Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

I spectate a lot of 1500+ OU ladder games because my job is very boring, very easy, and has little oversight.

I feel like I've been seeing Tyranitar everywhere the past 3 days. Not just a few people either, but lots of Tyranitar mirrors. Just a weird trend I guess. Tried it for myself and shot up 200 points to a new peak rating for me.

So yeah, I guess Tyranitar is riding a (brief) upswing is cool.
 
I think that a Pokemon a bit underexplored rn is Iron Hands. From my experience, I think it’s really good at trading positively (which is important aganist trending teamstyles like Lokix Offense or Webs) while being a problem aganist fat teams if you get a couple of reads right.

While being hella slow the bulk is insane. I think that it can also be creative with Tera. Poison for Toxic so you cook Gliscor, Fire for burns so you stomp Moltres or flying to snipe EP Kyurem or tank Moonblast and KO Enamorus are some examples
 
I think that a Pokemon a bit underexplored rn is Iron Hands. From my experience, I think it’s really good at trading positively (which is important aganist trending teamstyles like Lokix Offense or Webs) while being a problem aganist fat teams if you get a couple of reads right.

While being hella slow the bulk is insane. I think that it can also be creative with Tera. Poison for Toxic so you cook Gliscor, Fire for burns so you stomp Moltres or flying to snipe EP Kyurem or tank Moonblast and KO Enamorus are some examples
I want to build a team around Misty Terrain Galar Weezing and Misty Seed Iron Hands.

252+ SpA Primarina Moonblast vs. +1 0 HP / 0 SpD Iron Hands: 306-362 (68.1 - 80.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

With the right EV spread and Tera Typing, this thing can become a monster
 
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I think that a Pokemon a bit underexplored rn is Iron Hands. From my experience, I think it’s really good at trading positively (which is important aganist trending teamstyles like Lokix Offense or Webs) while being a problem aganist fat teams if you get a couple of reads right.

While being hella slow the bulk is insane. I think that it can also be creative with Tera. Poison for Toxic so you cook Gliscor, Fire for burns so you stomp Moltres or flying to snipe EP Kyurem or tank Moonblast and KO Enamorus are some examples
The main issue iron hands has is that it's an incredibly straightforward mon. It has very little set variety and the majority of it is boiled down to cheese strats like quick claw, outside of just the AV/CB/anything else sets. Belly drum is a huge gimmick with unaware mons like clef or dozo running around. It can be powerful (and it clearly is with how fast it was quickbanned from UU) but it's really straightforward and all of its gameplans are incredibly abusable by a pretty solid portion of the metagame.
 
turns out that being quite possibly the best check to SD gliscor in the game (though obviously not by itself) does get you quite far. corviknight can also check kingambit and non-taunt RM with iron defense sets, in addition to walling other physical attackers like great tusk and dragonite. it has quite a few flaws obviously but i'd say it's a very good pokemon in the current meta, but it is surprising that it's seeing more high-ladder usage than gliscor itself
I think you covered it yourself: Corv is a solid form of counterplay to Gliscor on top of several other Members of the Meta, whether directly or by shifting momentum, since a lot of high level mons are such where they're dangerous if you can't grab a turn against them (Gliscor threatening Toxic but fearing Ice/Other Bulky set-up, Kyurem hitting hard but not being a Speedy OHKO machine necessarily, Dragonite wanting to sweep the first time it gets a DD thanks to Multiscale volatility) but become a lot more manageable with that pivot positioning.

The counterplay mon frequently being used more than the target it's brought to manage I recall also being the case with things like Seismitoed in the Dracovish meta (nowhere near as extreme here obviously) since you might run it without knowing for sure you'll see that threat, and in Corv's case it pulls weight against enough targets that it can be worth finding a spot for even if you have Gliscor handled.

I think that a Pokemon a bit underexplored rn is Iron Hands. From my experience, I think it’s really good at trading positively (which is important aganist trending teamstyles like Lokix Offense or Webs) while being a problem aganist fat teams if you get a couple of reads right.

