Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Kyurem unbanned; locking for 24 hours]

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why the fuck in god's name is anyone arguing about unbanning sleep now. the mechanic is so uncompetitive that allowing it while keeping the game playable required breaking the number one rule of tiering policy. replacing the mod with an actually enforceable clause was the correct decision. i'd also like to remind people that sleep clause mod in that form was not even meant to be a thing on showdown, they just gave up on trying to implement it any other way because it turns out every iteration of the rule is bad. re-implementing sleep clause mod goes against the wishes of current and former council members, tiering administration, and showdown administration, getting rid of the mod was supported by the qualified playerbase, and there's been virtually no pushback since it happened outside of the immediate outcry from casuals that happens after every tiering action (albeit the whining was a lot louder than usual). so why even post about it? why fight a battle you've already resoundingly lost? why do this instead of playing one of the other seven gens where sleep isn't banned (it is in 5), or a different tier?
My bad I made an Off Handed comment on Darkrai and Sleep, and people took it to the moon.
 
I'll admit the game is better without sleep, but it does feel weird some of the more niche mons that utilized it aren't historically broken by it nor were a good reason for it to go. It was mainly the mod itself being unapproachable with tweaks that made sense which pushed it.

...which I disagree with because you can simulate 'surrendering' when the rule is broken by just having the mod auto-forfeit. If there's a mod that disables pressing dynamax and cart has to handshake not to press the big glowing button, they can handshake surrendering and agreeing the rule breaker was the true loser.

If you wanted to, you could take a next step forward and make it entirely victim's choice; "play it out or take the dub" if you really wanted to simulate the option of staying or leaving (90% of you would just accept the W but hey, the option to prove momma didn't raise no bitch is there).

The main issue is how you could handle RNG, some logic would be required to identity someone fishing RNG sleep effects (idfk, rest psychoshift sleeptalk cresselia?), ignore rest sleep, etc. Or idk put a cooldown on all the moves capable of inducing it that refreshes until the sleep ends.
 
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Back from a break from OU, I laddered a bit on alt, And I think that darkrai Should be suspected first


Darkrai, is a versatile Pokémon, excels at breaking through commons defensives cores and very good lategame swweper battles. with is very very very good base Speed, wonderful movepool coverage, high Special Attack stat, and decent bulk

  • Ice Beam: Targets Dragon and Ground-type Pokémon like Raging Bolt, Roaring Moon, Gliscor, and Great Tusk, which are resistant to Dark Pulse. Nothing more to say
  • Sludge Bomb: Effective against Fairy-types such as Clefable, Iron Valiant, Primarina, and Enamorus, or mons that tera fairy for resisting dark pulse
  • Focus Miss : for bulky Dark-types like Ting-Lu and Kingambit, along with the 135 spedef Blissey.
  • Psyshock: Useful for s Blissey and Clodsire; however, Clodsire can utilize Terastallize to survives. But Teraing make clodsire weak to focus blast : 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Dark Clodsire: 252-299 (54.4 - 64.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  • Life Orb: Significantly enhances Darkrai's power nut give him less lo,getivuity, to OHKOs on pokemon like Gouging Fire with a +2 Dark Pulse and maximum health ev Great Tusk with unboosted Ice Beam, except when my oppo have an AV and I get Koed by eq or headlong rush T_T
  • Focus Sash: Transforms Darkrai into a possible counter against Booster Energy Pokémon such as Iron Valiant, Iron Boulder (who use it lmao, it need to tera for being a good sweeper), and Roaring Moon (I don't like this set, bad on a hazard meta, useful only on specific HO
  • I really liked my choice spec trick set, because It basically destroy anny stall/Fat or Bo :
Code:
Darkrai @ Choice Specs
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 28 HP / 228 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Nasty Plot
- Sludge Bomb/ice beam/ thunder/psychock/taunt
- Trick
Ban darkrai, It has no real counter, and have too many sets to be predictable, I think the meta will be alot better without darkrai
 
OU council has been having a fair amount of discussion about Darkrai lately as you can likely see given Finch, Vert and ima's posts on it. I wanted to give my own opinion on what changed for Darkrai to make it go from mid to potentially overbearing and then discuss what I think would be best for the tier.

:darkrai:
So if you've been keeping up with CTC's line of thought you'll know that he believes Volcarona's ban is what put Darkrai into questionable territory (though I believe he's no-ban on it regardless). I think this is pretty much correct. While it may not be a healthy dynamic necessarily, one of the biggest reasons to /not/ use a Pokemon is that using it can lead to getting counterswept by another common Pokemon off the rip; this has been one of Gholdengo's biggest flaws all gen, since it gives Kingambit and to a lesser extent Roaring Moon that free setup turn they need. Volcarona feared nothing from Darkrai, even tanking +2 hits, and could then shred it back, but that's not the case anymore. This in turn led to Darkrai's punishes being a lot more passive than before, which makes it easier to get Darkrai in multiple times to keep putting pressure on.

Defensively we haven't really lost anything against Darkrai, all the stuff that checked it sans Volcarona is still here and still usually good enough. Some other useful mons like Tinkaton and Iron Hands are popping up a bit more too and they help a lot with it while being pretty good in their own right. To me the big annoyance with Darkrai is the set roulette; it's not really easy to tell what coverage it's running at all and that can change things a lot. Clefable's a great check till it has Sludge Bomb, Gliscor can take on sets without Ice Beam, Ting-Lu isn't too scared of Ice Beam but Focus Blast pushes it a bit too far, Garg is also fine until it gets Focus Blasted, etc. though there are some mostly-true counters like Clodsire and Blissey if you wanna take that route.

Offensively is where I think the problems start to arise. The list of mons that naturally outspeeds Darkrai is limited to Deo-S, Dragapult and Zamazenta, Scarfers generally suck in this tier, and all the priority is heavily abusable (Sucker/Thunderclap have their obvious drawback, ESpeed can be beaten by Tera Ghost, etc). There are some other options like Tera Ogerpon and Weavile's Ice Shard (or winning the tie) but like the problem here is pretty visible.

