Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

It's cute you think I would be a fan bud but theres a big difference between laughing at and laughing with.

Sorry buddy, my heart's no where near broken after that response....
sarcasm is dead colourized 2025
In all seriousness, the distinction between Tera Blast and Tera overall is incredibly cut and dry, and I really don't think that's something that I needed to say, but:
Tera makes the existing moves of a pokemon stronger. This is arguably fine, as all it does is enhance the tools a pokemon already has. If a pokemon doesn't have an ice-type coverage move, for example, Tera-ing into the Ice type is not going to suddenly help it fix that problem. It won't be able to hit the things that deal with its standard coverage moves with an Ice type move it doesn't have.
Tera Blast provides a pokemon with an entirely new move that it never had access to, which is in itself a problem because Pokemon movepools are inherently designed around not giving every single pokemon access to strong moves from all 18 types in the game so that there are always blindspots somewhere. It's arguably problematic because its existence has caused issues for multiple pokemon already, and is already contentious on several more in OU simply because its universal type coverage makes it needlessly difficult to reliably answer a pokemon defensively.
If you can't understand that a mechanic that can be used offensively and defensively with limitations is fundamentally different from a move that can become whatever type you want and is almost exclusively used to matchup fish into a specific answer to a pokemon, I don't believe that you are arguing in good faith.
 
As far as Tera Blast goes, if it's agreed that it's not broken then it shouldn't be brought up as a serious topic for ban discussion.
This is literally untrue, things can be banned because they are a) uncompetitive b) broken c) unhealthy. What tera blast ban people are trying to argue, is that it is unhealthy/uncompetitive, which is perfectly reasonable.
You can do all the mental gymnastics in the world to show how it's tangibly different from Tera itself but if the focus of your argument is that it's unhealthy because of the interactions it causes then it just falls short as Tera at it's core creates the same issues.
Tera blast is VERY different from Tera. I love Tera and am heavy anti-ban, but Pro Tera Blast Ban. The difference between Tera Blast and Tera, is that Tera Blast has none of the upsides of Tera, you cannot use Tera Blast defensively. It is a purely offensive tool pokemon use to blast past checks of the pokemon that usually wall them.
We also have never banned things just because they have elements of being unhealthy, there is a ton of stuff in this game that fits that criteria. Onus is on the status quo for proving it to be unhealthy enough to warrant tiering action and as per the tiering policy regarding things being unhealthy:
Do you actually want to look at the Tiering policy? Or just spurt things that simply are untrue. Nevermind, you took a specific part of Tiering policy, to frame it a certain way.
Here's the full part for unhealthy:
  • These are elements that may not limit either team building or battling skill enough individually but combine to cause an effect that is undesirable for the metagame.
  • This can also be a state of the metagame. If the metagame has too much diversity wherein team building ability is greatly hampered and battling skill is drastically reduced, we may seek to reduce the number of good-to-great threats. This can also work in reverse; if the metagame is too centralized around a particular set of Pokemon, none of which are broken on their own, we may seek to add Pokemon to increase diversity.
  • This is the most controversial and subjective one and will therefore be used the most sparingly. The Tiering Councils will only use this amidst drastic community outcry and a conviction that the move will noticeably result in the better player winning over the lesser player.
  • When trying to argue a particular element's suspect status, please avoid this category unless absolutely necessary. This is a last-ditch, subjective catch-all, and tiering arguments should focus on uncompetitive or broken first. We are coming to a point in the generations where the number of threats is close to overwhelming, so we may touch upon this more often, but please try to focus on uncompetitive and broken first.
The seoncd point is literally what a Tera Blast ban would help with, there is too much threat diversity in the tier and banning Tera Blast helps nerf a lot of pokemon. Kyurem, Kingambit, Dragapult, D-nite, Moth, Iron Valiant, Roaring Moon (and others like Tera Blast Raging Bolt, yes, Raging Bolt can run Tera Blast Ghost) would all be nerfed and reduce there set diversity, meaning you can now answer them a lot easier.

