Where do you put spikes on SD gliscor? In place of protect or in place of facade/knock off? Isn't losing either of these a massive trade-off or is it not as bad as I think?
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3
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I fucking hate things never having 4x weaknesses anymore and gliscor is the most egregious example right now. I miss being able to formulate a genuine game plan for a threat that your team is weak to instead of just hoping they don’t tera when you should be luring it. Gliscor and Gambit without 4x weaknesses is so unfun to play against, end rant
I'm seeing Cinderace come up a lot more to deal with hazards via Court Change. There's no way to stop it from clicking the button most of the time, other than the rare options to outspeed it, so how do you guys usually deal with it reversing your hazards since you can't do anything to make Court Change fail? Other than just having the opponent set up hazards on your side too to make the option unappealing.
i do it by not setting up hazards while my opponent has a living cinderace. that saves me several turns that i can then put towards doing productive things like killing the cinderace
alternatively, you can switch to bloodmoon on the court change turn, tera poison, and win the game then and there. fortunately for the meta, this method won't work for long
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Honestly, you just have to be careful when you set up your hazards, i.e. after cinderace is dead. A good long term option is to knock off the cinderace's item, which is usually heavy duty boots. Due to it's weakness to stealth rocks, you can systematically chip it down to gain hazard advantage.
I wanted this to not be the answer so badly. Alas. I'll work on it.
Ursaluna-Bloodmoon is now banned: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-suspect-process-round-6-voting.3729173/post-9812218
93%, goddamn. Absolutely insane. Also absolutely justified.
Goodbye Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, you won’t be missed
You know, that is kinda of a reasonable complaint. Many of the mons with the most insane type combinations are partially balanced by having a "kill-switch" for which you have to scout for. Being able to just Tera in potentially dangerous scenarios allows the user to abuse its good qualities much more freely
You will not be missed. The era of this thing forcing trades is finally over.
93% holy shit.
bludgeoning angel i wish i could see the look on your face right now
Where does the 93% agreement put Bloodmoon in the all time agreement metric? I can't imagine a ton of Pokemon were banned with more people in agreement.
i feel sorry for all the people who spent their time grinding for reqs, went to bed before the voting thread went up, and woke up to find that their vote no longer matters because the mon was banned in an utter fucking landslide
…well, i don't feel that sorry for them because most of them are happy with the outcome anyway
Calyrex-Shadow was 93.3%, .12% less than Ursaluna. Although getting something banned from a tier defined by brokens with 93% is a bigger feat
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gen 9 ou is a tier defined by brokens
i THINK(important keyword: think) only shaymin sky got more ban% than Bloodmoon in OU history
if not is def the most a "non legendary/mythical" got
mega lucario was banned by 94% i think
huh
i stand corrected then
no you don't, you're sitting down right now
Spikes have been a core part of the gen 9 metagame ever since the first weeks of the meta. A big part of spikes have been 2 main factors. The first being the movepool of pokemon. In the beginning of gen 9, a lot of new and old pokemon got spikes which included but was not limited to threats such as garchomp, ting lu, sandy shocks and glimmora. But the movepool changes weren’t just spikes, but old pokemon that previously had defog, no longer had access to it. Only a handful of pokemon kept defog from the way from gen 8 to gen 9 such as corviknight, scizor or talonflame. This not only meant that the metagem had way more spike setters than other gens, even surpassing gens where spikes were popular such as gen 3, but the amount of hazard removal was also heavily cut.
Whilst there have been older metagames where spikes were popular, but not broken, a lot of those reasons come from the metagame itself. In gen 3, the most popular spikes setter was by far skarmory, with forretress being at the second spot, albeit, with way less usage. In gen 3, however, there is still good counterplay to spikes. Magneton a solid option in the meta, which with thunderbolt and hidden power fire, can trap and beat both skarmory and foreetress. Additionally, unlike in generation 9, superman structures are usable in gen 3, where the team uses flying types and pokemon with levitate to ignore spikes completely. In gen 2, spikes were only able to be put up once, meaning that the maximum damage you can deal was 12% unlike this days 25%.
In this gen however, stopping spikes is way more difficult, and some teams have straight up given up on even removing spikes, and have instead put heavy duty boots on pokemon such as iron valiant, kingambit, or zamazenta, even though they should not theoretically need to run boots. Whilst some may say that this is just pure metagame development, there is always a line between metagame development and overcentralizing. If we look at Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, yes, there were checks which people did use. These included pokemon such as cm spdef unaware clefable, or cm cresselia, but the community decided that instead of having to run specific niche pokemon to counter a theoretically counterable pokemon, they instead chose to ban it with a 90% majority as it was getting to a point where the niche checks were just too few and niche for it to be healthy for the meta.
