Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

[ego]

After some more testing of my mixed Manaphy set, I have come to the conclusion that it is not bad. It is also not particularly good. The problem is the opportunity cost of using something better. Water is an ok attacking type. It's just that there are a lot of resists and immunities for a set using like no coverage moves. I tried to build around this in several ways for my teams, but everything I tried seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. At this point, the only thing I haven't tried is rain brute force. However, I think it is safe to say that Rain has better breakers. Also, the special Manaphy sets are better breakers. I think I am done with this experiment. If Wellspring goes, it might be worth revisiting. Otherwise, there are better options.

However, I did find a rather interesting anti-meta mon in my quest to remove bulky Water types:

Volcanion @ Air Balloon
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Spin
- Taunt
- Steam Eruption
- Sludge Wave

I originally made this with the intent to remove Waterpon and bulky Water types that got in Manaphy's way. Tera Poison Sludge Wave was primarily for Wellspring. However, it has several other uses like resisting Body Press or status proc. You also hit most Water types neutrally.

Fire Spin allows you to trap Water Absorb mons. I'd say this makes it a better trapper than Heatran since you have Steam Eruption to hit the rare Fire immunities. And thanks to your own Water Absorb, Flip Turn mons like Alomomola are completely trapped. In fact, it's really hilarious just how hard this things bodies Alomomola strats. Even Fire Spin itself can be used to counter Mirror Coat.

Aside from Wellspring, I found that going full defensive was helpful in dealing with many of the threats. If you have high HP, you can live a hit from Great Tusk and KO with Steam Eruption even without the Air Balloon. With Air Balloon, you can threaten quite a few Ground types.

Finally, the combination of Steam Eruption and Sludge Wave is surprisingly good at spreading status against slower or more passive teams.

This reminds me of a cool RMT from a year ago that uses a variation of this set, actually, in that case used to trap special walls more broadly for Specs Kyurem. I've tried to play around with some variant of the concept, and I think it's so good in theory, where your opponent reacts to an incoming Volcanion by bringing in Glowking, Mola, or some other bulky water like Pex, but I think in practice it faces the issue of opponents reacting to the Volc by sending in their dragon instead (Dnite/Pult/Kyurem/Bolt/some other nicher options like Hydreigon or Latios). Basically, if your opponent doesn't send in something passive to take what they presume is an incoming Steam Eruption, then now you're conceding a free turn to something very scary and getting very little out of it besides like 20% of chip. And of course, once you've revealed that you're running Fire Spin with no SpA investment, then your opponent knows that they don't have to respect the Specs Steam Eruption anymore and the slot becomes a liability (even with bulk this thing does not check anything).

With that said, I do remember that this thing murders stall, especially if you run Tera Ghost, so I wonder if you could build a team that combines Fire Spin Volcanion + special breaker with four slots designed more specifically for anti-offence. Something like a five-mon stall core with a trapper that imitates those Dug/Gothitelle stalls from earlier gens, or pairing it with double priority +setup Dnite, something along those lines.

 

[t.t]

I think Sinistcha is pretty underrated, its a good spinblocker that it does well against common spinners, has ghost typing which is great offensively, its physical bulk is nice especially when paired with strength sap and it can potentially sweep using calm mind + matcha gotcha to do damage and heal at the same time along with a pretty spammable stab shadow ball.

But its gambit matchup is pretty bad since kingambit resists its stabs and hits super effectively, ending its sweep or spinblocking. So its not top tier or anything but most certainly solid.

I love building around Sinistcha for my hazard-stacking teams since it can deal with spinners pretty easily, and Calm Mind variants + Tera can be a win condition in a lot of cases. But other than having a suitable typing for entry hazard stacking, I feel like it's overshadowed by Pecharunt for every other playstyle, since they both do the exact same thing—spreading status, clicking Hex, and having Foul Play to check physical attackers, etc. The only other time I'd ever consider using Sinistcha over Pecharunt is if I need a Ghost-type that can better trade into Iron Crown or Deoxys, in which case I'd rather just use Dengo lolz.

 

[tommytt22]

Hello there, a few days ago, I have finally cracked the 2000s on the ladder something I haven't done before. Right now I am sitting at number 4 on the ladder with 2027 points. I dont know how long this will last but I am really happy with my gradual progression as a player.

Hide

View attachment 736466

I wanna share some of my experience by doing a team analyses with one mon that has been discussed recently, Dragonite.