While being hella slow the bulk is insane. I think that it can also be creative with Tera. Poison for Toxic so you cook Gliscor, Fire for burns so you stomp Moltres or flying to snipe EP Kyurem or tank Moonblast and KO Enamorus are some examples
I've never been good enough to make it work myself but I've always believed Iron Hands has something going for it in OU. It has some nasty weaknesses (Ground, Fairy in particular), but they're also not too numerous so it's usually easy to identify what to remove or avoid for it to put in work. Its bulk is also genuinely hard to undersell. Thanks to the generally-neutral profile for it taking hits (Electric and Dark Resists are nothing to sneeze at as a counter balance to the weaknesses), Hands feels like it makes pretty good use of Tera past the initial surprise-flip turn a lot of mons are famous for, since it's already tanking more on the back of its stats than Resistances. It ditching a weakness is often enough to flip its match-up against a lot of mons without having to make it an outright resistance: Ice to avoid a Ground weakness is enough to manage against Specs Kyurem for example, while powering up Ice Punch into some bulky targets, and while Ice is infamously lacking in resists, it can get by on neutrality for the rest of the type chart given it's primarily good at making important trades.

252 SpA Choice Specs Kyurem Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 172 SpD Tera Ice Iron Hands: 349-412 (77.7 - 91.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ground Kyurem Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 172 SpD Tera Ice Iron Hands: 243-286 (54.1 - 63.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ice Kyurem Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 172 SpD Tera Ice Iron Hands: 162-191 (36 - 42.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

252+ Atk Tera Ice Iron Hands Drain Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Kyurem: 312-368 (79.7 - 94.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Tera Ice Iron Hands Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Ground Kyurem: 312-368 (79.7 - 94.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

This one's more of an Edgy case but I hope it does give an idea how much Iron Hands can survive if it's not a SE snipe (and this is without factoring an item like BE, AV, or Leftovers partly because I don't know what its preferred consideration would be at this time).

Being able to force an ACTUAL guessing game against Kingambit and its infamous fake 50/50's has to mean something (Fire chosen for Burn blocking plus resistance to IH and Fire/Fairy Blast Gambit, Steel will yield the same Calcs if using some tech like Heavy Slam though).

What follows is me obsessing over a bunch of math that probably won't happen in too many matches, but I find fun to dissect, so will spoiler and it can be skipped as impractical if chosen, though I standby checking Gambit as a legitimate point in its favor.

252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Tera Fairy Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Hands: 90-107 (20 - 23.8%) -- possible 6HKO
252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Tera Fairy Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Fire Iron Hands: 181-214 (40.3 - 47.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

+2 252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Fire Iron Hands: 363-427 (80.8 - 95.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Tera Fairy Kingambit Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Hands: 416-492 (92.6 - 109.5%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Tera Fire Iron Hands Supercell Slam vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Fairy Kingambit: 162-192 (47.5 - 56.3%) -- 25.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ Atk Tera Fire Iron Hands Supercell Slam vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Fairy Kingambit: 322-381 (94.4 - 111.7%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

Off-Tera Kingambit is now playing its own 50/50 on Hands Teraing (Drain Punch obviously busts it so King has to use its own if available) to sneak a Tera Blast on base vs a Sucker Punch on Tera. If it Tera Blasts a Tera Hands, the latter can go to +2 off a ~25-50% hit depending on the type chosen; Sucker into Un-Tera'd hands meanwhile plinks off with enough health for Hands to Supercell it again while out of neutral-Sucker range, nevermind fizzling on SD to be in OHKO range or minimal remaining on a Supercell hit.

For simplicity sake, I'm operating with the following parameters
  • Iron Hands always goes for SD on Turn 1, since Drain Punch can fizzle into a Kingambit Tera while SD always leaves a winning option for Turn 2.
  • Kingambit is Tera Fairy due to turning into a guaranteed OHKO at +0on base Iron Hands. Tera Blast Ghost has a roll to OHKO at +2, but comes with its own caveats like a Dark Weakness for opposing Gambit and redundant coverage if actually running Tera Blast to begin with (given Kowtow has no way to scare base-Typing Hands), so I've elected not to consider Tera Ghost TB due to worsening Gambit's play against the rest of the Meta (whether vs TB Fairy or pure-Defensive Tera Ghost) and that I'm already spending way too much obsession on this one match-up as is.
  • For the sake of argument I will consider being within a SR's worth of chip to be a "loss" since even with Leftovers these mons are hard to keep Pristine all game and it favors Gambit if anything since Hands jumps from ~50% to ~100% Damage ranges and thus lands almost precisely on OHKO/2HKO rolls even without hazards.

