Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

pika pal said:
It is, Stall is just not the most common playstyle on the latter for reasons of both practice and match-time (compared to tournaments where you only need to win a handful of matches against people at a higher skill ceiling and thus value consistency even if individual battles are longer). It just also hasn't had the strongest time in this tracking period thanks to Kyurem, and Gliscor probably won't make that much easier picking up in the latter's wake.
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Match time is unironically important when it comes to usage as more time spent per game means less overall games played. Glad you brought this up, as this conversely makes primarily HO pokemon have higher usage stats too. For example while Iron Valiant isn't an easy Pokemon to slot on non HO/offense (sometimes BO uses it), its usage is still very high partially because it's very easy to play tons of Ival HO games due to game speed. People should keep this in a mind a little bit when looking at usage stats, obviously match time isn't the end all be all but it does play a part slightly.
 
I don’t think Gliscor’s brokenness is as closely correlated to Kyurem’s placement as people lead on to believe.

Kyurem itself defeats Gliscor in the same way most Pokemon with strong Ice moves do. It can swap in once or twice, but ultimately does not want to be taking repeated EQ/Facade, let alone Knock Off or Toxic. This is especially true with Heavy-Duty Boots variants of it losing steam, giving it less entry opportunities. In addition, you see Tera Normal on things like SD Gliscor, which beats most Kyurem sets.

This is the same dynamic Gliscor has with Ice Beam Darkrai or non-Synthesis Ogerpon-Wellspring — they can switch in once and maybe twice, but ultimately do not often outlast Gliscor and instead function as strong checks. Losing one of these is noteworthy of course, but this alone isn’t going to make or break a case for Gliscor

It is perfectly valid to think Gliscor is broken and an eventual suspect is possible, but saying that a Kyurem ban instantly means a Gliscor ban is needed is a stretch. I see this connection made and correlation assumed far too often.

This isn’t even me saying Gliscor is fine or not — I will make a stance on that in the near future, but rather me saying we should critically think here rather than lazily pointing fingers.
 
UltraSword said:
I was genuinely shocked that clodsire was going to drop to uu when I saw the tier Shift predictions in September. How the heck did this happen? I thought clodsire was one of the better stall/defensive mons
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I can answer this, pex. Pex is the current poison mon of choice atm most people who main stall new clod was gonna drop
 
Finchinator said:
you see Tera Normal on things like SD Gliscor, which beats most Kyurem sets.
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To expand on this; the main set people are worrying about is Sp.Def Swords Dance Gliscor, and that set already beats Kyurem technically via Tera. You Swords dance with Gliscor at the same time as the 1 time Kyurem switch in, and with Tera-Normal Facade you threaten non Specs Kyurem everytime. You do still live Specs Kyurem besides Tera-Dragon Draco Meteor which is fake, but you do take a lot more damage so leveraging Tera on Glisc to kill/heavily damage Specs Kyurem is a bit more complicated.

+2 0 Atk Tera Normal Gliscor Facade (140 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Kyurem: 315-372 (80.5 - 95.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Basically any chip will make the KO certain and regardless this trade is very good since Gliscor can heal off the Kyurem damage later in exchange for doing 90 to it.

In return the damage Gliscor risk taking from non specs Kyurem is this:
252 SpA Kyurem Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 228+ SpD Tera Normal Gliscor: 130-154 (36.9 - 43.7%) -- 12.1% chance to 3HKO after Poison Heal

If glisc is creeped for bolt then this is the damage calc:
252 SpA Kyurem Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252 SpD Tera Normal Gliscor: 139-165 (39.4 - 46.8%) -- 87.1% chance to 3HKO after Poison Heal

As you can see that damage for Gliscor is pretty marginal once you shave off 12% due to poison heal so its about 24%-31% of damage from non specs, which Specs Kyurem was falling off pretty drastically by the time of the ban due to new hazard stack balances among other issues it had prior already. Also that base 24%-31% is further mitigated by using Protect turns after the first hit...