Let's take a look at some teams I have fought on high ladder. I have encountered my fair share of different Dragonites. Keep in mind none of this is guaranteed. There will always be exceptions

1) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2349030914-ypryw7n996ece849dp8gyw8pha2xpb0pw


In these replays, you see pretty much no hazard control. Which means it is pretty obviously HDB. Not groundbreaking. HDB variants can run various tera types to great success, so that doesn't tell us much. However in the first replay, you can see Nite is accompanied with Ghold, Deoxys and possibly a tera Garg or Ting-Lu so it is not really a Zama weak team(so unlikely encore, tera ghost or fly). Furthermore, it lacks priority besides potentially Nite so you can kinda guess that this teams Nite is E-Speed, either 3 Attack or roost variants.

2) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2353246957-gvbgculwntwpfr1w9ycvofr5nffrxx5pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2346861566-loyayp1rxby5kp94sex6oxsgyt9ktxkpw

In these two replays, Nite is accompanied with a priority user. There is a good chance that this Dragonite doesn't have E-speed, something useful to know if your go to answer is your own priority, lowering speed of D-nite or something else like a Booster Energy revenge kill. Unfortunaly, you can't discern anything else like tera type or moveset from the team structure alone. However, I can say from my experience that Nites on HO teams are usually HDB even when they have Tusk since most of the HO teams want extra insurance that Nite can set-up safely. That is not a set in stone rule though, so keep your eyes open. For example, in this match Nite turned out to be banded https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2349051571-fyloxmg3q8tt4f95uet84srqfc7st69pw instead of HDB


3) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2347731682-ucm38kh4pbujoen7ujclm9icjfnyt0upw (please ignore that I forgot to change my Leafeon's ability to Chlorophyll)
Here you can see Hatt+ Threads combo with Nite. This team is loaded with two anti hazard tools. This was a giant red flag for me that this Nite might have something other then HDB. Tera Fire loaded dice Scale Shot is the 1st thing that might come to mind but there are potentially other things like lum, band, covert cloak or in this case leftovers. Weakness Policy is also not completely unheard of. Here you wanna be careful with how you proceed. Obviously you wanna get up rocks but the opponent wont make it easy for you.

4) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2350098722-7b5xub6ab5fm7ufvn96ogg1tav263avpw

This team is similarly structured like in the 1st replay but it kinda breaks the "no priority" rule by revealing that this Nite has no E-speed despite not being accompanied by a priority user(unless Quick Attack Pon? ) showing you that no rule is set in stone. Ogerpon can be used to weaken Corv or Zama so it COULD be tera fairy Encore but other then that, tera might be hard to predict. However, know that as long as it wears HDBs, STATUSING NITE IS SAFE. There was also another match I had where Dragonite at +3, didn't KO Ninetales, one of the frailer mons in this tier. If you can force your opponent to burn Tera on a different mon, Dragonite loses a lot of strength and it gives you plenty of time to respond.

Now why am I telling you all this? None of those things are set in stone things least of all the tera types. However by analysing those things in the match, you will gain a clearer picture of how to fight Dragonite despite the set variety. It is impossible to figure it all out from the team alone but these tiny analysis can help you figure it out as the match goes on, they are tiny puzzle pieces that you can put together to get the full picture. If the team is kinda Gliscor weak, you might wanna be careful cause that D-nite might have Ice Spinner. If the team doesn't have any solid dragon answers, there might be a chance it could be tera fairy variant. But most importanly pay attention of how your opponent plays. If he goes Lando to intimidate your Zaama despite it being BP, it could be because it is tera ghost for example. If it leads Dragonite, there is a good chance it is banded and wants to claim a kill. This concept can apply to other mons as well like Kingambit or Kyurem. Hope this helps some ppl struggling with D-nite. More experienced players will probably think this is all common sense but mons can be kinda hard sometimes.

Edit: I wanna do a small correction but statusing HDB Nite isn't actually safe if you aim to paralyze it since tera ground is decently common. Other then that burning and poisoning should be safe since it rarely runs tera fire with HDB and tera poison is non-existant. Also Nite might or might not run HDB if the team only has one rapid spinner as hazard control. I have seen some high ladder teams run something else on D-nite with minimal hazard support. The best way to get information is to get up rocks during the games and pressure the tusk with hard call outs when you think your opponent is bringing it in, luring it with something like grass knot Lando or slowly pressuring it with chip in the form of Ting-Lu ruinination. Information is king in this game and you should aim to collect as much as you can if your resources allow it.

