Plot to Keldeo & Primarina using Calm Mind, you get the idea. Add the newly introduced item Loaded Dice and you have a truly bullshit move with abusers that can very easily overwhelm or outright ignore common defensive & offensive counterplay.
Final Gambit: It pains me to say this, as I think it's a very cool & unique move, but it is in fact very uncompetitive to play against, as Offense virtually gets to do stuff and then say "yooo sick defensive wall there, how about I just oneshot it", letting already powerful mons like Urshifu-R, Keldeo or Great Tusk force awkward plays from the opponent. So overall, not necessarily a broken move but very frustrating/uncompetitive.
Astral Barrage: I'm surprised this is even considered for a ban, as it is literally just Gholdengo who's causing havoc with it (Gengar isn't big enough of an issue lets not kid ourselves), and I'd rather just ban Gholdengo for reasons I'll get to later. Even if it somehow went Gholdengo would still be a menace with Moongeist Beam so this seems kinda pointless to look at.
Glacial Lance: I can kind of understand why this is up for debate, as a 120 Base, non-contact Ice move is extremely potent against virtually everything, but currently I think it sits in a fine spot, with the only real abusers being Weavile and Mamoswine somewhat, with only one of them having access to setup. However, Weavile isn't exactly broken, and has very clear counterplay, while Mamoswine kinda just struggles due to it's lackluster Speed tier, so I'd personally vote no ban. I'm aware some people want it banned so we can unban Baxcalibur & Kyurem, but honestly those two should stay banned forever, as they'd just replace it with either Dice Icicle Spear or Pads Triple Axel.
Stone Axe: I think this is Ceaseless Edge but a lot more balanced and fair, mainly due to two reasons. 1) There are way less users of Stone Axe currently, with the only real ones being Tyranitar & Ogerpon-Cornerstone, neither of which are particulary unfair imo, and 2) It's not as spammable & free as Ceaseless Edge, as you only get value out of it once unlike Ceaseless where you can freely click it 3 times and still make progress. Rocks in general are also a lot weaker than multiple layers of Spikes, so I think this is a fine addition that can stay, mostly cause there aren't many good users.
Last Respects: Can be summarized as cheese, and I would be in favour of banning it simply for that, nobody likes having to at minimum have to account for some silly dog with a tombstone, and Last Respects as a move is already extremely overtuned so might as well gut it while we're at it.
Torque Moves: This is perhaps where my only controversial opinion stands, but I don't think any of the Torque moves are banworthy at all. are some of the secondary effects silly? yes (it's literally only Wicked Torque and that has a grand total of 1 user, rest aren't abnormal) are some of them powerful also? yes, but I don't think they're a main contributor as to why balance is getting shattered into a million fucking pieces each game, the only thing that makes them somewhat controversial is the fact that they're non-contact, but imo it shouldn't be that all physical attackers get invalidated by Beak Blast & Burning Bulwark, hell there aren't even many users of either to begin with so I don't even know. Only mon that gets very buffed is Iron Valiant, but at that point just ban Valiant if we think it's overbearing.
Pokemon:
Gholdengo : Aaaaand here is culprit #1 of making the meta miserable, and I honestly believe this fella should just get quickbanned. Not only does Gholdengo invalidate the entire Hazard metagame by blocking almost all form of removal, making Ceaseless Edge even more powerful, it's also extremely strong offensively, basically mandating stuff like Ting-Lu or Kingambit in order to not fold to it. Please kill it with fire asap.
Kingambit : I currently think Kingambit's somewhat fine actually, and if anything it's a great anti-offense tool which this meta seems to deperately need paired withgreat defensive utility and strong offense. While counterplay can be clunky sometimes it still exists and isn't exactly a burden to slot. Could it become a problem in the future? absolutely, but right now? I don't believe so.
Ogerpon-Hearthflame : Culprit #2 of making the meta miserable, this is the real balance killer. Great offensive typing combined with moves like the aformentioned Flower Trick and Pyro Ball/Sacred Fire makes this a menace, and last slot can be either Play Rough for the dragons or something else that sees you fit. This mon is virtually unwallable outside of stuff like Max Defense Hydrapple or Salamence, and is very potent even against offense, and is something I'd like to see go as soon as possible.
Solgaleo & Lugia : Gonna adress both of these two because they're somewhat similar, but I don't think any of them should be introduced to the tier, and while some may argue that "oh Ting-Lu beats them it's fine" I think that's a horrible argument, because if we're trying to make balance less constrained then why would we introduce two insane powerhouses that can quite literally shrug off a large majority of revenge killes thanks to their sheer bulk. I can't see a world where these two wouldn't be centralizing at all, and despite being met with the brilliant counterargument of "just outplay lol" I am not convinced either of these would be balanced currently.
Items:
Damp Rock : I've already spoken my thoughts about this item
here but in short; Ban Damp Rock,
unless Surging Strikes gets restricted, then I think Damp Rock could at minimum wait with being acted upon, as currently the biggest issue with Rain is Rain-Boosted Surging Strikes from Barraskewda. Otherwise, ban the rock, it's way too fishy and requires way too specific counterplay.
Summary:
In Summary, the bans I'd like to see at minimum are:
- Ceaseless Edge
- Water Shuriken
- Final Gambit
- Last Respects
- Gholdengo
- Ogerpon-Hearthflame
I could also additionally see Flower Trick & Surging Strikes go as well, but I won't necessarily push for them to be banned, moreso just seeing what others think and acting upon that.
That is all from me, ty if you read this. I think tiering-wise we're going in the right direction but I just don't think we're quite there yet.