You're getting hung up on the Pokemon itself, what I'm talking about is what styles grassy terrain can enable. I also have ogerpon wellspring on my team with powerwhip/ grassy glide, which takes the place of rillaboom as a wallbreaker. Allows you to play 50/50 with gambits sucker punch
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 ( NEW SURVEY UP, POST 20,700 )
- Thread starter TPP
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Grassy Glide is absolutely a neccessity, but banded is not. I've ran AV, boots, LO, lefties on Rillaboom and they all have worked decently well. Ngl, the best Rillaboom sets are the ones that don't use Choice Band, as you can flex your coverage options such as low kick, SD or leech seed. Nothing better then hitting kingambit with low kick as it expects to just SD on you.
Except it really is too weak without band (more specifically glide is too weak). I’ve faced so many non banded Rilla this gen from ladder and they’re complete non threats every time. It does no damage outside Wood Hammer and It’s too slow to use set up and too defensively lacking to get set up opportunities (especially vs offense) and vs bulk will just be halted by common defensive mons anyway. You don’t even have great coverage either.
lefties isn’t what it was last gen either. It worked so well last gen because it offered it more longevity and the ability to leverage its bulk which it could actually use to check threats throughout a game, it actually was still threatening vs common stuff but here it’s not threatening into nearly anything good and it really feels like you’ll only get by off surprise factor, which isn’t a recipe for consistency at all.
Not really? Like, for revenge killing frailer threats, it still does well. Against something like darkrai, it still 2hit ko's it. That's more damage then d-nites e-speed, which while yes it isn't stab, shows that it still does good damage.
SD is definetely the set I'm least confident in, but it can do some stuff with tera blast, specifically fire or electric. Non banded rilla isn't meant to do insane damage anyways, its meant to knock off items, u-turn afterwards while still having an option against offense via priority, while still providing passive recovery with grassy terrain to teammates. Sure, you may be halted by something like zapdos, but you can knock off there boots to cripple them. And its coverage is fine enough anways between glide, knock, u-turn and low kick/high horsepower.
Man why do yall think rilla is bad to begin with, I really don't get it. The rilla hatred is crazy. Wdym pecharunt doesn't hate knock?? Wdym the only reason to use it is glide? I'm not even talking about some magical new set I came up with, I have found plenty of success simply with band by building around it correctly.
Take this game last week in smogtour r4. While lots of mons may resist glide with their base typing, being able to revenge kill mons that used tera to try and sweep is super important that glide can do for you. In this replay it was tera ice kyurem, but this has also worked vs tera ghost/fairy/ground rmoon, tera ghost/fairy/dark kingambit, tera ghost/elec ival, tera ground/fairy moth, tera fairy bolt (which you can also wood hammer if you're healthy enough to live thunderclap), etc. CB rilla+grassy seed bolt was a core I designed early in SPL to handle basically every rmoon and have a good MU vs those HOs, and it worked quite well! Of course, it's not just about revenge killing things from full. There were several points in the game where it was able to force a revenge kill with strong prio, like on turn 17.
Also look at this game vs INSULT in OST r5 (this team was undefeated in OST btw). Rilla itself didn't do that much, but that leads into my next point: Grassy terrain is really good, and you can use it to support some great mons like grassy seed bolt and LO zama in my case. These are pokemon that are already good that are just tweaked to benefit from terrain, similar to grassy seed NP ghold. Remember the rilla/garg/ghold/ace/lando/darkrai team that ctc made last year that took over wcop pools? Rilla was obviously central to that team. Lefties garg and lefties darkrai got gross amts of passive healing, but you can also use it to try and make more niche threats work, like grassy seed hawlucha. Grassy terrain is by far the best terrain in SV largely thanks to how good its setter is, but the extra healing/grassy seed proc can boost or create tons of threats.
That's not even accounting for the natural ability to weaken eq that can pair well with certain mons like iron crown. While it does technically also weaken eq for mons like bolt/ghold/gambit, I rate those slightly lower bc they're vulnerable to HLR, unlike crown which is faster than tusk and kills. Suddenly your crown can afford to stay in on lando and ting-lu and throw out another specs tachyon cutter so they're chipped for your bolt and zama in the back.