Spikes are in a similar situation to Ursaluna-Bloodmoon when it comes to counterplay. Yes, you can run 6 boots on your balance team or run some niche air balloon neutralizing gas defog weezing set to try and defog against ting lu or gliscor, that isn’t a good argument to keep spikes, but rather shows that they are overcentralizing. Spikes are in a situation where they have been here for the whole gen 9 meta, and people would rather keep spikes like we’ve done for the whole generation rather than admitting that it is a problem and taking action on it.
DLC1 was not a friendly update for the hazard metagame. It did bring new defoggers to the game such as galarain weezing or mandibuzz, but it also introduced the most problematic spike setter in the meta right after a meta filled with samurott hisui. Gliscor had, and still has basically unstoppable spikes. Normal hazard removers such as great tusk or cinderace couldn’t beat gliscor thanks to its precious poison heal ability combined with toxic which helps it put defensive spinners such as great tusk on a timer. Even the aforementioned new defoggers weren’t able to remove the spikes as they either got crippled by toxic, blocked by gholdengo or had a poor type matchup against it, which later led to it being put on the new survey.
One might argue that spikes are fine in this meta as even though we haven’t gotten the recent survey results out yet, a lot of the player base seem to be fine with gliscor. The problem here however, is that banning a spike setter and spikes are 2 completely different things. Whilst yes, spikes are what pushes gliscor over the edge, banning it may not seem like the right call to the player base. And even if gliscor did end up getting banned, the root issue, spikes, will still be present as people will get again adapt to using pokemon such as samurott hisui or ting lu.
Another big argument against spikes is to ban gholdengo instead of spikes. I also originally like this idea. After all, gholdengo is the sole pokemon that blocks defog, rapid pin and mortal spin. It should solve the issue, right?
On paper, yes, this does look like a good idea, but let’s see what’s actually goin to happen if gholdengo does end up banned. The most obvious thing and what I’ll mainly be focus on, is defog being a better move as it can no longer be blocked by good as gold. Whilst this is true, there are some problems that come up with this. First of all, we’ll need to look at how many new defoggers would be viable. The most promising ones include galarain weezing, mandibuzz and corviknight.
Mandibuzz is basically already out of the equation. Without an immunity to toxic, it easily gets folded by gliscor, and is not going to be as reliable as other defoggers. Galarian weezing looks very promising on paper. With levitate it looks like it can beat gliscor, ting lu, meowscarada, hisuian samurott and all other spikers, but the problem comes with how weak it is. Again, gliscor, the most common spikes still beats weezing. Due to weezing being unable to threaten gliscor, it can in a lot of cases simply just sit on weezing and still have a spike up. Yes, having 1 spike up is better than 3, but considering that weezing already likes to use the neutralizing gas ability, it still can’t take an earthquake from gliscor or ting lu, making it an even worse defogger (Albeit, neutralizing gas does disable toxic heal, making gliscor take a lot of damage).
This basically leaves only rapid spinners and corviknight left as a hazard control, with corviknight being to only good defogger as its pressure ability makes sure that you’re always gonna be able to defog away all spikes. Even rapid spinners won’t be free after a gholdengo ban. Gholdengo lost to basically all rapid spinners, great tusk could knock it out with 2 hits due to the combination of knock of and earthquake, just like iron treads would. Even forcing gholdengo to terastalize helped as it most commonly ran fairy or flying, which would then remove the ability for gholdengo to block rapid spin.
Even if gholdengo was banned, this wouldn’t change. Dragapult can still switch in and take a knock to threaten tusk out, switch in again to sacrifice itself, and then have the game basically be over before the opponent can spin, or have the opponent severely crippled before they could spin.
Banning gholdengo would basically just free up corviknight as a good defogger, assuming that the spikes users wouldn’t start running taunt as gliscor, ting lu, meowscarada and hisuian samurott all already run taunt.
Another argument that has been floating around, is to use x with y moveset to ensure a defog. This is just a bad argument, and mainly just shows how spikes are in fact over centralizing. Some sets I’ve seen people suggesting are stuff such as swords dance defog scizor, or air ballon iron treads, all of which are basically useless outside of the spikes matchup. Heck, swords dance scizor can’t even break through gliscor in 2 hits after a swords dance, even carrying a life orb, which it already doesn’t want to.
Another argument includes unbanning uber pokemon to ou to deal with spikes, specifically darkrai. This is mainly just another bad argument as it provokes a broken checks broken meta. If spikes are broken, action should be taken against spikes, not against something that is good vs spikes. Gen 5 did unban excadrill, but in exchange, made excadrill more balanced as they now banned sand rush. Additionally, since the meta is so new, we still have stuff on ye radar to look out after, and unbanning an ubers pokemon this early isn’t the move yet.