This is precisely what makes suspect tests SO hard for me. You coach yourself into a high ladder mindset, then the 1400-1500 gauntlet comes along, and you'll come across a standard looking team structure that has 4 mons with completely unpredictable bait sets. I'm not bitter about it I actually find it funny.

Good write up though I appreciate it

 

[Fusien]

Hello there, a few days ago, I have finally cracked the 2000s on the ladder something I haven't done before. Right now I am sitting at number 4 on the ladder with 2027 points. I dont know how long this will last but I am really happy with my gradual progression as a player.

Hide

View attachment 736466

I wanna share some of my experience by doing a team analyses with one mon that has been discussed recently, Dragonite.

Let's take a look at some teams I have fought on high ladder. I have encountered my fair share of different Dragonites. Keep in mind none of this is guaranteed. There will always be exceptions

1) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2349030914-ypryw7n996ece849dp8gyw8pha2xpb0pw


In these replays, you see pretty much no hazard control. Which means it is pretty obviously HDB. Not groundbreaking. HDB variants can run various tera types to great success, so that doesn't tell us much. However in the first replay, you can see Nite is accompanied with Ghold, Deoxys and possibly a tera Garg or Ting-Lu so it is not really a Zama weak team(so unlikely encore, tera ghost or fly). Furthermore, it lacks priority besides potentially Nite so you can kinda guess that this teams Nite is E-Speed, either 3 Attack or roost variants.

2) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2353246957-gvbgculwntwpfr1w9ycvofr5nffrxx5pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2346861566-loyayp1rxby5kp94sex6oxsgyt9ktxkpw

In these two replays, Nite is accompanied with a priority user. There is a good chance that this Dragonite doesn't have E-speed, something useful to know if your go to answer is your own priority, lowering speed of D-nite or something else like a Booster Energy revenge kill. Unfortunaly, you can't discern anything else like tera type or moveset from the team structure alone. However, I can say from my experience that Nites on HO teams are usually HDB even when they have Tusk since most of the HO teams want extra insurance that Nite can set-up safely. That is not a set in stone rule though, so keep your eyes open. For example, in this match Nite turned out to be banded https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2349051571-fyloxmg3q8tt4f95uet84srqfc7st69pw instead of HDB


3) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2347731682-ucm38kh4pbujoen7ujclm9icjfnyt0upw (please ignore that I forgot to change my Leafeon's ability to Chlorophyll)
Here you can see Hatt+ Threads combo with Nite. This team is loaded with two anti hazard tools. This was a giant red flag for me that this Nite might have something other then HDB. Tera Fire loaded dice Scale Shot is the 1st thing that might come to mind but there are potentially other things like lum, band, covert cloak or in this case leftovers. Weakness Policy is also not completely unheard of. Here you wanna be careful with how you proceed. Obviously you wanna get up rocks but the opponent wont make it easy for you.

4) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2350098722-7b5xub6ab5fm7ufvn96ogg1tav263avpw

This team is similarly structured like in the 1st replay but it kinda breaks the "no priority" rule by revealing that this Nite has no E-speed despite not being accompanied by a priority user(unless Quick Attack Pon? ) showing you that no rule is set in stone. Ogerpon can be used to weaken Corv or Zama so it COULD be tera fairy Encore but other then that, tera might be hard to predict. However, know that as long as it wears HDBs, STATUSING NITE IS SAFE. There was also another match I had where Dragonite at +3, didn't KO Ninetales, one of the frailer mons in this tier. If you can force your opponent to burn Tera on a different mon, Dragonite loses a lot of strength and it gives you plenty of time to respond.

Now why am I telling you all this? None of those things are set in stone things least of all the tera types. However by analysing those things in the match, you will gain a clearer picture of how to fight Dragonite despite the set variety. It is impossible to figure it all out from the team alone but these tiny analysis can help you figure it out as the match goes on, they are tiny puzzle pieces that you can put together to get the full picture. If the team is kinda Gliscor weak, you might wanna be careful cause that D-nite might have Ice Spinner. If the team doesn't have any solid dragon answers, there might be a chance it could be tera fairy variant. But most importanly pay attention of how your opponent plays. If he goes Lando to intimidate your Zaama despite it being BP, it could be because it is tera ghost for example. If it leads Dragonite, there is a good chance it is banded and wants to claim a kill. This concept can apply to other mons as well like Kingambit or Kyurem. Hope this helps some ppl struggling with D-nite. More experienced players will probably think this is all common sense but mons can be kinda hard sometimes.