Point is, build around grassy terrain with powerful wincons and lean into rilla's ability to force knocks on birds or draw in certain mons and U-turn on them. Rilla has useful offensive and defensive utility (switching into ting-lu 2+ times is great) and don't get tunnel visioned on it being useless just bc you fight a grass resist like pecharunt or corv. Some grass "resists" like dragapult and torn-t will drop to wood hammer after rocks or any chip, glowking is cleanly 2hko'd. If that fails, GF gave you the ability to U-turn so click it correctly and you'll do great.
Take this game last week in smogtour r4. While lots of mons may resist glide with their base typing, being able to revenge kill mons that used tera to try and sweep is super important that glide can do for you. In this replay it was tera ice kyurem, but this has also worked vs tera ghost/fairy/ground rmoon, tera ghost/fairy/dark kingambit, tera ghost/elec ival, tera ground/fairy moth, tera fairy bolt (which you can also wood hammer if you're healthy enough to live thunderclap), etc. CB rilla+grassy seed bolt was a core I designed early in SPL to handle basically every rmoon and have a good MU vs those HOs, and it worked quite well! Of course, it's not just about revenge killing things from full. There were several points in the game where it was able to force a revenge kill with strong prio, like on turn 17.
Also look at this game vs INSULT in OST r5 (this team was undefeated in OST btw). Rilla itself didn't do that much, but that leads into my next point: Grassy terrain is really good, and you can use it to support some great mons like grassy seed bolt and LO zama in my case. These are pokemon that are already good that are just tweaked to benefit from terrain, similar to grassy seed NP ghold. Remember the rilla/garg/ghold/ace/lando/darkrai team that ctc made last year that took over wcop pools? Rilla was obviously central to that team. Lefties garg and lefties darkrai got gross amts of passive healing, but you can also use it to try and make more niche threats work, like grassy seed hawlucha. Grassy terrain is by far the best terrain in SV largely thanks to how good its setter is, but the extra healing/grassy seed proc can boost or create tons of threats.
That's not even accounting for the natural ability to weaken eq that can pair well with certain mons like iron crown. While it does technically also weaken eq for mons like bolt/ghold/gambit, I rate those slightly lower bc they're vulnerable to HLR, unlike crown which is faster than tusk and kills. Suddenly your crown can afford to stay in on lando and ting-lu and throw out another specs tachyon cutter so they're chipped for your bolt and zama in the back.
Point is, build around grassy terrain with powerful wincons and lean into rilla's ability to force knocks on birds or draw in certain mons and U-turn on them. Rilla has useful offensive and defensive utility (switching into ting-lu 2+ times is great) and don't get tunnel visioned on it being useless just bc you fight a grass resist like pecharunt or corv. Some grass "resists" like dragapult and torn-t will drop to wood hammer after rocks or any chip, glowking is cleanly 2hko'd. If that fails, GF gave you the ability to U-turn so click it correctly and you'll do great.
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You need pretty significant chip to KO Darkrai even then (50%) which for something that won’t exactly just sit and take hits, isn’t easy to drag it into that range necessarily. Plus because of how forced into relying on that priority Rilla is, it’s very easy to pivot out of and prevent any revenge killing attempts anyways. Dragonite not being stab with its priority is offset by it having a premium defensive and utility profile which Rilla lacks completely while still capable of being a wincon later in a game. The point of priority is meant to help provide some speed control and anti-offense utility but the grass typing Rilla has is poor for such a role and its lack of defensive use means it can’t come in to check things like other priority users (Gambit, DNite and even Scizor).
at that point you’re just running a very mediocre offensive Pokémon that still lacks defensive use but also doesn’t have anything noteworthy utility other grasses can’t do better. A Pokémon with knock/uturn doesn’t auto equate to worth using, and it struggles to be a competent pivot because again, lacking defensive profile. Why not just use our actually good grasses instead of trying to force something out of a Mon that has such poor meta matchups?
