Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v2 [Update on Post #5186]

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Surely light clay can only ever be as good as the offensive/snowball mons that make up the meta.

IMO the advantages of light clay are only truly problematic when used with mons that can fully exploit its effectiveness. Its widespread usage reflects the significant number of newly released mons in the current meta that can maximize these benefits and use it to its full potential. Any test surrounding light clay should only be done after all the problematic mons are dealt with and the power level comes down a notch.

Correct me if i'm wrong but I don't see light clay being as problematic in lower tiers because the mons there aren't able to sweep as effectively as the mons we're currently seeing in OU. Would light clay be as busted in UU as it is in OU? If not, I think it's more a symptom of the power level in OU being too high rather than the cause of it.

Edit: To add, has another non mon exclusive item ever been banned in one tier and not another? Seems a bit silly to ban an item in one tier and it being no issue down in another.
 
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Day 3 of playing the Meta:

Ursaluna still looks incredibly broken despite not being as common as day 1, hopefully it's the next Ban.

0 Specs Magearnas seen today, everyone is still using either TR or Stored Power, both of which gave me 0 problems.

Zamazentas are still fine, both of them.

Ironically Zamazentas being fine makes Chien Paos positive effects in the meta less needed. If Zamazentas are already fast (and healthy) offensive Mons that keep other offensive threats in check, there is less need for Chien Pao, meaning that if it is restricting the meta (and it looks more and more doing so), there is less excuse to keep it around. It's more splashable than Ursaluna is, and despite being easier to stop, it too is becoming an oppressive force in the meta.

Seen more Sneaslers, but still very few and not very impactful in my games. I do use Covert Cloak, but somehow avoided Poison Touch poison too.

Eject Pack + Magician interaction is wrongly implemented in PS, Hoopa-U stole my Leftovers.

Where are Meowscarada and Kingambit? Is new toy syndrome so strong that they dissapeared from the ladder or is it Magearna and Crowned Zamazenta influence? At least a well used Kingambit has tools to bypass both in longer games.
 
I've climbed to about 1400 on an alt while intentionally not using any of the mons on the suspect list (eleki when it existed, mag, zama, pao, etc) and here are my thoughts, in a hastily ordered list.

1) Magearna should probably be suspected. On the one hand, it's not quite as centralizing as I expected it to be: it doesn't like how much strong ground coverage is running around, but in the other hand there are a lot of games where slight mispositions on my part just mean that the mag gets to run away with the game. That's kinda the job of a sweeper, so I think it's really just a matter of whether or not it's too centralizing a sweeper and whether the other sets (e.g. specs or bulky eject pack) end up being too much along with the various kinds of boosting sets. Also: I see a couple of people asking for stored power to be banned and I cannot disagree more. If SP mag is too much then ban mag, SP is fine on the vast majority of mons.

2) I think a light clay suspect should probably eventually happen. I think mag would in all likelihood be too much even without it.

3) Zama should absolutely be banned and imo it isn't even close. It not only has an excellent 120 attack stat and good move pool, but crowned has 92/140/140 defenses and a more than respectable 128 speed and hero has 92/115/115 defenses and a blistering 138 speed. Coupled with a free +1 to defense on first switch in, the presence of breaker, fast sweeper, and bulky sweeper sets, it is a little surprising it wasn't just banned to ubers immediately. IMO it should either be tested first or, if mag is first then it should go next. I would be interested to hear from people who have climbed to the top 500 whether or not Zama has felt too strong.

4) Ursaluna is surprisingly fine. It's good, it's definitely OU good, but it feels low priority to me.
 
Eeveeto said:
Day 3 of playing the Meta:

Ursaluna still looks incredibly broken despite not being as common as day 1, hopefully it's the next Ban.

0 Specs Magearnas seen today, everyone is still using either TR or Stored Power, both of which gave me 0 problems.

Zamazentas are still fine, both of them.

Ironically Zamazentas being fine makes Chien Paos positive effects in the meta less needed. If Zamazentas are already fast (and healthy) offensive Mons that keep other offensive threats in check, there is less need for Chien Pao, meaning that if it is restricting the meta (and it looks more and more doing so), there is less excuse to keep it around. It's more splashable than Ursaluna is, and despite being easier to stop, it too is becoming an oppressive force in the meta.

