Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3

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ant4456 said:
thats also silly considering atales is not broken in the slightest
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none of the constituent elements of veiltales are broken on their own, but the combination of them together is. we can't do complex bans because they suck, and banning snow warning or aurora veil themselves is not really an option because there are other things that run them (and even the combination of them) without even being good, much less broken. so the only way to get rid of this broken strategy cleanly is to ban atales
 
oh yeah, my survey answers:

bax - 6. we really should've nipped this thing in the bud before the dlc dropped

manaphy - 5. i've already given my thoughts on this, but manaphy has a lot fewer switch-ins than before, benefits greatly from tera, and is especially busted on rain and veil teams. mr. electric, kill him

ogerpon-hertzdonut - 4. this thing is broken and needs to go, but the inability to run boots makes it almost possible to pretend to deal with, and a small part of me wants it to stay so i can keep giving it silly names

atales - 4. it's a problem, at least right now, but our first focus should be on banning the things that most heavily benefit from its existence. i personally think that it'll just enable other nonsense

ursaluna-bloodmoon - 2. this thing is a bear to switch into, but i'm going to lay bare my feelings and say that it's definitely not unbearable

darkrai - 1. hypnosis means it's got a 60% chance of gaining at least one free turn, which is actually slightly more than skymin because air slash can miss, and skymin only gets a maximum of one free turn out of an air slash flinch. people are still underestimating just how good fast sleep is

urshifu - 1. pffffft hahahahahaha they actually put this on the survey
 
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Bax - 4, This is probably broken but I want to see how it fares without Alolan ninetales
Manaphy - 2, I don't find it too overbearing probably due to the extremely offensive nature of the meta thanks to the next mon completely destroying any kind of defensive play styles
Ogrepon Hearthflame - 5, This mon exerts way too much pressure on any semblance of balance and it actually finds opportunities to come on bulky fairies and waters thanks to decent natural bulk. Tera fire ivy cudgel is basically a delete button and two shots any non resists and most non bulky resists as well. And it can trade one for one even against HO as it survives most neutral hits. I find it too unhealthy
Alolan Ninetales - 5, With snow buff + tera this mon can easily get up veil even twice per battle and it isn't set up fodder either like the other setters thanks to encore and hypnosis. It enables way too mons to set up sweep and none of the other screen/veil setters can do it this reliably. It also doesn't add anything positive to the meta so it's an easy choice for me
Ursa B - 2, Not broken due to it's speed and low special bulk. It also has exploitable weakness to water and fighting
Darkrai and Urshifu - 1, There are already too many overbearing threats. There's no need to add more and these 2 would be ridiculous even if the meta was balanced
 
Survery answers:

Bax - 5. This thing is insane with snow and veil up. It can rip through so many teams and base 145 atk is straight up insane combine with loaded dice icicle spear and scale shot. I've been using it and I think this deserves a ban or at least a suspect.

Manaphy - 4. This thing get's a very interesting move call take heart. It's calm mind + refresh combined. Which isn't that crazy until you realized it's just hydration rest on steroids. I think this might need a suspect.

Ogerpon-hearthflame - 4. Wow this things hits like a truck. Luckily it can't boost it's speed. WDYM IT HAS TRAILBLAZE JKLWHADJKFLNAJGKDHGA. Yeah, so I ran into a trailblaze + sd set and I got completely wrecked by it.

Ninetales-a - 3. Either this things goes or bax (hopefully bax through) because this things enables one of the most broken mons in the tier and other powerful threats. Aurora veil is pretty insane.

Ursaluna-bloodmoon - 1. This thing is hard to switch into, but it's completely ripped apart by literally every single spatker. It's not super hard to kill given it's fairly spdef and low speed.

Darkrai - 2. I think darkrai could be too broken, but I'm not super sure give that it's 125 base speed isn't all that crazy anymore and it isn't all that hard to revenge kill with a fast scarfer, strong priority, or just a faster mon like pult.

Urshifu - 2. Probably still broken but I've literally never used this before. Probably slightly less broken than rapid strike but this would still probably be a bit too much.
 
