Degenerate Hisuigant Screens offense. Even post Mag, Hisuigant is one hell of a drug that makes every single game entertaining, whether that's entertaining because it caught the scarf Gholdengo with a clean 2hko with Leaf Blade and swept or entertaining because you fucking missed lmao.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v2 [Update on Post #5186]
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
- Status
fr said "who's we"
for what it's worth I see the possibility of this leading to kneejerky reactions but I don't think giving the council the power to quickban more things with a decently big majority is much worse than needing a 2/3+1 majority, especially since that could lead to situations like this slate
personally I trust the council to make the decisions with a 2/3rd majority just as much, just more likely that such decisions are made now
or 
????As a full-on Zama hater, I can get behind the take Ruft has still tbh. Also glad to see more council members discussing their votes! Thank you Ruft!
Toxic wasn't really common on Zapdos last gen, and this gen especially I think it would rather just hit what's in front of it with how fast-paced the meta is. Besides, I'd argue the lack of Toxic distribution on the whole actually benefits Zapdos, as mons like Blissey and Lando-T can no longer hit it with Toxic themselves.
I’ll write a post about chesnaught in a few hours. Atm, I’ve been fucking around with teams featuring him and I feel obliged to share this replay where he turned the game around, despite me forgetting bulletproof blocked pyro ball and accidentally Tera-ing. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1877941929
(Also giving 1DLK a mention here as he asked me to do this in the first place)
(Also giving 1DLK a mention here as he asked me to do this in the first place)
I'm addicted to offense with whirlwind Ting-Lu, Ting-Lu thanks to its bulk, tera and whirlwind not only prevents most of the set up mons to get away with its greddy attempts to win in the early-mid game but also allows to scout and reveal sets of your rival way before they would like, which makes planning your endgame and positioning easier. Ting-Lu is just so good and consistent, the true goat of gen 9.
Hey,
As mentioned by Finch a bit earlier, I decided to abstain on the recent vote because my time on the site was being directed towards a few tournaments that were in pre-Home format this week (due to the midweek release date). To add a little more context to why I did this, I should also point out a few extra things:
- The wcop qualifiers round was a playoff round to enter the main tournament (which the UK hadn't qualified for since 2018 i think?); as such, it was largely my responsibility both to win my own match and also help teammates to make sure they had an adequate team to bring for their match. Normally such situations are a benefit to my ability to do council duties, as my involvement in these tours is in current gen OU, meaning that I gain useful knowledge from doing this. In this specific case however, it meant I was more tied down to the old metagame.
- The Smogon Tour playoffs is a best of 3 format with gens 7-9 OU. I've never really played SM OU seriously before this tournament (compared to SS and SV which I have competed in a fair amount), so this took some extra time to figure out what I was bringing for that format (I still got owned).
- These scheduling factors only really applied to this week. Votes at this stage in the metagame happen very regularly, and I was fully aware that I would be able to dive into the meta properly starting from tomorrow. My current SV OU post-home experience consists of a few builds I made before the release and some helpful replays from the TrainerAid server. However, outside of Regieleki being broken, I did not feel comfortable rushing my votes before I had the chance to do thorough building and laddering. This was compounded by the presence of Magearna, which I could see was performing a bunch of important roles and shaping playstyles in the metagame. This is particularly relevant to any of the threats being dangerous under screens or Trick Room, as it is hard to be certain of the strength of those playstyles without Magearna's utility.
Between these factors, I felt that the best course of action would be to either full abstain or full OU the vote, with abstain seeming like the more honest choice. In hindsight, I should have made these factors known on this thread to avoid the last few pages of discourse, so I take full responsibility for not taking the time to inform people outside of the council of my situation.
Based on some of the posts in this thread, I have also realised that something of an introduction may be necessary here, so I've compiled a short list detailing my activity on the site:
- I go by two main names on the site, xavgb and stresh (I use the name stresh on Discord). People refer to me by these names pretty interchangeably so if that was a source of confusion, this should clear it up.