Seen more Sneaslers, but still very few and not very impactful in my games. I do use Covert Cloak, but somehow avoided Poison Touch poison too.

Eject Pack + Magician interaction is wrongly implemented in PS, Hoopa-U stole my Leftovers.

Where are Meowscarada and Kingambit? Is new toy syndrome so strong that they dissapeared from the ladder or is it Magearna and Crowned Zamazenta influence? At least a well used Kingambit has tools to bypass both in longer games.
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It's not suppoed to do that? Or are you just salty
 
Storm Zone said:
Okay after some testing, i realised something, Magearna while seeming really unstoppable, i've only seen it get going behind the screens and it only gets going because of 1 move, i know all its sets may seem impossible to account for but common counter-play does exist, now hear me out since not too many people may agree here, lets look at some comparisons

- When Shed Tail was banned: during the cyclizar era, people thought it was the most broken pokemon of all time, we banned 1 move and almost immediately cyclizar dropped to ou and iirc even below ou, now i aint saying gearna is gonna drop that far obviously but lets at least account for the nerf it gets when the premises are removed, no screens, no momentum, it needs a double turn to setup

- Espeon (when baton pass was banned) : people said the same thing, its espeon and sylveon, during the baton pass era, people at first thought it was the problem, but again look at how far its fallen

- Evasion moves(unsure how long ago this was banned) : people were pushing to ban togekiss over realising the move itself was broken, so they eventually put a clause on evasion and banned evasion boosting moves

- Last Respects: people thought houndstone was the problem, this move was obviously the problem no argument there.

Now looking at these premises: If these mons were so oppressive with these moves, then WHY are we overlooking the main move that broke magearna, this move is highly uncompetitive and has been proven to be highly uncompetitive, look at the impact of psyspam this gen especially with terastallization, 1 move is pushing polteageist rn , polteageist is not good by any means but its seen as a huge threat because of 1 move, STORED POWER. The homie Vert made a great point about accounting for screens by banning the light clay btw.

So hear out my supporting points (THE LAST ONE IS MOST IMPORTANT I DISCUSS A VERY IMPORTANT TOPIC SO TRY TO FOCUS ON MY FINAL POINT)

- Magearna is a nice staple on many team structures lacking that one pokemon performing certain roles and type resistances, lets see lando heatran ferro glowking rotom pult , we have no ghost resist, so say we remove heatran and ferrothorn, we place a magearna, and now we suddenly not only have room for a ghost resist, but we have a fairy/dragon immunity, so id say it opens up for better and easier teambuilding, as it fits more as a defensive staple stopping threats like pao if physdef, blanket checks shifu, tusk, and many others with draining kiss, and its a decent spiker, it also fits as a nice steel and support mon on rain also making the playstyle a bit more consistent in the current gen, the main takeaway here is that it fits on most teams kinda like lando-T did, im sure no one wants to ban lando-T obviously(no jokers come at me asking for lando ban it will not be acknowledged)


- Counterplay already Exists:

1. Skeledirge sits on this thing especially with tera , and unaware with tera can blanket check some threats in this meta so we cannot say its only for magearna.

2. Ting-lu, tera the ting lu and magearna now gets spiked on whirlwinded and seen as a small child compared to this defensive beast

3. Volcarona, an example of countering and beating magearna had it not been for the broken move stored power, the qd vs cm sg war is always won if magearna isnt packing that move.

4. Gholdengo, another example of a pokemon that completely counters and sits on magearna if it hadnt been for stored power the setup wars would be won even with tera.

5. Tera Heatran, (see me casually slipping in tera as checks because its such a great mechanic with great benefits and i never want to see it go) , magma storm + taunt will halt it, and surely nobody would run tera rock terablast magearna that would be silly even if u hate volcarona.


6: encore + any breaker say encore scream tail + band shifu, would rip magearna apart, same with headlong tusk, if it teras it gains a new weakness and it cannot benefit from the boost with STORED POWER.

