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

[Lobby Eeveee]

In a vacuum I agree, and as I said TR might change my mind on this. But the luna player has to make heavy risks throughout the game and get some predicts right. Not banworthy imo.

By bulky teams I assume stall, so I don’t think Luna has to ”make heavy risks”. The only answer is Tera ghost , which the best it can do is psychic. Furthermore, it also has a toxic immunity for most of the game, so unless you toxic it the first turn it switched in, it will be put on a much slower timer. Though I partially agree as there is also balance which can be considered bulky.

 

[Ctann]

Who’s down to keep 1 dog in OU for a minute, but not both?

if so, which zamazenta would you keep?

- Zamazenta-Crowned
- Zamazenta-Hero

Or maybe your answer is “Por que no Los dos”

My thots

I’m on the fence a little for both. They’re easy enough to deal with, but the entire meta is revolving around magearna, the zamas and Chien-Pao.

completely fine with getting rid of Mag first and then seeing where things go, because she’s just so much!

mag is unpredictable, 1 free turn and she will win the game. Even worse: If you guess the wrong set and decide to switch something in, she might permanently debilitate or KO your switchin! At least the two box legendaries can only do so much with their sets. That’s what makes them “manageable”.

here’s a replay of Tera water mag almost being a pest, and another dog being dealt with, so you don’t just zoom past this post:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1876127512

 

[serperiorr]

By bulky teams I assume stall, so I don’t think Luna has to ”make heavy risks”. The only answer is Tera ghost , which the best it can do is psychic. Furthermore, it also has a toxic immunity for most of the game, so unless you toxic it the first turn it switched in, it will be put on a much slower timer. Though I partially agree as there is also balance which can be considered bulky.

i said this in my original post but 6-0ing stall doesnt make a mon broken. Tran and zone in oldgens fucks over stall and yet they weren't considered broken for that

 

[Ctann]

Ursaluna makes trick room teams viable.

there is a rise in protect usage to drag out turns and increase burn damage.

trick room is also extremely predictable, and everyone knows how to count turns.

Standard 252 speed Ursaluna is also balanced by the fact that it gets approx (subject to vary on a case by case basis):
- 1x switch in against offense
- 2x switch ins against balance
- 3x switch ins against stall

and hazards hurt it a lot.

Unless you misplay and let it get a free KO whilst it’s over 70%, chances are you can revenge it and/or bait a Tera.

Why would you ban this so soon, maybe it’s okay, this is the kind of thing I can get behind. For trick room purposes, it’s everything Conkeldurr wanted to be. For stall breaking, it makes crawdaunt look more like a carvahna

curious to see if it ends up being banned, but it’s way too soon to get rid of it.

—



Meanwhile, I wouldn’t be surprised if Samurott-H gets the boot to Ubers. It’s handily making skeledirge, the slowtwins and other popular switch ins free spike food. Also, it’s almost always worth suiciding it for 2 layers of spikes lol. This Pokémon is top top top tier rn, except for matchups against all HDB teams.

although there is counter play to the standard lead sets

—



sneasler is a really fun pivot, dire claw is strong 16% of the time, but there’s lots of switchins for her. And the switch ins tend to take so little from her moves on the pivot set, they can just sleep away the turns easily. Rocky helmet corv and bulky gholdengo don’t even sleep..!


that said, any pivots from skeledirge and Glowking make great spike bait for your partnered samurott!

every Pokémon affected by poison touch is one less Pokémon that will sleep to dire claw

if sneasler had knock off, then the pivot set would be far too good. But she doesn’t have it.. so let’s see if dire claw hax or the Hawlucha/Roaring moon clone acrobatics causes it to get banned

 

[MrE]

I personally find it astonishing that light clay is being radared before stored power.

I can understand the statement that a lot of pokemon learn the move and are not uncompetitive but I do not really understand what it proves. As someone already said, Baton pass has been banned even though a whole lot of pokemon could learn the move while not being broken. And if we take into account lower tiers, the number of pokemon stored power broke is also larger (at least polteageist).

