Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[1LDK]

Honestly, I was going to try to make some Doom and pessimistic post about how we are not gonna have a Balanced AND fun metagame ever again, but my writing skills s u c k s, so im just gonna do a messy opinion overall on the state of the meta and how we should move foward, im very tired, so this may not be my most consistent post, but I really need the social interaction.

In my personal opinions, as far as the meta goes, we at this point should start making conspiracy theorys about what ifs, what if Gholdengo gets banned? What if garganacl gets banned? What if you purposely make your Meowscarada FEMALE? I know theorymonning can be sloppy, but just a little more can't hurt, can't it?

Tiering surveys have been a great direction about how the tiering system and debate should go, and I cannot wait for the next one where I'm gonna try and convince somebody that Chesnaught is an OU viable mon (but seriously, thank you finch for these chances)

as for takes on the mons
honestly, nothing new on the table, just made the problem worse and with different colors, It's still physically frail and has some coverage problems
bro why you miss this, not even counters it proper what are you doing, pls no more sd + webs sweeps pls I have a family
is the new gen 4 jirachi, where sometimes you wish you could do war crimes against a innocent creature, and sometimes you cannot help but laugh when you get a thunder wave/Make it rain crit/spedef drop/make garga look like a clown, we have more than enough counters and checks to it, what we don't have is checks/counters that can also remove hazards, Gholdengo is unhealthy untill you take corviknight out of the team and search for literally anything else

Lastly, with HOME on the horizon, we could make 1 more suspect test (you guys know who I want on the chopping block) but let's just have some more fun with Tera before it inevitably dies, which is sad because I do like it, I really love all the creativity for it and all the viability it has generated (Shoutouts to Morkal for adding +10000000000000000000 mons on the viability rankings)

 

[Baloor]

I read njnp's post and just want to echo the sentiment that teralization is absolutely problematic for the tier long term. At the moment, and especially during the suspect, I feel we are looking at it with rose-colored glasses as it makes this tier that would be otherwise incredibly boring more interesting to watch. While from a spectating standpoint, this is the most interesting pokemon has been in a while, which is where I think the more casual playerbase forms their opinion of tera is fine from; watching youtubers, tournaments, ladder etc... However, when it comes to playing and building it has made everything an egregious headache. As seen with Finch's tera index, most ou pokemon have around 4 viable tera types which commonly have completely different forms of counterplay despite being the same mon. The most obvious example is Ground and Grass Volcarona, being completely different from each other making it hard to cover in the builder. While this is nothing new in past gens where all lele sets were functionally different there is typically some kind of blanket form of counterplay and ability to scout what you're up against. However, being able to change types on a whim completely nullifies this as the entire purpose of tera is to change your type to get past your counterplay and games can go out of control relatively fast because you didn't account for your opponent teraing on a specific turn. There's always the argument of "well just predict the tera", which is entirely possible but not actually an effective argument as a) as mentioned, most mons have several viable teras all with different counterplay so its incredibly hard to predict which exact tera your opponent is turning into (not to mention they always can be running some jank unviable type) and b) your opponent as complete control over when they tera and given that the player teralizing typically has a big advantage on the given turn, they'll probably position themselves into a spot where you predicting is less impactful anyway e.x a mon that isn't particularly threatening to whatever they tera into. It's incredibly hard to cover everything in 6 slots, even with your own tera types due to the sheer amount of options each mon has because of tera. I've found theres been many games where the opponent teralizing and you spend several turns regaining position but at that point, they've already made significant progress on your team. You can always use your tera to counter their tera, however, this can be inconsistent and I don't think I really need to explain why relying on this as a balanced argument is kind of troll. As I said tera is really fun from a spectating point of view but ends up being super annoying when playing/building and I find games tend to feel draining or unrewarding since there's so much nonsense that can happen it doesn't even feel like playing good matters all too much sometimes. While there are obviously some really well-played games where tera is kind of a nonfactor in SPL, most of the time (including spl) and in other environments, tera tends to dictate how games turn out more than playing well consistently.