- I have been playing in official Smogon Team Tournaments since late 2021, where I played PU in Smogon Champions League I and current generation OU in every tournament since. Prior to this, I was a well-known member of the OM community, and had been playing non-official tournaments (that are still hosted on Smogon) in the OM community since the start of 2018. I have also played in various other communities' tournaments during this time, and always try to make an effort to learn the tiers I've signed up to play both in the builder and in game. As such I have picked up notable experience in a lot of metagames, including all 6 perma-ladder gen 8 OMs, Gen 8 PU, Gen 8 OU, Gen 8 NU, Gen 8 LC, and Gen 9 OU. I would say that investing myself into so many metagames, some with core aspects of the game slightly altered, has generally given me a good overall understanding of mons that I've benefitted from in this wild gen.
- Due to the constant flow of tournaments on this site, I usually find myself structuring my time on the site around the tournaments. This leads to a lot of my metagame-related discussions being conducted on Discord as opposed to threads like this one, often with current teammates or older teammates that I have gotten to know from previous tours. In terms of playing, I do also ladder fairly regularly, but I prefer to keep my alts hidden so that I can test potential tournament teams when needed (I have done this since the start of the gen).
- In terms of Gen 9 OU specific experience, I have been a successful player throughout the generation so far. I won the SV OU release tour early in the generation, and my replays from all rounds of this tournament can be found across the threads in the Unofficial Tournaments forum. After that I achieved a 6-3 record playing for the Alpha Ruiners in SPL, and my 9 games from that tournament can be found in the replays thread. Since then my tournament games have come from the qualifying rounds of Smogon Tour 35, as well as the qualifiers for the World Cup of Pokemon. After doing a quick check through, only about 4 of these 18 games have been made private, so you should be able to find the other 14 replays by simply searching "xavgb" on https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/
- One other thing to mention is that I have never really been a big fan of this gen. I have believed for a while that Terastalization as a mechanic, while it may not be devastating to the health of the metagame, is still a net negative to the game in terms of the full scope of interactions it enables. I find myself being required to do weighted guesswork far more often in this generation, to a level that I cant realistically be expected to correctly predict the unknowns with the information available. This also partially comes down to the power level and versatility of the introductions to SV OU, with mons like Iron Valiant/Kingambit and additions like Booster Energy naturally creating some messy scenarios that can turn sour very quickly if you bet your house on a pokemon having or not having a certain set. The progress making is much more direct in this generation. For example, Iron Valiant during pre-Home OU was a mon that proved to be very difficult to find an initial scout to - there are many cases of pokemon (especially Fire types) who are happy to come in on a special Iron Valiant and trade hits, but would find themselves completely wrong-footed if the Iron Valiant clicked Swords Dance instead. Such situations are naturally very awkward to play against, as it can be incredibly dangerous to not take chip on a threat that is faster than almost everything except for priority, and the threat of switching only to find yourself dealing with a +2/+1 mon that also just got to take a kill for free and is using ???? coverage is pretty dire. Comparatively, in Gen 8 OU, top offensive threats like Weavile and Dragapult would typically find themselves checked by 2-4 mons per team without as much variability in outcomes, and as a result of that you could plan around how long it would take for these pokemon to reach a position where they could break (and you would have multiple opportunities to outplay and stay on top of the threats across the duration of the game). Nonetheless, I find both generations of OU present interesting discussions and are still mostly fun to play, and I can appreciate the challenges that are brought by this different style of mons, even if I'd rank it pretty low amongst metas i've played for how much I've enjoyed the games. I also think that this generation does have some real potential to be a great generation, if bans on the overtuned mons are handled well (and maybe even tera too :O).
- Last thing is that irl commitments are pretty steady for me, so you don't need to be concerned about long-term activity issues. This last week was a very unique awkward situation that happened as a result of in-Smogon commitments, so it doesnt really scale up to longer term inactivity.