But anyway, I can still kind of agree that it makes sense to keep a move that has been used for years on many pokemon and not necessarily been unhealthy. However then Light Clay is brought up and I find it even more unjustified than stored power in the sense that it has been usable for a long time without being looked at and is not broken on the majority of dual screen setters that exist. I think only a few screen setters like Grimmsnarl + Pokemon that can abuse the dual screen (approximately the same one that could abuse shed tail back in the days, and ironically also the same one that can learn stored power) actually makes it broken, and this is even harder to prove than stored power because we don't really know if these pokemon would be fine without light clay, they may not even need the extra turns if all they need is one turn for set up.

So yeah, I repeat myself from my last post : I do not necessarily advocate for a stored power ban and I kind of understand arguments against it but a ban of light clay makes even less sense to me.

Just because stored power is widespread doesn't mean that the mons who have it have good boosting moves to abuse it. The thing that separates Mag and Espathra from the rest is Mag has a boosting move that gives 3 boosts in one turn whilst every calm mind that Espathra gets off also is effectively +3 due to speed boost.

 

[Delibird Heart]

Ok but seriously I'm loving Tornadus-T more and more the more I play it. It's straight up amazing. Here's ANOTHER replay where it pulled me back from a very disfavorable position after some questionable plays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1876212480

This might just be the hot new threat, thanks to a combination of regen + seriously good speed tier and breaking capability that is really not well prepared for atm because the 3 big threats are so overwhelming.

 

[MattC (Banned)]

Regarding Light Clay, while I don't support the Ban, there is precedent, it was already banned in UU last Gen. So, it's legit to look it up, despite Magearna being the actual problem (though the Spece set doesn't actually use the Screens).

That's why. Snow in the lower tiers - especially PU and NU with Beartic and Alolan Sandslash was so braindead and easy to win games off, Light Clay, Arctozolt and maybe even Snow Warning was banned in like... every tier from PU up to UU. And even so, Arctozolt is BONKERS strong with Bolt Beak (see Fishious Rend without Strong Jaw)

Actually, this is pre Snow - so its actually Hail. Just goes to show giving Aurora Veil to every snow setter isn't a good idea at all

 

[Delibird Heart]

That's why. Snow in the lower tiers - especially PU and NU with Beartic and Alolan Sandslash was so braindead and easy to win games off, Light Clay, Arctozolt and maybe even Snow Warning was banned in like... every tier from PU up to UU. And even so, Arctozolt is BONKERS strong with Bolt Beak (see Fishious Rend without Strong Jaw)

Actually, this is pre Snow - so its actually Hail. Just goes to show giving Aurora Veil to every snow setter isn't a good idea at all

Personally I'd say veil wasn't even really a part of the reason zolt was so strong. Perfect bolt beam coverage on a very fast mon (under hail) that is near unwallable if a life orb is equipped is scary, veil or not. I always thought the sub + lefties variant that you usually see on veil teams lacked that kind of power. Running veil often also means A-tales has to run ligth clay, which means zolt will benefit from hail for a very little amount of time. The hail team I had the most success with by far doesn't run veil at all; it has a simple defensive structure of zap + bliss + tankchomp + ferro to answer most threats and whittle down the opposing team until life orb zolt + offensive atales can clean up. I've found it to be much much more reliable than the usual veil + 5 sweepers (which is an exaggeration, but veil offense often tends towards that). Point is, veil or not, Zolt is always scary and veil doesn't even necessarily make it better.

 

[Cancel cult]

Why do people think sneasler is banworthy? In the current metagame, the most broken mons by far are cocaine bear and magearna. [Honorable mention chien pao,zamas] Sure sneasler may be uncompetitive but there is a fine line between uncompetitive and banworthy. Hell, heatran was uncompetitive last gen. Wasn't banned. Stuff like garg you could say is uncompetitive. People need to understand right now that stuff like that needs more attention and could require a suspect test or even an outright qb. Sneasler should maybe be suspected down the road but rn? No.

ursa isnt even close to sneaslers strength.

 

[Cancel cult]

Ursaluna makes trick room teams viable.

allow me to introduce you to:

also there is no way samurot is going in ubers.

 

[MrE]

I see that Zama-C is now Big Stall.tm approved so that's one mon that's never getting banned.