Secondly, while this point will be shorter than the one above, I find this one far more important. Tera makes pokemon really broken. Not even like the kind of broken where it's top offensive / defensive presence that has several threatening sets like gen8 Tapu Lele. I mean really broken. Tera is the type of mechanic where the only reason something broken isnt being used that much is because something else broken is using it a bit better. Every time we ban some broken tera mon, the next guy is just going to take over. We banned Pao and Espathra, instantly volcarona, valiant, garg, kingambit and ghold got way more annoying because they are simply able to use it more often now / use more effective teras. Volcarona for example has started to lean toward offensive sets simply because you dont need to use it as a bad pseudo pao check. Valiant kind of just took paos spot in the tier, while literally having 80 viable sets making it a bit of a guessing game of what set it is even if a booster is revealed. Ghold and Gambit can edit themselves for mus more effectively. The list kind of goes on. It's not like these are just cases of pokemon being really good either, all these mons have very strong cases for being banworthy and are consistently obnoxious. There's an issue though, we have currently adopted the philosophy of "Just ban the brokens and deal with everything else later". If we continue to ban all mons that are broken by tera instead of just removing the common denominator we are going to end up with an incredibly bare-bones tier and a huge ban list. As I mentioned, even after these guys are dealt with, other mons just get more ridiculous as part of the domino effect and with home around the corner we are only getting even stronger mons. I'd personally prefer to keep as many options of actual good pokemon around in the metagame instead of just jumping through hoop after hoop to keep the underlying issue around just because it makes things "kind of interesting". I do not understand how banning a shit ton of pokemon that CAN be fine makes any logical sense to anybody and while removing tera will be sad as its hype to see some of the broken shit that can come out of it, in the long term banning it is far healthier.


To end the post I just want to say, I agree with the idea that banning tera right now is probably a bad call as due to the lack of mons this tier would be incredibly worse. But, as we approach home and the honeymoon phase wears off I hope people come to realize that our current approach with tera may seem good enough in the short term but is really not sustainable for the long-term health and competitiveness of the tier.

 

[PeachJuiceOwO]

Honestly, I was going to try to make some Doom and pessimistic post about how we are not gonna have a Balanced AND fun metagame ever again, but my writing skills s u c k s, so im just gonna do a messy opinion overall on the state of the meta and how we should move foward, im very tired, so this may not be my most consistent post, but I really need the social interaction.

Looking on a forum for what are probably (Definitely) the part of the Pokemon community who least frequent grass for social interaction is kinda sad

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Volcarona has been viewed as "broken" in essentially almost every generation it has been available in. Tera could possibly be the straw that broke the camel's back, it has enabled Volcarona to get past all of its checks with relative ease and you find yourself having to burn a tera potentially before they even have to use their tera just to slow it down/stop it in its tracks. Volcarona is so versatile and can grant you an amazing matchup with the right set, it's no surprise it saw Top 3 Usage in W4 which was more than the formerly overused pokemon Chien Pao (#6) & Espathra (#14). Currently, Volcarona has 8 viable Tera's.

Volcarona Viable Teras

Grass (Defensive/Offensive),
Fairy (Defensive/Offensive),
Fire (Offensive)
Psychic (Offensive)
Bug (Offensive)
Steel (Defensive)
Ground (Offensive)
Water (Offensive)

I'm going to list some Volcarona "checks/counters" and they'll be tagged with replays of Volcarona beating them.

Volcarona Checks/Counters

Clodsire - W5 SPL
Azumarill - W4 SPL
Ting Lu - W1 SPL
Tera Fire Gambit - W5 SPL (yes I know it barely lived, tera ground still won the game.)
Talonflame - OST Replay
Toxapex - 1900's Ladder
Skeledirge - OST Replay

I'm not calling for Volcarona's immediate suspect/ban. It does though need to be looked at/on the radar in my opinion.

i actually think most of those replays prove that volc is still playaroundable if you make the right predictions, build your team the right way, and know the proper calcs:

• clod would've beaten it if it was running poison jab, which people don't do nearly as often as they should
• azu could have beaten it by clicking liquidation instead of aqua jet, and the volc user didn't even win that battle
• ting-lu didn't have whirlwind and also got rng'd twice
• gambit still beat the volc and you even acknowledged that. yes, the volc did contribute heavily to the win, but only because the matchup happened in the endgame
• if talonflame had taunted before letting volc set up 2 more quivers, that match would have gone a lot differently
• you've got a point with the pex replay, pex was straight fucked there no matter how you slice it
• volc wasn't just relying on tera to beat dirge that match, it also really needed that sun support. you also can't discount that it got really good rng that whole match—it hit both fire blasts against dirge, only got full para'd one turn out of 8, avoided a dark pulse flinch while paralyzed, and scored a giga drain crit. this isn't to say that you need to rely on hax to beat volc, but that there were a lot of ways that match could have gone differently

dunno whether any of those are legit arguments or not, i'm not exactly an expert, but i could see most of those mons still coming out on top against the volc tera types they went up against

 

[Return to Zero]

I'm with DaddyBuzzwole christ no one read into that statement too closely on Volcarona. It's annoying that both Tera Grass and Ground are as good as each other but have to be countered totally differently, but it's not really overwhelming. No matter what it's Terastallizing into a type that's neutral or weak to the common priority moves of Ice Shard, Mach Punch, Extreme Speed, so on, and it's always going to have issues with physical defense. HDB being mandatory on it as well can cut into the power or longevity of its usual prerogative, which is to set up and stay in for a long time rather than keep switching it.

