Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[Ctann]

Surprised to see so many choices gholdengo,

it has very beefy stats.

this set has been working a charm



Gholdengo @ Leftovers
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Make It Rain
- Recover
- Nasty Plot

It helps that it can switch into almost everything defensive, including the dreaded garganacl. It also can wipe out almost every offensive threat that switches in , in a 1v1 once it has nasty plotted.

the Tera typing lets it beat certain offensive Pokémon in a clutch situation. Other Tera works too.

mvp on my meme teams, and mvp on the serious teams too

 

[Taka]

The kind of 50/50s here are heavily weighted in the Gholdengo player's favor. If they predict right, the spinner side loses a huge amount of momentum (and also lets some variants of Balloon Gholdengo to sub up). This also is on top of the base 50/50 of even clicking EQ vs Spin because you don't yet know if the Gholdengo is even balloon. Great Tusk is also tspikes weak and its lesser defensive utility on top of guaranteed spikes damage (2-3 layers worth) means it won't get many chances to spin.

While Palafin and Iron Bundle are blatantly broken, Gholdengo has a massive influence on the tier and tye more I see it and play with and against it, the more I'm convinced it's simply an unhealthy presence. Other ghosts would be fine spinblocking replacements (Dragapult, Annihilape) and would be great, but would be far less overbearing by comparison.

100% the main issue. Regardless of whether you predict correctly in the 50/50, Gholdengo always will spinblock. Especially in a meta such as this, if you kill the Gholdengo and forego hazard removal, you're still not removing hazards and reducing the already limited defensive capability of your team, opening it up to sweepers such as Tera electric Tusk and BU Palafin.

 

[Ctann]

In a meta with almost no flying types, choice band Garchomp has been pulling heavy weight. It’s easy to partner it with switchins for dragonite and corviknight!

anyone else tried sets that wouldn’t fly in any other meta, but are seemingly working great in the current one? Choice Garchomp shocked me by its effectiveness, able to 2HKO a lot of checks that come in thinking it’s the spikes set.

 

[Mikegengsta]

What is the best spread to run with kingambit at this time with adamant nature?

 

[I love poke waifus]

Guys there's literally a host of spinners and a defogger currently in the game that force out Gholdengo. Torkoal, Iron Treads, Great Tusks, and a Talonflame defogger (Granted, probably never being used) all can win this fight. Glimmora can even threaten Gholdengo from switching to block Mortal Spin if it wanted to.

There's also still an item that literally invalidates all this.

And lastly you all have refused to accept the Mormon Mouse itself, Mausfeld, who yet sanctifies the ground beneath their many feet.

There are options. There is also a refusal to use said options.

Set with Shadow Ball or Nasty Plot is 2HKO to OHKO and in this meta exist the big Terastelize to change type and take advantage, dual screens and shied trial to protect Gholdengo.

 

[Taka]

What is the best spread to run with kingambit at this time with adamant nature?

Imo this is my favorite spread,
EVs: 116 HP / 252 Atk / 140 Spe, because it lets you outspeed corviknight

 

[Bugboy]

Who is even running defog…? Corviknight? Maybe scizor? It sounds to me like people upset by gholdengo are upset at a ghost type blocking their spins because I highly doubt everyone complaining is running the extremely tiny amount of mons that click defog.

I understand it could be an issue later on, but 85% of teams are running spin over defog anyway. What is gholdengo doing to enable hazard stack offense that other robust ghost types don’t already do? Stop your corviknight that’s on 15% of teams?

 

[ayevon]

Who is even running defog…? Corviknight? Maybe scizor? It sounds to me like people upset by gholdengo are upset at a ghost type blocking their spins because I highly doubt everyone complaining is running the extremely tiny amount of mons that click defog.

I understand it could be an issue later on, but I’m 85% of teams are running spin over defog anyway. What is gholdengo doing to enable hazard stack offense that other robust ghost types don’t already do? Stop your corviknight that’s on 15% of teams?