So a Darkrai test seems valid to me, I don't necessarily think it should be banned but it's fair enough to put it under the microscope and see what happens. I understand the fear that Gliscor becomes dishonest but there are a number of big threats to it that are being kept down rn due to not outspeeding Darkrai (Meowscarada, Latios, etc) and even if it does become silly we certainly don't need that asshole in the metagame either. However, another thing that would help with Gliscor is something I've been wanting to talk about for a while now:

:palafin-hero:
For a while now I've been talking about Palafin and why I think it would be a very nice addition to the tier. Let's start with some of the obvious positives:

- Strong, non-abusable priority; you can Tera into a type that resists Jet Punch but you can't be immune to it, and there is no funny business with it either like there is with Sucker/Thunderclap. Big for revenging Tera Flying Roaring Moon, Kingambit, Iron Valiant, Iron Moth, and of course Darkrai; kept honest by the fact that numerous excellent Pokemon already resist it and prevent it from snowballing, like Ogerpon-Wellspring and Teal, Raging Bolt, Dragapult, Primarina, Kyurem, Rillaboom, etc.
- Great and somehow kinda unique Speed tier that puts it above some big annoyances in the current metagame like Kyurem and Gholdengo that could really do with one more good check.
- Good way to punish Gliscor, Ting-Lu etc. and prevent those Spikes balances from becoming too overbearing should Darkrai get the boot.

Some players have expressed fears that Palafin's Bulk Up + Taunt set, which got it banned a few days into SV, would invalidate fat teams and skew the tier more towards offense, which seems silly to me. Things have changed quite significantly since then and we have some mons that cause Palafin pretty big issues; Scald is back and Alomomola loves to spam it, Dondozo became much more relevant and stopped running mono-Liquidation most of the time, the metagame centered itself around Spikes teams that cause big problems for a mon who literally needs to switch to be useful (and it isn't a particularly effective Boots user), we've gained mons that are bulky enough to account for the fact that Palafin's moves are not strong due to their low BP (think Zapdos, Amoonguss, etc), we have some new hard counters like Sinistcha, Ogerpon-W and Rillaboom, etc... I don't think the slow pace of BU + Taunt will even have a place in this metagame given the one matchup it's fishing is both uncommon and has plenty of ways to beat it. There's also just much more status going around from stuff like Slowking-G and of course it's completely stuffed by Zamazenta.

Choice Band on the other hand has to contend with the ever-present issues of hazards & Wave Crash recoil if it wants to do significant damage on top of a middling Speed tier. It'll hit hard and bring some nice priority, which is a good thing to keep offense honest here, but I doubt it will be a problem.

Perhaps a Boots attacking set could be overwhelming. I don't think there's much of a way to know without trying, though; Palafin has only ever been legal in OU for eight days! And it was in a much, much newer and more uncharted metagame, we barely knew how Tera worked and nothing had been "solved" or optimised at all back then. I think it will act as a great balancing anchor and we should seriously consider giving it a try.


TL;DR: Darkrai is not super broken by any means but a suspect is valid if that's the route the community wants. We should retest Palafin both because it would provide great utility in the tier rn and also for fair dues since it's only ever been legal for a week in a completely different metagame.

Thanks for reading ^^
 
Can we at least get a +palafin -tera blast (and thus +volcarona +eleki) tournament and see if it's not the most perfect and balanced and fun meta we've had yet before we proceed? Can we think about it? That's the route that this alternative discussion that keeps coming up takes us and could we just try that for funsies before we sus darkrai?

I know enjoyment is somehow up but I'm bored as hell and have just played occasionally using the same exact team since moth ban to the same level of success- for what little it's worth.
 
I don't really care about the Darkrai discourse right now, I think it should've never been unbanned in the first place especially at the start of a DLC 2 metagame and the whole situation has been has been one of the silliest thing i've seen on this site (would probably touch on this more if a test gets up). However as ima said, this is probably the metagame i've hated the less since DLC 2 release so I'm fine with not doing anything for now and think this is a fine metagame to send into OLT. However the only thing I disagree with is a Palafin unban, I really don't see why we should start testing shit because "we don't know if it's broken because it was banned too fast" (I know you in particular did not say that), honestly. If the metagame is fine as is, then why should we not consider bans and consider unbans? To me this has the same if not higher chances to disturb the metagame. I mainly agree with your post though and pretty sums up how I feel about SV right now. (Only thing that differs to me is that Gliscor has no place in the metagame and should be banned, with or without a Darkrai around.)

Now as my friend Vert likes to say, I'd like to talk about the new fad of the month, Palafin! Pretty bluntly, this should never touch OU again and definitely not right now.

Strong, non-abusable priority; you can Tera into a type that resists Jet Punch but you can't be immune to it, and there is no funny business with it either like there is with Sucker/Thunderclap. Big for revenging Tera Flying Roaring Moon, Kingambit, Iron Valiant, Iron Moth, and of course Darkrai; kept honest by the fact that numerous excellent Pokemon already resist it and prevent it from snowballing, like Ogerpon-Wellspring and Teal, Raging Bolt, Dragapult, Primarina, Kyurem, Rillaboom, etc.

The only sure answer from that list is Dragapult, and I don't see why tera fire would not become a viable option making you immune to wisp on top of losing the grass weakness. I don't see Wellspring being the Palafin answer people think it would be honestly. Tera Fighting BU dismantles that, the only sure answer to that set would be encore but even that leaves some annoying mind games shenanigans and momentum loss, it also can't come in on a 160 atk CC. Rillaboom loses to set up with any tera pretty much, Raging Bolt I can hear it but surely that also loses to like dpunch tera fighting + people will find ways to get past it (on top of my head tera ice lum ice punch already beats pult, rilla, bolt). Kyurem? How? It will be tera fight fodder to dpunch and it's slower than offensive variants, yeah i don't see the vision at all on that one. Primarina is probably fine but that also gets 2HKO'd by max attack wave crash, and i'm not even sure it's gonna beat defensive bu because jet punch does a shit ton and moonblast just doesn't do enough w spdef + leftovers.

