Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion [ SEE POST #5886 — mechanics update ]

[Vengeance417]

5

Dumb Pokemon. The only reliable defensive answer to it in the tier that I can think of is Fire Tauros, which isn't an OU staple so you know how this goes. Even then, it's prone to getting worn down, especially if not running Leftovers + Protect. What should be good switchins to it, such as Corviknight, Dondozo, and physdef Rotom-W are all broken down by Chien-Pao's Banded Crunch, especially if Tera Dark and Arceus help you if Defense drops get proc'd. It's offensively hard to check, too. It has a blistering Speed-tier which lets it outrun everything relevant besides +Speed Pult, which gets sniped by Ice Shard and Sucker Punch anyway, and Tera removes its 4x Fighting-weakness meaning Body Press from things like Corv or unboosted Garg, and Mach Punch from Sash Breloom won't OHKO from full anymore.

I feel the Banded set is the scariest, but Boots is also hella hard to wear down while giving it move-freedom. Also one of the scariest threats on Screens hyper offense, too. Just won't die, especially after Tera. Ban this thing.


3 (I voted 4 in the survey but kinda regret it now lol)

Not as overbearing as Chien-Pao, but Garganacl is still extremely annoying. It's arguably the best Tera user in the tier by far, and the combination of its signature ability, its signature move, reliably recovery, ID + BP, and fantastic bulk makes it the best defensive piece in the tier, too. There are ways of stopping it, such as Tricking a choice item onto it, knocking its Leftovers off forcing more Recovers, Great Tusk without Garg using Tera, etc, but it's arguably one of the hardest mons in the tier to gain progress against while it progresses very easily against yours. I wouldn't say it's *broken* but it's bordering brainless imo.


3

Don't have as much to say on Gholdengo. Definitely not as opposed to this mon as I was at the start of the meta, but the Cloak set is bordering too good. Also enables spike-stack hella hard, but not impossible to deal with considering Tusk exists. Keep on the radar, but I think over time, this mon will be more healthy for the tier.


1 (I voted 3 before, but I changed my mind again :p)

Not much of a threat at all tbh. Yeah, it can snowball pretty hard, but it requires much more set-up to do so than something like Blaziken did in past gens, which usually just needed one SD to cleave through teams. It just doesn't have the raw breaking potential, with Stored Power needing multiple boosts and Dazzling Gleam does pitiful damage if you don't Tera-Fairy, and running Tera Blast into Tera-Fighting REQUIRES you to Tera this mon otherwise you're walled by Dark-types forever. Not problematic in the slightest.

 

[Solar Power]

I voted

Chien Pao: 5
Garganacl: 4
Gholdengo: 4
Espathra: 2

I would support bans for each of Chien-Pao, Garganacl, and Gholdengo, but not Espathra.

However, I can definitely see which way the wind is blowing with most people so far not wanting to take any action on Gholdengo. I think my problem with it is that it forces you to use Great Tusk (or a Great Tusk dupe) to counter it. Otherwise, there's no reliable way to stop hazard stacking. Its presence in the tier means every team has to have an offensive spinner that can 1v1 Gholdengo, which in my opinion is the single most restrictive element of team-building right now. There's only a handful of offensive spinners that are viable, and having to work out what pokemon you want to use to complement your chosen spinner basically takes up half of your team right away. This means most teams only have 2-3 truly free spaces to work with in team-building after accounting for Gholdengo. I think more so than any other pokemon, a Gholdengo ban would open up the meta to a more diverse set of viable pokemon. I used to be ok with it, but the higher up I've gone, the less I've enjoyed the meta because of its presence.

 

[AndViet]

I voted

Chien Pao: 5
Garganacl: 4
Gholdengo: 4
Espathra: 2

I would support bans for each of Chien-Pao, Garganacl, and Gholdengo, but not Espathra.

However, I can definitely see which way the wind is blowing with most people so far not wanting to take any action on Gholdengo. I think my problem with it is that it forces you to use Great Tusk (or a Great Tusk dupe) to counter it. Otherwise, there's no reliable way to stop hazard stacking. Its presence in the tier means every team has to have an offensive spinner that can 1v1 Gholdengo, which in my opinion is the single most restrictive element of team-building right now. There's only a handful of offensive spinners that are viable, and having to work out what pokemon you want to use to complement your chosen spinner basically takes up half of your team right away. This means most teams only have 2-3 truly free spaces to work with in team-building after accounting for Gholdengo. I think more so than any other pokemon, a Gholdengo ban would open up the meta to a more diverse set of viable pokemon. I used to be ok with it, but the higher up I've gone, the less I've enjoyed the meta because of its presence.