II.) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

  • This can be matchup related; think the determination that Baton Pass took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team matchup issue, where even the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
  • This can be external factors; think Endless Battle Clause, where the determining factor became internet connection over playing skill.
  • This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, evasion, or Moody, all of which turned the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.
Uncompetitive is something that isn't as easy to argue, but I would say the first point for matchup related is the closest.
Does it look like we have a community outcry for this?
If its getting onto the survey, then yes, I would say it is. And the responses have ranged from 2-5 for tera blast, so I would say the community does want action on it (in particular top players want action on it).

Also you yourself stated that Loaded Dice DD kyurem sets are too strong, yet a tera blast ban literally nerfs that set into obscurity since it now struggles to get through steel types (and before someone exclaims earth power, at that point run mixed dd, which gets countered by volcarona, which would most likely drop into the tier). I fail to see your logic on completely dismissing a Tera Blast Ban, yet saying that Kyurem's DD sets are too problematic.
 
Meowscarada @ Expert Belt
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spikes
- Knock Off
- Low Kick
- Triple Axel

Been liking this set lately on Meow. Gets a good material advantage vs many teams with Spikes + Knock progress. Low Kick is really nice on it, cleanly OHKOes Kyurem and Gambit with the protean + Expert Belt Boost, and Expert Belt makes it so that Axel can KO Gliscor even if you mispredict against it initially. The speed advantage makes it quite difficult for a lot of these Lando-T / Samu / Gambit teams to contest. With how much it threatens out, it will get a fair number of oppurtunities to Spike. The main weakness is to the various bootspam teams / webs, which are a bit difficult MUs.
 
wrote in static, and flame body for ban. mentioned tinglu for tiering action bc its op. mentioned ape and espa for a retest bc they have low bst and were banned in a wildly different tier, tho im not particularly fired up about either of them i think both are more valid retests unlike lugia and solgaleo both of which would be op. voted 1 on wellspring and qrem. idr what i voted on gambit, zama, bolt maybe 2 for each with 1 3. 5 on glisc bc i hate that uninteractive cancer but i know it wont be banned. enjoying the meta and finding it competitive, this is definitely a high ceiling gen unlike 8. im content with the status quo and shifted against a tb ban bc i dont want volc coming back. its a low skill wincon that fishes for burn. i didnt find it broken with terablast in the tier but dislike it enough to where i wont de facto vote to bring it back through tb ban w/o a flame body (and static) ban beforehand.
 
verifiably untrue if you look at SPL and recent teams that have peaked ladder. its fair that you dont enjoy the meta though.
W1 of spl proves his point actually. The vast majority of players brought safe BOs with tinglu/zama/dnite/ghold or pecharunt cores precisely because it's the best playstyle and there's not much room to experiment.

We saw a similar phenomenon with archaludon rain last SPL w1 (and even that to a much lesser extent), and I can only hope things change, but my hopes aren't high.
 
W1 of spl proves his point actually. The vast majority of players brought safe BOs with tinglu/zama/dnite/ghold or pecharunt cores precisely because it's the best playstyle and there's not much room to experiment.

We saw a similar phenomenon with archaludon rain last SPL w1 (and even that to a much lesser extent), and I can only hope things change, but my hopes aren't high.
yeah, in hindsight even though there was some wacky stuff like latios or whatever the vast majority of teams played in abt the same way. i still don't think it's fair to say it's impossible or inordinately difficult to innovate, though.
 