This post was definitely longer than I intended it to be (this always fucking happens), so thank you if you took the time to read this far. As for the next vote, one thing I can say for sure is that I will be voting ban on Chien-Pao. With Magearna gone, and the legendary dogs being more borderline than I expected, I don't really see a long-term future where Pao is healthy, and I would like to avoid having this ban dragged out for a long time behind more in-your-face-broken threats like in pre-home OU. My initial vote to place Pao in OU was based off of the introduction of a slew of (potentially) higher usage offensive checks where previously the Pao checks were all pretty passive. After having seen a bunch of games, it's clear that Chien-Pao is easily versatile enough to adapt to the existence of less passive checks (it's still fast as fuck with good prio), so I feel like my initial reasoning for freeing it no longer applies.
As mentioned by Finch a bit earlier, I decided to abstain on the recent vote because my time on the site was being directed towards a few tournaments that were in pre-Home format this week (due to the midweek release date). To add a little more context to why I did this, I should also point out a few extra things:
- The wcop qualifiers round was a playoff round to enter the main tournament (which the UK hadn't qualified for since 2018 i think?); as such, it was largely my responsibility both to win my own match and also help teammates to make sure they had an adequate team to bring for their match. Normally such situations are a benefit to my ability to do council duties, as my involvement in these tours is in current gen OU, meaning that I gain useful knowledge from doing this. In this specific case however, it meant I was more tied down to the old metagame.
- The Smogon Tour playoffs is a best of 3 format with gens 7-9 OU. I've never really played SM OU seriously before this tournament (compared to SS and SV which I have competed in a fair amount), so this took some extra time to figure out what I was bringing for that format (I still got owned).
- These scheduling factors only really applied to this week. Votes at this stage in the metagame happen very regularly, and I was fully aware that I would be able to dive into the meta properly starting from tomorrow. My current SV OU post-home experience consists of a few builds I made before the release and some helpful replays from the TrainerAid server. However, outside of Regieleki being broken, I did not feel comfortable rushing my votes before I had the chance to do thorough building and laddering. This was compounded by the presence of Magearna, which I could see was performing a bunch of important roles and shaping playstyles in the metagame. This is particularly relevant to any of the threats being dangerous under screens or Trick Room, as it is hard to be certain of the strength of those playstyles without Magearna's utility.
Between these factors, I felt that the best course of action would be to either full abstain or full OU the vote, with abstain seeming like the more honest choice. In hindsight, I should have made these factors known on this thread to avoid the last few pages of discourse, so I take full responsibility for not taking the time to inform people outside of the council of my situation.
Based on some of the posts in this thread, I have also realised that something of an introduction may be necessary here, so I've compiled a short list detailing my activity on the site:
- I go by two main names on the site, xavgb and stresh (I use the name stresh on Discord). People refer to me by these names pretty interchangeably so if that was a source of confusion, this should clear it up.
- I have been playing in official Smogon Team Tournaments since late 2021, where I played PU in Smogon Champions League I and current generation OU in every tournament since. Prior to this, I was a well-known member of the OM community, and had been playing non-official tournaments (that are still hosted on Smogon) in the OM community since the start of 2018. I have also played in various other communities' tournaments during this time, and always try to make an effort to learn the tiers I've signed up to play both in the builder and in game. As such I have picked up notable experience in a lot of metagames, including all 6 perma-ladder gen 8 OMs, Gen 8 PU, Gen 8 OU, Gen 8 NU, Gen 8 LC, and Gen 9 OU. I would say that investing myself into so many metagames, some with core aspects of the game slightly altered, has generally given me a good overall understanding of mons that I've benefitted from in this wild gen.
- Due to the constant flow of tournaments on this site, I usually find myself structuring my time on the site around the tournaments. This leads to a lot of my metagame-related discussions being conducted on Discord as opposed to threads like this one, often with current teammates or older teammates that I have gotten to know from previous tours. In terms of playing, I do also ladder fairly regularly, but I prefer to keep my alts hidden so that I can test potential tournament teams when needed (I have done this since the start of the gen).
