Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

Actually, Pecha Berry may have one other advantage for Clef over Sticky Barb. You aren't forced into Magic Guard. So you can run Unaware while still using a similar Trick strat. Maybe this could lead to some cool tech like countering some sweepers, but I'm not too sure since I haven't tried it. I tend to run Magic Guard Clef myself when I use it.
 
Actually, Pecha Berry may have one other advantage for Clef over Sticky Barb. You aren't forced into Magic Guard. So you can run Unaware while still using a similar Trick strat. Maybe this could lead to some cool tech like countering some sweepers, but I'm not too sure since I haven't tried it. I tend to run Magic Guard Clef myself when I use it.
that doesn't work because then your anti-gliscor tech involves tricking a toxic orb onto yourself with no way to protect from the poison. if heal bell still existed in any meaningful capacity this could be cooking but for this gen we should probably stick to magic guard (or ghold, or if you're really insane glowking) for this wacky zany gimmick
 
Hello guys, I wanna share some anti-Kyurem play that I have incorparated into my gameplay. You may ask, why now when it is getting suspected? I feel like it might help some struggling ppl against some oppressive mons and in general I feel might be useful against high variance mons like Valiant or Dragapult too. Do not mistake this as me being anti ban or something though.

In my experience I have very rarely lost to Kyurem. One thing I am suprised the pro ban side didn't mention as much is the rise of Assault Vest mons. During WCOP, we saw a rise of special spamming mons. However ppl adapted by slapping bulky AV mons to halt these special spamming mons progress temporarily and put the momentum on your side again. And these AV mons have an overlap with Kyurem c-play too. We already know about AV crown but why stop there? I have seen the rise of AV Mola mirror coat who 1vs1 most Kyurems and puts momentum on your side, AV slowking-g is the perfect scout with regen and can even tank a scale shot and my personal favorite AV Hatt. This is the spread I am using.

Hatterene @ Assault Vest
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 48 SpA / 160 SpD / 52 Spe
Modest Nature
- Mystical Fire
- Dazzling Gleam
- Psychic Noise
- Nuzzle

^ PsyNoise bypasses sub, dazzl chunks a good amount of health and she takes pittance from freeze drys. In case it is a physical setup variant, I tera fire and cripple it with nuzzle or in case I need to be careful of a ground tera, chip it for a priority user to finish it off. I mainly play sun teams and the combi of Nintales+Hatt is aboslutely dazzling against Kyurem(Tales can tank an EP too and cripple it with WoW or encore it). As much as I respect Srn, I have to resepctfully disagree with his opinion that Hatt has been just a filler for sun teams. In my experience, it was really hard to build sun teams without Hatt. Also because I play sun, I dont fear freeze as much. AV Hatt is also a good mon on non sun structures as she blocks non Samurott Hazard stacks to get their stuff going, can trade into the various special threats , provides a valuable dragon immunity and is a FS absorber. I have to give a user named Kittenlazers credit as he/she was the earliest AV Hatt user I have seen so I kinda just stole the idea. There are also other potential AV mons in the lower tiers like Goodra-H. who can provide valuable phazing too with d-tail and knock or AV Slither Wing that also provides a valuable ground resistance, momentum and priority. Here are some replays to let you see how to play.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2200847800-r8fdwyfwpx28xo5s5yprnbv7k1uhy9kpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2158168001


That said nothing walls this mon long term so all those mons will eventually succumb to Kyurem spamming its stab moves. Use these mons as a scout and position yourself so you can pressure the Kyurem user better. Do NOT think about checking this mon long term. Sometimes just letting go of a mon is something you will have to do. Trading health to find out its set is absolutely worth against Kyurem. You can also try to lure in the Kyurem(or any dangorous high variance mon) early game when you have most of your resources available with sth like Lando-T and see what moves it goes for and respond. Getting rocks up early will also help to determine possible sets. Balance users can use Lu,Skarm, Zama or Molt, tank a hit and phase it out if things go south. Mons is very much an information game. So having Kyurem out early can reveal some parts of the opponents gameplan. For example, calc the damage of freeze dry when he uses it on your scout. Mixed sets usually dont run max spatck and if they do, their other attacks are weaker.