wrote in static, and flame body for ban. mentioned tinglu for tiering action bc its op. mentioned ape and espa for a retest bc they have low bst and were banned in a wildly different tier, tho im not particularly fired up about either of them i think both are more valid retests unlike lugia and solgaleo both of which would be op. voted 1 on wellspring and qrem. idr what i voted on gambit, zama, bolt maybe 2 for each with 1 3. 5 on glisc bc i hate that uninteractive cancer but i know it wont be banned. enjoying the meta and finding it competitive, this is definitely a high ceiling gen unlike 8. im content with the status quo and shifted against a tb ban bc i dont want volc coming back. its a low skill wincon that fishes for burn. i didnt find it broken with terablast in the tier but dislike it enough to where i wont de facto vote to bring it back through tb ban w/o a flame body (and static) ban beforehand.
i think someone just one-upped Seraphyde on a baitpost:quagchamppogsire:
 
When people are citing tournament and/or ladder statistics, they need to remember that there's massively different incentives between the two, and - per tiering policy - both are important, and need to be considered.

Tournaments favor reliable, "safe" teams because they minimize the chance of losing at team preview, minimize the chance of losing to bad RNG, and maximize the chance that you can come back by outplaying your opponent if you're losing. Consistency is key, and balance is much easier to design for consistency than offensive styles. Even if HO is "stronger" - however you care to define the term - it's also more prone to a bad matchup, and a bad matchup can cost you the tournament.

To some extent this is psychology rather than strict game theory, but that doesn't change that it's how people actually play. It feels worse to get bounced from contention in a game where you never had a chance, so people try to avoid that, leading to balance being more common.

Meanwhile, the ladder doesn't care so much about any given game, but rather favors the aggregate. Running an HO team that wins at team preview 30% of the time, loses 20% of the time, and splits the rest is a terrible tournament strategy, but that's entirely viable to climb the ladder - preferred, even, since the games will be fast and you can climb faster. Consistently having a chance to win is nice, but until you're at the very top, win rate matters more; a few auto-losses in exchange for a better win rate is a good trade.

I didn't mention stall above, and that's because stall is there doing its own thing, unaware of the difference between formats.
 
Tournaments favor reliable, "safe" teams because they minimize the chance of losing at team preview, minimize the chance of losing to bad RNG, and maximize the chance that you can come back by outplaying your opponent if you're losing. Consistency is key, and balance is much easier to design for consistency than offensive styles. Even if HO is "stronger" - however you care to define the term - it's also more prone to a bad matchup, and a bad matchup can cost you the tournament.
Especially for a tournament like SPL where the games are all bo1 and you have the pressure from your team to succeed

it's a lot easier to bring HO in a bo3 than it is a single game.
 
Terastilization and Tera Blast have been my favorite addition to the series since Z moves. However, I do feel it is somewhat unbalanced in that it heavily favors Offense over Defense. One of my main problems with Terastilization is the ability to stack STAB. Things can get out of hand really quick if you team doesn't have answers to Mons that often stack STAB with Terastilization on top of boosting items.

It also doesn't help that there is no Defensive equivalent to this since a mon Terastilizing defensively is always going to be monotype and therefore will never have any 4x resistances
 
W1 of spl proves his point actually. The vast majority of players brought safe BOs with tinglu/zama/dnite/ghold or pecharunt cores precisely because it's the best playstyle and there's not much room to experiment.

We saw a similar phenomenon with archaludon rain last SPL w1 (and even that to a much lesser extent), and I can only hope things change, but my hopes aren't high.
Comparing the Arch Rain metagame to this is misguided imo

Arch Rain metagame was compromised because it was an offensive option that was just so strong and durable that it was too good to dismiss. It was an uneven power level and clearly stood out to the point that a lopsided ban was the result. Had it lingered without tiering attention longer, we would’ve seen extreme ripples and responses to those ripples rather than healthy standards.

This current format is a tier where you can achieve some balance and consistency at least and there are plenty of micro-level innovations, but there’s one or two playstyles that have the most consistency across the board. Nothing completely breaks the metagame wide open, but there’s are a handful of candidates for action and any of them being removed could improve the tier and diversify things depending on how players react (I’m talking Wellspring or Kyurem types). Nothing is head-and-shoulders above the rest and causing the metagame to be unplayable like that. Is it ideal? Not necessarily and I, too, hope for tiering action, but it’s way better than the Archaludon metagame.