- In terms of Gen 9 OU specific experience, I have been a successful player throughout the generation so far. I won the SV OU release tour early in the generation, and my replays from all rounds of this tournament can be found across the threads in the Unofficial Tournaments forum. After that I achieved a 6-3 record playing for the Alpha Ruiners in SPL, and my 9 games from that tournament can be found in the replays thread. Since then my tournament games have come from the qualifying rounds of Smogon Tour 35, as well as the qualifiers for the World Cup of Pokemon. After doing a quick check through, only about 4 of these 18 games have been made private, so you should be able to find the other 14 replays by simply searching "xavgb" on https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/
- One other thing to mention is that I have never really been a big fan of this gen. I have believed for a while that Terastalization as a mechanic, while it may not be devastating to the health of the metagame, is still a net negative to the game in terms of the full scope of interactions it enables. I find myself being required to do weighted guesswork far more often in this generation, to a level that I cant realistically be expected to correctly predict the unknowns with the information available. This also partially comes down to the power level and versatility of the introductions to SV OU, with mons like Iron Valiant/Kingambit and additions like Booster Energy naturally creating some messy scenarios that can turn sour very quickly if you bet your house on a pokemon having or not having a certain set. The progress making is much more direct in this generation. For example, Iron Valiant during pre-Home OU was a mon that proved to be very difficult to find an initial scout to - there are many cases of pokemon (especially Fire types) who are happy to come in on a special Iron Valiant and trade hits, but would find themselves completely wrong-footed if the Iron Valiant clicked Swords Dance instead. Such situations are naturally very awkward to play against, as it can be incredibly dangerous to not take chip on a threat that is faster than almost everything except for priority, and the threat of switching only to find yourself dealing with a +2/+1 mon that also just got to take a kill for free and is using ???? coverage is pretty dire. Comparatively, in Gen 8 OU, top offensive threats like Weavile and Dragapult would typically find themselves checked by 2-4 mons per team without as much variability in outcomes, and as a result of that you could plan around how long it would take for these pokemon to reach a position where they could break (and you would have multiple opportunities to outplay and stay on top of the threats across the duration of the game). Nonetheless, I find both generations of OU present interesting discussions and are still mostly fun to play, and I can appreciate the challenges that are brought by this different style of mons, even if I'd rank it pretty low amongst metas i've played for how much I've enjoyed the games. I also think that this generation does have some real potential to be a great generation, if bans on the overtuned mons are handled well (and maybe even tera too :O).
- Last thing is that irl commitments are pretty steady for me, so you don't need to be concerned about long-term activity issues. This last week was a very unique awkward situation that happened as a result of in-Smogon commitments, so it doesnt really scale up to longer term inactivity.
This post was definitely longer than I intended it to be (this always fucking happens), so thank you if you took the time to read this far. As for the next vote, one thing I can say for sure is that I will be voting ban on Chien-Pao. With Magearna gone, and the legendary dogs being more borderline than I expected, I don't really see a long-term future where Pao is healthy, and I would like to avoid having this ban dragged out for a long time behind more in-your-face-broken threats like in pre-home OU. My initial vote to place Pao in OU was based off of the introduction of a slew of (potentially) higher usage offensive checks where previously the Pao checks were all pretty passive. After having seen a bunch of games, it's clear that Chien-Pao is easily versatile enough to adapt to the existence of less passive checks (it's still fast as fuck with good prio), so I feel like my initial reasoning for freeing it no longer applies.
interesting and thanks for a good post
yes curious about the dogs in particular, it feels like having one of them in OU might even be okay.. who knows.
having both is a different story tho, as how do you realistically plan for both, especially when you don’t know which one it is at preview.
kinda similar to valiant lol
are you gonna run shadow ball gholdengo on eveey team? Lol. (For those who don’t know, hex gholdengo loses to the faster zamazenta with sub due to PP stall, whilst there are some interesting points made about difficulty scouting sets, right now ID+BP is popular, but later more viable sets might arise and you have valiant v2, but with sheer bulk rather than speed being the limiting revenge factor and the type of dog being the unpredictability factor)
Thank you very much for this. I hope to see more posts on the discussion from you going forwards, I think it'll be very healthy for the thread and lessen the kind of discourse that can spawn if we end up getting more regular discussion involving the council. Regardless, I'm looking forward to how the metagame progresses in the near future with further votes.
On a metagame note, it's interesting to me how many people who agreed on the Chien unban (council and regular playerbase alike) believed it would be easier to check with more offensive threats. It seems like a very common sentiment that in a meta as fast paced as this, strong offensive mons become more palatable if they're checked or countered by other offensive threats, rather than defensive ones.