You could then shift base and say "well Kyurem forces Tera on Gliscor" but Gliscor doesn't mind because the trade is insanely favorable and Gliscor usually want's to Tera-Normal for the Facade boost anyways. I don't think Kyurem is an end all be all answer to Gliscor besides arguably Specs sets but those weren't being used much, nor do they consistently kill even the less Sp.def invested Gliscor spreads. In fact you could 100% argue that the Tera-Normal Gliscor vs Kyurem situation is favorable for Gliscor lol. In my opinion Gliscor was already broken before Kyurem ban but that's a different topic for another day.

252 SpA Choice Specs Kyurem Draco Meteor vs. 244 HP / 252 SpD Tera Normal Gliscor: 301-355 (85.5 - 100.8%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
 
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UltraSword said:
If toxapex becomes ou again I am going to be so upset
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just being in ou again doesn't necessarily make it as great as it was before. pex is way too passive now to effectively fit on a lot of the team structures it was fitting on in 7 and 8. it used to be way more splashable because it had the extremely good progress-making tools of scald and knock off. nowadays the infamous "the pex" set has to make do with surf or liquidation off of absolutely miserable offensive stats, if it runs an attack at all, and its main way of making progress is through toxic, which is not really a fantastic way of doing that (both because there are a lot of good poison-immune mons and because toxic's immediate damage is very small and you can reset it via switching so switch-heavy teams aren't affected by it as much as they'd be from scald or knock off). recently people have expanded into assault vest pex, but honestly i'm not buying it because its best progress-making tools are "hope the opponent stays in after an acid spray" and "pray for ice beam or sludge bomb to proc"
 
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Yeah, what made Toxapex broken was:
1. Knock Off + Regenerator.
2. Scald.
3. 16 Recover PPs.

Recovery lose didn,t affect Pex as much as other Mons, since its still has Regenerator. However, losing both Knock and Scald makes poison immune Mons (which there are a lot in OU even before Tera) free switch-ins into Pex. Without either Knock or Scald, it will never be dominating OU again.
 
I don't think toxapex is broken or anything I was just saying I don't want it to be ranked ou. It is annoying as hell and if it stays uu every gen I would be happy
 
Eeveeto said:
Yeah, what made Toxapex broken was:
1. Knock Off + Regenerator.
2. Scald.
3. 16 Recover PPs.

Recovery lose didn,t affect Pex as much as other Mons, since its still has Regenerator. However, losing both Knock and Scald makes poison immune Mons (which there are a lot in OU even before Tera) free switch-ins into Pex. Without either Knock or Scald, it will never be dominating OU again.
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If only Corrosive Gas was a TM this gen, it would be able to remove items just without dealing damage
 
UltraSword said:
I don't think toxapex is broken or anything I was just saying I don't want it to be ranked ou. It is annoying as hell and if it stays uu every gen I would be happy
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no yeah but like we're saying that bc its a very easy mindtrap you know? like u think bc a mon is RU it has no OU viability and forget about it. zapdos was UU for the last three months and i feel like every second post talked about it lately. i don't think pex is going to suddenly be the most viable mon ever in OU but it's still there and you should consider it, however minimally you'd like to, but consider it
 
MC Squared said:
If only Corrosive Gas was a TM this gen, it would be able to remove items just without dealing damage
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Yeah, instead of giving Knock Off to almost every Mon back, they shoudn,t have Dexited Corrosive Gas. Pex didn,t even have the move, but 2 very cool Mons, Weezing and Vileplume, did, meaning they could force some progress in almost every battle while not being obnoxious to play against, like Knock Off Pex was.
 
arnimacarni said:
no yeah but like we're saying that bc its a very easy mindtrap you know? like u think bc a mon is RU it has no OU viability and forget about it. zapdos was UU for the last three months and i feel like every second post talked about it lately. i don't think pex is going to suddenly be the most viable mon ever in OU but it's still there and you should consider it, however minimally you'd like to, but consider it
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I know that but I just don't want toxapex to have the satisfaction of being ranked ou you know? If I didn't appreciate lower ranked pokemon in ou I wouldn't have started my Random Mons Of OU series
 
Naw, we do not need to Kokoloko out Ogerpon-Wellspring, Raging Bolt, Roaring Moon, Zamazenta, and Darkrai if Gliscor goes as it doesn't have that much impact on any of those mons' viaibility. It's not even a good Raging Bolt check due to its low raw special bulk and weak Earthquake if Raging Bolt Teras out of its Ground weakness.