Yeah I pretty much feel the exact way, I do think if suspect thread opened up today and all 4 of them were on the board. I would would vote ban on Nacl and Pao. Dengo I'm 50/50 on

 

[zyzzyva]

I wonder how much a Gholdengo ban would actually affect Hazard Removal options. Look at OU now, these are the Pokemon that learn Rapid Spin or Defog:

Great Tusk, Iron Treads, Torkoal, Quaquaval, Corviknight, Scizor (Glimmora too)

The first two are pretty good spinners and can 1v1 Gholdengo, or at least hit it hard if it tries to switch in. Gholdengo doesn't wanna switch in on Torkoal but anyway Torkoal obviously has his niche and isn't ever going to be consistent at spinning in OU. Quaquaval really doesn't wanna be running Rapid Spin, regardless of what set it's running. Similarly, Defog Scizor sets are pretty mediocre with or without Gholdengo in the tier, especially now that it lost Roost. And then Corviknight would obviously be the big winner of a Gholdengo ban. Maybe more people would run some bulky Glimmora sets if Gholdengo got banned, but I don't think those will ever be very good, and they would still get shut down by Steel types.

There are also UU and below mons that can remove hazards, but most of them don't see play in OU because they're bad, not because of Gholdengo. So realistically, I think a Gholdengo ban would mean your hazard removal options go from Great Tusk and Iron Treads to those 2 + Corvi. And you can already run Corvi as your lone hazard removal, you just need to have other outs against Gholdengo Hazard stack teams.

If a Gholdengo ban were to pass, I feel like it would be more because the NP + Recover sets are too difficult to deal with rather than its centralization of hazard removal options. But I'm not that eager to see it removed from the tier, at least not before Chien-Pao gets the boot.

 

[yNot Mence]

Regardless of the banworthiness of Gholdengo right now, which I do not support since I consider it extremely good obviously but not broken at all, I'm 100% sure that once Home gets released Gholdengo will definitely become way easier to check and work around. Mons like Lando-T, Tornadus-T, Gren and Heatran have always seen widespread usage in OU, and are all incredibly good answers to Gholdengo:
Lando-T obviously outspeeds it and threatens it with an EQ or a Stone Edge if it Teras into a Flying type, and it's also bulky enough to tank a Make it Rain or a couple of Shadow Balls;
Tornadus-T will be crazy good with an AV and thanks to Regen it will be able to always switch in and check Gholdengo (unless it happens to be Specs Thunderbolt), and can threaten it back with an Heat Wave or a Knock Off (if it gets it back);
Greninja resists both of its STABS and could OHKO it with a Life Orb powered Dark Pulse or a Specs set;
Heatran is bulky enough to take multiple Shadow Balls without a problem, it resists Make It Rain and can completely destroy Gholdengo with any Fire move.
Other mons that could be very good against it are Moltres-G, Ursaluna, Typhlosion-H, Samurott-H and Arcanine-H, all of which outspeed it with the exception of Ursaluna and can easily 2HKO it, if not OHKO it.

 

[1LDK]

Regardless of the banworthiness of Gholdengo right now, which I do not support since I consider it extremely good obviously but not broken at all, I'm 100% sure that once Home gets released Gholdengo will definitely become way easier to check and work around. Mons like Lando-T, Tornadus-T, Gren and Heatran have always seen widespread usage in OU, and are all incredibly good answers to Gholdengo:
Lando-T obviously outspeeds it and threatens it with an EQ or a Stone Edge if it Teras into a Flying type, and it's also bulky enough to tank a Make it Rain or a couple of Shadow Balls;
Tornadus-T will be crazy good with an AV and thanks to Regen it will be able to always switch in and check Gholdengo (unless it happens to be Specs Thunderbolt), and can threaten it back with an Heat Wave or a Knock Off (if it gets it back);
Greninja resists both of its STABS and could OHKO it with a Life Orb powered Dark Pulse or a Specs set;
Heatran is bulky enough to take multiple Shadow Balls without a problem, it resists Make It Rain and can completely destroy Gholdengo with any Fire move.
Other mons that could be very good against it are Moltres-G, Ursaluna, Typhlosion-H, Samurott-H and Arcanine-H, all of which outspeed it with the exception of Ursaluna and can easily 2HKO it, if not OHKO it.