Others may say that a spikes ban favors stall. This is just not true. Stall may no longer need to run 6 heavy duty boots, but it can also no longer punish switches as well, and will get a lot worse. Something such as an ursaluna can snowball out of control quickly against stall, but without spikes, you can’t force damage on it coming in. HO, however does not have this problem. You can easily make a glimmora lead HO, or veil HO without having to worry about using spikes, but it would be easier to build as you don’t have to account for spikes.
You can also say that smogon wouldn’t ban stuff in that sense. This is also not true whatsoever. If we look at a simple example, baton pass. It was deemed to be broken by a lot of people, resulting in it getting banned. But instead of individually banning every abuser of baton pass, they banned the move instead. This is the same scenario with spikes. There isn’t 1 spike setter, There are multiple. So if spikes are unhealthy for the meta, they would ban it like they banned baton pass. It does not matter if it was not problematic is past gens. Gen 9 is a new meta, and old metas should not have any big influence on what happens here. If magearna was fine in gen 7, that shouldn’t influence gen 9 to have it unbanned if it was broken. Same thing with spikes. Even if it was healthy for 7 gens straight, that doesn’t mean it’s healthy now. This is a new meta.
To summarize, spikes is not a healthy aspect of this meta, even though it has been fine in previous generations. Banning gholdengo won’t help, nor will unbanning other mons help.
Whilst there have been older metagames where spikes were popular, but not broken, a lot of those reasons come from the metagame itself. In gen 3, the most popular spikes setter was by far skarmory, with forretress being at the second spot, albeit, with way less usage. In gen 3, however, there is still good counterplay to spikes. Magneton a solid option in the meta, which with thunderbolt and hidden power fire, can trap and beat both skarmory and foreetress. Additionally, unlike in generation 9, superman structures are usable in gen 3, where the team uses flying types and pokemon with levitate to ignore spikes completely. In gen 2, spikes were only able to be put up once, meaning that the maximum damage you can deal was 12% unlike this days 25%.
In this gen however, stopping spikes is way more difficult, and some teams have straight up given up on even removing spikes, and have instead put heavy duty boots on pokemon such as iron valiant, kingambit, or zamazenta, even though they should not theoretically need to run boots. Whilst some may say that this is just pure metagame development, there is always a line between metagame development and overcentralizing. If we look at Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, yes, there were checks which people did use. These included pokemon such as cm spdef unaware clefable, or cm cresselia, but the community decided that instead of having to run specific niche pokemon to counter a theoretically counterable pokemon, they instead chose to ban it with a 90% majority as it was getting to a point where the niche checks were just too few and niche for it to be healthy for the meta.
Spikes are in a similar situation to Ursaluna-Bloodmoon when it comes to counterplay. Yes, you can run 6 boots on your balance team or run some niche air balloon neutralizing gas defog weezing set to try and defog against ting lu or gliscor, that isn’t a good argument to keep spikes, but rather shows that they are overcentralizing. Spikes are in a situation where they have been here for the whole gen 9 meta, and people would rather keep spikes like we’ve done for the whole generation rather than admitting that it is a problem and taking action on it.
DLC1 was not a friendly update for the hazard metagame. It did bring new defoggers to the game such as galarain weezing or mandibuzz, but it also introduced the most problematic spike setter in the meta right after a meta filled with samurott hisui. Gliscor had, and still has basically unstoppable spikes. Normal hazard removers such as great tusk or cinderace couldn’t beat gliscor thanks to its precious poison heal ability combined with toxic which helps it put defensive spinners such as great tusk on a timer. Even the aforementioned new defoggers weren’t able to remove the spikes as they either got crippled by toxic, blocked by gholdengo or had a poor type matchup against it, which later led to it being put on the new survey.
One might argue that spikes are fine in this meta as even though we haven’t gotten the recent survey results out yet, a lot of the player base seem to be fine with gliscor. The problem here however, is that banning a spike setter and spikes are 2 completely different things. Whilst yes, spikes are what pushes gliscor over the edge, banning it may not seem like the right call to the player base. And even if gliscor did end up getting banned, the root issue, spikes, will still be present as people will get again adapt to using pokemon such as samurott hisui or ting lu.
Another big argument against spikes is to ban gholdengo instead of spikes. I also originally like this idea. After all, gholdengo is the sole pokemon that blocks defog, rapid pin and mortal spin. It should solve the issue, right?
On paper, yes, this does look like a good idea, but let’s see what’s actually goin to happen if gholdengo does end up banned. The most obvious thing and what I’ll mainly be focus on, is defog being a better move as it can no longer be blocked by good as gold. Whilst this is true, there are some problems that come up with this. First of all, we’ll need to look at how many new defoggers would be viable. The most promising ones include galarain weezing, mandibuzz and corviknight.