Vert said:
:darkrai:5
shit's ass
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+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 437-515 (85 - 100.1%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Fezandipiti: 322-382 (84.7 - 100.5%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Baxcalibur through Light Screen: 394-464 (106.1 - 125%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Good god no. Did I mention that even without a NP it still 2HKOs them? So the “it needs a NP” argument doesn’t work very well here.

Lets not forget that Darkrai’s SpA is not only the same as Enam, but it’d be the third fastest unboosted mon in the tier behind Zama and Pult. Plus it resists Gambit sucker and 70/90/90 bulk is not bad for a supposed glass cannon.

And before you mention Weather abusers or Booster mons, no, being able to revenge kill it not a valid argument for dropping it, cause if it were we might as well bring Chi-Yu down here since Valiant can rkill it. Darkrai comes in, kills something, then Valiant comes in, and Darkrai overcomes this matchup by simply switching out. Next time Valiant comes in, it can no longer outspeed it. Tera also makes rkilling the bastard more complicated. Your Zamazenta means nothing if Darkrai clicks Tera Poison and wins the 1v1.
 
scarletnetto said:
I give u the lack of many defensive counters. But there are so many mons with the same characteristics as fire ogerpon (lack of many sphashable answers) that if we went by that logic, with the right set, breloom,brute bonnet in sun, og ursaluna as well as bm ursaluna, mixed hoopa-u, walking wake,kingambit, i-val and so many more threats are basically,to a bigger or lesser extent unwallabe, especially without factoring in tera. Does it make them banworthy all of them? No,because for most of them there is offensive counterplay as well as the hazards factor. The same goes for fire ogerpon (who by no means is close to what chi yu was capable off right from the get-go).
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Your argument against that seems to be that ogerpon isn't able to hit the same damage threshold as Chi-Yu
252 SpA Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Jirachi: 404-476 (100 - 117.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Charcoal Mold Breaker Ogerpon-Hearthflame Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Jirachi: 372-438 (92 - 108.4%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
It is a difference, but it's not a huge difference, especially because Ogerpon has that grass STAB to smack the bulky waters that Chi-Yu struggled with. It can also just Tera and outdamage Chi-Yu lmao. Yes, Chi-Yu can hold an item. Yes, Chi-Yu could defensively Tera (even though it rarely did). Ogerpon also has a much better speed tier, a better secondary typing, better defenses, tools to force progress like Knock, Spikes, U-turn. Frankly, better tools against OFFENSE, which is where both are weaker.
So.. why did we ban Chi-Yu then? Because clearly being able to demolish defensive cores isn't bad, right?
It's because it gets to be a good pokemon OUTSIDE of being able to do that.
It gets the attack and speed to demolish defense WHILE BEING a good pokemon into offense
If you look at the banlist of early SV, you'll see a pattern
I'm quoting straight from the on-the-radar or ban pages here.
Annihilape: "it forces Pokemon to withhold damaging Annihilape if they don't do significant enough damage to either OHKO or put it out of commission for the rest of the game." This is obviously stall, but with Bulk Up and Tera you could survive crazy shit like 2 Specs Valiant Moonblasts.
Espathra: Obviously something with speed boost is going to shine vs offense, but: "The main form of universal counterplay are Tera Dark Pokemon with Unaware or Haze such as Clodsire or Toxapex, with the latter generally preferring other Tera types." Sounds a bit similar to Tera Fire Dozo and Tusk, hmm?
Chien-Pao: "rumor has it that dozens of stall players spiraled into fits of profanity-laden rage towards opponents after trying to withstand a mere Crunch from Chien-Pao." Clearly it was very good against stall, but: "Perhaps a saving grace for the Ruinous Pokemon is that Stealth Rock can ruin the day, it falls short against most Choice Scarf users." Sound familliar?
Urshifu-RS: Crucially short speed, weak priority, and excellent-but-not-immediately-gamebreaking attack. "It already has great attacking prowess with a good dual STAB, which mostly just falls short of Toxapex." Again, the on-the-radar post admits that "Counterplay is quite limited here because of this, but there are still a solid amount of resists to STABs and revenge killing options admittedly." Also used weather to demolish everything.
Many things on here had defensive counterplay, a stealth rock weakness, and/or abundant revenge killing options. And yet, they were all still banned. You don't need to be on the sheer power level of Chi-Yu to be banworthy, but I think that Ogerpon is much more close to Chi-yu than all these other bans. Can't wait for the suspect, I think I'm going to finally get reqs to vote.
 