People aren't running defog because there is no counterplay to Gholdengo. Corviknight would be extremely good rn otherwise. At least with out the spinners, you have options to threaten it

 

[Porygon2Bandit]

Torkoal: generally sun only.
Treads/Tusk: excellent mons that still can't always threaten Gholdengo if it air balloon sets. Plus both struggle to switch into it.
Talonflame: lol

Glimmora can't threaten air balloon Gholdengo and Glim being mainly a lead, is not often around to even attack or threaten Gholdengo. As for the boots remark, if you expect every team to run four to five boots yet don't see the problem with that... And Maushold is complete match-up fish garbage. The options for hazard removal are limited as is and even though Corv and the Dons are excellent mons on their own, they are quickly overwhelmed against the kind of offensive pressure Gholdengo hazard stack teams exert, plus Corv cannot beat such teams. You also have to actually get Tusk/Treads in which isn't exactly the easiest against a well built Gholdengo team.



The kind of 50/50s here are heavily weighted in the Gholdengo player's favor. If they predict right, the spinner side loses a huge amount of momentum (and also lets some variants of Balloon Gholdengo to sub up). This also is on top of the base 50/50 of even clicking EQ vs Spin because you don't yet know if the Gholdengo is even balloon. Great Tusk is also tspikes weak and its lesser defensive utility on top of guaranteed spikes damage (2-3 layers worth) means it won't get many chances to spin.

While Palafin and Iron Bundle are blatantly broken, Gholdengo has a massive influence on the tier and tye more I see it and play with and against it, the more I'm convinced it's simply an unhealthy presence. Other ghosts would be fine spinblocking replacements (Dragapult, Annihilape) and would be great, but would be far less overbearing by comparison.

Why is the entire front half of your argument about a mon beating an entire team? Of course Treads/Tusks aren't beating an entire team themselves, they're spinners with good offensive presence. Not "incredibly broken mon that can 6-0 without the help of their own team". Bringing in these shadowy ideas of 'team comps' on both ends without spelling out what you'll definitely see doesn't really make sense in context either because again, this is about hazard removal and being able to reliably make Gholdengo die for coming in.

And Balloon Gholdengo is so common you're not clicking EQ on it without knowing. Like weighted in their favor?

Gholdengo Spinner Chart	Predicted Switch	Predicted No Switch
Actual Switch	Gholdengo loses 75%, is outsped, dies	Gholdengo gets in untouched
Actual No Switch	Mon you're facing gets item knocked off (or you die first? depends what's in)	Hazards removed, +1 speed.

To be clear, these outcomes are not seriously bad for the spinner. Like if they switch and you predict right, the hazards remain. But also Gholdengo dies vs basically every spinner we're discussing. This isn't a multiple-attempt trade pattern. Iron Treads and Tusks ARE killing.

And if whatever hazards are up is that devestating to you that killing the spin blocker is still losing you the game, that REALLY seems like a compositional issue. Because this would happen with any ghost. Or are we at the point now where if hazards are not brainlessly cleared in any situation, they're too strong.

Set with Shadow Ball or Nasty Plot is 2HKO to OHKO and in this meta exist the big Terastelize to change type and take advantage, dual screens and shied trial to protect Gholdengo.

Again, spinner comes in. Spinblocker pivots after. If predicted wrong, Spinner team will go to their pivot. Nasty plot is not a unique punish to Gholdengo in terms of pivot punishing/spinblocking. Aegi did similar things, as did Gengar in gens long past.


I really feel like I'm missing part of the argument... we've HAD spinblocking be a major piece before in Gen 5 and before. I don't think we need to wax poetic about what it was like, people have always hated hazards. But even in more recent gens, its been possible to taunt defoggers out. Compared to all these gens except 8, we've had hazards be even less interactive as the defoggers would get chunked just answering them. Boots only came out last gen to alleviate that. Preventing hazard clears has ALWAYS been a thing, and Gholdengo isn't moving the mark on what the relationship is between hazard clearers and 'spinblockers', he's just added a layer back to more consistently answer defog. And no, I don't think there's any way to construe this mon as broken right now. Full teams and dedicated strategies should require full teams.

The biggest thing Gholdengo does over another ghost type is make Corviknight partake in spinblocking...

 

[Taka]

People aren't running defog because there is no counterplay to Gholdengo. Corviknight would be extremely good rn otherwise. At least with out the spinners, you have options to threaten it

and corv is still incredibly good but a lot more fringe now, but making defog on it not mandatory is risky. Its one of the best defoggers but its now nearly impossible to run defog on it

 

[Bugboy]

People aren't running defog because there is no counterplay to Gholdengo. Corviknight would be extremely good rn otherwise. At least with out the spinners, you have options to threaten it

My point is that it’s completely possible that banning gholdengo does nothing to stop hazard stack offense because the problem is potentially just the lack of mons with hazard removal. People will still run rapid spin more than defog and the next spin blocker will pop up to do gholdengo’s job a bit worse.