Another thing, its tera type variety is also easy to predict on some sets(sub+tect usually runs ground, specs set mostly run ice, dragon or ground too.). Atleast for now. DD and mixed scale shot sets are a lot harder to predict though since they might run a defensive tera to bypass possible checks so keep that in mind.

As for what I am gonna vote for, I am probably voting BAN. Maybe I will post my thoughts later but for now that is all.
 
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Hello guys, I wanna share some anti-Kyurem play that I have incorparated into my gameplay. You may ask, why now when it is getting suspected? I feel like it might help some struggling ppl against some oppressive mons and in general I feel might be useful against high variance mons like Valiant or Dragapult too. Do not mistake this as me being anti ban or something though.

In my experience I have very rarely lost to Kyurem. One thing I am suprised the pro ban side didn't mention as much is the rise of Assault Vest mons. During WCOP, we saw a rise of special spamming mons. However ppl adapted by slapping bulky AV mons to halt these special spamming mons progress temporarily and put the momentum on your side again. And these AV mons have an overlap with Kyurem c-play too. We already know about AV crown but why stop there? I have seen the rise of AV Mola mirror coat who 1vs1 most Kyurems and puts momentum on your side, AV slowking-g is the perfect scout with regen and can even tank a scale shot and my personal favorite AV Hatt. This is the spread I am using.

Hatterene @ Assault Vest
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 48 SpA / 160 SpD / 52 Spe
Modest Nature
- Mystical Fire
- Dazzling Gleam
- Psychic Noise
- Nuzzle

^ PsyNoise bypasses sub, dazzl chunks a good amount of health and she takes pittance from freeze drys. In case it is a physical setup variant, I tera fire and cripple it with nuzzle or in case I need to be careful of a ground tera, chip it for a priority user to finish it off. I mainly play sun teams and the combi of Nintales+Hatt is aboslutely dazzling against Kyurem(Tales can tank an EP too and cripple it with WoW or encore it). As much as I respect Srn, I have to resepctfully disagree with his opinion that Hatt has been just a filler for sun teams. In my experience, it was really hard to build sun teams without Hatt. Also because I play sun, I dont fear freeze as much. AV Hatt is also a good mon on non sun structures as she blocks non Samurott Hazard stacks to get their stuff going, can trade into the various special threats , provides a valuable dragon immunity and is a FS absorber. I have to give a user named Kittenlazers credit as he/she was the earliest AV Hatt user I have seen so I kinda just stole the idea. There are also other potential AV mons in the lower tiers like Goodra-H. who can provide valuable phazing too with d-tail and knock or AV Slither Wing that also provides a valuable ground resistance, momentum and priority. Here are some replays to let you see how to play.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2200847800-r8fdwyfwpx28xo5s5yprnbv7k1uhy9kpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2158168001


That said nothing walls this mon long term so all those mons will eventually succumb to Kyurem spamming its stab moves. Use these mons as a scout and position yourself so you can pressure the Kyurem user better. Do NOT think about checking this mon long term. Sometimes just letting go of a mon is something you will have to do. Trading health to find out its set is absolutely worth against Kyurem. You can also try to lure in the Kyurem(or any dangorous high variance mon) early game when you have most of your resources available with sth like Lando-T and see what moves it goes for and respond. Getting rocks up early will also help to determine possible sets. Balance users can use Lu,Skarm, Zama or Molt, tank a hit and phase it out if things go south. Mons is very much an information game. So having Kyurem out early can reveal some parts of the opponents gameplan. For example, calc the damage of freeze dry when he uses it on your scout. Mixed sets usually dont run max spatck and if they do, their other attacks are weaker.