Logged in for the first time in like seven years just to say: let people cook.

I get it. This metagame is pure chaos. Veil Bax broken - Ban! Mask pokes broken - Ban! Stallbreaker pokes (manphy) broken - Ban! These takes seem reasonable after a single night laddering with the same team, but look a lot weaker once you give it some time. Veil has counterplay, stallbreaking has counterplay, and the Ogerpon forms have counterplay. If you ban these things too quickly (not saying that they shouldn't be banned eventually), you deprive the community of the opportunity to be creative and find new ways of dealing with them than what has already been done.

Here's the thing: Veil invites the weather wars, scizor/breloom, brick break/fangs/bull, court change, defog, infiltrator, flower trick/focus energy, and I'm here for all of it. While Tar is dead, the day it gets exadrill back will it seem so strange to hard switch Tar into A9Tales? (sun already hard switches into tales, rain can't) Good stallbreakers like manphy require Rkillers, but is it so bad to have to use any of the gagillion fast revenge mons we have? And actually, I don't have a good handle on how to deal with the mask guys, so ban pls. (this is essentially the logic being used for why we need to ban the others) All of that counterplay is healthy for the metagame. At least for me, matching up with many different types of teams is good. Seeing all the weathers back in OU would be good. Mixing it up with various mons bunched at the top of the speed tier list would be good. Seeing lower BP utility moves in OU would be good.

I guess what I'm getting at is: How long does the list of counterplay have to be before something goes from "broken" to "predictable threat you have to prepare for"? Does it all have to exist within the current list of OU mons? Does rescuing a mon from UU for counterplay automatically mean that a threat should be banned?

Again, let people cook for a little bit. What looks broken today isn't an indication of where we'll be in a week. What looks fine today won't stay fine a month from now. The first night was veil hell. We're already starting to figure that out. Look at how bad the gambit situation was, and look at how the DLC fucked the king over. We're not playing with anything as bad as when SV started and day 2 QBs were needed. Ride the chaos for a couple more days.
 
Random low tier Pokemon being in high usage to counter Pokemon is almost never a good sign since a good tier with lots of freedom actually lets more Pokemon soft check more Pokemon, rather than keep a lot of Pokemon that require hard counters.

I mean, were you cheering when people spammed Obstagoon to combat Spectrier? Was that a good sign?
 
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ant4456 said:
Random low tier Pokemon being in high usage to counter Pokemon is almost never a good sign since a good tier with lots of freedom actually lets more Pokemon soft check more Pokemon, rather than keep a lot of Pokemon that require hard counters.

I mean, were you cheering when people spammed Obstagoon to combat Spectrier? Was that a good sign?
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Eh. Depends on the mon. There's plenty of mons floating around in the 480-510 BST range that have minor flaws, that are just waiting for the meta to shift in such a way that they'll be good against multiple good mons in the meta.

As much as people love to shit on them the Tauroses are a great example of this -- they have a lot of things going for them, including a high BP screen removal tool, but also have a notable lack of reliable recovery, which keeps them out of the limelight.

When something like Aqua Breed or Tinkaton makes it back to OU, it's a sign that the meta has a job for them to do. It's when you dig much lower in BST, to the Linoones and Spidopses of the world, that it really starts to be a problem.


----

And, on that note, how on earth are people taking Baxcalibur WITHOUT Tera, under snow, as a reason that Tera needs action now? For once in the format's life, neither the enabler or the enabled actually needs to use Tera to do their bullshit, but there's been half a dozen posts today alone about how it's Tera's time!

Bax is stupid with or without tera, and this week is a fine example of "without".
 