 

[Bakugames]

I mean, to me it seems like the main issue is that things that can beat gholdengo are immediately threatened by palafin and bundle. Greak tusk becomes a better switch when it doesn't have to worry about getting jet punched or hydro pumped to hell, unaware clodsire might also be good vs it vs np sets without being free momentum for the former two too

 

[Stories]

My point is that it’s completely possible that banning gholdengo does nothing to stop hazard stack offense because the problem is potentially just the lack of mons with hazard removal. People will still run rapid spin more than defog and the next spin blocker will pop up to do gholdengo’s job a bit worse.

Why would we keep Gholdengo then when the pool of Removers is already microscopic and Gholdengo completely invalidates 90% of them?

 

[Bugboy]

Why would we keep Gholdengo then when the pool of Removers is already microscopic and Gholdengo completely invalidates 90% of them?

Who exactly does banning it enable other than corviknight? Like forretress? Is that gonna be the move? Forretress in OU? I think you are vastly overestimating the amount of rapid spin mons and defog mons in the tier

 

[ayevon]

My point is that it’s completely possible that banning gholdengo does nothing to stop hazard stack offense because the problem is potentially just the lack of mons with hazard removal. People will still run rapid spin more than defog and the next spin blocker will pop up to do gholdengo’s job a bit worse.

Corviknight would have insane usage due to it's ability to check top threats if it wasn't completely invalidated as a remover. Maybe cumulative there would be more spinners, but I have little doubt that Corviknight would be the most used hazard remover without Gholdengo. Even using it with tusk/treads allows them to not be forced to run spin and explore other sets

 

[Stories]

Who exactly does banning it enable other than corviknight? Like forretress? Is that gonna be the move? Forretress in OU? I think you are vastly overestimating the amount of rapid spin mons and defog mons in the tier

why are you speculating when we have concrete evidence already that Gholdengo is actively warping the tier?

| 1 | Palafin | 39.40511% | 82127 | 29.697% | 70957 | 33.190% | | 2 | Great Tusk | 35.63760% | 66998 | 24.227% | 52845 | 24.718% | | 3 | Gholdengo | 32.39448% | 53149 | 19.219% | 40912 | 19.136% |

Gholdengo is top 3 most used and spikes stack teams PLAGUE high ladder and have for the past 2 days. The reason why it appears there's no removers is because they're completely dead slots into Ghold so why would people use them? Forretress in OU sounds completely reasonable in a limited dex tier with limited removers so idk why that's such a shock to you

 

[Mikegengsta]

Imo this is my favorite spread,
EVs: 116 HP / 252 Atk / 140 Spe, because it lets you outspeed corviknight

Appreciate it! Btw would 144 speed be better or is 140 the right amount?

 

[Bold School]

It is starting to sound to me like most of the people who are complaining about Gholdengo are just upset about Corviknight. It's not even unusable as a defogger. You just have to build your team with Gholdengo in mind. So either you use a different hazard remover that can threaten Gholdengo or you use some of the many strong fire, ground, dark, and ghost types that can threaten Gholdengho on your team to make up for it. Or you could try something else like making a team comp that is less vulnerable to hazard stack in the first place. It's really not that hard.

 

[Taka]

Appreciate it! Btw would 144 speed be better or is 140 the right amount?

140 should be enough for speedless corv, since it puts Kingambit at 171 vs Corv at 170

 

[advaita]

Lol I don't find Gholdengo to be broken, at all.

In Generation 8, teams would easily find a way to Defog after lead Mew / Skarmory does its thing, then pivot between 2-3 Regenerator Pokemon until your opponent's garbage offense is dead-- the offense user has no way to make progress without some match-up fish Pokemon such as Crawdaunt or ultra-specific cores such as Future Sight Tapu Lele + Choice Band Urshifu.

The reality of the situation is that people are just salty that they can't mindlessly Defog with their Corviknight, remove hazards, and win vs HO which has been one of the worse archetypes for generations at this point. People need to learn to play with hazards on the field, and they also need to learn how to play more aggressively with fatter builds. This is a breathe of fresh air if anything.