Also, if Iron Valiant took Chien-Pao's place after it got banned, good. That's a way more manageable and interesting speedy offense threat. Pao's removal has made offense more varied and I'm here for it.

I dunno. I just don't feel like we've quite hit the Tera Singularity yet where games come down to whether or not you predicted some wack Tera type.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

Gen 5: "holy shit quiver dance is broken"
Gen 6: "take a break volc there's a bird on the loose"
Gen 7: "holy shit fuck z moves volc"
Gen 8: "holy shit fuck HDB volc"
Gen 9: "holy shit fuck tera volc"

We do this every time volc is available except when talonflame wasn't nerfed for the first few months then either forget about it or learn to live with it because end of the day the mon is still coinflip on matchups you take it against. Even factoring tera volc, you ain't queueing up knowing the tera version is the right matchup for the next game either.

That being said, the main frustration is that only you know if its the right matchup which is kinda bullshit for the opposite side. The opponent has no clue if you're tera grass, ground, ice, your mom, only you do and only you can play the cards to reveal that and even if it was known only you can click the button that activates it for the opponent to start playing around it. The opponent has 0 ways to interact and scout vs. tera and until we fucking do a webcam clause to see poker faces the mechanic will never be nerfed enough to be competitive.

Volc is a symptom of a controversial mechanic, and its not even the only or biggest problem of said mechanic. I really don't think its worth the time testing, to be blunt I don't think anything is until home cause the current meta is temporary anyways, but man, its hard to take matches seriously right now.

 

[Komodo_Drogo]

It's a little difficult to not be snarky when saying this but this was the metagame that was chosen. Tera was a thoroughly discussed topic and nobody can say otherwise. A lot of the points for action were argued as either unproven, fear mongering (there's a better way to describe it but I have no idea) or skill issue. And the most underrated reason why no action was taken was a lack of interest for the CURRENT meta. Everyone's looking forward to when home releases and more mons are added, and some people voted on the basis that if no action was taken, it wouldn't matter as it would get another suspect when home released.

Edit: People said tera types would become predictable, people are still of that belief, but a good bit have at least a third of the type chart as options. Some pushing to half of it, like come on. At what point is this seen as ridiculous? That tera index is a nightmare for team building.

 

[Dhrabb]

While I do appreciate the work put into the Tera index, I also think it kind of exaggerates the issue a little bit. Sure some mons there have a bajillion "viable" tera options but in practice 80% of those aren't even used.

 

[Return to Zero]

While I do appreciate the work put into the Tera index, I also think it kind of exaggerates the issue a little bit. Sure some mons there have a bajillion "viable" tera options but in practice 80% of those aren't even used.

Definitely. In practice, most mons have one or two Tera types the use, and then a couple others for mixups. The Tera index is great, but some classification of general-use Teras and "clown on this specific matchup" Teras would be nice. I'll probably try to write those down as a note for myself.

 

[viivian]

Looking on a forum for what are probably (Definitely) the part of the Pokemon community who least frequent grass for social interaction is kinda sad

of course i don't touch grass i fly over it instead

 

[Goodbye & Thanks]

I feel like perspectives on Volc may be influenced by the fact that people have become familiar with it and that if it was a new mon that came out in gen 9, people may be more willing to view it as problematic. I’ll acknowledge my biases because I personally dislike the presence of Volc in every gen and I also greatly disliked the introduction of heavy duty boots in gen 8, but I do feel like Volc in the current meta is as unhealthy as it’s ever been. Volc has always been a matchup fish that can always just 6-0 if it gets the matchup it wants or a little bit of timely hax, which is why I’ve heard some excellent players like McMeghan say that they wouldn’t mind if Volc was banned in every gen for the dynamic it introduces, although I’m not sure how literally he meant that. Volc has always felt unhealthy to me in the Espathra kind of way (although Espathra was more egregious and obviously had to be banned), not really the Lando-I way, if that analogy resonates with anyone. However, in gens 5-7, its rocks weakness was the main trade-off that made Volc seem manageable; you usually need to keep rocks off to allow Volc to function and there are enough checks to it that it can’t just sweep whenever it’s in, but if you position it properly, keep rocks off, and/or get the matchup you were looking for, then you can be rewarded with winning on the spot. With the introduction of boots in gen 8, Volc could just come in whenever, completely eliminating that nuance to the game, but with the loss of Hidden Power and Z-moves, Volc could no longer reliably break through some of its checks that also happened to be some of the best and most common mons in the tier anyway, most notably Heatran. However, now we get to gen 9 where boots still exist (unfortunately, in my opinion, but that’s not the point), the limited dex means that there aren’t as many checks to Volc to begin with, and the biggest factor - Tera completely warps the ability to prepare for Volc in the builder and play around it in game, as njnp and Baloor described. I get that all of this may change in the future when Home gets released/Tera gets suspected again, but at the moment, Volc feels particularly unhealthy. I also understand though that many aspects of the tier don’t feel the healthiest (again, as njnp and Baloor talked about) so it’s fair to say that this isn’t really a “Volc problem” at this point, but I do think that Volc is a problem, if not necessarily the problem, if that makes sense.

