Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3

[yomaalt]

I don't know if it's the right thread for this, but here is my opinion about what should and shouldn't be unbanned after DLC2. Off course, it's pure theory.

View attachment 574780

ban, ban, ban, : roaring-moon: maybe, ban, ban

ban, ban

sure, if dengo is banned we can try em, can't POSSIBLY be worse then gliscor, right? maybe... No.

Keep banned, I swear if we give pao a chance but not chi then there's CLEARLY a bias against fire types smh..... Keep banned, ban it to unusable, any tier with tera should have this fucker auto banned, AG INCLUDED. Keep banned, Keep banned,

FREE MY BOY HE AIN'T DO NUN!!11 (Nah keep him banned), Keep banned, trust it's balanced (keep it banned), Keep banned, Keep banned, yeah stay banned

yeah they can linger in UUbers

yeah keep em banned

STRAIGHT TO AG

Ok listen, hear me out on this one. Genesect has lost quite a few notable moves, and the overall powercreep has increased dramatically. I believe that with the prominence of spikes/rocks, and the overall metagame probably suited rather well to take it, genesect wouldn't be too broken. Any choiced set means pivoting is being punished by hazards and proper play between the likes of tran/dengo/corv/pex/etc.... can probably hold sect down. Band sets lose to dozo/tusk w/o dedicated coverage (which hampers it's moveslot, creating further 4mss) mixed could cause problem, but with how most of the tier is dominated by a faster, stronger (usually) mixed attacker in ival, sect gotta do some stuff to differentiate. HDB pivot could work, until smth like ferro/helm corv/lando/tusk start punishing it on switches and blasting it apart. I think sect could be balanced this gen.

TL:DR Genesect lost shit, most sets can be stopped w/o too much problem thanks to gen 9 powercreep.

(Ok now that you read allat just know I am LYING OUT OF MY ASS I just want my 3 minutes of genesect OU.)


ban it lol

bro trust gambit beats it!!!!! (keep it banned)

I deadass forgot bro existed, also does this mean we're unbanning lunala? :)


(Quick edit i gotta put BM as "keep banned" I remember a repla where shitter did 67% to a 252/4 gambit idk how)

 

[YubelVT]

no, no, no, : roaring-moon: maybe, no, maybe

no, no

sure, if dengo is banned we can try em, can't POSSIBLY be worse then gliscor, right? maybe... No.

agree, I swear if we give pao a chance but not chi then there's CLEARLY a bias against fire types smh..... agree, ban it to unusable, any tier with tera should have this fucker auto banned, AG INCLUDED. agree, agree,

FREE MY BOY HE AIN'T DO NUN!!11 (Nah keep him banned), agree, :landorus-incarnate: trust it's balanced (keep it banned), :urshifu-single-strike: agree, agree, yeah stay banned

yeah they can linger in UUbers

yeah I agree

STRAIGHT TO AG

Ok listen, hear me out on this one. Genesect has lost quite a few notable moves, and the overall powercreep has increased dramatically. I believe that with the prominence of spikes/rocks, and the overall metagame probably suited rather well to take it, genesect wouldn't be too broken. Any choiced set means pivoting is being punished by hazards and proper play between the likes of tran/dengo/corv/pex/etc.... can probably hold sect down. Band sets lose to dozo/tusk w/o dedicated coverage (which hampers it's moveslot, creating further 4mss) mixed could cause problem, but with how most of the tier is dominated by a faster, stronger (usually) mixed attacker in ival, sect gotta do some stuff to differentiate. HDB pivot could work, until smth like ferro/helm corv/lando/tusk start punishing it on switches and blasting it apart. I think sect could be balanced this gen.

TL:DR Genesect lost shit, most sets can be stopped w/o too much problem thanks to gen 9 powercreep.

(Ok now that you read allat just know I am LYING OUT OF MY ASS I just want my 3 minutes of genesect OU.)


ban it lol

bro trust gambit beats it!!!!! (keep it banned)

I deadass forgot bro existed, also does this mean we're unbanning lunala? :)

Gliscor can be tested if Ghold is banned. Other than that you're 100% correct as always


Unrelated:
I am now revealing the sauce I cooked up as the "Worst Waterpon Check Ever":

Goodra-Hisui @ Leftovers
Ability: Sap Sipper
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 152 HP / 252 Def / 104 SpA
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Fire Blast

The set works in testing, but the problem is I don't know how to build around this. Any tips?