Some players have expressed fears that Palafin's Bulk Up + Taunt set, which got it banned a few days into SV, would invalidate fat teams and skew the tier more towards offense, which seems silly to me. Things have changed quite significantly since then and we have some mons that cause Palafin pretty big issues; Scald is back and Alomomola loves to spam it, Dondozo became much more relevant and stopped running mono-Liquidation most of the time, the metagame centered itself around Spikes teams that cause big problems for a mon who literally needs to switch to be useful (and it isn't a particularly effective Boots user), we've gained mons that are bulky enough to account for the fact that Palafin's moves are not strong due to their low BP (think Zapdos, Amoonguss, etc), we have some new hard counters like Sinistcha, Ogerpon-W and Rillaboom, etc... I don't think the slow pace of BU + Taunt will even have a place in this metagame given the one matchup it's fishing is both uncommon and has plenty of ways to beat it. There's also just much more status going around from stuff like Slowking-G and of course it's completely stuffed by Zamazenta.

Honestly this is the paragraph that made me want to reply the most. I don't understand how you can call the sentiment that the BU + Taunt silly when it literally broke the metagame back then, lol. Things have changed back then and the only real changes you mention is that Dozo runs body press which I'm really need some explanation on how that helps with taunt bu tfight, you literally get outhealed/foddered on. But on top of that mentionning Dondozo to a physical attacker will always be bad faith as that mon is certified NOT good outside of stall, you literally cannot use that mon i'm sorry. And maybe i'm lying there but I guess I've been playing another metagame, who knows. Scald is back and sees practically 0 usage on any mon except Alomomola and even Alomomola doesn't always pack it. Zapdos is non existent and almost not a part of the metagame, only seeing rare usage when fishing for offense. Don't even get me started on what happened to Amoonguss since Palafin was here, it isn't even used when it's the only counter to one of the most controversial mons, which should give you a pretty good idea on how awful this mon is. Next onto the hard counters, Rillaboom is there again for some reason, not gonna get into that one, Wellspring only works if you pack encore then yes it is the only hard counter and the last one mentionned is an UU mon so yeah. Slowking is probably valid, but like even that will be some pretty annoying games to play between clicking the status move on taunt ect, and if you dont get the sludge bomb poison early then you have a chance to be 2HKO'd w 0 atk. I don't think Zamazenta works long term, I can see it being it a one time answer when it comes in with the boost, afterwards it takes 40 from 0 atk +1 jpunch.. feels like a bandaid check if anything. tldr I think the concern is very real, this metagame and balance in particular definitely don't need another impossible mon to handle.

Choice Band I have no clue honestly, could see that being broken or very bad, no idea

Perhaps a Boots attacking set could be overwhelming. I don't think there's much of a way to know without trying, though; Palafin has only ever been legal in OU for eight days! And it was in a much, much newer and more uncharted metagame, we barely knew how Tera worked and nothing had been "solved" or optimised at all back then. I think it will act as a great balancing anchor and we should seriously consider giving it a try.

To me a boots set is gonna be even problematic than Taunt + BU, flip turn/jpunch/cc/ice punch/filler literally reaches gamebreaking levels to me. It really speaks for itself with the level of bulk, the base 160 atk, hazards not being a counterplay anymore. There's also plenty of other moves that are unexplored, such as encore, giving even more options to that monster now being allowed to bypass even more of it's counterplay like Zamazenta.
Palafin would easily turn into another pussy with 1000 millions tera type with no defined counterplay, these are the worst types of mons to deal with and we don't need anymore of that.

There's literally thousands of mons where you can make the same argument that they weren't given a chance. Flutter Mane was never given another chance! Same goes for Iron Bundle, Chi-Yu, Magearna and the list goes on and on. Should we re-test every single one of them because none of them had a chance to prove they were overpowered mons in the post-DLC metagames? I promise you I can make the same post for every one of them, adding all new on paper answers for every single one. zioziotrip said it perfectly in his post, "Several of the suggested checks (namely Wellspring, Kyurem, Zamazenta, Raging Bolt) are controversial mons in their own right. We shouldn’t be freeing more Ubers mons when the meta is in this spot. " It just doesn't make sense i'm sorry.

To my next point, some people will say that a re-test is drawback free. To me, it literally isn't at all. This has a huge risk of backfiring real hard, Palafin could end up very broken and people would still want to keep it in the metagame because it probably checks Iron Moth or something. The mentality has shifted wether we like it or not, a suspect test definitely has more chances of ending up in a DNB more than a Ban. "But if the community voted to keep it in the tier, then it isn't broken!" No, absolutely not. With the way suspect tests are done, it doesn't mean anything and we've had proof of that. Is Kyurem definitely not broken because it reached 59%? No. I definitely join CTC and others when I say that a suspect test reaching 160 voters is absolutely absurd. It isn't representative of the high level OU playerbase and I really think that this shouldn't happen. While yes, it is great that so many people are involved in the metagame or trying to involve themselves, I think it's pretty awful. Not tryna sound elitist, but raise reqs! Not to mention the supermajority which doesn't really make sense to me but I do agree that changing it mid generation is awful.

Lastly, this would largely disrupt the development of our metagame. Unbanning Palafin, giving it a chance for god knows how long, suspecting it because it will inevitably be broken, going back to our previous metagame feels backwards. If you told me SV was solved then I could hear you out. But we're trying to re-test palafin in a metagame where all it's "counters" are extremely controversial and a metagame which also has tons of development to do. This is pretty awful timing and I hope it doesn't happen. Freeing random Ubers aint it.

TLDR; I couldn't care less if there is a Darkrai suspect or not, nor do I know what I would vote on. I would prefer if there was no Krai test at all right now and would suggest at least waiting for WCoP to end, maybe extending that to OLT. I join xavgb that this is probably the less obnoxious the meta has been for the enterity of DLC 2 so while I do think a ban or two could help us be in an even better spot, I think holding things off for now is not the end of the world. And freeing Palafin would be an atrocious decision and timing that I really hope doesn't happen, but I wouldn't be surprised. Lobbying for less bans because they disturb the eco-system and asking for unbans is heavily contradictory.
 
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Lily said:
:palafin-hero:
Foa while now I've been talking about Palafin and why I think it would be a very nice addition to the tier. Let's start with some of the obvious positives:

- Strong, non-abusable priority; you can Tera into a type that resists Jet Punch but you can't be immune to it, and there is no funny business with it either like there is with Sucker/Thunderclap. Big for revenging Tera Flying Roaring Moon, Kingambit, Iron Valiant, Iron Moth, and of course Darkrai; kept honest by the fact that numerous excellent Pokemon already resist it and prevent it from snowballing, like Ogerpon-Wellspring and Teal, Raging Bolt, Dragapult, Primarina, Kyurem, Rillaboom, etc.
- Great and somehow kinda unique Speed tier that puts it above some big annoyances in the current metagame like Kyurem and Gholdengo that could really do with one more good check.
- Good way to punish Gliscor, Ting-Lu etc. and prevent those Spikes balances from becoming too overbearing should Darkrai get the boot.