 

[pika pal]

of course i don't touch grass i fly over it instead

False, Brave Bird is a main attack and makes contact.

 

[1LDK]

False, Brave Bird is a main attack and makes contact.

He runs Body Press to sit on Kingambit, therefore, not touching grass directly

 

[Morkal]

I read njnp's post and just want to echo the sentiment that teralization is absolutely problematic for the tier long term. At the moment, and especially during the suspect, I feel we are looking at it with rose-colored glasses as it makes this tier that would be otherwise incredibly boring more interesting to watch. While from a spectating standpoint, this is the most interesting pokemon has been in a while, which is where I think the more casual playerbase forms their opinion of tera is fine from; watching youtubers, tournaments, ladder etc... However, when it comes to playing and building it has made everything an egregious headache. As seen with Finch's tera index, most ou pokemon have around 4 viable tera types which commonly have completely different forms of counterplay despite being the same mon. The most obvious example is Ground and Grass Volcarona, being completely different from each other making it hard to cover in the builder. While this is nothing new in past gens where all lele sets were functionally different there is typically some kind of blanket form of counterplay and ability to scout what you're up against. However, being able to change types on a whim completely nullifies this as the entire purpose of tera is to change your type to get past your counterplay and games can go out of control relatively fast because you didn't account for your opponent teraing on a specific turn. There's always the argument of "well just predict the tera", which is entirely possible but not actually an effective argument as a) as mentioned, most mons have several viable teras all with different counterplay so its incredibly hard to predict which exact tera your opponent is turning into (not to mention they always can be running some jank unviable type) and b) your opponent as complete control over when they tera and given that the player teralizing typically has a big advantage on the given turn, they'll probably position themselves into a spot where you predicting is less impactful anyway e.x a mon that isn't particularly threatening to whatever they tera into. It's incredibly hard to cover everything in 6 slots, even with your own tera types due to the sheer amount of options each mon has because of tera. I've found theres been many games where the opponent teralizing and you spend several turns regaining position but at that point, they've already made significant progress on your team. You can always use your tera to counter their tera, however, this can be inconsistent and I don't think I really need to explain why relying on this as a balanced argument is kind of troll. As I said tera is really fun from a spectating point of view but ends up being super annoying when playing/building and I find games tend to feel draining or unrewarding since there's so much nonsense that can happen it doesn't even feel like playing good matters all too much sometimes. While there are obviously some really well-played games where tera is kind of a nonfactor in SPL, most of the time (including spl) and in other environments, tera tends to dictate how games turn out more than playing well consistently.

Secondly, while this point will be shorter than the one above, I find this one far more important. Tera makes pokemon really broken. Not even like the kind of broken where it's top offensive / defensive presence that has several threatening sets like gen8 Tapu Lele. I mean really broken. Tera is the type of mechanic where the only reason something broken isnt being used that much is because something else broken is using it a bit better. Every time we ban some broken tera mon, the next guy is just going to take over. We banned Pao and Espathra, instantly volcarona, valiant, garg, kingambit and ghold got way more annoying because they are simply able to use it more often now / use more effective teras. Volcarona for example has started to lean toward offensive sets simply because you dont need to use it as a bad pseudo pao check. Valiant kind of just took paos spot in the tier, while literally having 80 viable sets making it a bit of a guessing game of what set it is even if a booster is revealed. Ghold and Gambit can edit themselves for mus more effectively. The list kind of goes on. It's not like these are just cases of pokemon being really good either, all these mons have very strong cases for being banworthy and are consistently obnoxious. There's an issue though, we have currently adopted the philosophy of "Just ban the brokens and deal with everything else later". If we continue to ban all mons that are broken by tera instead of just removing the common denominator we are going to end up with an incredibly bare-bones tier and a huge ban list. As I mentioned, even after these guys are dealt with, other mons just get more ridiculous as part of the domino effect and with home around the corner we are only getting even stronger mons. I'd personally prefer to keep as many options of actual good pokemon around in the metagame instead of just jumping through hoop after hoop to keep the underlying issue around just because it makes things "kind of interesting". I do not understand how banning a shit ton of pokemon that CAN be fine makes any logical sense to anybody and while removing tera will be sad as its hype to see some of the broken shit that can come out of it, in the long term banning it is far healthier.