 

[Schpoonman]

Let's examine Darkrai's priority weakness.

252+ Atk Choice Band Rillaboom Grassy Glide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Darkrai in Grassy Terrain: 205-243 (72.9 - 86.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
Tera Grass has an 81.3% chance to OHKO, which costs your Tera while Darkrai can Tera Poison.

252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Normal Dragonite Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Darkrai: 240-283 (85.4 - 100.7%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
Requires hazards to reliably kill from full, hope the Darkrai isn't Boots.

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Fighting Iron Valiant Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Darkrai: 272-320 (96.7 - 113.8%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
Valiant is obviously used with Booster more, but Specs is a real set and Darkrai's presence might necessitate Vacuum Wave teched on. Unfortunately, it requires Tera like Rillaboom and Darkrai can Tera right back out like Rillaboom.

252+ Atk Black Glasses Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Tera Dark Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Darkrai: 170-200 (60.4 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Not even close. Ironically, Tera Poison hurts Darkrai in thi--what's that? Tera Fairy Darkrai (or just not Tera-ing at all) also bitch slaps 85% of the tier with not nearly enough overlap with Poison?

So all the priority that I've seen mentioned in the last few pages that really threatens Darkrai requires Tera on the user's side to threaten an OHKO and the most reliable can be blocked by Darkrai's own Tera. Unless you're extremely confident in your ability to make your opponent press their funny button first, this sounds like a resource exchange heavily lopsided in Darkrai's favor.

 

[Magcargo]

I’ve been thinking about how amazing “offensive” or semi-offensive pokemon are right now with simple 4A + HDB or 3A + HDB + non boosting status.

it’s super meta right now because a lot of these pokemon can shred through hyper offense / bulky offense teams once the bottleneck checks are cracked open. Both tend to be near useless against the bulkiest or stalliest teams, but their utility in all other matchups is very potent.

the other advantage is the defensive utility. For example iron moth, greninja, samurott, zapdos and cinderace can all switch into the premier threat gholdengo. Zapdos, iron moth and cinderace can come in on rillabooms, dragapult can come in on waterpon, etc.

perhaps the easiest example of each that comes to mind is:

4A + HDB Greninja often cracks open an HO team due to their reliance on some combination of waterpon or manaphy + kingambit or samurott to check it. Rillaboom usage has also decreased on HO since the sneasler ban. Battle bond tends to perform better against most meta threats, whilst protean with u turn and/or gunk shot can perform against or surprise off-meta threats better, like regenerators and Azumaril.

3A + HDB + non boosting status Cinderace has court change, again a great asset against HO’s webs. Usually running wisp and court change is an-over commitment, so the 3A sets dominate with pyro ball, u turn and court change appearing on most sets with a flex fourth slot. Hi Jump kick is very meta right now, as it’s cinderace only weapon against the rising heatran and Garganacl, but comes at the cost of prediction if there are ghosts or zapdos. Sucker punch is also super meta due to the strong need for priority in a fast meta.

I’ve made a list of the various pokemon that can 3A or 4A, how would you rank them?

OU by Usage

• Cinderace - the main set is court change. 4A can work too
• Dragapult - wisp or thunder wave with stabs and u turn
• Enamorus - superpower on a 4A set with Tera steel can often 6-0 stall if the needle is threaded. Also has use verse gambit
• Great Tusk - have seen plenty of 4A and 3A. The HDB allows for a more reliable spin.
• Greninja - can make use of both protean and battle bond. Tho predictable either way. Can use 3A with spikes or the 4A set.
• Iron Moth - 4A is rarer, but works. 3A with sub or morning sun can do some work, sometimes ends the game earlier than expected if it has the right coverage
• Samurott-Hisui - 4A is very common. Possibly the only pokemon in OU that can viably run 4 moves with the same type!
• Slowking-Galar - this is the odd one out as it’s less offensive than the rest, but still technically in the conversation. The 3A with chilly reception can do some serious damage and it’s an excellent pivot.
• Zamazenta - 4A is making a bit more of an appearance than the standard iron defense set. Can force some switches or Tera types against HO.
• Zapdos - perhaps one of the best known bulky 3A HDB users since HDB became a thing. Hurricane is awesome