It's a bullshit mon that 100% needs banning btw

 

[Lectrys]

While Magearna remains unbanned (and lead Sneasler + Special Enamorus + Samurott-H has been an offensive core that does work even when your opponent doesn't behave like how you'd expect - this is the first time I've reached 1500+ in OU and I'm not running Magearna and I didn't get the chance to run Regieleki), I may as well show these sets of calcs off that I have taken advantage of:

No-bulk Magearna gets 2HKOed by Scarf Sneasler (not even the Banded version - ouch), and even the HP-only one risks being 2HKOed:

252 Atk Sneasler Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Magearna: 175-207 (57.9 - 68.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Sneasler Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Magearna: 175-207 (48.2 - 57%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Magearna needs an obscene number of boosts to even 2HKO Skeledirge with Stored Power, and by then you can KO any set that didn't try Tera Blast, even Tera Water:

+1 252+ SpA Magearna Stored Power (120 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Unaware Skeledirge: 124-147 (30.1 - 35.7%) -- 37.3% chance to 3HKO
252+ SpA Magearna Stored Power (200 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Skeledirge: 207-244 (50.3 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Magearna Stored Power (220 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Unaware Skeledirge: 227-268 (55.2 - 65.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
8 SpA Skeledirge Torch Song vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Tera Water Magearna: 42-50 (11.5 - 13.7%) -- possible 8HKO
8 SpA Skeledirge Torch Song vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Magearna: 168-200 (46.2 - 55%) -- 11.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
8 SpA Skeledirge Torch Song vs. 248 HP / 252 SpD Magearna: 134-162 (36.9 - 44.6%) -- 99.8% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
8 SpA Skeledirge Hex (130 BP) vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Tera Water Magearna: 135-160 (37.1 - 44%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after burn damage
+1 8 SpA Skeledirge Hex (130 BP) vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Tera Water Magearna: 204-240 (56.1 - 66.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage

So you basically need 3 Shift Gears in order to hit reliable 2HKO range on Skeledirge, and by then, the next Hex KOes. My opponents have tended to mis-sequence and use Calm Mind or an attack instead somewhere, giving me another turn to attack, heal, or burn. ...Or my opponents were never max. SpA Modest to begin with, which gives me even more turns.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a footnote, I think Zamazenta-C is the more broken of the two because it takes less than half from some fairly strong super-effective special attacks, while Zamazenta-H at least takes half from quite a lot more of them (and yes, I did lose to a Zamazenta-C partially because my Enamorus did less than half):

252 SpA Enamorus Earth Power vs. 248 HP / 4 SpD Zamazenta-Crowned: 152-180 (39.2 - 46.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Flamethrower vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Zamazenta-Crowned: 140-166 (36.1 - 42.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Maybe I'm using and seeing the wrong Zamazenta-H sets, but that guy's felt strong but not broken or even obscene.

 

[BobbyHill]

Sort of disappointed Gambit isn’t at least on the radar after all the talk about it pre-home. I don’t think it’s quick ban worthy, but Finch mentioned Mega-Weavile, Gambit is essentially Mega Bisharp. I think it has a similar profile to Ursaluna: crazy bulk, an insane offensive ability, and ability to muscle through checks. Further, like Volc, it has a lot of tera options to allow it to work around counter-play.

 

[ZannaBianca]

I'm starting to realize that special Lando-T may have actually some merit outside of its meme power. It has a quite large movepool and with Taunt and Nastly plot it can easily move past Corviknight. The niche of special attacking Ground type with a possibility to burn is also quite unique, severly threatening both the popular Tusk and Zama-C.

 

[Wesley23675]

I feel like sneasler grassy seed swords dance paired with rillaboom support is really hard to deal with, with grassy terrain up and defense boost, earthquake from lando can't really deal with it when sneasler just close combats twice and takes out my landorus, OHKOs max hp ev mag at +2 with cc, unburden makes it insanely hard to outspeed and revenge kill, defense boost and typing makes it really hard for my chien pao sucker punch to revenge kill as well, I guess gholdengo can deal with it? but I don't really want to run that lol. Not to mention it has a rly uncompetitive signature move that can just fuck up your only counter, if it's not gholdengo.
(Or mb me and my team is just trash, idk)

 

[Lobby Eeveee]

Sort of disappointed Gambit isn’t at least on the radar after all the talk about it pre-home. I don’t think it’s quick ban worthy, but Finch mentioned Mega-Weavile, Gambit is essentially Mega Bisharp. I think it has a similar profile to Ursaluna: crazy bulk, an insane offensive ability, and ability to muscle through checks. Further, like Volc, it has a lot of tera options to allow it to work around counter-play.