To end the post I just want to say, I agree with the idea that banning tera right now is probably a bad call as due to the lack of mons this tier would be incredibly worse. But, as we approach home and the honeymoon phase wears off I hope people come to realize that our current approach with tera may seem good enough in the short term but is really not sustainable for the long-term health and competitiveness of the tier.

After reading your post, I'd like to respond with some counterpoints.

Is Tera problematic in enabling certain Pokemon? Sure; however, banning Tera would open a much worse can of orthworms and would heavily stifle the creative freedom that it enables in team building. Banning Dynamax in Gen 8 was understandable as there was generally no way to handle a mon suddenly gaining double HP and superpowered moves. Would a post-Tera meta be more balanced? It's hard to say, but it would (ESPECIALLY in the long term) make team building far more suffocating. Tera enables such a wide variety of Pokemon to be used with creative niches, and as a result, Gen 9's OU is the freshest, healthy, and most diverse that an OU meta has been in a long time.

Banning Tera isn't like banning Dynamax - Gen 8's OU arguably didn't lose its flavor and flourished as a meta because dynamax directly stifled team cores. The logic you used regarding "a big advantage on the turn a player used it" could also have been applied to Z-Moves in Gen 7 (which were arguably more broken than Tera, I still hold that view). I wholeheartedly believe that banning Tera would do nothing but kill the creative freedom Gen 9's OU offers in team building, and that the added prediction difficulty mentioned is more than justified with the precedent that Gen 7's Z-moves set in addition to the massive positive boons that Tera provides OU's landscape.

Call me a Tera simp, because I'm sure I can speak for quite a few people when I say that a tera-less Gen 9 OU would be a far more centralized and creatively stagnant meta that many would lose interest in playing all together. Imagine Gen 5 without weather wars - weather in Gen 5 is, at least in my view, at the same level as Tera (if not due to unpredictability, due to teambuilding influence and enabling specific threats), yet it's understood that banning Politoed, Ninetales, Abomasnow, etc would make for a far worse meta experience overall.

 

[Mikegengsta]

I feel like perspectives on Volc may be influenced by the fact that people have become familiar with it and that if it was a new mon that came out in gen 9, people may be more willing to view it as problematic. I’ll acknowledge my biases because I personally dislike the presence of Volc in every gen and I also greatly disliked the introduction of heavy duty boots in gen 8, but I do feel like Volc in the current meta is as unhealthy as it’s ever been. Volc has always been a matchup fish that can always just 6-0 if it gets the matchup it wants or a little bit of timely hax, which is why I’ve heard some excellent players like McMeghan say that they wouldn’t mind if Volc was banned in every gen for the dynamic it introduces, although I’m not sure how literally he meant that. Volc has always felt unhealthy to me in the Espathra kind of way (although Espathra was more egregious and obviously had to be banned), not really the Lando-I way, if that analogy resonates with anyone. However, in gens 5-7, its rocks weakness was the main trade-off that made Volc seem manageable; you usually need to keep rocks off to allow Volc to function and there are enough checks to it that it can’t just sweep whenever it’s in, but if you position it properly, keep rocks off, and/or get the matchup you were looking for, then you can be rewarded with winning on the spot. With the introduction of boots in gen 8, Volc could just come in whenever, completely eliminating that nuance to the game, but with the loss of Hidden Power and Z-moves, Volc could no longer reliably break through some of its checks that also happened to be some of the best and most common mons in the tier anyway, most notably Heatran. However, now we get to gen 9 where boots still exist (unfortunately, in my opinion, but that’s not the point), the limited dex means that there aren’t as many checks to Volc to begin with, and the biggest factor - Tera completely warps the ability to prepare for Volc in the builder and play around it in game, as njnp and Baloor described. I get that all of this may change in the future when Home gets released/Tera gets suspected again, but at the moment, Volc feels particularly unhealthy. I also understand though that many aspects of the tier don’t feel the healthiest (again, as njnp and Baloor talked about) so it’s fair to say that this isn’t really a “Volc problem” at this point, but I do think that Volc is a problem, if not necessarily the problem, if that makes sense.

Volc is fine. Lando is not.