Observations:

1. the average speed of the 4A and 3A HDB pokemon is very high, Slowking is an outlier. I wonder why slower Pokémon’s don’t have as much utility with this type of role.
2. only about half of them commonly carry pivot moves

what non OU by usage pokemon work with this kind of role?

there’s a few non-OU pokemon worth mentioning:

• tornadus - outclassed by zapdos as a bulky hurricane user that checks the grounded physical attackers
• Weavile - 4A can work, but it hits so weak without +2 and can easily fall victim to the many bulky Pokémon’s or surprise Tera types. Outclassed by the other dark types.
• Meowscarada - . Hits are quite weak without band, and a little slow without scarf. Unlike greninja it can’t bypass those weaknesses by threatening to get a battle bond boost. Unlike cinderace it can’t make use of protean to use a stab, and then protean to another stab. Outclassed by the other dark types

On this note, I have been using 4 Attacks Meowscarada with Flower Trick / Knock Off / Sucker Punch / Low Kick + HDB and it's pretty good imo. You won't believe the number of Gambits that just stay in and get KOed for free by Low Kick.

Ogerpon-C doesn't run boots, but its also great as a 4A mon, similarly with Low Kick + Knock for Gambit and Dengo.

 

[Red violet blue]

I think retesting sneasler and moon is an awful idea. With sneasler specifically nothing will have changed about it and all of its checks were fake anyway bar moltres and there's no way I can ever see roaring moon being not ban worthy at this point. Deo-D and Deo-S are never fun in OU and shouldn't be tested either bar an extremely good hazard blocker/remover and even then please no. Chien-Pao (don't fucking abbreviate that I will attack you) needs to die a permanent death, Baxcal can maybe be retested. Kyurem Base absolutely should not be retested unless it loses dragon dance. I disagree heavily with your list even if I can see your reasoning.

About sneasler, I agree, I hate dire claw, it should stay banned, but unfortunatly, I think it won't. The council will probably give it a retest, or that's what I understood.
About moon, it depends of the returning and new mons, I think that, if it comes back, Tapu Fini may help to beat it (moonblast would KO without tera, scald could burn tera flying, if it has scald), but I'm not sure.

I put all the mons I was not sure about in "test" and the others in "stay banned", perhaps I should have created a special group for the "I'm not sure"

Deoxys D and S created an enormous debate in gen5 but off course it shouldn't be allowed with ghold in the metagame.

 

[Schpoonman]

Off course, Deoxys Speed should never be allowed in a metagame with Ghold...

I can't be sure about deoxys Speed and Def because I've never played in an ou metagame with these two mons allowed, but I think that 90 attk and spattk for deoxys Speed is not really good in gen9, and it's really frail, KOed by any priority or booster energy fast mon.

Anyway, that's just "what if deoxys are in dlc 2 and gholdengo is banned?" so it's a theory in a theory lol

I remember NP Deoxys-S being a set that was reason to ban it last gen. +2 Psycho Boost hurts and Deoxys could afford to run boosting natures, too, especially teching options like Superpower to pop Blissey. Prepare for its idiot hazard sets and it'd sweep. Definitely not a mon to drop.

 

[YubelVT]

About sneasler, I agree, I hate dire claw, it should stay banned, but unfortunatly, I think it won't. The council will probably give it a retest, or that's what I understood.
About moon, it depends of the returning and new mons, I think that, if it comes back, Tapu Fini may help to beat it (moonblast would KO without tera, scald could burn tera flying, if it has scald), but I'm not sure.

I put all the mons I was not sure about in "test" and the others in "stay banned", perhaps I should have created a special group for the "I'm not sure"

Deoxys D and S created an enormous debate in gen5 but off course it shouldn't be allowed with ghold in the metagame.