While y’all are in timeout, respond to the tiering survey: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-tiering-surveys.3711911/#post-9649755
And you can post your thoughts (civilly) later when this is open if you’d like!
And you can post your thoughts (civilly) later when this is open if you’d like!
Gonna unlock this again. We've had a lot more smaller posts and 1-liners recently, and would advise against those if possible. If you have quick questions then use the SQSA thread instead. If you want some ideas for what to write a longer post on, you could try:
- New favorite set on a new mon
- How you replied to the survey above
- If you have any hot memes feel free to let me know
- Whatever else you think is fun or positive to share but please be respectful about it
Have a good rest of the day/night
- New favorite set on a new mon
- How you replied to the survey above
- If you have any hot memes feel free to let me know
- Whatever else you think is fun or positive to share but please be respectful about it
Have a good rest of the day/night
Low enjoyment, competitive and balanced scores, but that’s really only because I hate Chien Pao and everytime I see it I cry. My quick thoughts on the mons, though:
Chien-Pao: 5/5
I hate this mon. Stupid fast, stupid strong, stupid ability, stupid offensive combination… you get the point. I want it gone ASAP.
Zamazenta (both forms): 4/5
Crowned’s Steel typing gives it twice the setup opportunities, and once setup it clicks buttons on the entire tier. Hero is so blazing fast that it subs on everything and behind a sub and screens mon cooks. Been loving 252 defense/252 speed Jolly, the extra power on BP is felt.
Sneasler: 3/5
Definitely keep an eye on it, Dire Claw is dumb and Sneasler’s designed to spam the move. Flawed mon for sure, don’t necessarily want it gone this instant, but I’d keep watching it.
Urshifu-Rapid: 2/5
I’m not gonna lie I’ve never seen this mon so I can’t say, lmao.
Ursaluna: 3/5
Scary offensive mon, but without Mage to easily set up TR and be broken alongside it I think it falls into the “scary as hell but very flawed” category.
Light Clay: 1/5
Product of Mag, Zama, SD Chien, and others being stupid. Not broken on its own. Chien provides nothing to the tier IMO and Zama doesn’t provide that much, so we lose very little from banning them and not it.
Volcarona (it wasn’t on the survey): 2/5
Dumb matchup moth who Tera’s and rips teams apart but I’m not sold on it being broken. Again, clay things.
Just my opinions :) (I hate Pao I hate Pao I hate Pao)
i gave chien-pao and zamazenta-C a 5. don't think either of these two need explanations but chien-pao in particular i don't think should have ever been retested ever since pre-HOME. i get the intention behind retesting zam-C but chien-pao's unban perplexes me. i'd like an explanation on that if possible since i don't think i've been informed on why it was freed after HOME release.
zamazenta-H and sneasler i gave a 4. these two are significantly more manageable than chien-pao or zam-C but will still definitely prove problematic some point down the line. i'd like action on them sooner than later but i wouldn't say they're the most pressing matters OU is facing as of now, just something to keep in mind for later.
ursaluna, urshifu-RS and light clay i gave a 3. the former is impossible to answer defensively but its offensive answers are bountiful. having 4 weaknesses and being as slow as it is coupled with the constant chip from burn makes it easy to overwhelm with sheer damage. but against bulkier teamstyles or under trick room, it becomes unstoppable. so i do think it's a mix of broken and balanced in current OU. as for the other two, i have not at all fought either of them so i went with giving them a 3 on the survey
volcarona wasn't on the survey but it was on the radar and still pulls the same bullshit with quiver dance and terastallization. probably a top 5 banworthy pokemon in OU as of now since the meta shifting with the release of HOME only makes it harder to adapt to (sets like tera ground, water, etc. have only gotten more common ever since release), and the sets it ran pre-HOME are still as effective as ever. if tera gets suspected and somehow stays then the absolute first order of business should be banning volcarona in my opinion.
I voted a 3 for how much I enjoy the meta and a 3 for how competitive I find the meta, and I won't give the meta higher than a 7 in competiveness given that Tera is not conducive to a competitive metagame.