Another thing, its tera type variety is also easy to predict on some sets(sub+tect usually runs ground, specs set mostly run ice, dragon or ground too.). Atleast for now. DD and mixed scale shot sets are a lot harder to predict though since they might run a defensive tera to bypass possible checks so keep that in mind.

As for what I am gonna vote for, I am probably voting BAN. Maybe I will post my thoughts later but for now that is all.
Small nitpick but I do believe I came up with AV hatt the earliest, I talk about it in my spl teamdump here. If you can find evidence of av hatt being used earlier than ~week 4 of SPL XV lmk and I will relinquish that title. My original set was Psyshock/Draining Kiss/Mystical Fire/Future Sight but the popular moves have drifted away from that OG 4. I will say that people underestimate how much an invested hatt Future Sight can do, it's way stronger than glowking's uninvested one.
 
Small nitpick but I do believe I came up with AV hatt the earliest, I talk about it in my spl teamdump here. If you can find evidence of av hatt being used earlier than ~week 4 of SPL XV lmk and I will relinquish that title. My original set was Psyshock/Draining Kiss/Mystical Fire/Future Sight but the popular moves have drifted away from that OG 4. I will say that people underestimate how much an invested hatt Future Sight can do, it's way stronger than glowking's uninvested one.

Correct me if I am wrong but your SPL match was on february 11th right? The earliest AV Hatt I saw was on the february the 14th only 3 days apart. Damm brother, my apologize. Even when you weren't building a sun team, you were still helping out the sun nation.
 
that doesn't work because then your anti-gliscor tech involves tricking a toxic orb onto yourself with no way to protect from the poison. if heal bell still existed in any meaningful capacity this could be cooking but for this gen we should probably stick to magic guard (or ghold, or if you're really insane glowking) for this wacky zany gimmick
Well, I figured you could maybe Tera into Steel or Poison even though this has obvious risks against Gliscor. Or you could take the Toxic like a 2 for 1 trade and try to later Trick something else the Toxic /Orb. The most important thing is that you aren't taking chip beforehand and giving away what item you are and the strategy. So you could maybe Trick Gliscor.

However, I have actually tried it since then to be a bit more informed. Just a bit, but enough to get a feel for it. Short story is I appear to have created an unset with 4MSS. You have to drop something the Unaware set normally really likes such as Stored Power. Also, being slower than Gliscor isn't helpful since they sometimes like to Toxic you in case you switch or are Unaware. And in other matchups, Unaware mostly only performed better against Zama so far.

Sticky Barb is straight better against the faster BE mons like Moon or Valiant since you don't have to Trick if they make contact with Knock Off or what have you. It becomes far more reliable against them while still being relatively unreliable against a faster, Protect scouting Gliscor that may or may not read your ass. You are really unlikely to be able to fool your opponent if you run into them multiple times, too. It's a pure best of 1 set. On the other hand, SB can be reliably switched into BE mons even if they sort of know it is coming. This forces the opponent to play more carefully.

So I don't believe it was worth the trade off over Sticky Barb. And Magic Guard doesn't really save Pecha Berry, either, since you can still be poisoned even if you take no damage. Maybe Pecha Berry can work on other mons, but I feel like you might as well just run Sticky Barb on Clef.
 
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gen9ou
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I might make it guys... sad thing happened though. I got one loss last night right before taking my daughter to cheer and when I got back someone else had started a game that I then lost to the timer............ What I get for leaving it up I guess. So now sitting at two losses but refuse to start over I either make it with this account or I don't..
 