All respect to you Srn but where has this Mon been for months if it’s not mediocre? It didn’t really exist at all in SPL (the few times it was brought it bombed hard). If it works for you more power to you of course, but it has a lot of questionable match ups and while switching into Lu Ruination is cool a couple times, that’s kind the extent of it as far a reliable use goes (unless i am forgetting something else). It’s a fake af Wellspring check which is something your grass really should be checking seeing as how Wellspring has such limited defensive checks to begin with.
Again, all the respect to you but I simply don’t agree it’s worth much right now.
My problem with that logic is that it is somewhat short-sighted (no disrespect). Just because a mon isn't used as much doesn't necessarily mean it has no potential or is bad; it obviously can point to this, but I hesitate to label this as definitive proof because metas are always evolving and people don't always recognize when something has a niche. Pecharunt is an obvious example, but so is stuff like lokix; sometimes they become good due to meta adjustments, but often, people just are unaware these things have a niche because they build with obvious stuff (as in, kingambit good so i use over other mons). Players aren't omniscient, and so often fail to accurately grasp how good or bad a mon is; this is partially why metas evolve, as people reevaluate them based on how other players experiment with them or judge them.
I'm not saying Rilla is goated or even good; I think it has a niche purely from gterrain but idk how good this niche is. However, I think saying "if this was good it would be used" is a poor way of arguing against something.
Adding to the above post, I don't really count on any grass to switch into wellspring except amoonguss (locked to stall (bad)). All of them get knocked or U-turned on and fall apart, rilla isn't exceptionally poor in this regard. You can at least win vs it 1v1 by threatening ohko or momentum with your own U-turn, which is comparable or better to what most sets of other grasses like serp, sinistcha, and hydrapple can achieve. Grasspon is a speed tie pre-tera so eh.
There's a fair point in saying that usage isn't equal to viability but there's a connection that's hard to entirely dismiss. Rillaboom was used twice in SPL and lost both games. Out of all 13 mons used only twice, like Excadrill, Pelipper, Comfey, and Magnezone, it is part of the four that lost both games. It did worse than several mons much lower than it on the viability rankings such as Hisuian Goodra, Ditto, and Galarian Moltres. It's also dropped to UU recently. Usage isn't the same as a mon being bad in OU, but the pattern shows that both top players and ladder value its niche much less. This isn't even an unpopularity thing: Weavile is also underused on the ladder up until recently, yet it has a positive win rate and much more usage in SPL. While usage isn't the entire picture, additional context like matchup spread only makes this picture worse for Rillaboom. It'll always have a niche for Grassy terrain, true, but I think it's fair to claim that its niche just isn't as valuable currently, which is pointed to by its usage.
I think I can kind of appreciate the fact that the meta now has much more playstyle diversity, comparing to the early HOME meta.
We just need to iron out a few more threats like Pon for the meta to truly be perfect, but so far I find the directions we are heading to quite positive.
Also I have just got to top 50 with Garchomp. I hope I can contribute to my boy Chompy returning to OU before this gen ends.
We just need to iron out a few more threats like Pon for the meta to truly be perfect, but so far I find the directions we are heading to quite positive.
Also I have just got to top 50 with Garchomp. I hope I can contribute to my boy Chompy returning to OU before this gen ends.
feel like rillaboom has a lot of untapped potential and people aren’t giving it a fair shot. Corv is probably its biggest roadblock, but once you knock its boots off its a few uturns with rocks up from being in a really uncomfortable position. Getting their boots knocked of is incredibly crippling for zapdos and a near death sentence for moltres. Sure they can tera out of the rock weakness but then they prob don’t resist wood hammer anymore. Not to mention gterrain is great to have. Lucha is great for punishing HO and encore is encore. Bolt and gambit are monsters under GTerrain. Theres also plenty of other potential grassy terrain abusers that have not been explored yet. CB’s biggest flaw imo is that it is prediction reliant, but in the hands of a good player band rilla is incredibly threatening. It just takes skill to use lol, it’s not like you can just mindlessly click buttons like you are playing webs or something lol.