Chien-Pao: 5
Zamazenta-Crowned: 5
Zamazenta: 4
Sneasler: 3
Urshifu-Rapid Strike: 3
Ursaluna: 5 - The most broken mon in the meta and the one most in need of a quickban.
Light Clay: 3 - While it might be that the current abusers are too strong, the more powercreep there is, the worse Screens HO will get as seen in lower tiers, and since Tera inherently drives power creep with it giving additional set-up turns, extra STAB, and free coverage for those that need it, Screens HO are more of a problem than in any previous generation of OU.
Not on the survey: Terastal, which is broken. A mechanic doesn't need to be as broken as Dynamax to be a problem. Terastal is stupid and anti-competitive. I can't wait for Tera Preview to arrive and push the meta towards offense even more so that we can ban Terastal after the third suspect test of Terastal.
Chien-Pao: 5
Zamazenta-Crowned: 5
Zamazenta: 4
Sneasler: 3
Urshifu-Rapid Strike: 3
Ursaluna: 5 - The most broken mon in the meta and the one most in need of a quickban.
Light Clay: 3 - While it might be that the current abusers are too strong, the more powercreep there is, the worse Screens HO will get as seen in lower tiers, and since Tera inherently drives power creep with it giving additional set-up turns, extra STAB, and free coverage for those that need it, Screens HO are more of a problem than in any previous generation of OU.
Not on the survey: Terastal, which is broken. A mechanic doesn't need to be as broken as Dynamax to be a problem. Terastal is stupid and anti-competitive. I can't wait for Tera Preview to arrive and push the meta towards offense even more so that we can ban Terastal after the third suspect test of Terastal.
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For additional notes, I commented on Volcarona, I still think it was heavily overshadowed as a Special Sweeper by Magearna and we shouldn't sleep on it.
Terastal, the elephant in the room, perhaps too early to detail, or too late, this could be driving potential OUs for Ubers such as Regieleki, Ostrich, and I hope you disappear, Volcarona.
Item Clause: Random mention but massive HDB and Booster Energy spam is not healthy or fun imo. Perhaps removing Light Clay, (I gave this 5/5) Booster Energy will be less overwhelming.
Tiger, Zama-H, Sneasler 5/5. Urshifu, Ursaluna, Zama-C 4/5.
Terastal, the elephant in the room, perhaps too early to detail, or too late, this could be driving potential OUs for Ubers such as Regieleki, Ostrich, and I hope you disappear, Volcarona.
Item Clause: Random mention but massive HDB and Booster Energy spam is not healthy or fun imo. Perhaps removing Light Clay, (I gave this 5/5) Booster Energy will be less overwhelming.
Tiger, Zama-H, Sneasler 5/5. Urshifu, Ursaluna, Zama-C 4/5.
I think I speak for everyone when I say I think majority of the community supports the council and their decisions, I'll leave it at that.
Response to the survey and explanation (transparency gang) :
Chien Pao 5 - (Yeah as a lot have commented on this thread, it's still an overwhelming presence as well as overcentralizing and stops the meta from flowing because it's always the physical sweeper choice you go with)
Zama Hero 4 - (I think it might be too overwhelming based on it's defensive attributes and Speed combination it goes from becoming a physical wall to a sweeper in a matter of turns. (I'm cool with suspecting > quick banning))
Zama Crowned 5 - Same issues with Zama Hero but worse because it's much bulkier and it does the same exact thing while hosting a better bulk than mons like Toxapex. Having no item is actually a benefit for Knock Off users and 390 speed is just too much LOL.
Urshifu 3 - Need to see more, I think it's worthy of a suspect but no need for a quick ban (my personal opinion) after the storm clears I'll probably have a better idea of how broken it is compared to the mons that are radared in.
Sneasler 4 - Matter of time in my opinion, maybe it doesn't need a quick ban but obviously as spoken on this thread, Dire Claw is bullshit in terms of just being randomized hax and without it I still think Sneasler would be a solid UUBL / OU mon, so with those 2 combined it becomes a very broken mon in general.