Edit: I wanna do a small correction but statusing HDB Nite isn't actually safe if you aim to paralyze it since tera ground is decently common. Other then that burning and poisoning should be safe since it rarely runs tera fire with HDB and tera poison is non-existant. Also Nite might or might not run HDB if the team only has one rapid spinner as hazard control. I have seen some high ladder teams run something else on D-nite with minimal hazard support. The best way to get information is to get up rocks during the games and pressure the tusk with hard call outs when you think your opponent is bringing it in, luring it with something like grass knot Lando or slowly pressuring it with chip in the form of Ting-Lu ruinination. Information is king in this game and you should aim to collect as much as you can if your resources allow it.

Excellent post, very well written. I had thought about doing a write-up on why I think Dnite, while obviously very good, is not banworthy, and this covers the crux of the point. In my experience, Dragonite is a major threat but one that if the opposing player plays careful, can usually be kept at least somewhat in check rather than being a fully broken auto win for the user. It requires diligence on the side of the user facing the Dragonite however; many users are often sloppy with tera usage or let key mons get chipped, and then act surprised when a Dragonite takes advantage of the positioning. Now this is not the only way to lose to Dragonite obviously, and tera blast sets in particular have a tendency to snowball, but overall in my opinion Dragonite isn't as overwhelming as people make it out to be, and I agree with your point that on many teams you can have an idea of what its going to do straight from preview. The Dragonite user also has to make a choice with its set, as each set has quite notable drawbacks that favor some mu's over others.

 

[Bold School]

This reminds me of a cool RMT from a year ago that uses a variation of this set, actually, in that case used to trap special walls more broadly for Specs Kyurem. I've tried to play around with some variant of the concept, and I think it's so good in theory, where your opponent reacts to an incoming Volcanion by bringing in Glowking, Mola, or some other bulky water like Pex, but I think in practice it faces the issue of opponents reacting to the Volc by sending in their dragon instead (Dnite/Pult/Kyurem/Bolt/some other nicher options like Hydreigon or Latios). Basically, if your opponent doesn't send in something passive to take what they presume is an incoming Steam Eruption, then now you're conceding a free turn to something very scary and getting very little out of it besides like 20% of chip. And of course, once you've revealed that you're running Fire Spin with no SpA investment, then your opponent knows that they don't have to respect the Specs Steam Eruption anymore and the slot becomes a liability (even with bulk this thing does not check anything).

With that said, I do remember that this thing murders stall, especially if you run Tera Ghost, so I wonder if you could build a team that combines Fire Spin Volcanion + special breaker with four slots designed more specifically for anti-offence. Something like a five-mon stall core with a trapper that imitates those Dug/Gothitelle stalls from earlier gens, or pairing it with double priority +setup Dnite, something along those lines.

That's interesting. The moves are exactly the same, except for the slight difference Sludge Bomb over Sludge Wave. I vaguely remember having heard of a trapping Volcanion set somewhere before, so perhaps I subconsciously thought of this one. The Tera is different and the EVs are just far more offensive than mine. Boots over Air Balloon is also an interesting choice.

For me, the Poison Tera and coverage move were primarily meant to hit Wellspring and be neutral to most bulky Water types. But I'd have to think that Earth Power would be better for most other purposes. Then again, maybe that would stink for Grass types if your only Fire STAB is Fire Spin. So perhaps that is optimal afterall. I guess Tera Ground EP would probably be better in a more attacking set.

One thing that I did find was that Ground types were pretty annoying if the Air Balloon popped. So maybe a more neutral Tera Type would help taking on Great Tusk without the Balloon. I do think Ghost is an interesting enough Tera to experiment with spin blocking as well. The main downside I can think of off the top of my head is you aren't as good against Wellspring.

 

[Rekka's Backend]

One thing that I did find was that Ground types were pretty annoying if the Air Balloon popped.

I'm still a firm believer that Volc and Rillaboom are best friends. Grassy terrain lets that thing live so many hits it has no right doing so, and lets you do funny things like tera Poison to get stab on either of its moves for it.

 

[Bold School]

I'm still a firm believer that Volc and Rillaboom are best friends. Grassy terrain lets that thing live so many hits it has no right doing so, and lets you do funny things like tera Poison to get stab on either of its moves for it.