I do love Rillaboom and I do agree with a lot of potential you said, but I think it's partly because Ice Spinner exists.
Theoretically, Rillaboom should be able to scare off Tusk with Grass STAB. However, Glide doesn't OHKO Tusk at full even with Band:
252+ Atk Choice Band Rillaboom Grassy Glide vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Great Tusk in Grassy Terrain: 300-354 (80.8 - 95.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
Tusk can live a Glide at full and return with an Ice Spinner to deal lots of damage to the monke and remove terrains. Not to mention Treads doesn't even mind eating a Glide at all with its neutrality against Grass.
Who is running boots Corv? And I feel like a broken record at this point but why not just use a better grass for this? I don’t understand where this insistence that Rilla is being underrated comes from. Or that Gterrain is so great but where is its usage if this true? The few times it was brought to spl it didn’t do well. And its ladder usage had died out mostly. Like I wanna know why some people (other than Srn because they’ve said why they feel so) so fervently think it’s underrated despite such poor high level showings.
Yeah ice spinner is another unfortunate roadblock. Luckily rilla lives it comfortably so you can potentially punish it with wood hammer, and the removal of tusk greatly increases the threat level of teammates like bolt and gambit
This was a mistype. I meant to say helmet so rilla can uturn freely. As I said I just feel like its at a low point, it will come back when people want to experiment with it again. The low SPL usage stems from people still being iffy on it
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Wood Hammer would be nice to KO tusk, but Boom would also takes a massive amount of damage to be unable to switch in next turn, or straight up being KOed if it's a Helmet Tusk.
Not gonna lie, there's times where I think to myself "What if I put Protective Pads on Rilla cause then, I can Knock and U-turn on the birds without a care in the world.", but then I also think "What am I even doing anymore" and promty shelve the idea. I was also thinking of Toxic Spikes with Grassy Terrain as its the one hazzard the opponent can't heal off, but Glowking and Pech quickly put the kebash on that idea.
God Pech is annoying. Almost makes me thankful Kingambit and Darkrai exist because they literally eat the little bastard alive.
God Pech is annoying. Almost makes me thankful Kingambit and Darkrai exist because they literally eat the little bastard alive.
Boots is used a lot on stall afaik. It’s listed as the first item on the stall bible entry
No joke I came to a similar conclusion awhile back, and it actually kinda worked if you squinted and didn't immediately lose to Kyurem. Gambit, Rilla, Meow (ofc), Salazzle (!!!), Tusk and Gking with Tera Fire. The entire time plan was to be disruptive with Salazzle encore/toxic and using Rilla/Meow knocks to break down teams. Was it good? Well, it was disruptive for sure. Was it fun? oh yes, oh yes. So many forced Tera's and stall experiencing a nightmare due to the weirdo composition
Whilst its not as hit or miss as than fraudscarada, rillaboom is still a pokemon that is not worth using without team support, it’s fodder for sub tect kyurem, loses it’s terrain to ice spinner, lets in dragonite, fails to break through the metal birds and worst of all, gets walled by cobalion and allows it to click stealth rock or thunder wave for free, it rarely runs super effective moves for any of these Pokemon and in cobalions case, all of the moves it commonly runs (grassy glide, wood hammer, u turn and knock off) are resisted.
It’s biggest flaw is crawdaunt syndrome, where it wrecks stall but struggles against other teamstyles due to its vulnerability to attacks, lack of speed and insufficient priority, however its grassy terrain allows it to keep a niche since it can support sweepers by enabling grassy seed and has solid bulk when invested, but don’t expect any mind blowing utility outside of that
It’s biggest flaw is crawdaunt syndrome, where it wrecks stall but struggles against other teamstyles due to its vulnerability to attacks, lack of speed and insufficient priority, however its grassy terrain allows it to keep a niche since it can support sweepers by enabling grassy seed and has solid bulk when invested, but don’t expect any mind blowing utility outside of that
I don't think the Rillaboom/ Lucha core does well in the current meta. They share way too many weaknesses to the same mons such as Zapdos, Moltres and Corviknight.