Ursaluna 3 - Slow AF and powerful AF, it can be used outside trick room but I think overall I can see it in the tier but definitely worthy of a future suspect test. Can elaborate more if needed.
Light Clay 1 -
Response to the survey and explanation (transparency gang) :
Chien Pao 5 - (Yeah as a lot have commented on this thread, it's still an overwhelming presence as well as overcentralizing and stops the meta from flowing because it's always the physical sweeper choice you go with)
Zama Hero 4 - (I think it might be too overwhelming based on it's defensive attributes and Speed combination it goes from becoming a physical wall to a sweeper in a matter of turns. (I'm cool with suspecting > quick banning))
Zama Crowned 5 - Same issues with Zama Hero but worse because it's much bulkier and it does the same exact thing while hosting a better bulk than mons like Toxapex. Having no item is actually a benefit for Knock Off users and 390 speed is just too much LOL.
Urshifu 3 - Need to see more, I think it's worthy of a suspect but no need for a quick ban (my personal opinion) after the storm clears I'll probably have a better idea of how broken it is compared to the mons that are radared in.
Sneasler 4 - Matter of time in my opinion, maybe it doesn't need a quick ban but obviously as spoken on this thread, Dire Claw is bullshit in terms of just being randomized hax and without it I still think Sneasler would be a solid UUBL / OU mon, so with those 2 combined it becomes a very broken mon in general.
Ursaluna 3 - Slow AF and powerful AF, it can be used outside trick room but I think overall I can see it in the tier but definitely worthy of a future suspect test. Can elaborate more if needed.
Light Clay 1 -
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I answer the survey and i give the meta rn a 4 both on the fun side and the competitive one.
-Cheem Pao (aka CP) is the broken of the bunch. Having 135 when also being able to literally 2HKO at worst resit with Tera Dark Choice Band boosted Crunch is broken af. Only Mag and Zama H could trully check it but still this is a case of Broken Checks Broken.
-ZamaH and Crown are both also a 5 for me. Crown shine on screen when the added bulk and Steel- Typing let him win games on the spot. Hero can be useful on bulkier team with both his Sub ID and Choice Band set being both fairly annoying
-Cocaine Bear looks to be more maneagable now whitout his partner in crime TR Magearna. Still a menace under Trick Room but not as broken outside of that.
-Sneasler isn't broken or anything outside of Dire Claw HAX and that is the only reason i can see being banned.
-Urshifu RS feels the same as Sneasler. Strong ofc but maneagable after the other fighter are gone. The most problematic set is Tera Water Scarf on Rain but still is slow (not reaching 100 is slow af rn) and frail on the special side.
-Light Clay need to go. Not now but someday. RU and UU both banned that bc of his uncompetively and i waiting for his OU BAN.
IF there is a choice vote on Cheem - Pao again pls!!
Elaborate pls
1.
Choice Scarf Enamorus is very fun to use, I'm runnning Moonblast/Earth Power/Superpower/HealingWish.2. Can't remember exact answers tbh, but in short: The meta is kinda fun at times but very unbalanced, Pao & Zamas are broken, Urshifu, Sneasler and Ursaluna aren't priorities right now, also retesting for Tera ban or maybe more realistially a Team Preview restriction would be cool.
Curious how many of the people rating sneasler higher than 3 have played it extensively.
you’ll quickly learn that the sleep hax sounds better on paper than in reality. Poison hax makes sleep hax harder too.
Fishing for dire claw hax is only “reliable” against very fast and offensive teams due to their need to minimise switching and limited pool of switch-ins, and sneasler doesn’t have much space against them
you know what else is reliable against offensive teams? Regular strong hits lol.
Serious, try it, if sneasler is broken it’ll be due to the overall kit and maybe the unburden set.
did anyone think iron head is what sent mega metagross to Ubers?
And let’s be real, Landing a poison touch poison is great with its 30% odds, or approx 45% with dire claw, but then… you could simply do more damage instead with an alternative move. U turn on choice sets only “punish” overly offensive teams that actually switch lmao.
in the meantime watch sneaslerflinch sleep it’s way past two Pokémon’s (2.5% chance), and also score a back to back crit (1.56% chance)
just an addendum, in the game above, I switched sneasler into a ceaseless edge, knowing that I could u turn on that turn as well, or just spam dire claw for fun due to the opponent no longer having a steel/poison type available. this was a simple matchup advantage after the opponent let go of a great sneasler check.