Iron Hands TerasIron Hands doesn't Tera
Kingambit Tera BlastsIron Hands survives to +2 and any follow-up Hands wins on a SCS hitKingambit KOs Gambit Wins
Kingambit does not Tera BlastHands takes 40-45% and +2 boosts Hands wins on hitGambit STABS cap at 27% while Hands boosts Hands Wins on hit
Kingambit Swords Dances Both are +2, Sucker Punch does 80-95% as the best hit while Supercell has a 68% OHKO chance. 12.5% chance to KO Hands after SR, 95% chance to land SCS which will OHKO after SR =83% chance Hands wins.
(For the curious no chip is a 65% chance surviving SP for sure but then having to roll on a SCS hit).
Both are +2, back to guessing for the big Sucker Punch vs all-or-nothing Tera Blast into Base hands. Neutral 50/50 again between Kingambit's move and Hands Tera or not


So that whole mess of a Table/Matrix (which is still a bit simplified admittedly) is to say if Hands has Tera available, even something Scary like a 5-KO's-Tera-Ready Gambit is a pretty safe match-up for it, requiring guessing games for Gambit to keep up assuming it has the right Tera type (Tera Dark power can't really flip this, and most other Tera types/Blasts are either worse against the Meta overall or leave even less fighting chance against Hands in the case of Fire or Flying).

Given Gambit is so controversial, balanced enough to keep or a suspect in a few months and surveys' time, being able to challenge it in what is its most optimal circumstance, given the choice matrix its moves and power lead to, feels like it's a noteworthy aspect to me.
 
Speaking as a regular participant in Smogon Official Team Tournaments, the combination of “gamble” and “ou” in Finch’s tweet makes me finally think they’re adding a method via the forums to bet on tournament matches for the upcoming SPL, which has been long discussed as a way to fundraise prize pools with the vig.

Looking forward to Smogon finally taking a step into the modern age for a change, see you guys in the Smogtours Game Corner in a month!
 
Thread re-opened and immediately caught on fire, GG

Anyways, an interesting trend last month was the rise of Corviknight usage, especially in the 1825+ range, seeing higher usage than staples like Iron Valiant, Gliscor, and Samurott-Hisui. What do you think of Corviknight? Still a Gholdengo victim? Secretly the best Pokemon in OU?
Corv is weird because it's a staple while also having severe problems. I think it's at least A- and really valuable for checking SD scor, but I do think SD scor isn't as good as people were saying, even without kyurem, and is on a downturn as of now.
 
Really? We're surprised Corviknight is seeing high usage? It’s been a top-tier utility mon for a while now, and its versatility is undeniable. Comparing it to Gliscor is a stretch—Corviknight's defensive presence and Iron Defense set are leagues apart from Gliscor’s offensive playstyle. And honestly, if you're going to make comparisons, why not bring up **Skarmory** instead? It shares more in common with Corviknight in terms of defensive roles. Any council members weighing in on this? It’s time for a more focused discussion.
correction* SD gliscor's offensive playstyle. most non-sd sets are very passive and are good because of gliscor's complete inability to die.
 
correction* SD gliscor's offensive playstyle. most non-sd sets are very passive and are good because of gliscor's complete inability to die.
That's not even true; most scor sets are not passive at all and are great at making progress. It's biggest problem is air balloon steels that it can't touch with the standard eq/toxic/spikes, but people have started going either eq/toxic/uturn or spikes pivot sets to get around that.
 
Speaking as a regular participant in Smogon Official Team Tournaments, the combination of “gamble” and “ou” in Finch’s tweet makes me finally think they’re adding a method via the forums to bet on tournament matches for the upcoming SPL, which has been long discussed as a way to fundraise prize pools with the vig.

Looking forward to Smogon finally taking a step into the modern age for a change, see you guys in the Smogtours Game Corner in a month!
This sure as hell ain’t happening LOL
 
Struggling to see what else it could be if it's not Smogon increasing the role of PokeTubers in the community with direct links to their channels. Given Finchinator mentioned some content creators are hyped, surely whatever the big change is has something to do with influencers. Maybe there will be an option to call select PokeTubers for help when building teams and have one of those on the approved list answer your call.

Finchinator did hint in one of his recent posts that there'd be a cool option to help the community build, and this is the only thing that comes to mind. Asking a PokeTuber for help live with plays during a game would obviously not be allowed since it'd encourage cheating during suspect tests, so after eliminating all other options, getting help in teambuilding from influencers is what I have landed on.