Just A Shroom God said:
Your argument against that seems to be that ogerpon isn't able to hit the same damage threshold as Chi-Yu
252 SpA Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Jirachi: 404-476 (100 - 117.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Charcoal Mold Breaker Ogerpon-Hearthflame Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Jirachi: 372-438 (92 - 108.4%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
It is a difference, but it's not a huge difference, especially because Ogerpon has that grass STAB to smack the bulky waters that Chi-Yu struggled with. It can also just Tera and outdamage Chi-Yu lmao. Yes, Chi-Yu can hold an item. Yes, Chi-Yu could defensively Tera (even though it rarely did). Ogerpon also has a much better speed tier, a better secondary typing, better defenses, tools to force progress like Knock, Spikes, U-turn. Frankly, better tools against OFFENSE, which is where both are weaker.
So.. why did we ban Chi-Yu then? Because clearly being able to demolish defensive cores isn't bad, right?
It's because it gets to be a good pokemon OUTSIDE of being able to do that.
It gets the attack and speed to demolish defense WHILE BEING a good pokemon into offense
If you look at the banlist of early SV, you'll see a pattern
I'm quoting straight from the on-the-radar or ban pages here.
Annihilape: "it forces Pokemon to withhold damaging Annihilape if they don't do significant enough damage to either OHKO or put it out of commission for the rest of the game." This is obviously stall, but with Bulk Up and Tera you could survive crazy shit like 2 Specs Valiant Moonblasts.
Espathra: Obviously something with speed boost is going to shine vs offense, but: "The main form of universal counterplay are Tera Dark Pokemon with Unaware or Haze such as Clodsire or Toxapex, with the latter generally preferring other Tera types." Sounds a bit similar to Tera Fire Dozo and Tusk, hmm?
Chien-Pao: "rumor has it that dozens of stall players spiraled into fits of profanity-laden rage towards opponents after trying to withstand a mere Crunch from Chien-Pao." Clearly it was very good against stall, but: "Perhaps a saving grace for the Ruinous Pokemon is that Stealth Rock can ruin the day, it falls short against most Choice Scarf users." Sound familliar?
Urshifu-RS: Crucially short speed, weak priority, and excellent-but-not-immediately-gamebreaking attack. "It already has great attacking prowess with a good dual STAB, which mostly just falls short of Toxapex." Again, the on-the-radar post admits that "Counterplay is quite limited here because of this, but there are still a solid amount of resists to STABs and revenge killing options admittedly." Also used weather to demolish everything.
Many things on here had defensive counterplay, a stealth rock weakness, and/or abundant revenge killing options. And yet, they were all still banned. You don't need to be on the sheer power level of Chi-Yu to be banworthy, but I think that Ogerpon is much more close to Chi-yu than all these other bans. Can't wait for the suspect, I think I'm going to finally get reqs to vote.
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I have already made more than one posts regarding fire ogerpon,stating my opinion, so that's not gonna be a back n forth. If u think my opinion regarding this mon is invalid, u could check the opinion of top-tier players like vert and lily, on this very thread, or keep urs unchanged as ure entitled to
Have a nice day
 
Bax = 5
Reasoning: I don't think I need to explain much. Positioning with this is incredibly easy under hail, and it's ridiculously hard to force out or revenge thanks to it's absurd bulk + tera as a last resort.

Manaphy = 3
Reasoning : Idt Manaph is that broken tbh, it really depends on its weather conditions to activate it's true potential, without Veil it's bulk is good but not enough to take even 2 repeated hits. Also it's really prone to encore and there is counterplay like Meowscarada and Ogerpon Water that is being overshadowed cause they're bad into Bax. Zapdos and Rotom Wash will also improve drastically, which disrupts it's set up chances. Defensive Tera Water is definitely a thing and can stop Manaph in it's tracks. Not denying it's potential brokenness, but it's looking likely that it will probably be worse off post Bax ban since a lot of it's checks are bad into Bax (like the ones I mentioned)

Oger Fire = 5.
Reasoning: This is broken, there's jack shit defensive counterplay to this. Anything slower straight up folds to it and it's busted behind Veil and on Sun (even Weatherless) Idt Balance or BO can apply enough hazard pressure to punish it coming in, esp since it can heal with Horn Leech. Offense isn't that much better either cause it's really fast and it's typing means it can't be revenged by Valiant and it flips the script on Gambit with Encore. (Not to mention Trailblaze)
There's already games coming down to Hearthflame ties.