Zamazenta is 100% fair and balanced and really has no business being suspected or banned.
 
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peepeepoopoo722 said:
if we do move onto gliscor next, especially quickly, as opposed to an alternate path including tera blast & sig moves then i unironically support kookookookoo method removing wog glisc bolt moon zama rai at once. and then prob ghould & kingambit. might as well be efficient about it.
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Fixing a problem that isn't there by blowing up the entire tier is crazy. How is kokoloko even remotely necessary? Most of those mons don't even deserve a suspect, let alone a quickban. Even if they were suspected, the only one I can see getting 60% (and that's still a big maybe) is Gliscor. No way people still think ou is in a state of emergency in 2024... this isn't gen 8, people gotta accept that it is ok for progress to be made outside of knock, status fishing, future sight, and pult spdef drops lol.

The standard for what is broken has changed a long time ago. It's fine for something to not have a definitive hard check/counter. There doesn't need to be an equivalent of gen 8 heatran to gen 8 volcarona for every mon. Most offensive threats, even if you for some reason don't have an answer to it, can still be managed/limited through good positioning, tera timing, and hazards/priority anyway.
 
Moisture99 said:
this isn't gen 8, people gotta accept that it is ok for progress to be made outside of knock, status fishing, and pult spdef drops lol.
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You know it's okay to defend Gen9, but what is with the desire some of you have for taking pot shots at gen8 like it's a bad meta? People like it, more people do like it now, and it's really silly. The metas are different.

I agree nothing really stands out as overly broken but come on.
 
Avira said:
Naw, we do not need to Kokoloko out Ogerpon-Wellspring, Raging Bolt, Roaring Moon, Zamazenta, and Darkrai if Gliscor goes as it doesn't that much impact on any of those mons' visibility. It's not even a good Raging Bolt check due to its low raw special bulk and weak Earthquake if Raging Bolt Teras out of its Ground weakness.

Zamazenta is 100% fair and balanced and really has no business being suspected or banned.
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Zamazenta is (at least one of) the most problematic defensive Pokemon in the history of the OU tier. The three things that normally limit defensive Pokemon, low speed, low attacking stats, and/or a low defensive stat, are not present in Zamazenta, in fact, it has the opposite of all three and the coverage to beat all of its checks. To win with Zamazenta, all you need to do is remove a team’s special attackers, bring it in, and click ID once or twice before BPing the enemy to death. It can easily Tera to avoid status or flip a matchup and has the natural bulk to live basically any unboosted supereffective attack and a lot of boosted supereffective attacks as well, and force good matchups with Roar. “B-but it stops the tier from folding to Kingambit” now it’s my turn to say the line: “broken checks broken is not tier policy” (Gambit isn’t broken anyways, most people agree that the tier has long since adapted to its presence and stretched the upper limits of its rather low set variety)

Something something yet another Tera abuser.

You’d think that with the Kyurem ban people would target the other 660 BST box legend in the tier but it seems like a lot of people truly do believe that defensive mons can never be broken.
 
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Rather than arguing about or crusading for previous biases, maybe we should wait for the meta to settle more? We just had two bans in a relatively short amount of time. I personally agreed with both, but it's going to take awhile for the meta to settle. The conventional wisdom on what the tier is right now is just as likely to change in several weeks to a month or so as it is to stay relatively the same. Innovations are likely being made as we speak.
 
Seraphyde said:
Zamazenta is (at least one of) the most problematic defensive Pokemon in the history of the OU tier. The three things that normally limit defensive Pokemon, low speed, low attacking stats, and/or a low defensive stat, are not present in Zamazenta, in fact, it has the opposite of all three and the coverage to beat all of its checks.
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Way more goes into a Pokemon's viability than just it's stats. There movepools, typing, competition within the role said Pokemon has, how the Pokemon does against other common Pokemon in the metagame, it's ability, how reliant it is on it's item, etc.