7: Calm mind Slowbro/king, and calm mind glowbro/king which can definitely work in this meta, will win the calm mind wars vs magearna 100% of the time if not for STORED POWER.

8. Other: any cm pokemon that isnt weak to steel or fairy will defeat calm mind magearna 1v1. And BEFORE PEOPLE SAY SPECS, protect mons were already prominent before the arrival of future Reception glowking and all the new mons, so protect will halt that set immediately, choiced mons in general are very bad in protect metas, specs valiant was doing 0 in every game and once i changed it to boosted and could switch moves they could not protect scout anymore, specs fleur can easily be swapped into by glowking, defensive rona, pex(which yall LOVE TO USE XD) , and heatran for obvious reasons.

NOW PLEASE HEAR OUT MY LAST POINT:
Finchinator i fully get your points too that was a great post btw, but please bring this specific point up to the rest of the council as i believe its a positive change.

- I have been actively playing this game competitively since gen4 which is 2008
ish, and i have been competing in tournaments since 2020, and ive had to stand and watch as this move dominated the competitive scene for so long especially on the ladder, every time i see a pokemon with stored power, i have to immediately be alert and play carefully around it, for example if we have to play polteageist without stored power, lets say it gets to +2, it doesnt get the omniboost in bp + stats, it just gets the stat boost, so we no longer have to account for 140bp move, just a simple 80bp move at best, +2 psyshock wouldnt kill physdef rotom and vice versa for psychic and special rotom, we miss out on lots and lots of ohkoes without the move itself. And the most bullshit thing of all is that if u hit any bulky stored power mon holding a weakness policy with a super-effective hit, it automatically adds 120bp onto the move and likely you would just lose regardless because its bulk would survive priority.

So lets go back to the comparisons shall we, even recently in gen9, we've banned and unbanned pokemon because of a single move, cyclizar was freed, so if we could ban these moves over the years (last respects, baton pass, shed tail, double team), WHY cant we ban stored power, stored power is the main move that breaks magearna, back in gen7 it remained in the tier with a significantly larger dex just because there was no stored power, so i believe that its only fair that an argument could be made to ban what i think is one of the top 4 most broken moves of all time under bp, shed tail and double team, which is stored power, stored power is clearly the problem here, and nobody would complain about magearna had it not been allowed.

Just remember people thought houndstone was the mega rayquaza of ou before we banned last respects but look at it now, same with cyclizar and shed tail people thought it was some OP skill-less pivot mon they said it was torn with a broken move, same with espeon and baton pass people kept complaining, people even said togekiss was naruto, it kept double teaming shadow clone jutsu poof it cant be hit blah blah LOL, im just saying everybody can agree that this move broke magearna.

So the MAIN gist of my point is if we could ban the moves that broke these pokemon in the past, we cannot look past banning the move that broke magearna and made the pokemon Polteageist viable in ou, and yes i do believe the move itself is uncompetitive even on polteageist, look what happened with tera , polteageist got coverage with tera, now darks cant auto block stored power(Hence its no longer considered inconsistent cause you cant just slap a dark and beat it), hence it becomes a rising problem, psyspam teams are nearly impossible to beat because of this mon clicking stored power and terablast, no special wall would wall it, blissey would be a nice check to it if it wasnt for stored power. Oh and ESPATHRA, A UU MON , this single move pushed it so far it had to be banned to ubers, and people knew the problem with espathra was stored power.

And before anybody says something like its not broken on other mons , baton pass was fine on MANY other pokemon, its the select few mons that it broke got it banned, so the same logic can be applied here, and im sure stored power is fine on mons that have a decent movepool and dont get more than 1 boosting move, and thats a fact.

This move is clearly the problem and i would like to push for a stored power ban or even a suspect test, lets at the very least try and see how well magearna fares without its main weapon Stored Power, if its proven to be broken still, then fine it will suffice and i will admit i was wrong, but dont quick ban it immediately without considering the move that allegedly broke it.