One problem is that most of the usual deffogers lost defog, we have more than enough counters to gholdengo, what we need and we dont have are counters to gholdengo that can also defog/spin, none of the genies have defog anymore, Gren is too frail to take shit, Heatran is a good counter untill gholdengo starts using focus blast again

why is this distintion important? because it doenst matter if you can counter gholdengo because your defogger wont be able to take of hazards, and youll take DoA unless you equip boots, but then your just one knock off away

With this in mind, Hisuian Decidueye is gonna be THE hardest gholdengo counter in the game, and as long as gholdengo remains a threat, Decidueye-H will have a niche, which it makes me angry because this interfiers with my plans to promote to S+ on the viability rankings

 

[yNot Mence]

One problem is that most of the usual deffogers lost defog, we have more than enough counters to gholdengo, what we need and we dont have are counters to gholdengo that can also defog/spin, none of the genies have defog anymore, Gren is too frail to take shit, Heatran is a good counter untill gholdengo starts using focus blast again

why is this distintion important? because it doenst matter if you can counter gholdengo because your defogger wont be able to take of hazards, and youll take DoA unless you equip boots, but then your just one knock off away

With this in mind, Hisuian Decidueye is gonna be THE hardest gholdengo counter in the game, and as long as gholdengo remains a threat, Decidueye-H will have a niche, which it makes me angry because this interfiers with my plans to promote to S+ on the viability rankings

So are the Defog cuts 100% confirmed or is there even the slightest chance that we'll be able to get some of the old movepools back with Home transfers? Cause if that ain't the case it really fucking sucks, and I still find it crazy how mons like Zapdos and Tornadus have lost Defog. Like, I could understand Lando, but the other two are both birds AND flying types, so it would only make sense for them to have it. Game Freak at it again with its non-sense bs.

 

[Seronius]

Question for anyone to answer. whose more uncompetitive? Espathra or Blaziken in any generation he was uber. Espathra feels very uncompetitive to me. He has roost and tera, two advantages Blaziken would of prayed for. I feel like it's a matter of time before its banned. Wish the Council would save us the trouble of having a suspect.

 

[Yahooboo]

legendary birds cannot summon wind to blow away obstacles, but lurantis and hisuian lilligant can

classic gamefreak

 

[charlieX7]

whose more uncompetitive?

*Who's

He has roost and tera, two advantages Blaziken would of prayed for.

*It
*Tera
*would've

I feel like it's a matter of time before its banned.

*it's

Wish the Council would save us the trouble of having a suspect.

*council

 

[SwaggySammy44]

So my votes go something like

4 Not as broken as Chi-Yu but still pretty busted. Pretty much eeverything I have to say about chien-pao has already said, so I'll just mention it has recover. There's no reason to run it, I just think it's kinda funny. Almost voted 5, but it is vulnerable to rocks and priority, so I guess there's some ways to handle it, but I still think it's far too overbearing and should definitely be suspected.

4 Even though I don't think garganacl is as broken as Chien-Pao, it pisses me off alot more. Salt cure is a fucking stupid move, there is very little risk to clicking it, 25% damage to water and steel types is absurd. Garg can wear down pretty much anything not using covert cloak, and can force out a lot of the breakers that can typically threaten it.

2 I think Gholdengo is mostly fine. The ability to block hazard removal is a lot less scary when 2 of the better hazard control mons (great tusk and iron treads) are able to force it out with EQ/knock off. Cinderace provides another option for hazard removal that is generally unbothered by gholdengo as well. I'm glad alot of the initial hostility towards gholdengo is dying down, as I think that it is a very good but balanced mon, and there are many things in the tier that are much more problematic.

1 I don't really know why espathra keeps appearing in these tiering surveys. The main argument for it being unbalanced was how good it was at abusing shed tail, but now that Cyclizar is gone, espathra is much easier to deal with. I also just don't see it that much on the ladder.

 

[Turtlek]

I believe Spikes should be banned. It is able to do enormous damage. It is impossible to remove them. A PROOF IT'S CENTRALISING: ALL POKEMON OF OU can use Heavy-Duty Boots.