 

[1LDK]

Unironically, I would ban lando, tusk and stealth rock, just because of the "what happens next", and the absolute magnitude of shifts and changes and chaos across all metas

 

[Fancy1]

Unironically, I would ban lando, tusk and stealth rock, just because of the "what happens next", and the absolute magnitude of shifts and changes and chaos across all metas

I don’t think there’s anything inherently “broken” about mons like tusk and lando (hell almost all my gen 7 teams include lando) but it’s just the insane roll compression that each of these mons achieve is ridiculous which inevitably leads to “geewiz I can’t wait to play 277829 games against tusk, dhengo and garg my favorite mons!” however with home on rise ou is going to be crazy for a little bit

 

[1LDK]

I don’t think there’s anything inherently “broken” about mons like tusk and lando (hell almost all my gen 7 teams include lando) but it’s just the insane roll compression that each of these mons achieve is ridiculous which inevitably leads to “geewiz I can’t wait to play 277829 games against tusk, dhengo and garg my favorite mons!” however with home on rise ou is going to be crazy for a little bit

Of course these are not actually broken, but imagine the amount of insanity, it would be fun for a week and then it would be plain miserable, food for though

 

[Fancy1]

Of course these are not actually broken, but imagine the amount of insanity, it would be fun for a week and then it would be plain miserable, food for though

honestly a social experiment where we ban tusk for a week would be hilarious

 

[UnusualBoy]

honestly a social experiment where we ban tusk for a week would be hilarious

Gholdy would probably reach 80% in usage!







Here for it, make it happen!

 

[Magcargo]

After reading your post, I'd like to respond with some counterpoints.

Is Tera problematic in enabling certain Pokemon? Sure; however, banning Tera would open a much worse can of orthworms and would heavily stifle the creative freedom that it enables in team building. Banning Dynamax in Gen 8 was understandable as there was generally no way to handle a mon suddenly gaining double HP and superpowered moves. Would a post-Tera meta be more balanced? It's hard to say, but it would (ESPECIALLY in the long term) make team building far more suffocating. Tera enables such a wide variety of Pokemon to be used with creative niches, and as a result, Gen 9's OU is the freshest, healthy, and most diverse that an OU meta has been in a long time.

Banning Tera isn't like banning Dynamax - Gen 8's OU arguably didn't lose its flavor and flourished as a meta because dynamax directly stifled team cores. The logic you used regarding "a big advantage on the turn a player used it" could also have been applied to Z-Moves in Gen 7 (which were arguably more broken than Tera, I still hold that view). I wholeheartedly believe that banning Tera would do nothing but kill the creative freedom Gen 9's OU offers in team building, and that the added prediction difficulty mentioned is more than justified with the precedent that Gen 7's Z-moves set in addition to the massive positive boons that Tera provides OU's landscape.

Call me a Tera simp, because I'm sure I can speak for quite a few people when I say that a tera-less Gen 9 OU would be a far more centralized and creatively stagnant meta that many would lose interest in playing all together. Imagine Gen 5 without weather wars - weather in Gen 5 is, at least in my view, at the same level as Tera (if not due to unpredictability, due to teambuilding influence and enabling specific threats), yet it's understood that banning Politoed, Ninetales, Abomasnow, etc would make for a far worse meta experience overall.

I like Tera too, but I do think it does cause quite a few issues when combines with setup moves by making setup sweepers unreasonably difficult to revenge kill or creating some 50 / 50s when using certain Pokemon as an answer to something else (i.e. using Earthquake on Kingambit only for it to go sicko mode with Tera Flying and sweep anyways). I have run into a few interesting scenarios where I defensively Tera as the opponent does the same but again, whether this actually helps or not can be a coin flip since they might Tera into something you didn't expect and set up on you anyways. Defensive Tera does help in many cases, but its not guarenteed to do so since offensive sweepers have coverage that is too good. Like, against DD Baxcalibur, going Tera Flying on it with Gholdengo is a coin flip since it can predict that and go for Icicle Spear. Someone earlier mentioned that against setup sweepers, you have to basically sacrifice 2-3 Pokemon to stop them: 1 to bait out the Tera, then 1 to beat the opponent after they Tera, which can make Tera Pokemon a bit too strong most of the time since they are inflicting guarenteed hole punches into your team that is a gamble to actually stop.

I don't think Tera needs to be banned now, I actually quite like the meta and find that Tera opens up a lot of cool strategies with various Pokemon, but I think limiting Tera to either STAB types, having it visible on team preview, or having a Tera Type captain will be needed to limit Tera in one of the future metagames, if we decide not to outright ban it that is.

 

[Mikegengsta]

however with home on rise ou is going to be crazy for a little bit

I don’t think home is going to be anytime soon. The game is literally getting an update 3 months from its release. Gamefreak seems to be behind the ball most of the time. I remember when Pokémon day was in 2020, they announced 2 dlcs broken in parts but no mention of home release. When the dlc got closer to its release date, then home was finally announced.

Also, based on rumors from aDrive, coding in the Pokémon day says there is 2 dlcs separated like SwSh and to arrive summer of 2023. If this is true, there is no way home is going to be released soon because why have transfer mons over when the dlc isn’t out yet. However, in the coding, says rowlet, oshawott and cyndaquil raids were coming. If anything, we may be closer to obtaining hisuian pokemon but I think home is getting pushed back if the rumors of a dlc is in the summer.