Ninetales = 2 .
Reasoning : Banning Tales would be a misstep as we cannot even reasonably prove that it will break every single sweeper without Bax. I hate that people are already jumping to conclusions of it being a Cyclizar-esque enabler when the sample size of broken sweepers has been incredibly small and very likely problematic even without Veil support. If it turns out to be broken,we can always revisit the bans and ban A Tales in the future instead of leaving it up to theorymon . Light Clay is just why, like this is some "ban damp rock" type of sentiment.

Darkrai = 1
Reasoning: It'll just get quickbanned in like a week what's the point? Specs/NP are great, it's coverage invalidates dark resists, and it's bulk isn't even that poor for offensive mon standards.

Shifu -Single = 1
Reasoning: Lol

Blood Moon = 1 . Way too early to say, for me it hasn't been anything noteworthy let alone banworthy, we'll see how this thing turns out.
 
Survey
:baxcalibur: : 4 - dude was an absolute demon pre-dlc but basically needed because all the other Ice STAB was either in Uber, Sandy Shocks Tera, or dogshit like Weavile, so you either knocked Zapdos' broken ass boots and prayed for no static on Tusk or you setup to +4 and OHKO'd it with a non-contact. Now that we have Ogerpon that can actually slap these broken ass Flame Body/Static mons with big stab non-contact, a bunch more Knock Off, and some more solid rockers that don't die to Hurricane; I can't justify his place anymore. Even without Veil up you basically have to have every mon on your team have an answer to this shit or it turns into Gambit 2 where it sets up a SD and wins if you can't punish it when it comes out, or you have to burn Tera Fairy and Tera Fishing is literally the number 1 reason I want Tera banned so I view this as unsustainable.

:manaphy: 1 - insane that people want this little dude banned, he's so mid. Take Heart is garbage, it's a slightly better Calm Mind on a 100/100/100 bulk except it has literally no recovery outside of Rest and Leftovers. It would be like if Mew ran Calm Mind/Dazzling Gleam instead of Draining Kiss. Gets chipped into oblivion by hazards because it basically has to be lefties, gets outsped and damn near OHKO'd by any super effective STAB move if it doesn't Tera, sometimes through Veil even, weak to volt switch and then weak to u-turn if it Teras grass, can't even OHKO a bunch of mons that take scald neutrally at +3. Nasty Plot/Recover Ghold not only has better recovery, utility, and ability, I'd argue it just straight up has a better defensive typing when we have three and a half really strong Grass legendaries that just got introduced to the tier.

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1 - Manaphy but even slower, with a worse typing. There are so many Terablast Fightings right now that absolutely smoke this, not to mention Rotom-Wash coming in after a Blood Moon and 2HKO'ing it with ease. I think it's actually better than Manaphy because it isn't entirely reliant on Tera to live literally any super effective move, but it's pretty close. If the set is 3 attack Calm Mind its only recovery is lefties and it inevitably gets chipped to shit by spikes and OHKO'd when it does 30% with Vacuum Wave, and if it's Recovery/Calm Mind/Blood Moon/EP than every flying type and levitate user that can do more than 40% puts it in its place. Once again we just got three and a half new grass legends that punt it into the sun, especially if they SD. Also exceptionally weak to Toxic, because of its Blood-Moon lock.