 

[Athyestic]

I believe Spikes should be banned. It is able to do enormous damage. It is impossible to remove them. A PROOF IT'S CENTRALISING: ALL POKEMON OF OU can use Heavy-Duty Boots.

least deranged verlisify fan take

 

[Turtlek]

least deranged verlisify fan take

can you say anything that really go against my statement?

 

[Vall]

So are the Defog cuts 100% confirmed or is there even the slightest chance that we'll be able to get some of the old movepools back with Home transfers? Cause if that ain't the case it really fucking sucks, and I still find it crazy how mons like Zapdos and Tornadus have lost Defog. Like, I could understand Lando, but the other two are both birds AND flying types, so it would only make sense for them to have it. Game Freak at it again with its non-sense bs.

It's theoretically possible, as most of the evidence that transfer moves don't occur is circumstantial...

But if we're being completely honest with ourselves there's no way its coming. The changes to ability patch means that machamp can never be in a game with transfer moves, Chilling water as a move becomes completely obsolete if scald comes back via transfer moves, and there's been an apparent effort to limit distribution of knock off & toxic in the past few gens.

 

[Athyestic]

can you say anything that really go against my statement?

If you had argued Stealth Rock there would be some merit, but Spikes has direct counterplay in flying types, or Pokémon with Levitate. Additionally, though Gholdengo exists, clearing the spikes away is a possibility (with the two best spinners being able to threaten gholden joe heavily). Finally, with them requiring 3 layers to really dish out the hurt, it’s easy for one to take advantage of all the turns your opponent clicks Spikes.

 

[Turtlek]

If you had argued Stealth Rock there would be some merit, but Spikes has direct counterplay in flying types, or Pokémon with Levitate. Additionally, though Gholdengo exists, clearing the spikes away is a possibility (with the two best spinners being able to threaten gholden joe heavily). Finally, with them requiring 3 layers to really dish out the hurt, it’s easy for one to take advantage of all the turns your opponent clicks Spikes.

Do you know about the move Gravity?

 

[Vall]

Has anyone else been struggling a lot more with Volc than normal?

The Will-o-Wisp/Quiver/Roost/Coverage sets feel impossible to beat - physical attackers get burnt and special attackers get set up on.
I feel like the unaware mons and occasional haze pex are probably the only thing stopping volc from steamrolling everything.

 

[Vall]

Do you know about the move Gravity?

Ok that's just ridiculous. I have only seen gravity on some niche landorous sets last Gen, and that had nothing to do with hazards but with EQ spam.

 

[Athyestic]

Do you know about the move Gravity?

I do, love it to death. One of my favorite strategies was Gravity Magnezone.

But it's not a panacea for calling spikes broken. The only viable users are Blissey and Sandy Shocks, and both of those have their own flaws. I'll leave them in a spoiler.

Blissey

-Horribly passive, even more than before. It's only a fit on the hardest of hard stall, and even then, it's arguably the most exploitable member on those cores.
-It can't really fit gravity. It needs all of Soft Boiled, Thunder Wave, Seismic Toss, Stealth Rock, and Shadow Ball.
-Even if it could, the process of setting up hazards -> going Blissey on the few pokemon that don't threaten it -> clicking Gravity -> Forcing a ton of switches (already annoying enough w stall this gen) is incredibly inconvenient and hard to pull off. And you only get it for 5 turns.

Sandy Shocks

I'll admit it, this is a pretty good user of Gravity. But it's not particularly overwhelmingly excellent, and either wants to run Choice items, or all of VS, EP, Thunderbolt, Stealth Rock, Spikes, and now Gravity. It just doesn't work.

 

[Goodbye & Thanks]

can you say anything that really go against my statement?

I'm not the person that you originally responded to, and I can't tell if you're trolling, but here are some responses to your statement.

I believe Spikes should be banned. It is able to do enormous damage.

I agree that Spikes can do big damage, but:
1. They only affect grounded Pokemon (disregarding Boots), and those without Magic Guard (although that's not relevant in the current meta).
2. Doing 12.5% with one layer up is good, consistent chip, but if something is holding Lefties, it's only two rounds of Leftovers away from negating Spikes damage. I also wouldn't consider 1/8 to be "enormous damage" because something like regular Poison or Salt Cure against a non Water or Steel type does that every turn, and it's not like people look at one round of that amount of damage the same way that they do Specs Lele in SM or anything.
3. Getting up multiple layers of Spikes is difficult and usually if someone is able to get and keep up three layers or something throughout a game, they probably just won the game handily anyway.