Removing hazards vs Gholdengo is not impossible. Choice Scarf is by far the most common set-- Iron Treads & Great Tusk force the HO player to pick between keeping hazards or keeping Gholdengo. I've had many games where players sack their Gholdengo to keep hazards up, but because Gholdengo ends up being the only defensive backbone on these type of teams, I can just Moonblast spam with something like Iron Valiant and clean up late-game. Balloon sets have more flexibility, but these sets are nowhere near as threatening compared to Trick Scarf.

Also, I don't understand what the issue is with running Heavy-Duty Boots? I find it funny how we can go from "Heavy-Duty Boots are broken" to "being forced to run Heavy-Duty Boots is unhealthy." Please up make up your mind people. HO is not impossible to beat. We literally have Chien-Pao, which takes zero hazard damage, and would run Heavy-Duty Boots even if Gholdengo was banned, then proceeds to smash 90% of these mindless offenses with the option of two stab priority moves and great coverage in Sacred Sword.

Generation 9 also gave us three new Unaware users, all of which are very good-- Dondozo, Skeledirge (with Tera-Fairy), Clodsire... I've lost many games with my "no skill Gholdengo offenses" to competent stall / balance players who know how to trade hazards and win the long-game in what would be a difficult match-up at preview.

With Gholdengo in the tier, fat has to play more aggressively and not just simple ass sequences like "click Dondozo on Chien-Pao" and "click Defog on Stealth Rock." Maybe trading hazards is a better play? Is this an entirely new dynamic to playing fatter builds? What a nightmare!

 

[Stories]

With Gholdengo in the tier, fat has to play more aggressively and not just simple ass sequences like "click Dondozo on Chien-Pao" and "click Defog on Stealth Rock." Maybe trading hazards is a better play? Is this an entirely new dynamic to playing fatter builds? What a nightmare!

You have made the only good / reasonable argument for why Gholdengo is NOT broken. I really like this argument despite thinking that the mon is broken myself but my only gripe here is that this "new dynamic to playing" has completely taken over the tier and is pretty much 90% of teams right now

 

[Local Dog]

Honestly blaming Gholdengo for hazard stacking is weird as fuck ngl

With the current distribution of Spikes and toxic Spikes, the extremely limited amount of defoggers and viable rapid spinners and the many discussions hyping up hazards pre release, Gholdengo's ability to block defog is a drop in the bucket for motivation in using hazards. Even Palafin and Bundle are having more of an impact on hazard stacking, due these two being usually crippled through hazards

If you think that counterplay to hazard removal is a bad thing, yeah idk what to say honestly

 

[Stories]

Honestly blaming Gholdengo for hazard stacking is weird as fuck ngl

With the current distribution of Spikes and toxic Spikes, the extremely limited amount of defoggers and viable rapid spinners and the many discussions hyping up hazards pre release, Gholdengo's ability to block defog is a drop in the bucket for motivation in using hazards. Even Palafin and Bundle are having more of an impact on hazard stacking, due these two being usually crippled through hazards

If you think that counterplay to hazard removal is a bad thing, yeah idk what to say honestly

it's not counterplay.. its complete nullification. There was already counterplay to hazard removal. SpinBlocking has been a term for 2 decades, we just got a crazy new evolution for an already solid Defiant pokemon. Palaphin and Bundle have no place in the tier regardless of spikes, it's not worth bringing them up new spikes abusers will just replace them and the playstyle will remain dominant

 

[Divine Retribution]

Honestly blaming Gholdengo for hazard stacking is weird as fuck ngl

With the current distribution of Spikes and toxic Spikes, the extremely limited amount of defoggers and viable rapid spinners and the many discussions hyping up hazards pre release, Gholdengo's ability to block defog is a drop in the bucket for motivation in using hazards. Even Palafin and Bundle are having more of an impact on hazard stacking, due these two being usually crippled through hazards

If you think that counterplay to hazard removal is a bad thing, yeah idk what to say honestly

Not gonna lie, this reeks of theorymonning instead of like... actual play experience. In practice, Gholdengo has an absolutely massive impact in the difficulty and number of opportunities you have to remove hazards compared to a team without it, so calling it a drop in the bucket is facetious as fuck, The rest of your post is literally just listing reasons why hazard stacking is as powerful as it is, which are points in favor of why a Pokemon that makes removing hazards much more difficult might be a problem.