Dude I don't care about dire claw. The problem with sneasler wasn't dire claw, it was unburden. Unless we're banning unburden, Sneasler will never be ok in OU. Also roaring moon was fine in the tier until it got knock off, and unless it loses knock, it's gonna be banworthy no matter what checks drop.

 

[Lethargic]

“252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Fighting Iron Valiant Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Darkrai: 272-320 (96.7 - 113.8%) -- 75%
chance to OHKO”

okay like this is my point so what you’ve got tera + choice specs on some random niche move that does a bunch of damage to darkrai because its super effective, how is this supposed to be relevant for or against darkrai at all? Are we seriously gonna start pulling out the glaceon specs blizzard calcs on gliscor again?

252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Focus Blast vs. +1 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Regice: 70-83 (19.2 - 22.8%) -- possible 5HKO

oh wow darkrai with life orb can’t even 4hko with supereffective this is so significant guys wow

not to mention all of this logic assumes that the person who built the freaking darkrai team wasn’t aware that priority was an issue for it? Like they won’t have counters or mons to deal with/take advantage of your choice specs valiant locked into freaking vacuum wave?

 

[Welcome to mars]

why do people want gholdengo banned to ubers after the second dlc, can’t they use specially defensive braixen to trap and kill with fire spin and then clear hazards for £1.99 with bulky furret? are they that hard to fit on an OU team? or is the koffing community too stupid to adapt to anything their garchomp can’t kill with mud shot and resort to falsely arresting things they can’t comprehend?

 

[pika pal]

Off course, Deoxys Speed should never be allowed in a metagame with Ghold...

I can't be sure about deoxys Speed and Def because I've never played in an ou metagame with these two mons allowed, but I think that 90 attk and spattk for deoxys Speed is not really good in gen9, and it's really frail, KOed by any priority or booster energy fast mon.

Anyway, that's just "what if deoxys are in dlc 2 and gholdengo is banned?" so it's a theory in a theory lol

The thing about the Deoxys forms is their offense isn't really their selling point, but the fact that they get Hazards up almost entirely uncontested, which was enough to make them unhealthy in Metas with MUCH better removal than we have now like Gens 6 and 7 (they skipped Gen 8 but we ain't there now). Even without Gholdengo to protect the Hazards, they exploit the hell out of the stuff we could use for Hazard removal this gen (Taunt if no Coverage for Corviknight), and the problem isn't even necessarily KOing them since they frequently were very effective suicide leads to go into "beat them down before they can try removal" approaches. This on top of any boosting set potential they could pull off like is mentioned in the post above mine.

Also I assume people have already covered Dracovish but I just wanna post the funny number calc.
252 Atk Choice Band Tera Water Dracovish Fishious Rend (170 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew in Rain: 646-762 (189.4 - 223.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252 Atk Hearthflame Mask Tera Fire Ogerpon-Hearthflame-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew in Sun: 554-654 (162.4 - 191.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Tera Water Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew in Rain: 740-872 (217 - 255.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Dracovish's raw power is kind of absurd to balance around to the point I don't think that accident can be fair in OU without gutting the move outright. Not to mention Webs being viable is literally perfect for the mechanics of the Galar fossil moves even on the balanced ones.

 

[Red violet blue]

no, no, no, : roaring-moon: maybe, no, maybe

no, no

sure, if dengo is banned we can try em, can't POSSIBLY be worse then gliscor, right? maybe... No.

agree, I swear if we give pao a chance but not chi then there's CLEARLY a bias against fire types smh..... agree, ban it to unusable, any tier with tera should have this fucker auto banned, AG INCLUDED. agree, agree,

FREE MY BOY HE AIN'T DO NUN!!11 (Nah keep him banned), agree, :landorus-incarnate: trust it's balanced (keep it banned), :urshifu-single-strike: agree, agree, yeah stay banned

yeah they can linger in UUbers

yeah I agree

STRAIGHT TO AG

Ok listen, hear me out on this one. Genesect has lost quite a few notable moves, and the overall powercreep has increased dramatically. I believe that with the prominence of spikes/rocks, and the overall metagame probably suited rather well to take it, genesect wouldn't be too broken. Any choiced set means pivoting is being punished by hazards and proper play between the likes of tran/dengo/corv/pex/etc.... can probably hold sect down. Band sets lose to dozo/tusk w/o dedicated coverage (which hampers it's moveslot, creating further 4mss) mixed could cause problem, but with how most of the tier is dominated by a faster, stronger (usually) mixed attacker in ival, sect gotta do some stuff to differentiate. HDB pivot could work, until smth like ferro/helm corv/lando/tusk start punishing it on switches and blasting it apart. I think sect could be balanced this gen.