Some players have expressed fears that Palafin's Bulk Up + Taunt set, which got it banned a few days into SV, would invalidate fat teams and skew the tier more towards offense, which seems silly to me. Things have changed quite significantly since then and we have some mons that cause Palafin pretty big issues; Scald is back and Alomomola loves to spam it, Dondozo became much more relevant and stopped running mono-Liquidation most of the time, the metagame centered itself around Spikes teams that cause big problems for a mon who literally needs to switch to be useful (and it isn't a particularly effective Boots user), we've gained mons that are bulky enough to account for the fact that Palafin's moves are not strong due to their low BP (think Zapdos, Amoonguss, etc), we have some new hard counters like Sinistcha, Ogerpon-W and Rillaboom, etc... I don't think the slow pace of BU + Taunt will even have a place in this metagame given the one matchup it's fishing is both uncommon and has plenty of ways to beat it. There's also just much more status going around from stuff like Slowking-G and of course it's completely stuffed by Zamazenta.

Choice Band on the other hand has to contend with the ever-present issues of hazards & Wave Crash recoil if it wants to do significant damage on top of a middling Speed tier. It'll hit hard and bring some nice priority, which is a good thing to keep offense honest here, but I doubt it will be a problem.

Perhaps a Boots attacking set could be overwhelming. I don't think there's much of a way to know without trying, though; Palafin has only ever been legal in OU for eight days! And it was in a much, much newer and more uncharted metagame, we barely knew how Tera worked and nothing had been "solved" or optimised at all back then. I think it will act as a great balancing anchor and we should seriously consider giving it a try.

Hard counters are mons that can switch into a mon no matter what the situation is, so Rillaboom, Sinistcha, and Ogerpon-Wellspring are not Palafin counters since Choice Band Tera Water Wave Crash in rain OHKOes Rillaboom and 2HKOes Sinistcha with Ogerpon-Wellspring being 2HKOed by a coverage move.

Dondozo can be 1v1ed by Taunt Bulk Up sets. Amoonguss is set-up bait for Taunt Bulk Up sets. The Taunt Bulk up set is really oppressive for fat unless you Tera your Skeledirge or use Sinistcha or Alomomola (get lucky with Scald burns), and neither of those three mons are all that splashable.

Palafin would be strong against most playstyles, and it has no business being dropped into OU as long as Tera is legal as Tera is what breaks it and makes it uninteractive and nonsensical to play against. It absolutely does not deserve another chance in OU unless the generational mechanic is banned.
 
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Zapdos is non existent and almost not a part of the metagame, only seeing rare usage when fishing for offense.

Im not a fan of the idea of a palafin retest at this time but this just isn’t true. Zap has slowly been gaining more usage and has been gradually improving its viability as of late. It’s nowhere near its peak at this time but it’s not “nonexistent”.
 
Glad that Stun Spore Sinistcha is seeing more usage, like in the recent tourney game between Vert and Mimikyu Stardust (even though it unfortunately didn't do much that game).

In this metagame, we have seen T-Wave Hex Gholdengo be effective due to paralyzing many of the fast offensive Pokemon like DD Gouging Fire, Darkrai, Ogerpon-W, and Zamazenta, making it a strong team supporter. While I am a fan of this set, a key issue I have with it is that doesn't perform too well against bulky Ground-types or Garganacl, which is particularly annoying since most players will use these Pokemon to check Gholdengo. Sinistcha doesn't suffer from these same limitations, since it naturally does well against most Ground-types as well as Garganacl. It lures a lot of the same mons as Gholdengo does like Darkrai and Kingambit, as well as a few other ones like Kyurem, which can be nice for some teams.

The main annoyances are that Stun Spore has low accuracy, and that it doesn't help Sinist against some of the mons its being used to check like Ogerpon-W the same way Calm Mind does. Still, I think its cool that more players are experimenting with this mon, since it is typically seen running one set.

Speaking of Sinist, boy do I love this mon. Checking all of Tusk, Garg & Zamazenta is just so nice given that these can be some of the more difficult mons to handle on various teams. I don't think it does extremely well against Ogerpon-W, but being one of the few Pokemon that doesn't just let it get a free KO with Ivy Cudgel when it comes in (that isn't named Zamazenta) is also awesome. Mon also doesn't feel as passive as some other balance mons like Mola, which is nice against Water / Ground-types. I am a big Gholdengo enjoyer, but a big hassle I have when building non-offensive teams with it are covering Ground- & Water-types. Sinistcha thankfully is able to do that (to a degree) while having a lot of Gholdengo's base utility as a spinblocker & bulky Ghost.
 
Hello, I'm trying to play to some battle with this team and I've won a few of them. Although I have my doubts about it, do you have a suggestion?

https://pokepast.es/9e313fd2f03ead5f

Don't wanna put you down too much bc I ain't even that good to begin with, but if you're starting out, I really recommend you chose amongst the mons that are ranked OU. Your last four mons are VERY hard to justify, specially so without a clear strategy or synergy. Armarouge is pretty much limited to Psyspam teams and even then it's iffy. Hoodra is pretty stall oriented and doesn't mix well with the rest of the team. Brambleghast is non-existant in this meta and Pawmot is a bad gimmick.

Take a look at Meow and Garg. Those are very solid mons in OU, but what is their purpose? Meow has Knock to remove Boots and Lefties, and Garg has Salt Cure to further spread chip damage. Thus, a hazard setter is much needed in your team. It's not the easiest mon to use, but Deo-S can be swapped for Armarouge as a fast spiker/rocker and has a strong Psychic move along with Superpower for Gambit. Instead of Hoodra and Brambleghast, you could add Defog Corv as a nice steel-type wall and hazard remover, or also Rapid Spin Tusk or Treads, both of who synergize well with the more balance playstyle your team seems to be aiming to go for. I might suggest Clef for Pawmot, who has can pass Wish onto teammates too to keep em healthy. If you wanna go down a bulkier path and want to spread more passive damage, I'd give Gliscor a try, who can spread Toxic, keep itself healthy with Poison Heal and set up Spikes.