 

[Moyashi]

I don’t think home is going to be anytime soon. The game is literally getting an update 3 months from its release. Gamefreak seems to be behind the ball most of the time.

We were literally given a release time frame of spring 2023. It could be as soon as March or sometime in April... Which is still not that far off.

Also, based on rumors from aDrive, coding in the Pokémon day says there is 2 dlcs separated like SwSh and to arrive summer of 2023. If this is true, there is no way home is going to be released soon because why have transfer mons over when the dlc isn’t out yet. However, in the coding, says rowlet, oshawott and cyndaquil raids were coming. If anything, we may be closer to obtaining hisuian pokemon but I think home is getting pushed back if the rumors of a dlc is in the summer.

From aDrive...? They are no source or leaker. They're just spouting random internet rumors. Also even if we got dlc in summer, that would have no impact on HOME being released in spring. Your logic doesn't even make sense.

 

[658Greninja]

After reading your post, I'd like to respond with some counterpoints.

Is Tera problematic in enabling certain Pokemon? Sure; however, banning Tera would open a much worse can of orthworms and would heavily stifle the creative freedom that it enables in team building. Banning Dynamax in Gen 8 was understandable as there was generally no way to handle a mon suddenly gaining double HP and superpowered moves. Would a post-Tera meta be more balanced? It's hard to say, but it would (ESPECIALLY in the long term) make team building far more suffocating. Tera enables such a wide variety of Pokemon to be used with creative niches, and as a result, Gen 9's OU is the freshest, healthy, and most diverse that an OU meta has been in a long time.

Banning Tera isn't like banning Dynamax - Gen 8's OU arguably didn't lose its flavor and flourished as a meta because dynamax directly stifled team cores. The logic you used regarding "a big advantage on the turn a player used it" could also have been applied to Z-Moves in Gen 7 (which were arguably more broken than Tera, I still hold that view). I wholeheartedly believe that banning Tera would do nothing but kill the creative freedom Gen 9's OU offers in team building, and that the added prediction difficulty mentioned is more than justified with the precedent that Gen 7's Z-moves set in addition to the massive positive boons that Tera provides OU's landscape.

Call me a Tera simp, because I'm sure I can speak for quite a few people when I say that a tera-less Gen 9 OU would be a far more centralized and creatively stagnant meta that many would lose interest in playing all together. Imagine Gen 5 without weather wars - weather in Gen 5 is, at least in my view, at the same level as Tera (if not due to unpredictability, due to teambuilding influence and enabling specific threats), yet it's understood that banning Politoed, Ninetales, Abomasnow, etc would make for a far worse meta experience overall.

The “Greedunt has an OU niche” guy be spitting facts. Tera has led to a meta where even mons that have never had an OU niche are useable now. Luxray, Cryogonal, Golduck, Umbreon, etc. They barely reach D tier but the fact that they have a small niche in this power crept tier shows the benefits of Tera.

However Tera also has led to frustrating games with how mu fishy it is. Gambit is one of the biggest offenders of this I feel. Tusks feels obsolete as a Gambit check since all it has to do is click Tera Flying to flip the mu around. Tera Fire is a big f u to Volc and burns from Washtom. Tera Fairy is a nice middleground that also eliminates its fighting weakness. Sometimes it just sweeps games by itself.

Volcarona has always been the mu Moth it was in Gen 7. Most of the other Teras mentioned (Fire, Ground, and Psychic) aren’t incredibly common like Grass or Fairy. Volc wants GD for Garg/Washtom. Psychic for Pex and Moth. Ground Tera Blast for Skele. Morning Sun for defensive utility. Unlike the mess Espa put everyone in, its checks are reasonably splashable and doesn’t boil down to running Tera Dark on Clod. Plus there is one major answer to it that is splashable and beats non-Wisp variants. Dnite. It boosts up in its face and kills with E-Speed/EQ.

Ghold is the first mon in a longtime that warps the meta around it without being broken. It creates a dynamic akin to GSC Lax, ADV Ttar, DPP Rachi/Clef. The Cheese stick man is fine. People have gotten so comfortable with handling hazards. SS especially made hazard control trivial. Run boots and the 7 good defoggers in the tier. For the first time in 10 years you now have to think consciously about the hazard v hazard removal meta. This isn’t the first gen where hazard removal was limited, DPP OU and BW NU come to mind. They had even worse options than we do. DPP’s only used spinner was Starmie which has been declining in usage as a spinner, hence why most DPP teams choose to build teams without any removal. BW NU had garbage hazard removal, their best option was fucking Wartortle.