TL:DR Genesect lost shit, most sets can be stopped w/o too much problem thanks to gen 9 powercreep.

(Ok now that you read allat just know I am LYING OUT OF MY ASS I just want my 3 minutes of genesect OU.)


ban it lol

bro trust gambit beats it!!!!! (keep it banned)

I deadass forgot bro existed, also does this mean we're unbanning lunala? :)

I admit that dracovish was a weird choice of mine lol, but:
In gen 8, we were forced to use seismitoad to beat it, because there was almost no other water absorb mon, but now we have Waterpon which is really good. We also have Dondozo now, and dracovish speed is more terrible than ever, because of booster energy mon, so Dracovish wouldn't be good againt offense at all.
However, I admit it may be too good in rain against defensive teams, and maybe too restrictive, perhaps there would even be weird tera like dragon or dark with crunch that would ko waterpon. I am not sure, it's why I put in "test" list

About sneasler and gliscor, I agree, because I hate dire claw and poison heal, but I think the council will unban them anyway



About Lunala and all the gen8 and 9 uber mons I didn't put in my lists: They should stay in a galaxy far far away from ou.

 

[Red violet blue]

The thing about the Deoxys forms is their offense isn't really their selling point, but the fact that they get Hazards up almost entirely uncontested, which was enough to make them unhealthy in Metas with MUCH better removal than we have now like Gens 6 and 7 (they skipped Gen 8 but we ain't there now). Even without Gholdengo to protect the Hazards, they exploit the hell out of the stuff we could use for Hazard removal this gen (Taunt if no Coverage for Corviknight), and the problem isn't even necessarily KOing them since they frequently were very effective suicide leads to go into "beat them down before they can try removal" approaches. This on top of any boosting set potential they could pull off like is mentioned in the post above mine.

Also I assume people have already covered Dracovish but I just wanna post the funny number calc.
252 Atk Choice Band Tera Water Dracovish Fishious Rend (170 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew in Rain: 646-762 (189.4 - 223.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252 Atk Hearthflame Mask Tera Fire Ogerpon-Hearthflame-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew in Sun: 554-654 (162.4 - 191.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Tera Water Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew in Rain: 740-872 (217 - 255.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Dracovish's raw power is kind of absurd to balance around to the point I don't think that accident can be fair in OU without gutting the move outright. Not to mention Webs being viable is literally perfect for the mechanics of the Galar fossil moves even on the balanced ones.

Oups, forgot about webs

I remember NP Deoxys-S being a set that was reason to ban it last gen. +2 Psycho Boost hurts and Deoxys could afford to run boosting natures, too, especially teching options like Superpower to pop Blissey. Prepare for its idiot hazard sets and it'd sweep. Definitely not a mon to drop.

I didn't know about Nasty Plot, so yes, it would be clearly broken with its great coverage and its speed.

It would especially destroy almost all balance teams

 

[YubelVT]

I know it's protocol to drop a bunch of previously banned ubers when a big metagame shake up happens like a DLC drop, but I think it would be a disservice to gliscor to drop it with the initial drops. Like it would almost certainly get rebanned anyway because Gholdengo is still here stifling hazard removal. Gliscor is an insanely good pokemon in OU, but I don't think it's fair to it to drop it and tilt public opinion even further in the "Don't retest this thing ever" direction. Just my perspective tho

 

[ianlazerbeem]

I know it's protocol to drop a bunch of previously banned ubers when a big metagame shake up happens like a DLC drop, but I think it would be a disservice to gliscor to drop it with the initial drops. Like it would almost certainly get rebanned anyway because Gholdengo is still here stifling hazard removal. Gliscor is an insanely good pokemon in OU, but I don't think it's fair to it to drop it and tilt public opinion even further in the "Don't retest this thing ever" direction. Just my perspective tho