Most importantly, have fun building! But make sure to try out the staples before jumping into more dubious picks ;)
 
In the past couple days, I laddered with a fresh alt and unintentionally got the usual voting reqs. I won't be posting the alt here as I may share the alt for a team tour, so you'll have to take me for my word. As someone who has been mostly pro-ban with this generation's suspects (sometimes when I shouldn't have been in hindsight), I feel pretty confident in saying I would vote Do Not Ban on Darkrai if there were a suspect going on right now.

The hardest part of dealing with Darkrai is scouting its set. Ignoring its many utility options, you first have to figure out its coverage moves. Most Pokemon that solidly check Darkrai can take on 3 of its 4 common attacks, but not all 4. Kingambit takes on Dark Pulse, Sludge Bomb, and Ice Beam, but not Focus Blast. Specially defensive Gliscor can take on Dark Pulse, Sludge Bomb, and Focus Blast, but not Ice Beam. This, however, is what keeps Darkrai balanced: 4MSS. Dark Pulse and Sludge Bomb are usually a given, but it cannot fit both Ice Beam and Focus Blast on a good set. One of Trick, Nasty Plot, and Will-O-Wisp are needed on the seemingly "broken" sets. With a well-constructed team and good play, you can scout pretty easily. Protect Gliscor or doubling out with Kingambit are two examples that come to mind and are fairly consistent in practice.

On the topic of a well-constructed team, every playstyle has many tools in its arsenal to handle Darkrai, and it is not restrictive in the teambuilder. I won't break down each unique playstyle as Storm Zone did a great job of that already, but in general, HO outspeeds, Stall has Blissey + Clodsire, and everything in between can throw on a random AV and/or 1-2 sturdy checks (e.g. a bulky resist and a Pokemon that outspeeds and threatens). In particular, we are seeing AV be used more often as it helps out against Kyurem, Raging Bolt, and other problematic special breakers, which I find to be a healthy metagame development rather than centralizing.

Once Darkrai racks up damage, it becomes far less threatening. Hazard damage, pivot moves, resisted hits, status, etc. eventually put Darkrai in range of neutral hits from Pokemon that it would normally force out. A perfect example of this is Galarian Slowking, which can eat one Dark Pulse comfortably and do ~40% damage to Darkrai, which is a relatively safe play to make once Darkrai is around that health range. Kingambit typically hits in that 30-40% range as well with Sucker Punch, so a worn-down Darkrai without Will-O-Wisp cannot threaten Kingambit out, not even with Focus Blast.

The only argument left would be how every move has luck tied to it (20% flinch, 30% poison, 10% freeze, 30% chance to miss), and this isn't much of a concern. ID Zamazenta's Crunch has a 20% chance to drop defense on Gholdengo and win the 1v1. Ogerpon has a 12.5% chance to crit a would-be check. Specs Dragapult has a 20% chance to drop the opponent's special defense and turn a 3HKO into a 2HKO. That's just part of the game we play. Even the extreme case of Poison Touch Sneasler with Dire Claw, luck was not the primary reason it got banned; the metagame adapted with Covert Cloak, which subsequently helped a lot into Garganacl who was also quite strong into the metagame. Instead, Unburden ended up being the busted set that pushed it over the edge. My point is that luck is what it is, and unless it is restricting and uncompetitive, I don't see any issue.

On the other side of the argument, Darkrai offers a lot for most playstyles: Dark-type, speed control, various utility options, respectable bulk, strong special attacker, set-up / breaking potential, coverage compression, you name it. The main questions I ask myself for a suspected Pokemon are 1) Does the Pokemon encourage competitive play, and 2) Does the Pokemon help in the builder more than or as much as it restricts? To both those questions, I say yes, and therefore, I believe Darkrai is balanced.

I'm open to a suspect test on Darkrai, but if I voted today, it would be Do Not Ban.

I'm not set on my opinion on Darkrai; right now I'm leaning towards a ban, but I'm not set. Despite this, I really dislike a lot of the arguments used for the DNB side that have shown up on this thread. A lot of them fall into similar traps of fearmongering about what the meta will look like after the ban, which isn't relevant, or about shit like re-tests. The best argument I've seen is probably from Roller K, although I still disagree with a lot of his points.

From what I see, the DNB arguments that are strongest right now are on Darkrai's flaws; mono-stab isn't great for offense and Dark Pulse is a low BP stab move, despite Darkrai's great offensive stats. Similarly, Darkrai is very reliant on coverage, and often can need to predict to force progress. Similarly, if it decides it wants to run its myriad of utility options (status, knock, trick) its forced to give up one of its coverage slots, which is annoying because then its often walled by something. It's strongest into things that it can hit for supereffective damage, as without that even hitting something neutrally with Dark Pulse won't always do a ton of damage. As well, its speed tier is fantastic in theory, but in practice its outpaced by key threats like Zamazenta and Dragapult, which is really annoying as Zamazenta is fantastic into it. It also has good bulk for its offenses, but pure dark is fairly mediocre defensively, so it still won't really be eating that many hits.

However, what makes me lean Ban right now is its sheer versatility and ability to hax things in its favour. Despite Darkrai's weaknesses, it still hits quite hard and outspeeds a lot; maybe not on HO, but definitely on anything slower, and coupled with its SE coverage on a lot, its often able to make up for its mono stab by nuking things for SE. Similarly, it has a lot of sets, and it can be very hard to tell them apart before they've done a lot of damage. Looking at Roller K's example: "One of Trick, Nasty Plot, and Will-O-Wisp are needed on the seemingly "broken" sets. With a well-constructed team and good play, you can scout pretty easily. Protect Gliscor or doubling out with Kingambit are two examples that come to mind and are fairly consistent in practice." The problem is that this example is actually counterintuitive. You can't actually click protect gliscor on Darkrai because if it clicks Nasty Plot, odds are good you're losing a mon. Similarly, if its a trick set and I go to Ting Lu, a pretty reasonable move, my Ting Lu can get crippled for the entire game, which is important given there are likely other mons I'll need it to check. I CAN double out to Kingambit, but if it eats a burn on that switch, my Kingambit becomes way worse. There aren't actually a lot of ways to scout for this mon. Similarly, 4MSS isn't a good excuse as to a mons lack of brokenness of surprise factor; I'll need to play as if it may have any of these options until proven otherwise, at which point Darkrai may have made sizable progress. Volcarona also had 4MSS but by the time you found out what it was lacking, it could have advanced the game to a point where its hard to come back from. Compared to other mons with a lot of sets, its able to take advantage of its naturally fantastic offensive stats where it can take advantage of most bulkier teams. Similarly, the argument that Darkrai isn't restrictive in the teambuilder is flat out not true; any good balance team largely will need one of Garganacl or Ting Lu to deal with it, as well as obvious offensive pressure, and while these mons are great and everywhere, the problem is that Darkrai can overstress these for other mons on its team. This is most obvious with its secondary effects.