Given Finchinator said the change could impact the metagame, maybe he believes influencers helping players build teams will increase the average skill level of the playerbase, and that could be what materially impacts the meta. One of the bigger complaints about Gen 9 is how hard it is to get into the game, and this could help bridge the gap between lesser-skilled players and good players by improving people's teambuilding skills.
 
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You’re reading into thinks way too literally. This isn’t Taylor Swift lyrics or some grand scavenger hunt. I would like you guys to relax just a tad on this front. There are five hundred thousand possibilities if we are being real here, so odds are the collective buy-in will not be enough to guess it in the next few days.

All I said was that there was going to be something that could be exciting and help builds interest within the community that a few content creators found interesting. We aren’t changing anything drastically in the metagame without proper channels and we aren’t altering the function of Smogon itself.
 
Maybe it's some way to teach new players how to like... be good at the game (for lack of better phrasing). I've always wanted PS to have some sort of puzzles akin to lichess/chess.com puzzles that are meant to teach players stuff that is generally hard to learn through just playing the game. Stuff like lead matchups, hazard management, RNG management, and the like are generally really hard for new players to pick up (not even getting into proper teambuilding)
also adds to the whole "content creators think it'll be hype" thing because short and sweet puzzles are lowkey pretty easy to farm content on whether for videos or tutorials or even just background content.

Plenty of experienced players will probably not need this (although they might use it to help get into new metagames and other stuff) but it would really help tone down the learning curve especially now with a metagame containing so much powercreep and a noticeably higher skill floor than other metagames.
 
This sure as hell ain’t happening LOL
1733435497300.jpeg




Just so like this isn't completely a meme post, whats up with 4 of the A- ranks being UU? Are they just hard to fit on teams or is the VR dated.
 
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Just so like this isn't completely a meme post, whats up with 4 of the A- ranks being UU? Are they just hard to fit on teams or is the VR dated.

Mix of VR being outdated and ladder just refusing to use good mons. Weavile, Sinistcha, and Tinkaton are all good mons and had over 4.52% usage in SCL, but their usage is bizarrely decreasing on ladder (at least for weav and tink, don't know about sinistcha). Ogerpon Teal just isn't really that good, certainly viable but its not A- worthy.
 
You’re reading into thinks way too literally. This isn’t Taylor Swift lyrics or some grand scavenger hunt. I would like you guys to relax just a tad on this front. There are five hundred thousand possibilities if we are being real here, so odds are the collective buy-in will not be enough to guess it in the next few days.

All I said was that there was going to be something that could be exciting and help builds interest within the community that a few content creators found interesting. We aren’t changing anything drastically in the metagame without proper channels and we aren’t altering the function of Smogon itself.
I totally understand this, but do understand that people will naturally let their imagination run wild when things like "gambling the future of ou" is said. I'm not trying to say how things should be worded, especially when you didn't even bring your tweets to the thread, but people seem to be ambivalent to annoyed with the status quo and they're excited to hear something framed as bold.

For whatever its worth, I'm looking forward to whatever the project is alongside how the metagame continues to develop despite the (current) gridlock of tiering action through the survey. Tera Blast suspect believers let your votes be heard
 
I think that a Pokemon a bit underexplored rn is Iron Hands. From my experience, I think it’s really good at trading positively (which is important aganist trending teamstyles like Lokix Offense or Webs) while being a problem aganist fat teams if you get a couple of reads right.

While being hella slow the bulk is insane. I think that it can also be creative with Tera. Poison for Toxic so you cook Gliscor, Fire for burns so you stomp Moltres or flying to snipe EP Kyurem or tank Moonblast and KO Enamorus are some examples
1733425183637.png

I tried it before the second Kyurem suspect - with all that bulk, surely it can do something with it, i figured.

:sv/iron hands:
Iron Hands @ Punching Glove
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch

I feel Punching Glove is the best item for it; you get a slight boost on your punching moves and get to avoid all those nasty contact punishers, and I chose Tera Bug thanks to inspiration from Vert mentioning Raging Bolt in OLT. Now that Kyurem's staying for the forseeable future, Tera Flying is kind of a throw.