Mandibuzz is basically already out of the equation. Without an immunity to toxic, it easily gets folded by gliscor, and is not going to be as reliable as other defoggers. Galarian weezing looks very promising on paper. With levitate it looks like it can beat gliscor, ting lu, meowscarada, hisuian samurott and all other spikers, but the problem comes with how weak it is. Again, gliscor, the most common spikes still beats weezing. Due to weezing being unable to threaten gliscor, it can in a lot of cases simply just sit on weezing and still have a spike up. Yes, having 1 spike up is better than 3, but considering that weezing already likes to use the neutralizing gas ability, it still can’t take an earthquake from gliscor or ting lu, making it an even worse defogger (Albeit, neutralizing gas does disable toxic heal, making gliscor take a lot of damage).
This basically leaves only rapid spinners and corviknight left as a hazard control, with corviknight being to only good defogger as its pressure ability makes sure that you’re always gonna be able to defog away all spikes. Even rapid spinners won’t be free after a gholdengo ban. Gholdengo lost to basically all rapid spinners, great tusk could knock it out with 2 hits due to the combination of knock of and earthquake, just like iron treads would. Even forcing gholdengo to terastalize helped as it most commonly ran fairy or flying, which would then remove the ability for gholdengo to block rapid spin.
Even if gholdengo was banned, this wouldn’t change. Dragapult can still switch in and take a knock to threaten tusk out, switch in again to sacrifice itself, and then have the game basically be over before the opponent can spin, or have the opponent severely crippled before they could spin.
Banning gholdengo would basically just free up corviknight as a good defogger, assuming that the spikes users wouldn’t start running taunt as gliscor, ting lu, meowscarada and hisuian samurott all already run taunt.
Another argument that has been floating around, is to use x with y moveset to ensure a defog. This is just a bad argument, and mainly just shows how spikes are in fact over centralizing. Some sets I’ve seen people suggesting are stuff such as swords dance defog scizor, or air ballon iron treads, all of which are basically useless outside of the spikes matchup. Heck, swords dance scizor can’t even break through gliscor in 2 hits after a swords dance, even carrying a life orb, which it already doesn’t want to.
Another argument includes unbanning uber pokemon to ou to deal with spikes, specifically darkrai. This is mainly just another bad argument as it provokes a broken checks broken meta. If spikes are broken, action should be taken against spikes, not against something that is good vs spikes. Gen 5 did unban excadrill, but in exchange, made excadrill more balanced as they now banned sand rush. Additionally, since the meta is so new, we still have stuff on ye radar to look out after, and unbanning an ubers pokemon this early isn’t the move yet.
Others may say that a spikes ban favors stall. This is just not true. Stall may no longer need to run 6 heavy duty boots, but it can also no longer punish switches as well, and will get a lot worse. Something such as an ursaluna can snowball out of control quickly against stall, but without spikes, you can’t force damage on it coming in. HO, however does not have this problem. You can easily make a glimmora lead HO, or veil HO without having to worry about using spikes, but it would be easier to build as you don’t have to account for spikes.
You can also say that smogon wouldn’t ban stuff in that sense. This is also not true whatsoever. If we look at a simple example, baton pass. It was deemed to be broken by a lot of people, resulting in it getting banned. But instead of individually banning every abuser of baton pass, they banned the move instead. This is the same scenario with spikes. There isn’t 1 spike setter, There are multiple. So if spikes are unhealthy for the meta, they would ban it like they banned baton pass. It does not matter if it was not problematic is past gens. Gen 9 is a new meta, and old metas should not have any big influence on what happens here. If magearna was fine in gen 7, that shouldn’t influence gen 9 to have it unbanned if it was broken. Same thing with spikes. Even if it was healthy for 7 gens straight, that doesn’t mean it’s healthy now. This is a new meta.
To summarize, spikes is not a healthy aspect of this meta, even though it has been fine in previous generations. Banning gholdengo won’t help, nor will unbanning other mons help.
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to be fair, the meta's changing pretty rapidly, as are people's opinions on various mons—remember, bloodmoon didn't get enough support for a qb on the survey and a lot of people were saying it was fine but changed their minds later and banned it by one of the widest margins in smogon history. personally, i was fine with gliscor at the time the survey came out, but when i actually used it during my reqs run i realized i literally did not have to think most of the time that it was on the field. i reckon that plenty of other people have come around on gliscor in the time since the survey
this i can agree with, but after some extensive research i'm on the fence about whether to ban spikes or just gliscor and hamurott. both of those mons are cheap as shit and the hazard meta really started ramping up from "all right this is fine" to "ok this is a problem" when hamurott was introduced. i think the right direction to go might be cutting those two and then having a discussion about spikes if hazard stack is still as problematic as it currently is. of course, this would take time that we can't really afford and a spikes ban is a quick-and-dirty catch-all solution until dlc2 drops and we can reassess things. it's really a matter of "do we actually care that much about a meta we'll have for 2-3 more months at most"
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