The opponent used Tera ghost potentially anticipating close combat, due to close combat being able to 2HkO or 3HKO what’s left on the team. Getting the Chien-Pao to sub 25% would have been enough, the sleep was a bonus.
you’ll quickly learn that the sleep hax sounds better on paper than in reality. Poison hax makes sleep hax harder too.
Fishing for dire claw hax is only “reliable” against very fast and offensive teams due to their need to minimise switching and limited pool of switch-ins, and sneasler doesn’t have much space against them
you know what else is reliable against offensive teams? Regular strong hits lol.
Serious, try it, if sneasler is broken it’ll be due to the overall kit and maybe the unburden set.
did anyone think iron head is what sent mega metagross to Ubers?
And let’s be real, Landing a poison touch poison is great with its 30% odds, or approx 45% with dire claw, but then… you could simply do more damage instead with an alternative move. U turn on choice sets only “punish” overly offensive teams that actually switch lmao.
in the meantime watch sneasler
just an addendum, in the game above, I switched sneasler into a ceaseless edge, knowing that I could u turn on that turn as well, or just spam dire claw for fun due to the opponent no longer having a steel/poison type available. this was a simple matchup advantage after the opponent let go of a great sneasler check.
The opponent used Tera ghost potentially anticipating close combat, due to close combat being able to 2HkO or 3HKO what’s left on the team. Getting the Chien-Pao to sub 25% would have been enough, the sleep was a bonus.
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Anyone know what the meta is like? I haven't been up to date because Chien-Pao and stuff like it are still in the tier. Maybe we see some anti-meta stuff or what not idk
This is what I have been thinking before home dropped, poison isn't the best type offensively even if it is stab so clicking dire claw isn't optimal most of the time, you would prefer to click other moves that have more damage potential. Yeah it can win games with rng but that isn't reliable at the long run, especially with how fragile this mon is. For me dire claw is hypnosis tier, on paper can give much chances to win but the lack of consistency is what makes most of the players not using it, especially on tournaments or other setting where the games "matter" more.
I would consider dire claw an issue if a bulky mon like Pex or G-Slowking had it since they can force a lot of switchings so realistically they could click it a lot more times than Sneasler without risking too much, but on a frail mon like Sneasler is just sub-optimal.
Chien-Pao, Zamazenta-C, Zamazenta-H: 3/5, could be broken, but its difficult for me to assert that confidently at this time. Not impossible to beat, but lack general and require clever positioning to beat. Hazards + high speed tier make them difficult to answer, but can also limit all three.
Sneaseler: 2/5 (or 3/5, forgot what I put in my initial response), I have only found this Pokemon to be potentially problematic on screens where it can set up a free SD. However, most Pokemon being forced to use HDB makes its Dire Claw more dangerous, since its free from Rocky Helmet chip.
Urshifu-RS: 1/5, IMO a good addition to the metagame. Provides a strong offensive / defensive profile without necessarily feeling overpowered. Middling speed, low spdef, and weakness to Spikes make it manageable.
Ursaluna: 1/5, a boom or bust Pokemon, both of its stabs having immunities give teams solid counterplay options against it even on Trick Room. Not helping matters is that the Trick Room setters such as Slowking-G and Hatterene can be somewhat exploitable.
Light Clay: 4/5, I have never been a fan of fighting Dual Screens teams, even in Gen 8, so this is largely personal bias.
What I believe the council should look into:
- Ceaseless Edge and Spikes are too strong I feel. Very few hazard removers barring Tusks (which can be played around and also doesn't like Spikes chip) forces teams to run multiple HDB Pokemon. Also makes Pokemon like Chien-Pao more difficult to answer. I am not sure what the solution to this problem is, but it is something I noticed when playing
- Neutral on Tera, but Tera Blast and Tera on Team preview could be looked at in a future suspect.
- Status