For the millionth time Gliscor is probably the least Gholdengo-reliant hazard setter of all of them, no reason to try to spinblock when sending Gliscor out to get spikes up again is free and almost always favors the Gliscor user due to immortal toxic and knock

 

[YubelVT]

For the millionth time Gliscor is probably the least Gholdengo-reliant hazard setter of all of them, no reason to try to spinblock when sending Gliscor out to get spikes up again almost always favors the Gliscor user

Not my point. Gholdengo exacerbates all of the issues with Gliscor and that's my problem with the sequencing of this stuff. Having more forms of actual hazard removal is only a boon when dealing with Gliscor.

 

[Elec-ant1234]

Something that I would like to talk about are the brought up similarities between Darkrai and Iron Valiant, and I'll be real with ya, IV is better.

First off, lets see what Darkrai brings to the table.

Darkrai for attacking options has:
Dark Pulse (only stab option)
Focus Miss
Hex (couldn't be too bad on a T-wave or WoW set)
Ice Beam (nice in a tusk meta)
Psychic and Psyshock (not too good due to kingambit and plenty of psychic resists existing)
Shadow Ball (you already have stab dark pulse)
Sludge Bomb (legit nice against fairies, very important)
and... Thunder? Which could be nice in rain ig

Yeah as it turns out darkrai has two 70% acc moves that it would want to run to have required coverage, which isn't the greatest.
It also comes pre-packaged with plenty of support options, including hypnosis for cheese, and both CM and NP
So pretty good, all things considered, and it comes off of a very good 135 SpA and very fast 125 speed. Overall it can absolutely clean up games, and can pick and choose it's counters decently well.
However, one thing that I could like to point out is it's typing and bulk. This thing dies to a small rock, and is the epitome of a glass cannon. Even if you run HDB to increase your longevity, this thing without set up will almost never kill from full, and gets absolutely rocked by U-turn. You hit this thing when it switches in and it's suddenly on life-support. It's 70/90/90 bulk is "decent" and lets it survive at maximum 2 hits. One wrong match-up and this thing is either getting forced out or OHKO'd from full.
So, in summary, it's a fast, frail wallbreaker that can clean up games, while at the expense of needing help switching in and generally being weak to priority. It'll be something that will definitely cause meta adaptations if dropped from Ubers, and looks really solid on paper, with some notable weaknesses.

Meanwhile, Iron Valiant has:
Aura Sphere (stab), Close Combat (stab), Energy Ball, Fire Punch, Future Sight, Grass Knot, Hex, Hyper Voice, Ice Punch, Knock Off, Leaf Blade, Liquidation, Moonblast (stab), Poison Jab, Psychic, Psycho Cut, Psyshock, Shadow Ball, Shadow Claw, Spirit Break (stab), Stored Power (?), Thunderbolt, Thunder Punch, X-Scissor, and Zen Headbutt.

I didn't space the moves out so it might look small, but thats 25 potentially viable stab and coverage options that Iron Valiant could run, with a generous mix of physical and special attacks. Additionally, Iron Valiant gets hypnosis, also gets CM, along with SD, and also gets T-Wave. It's got 130 attack, and 120 special attack, and also gets encore and all of the support moves Darkrai gets, excluding WoW.
"But Elec-ant!" I might hear you saying. "what about it's bulk?", to which I answer... 74/90/64.