Have a good day all =)
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great points

stored power and “one free turn” has been winning matchups for a long time.

espathra was broken because of the “one free turn” that came down to shed tail and/or screens and/or the uncertainty of its Tera type and/or it’s stat spread and whether it carried protect, roost or substitute.

poltegaist needed 2 other Pokémon to support it on psyspam teams, and so was only a problem when it was a newly discovered set and team structure. Once you figured out how the teams worked, there was counterplay, but not always! Again due to Tera… a supporting fire/psychic could Tera into fairy to OHKO your hydreigon, and then you’re forced tp chunk your poltegaist check on the next turn just to KO the armarouge in psychic terrain (because you have so many physical type options in OU, but not as many special attackers).

Hatterene didn’t break as it’s slower than kingambit. Let’s be real about Hatterene and stored power, if any tiering action was taken on gambit, stored power hatte would suddenly have become meta. And the “one free turn” could have come from Tera unpredictability. Even with gambit, hatte could kiss her way through teams with the “one free turn” and the right opening.

I still think magearna is broken asf tho, it’s fleur cannon can permanently mark a skeledirge “check”, forcing it to recover the next turn and you’re putting the entire team on the back foot. Sure your set is now known, but whether you’ll fleur cannon nuke or trick on the next turn isn’t! Tho that said, I’d rather the process of banning stored power and maybe even light clay before eventually banning magearna than just simply going for the magearna first. This is mostly due to the fact that preserving as much diversity in the meta as possible is a good thing.

most importantly:

stored power is not beginner friendly. It can be dealt with by experienced players who know not to give the “one free turn”.
 
stored power is a really dumb move, but i think it's hard to justify a ban when it's only really broken 2 mons while having enormous distribution. if there was like, 2 or 3 more uber worthy abusers of it i'd say it's worth suspecting but atm it seems like a magearna ban is much more reasonable.
 
Dive Missile said:
stored power is a really dumb move, but i think it's hard to justify a ban when it's only really broken 2 mons while having enormous distribution. if there was like, 2 or 3 more uber worthy abusers of it i'd say it's worth suspecting but atm it seems like a magearna ban is much more reasonable.
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2 has always been a consistent amount tho, even back with shadow tag, arena trap, moody ect.
 
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BIRD ALERT
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Hey, I don't feel like making a really long post but Torn-T feels pretty good to use rn, it has a good matchup against a lot of the current threats (except chien pao) when played correctly, which isn't very hard because every game goes about the same right now. In particular it outspeeds sneasler and can live +3 bpress from both Zama formes at full health, and can 1v1 mag in most scenarios. Usually you np as they cm, then you heat wave as they shift gear and then bleakwind (predicting a tera) to finish it off as it fails to ko (and often even doesn't outspeed after shift). It also really appreciates having a more accurate alternative to hurricane in bleakwind storm this gen. I feel like nplot torn never really took off last gen but now it has more opportunities to setup because everything else is also trying to set up on you, assuming you're knock + u-turn or something similar.

Here's the set I use :

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Tornadus-Therian (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Bleakwind Storm
- Heat Wave
- Focus Blast

Nothing too fancy, tera flying is good for when you need that extra power, but as usual with tera, the sky's the limit. Tera fighting could potentially be used to bait chien pao (probably needs a bit of defense investment too).

Here are some replays showing torn-t putting in crazy amounts work:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1875869557
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1876108960
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1876212480
 
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I’mma say it, I have not ran into Magearna behind screens. Magearna is not just a screens mon, it’s a mon with multiple sets that all differ depending on teams. For example, I’ve made it to 1500 using a tr magearna team that has it with eject button Fluer cannon. We need to take into account that unlike what storm zone said earlier stored power is not the problem with magearna
 
I think that ursaluna is also a big threat to the meta, with tr up plus it’s bulk, this mon kill anything and live any hit with the right reads. I’m not saying it’s overpowered, but I think it’s worth the mention
 
Is it possible that dire claw will get the boot instead of sneasler? I understand the whole thing with how if a move breaks a single pokemon, ban the pokemon, but I feel like dire claw could go because it isn't quite breaking sneasler, but is generally uncompetitive and luck-based. Just a thought, prob not true tho idk
 
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