For instance Zamazenta while having a good movepool, it has issues regarding 4 moveslot syndrome but also a lack of high base power options. If you look through the movepool the highest base power attack you'll see is Stone Edge, and Close Combat which is limited to all out attacker variants. However Stone Edge isn't a key part of it's coverage as it's just to hit Moltres, Zapdos, and Dragonite and there's issues with accuracy as well. All other options are Crunch, Ice Fang, Body Press which have a noticeable lack of power even with un-boosted Body Press. To expand further on the 4 Moveslot syndrome problem, Zamazenta has tons of options yes but it has to pick what it loses to. Beyond just attacks there's also utility options in Rest, Substitute, Roar, Iron Defense all of which being similarly valuable to eachother. Now to other points you'll also realize that Zamazenta while having a good ability, it isn't 1 that is broken mindlessly as it normally needs the initial defense boost to deal with big threats like Roaring Moon or Ogerpon-Wellspring. This means you do have to time your switch in's which is a complex and difficult aspect of the Pokemon when using it, showing that yes there is more to the game than just stats. I could go on and on about how Zamazenta over relies on Boots to stay healthy, or how meta relevant Pokemon like Gholdengo or Slowking-Galar keep it in check but my main point is stats aren't the end all be all of a Pokemon, and this should be gotten across by now.
 
Seraphyde said:
Zamazenta is the most problematic defensive Pokemon in the history of the OU tier. The three things that normally limit defensive Pokemon, low speed, low attacking stats, and/or a low defensive stat, are not present in Zamazenta, in fact, it has the opposite of all three and the coverage to beat all of its checks. To win with Zamazenta, all you need to do is remove a team’s special attackers, bring it in, and click ID once or twice before BPing the enemy to death.

You’d think that with the Kyurem ban people would target the other 660 BST box legend in the tier but it seems like a lot of people truly do believe that defensive mons can never be broken.
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Okay, seriously, defensive pokemon can be broken. Look at mega sableye in Gen 6, which while it was banned on the last day of the gen, WAS banned. The reason why defensive mons are inherently less banworthy is because there are inherently more issues with them, such as being overwhelmed over time, status and wallbreakers.
Also can we stop saying that zamazenta has no counters? Seriously, this mon has some many checks or counters, that I would have to have 5 hands in order to properly count them. And while yes, it CAN technically have the move to decimate one of your checks to it, it has to give up something big in order to hit them. Oh, it clicked sub on your toxic gliscor? Well, now your iron valiant permanently walls it as bp is doing dicks damage. Oh, it heavy slam'd your hatterene? Cool, now moltres/zapdos walls it completely and can fish for flame body or static. Roar'd out your other mon that was trying to setup besides it? Now your gliscor can toxic or knock off its lefties.
Alomomola
Clefable
Corviknight (needs helmet, but if it does, then its a win)
Deoxys-Speed
Dondozo
Dragapult
Dragonite (encore or hurricane beats zama)
Enamorus
Gholdengo
Gliscor
Hatterene
Iron Moth
Iron Valiant
Landorus Therian
Moltres
Primarina
Slowking Galar
Zapdos
Clodsire
Okidogi
Pecharunt
Sinistcha
Skeledirge
Skarmory (needs helmet, but that's fine)
Toxapex
TERA GHOST
This is only accounting for OU and UU mons, which is saying something if even more mons can beat most variants of zama (like fezandipiti). And this list includes both offensive and defensive counters, and most teams will have one or more of these mons on a team. Also if one of your offensive mons doesn't have tera ghost.... what kind of offensive team are you making.
Zamazenta is completely fine, and frankly, is one of the healthiest mons in the tier. It helps keep offensive teams in check, while said offensive teams have outs against it. Against any team with a defensive backbone, its going to flounder into them as said mon will probably check it decently well regardless of the set.
 
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