All of Darkrai's moves have fairly debilitating secondary effects. Dark Pulse has 20% flinch, Sludge Bomb has 30% poison, ice beam has 10% freeze. I'd argue that given that Darkrai will mostly be clicking buttons, its always at risk of proccing one of these and potentially randomly debilitating the opponent. If I click ice beam on a Zama or Ting Lu switch and land a freeze, I've significantly advanced the game state by chance, and while a lot fo mons can do this with one of its moves, its usually not with all of them or as severe. Flinching, poisoning, freezing (!!) can all eke out a win largely randomly, or significantly punish the opponent, and these are the moves Darkrai will mostly be clicking. Roller K again claims that once its weakened, shit like GKing can eat a dark pulse and hit back with sludge bomb, but that's assuming that Darkrai doesn't land a flinch, making this play inherently risky. SImilarly, Roller K argues that other mons have secondary effects: "ID Zamazenta's Crunch has a 20% chance to drop defense on Gholdengo and win the 1v1. Ogerpon has a 12.5% chance to crit a would-be check. Specs Dragapult has a 20% chance to drop the opponent's special defense and turn a 3HKO into a 2HKO. That's just part of the game we play". This is a very weak argument. A crunch defense drop is only one of Zama's moves and is nowhere near as debilitating as a poison or freeze or even a flinch, given that they either generate multiple free turns or significant chip. Specs Pult isn't even its best choiced set and is vastly inferior to its flagship set. Waterpon is broken and shouldn't be in the tier. The cases where these effects are comparable to Darkrai are other broken mons. Even in the example of another mon with ice beam coverage in Deo-S, that's its only move with a secondary effect; it can't get away with fishing for those effects for the most part, unlike with Darkrai. All of Darkrai's moves packing these effects means playing defense against Darkrai (which a bulkier team style will have to do) largely becomes a matter of risking its roulette of status effects, especially with its high base speed. I'd argue this pushes Darkrai over the edge; without these it would be a lot easier to prep for, but with these Darkrai can force some of the game out of the opponents hands.

I also want to counter what I think are some really bad arguments for not banning Rai as mentioned earlier; what it brings to the builder and tier. These aren't important because if something is broken, its broken. I've seen a lot, and in fact, most of the argumentation for DNB seems to be along these lines, and its really frustrating because as I've said many, many times at this point, it largely boils down to fearmongering on what the tier will be like without it. Roller K cites Darkrai as haivng a lot for the tier in the form of "Dark-type, speed control, various utility options, respectable bulk, strong special attacker, set-up / breaking potential, coverage compression, you name it". However, I could have cited Volc as bringing a lot to the tier as well, but that didn't change that it was undoubtedly worse for the tier. You can cite anything strong as bringing a ton to the tier -- that's obvious, its why people run that mon in the first place!! It's not an argument for it not being broken, its an argument for it being good, which... no shit!! Similarly, ima has cited similar arguments:

There is an Elite 4 in our meta: Wellspring, Darkrai, Kingambit, Zamazenta. Together all four live in harmony, keeping everything in check. Just think about it: without Zamazenta there would be many 'mons (gambit) that would be nuked off the tier immediately. If you remove one of these guys you create a disaster within the meta, the balance would be broken and with the amount of 'mons we have banned already, we would just be adding another one to the list. Do we really wanna add another one to the list?

This is the same argument; things will be worse without Darkrai, except literally just ASSERTING that there's this mystical balance in the tier without explaining how they keep each other in check. It's not an argument on its brokenness or lack thereof - it has no place in this discussion. The only truth to this is that Zama is currently keeping the other 3 in check, which I fully agree with and is why I would be against suspecting Zama right now. It's just not true with the other three, however. I think these are frankly really bad arguments and are irrelevant to if Darkrai should stay or go.
 
Don't wanna put you down too much bc I ain't even that good to begin with, but if you're starting out, I really recommend you chose amongst the mons that are ranked OU. Your last four mons are VERY hard to justify, specially so without a clear strategy or synergy. Armarouge is pretty much limited to Psyspam teams and even then it's iffy. Hoodra is pretty stall oriented and doesn't mix well with the rest of the team. Brambleghast is non-existant in this meta and Pawmot is a bad gimmick.

Take a look at Meow and Garg. Those are very solid mons in OU, but what is their purpose? Meow has Knock to remove Boots and Lefties, and Garg has Salt Cure to further spread chip damage. Thus, a hazard setter is much needed in your team. It's not the easiest mon to use, but Deo-S can be swapped for Armarouge as a fast spiker/rocker and has a strong Psychic move along with Superpower for Gambit. Instead of Hoodra and Brambleghast, you could add Defog Corv as a nice steel-type wall and hazard remover, or also Rapid Spin Tusk or Treads, both of who synergize well with the more balance playstyle your team seems to be aiming to go for. I might suggest Clef for Pawmot, who has can pass Wish onto teammates too to keep em healthy. If you wanna go down a bulkier path and want to spread more passive damage, I'd give Gliscor a try, who can spread Toxic, keep itself healthy with Poison Heal and set up Spikes.