I was actually running Volcanion on a GT team with Rillaboom. The problem is Great Tusk just pulls out Headlong Rush and Lando-T can sometimes Earth Power. The Tusk matchup could probably be improved by going Tera Ghost, but this weakens the Wellspring matchup as well as the possible damage on Sludge Wave.

 

[Avira]

Kudos to Finchinator for getting the meta to a relatively good spot. He's clearly the best tier leader Smogon has ever had in terms of transparency and on willingness to act on the community's needs based on how he got Gen 8 to a good spot and acted more quickly this gen to deal with the incredible powercreep of this gen. Hopefully, he can still lead Gen 10 OU unless married life at that time gets in the way.

 

[Cyber-DJ]

Garchomp (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
Tera Type: Steel / Fire / Ghost
EVs: 56 HP / 252 Atk / 200 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock
- Outrage

Whoever was the individual that invented this set, present your self to me so that I may shake your hand. This Garchomp set looked funky to me at first but man does it work well. Having a Rocks setting Garchomp that can outspeed Pecharunt is simply divine, and beating cocky Zapdos or Moltres who think they're safe is also a bonus I am not complaining about. It's my favorite way to use this thing now. Rocks setter that beats the crap out of the birds and still does the TankChomp thing of punishing contact moves. I'm big on Tera Fire here since, y'know, Will o Wisp, you can make a bunch of stuff work like Steel and Ghost. Up to you really.

 

[Ruft]

Announcement Post in thread 'SV OU Tiering Surveys'

May 7, 2025

Hello everyone!

This is our seventh survey since the release of DLC2 and 21st overall this generation. Since the last survey, we suspect tested Roaring Moon, which led to its ban. With SPL and OST concluded, WCoP qualifiers underway and the main stage on the horizon, it's time to continue examining our flagship metagame.

We will be maintaining the forum response form-based surveys described above -- PM Finchinator or myself with any questions. Thanks to ken for helping set this up for us!

Anyone with a Smogon account may respond and we will be taking a particularly close...

• Ruft

• 
• 
• 

New survey, please respond

 

[Finchinator]

Kudos to Finchinator for getting the meta to a relatively good spot. He's clearly the best tier leader Smogon has ever had in terms of transparency and on willingness to act on the community's needs based on how he got Gen 8 to a good spot and acted more quickly this gen to deal with the incredible powercreep of this gen. Hopefully, he can still lead Gen 10 OU unless married life at that time gets in the way.

Appreciate it, but we still have a ton of work to do this generation.

Best way to start that is filling out tie survey Ruft posted above

 

[Tio Chico]

Enjoyable – 7
Despite SV's volatility, I believe we are at a point of variety never before reached, although some playstyles suffer limitations and an almost automatic defeat for some threat.
Competitive – 6
Despite the volatility, MU fish and some things that make it so that the best player doesn't always win, I believe that more than half of the path has already been done.
Pretty high scores for an SV hater.

1 - As I said a few days ago, is a strong Pokémon, but lacks immediate power and speed, several other things have less reactive response.

3 - I don't see as much focus as at the beginning of the SPL but it is still a Pokémon that provides a lot of brainless progress, both offensively and defensively. We must keep an eye on the future.

4 - After ups and downs, my third personal option is affected by Tera Blast. Saying that it is possible to predict the set by the teampreview structure is underestimating SV's volatility and does not solve the pressure on the teambuild. DD mixed, DD with 3 possible Tera, DD SubProt, Sub Prot, AoA, Body Press, Shadow Ball... It's awesome.

Tera Blast 5
Terribly anti-competitive imo, has a higher cost than other ngl elements, but is an unpredictable resource that involves more fish than skill. My second priority.

5
Restricts balance, Rain, Sand and Stall considerably. Ivy Cudgel is ridiculously low cost and spammable. And the rest of the movepool is unpredictable, versatile and powerful.
Unlike Dragonite and Kingambit, Waterpon has massive immediate damage output.
Knock Off and U-Turn are moves that heavily punish any switch in.
Encore, Spikes, SD, and even Synthesis and Taunt are variables that need to be taken into account when viewing Waterpon in the teampreview.
Where some players may see a flaw in the inability to use an item, I see immunity to Trick. First priority. Ban this thing.

Other: . I don't need to and don't want to go into detail.
ty for reading and have a nice day

 

[Finchinator]

I do not feel an urgent need for a suspect test, but like having the data now as a baseline for right now and potentially during or after WCoP and other upcoming developments.