Going to save people trouble here for Gliscor counter. Darkrai and Deoxys Speed is the best counter to Gliscor especially Darkrai. Instead of using the usually tera Poison Darkrai, try Tera Electric, Nasty Plot, Dark Pulse, Ice Beam, and Thunderbolt. Boltbeam coverage hits with Dark Pulse can hit pretty much the whole tier and Gliscor that will always switch or protect on Darkrai and you can just Nasty plot and if Gliscor turns into Tera Water then use Thunderbolt and it's gone. Yes I know Tera Electric Darkrai is not a thing but you can try it and see if it's good. I think it will have it's niche, maybe not better than Tera Poison Sludge Bomb but a little niche at least. Besides Darkrai, you guys already know that Gliscor fears Deoxys Speed and I also see Gliscor switches out on Deoxys so I don't think people needs to worry about Gliscor being too much, plus we still have Meowscarda and Weavile who can keep Gliscor at check. Roar or Whirlwind is good into Gliscor especially if it sets up as well. Ogerpon-Wellspring is a good check to Gliscor as well. Ursaluna is a good check to Gliscor since that thing never dies and Tera Poison Latias and Cresselia are niche check to Gliscor. I think we have the right amount of mons and moves to check Gliscor, I don't think it will be menacing like in Dlc 1. That's just me but if I'm wrong then I'm wrong, but not this time.
 
Going to save people trouble here for Gliscor counter. Darkrai and Deoxys Speed is the best counter to Gliscor especially Darkrai. Instead of using the usually tera Poison Darkrai, try Tera Electric, Nasty Plot, Dark Pulse, Ice Beam, and Thunderbolt. Boltbeam coverage hits with Dark Pulse can hit pretty much the whole tier and Gliscor that will always switch or protect on Darkrai and you can just Nasty plot and if Gliscor turns into Tera Water then use Thunderbolt and it's gone.
Sorry, but Darkrai doesn't learn Thunderbolt in Gen 9. It still has Thunder, but that's extremely unreliable.
 
Sorry, but Darkrai doesn't learn Thunderbolt in Gen 9. It still has Thunder, but that's extremely unreliable.
you can lowkey go tera blast. Only 10 bp less than thunderbolt and hits to everything except steel, ghost and rock (won't usually swtich in due to focus blast) with neutral damage before tera
 
Hello OU discussion group. I was upset after seeing my baby, Gouging Fire, banned & now you want to get rid of my favorite pokemon, Kyurem? Thats sad. I will try my very best to explain why Kyurem is balanced & healthy.

1 - Kyurem has a bad typing; it is weak to rock, fighting, steel, dragon & fairy. Being weak to stealth rocks & being weak to three of the strongest offensive typing (Fighting, fairy & dragon) makes it difficult to use & decreases it longevity.

2- While Kyurem has a base stat of 130 attack & 130 special attack, this also means the developers decided not to invest in its defense & special defense. Having a middling base stat of 90 defense & 90 special defense makes it susceptible to being OHKOed by close combat from Great Tusk, Outrage Roaring Moon, Draco Meteor Raging Bolt, Make It Rain Gholdengo & more.

3- While Kyurem has a surprisingly high base stat of 125 HP, this is nothing compared to Blissey’s & Eviolite Chansey’s disgusting 500 & 255 HP respectively. Both Blissey & Chansey are unviable in OU. Therefore, Kyurem should not be a problem in OU. If OU can handle Chansey & Blissey, then surely they can handle Kyurem.

4- If we ban Kyurem, Gliscor will be in 100% of the teams. Gliscor is more annoying & problematic than Kyurem. Ask yourself, would you rather have OU infested with Kyurem in 20% of the teams or infested with Gliscor in 100% of the teams.

5- Lastly, Kyurem is a dragon type. Dragons are cool.

Thank you for reading & hopefully now you see why Kyurem must not be banned!
 

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Hello OU discussion group. I was upset after seeing my baby, Gouging Fire, banned & now you want to get rid of my favorite pokemon, Kyurem? Thats sad. I will try my very best to explain why Kyurem is balanced & healthy.


4- If we ban Kyurem, Gliscor will be in 100% of the teams. Gliscor is more annoying & problematic than Kyurem. Ask yourself, would you rather have OU infested with Kyurem in 20% of the teams or infested with Gliscor in 100% of the teams.