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2 - Ogerpon-Hearth is good, extremely good even, but not ban worthy. I could understand a suspect. SD/Cudgel/Whip/Play Rough is a crazy breaker, especially with the ability to get a free Howl at the cost of Mold Breaker, but 350 top speed gets outrun and blown the fuck back by a lot of stuff. 80/84/96 bulk is fine but not amazing and OHKO'd by Gambito sucker at 5 fallen, and it, much like Manaphy and LunaBM, gets absolutely smoked by hazards. The other funny setup set is the Cudgel/Horn Leech/Trailblaze/SD set which I shouldn't really have to explain why it's not ban worthy. Thing gets stopped by Goodra, Dragonite, Moon, basically any Dragon that doesn't take Fire/Grass neutrally (and in Garchomp's case even then). Gets OHKO'd by any super effective Sturdy mon, of which two are very popular in Ogerpon-Corner and Glimmora, and is giga walled by any Flash Fire mon (this is not Dracovish, we have a lot of extremely viable Flash Fire mons that are relevant outside of checking this).

:ninetales-alola: 1 -If you read my Manaphy and LunaBM opinions you'll know I don't care even if those things are under Veil, and quite frankly this mon is ass. It gets outsped and can be OHKO'd by half the Ogerpons at max HP investment, both of which can run Spike to punish trying to preserve it, and Corner loves running U-Turn for momentum anyways. This thing is never invested in SpA and let me tell you 198 Special coming off a 70 base power move is incredibly laughable, even super effective you should never expect Freeze-Dry to do more than 30%. Moonblast much the same. Encore is cute but its getting outsped by a lot, and Hypnosis is good if it lands and game losing if it doesn't. Not having Curse, Teleport, or even Momento to get in your setup sweeper under Veil without sacking a real mon or wasting a turn is brutal. Hypnomiss is not a good substitute for Curse forcing the mon out, or Momento giving you super screens, or Chilly/Teleport preserving the mon effectively. Almost every team with Icetales either wins because they set up with Bax, a mon that is good without Veil and Snow, set up with Ogerpon, a mon that is good without Veil, or they chip enough away that Gambit can come in and 4v1 with SD/Sucker which is already what he was doing without Ninetales. It might be OU even post-Bax ban when people realize Blizzard Moonblast is actually decent coverage when you're invested but even considering a ban for it or light clay is in my opinion obscene.

:darkrai: :urshifu: 1 - Urshifu is not okay unless we ban Wicked Blow, auto never bring this shit back thanks. Darkrai is too fast and Tera is too broken, being able to Tera electric for Bolt Beam Nasty Plot or Tera Fighting for 100% accuracy Focus Blast is insane and checks too many things. Without Tera it's like maybe a 2 but it could be cute.

:Palafin: 4 - I want to test the Physical Manaphy now that we have a bajillion answers that check it just like they check Manaphy.
 
Real Pikachu said:
:Palafin: 4 - I want to test the Physical Manaphy now that we have a bajillion answers that check it just like they check Manaphy.
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What answers?

252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 135-159 (44.4 - 52.3%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
 
Re:Light Clay, Screens and Veil:

While Ninetales does push them into much stronger viability than other setters like Abomasnow, Dragapult, or Grimmsnarl, at what point is the strategy just uncompetitive and stupid regardless of viability, especially in tera metagame? Past generations have swagger clause, and while I understand there's a fundamental difference given the RNG nature of confusion, I think we would all find it silly if we just banned the pokemon that made swagger viable. I find it a little insane how we bend over backwards to try and keep strategies like screens and shed tail when the reality is they are just baton pass teams with a different order of operations.
 
658Greninja said:
What answers?

252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 135-159 (44.4 - 52.3%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
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252+ Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 123-145 (24.4 - 28.7%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 156+ Def Tera Water Garganacl: 121-143 (29.9 - 35.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Don't get me wrong, it's still broken as all hell and shouldn't be dropped due to being overbearing/centralizing, but it does have answers in OU.
 
:baxcalibur: 5. Easiest 5 or my life. The tier revolves around Veil and Bax is easily the biggest offender. Everyone knows this thing is bananas. It doesn’t die under veil in the snow and just nukes everything and sweeps. Tera is annoying but even if we didn’t have Tera this thing would be just as brutal. Just a nasty Pokémon to cue into with little counter play on any style.