Gambit’s counterplay totally exists lol
This is obvious and found in half of all teams in OU. It beats all sets and forces it to Tera flying, even then, i heard it beat gambits without Tera blast flying.
Beats all gambit that are not Tera grass or Tera blast. It sleeps it and allows you to exploit the sleep turns (tho it’s not as bulky as tusk)
Checks it really well, and can counter it if it does not have enough SO boosts. Threatens with body press, and spams liquidation if it Tera’s.
and Not common, but something used to beat and as a side effect counters gambit.

There are also much more softer checks too.

 

[UnfortunateSal]

Gambit’s counterplay totally exists lol
This is obvious and found in half of all teams in OU. It beats all sets and forces it to Tera flying, even then, i heard it beat gambits without Tera blast flying.
Beats all gambit that are not Tera grass or Tera blast. It sleeps it and allows you to exploit the sleep turns (tho it’s not as bulky as tusk)
Checks it really well, and can counter it if it does not have enough SO boosts. Threatens with body press, and spams liquidation if it Tera’s.
and Not common, but something used to beat and as a side effect counters gambit.

There are also much more softer checks too.

Great Tusk really isn't that good an answer to Kingambit in practice. It can't touch it after Tera Flying at all (even if you run Ice Spinner, assuming you're running full phys def, it only does like 40%), and even if you do force out the tera, so what? Kingambit can just keep setting up on you, and you're eventually facing an extremely boosted Kingambit and your Great Tusk is dead. Doesn't matter what typing it is, it's still probably going to sweep you at that point. On top of this, Kingambit is a late-game cleaner, which is supposed to lcean once the team has been weakened, and Great Tusk can feasibly be chipped into into +2 Sucker Punch range (especially if you're sending it in on Iron Heads), so Kingambit can still beat it if it doesn't tera.

Breloom switches in exactly once (Iron Head does like 80% even without any boosts) so I really don't get why you're naming it as an answer to Kingambit, it absolutely isn't especially given how many switchin opportunities Kingambit tends to get.

 

[Goodstyle]

Sort of disappointed Gambit isn’t at least on the radar after all the talk about it pre-home. I don’t think it’s quick ban worthy, but Finch mentioned Mega-Weavile, Gambit is essentially Mega Bisharp. I think it has a similar profile to Ursaluna: crazy bulk, an insane offensive ability, and ability to muscle through checks. Further, like Volc, it has a lot of tera options to allow it to work around counter-play.

There's just too many checks for this mon to ever be considered broken.

Even if you banned all the new pokemon that give it trouble (like, literally every pokemon in the radar), it still has a million checks and counters thanks to that 4x fighting weakness and abysmal speed. Even stuff it is supposed to counter like Meow can just run a fighting move and suddenly Gambit is one shot.

Great Tusk, arguably the most useful Pokemon in the tier, is on half of every team and checks Gambit really well.

It is powerful for sure, but thanks to a lot or factors (and the fact that it doesn't have Knock-off), it's always gonna be fair.

 

[BobbyHill]

Gambit’s counterplay totally exists lol
This is obvious and found in half of all teams in OU. It beats all sets and forces it to Tera flying, even then, i heard it beat gambits without Tera blast flying.
Beats all gambit that are not Tera grass or Tera blast. It sleeps it and allows you to exploit the sleep turns (tho it’s not as bulky as tusk)
Checks it really well, and can counter it if it does not have enough SO boosts. Threatens with body press, and spams liquidation if it Tera’s.
and Not common, but something used to beat and as a side effect counters gambit.

There are also much more softer checks too.

I’m not arguing it has non-existent counter play. Just saying there are overlapping issues. I will say I think something underestimated is that Tusk is often exposed to a lot of chip early game because of its status as a spinner, while Gambit is usually preserved until the end. It also makes a very clear line of “Kill the tusk, sweep with Gambit”

good rec with Breloom. I’ll def give it a try.

I’m using TaurusW a lot right now, I like it but I do think its an issue that a UU mon is third on the list.