Most importantly, have fun building! But make sure to try out the staples before jumping into more dubious picks ;)

Hi, I've been trying to find a sixth pokémon for the team. This is my team: https://pokepast.es/d8b75c6a5515a300
 
Hi, I've been trying to find a sixth pokémon for the team. This is my team: https://pokepast.es/d8b75c6a5515a300
Uh on a quick glance it seems like your team typing is very vulnerable to ice, steel, and fire. Ice in particular is quite prevalent in the meta. Normally, a bulky water-type would work well, and you'd be fine but Kyurem's Freeze-Dry kinda breaks that logic. You can go the other route, and just play a fire-type. You can lean on the pivot-heavy side of things and play Cinderace. You can opt to play Sucker Punch to have some speed control in emergencies, or you could go Low Kick to further punish Gambit. Will-O-Wisp is also decent. Really, tons of good options.

I think the issue here isn't a single-mon change. I think the issue is it seems you don't have a plan, a wincon of sorts. I mean, you do have - you could win by chipping away with rocks/turn, you can win by chipping and setting up with Gary. It's... it's difficult to say why, but it kinda seems like it wasn't really a conscious choice, I dunno. I suggest just playing a lot and identifying wincons and then refining your gameplan.

For now, I think just rounding some type weaknesses with Ace is a good start, but from there the only improvements to be made are gameplay/synergy wise. Pinkacross has a channel with some really good advice that can get you on a path when it comes to that kinda stuff.
 
OU council has been having a fair amount of discussion about Darkrai lately as you can likely see given Finch, Vert and ima's posts on it. I wanted to give my own opinion on what changed for Darkrai to make it go from mid to potentially overbearing and then discuss what I think would be best for the tier.

:darkrai:
So if you've been keeping up with CTC's line of thought you'll know that he believes Volcarona's ban is what put Darkrai into questionable territory (though I believe he's no-ban on it regardless). I think this is pretty much correct. While it may not be a healthy dynamic necessarily, one of the biggest reasons to /not/ use a Pokemon is that using it can lead to getting counterswept by another common Pokemon off the rip; this has been one of Gholdengo's biggest flaws all gen, since it gives Kingambit and to a lesser extent Roaring Moon that free setup turn they need. Volcarona feared nothing from Darkrai, even tanking +2 hits, and could then shred it back, but that's not the case anymore. This in turn led to Darkrai's punishes being a lot more passive than before, which makes it easier to get Darkrai in multiple times to keep putting pressure on.

Defensively we haven't really lost anything against Darkrai, all the stuff that checked it sans Volcarona is still here and still usually good enough. Some other useful mons like Tinkaton and Iron Hands are popping up a bit more too and they help a lot with it while being pretty good in their own right. To me the big annoyance with Darkrai is the set roulette; it's not really easy to tell what coverage it's running at all and that can change things a lot. Clefable's a great check till it has Sludge Bomb, Gliscor can take on sets without Ice Beam, Ting-Lu isn't too scared of Ice Beam but Focus Blast pushes it a bit too far, Garg is also fine until it gets Focus Blasted, etc. though there are some mostly-true counters like Clodsire and Blissey if you wanna take that route.

Offensively is where I think the problems start to arise. The list of mons that naturally outspeeds Darkrai is limited to Deo-S, Dragapult and Zamazenta, Scarfers generally suck in this tier, and all the priority is heavily abusable (Sucker/Thunderclap have their obvious drawback, ESpeed can be beaten by Tera Ghost, etc). There are some other options like Tera Ogerpon and Weavile's Ice Shard (or winning the tie) but like the problem here is pretty visible.

So a Darkrai test seems valid to me, I don't necessarily think it should be banned but it's fair enough to put it under the microscope and see what happens. I understand the fear that Gliscor becomes dishonest but there are a number of big threats to it that are being kept down rn due to not outspeeding Darkrai (Meowscarada, Latios, etc) and even if it does become silly we certainly don't need that asshole in the metagame either. However, another thing that would help with Gliscor is something I've been wanting to talk about for a while now:

:palafin-hero:
For a while now I've been talking about Palafin and why I think it would be a very nice addition to the tier. Let's start with some of the obvious positives:

- Strong, non-abusable priority; you can Tera into a type that resists Jet Punch but you can't be immune to it, and there is no funny business with it either like there is with Sucker/Thunderclap. Big for revenging Tera Flying Roaring Moon, Kingambit, Iron Valiant, Iron Moth, and of course Darkrai; kept honest by the fact that numerous excellent Pokemon already resist it and prevent it from snowballing, like Ogerpon-Wellspring and Teal, Raging Bolt, Dragapult, Primarina, Kyurem, Rillaboom, etc.
- Great and somehow kinda unique Speed tier that puts it above some big annoyances in the current metagame like Kyurem and Gholdengo that could really do with one more good check.
- Good way to punish Gliscor, Ting-Lu etc. and prevent those Spikes balances from becoming too overbearing should Darkrai get the boot.

Some players have expressed fears that Palafin's Bulk Up + Taunt set, which got it banned a few days into SV, would invalidate fat teams and skew the tier more towards offense, which seems silly to me. Things have changed quite significantly since then and we have some mons that cause Palafin pretty big issues; Scald is back and Alomomola loves to spam it, Dondozo became much more relevant and stopped running mono-Liquidation most of the time, the metagame centered itself around Spikes teams that cause big problems for a mon who literally needs to switch to be useful (and it isn't a particularly effective Boots user), we've gained mons that are bulky enough to account for the fact that Palafin's moves are not strong due to their low BP (think Zapdos, Amoonguss, etc), we have some new hard counters like Sinistcha, Ogerpon-W and Rillaboom, etc... I don't think the slow pace of BU + Taunt will even have a place in this metagame given the one matchup it's fishing is both uncommon and has plenty of ways to beat it. There's also just much more status going around from stuff like Slowking-G and of course it's completely stuffed by Zamazenta.

Choice Band on the other hand has to contend with the ever-present issues of hazards & Wave Crash recoil if it wants to do significant damage on top of a middling Speed tier. It'll hit hard and bring some nice priority, which is a good thing to keep offense honest here, but I doubt it will be a problem.

Perhaps a Boots attacking set could be overwhelming. I don't think there's much of a way to know without trying, though; Palafin has only ever been legal in OU for eight days! And it was in a much, much newer and more uncharted metagame, we barely knew how Tera worked and nothing had been "solved" or optimised at all back then. I think it will act as a great balancing anchor and we should seriously consider giving it a try.


TL;DR: Darkrai is not super broken by any means but a suspect is valid if that's the route the community wants. We should retest Palafin both because it would provide great utility in the tier rn and also for fair dues since it's only ever been legal for a week in a completely different metagame.