SS OU has
-Tusks, the #1 most splashable mon in the tier that also makes Ghold hesitate.
-Treads who has an even better mu against Ghold.
-Court Change from Cinder.
-Hatterene
-Boots, the item people complained about nonstop last gen. Also with less Knock distribution, they are less likely to lose them.
-Tons of spike immunes with Corv/Washtom/Dnite/Peli/Hydrei/Jugulis

You don’t even have to run Tusks to make a good OU team. There is a thing called Superman teams, which I covered already in this post. TL;DR, OU teams have always had teams that are built to minimize the effects of hazards without utilizing hazard removal.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...-6813-new-tiering-survey.3710915/post-9478697

Ghold itself is not short of reliable checks/counters. The most notable being Gambit which is more reliable as one considering Ghold has been dropping Focus Miss for sustainability with Recover. Clod, especially Unaware Clod can check it with the exception of Tera Flying variants. Ting-Lu lives any hit and chips it down with EQ or Ruination. Moth can eat a Sball and force it out. Same with Volc. Chomp can live a hit and force it out. Dnite can shrug off a hit, DD up, and threaten with EQ. If it chooses to Tera, it just gets picked off by E-Speed. There is also the fact that non-Scarf Ghold is slow as shit. 84 speed gets it outrun and rkilled by Pult, Meow, Hydrei, Gren, etc. Terastilizing it is worthwhile but not without opportunity costs. Any Tera that isn’t Ghost means it loses the utility of being a spinblocker. It risks losing its ability to check Valiant. Tera Flying, the most common one, makes it weak to Rocks while losing the plethora of resistances. Its not the same as Tera Dark Pao which got nothing but benefits from it.

Now back to Terastilization itself. I still stand that Tera should’ve been toggled with team preview, but I don’t think the mechanic as a whole is broken….yet. Home is looking to bring in even more power creep. Some old mons that were balanced in Gen 8 may not be with tera. NP Torn with Tera, Urshifu-RS, Eleki, Volcanion, Battle Bond Gren, Zapdos, G-Molt, Hoopa-U, Tran, maybe even Lando-T. Then you got new shit like Basculegion, Sneasler, and Enamorus that will be downright devious with Tera.

252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Tera Water Basculegion Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Rotom-Wash in Rain: 224-264 (73.6 - 86.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Tera Water Basculegion Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex in Rain: 175-207 (57.5 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Black Sludge recovery

252+ SpA Choice Specs Tera Flying Zapdos Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 232+ SpD Heatran: 135-159 (34.9 - 41.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Tera Water Urshifu-Rapid-Strike Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex in Rain on a critical hit: 264-315 (86.8 - 103.6%) -- approx. 93.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Water Volcanion Steam Eruption vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Rotom-Wash: 170-200 (55.9 - 65.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Water Volcanion Steam Eruption vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking in Rain: 183-216 (46.4 - 54.8%) -- 64.5% chance to 2HKO

Down right devious calcs. We haven’t even gone to the defensive utility they can offer. Goltres with Tera Fairy/Steel/Ground. Torn with any Tera. Volcanion shedding its Ground/SR weakness with Tera Water. Watershifu with Tera Poison/Electric/Fairy. Right now Tera is just annoying but fun, however Home is gonna show the true chaos with allowing this mechanic in OU.

 

[awyp]

I thought I'd give my opinion since I have time. So I got suspect reqs (Pao and Tera), I've probably played around 1500 SV OU games. My opinion back then was tera should be banned outright because it's difficult to prepare for all the different tera switches regardless of there being a common used list of teras.

Is it playable? yeah, could it never even be restricted? yeah, does it become extremely matchup fishy? yeah. My opinions changed a little bit.

I could now see a competitive SV OU metagame with tera restricted, I don't know I would eventually vote for because home is sure to change up the landscape of the metagame. I think if we have tera restricted where all the tera types that a mon has, is shown on team preview will be a good happy medium. In this scenario you have the ability to prepare for what a mon is going to tera to without constantly thinking late end game what the potential could be.

Examples of Volc have been brought up on how it is broken in combination with tera, and for the most part I agree. There will be certain mons that rise to abuse tera above the rest. Volc is definitely one of them and it's hard to prepare for especially if it starts getting up Quiver Dances. Volcs natural type is not that great, and when you can change it to the common Grass, Psychic, Fairy tera changes it can be hard to prepare for. Defensive teras have been shown to be more dangerous in terms of setting up vs offensive teras with the ability to abuse tera blast and just have a opponent stuck contemplating on what to do before it gets way too out of hand *cough cough Espathra cough cough*

I'll end it there because a potential future test on tera is still up in the air and not confirmed so there's no reason to be talking about something that was still recently voted on.