Also using Pao a lot right now. Agree it can act as an emergency Gambit check. But it takes 70-90% from a +2 sucker punch so you better hope rocks aren’t up if you’re trying to revenge with it.

 

[BobbyHill]

There's just too many checks for this mon to ever be considered broken.

Even if you banned all the new pokemon that give it trouble (like, literally every pokemon in the radar), it still has a million checks and counters thanks to that 4x fighting weakness and abysmal speed. Even stuff it is supposed to counter like Meow can just run a fighting move and suddenly Gambit is one shot.

Great Tusk, arguably the most useful Pokemon in the tier, is on half of every team and checks Gambit really well.

It is powerful for sure, but thanks to a lot or factors (and the fact that it doesn't have Knock-off), it's always gonna be fair.

I’m not arguing to just ban any mon that annoys me. I understand there are checks, but as I said in my other post, I think it’s under estimated how the amount Tusk is usually chipped early game can effect it’s ability to stop Gambit. Not to mention it creates a very clear game plan if Tusk goes down.

the ways to work around Gambit that you mentioned can be applied to several of the Mons on the radar. I.e. tera to get rid of its weaknesses, ability to snowball, near impossible to counter if set up. Also a potential 104 BP Sucker punch does a lot to make up for its abysmal speed.

 

[`ShadowTwo]

Since the "ban Sneasler or Dire Claw" debate seems to be so divisive, wouldn't it be a good idea to have a vote for players to decide if they want to ban/suspect Sneasler or Dire Claw?

 

[UnfortunateSal]

Since the "ban Sneasler or Dire Claw" debate seems to be so divisive, wouldn't it be a good idea to have a vote for players to decide if they want to ban/suspect Sneasler or Dire Claw?

The council has made it pretty obvious that Dire Claw is not getting banned, so I don't think so lol

 

[Magcargo]

So a more low-key addition is that Pixie Plate is now available for general use. Previously, it was the only boosting item excluded in SV.

ATM I don't think it has too much use, but once the metagame settles, I could see it being a powerful alternative option on CM Valiant, makes its Moonblast even more spammable. Tera Fairy Moonblast w/ Pixie Plate deals about the same damage as Specs moonblast without locking Valiant into the move, letting it follow-up with a Shadow Ball / Psyshock vs stuff like Gholdengo and Slowking-G.

 

[LandorusTBeatsGreatTusk]

Assault Vest HSamurott is the truth.

Samurott-Hisui @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sharpness
Tera Type: Ghost/Dark/Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty/Jolly Nature
- Ceaseless Edge
- Grass Knot / Hydro Pump / Knock Off
- Razor Shell
- Sucker Punch

Tera Ghost + GK to bait then 2hko GTusk and Urshifu.
Tera Water + HP to 2hko Corvenight and ohko Landorus/GTusk.
Tera Dark + KO to become the edgiest Otter in the field.

AV lets you avoid the 3hko by Gholdengo/Skeledirge/etc., the 2hko by Heatran/GSlowking, survive any move by CS Pult and many more.

 

[Eoxlia]

Hey ! I wanna talk about Lilligant-Hisui and a way it could (should?) be played:

Lilligant-Hisui @ Life Orb
Ability: Hustle
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sleep Powder / Ice Spinner
- Close Combat
- Tera Blast
- Victory Dance

Here are some reason why I think Tera Ghost Lilligant-H is incredible:
-> Fighting + Ghost is an almost perfect offensive typing (damn you Zoroark)
-> You are immune to Dragonite Extreme Speed therefore Dragonite have no perfect way to kill you, or even revenge kill
-> Thanks to Tera Ghost, you can hit Gholdengo + Skeledirge + Glowking for super effective damage: Tera Ground could also work, but Gholdengo can run balloon set
-> You no longer are "in need" of a 5th move, both Ice Spinner and Sleep powder works here, and it leave nothing behind (Amonguss can switch in then pivot, but isn't really "safe" - 252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Tera Ghost Lilligant-Hisui Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 199-234 (46 - 54.1%) -- 47.7% chance to 2HKO)

The drawback is that you are not immune to Will O Wisp, but you may as well just kill the Wow user. You also "need" to commit to terastalization, so you need to build around it.
If you disagree on some part, I'm more then open to discussion !