Thanks for reading ^^
Ehhhhh I still don't know if a mon with an attack stat higher than rayquaza and often runs an adamant nature is that great for the metagame, and it can also run coverage to deal with bolt and rillaboom if it wants to. but maybe palafin can bring back rain? maybe?
 
Uh on a quick glance it seems like your team typing is very vulnerable to ice, steel, and fire. Ice in particular is quite prevalent in the meta. Normally, a bulky water-type would work well, and you'd be fine but Kyurem's Freeze-Dry kinda breaks that logic. You can go the other route, and just play a fire-type. You can lean on the pivot-heavy side of things and play Cinderace. You can opt to play Sucker Punch to have some speed control in emergencies, or you could go Low Kick to further punish Gambit. Will-O-Wisp is also decent. Really, tons of good options.

I think the issue here isn't a single-mon change. I think the issue is it seems you don't have a plan, a wincon of sorts. I mean, you do have - you could win by chipping away with rocks/turn, you can win by chipping and setting up with Gary. It's... it's difficult to say why, but it kinda seems like it wasn't really a conscious choice, I dunno. I suggest just playing a lot and identifying wincons and then refining your gameplan.

For now, I think just rounding some type weaknesses with Ace is a good start, but from there the only improvements to be made are gameplay/synergy wise. Pinkacross has a channel with some really good advice that can get you on a path when it comes to that kinda stuff.

Oh, did you mean something like this? https://pokepast.es/b4531c1b556153d0
 
This is the same argument; things will be worse without Darkrai, except literally just ASSERTING that there's this mystical balance in the tier without explaining how they keep each other in check. It's not an argument on its brokenness or lack thereof - it has no place in this discussion. The only truth to this is that Zama is currently keeping the other 3 in check, which I fully agree with and is why I would be against suspecting Zama right now. It's just not true with the other three, however. I think these are frankly really bad arguments and are irrelevant to if Darkrai should stay or go.
I think storm zone had a really good response I ultimately agree with, he had some really good points genuinely that really solidifed my position on DNB and I largely agree with everything he said. But yeah some of the DNB arguments are frankly bad as someone on the DNB side

Ausma has a similar stance on darkrai which you should be hearing at some point as if we move forward with the suspect she's planning on voting DNB


Also I wonder if banning waterpon and kyurem is the better route because while mola would be better and maybe more annoying sometime, so would rillaboom which would be massive and could actually help keep huge frailer threats like Darkrai in line and potentially gives us one less suspect. I hear all this talk about how banning kyurem and waterpon would help alomomola out, but the real winner here would for sure be Rillaboom with how much of a pain both waterpon and kyurem are for it.

Doing some calcs Adamant Banded Rillaboom absolutely shits on Darkrai, especially with even one hazard up so maybe rillaboom, a balanced mon is the answer to our issues? If we ban bulkier and already debatably overpowered threats that shit on it or compete with its teamslot like Waterpon and Kyurem potentially being better routes despite having less support. Rillaboom can be kinda hard to justify when Kyurem shits on it and Waterpon is right there to snag its teamslot, and those mons have no switchins anyway so I wonder if catering to Rillaboom could help with some of the tiering issues? I know they aren't as likely to be suspected first but honestly the suspect Kyurem/Waterpon first route seems more enticing to me personally.

As said though I understand why people want to suspect Darkrai and I have no issue with it despite being in the camp of DNB myself
 
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i'm leaning further and further towards ban on darkrai, but i still say we should hold off on a suspect for now. suspecting anything at this point would result in a dnb and we'd be stuck in this meta for another few months while we argue back and forth about which mon is the most problematic of the like fifteen problematic mons we still somehow have. but if we keep darkrai around untouched, more and more people will grow to hate it—they'll eventually lose to hax pulse or cheater beam or some other rng proc one too many times and they'll switch from "eh whatever we can keep it" to "fuck this thing, get it out of here". so the longer we go without a suspect on darkrai, the higher the chances of banning it become
 
i'm leaning further and further towards ban on darkrai, but i still say we should hold off on a suspect for now. suspecting anything at this point would result in a dnb and we'd be stuck in this meta for another few months while we argue back and forth about which mon is the most problematic of the like fifteen problematic mons we still somehow have. but if we keep darkrai around untouched, more and more people will grow to hate it—they'll eventually lose to hax pulse or cheater beam or some other rng proc one too many times and they'll switch from "eh whatever we can keep it" to "fuck this thing, get it out of here". so the longer we go without a suspect on darkrai, the higher the chances of banning it become

While I still think that I would vote DNB, I don't think there's anything bad about suspecting Darkrai or in fact, suspecting every single one of the 10-15 problematic mons one every month for example. Maybe by focusing on a different Pokémon every month- month and a half the community can finally agree on which are the pieces we should take out from the tier.

I'm guessing they're waiting for the OU season to end? I'm not sure if WCoP has ended either, but maybe they are waiting for that to end and then we'll get the suspect test
 
Hot (probably) take, but I think no tournament, regardless of how important its considered should have any influence on whether to suspect something or not. If a Ban happens mid-tour, so be it, the best players should be able to adapt to said Ban in the following round anyway.
I mean we had five suspects/ban mid-SCL and another four throughout SPL, so this is a given.

The metagame changes as a result of tournaments (like it does as a result of ladder trends) and this naturally impacts how the metagame is perceived, but ultimately tiering is always done for the betterment of the tier first with any tournament logistical hurdles deprioritized when possible.
 
I mean we had five suspects/ban mid-SCL and another four throughout SPL, so this is a given.

The metagame changes as a result of tournaments (like it does as a result of ladder trends) and this naturally impacts how the metagame is perceived, but ultimately tiering is always done for the betterment of the tier first with any tournament logistical hurdles deprioritized when possible.
I had to read this twice to understand the point made here, I really AM losing braincells. I was joking last time wtf
 
I had to read this twice to understand the point made here, I really AM losing braincells. I was joking last time wtf
Point is we have had normal (in fact, even more than normal) rates of tiering action during major tournaments.

Tournaments can help show off metagame trends, but so can ladder. They don’t dictate the metagame fully. Nothing does. We just focus on improving the tier and anything else is secondary.
 
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