Also, Grassy Terrain is the biggest double edge sword of all three Terrains since there's not much that can be done from preventing the opponent from healing as well. The other two terrains have ways of being worked around in ways Grassy terrain can't
I started the rillaboom discussion almost 2 pages ago, from the perspective that "it's not garbage" and grassy terrain structures have some merit. The reality is that they rely on rillaboom to set terrain. But everyone's fixated on why rillaboom on its own can't work. This wasn't the viewpoint i was going for at all
In my opinion, Grassy Terrain teams were much better when Gouging Fire was on the tier. They're still good, and some structures like Seed Hatt / Ghold / Bolt + Lucha + some Dnite check that can appreciate grassy's passive recovery (Dondozo maybe? Or Bulky Treads) I think that still have potential.
However, Rilla by itself is a far cry from its SS counterpart. Far from a "lower tier choice" tbf, but it has some really poor matchups this gen. Common matchups on the ladder like Sun, Webs HO with mons like Gambit + Moth + Raging Bolt, Kyurem teams... Sure, Rilla can use Low Kick, but the monkey is probably one of the biggest 4 Move Slot Syndrome mons in the tier.
It needs Glide of course, and probably Knock to not be useless aganist status birds. It 100% needs u turn to pivot to the terrain partners, but then as the 4th move slot SD, Low Kick and Wood Hammer all seem necessary on it.
Still, it's perfectly viable as a mon and a there are some really cool pokémon you can run on grassy like Comfey or Bellossom. And flowers are cool so they also are
However, Rilla by itself is a far cry from its SS counterpart. Far from a "lower tier choice" tbf, but it has some really poor matchups this gen. Common matchups on the ladder like Sun, Webs HO with mons like Gambit + Moth + Raging Bolt, Kyurem teams... Sure, Rilla can use Low Kick, but the monkey is probably one of the biggest 4 Move Slot Syndrome mons in the tier.
It needs Glide of course, and probably Knock to not be useless aganist status birds. It 100% needs u turn to pivot to the terrain partners, but then as the 4th move slot SD, Low Kick and Wood Hammer all seem necessary on it.
Still, it's perfectly viable as a mon and a there are some really cool pokémon you can run on grassy like Comfey or Bellossom. And flowers are cool so they also are
My initial impressions of post Moon metagame from laddering a bit with Lily's Kyurem team is that it is heavily centralized towards Slow pivots like Corv, Gking, Pecharunt, and Mola alongside various breakers such as Kyurem, Hydrappl, Gliscor, and Weavile. In this environment, Gliscor feels more clearly like the #1 Pokémon in the metagame, only really being staved off by Corv + Ice Type. CorvKingLu feels much stronger rn, which also makes Kyurem feel stronger as one of the best partners and breakers of this core. Most offensive teams seem worse off rn, with weather feeling worse due to Gking's pivoting antics getting stronger, and other HO styles feeling worse with Moon as a mid / early game breaker + Boots becoming better with HO having 1 less Knocker.
It will be interesting to see what additional meta developments occur around these shifts. I think Darkrai, Weavile, and Meow will all see big rises as alternative Knockers to Moon. Meow has the nice combo of Knock + Spikes which can make it quite potent on these Boots Spam teams.
It will be interesting to see what additional meta developments occur around these shifts. I think Darkrai, Weavile, and Meow will all see big rises as alternative Knockers to Moon. Meow has the nice combo of Knock + Spikes which can make it quite potent on these Boots Spam teams.
I definitely enjoy this state of metagame more than Moon.
There are still a lot of offensive threats that can jump in and cause a lot of damage (Pon, Krai, Kyu), but none has been as dominantly threatening as Moon. Veil / Screen spam has become much less prevalent due to the lack of an easy-win button like Moon, and the meta definitely takes a bulkier route.
I guess if we can iron out 1 or 2 more offensive threats like Kyu and Pon, the format will be much better. But as of now, I think we are heading to a right path.