As Togkey said, Palafin and Bundle are barely relevant to a discussion of Gholdengo; at best you've got a broken checks broken argument there and more realistically the link between Gholdengo's presence in the tier and keeping monsters like Palafin and Bundle in check is even more tenuous than that, although I'm too tired to analyze that further when you really didn't even make an argument yourself.

 

[Moyashi]

Why is the entire front half of your argument about a mon beating an entire team? Of course Treads/Tusks aren't beating an entire team themselves, they're spinners with good offensive presence. Not "incredibly broken mon that can 6-0 without the help of their own team". Bringing in these shadowy ideas of 'team comps' on both ends without spelling out what you'll definitely see doesn't really make sense in context either because again, this is about hazard removal and being able to reliably make Gholdengo die for coming in.

It isn't. I never said nor implied any such thing. So maybe put the strawman back where you found it and actually read the comment please.

To be clear, these outcomes are not seriously bad for the spinner. Like if they switch and you predict right, the hazards remain. But also Gholdengo dies vs basically every spinner we're discussing. This isn't a multiple-attempt trade pattern. Iron Treads and Tusks ARE killing

Here's something for you: even if you manage to get them in somehow and correctly predict and win with knock off? Ghold is down but you still haven't spun. And if you don't run boots on your spinner they are already heavily worn down. The opponent can just bring in a mon to force Tusk out before you can spin. Now Tusk can't really come back in easily due to how badly it was chipped. Treads gets by a little better, if only for being tspikes immune. But only just. Still takes a lot from spikes. The kinds of teams Gholdengo enables are built to abuse spikes in a way that pressures the opponent to keep from being able to remove them.

And if whatever hazards are up is that devestating to you that killing the spin blocker is still losing you the game, that REALLY seems like a compositional issue. Because this would happen with any ghost. Or are we at the point now where if hazards are not brainlessly cleared in any situation, they're too strong.

If you think any ghost could fulfill the role of spinblocker the way Gholdengo does then frankly you missed the point completely. And if you think this is all because people want to be able brainlessly clear hazards at any time, then respectfully, you haven't been paying attention to whatt people have been saying.

The strength of hazards+spinblocking is lopsided in comparison to the strength of hazard removal. When gen5 had this issue with spikes+magic guard psychic teams supported by powerful spinblocking, Excadrill came down to be a reliable spinner. DeoS/DeoD historically have enabled teams based on hazard stack far too effectively to be reasonable, seen in gens 5-6 (and remained banned from the beginning in gen7). What's the key point? When hazard removal became too difficult and thus hazards became TOO strong for one reason or another, something had to be done.

Gholdengo takes the concept of blocking hazard removal way too far, especially when atm options for hazard removal is so scarce. If gen9 hadn't given everything and its cousin spikes, maybe it wouldn't be as bad. But there is too much hazards and not enough ways to remove them.

In Generation 8, teams would easily find a way to Defog after lead Mew / Skarmory does its thing, then pivot between 2-3 Regenerator Pokemon until your opponent's garbage offense is dead-- the offense user has no way to make progress without some match-up fish Pokemon such as Crawdaunt or ultra-specific cores such as Future Sight Tapu Lele + Choice Band Urshifu.

Also, I don't understand what the issue is with running Heavy-Duty Boots? I find it funny how we can go from "Heavy-Duty Boots are broken" to "being forced to run Heavy-Duty Boots is unhealthy." Please up make up your mind people. HO is not impossible to beat. We literally have Chien-Pao, which takes zero hazard damage and would run Heavy-Duty Boots even if Gholdengo was banned, then proceeds to smash 90% of these mindless offenses with the option of two stab priority moves and great coverage in Sacred Sword.

Offensive options were fine in gen8. Stop pushing the ridiculous myth that balance was OP.

There is a huge difference between running boots to ease teambuilding and running boots because you have no other option if you don't want everything taking unreasonable levels of hazard chip. Oh and if spike spam wasn't everywhere Chien-Pao would be free to run all kinds of sets from band to nevermeltice/black glasses and more.

Maybe trading hazards is a better play? Is this an entirely new dynamic to playing fatter builds? What a nightmare!

Gholdengo at the very least heavily centralizes the tier and restricts team building. And in the future i hope people look at this things impact on the tier and building.