Thank you for reading & hopefully now you see why Kyurem must not be banned!
So what you're saying is, if Kyurem is banned, Gliscor will be demonstrably Banworthy?

I'm convinced. Ban has my vote.
 
You actually convinced me to have Kyurem banned.
I want kyurem gone, but I'm not sure if it would push gliscor over the edge or anything for that matter. I think Gliscor is not banworthy and likely wouldn't go via suspect to the dismay of some top players

The only thing I could maybe see being pushed over the edge is maybe waterpon
 
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More than the suspect test's results, regardless of the suspect's results, this community needs to focus on de-agitating itself and actually becoming less aggressive and divisive.

If you think a qualified suspect thread = fixing; you're sorely mistaken, that thread will be about as aggressive, because the two sides are both going to be in it. If you removed all of the unqualified messages from this suspect thread it doesn't become very pretty, I'll tell you that. And a big part of this is that people have gotten very good at agitation and become way more aggressive in their view of the game.

Not every suspect test is the end of the world. Not every suspect test puts the whole tier's future into balance. I want people to stop using this populist language that acts like every single suspect is life or death for entire ideologies in tiering the meta. I'm not even that active and interacting with the OU community is exhausting. There are times where you can make a stand, but when the stand is every fucking 4 weeks it just creates a long-term divisive split that has perpetuated throughout SV OU.

I'm not an old player in this community by almost any standard, having gotten into Smogon around USUM, and yet I've already seen a massive deterioration of this community what seems to be extremely quickly. Whatever you thought of the SWSH meta, the threads and community was relatively chill. Every suspect test nowadays seems to have problematic characters (new and old) and a SWSH suspect thread may have had like one problematic person. Who would usually be gone quickly and never return.

Going back and reading old USUM, SM, ORAS, etc. suspect threads from after the Bad Days were all way more chill. Way more normal.

We can reasonably guess (guess, I'm not saying this will happen) that Generation 10 will be late 2026 with Legends ZA having no PVP (like Legends Arceus), and that means we are still probably more than 2 years away from the next gen (2y3m). Even if we assumed that a new generation would help curb the problem (I don't know that to be certain), we're a long way out so we gotta buckle the fuck up.

There will be more suspects in the future, and, considering the volatility of the tier- unless the SV council just leaves it as is like USUM (despite PR threads calling for more action), we will probably get suspects leading us out of the generation. It is not sustainable for every suspect to become a drama center when we are in a generation that has called for a suspect test at a very high rate. In fact, even if we had a low number of suspects, it's generally just a bad thing, turns out.

And to make it clear again: Gatekeeping by skill isn't the answer, because that wasn't needed 3-4 years ago. And it doesn't solve the problem today, more importantly, because a lot of the people who are qualified are still falling into really toxic patterns and creating worse discourse. What's changed isn't the people who are allowed in the threads, it's the mentality people have going into the threads. Taking better players who all are really agitated and have really polarizing opinions on what the game should be and having them in a thread alone doesn't make for less toxicity, it just clears out the random r/stunfisk joinees which otherwise are in the middle of the already-qualified players engaging in pretty bad conversation.

Now, I'm not actually against the idea of the split suspect test thread, or even just gatekeeping one suspect test thread. I think it's decent logic, especially because more people are joining the community now than ever. But I don't think it solves the problem. Not the real problem. It should be done for the sake of quality in its own sake, but I don't expect this to actually make things less intense.

If any mod actually reads this and cares, I don't have any specific suggestions, because actually dealing with a community like this isn't something I'm experienced with, frankly. But I want this to become a focus because I feel like the community is deteriorating *more* over time, not less, and I think this needs to change. Considering that no matter the result of Kyurem, we are probably going to chill out on suspects for the next while, I feel that it'd be a better time than most to reconsider how we as a community talk about the game.

Less intensity.
Less dramatization.
Less absolutism.
 