In a world where pretty much every priority move is physical, this means that Iron Valiant is literally bulkier than Darkrai, and straight up has a better typing. It has better and more powerful stab options (stab on two amazing attacking types might I add), and almost identical support options.
Iron Valiant, is a fast, frail wallbreaker than can pick and chose it's counters, has amazing coverage, and guess what? Iron Valiant doesn't actually need help switching it. It has actual resistances that are meta relevant, and after it does switch in, oh no! Iron Valiant just encored my resisted hit, SD'd up, and won the game! It literally has an easier time setting up for a win than Darkrai does, since Darkrai has 4MSS, would be absolutely reliant on substitute, would lose to U-Turn, a widely distributed move that's very easily splashable on plenty of OU viable mons, and only can use special moves.
Iron Valiant gets the ability to force your opponent into 50/50's on whether or not to send in a physical wall or special wall. Darkrai will have to rely on Focus Miss, hypnosis, and it's moveset of 9 viable moves to get past anything mildly bulky. Not to mention that Darkrai's ability to benefit from tera will only matter if it's getting KO's. it can't use it's tera defensively due to being a wet sponge with a glock, and if you use it offensively you'd better be running LO and taking 25% from spikes.
TLDR, I believe that even with Darkrai's flutter mane level SpA and good coverage spread and access to tera, it's not gonna be too different from Iron Valiant, who in most cases is just better than Darkrai. Darkrai will be super strong, don't get me wrong it can absolutely clean up games and be a beast, but overall will most likely be very unreliable, wheras Iron Valiant is a meta tested mon who consistently hits top 30% usage, and is one of the most consistent game ender's out there.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

Not my point. Gholdengo exacerbates all of the issues with Gliscor and that's my problem with the sequencing of this stuff. Having more forms of actual hazard removal is only a boon when dealing with Gliscor.

Just say "Corviknight" it's the only removal seriously stonewalled by Ghold, the rest don't care and/or lose to Gliscor anyway

reminder that the most successful Gliscor teams (xavgb balance, supagmoney stall) had no Gholdengo

 

[Carl The Turtle]

Just say "Corviknight" it's the only removal seriously stonewalled by Ghold, the rest don't care and/or lose to Gliscor anyway

reminder that the most successful Gliscor teams (xavgb balance, supagmoney stall) had no Gholdengo

honourable mention to like the three people who were using defog scizor a few weeks ago tbh. Like, it had knock and technician thief, but I really don't think it wanted to run those at all over sd and/or stabs.

 

[viivian]

^my response to the last 294 pages, not just the last post

what do you mean youre not releasing flutter mane at the start of DLC2? nonsense.

I know it's protocol to drop a bunch of previously banned ubers when a big metagame shake up happens like a DLC drop, but I think it would be a disservice to gliscor to drop it with the initial drops. Like it would almost certainly get rebanned anyway because Gholdengo is still here stifling hazard removal. Gliscor is an insanely good pokemon in OU, but I don't think it's fair to it to drop it and tilt public opinion even further in the "Don't retest this thing ever" direction. Just my perspective tho

on a more serious note, if defog is redistributed in DLC2 then gliscor could probably stay OU, especially if gliscor itself ends up regaining the move. gholdengo did not "push it over the edge", the generally limited distribution of rapid spin, defog, etc. did, especially when gliscor sat on every hazard remover in the game w/ toxic and got spikes up right in front of each of them. expanding the pool of viable defoggers would make gliscor less constraining for bulkier teams to deal with. and with triple axel potentially getting redistributed in the next DLC, that could also make taking gliscor down far more managaeable since the meta will finally have a good ice type breaker (weavile) after baxcalibur left the tier. its definitely worth giving another look when the time comes but only time will tell if it stays. it mostly depends on what the indigo disk has in store for us

 

[pika pal]

I think the thing about Gholdengo is that he exacerbates Gliscor's match-ups not because of the Hazard protection, but simply because it's a busted AF Pokemon that has absurdly good defensive Synergy with Gliscor regardless of Hazard play: Gliscor shits on Ground types while being an excellent Knock Off absorber for the best form of Dark Offense, while Gholdengo heavily discourages Ice attacks as coverage (and OU lacks many STAB Ice attackers) and resists some of the stronger types that could do neutral damage to Gliscor such as Flying, Fairy, or Dragons. Good as Gold also hard punishes things like Taunt attempts on Gliscor, Tricking it bad items, or Encore for set up chance.

The duo here is actually a good microcosm of something I think the Gholdengo discourse is missing in general: heavy focus on the Hazard Meta (which inevitably results in the "but Removal will still suck" response angle circle) tunneling away from the fact Gholdengo's kit in general is just stupid effective for a variety of reasons (I would not pen Ghold as healthy even if we got several more Defoggers in DLC2, because while it is one factor I don't consider the Defog blocking the primary issue with it).