:manaphy:/:ninetales-alola: I gave both a 3 for similar reasons. Veil offense is nuts right now. Both of these are Star players on it… but Bax is the king. I’m not sold they will be as problematic without Bax as the destroyer of worlds in the corner, backing them up.

And yet, I’m still not sold they wouldn’t be completely unproblematic. Manaphy is a great set up sweeper that does abuse Tera pretty well. Tera Fairy feels so gross especially on veil teams right now. I can easily see people moving more towards it as a wincon if Bax gets banned.

Ninetales is just the best support mon in the tier and it’s not even close in my eyes. It’s so hard to stop it from setting up Veil. I don’t know if it’s directly the problem without Bax, similar to how screens were gross in a Chien Pao Zama C Volc meta.

Ogerpon Hearth: 2. It seems good already and will be better once its mask is coded right. But I just don’t think it’s a pressing priority. It’s a bit frail right now. Defensively it’s super rough to handle the SD set, but I’m still not sold it’s even our 3rd biggest concern this meta.

Ursaluna Bloodmoon: 1. Cocaine Bear 2 is fine. Scary for fat teams but we already have dozens of Pokémon that bully them. I’m honestly surprised this made the survey.

:Urshifu: My dislike for Gambit alone made me give this a 2, but it’s gross as heck and shouldn’t be unbanned. If you’re scared of Ogerpon good luck dealing with SD Punching Glove sets from Brother Bear over here. It’s going to be gross, but I do think it might make the meta a tad better due to how it meshes with top threats. I doubt it will come back but I’m not opposed.

:Darkrai: 5.

Part of this is just due to principle. Darkrai has not been tested again since Gen V and a lot has changed that has made Darkrai noticeably worse. Its movepool is worse now with cuts. Fairies are now around for it to have to deal with. Dark Void got gutted. The games gotten to a point where 70/90/90 defensive stats are pretty frail. Even if it’s going to be gross, I’d implore that it gets tested during Wave 2 at least just for future precedent.

Darkrai is a scary breaker with Nasty Plot sets. I’m not going to deny that. But I feel just listing calcs and calling it a day is disingenuous. Darkrai is going to have a decently hard time setting up. It can’t afford to run Hypnosis because of its 4MSS. You want Nasty Plot and Dark Pulse. You need focus blast for things like healthy Gambits and Ting Lu. You need Sludge Bomb to deal with fairies. Sure, defensively it’s gonna be hard to switch into Darkrai. However, it’s also going to be annoying to get Darkrai in vs anything offensive. 70/90/90 bulk and a mono dark typing makes it hard to bring in safely. Pivots like Glowking help, but it’s still going to be hard to get Darkrai in vs Offensive teams for it to wreck shop. Yeah, it’s annoying as heck for fatter, but so what? A lot of the tier is awful for balance. Hoopa Unbound is the poster child of making fat teams cry and it’s UU. There isn’t the same swath of fat teams that existed in other metas for Darkrai to prey on compared to how Offense favored SV is. As for Specs, it’s good but runs into similar issues. You’re pretty much spamming Dark Pulse 90% of the time and our tier is no stranger to strong dark/ghost moves this gen. Tera also is spooky, but at this point I’m kinda numb to Tera making mons harder to deal with and it would be easier to see that in practice with a test. People are whining about Tera on Bax when that’s the least of its problems.

Honestly, I see Darkrai taking a similar spot in our meta that Gengar did in past OU tiers. A fast, versatile threat that is super scary especially on paper. Yet, its fragility make it not the beast it is on paper. Outside of Volcarona, I think this is easily the most viable thing from Ubers to test. If we do have a wider drop from SV Ubers in wave 2 similar to what happened in the Crown Tundra last gen, I think it’s an ideal candidate.

My main reservation is timing. I don’t think we should test Darkrai now. Dealing with Bax is the number one priority. I’d wait a bit to see where Ninetales, Manaphy, and Ogerpon settle in before testing drops as well. I’d also look into a Volc suspect before this drops. Once all those issues are settled, I’d be down for a Darkrai test. I want it, but now is probably not the time.
 
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