Claiming this comparison proves his point, which was that the top guys are way too broken, is incorrect because it shows that the metagame is playable with the top Pokemon around — there is counterplay to everything, especially relative to Archaludon’s OU stint. That doesn’t mean we should not look for suspects — we actively are, but the Arch Metagame comparison is off-base for sure.
 
gen 8 is one of the most skillful BORING metagames
One liner aside, these wouldn't even be mutually exclusive sentiments, not least of which because entertainment value varies between players. Calling Gen 8 a boring Metagame doesn't do anything to refute the claim (true or not on either) that it's a skillful one to play in, the latter being what tiering ostensibly aims to achieve with its actions

More to the point, I do not find Gen 8's meta very engaging to play, but I can't deny that it feels like it takes a lot of skill to navigate considering even the most offensive teams have to work for their wins without the eggshell dancing some of this Gen's powerhouses (with or without Tera) bring to the table.
 
It's funny how low ladder players will complain about stall and then this is low ladder stall: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2286883991

:okidogi:

Okidogi @ Leftovers
Ability: Toxic Chain
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Atk / 52 SpD / 128 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bulk Up
- Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- Taunt

These EVs let Drain Punch guarantee OHKO max HP Kingambit. Speed is for 4 EVs Gliscor.
one thing if gliscor runs speed its usually to outspeed bolt. ive even seen gliscors with lower ivs to ONLY outspeed gambit and beat the turn scor mirror more than ive seen only 4 speed
 
All you have to do against low ladder stall is attack what’s in front of you and wait for them to sack something important for literally no reason. I love seeing stall on the low ladder, I just activate monkey brain.
yeah I joined stallcord cz i was curious about learning stall and had to ask how one of the sample teams deals with garg:row:
they said to pp stall salt cure with gliscor x regen GGEZ and my mind expanded

it's definitely a perspective shift on how to approach the game & unless you're loading into like goddamn papa smurf then i would definitely not expect low ladder players to have a good grasp on it.
 
Vileplume @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Effect Spore
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Energy Ball
- Leech Seed
- Strength Sap

Vileplume is a Pokemon i've been rather impressed by since using it some months back. I've slowly built a team around it as a phys wall and its surprisingly preforming strong outside of Ghold and some minor match ups. Leech+Sap might sound like overkill, but forcing progress/switches with it is huge and being able to get chip dmg repeated on most things means even Garg can't sit there and just salt cure out sustain you once its ATK goes down.

I find the Grass Coverage to be more important on the team, but I can very easily see Sludge Bomb functioning well. Rocky Helmet + Effect spore means you will almost always make progress against U-Turn spammers or physical threats. This thing fucking EATS Moon alive and Gambit has to prepared or else it gets outsustained. I LOVE this Mushroom!
 
yeah I joined stallcord cz i was curious about learning stall and had to ask how one of the sample teams deals with garg:row:
they said to pp stall salt cure with gliscor x regen GGEZ and my mind expanded

it's definitely a perspective shift on how to approach the game & unless you're loading into like goddamn papa smurf then i would definitely not expect low ladder players to have a good grasp on it.
I joined stallcord recently as well to learn about other playstyles I don't usually run, and I will say stall is not as overbearing in this gen than other gens. If a team is losing to stall it's either 1) A player can break through the team but there was a misplay along the way or 2) The team is not good if it can be walled by a mon on stall. I was building for ORAS a couple months ago and found out that my whole entire team that I made was walled by a few stall mons, and that is the moment where you don't get angry about stall but just fix the team.

I think it is good to learn stall not just to expand skills but also just to learn methodically how to play it and to beat it. It really does take a lot of effort to beat a good stall team by a good player, and the feeling does feel very good.
 
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