I'll also say that unless we get something like more viable Magic Guard/Anti-Toxic Pokemon, I don't see Gliscor being balanced in Gen 9 OU (with or without Tera), certainly not as long as Gholdengo among other factors is stepping on the throat of Balance and Stall teams while Gliscor can eat into a lot of standard HO structures.

 

[Just A Baguette Car]

I think the problem with dropping Darkrai is similar to the problem with Kyurem last gen: it's sets, while they do each individually have counterplay, have very little shared counterplay. The difference is Kyurem had to commit to either a pp stalling sub/roost set or a Specs/NeverMeltIce set, whereas Darkrai can beat all its checks by simply choosing the right coverage move.

On top of that, I think the people saying that it's "just another attacker" are a little bit understating its effectiveness. 125 base speed outspeeds everything barring Zamazenta, Pult, and some booster speed paradoxes, most notably Valiant. However, all of these barring Pult don't want to switch in since they lose some sort of boost switching in a second time and Pult is forced to go for the highly exploitable Draco Meteor since Shadow Ball doesn't KO. It's also worth noting that this speed is ON TOP of the insane coverage, 135 special attack, and setup. It's not like Pult where it's limited by its STABs and power.

After seeing that post from the rule 69 guy: No, Iron Valiant IS NOT always superior to Darkrai. The difference is that Iron Valiant has actual defensive counterplay, for example Le Funny RNG Birbs, Skeledirge (who is good I swear), Ghold, Moth, Pex, and generally anything that can take a moonblast/cc and can retaliate back such as Wogerpon, Ting-Lu, Lando, and Dnite. Darkrai? Just sweeps past all of with STAB Dark Pulse/Focus Blast lmao.

In addition, althought it provides it with much better out-offensing capability, Booster Energy also means that Valiant will usually only get 1 chance to sweep per game, whereas Darkrai can switch in and out without losing anything important.

Valiant's physical bulk is only 4 points better than Darkrai's and Darkrai has the edge in SpDef by 30 points. The only relevant interaction involving priority in which Valiant has the edge is Kingambit's Sucker Punch, which is admittedly too common, but Darkrai isn't KO'd from it even at +2 5 allies even after stealth rock damage which is about the worst case scenario you can expect, and in return it can OHKO with focus blast, so I'd say it's not really a matchup you fear.

 

[YNM]

Shoutout to the guy that used the exact same team as Blunder's literally one game before I matched with him, making me predict the Lando's Tera Water on my Waterpon and allowing me to win the game (with an healthy dose of luck because of an Head Smash miss, my bad)

 

[MattC (Banned)]

Maaaan what the hell is the point of retesting Ubers for OU at this point? To give them an actual home in a metagame instead of languishing in UUbers [potential obscurity]? My EXTREMELY anti-pessimistic (this isn't proper English ik but my previous Darkrai post and many others are super contradictory) look on any pokemon blinds me from the truth. Half of me knows shit like Chi-Yu and Magearna have absolutely no right to ever be in OU, yet the other half says "Regieleki stonewalled by Iron Treads it's fine in OU". I don't know man I'm not the omega pro gamer like the lot of you, nor am I on the same mindset as you. Enlighten me

 

[ianlazerbeem]

why do people want gholdengo banned to ubers after the second dlc, can’t they use specially defensive braixen to trap and kill with fire spin and then clear hazards for £1.99 with bulky furret? are they that hard to fit on an OU team? or is the koffing community too stupid to adapt to anything their garchomp can’t kill with mud shot and resort to falsely arresting things they can’t comprehend?

Or just use Cinderace and fucking hit it

Edit: you also can't trap Ghold. Most informed Gholdengo shit fit

 

[SilentKillerVGC]

No one would use Techno Blast when Genesect's model changes based on which Drive it's holding. Telegraphing your item is supremely awful for Genesect. I also don't see Choice Band as a threat without Extreme Speed.

Techno Blast set was legit in past generations, even you know Genesect had Douse Drive and you can't switch Heatran so you have to find another plan against Genesect. Download allows Genesect to pick what can come in on pokemon that was good Genesect checks and smash them. Genesect and Landorus-I has been quickbanned since BW for a very good reasons