What. We, people who play pokémon as adults are socially stilted? What? A surprisingly large and influencing part of our community can't disagree for twenty seconds without losing their shit?

Shocking, I tell you.

-

Seriously though. People were saying the quality of the thread was increasing. Yeah man. It increased so much it got fuckin locked LOL

Anyway. It is an interesting read - both as actual game knowledge and circus.

Now, onto actual metagame discussion.

What are everyone's thoughts on Nasty Plot A-Tales? It is tankier than it seems because of snow, it has actual decent coverage because of Freeze-Dry, it can hit everyone for SE damage with Tera Blast Ground just like Kyurem, and it can go for some infuriating Draining Kiss tech for longevity, fast Encore to win setup wars, Roar for phasing, or just screens to keep it mainstream. A meme set of course, but I'm sure someone can cook up a team to make it pop off somehow. I mean, Mugulis did it.
 
Sometimes I wish tera was banned, less because I think the mechanic is broken (I don't really care) but more so because maybe we wouldnt have this weird hostility about the tier being one ban/no ban from collapsing and attacking each other, or the weird arguments about x and y and z are teras fault so you should ban/not ban (depending on the person arguing) it. I wanted to play more mons this gen, and while some of my lack of activity has been just irl priorities, I think the community has been on edge ever since early 2023 and its just not a fun time.

I'm playing more games but havent reached good ladder numbers yet to say anything about the meta, though I think i prefer kyurem being banned over staying for now. I wish playing sv ou wasnt like playing catchup where every team becomes obsolete after a bit, I don't have much free time to teambuild :( oh well
 
What are everyone's thoughts on Nasty Plot A-Tales? It is tankier than it seems because of snow, it has actual decent coverage because of Freeze-Dry, it can hit everyone for SE damage with Tera Blast Ground just like Kyurem, and it can go for some infuriating Draining Kiss tech for longevity, fast Encore to win setup wars, Roar for phasing, or just screens to keep it mainstream. A meme set of course, but I'm sure someone can cook up a team to make it pop off somehow. I mean, Mugulis did it.
I experimented with Specs Ninetails awhile back. While it wasn't Nasty Plot, it did manage to blow some major holes in the enemy--Especially as they didn't expect it to fire off a Blizzard/Freeze Dry. It definitely felt *fun* even if it might not be the best--I think its speed tier and power is fun, and building a team around the idea seems like a fun experiment. You definitely need good bulky resists for its weaknesses and higher speed teammates though.

On the same team I used TB Fire, as it let you blow past Gambit and Ghold easier. This was before Moltres was popular though, so results might vary now. Might tank my elo again to try it out cuz I love to go down 300 in one day.
 
I experimented with Specs Ninetails awhile back. While it wasn't Nasty Plot, it did manage to blow some major holes in the enemy--Especially as they didn't expect it to fire off a Blizzard/Freeze Dry. It definitely felt *fun* even if it might not be the best--I think its speed tier and power is fun, and building a team around the idea seems like a fun experiment. You definitely need good bulky resists for its weaknesses and higher speed teammates though.

On the same team I used TB Fire, as it let you blow past Gambit and Ghold easier. This was before Moltres was popular though, so results might vary now. Might tank my elo again to try it out cuz I love to go down 300 in one day.

That sounds like fun. I thought of NP because 1) that is a niche that Kyurem can't fill and 2) its damage scales stupid fast, though 81 Sp. Atk. simply doesn't cut it without boosts (even more so if using Freeze Dry instead of Blizzard).

NP has some synergy with Draining Kiss too, and you're less reliant on using your item for damage so you can go HDB and make sure you can get on the field more than once if necessary.

At +2 with a Timid set you'll just one-shot Gambit and Ghold with TB Ground. Toxic Glowking is also a nasty check though because Sub is a bit unwieldy without recovery, but luckily it isn't too common in my experience.

This is all theory, of course. I'm excited to hear of your elo descent with it
 
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