It is impossible to remove them.

This is hyperbole - it's not impossible to remove hazards. Sure, Gholdengo makes it so that Corviknight can't Defog, but that doesn't mean that dynamic alone makes it "impossible to remove" Spikes. Gholdengo isn't a guaranteed way to prevent Spin from Tusk or Treads either, since Gholdengo can't freely switch into Knock or EQ from them (unless it's on a Balloon, but Knock is very common on Tusk and Treads anyway and it can be difficult for Gholdengo to keep its Balloon in tact). I honestly feel like it's easier to remove hazards in SV then it was in Gens 4-6, and I could even see a case being made that it's harder to keep hazards up in GSC and ADV as well, although I don't really play those tiers.

A PROOF IT'S CENTRALISING: ALL POKEMON OF OU can use Heavy-Duty Boots.

Every Pokemon can hold a Utility Umbrella - does that mean that Rain and Sun are overcentralizing? I personally dislike Boots a lot, but I think it's a fallacy to say that since every Pokemon can use it, hazards are overly centralizing. Unless you mean that every Pokemon can benefit from Boots, which sure, that's true, but you can say that about almost any item. Everything can benefit from Leftovers, but something like Iron Valiant probably won't run Lefties since it benefits more from other items. Similarly, you won't see Garchomp running Boots because they don't help it nearly as much as something like Leftovers or Helmet does. Boots are also less common in SV than SS anyway, although I feel like they'll probably pick up in usage in time. It's also odd to me that you claim that Boots are proof that Spikes should be banned, since the fact that Boots exist means that there is a method of completely invalidating hazards. And again, I really dislike Boots and would prefer it if they were never introduced so that hazards could be even more impactful on the meta, but I'm also an SM player and I understand that views differ on this. Either way, Spikes and Stealth Rock are extremely powerful and hazards have completely shaped competitive play since GSC, but I think they're positive aspects of Pokemon and shouldn't in any way be considered for a ban.

 

[yNot Mence]

Has anyone else been struggling a lot more with Volc than normal?

The Will-o-Wisp/Quiver/Roost/Coverage sets feel impossible to beat - physical attackers get burnt and special attackers get set up on.
I feel like the unaware mons and occasional haze pex are probably the only thing stopping volc from steamrolling everything.

Specs Iron Moth with Fiery Dance is also very good against this set, since Volc takes around 45-50% after a Quiver Dance and its STAB moves are resisted by the former. Fiery Dance also has a 50% chance to raise Moth's SpA by 1 stage, so Quiver Dance is not really a problem. Other mons I've used to deal with it quite easily are Calm Mind Hatterene with Psyshock and Scarf+Trick Rotom-W (or any Scarfed mon that can use Trick, in theory).

 

[Mikegengsta]

Garg is 4-5 on the votes. It seems you are unaware that covert cloak is an item or you just choose to not run it and hope you don’t see it on the ladder. Pao I understand but garg needs to stick around and let more creativity evolve in the meta. Run the cloak and run good ol substitute.

 

[yNot Mence]

Do you know about the move Gravity?

Turtlek stop trolling and get back to playing your 1000th tournament in the Tours Plaza.

 

[[Black Knight]Gawain]

- strong 3, I am fairly neutral on it but I see and recognize the calls for banning it. I do think burning a tera as a reactionary precaution is very annoying though, and probably my most disliked part of facing one if I brought a team that doesn't handle a particular set well.

- I forgot if I put 4 or 5, but I think comparisons to Heatran are unfounded. Heatran existed with an ability and typing that let at least one common status (paralysis) hit as well as not resist ghost spam, which these days is more common. Plus, Magma Storm sets are much more fallible, with being a less spammable move bc of typing, PP and accuracy. Salt Cure is far more problematic. Heatran sets also didn't have tera, which makes counterplay much more simpler. I truly think Garganacl is worth some consideration for a suspect of all the big 3 on the survey.

- think I voted a 1 or 2, fairly obvious here why. It's good, splashable, but I think we can all agree most teams are carrying some counterplay to its set variety. Least worthy of a look imo.

- 2, annoying but that's about it. I think its usage has straight up fallen off since HO as a playstyle is the weakest it's been since the gen began.



Looking forward to seeing the full community votes, I'm thinking Pao's gonna get the first look but community's been surprising me a lot lately, so maybe nacl it is?