Gotta say, though, even with the damaging moves, this mon always seems to come up short on things, and max speed is pretty much required to keep Kingambit from potentially just slam-dunking you with a boosted Low Kick. Bit of a Tera Hog too, thanks to all its relevant weaknesses.
 
or so he claims. What could this mean? How deep will this go? Even something as big as tera would come down to a suspect.
I think for the most part we should disregard this and not take it very seriously. Not only has he pretty specifically said it's not about tiering action but also Finch has a pretty established history of being vague and joking around on twitter. Most likely this is an upcoming event he is trying to generate hype for such as another Fight Night or something similar, if it doesn't end up being just a segue into posting a screenshot of discord with a joke in it. Remember folks:

IMG_3091.jpeg
 
Thread re-opened and immediately caught on fire, GG

Anyways, an interesting trend last month was the rise of Corviknight usage, especially in the 1825+ range, seeing higher usage than staples like Iron Valiant, Gliscor, and Samurott-Hisui. What do you think of Corviknight? Still a Gholdengo victim? Secretly the best Pokemon in OU?

its main benefit right now especially over skarmory is its ability to take special hits better therefore checking okay special attackers like non-specs kyurem, iron valiant, enamorus and primarina. Its physical walling capability is still very strong as well, with ladder being addicted to Lokix (cant break walls), and the fall of encore dragonite and taunt roaring moon preferring 3 attacks or 2 attacks roost and bulky roost tera ground respectively in the current meta. After mentioning all these offensive trends, corviknight actually has a really good MU vs current offense teams. Not to mention SD gliscor being the main sweeper for a lot of balance teams getting hard walled and pp stalled by Iron Defense Body Press.

Pecharunt is also currently the trend for OU in every team style but stall, and corv hard walls and PP Stalls hex + malignant, while getting the slow U-turn againts it. Theres this extremely famous team style in tournament and i assume ladder too which i love to call "The hellom Six" where it has Samurott-Hisui, Pecharunt, Zama, Landorus, Kingambit + 1 and its famously weak againts and notoriously gets 6-0d by corviknight as the special attackers on it (Usually kyurem, hydreigon, latios) doesn't really have a good match up againts corv, and even having a raging bolt, specs dragapult or Moltres instead in this slot doesnt fix this teams issue of being pivoted on which gives corv a huge boost as one of the most used teams sucks againts it. Not to mention Stall being huge on ladder inflates corv's usage.

Yes dengo is still really good and corv is a victim of it, but having all these good MU's and dengo competing with pecharunt as the bulky ghost, its not actually that bad.
 
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Maybe it's some way to teach new players how to like... be good at the game (for lack of better phrasing). I've always wanted PS to have some sort of puzzles akin to lichess/chess.com puzzles that are meant to teach players stuff that is generally hard to learn through just playing the game. Stuff like lead matchups, hazard management, RNG management, and the like are generally really hard for new players to pick up (not even getting into proper teambuilding)
also adds to the whole "content creators think it'll be hype" thing because short and sweet puzzles are lowkey pretty easy to farm content on whether for videos or tutorials or even just background content.
My only problem with this, other than good lord that's a lot of programming, is that unless new puzzles are constantly being made, the older puzzles will become dated. Yes, their principles will still be applicable, like not sending your clean up against a healthy Roaring Moon, but as bans come and go, generations change, and the meta starts to shift (a good example imo is pecharunt coming to ou), most people won't be able to use what they've learned to get better at ladder/tournaments, as, and it's a bit subjective as im the data point, they won't learn the point, but rather what's making the point (send this guy against that one, switch against gholdengo (maybe dont, i dunno)). I'd love to see it happen, but unless youre willing to pump the work in, it might hinder growth instead of encouraging it.
 
Weavile, for example, has often been outclassed by faster or bulkier alternatives that fit better in contemporary team structures,
I think an issue with Weavile is that inconsistent mons give offense free turns and that really sucks in the gen 9 meta. Depending so much on Triple Axel feels terrible, one game you hit all of them and the next you miss on Roaring Moon and it knocks you out. Or you knock Ghold and it turns into a fairy type and wipes you out. Same with Heatran, if it misses magma storm, you just give the other team a turn to do whatever they want. Oops, Heatran missed magma storm and now Lando gets a free U Turn or rocks. Out of current metagame staples, I think only Iron Moth and Raging Bolt have similar inconsistency, with Iron Moth relying immensely on the Fiery Dance boost for a sweep and Raging Bolt hating ground types. However, these two mons have advantages that outweigh this, while mons like Weavile and Tran have other shortcomings that drag them down further.
 
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