I have the metagame fairly favorable scores and ranked Kyurem, Gliscor with 3, nothing higher than that. I do think a few suspects are possible, but I am not fully convinced.

Of note, Tera Blast and Dragonite have surfaced a lot in internal council discussions alongside the normal candidates. I didn’t give either above a 2, but it’s important to let the playerbase share their thoughts.

 

[Wapf]

Tera blast being prominent is causing two main negative things that I’ve noticed

A: Matchup fishing. Everyone and their mom is running standard teams with one random tb abuser that randomly can win them the game. This leads to the next problem

B: Boring blanket checks being used over fun unique counters to threats. There’s a reason corvi, ting Lu, mola, etc are picking up steam. When every mon can randomly blow past a counter, you need to pack mons that can either survive it or switch around constantly scouting for it. This makes fun offensive structures feel really bad to use as you can be 6-0’d by just about anything if you don’t have a big defensive backbone. Ironically this offensive tool makes offense feel worse to play.

I really don’t think tb brings anything positive to the table, at least in OU where the abusers are just too powerful. Yeah it’s fun to randomly tera blast ghost the pech or whatever, but everytime I win with tb, I just feel like I cheated.

 

[June Heat]

Enjoyable - 7: I will admit by return back into SV OU has overall been a positive one. Roaring Moon ban was correct, and the game has been better for it.
Competitive - 6: I can’t really comment on this since I don’t really play the game super competitively. This is mostly the score because of Tera Blast cheese ruining my day.

Dragonite - 5: I know, I know I’m in the minority here, and I’m more towards banning Tera Blast than DNite. Still, you can only be blown away by Tera Blast DNite so many times before you begin to think something is wrong. I said I’d give it a 5 so I did.

Gliscor - 2: Annoying shitter that lives far more than it should. Something to maybe keep an eye on in the future, but as of now there are bigger fish to fry.

Kyurem - 4: Hits like a truck, bulky, set up sweeper, set variety. The one thing that’s really holding Kyurem back is its weakness to hazards. Even then it’s a monster that demands respect.

Ogerpon - Wellspring - 3: Definwtly one of the premier threats of the tier, but has enough flaws that I think it’s fine. Hazards weak, plenty of checks that aren’t meme Pokemon, middle of the pact speed. It’s fine.

Tera Blast - 5: I’ve grown to really hate this move. I wouldn’t call it uncompetitive like others. I just think it’s just straight up broken, and offers very little to the tier. Pokemon should have laid out define weaknesses that can be exploited. Tera Blast/Tera helps take away those weaknesses, and in some cases just create a whole different Pokemon that the you can’t honestly say you’ve prepared for. Thinking about it maybe it is just uncompetitive and broken at the same time. Either way needs to go asap.

 

[Welcome to mars]

Enjoyability: 7
Its pretty fun and tera allows for experimentation, but its quite unforgiving at times since tera also allows a pokemon to resist a hit it shouldn’t and defeat a pokemon it shouldn’t due to this ability to suddenly survive a move that should normally threaten you.
Competitveness: 5
Due to how hard it is to defensively check the tier’s powerful threats, the metagame is rather matchup fishy and i highly doubt a ban on dragonite or tb will change this.

Dragonite: 1
A strong threat with good defensive and offensive utility, but it lacks immediate power and hogs tera, plus it cannot handle burn or paralysis in the slightest and doesn’t have much ways around them outside of tera fire or tera electric
Gliscor: 1
Its spikes sets are pretty exploitable, its forced out by anything that could potentially have an ice type move (unless its tera) and its swords dance sets are reliant on surviving attacks without any boosts to its bulk in order to sweep, which doesn’t make it overwhelming or bad enough to be banned in my opinion
Kyurem: 2
specifically a 2.5, im mixed on it as it can be both horridly berserk and painfully exploitable, its defensive typing is rough and its speed leaves revenge killable even after a boost but its ability to be a lethal physical sweeper and a special wallbreaker means it can exploit this to either get setup or fire a powerful attack, i’d be fine with it not getting banned its just that i’m not sure what i think about it.
Ogerpon: 5
Its ability to almost completely subvert defensive counterplay has had a negative effect on the metagame since you NEED a check to this, its offensive typing leaves little to resist both stabs and it has options like u turn, play rough and knock to tamper with its few checks like hydrapple, among us and sinstcha, it also prevents multiple playstyles from performing consistently like balance and rain, its drawbacks don’t do enough to mitigate that the metagame would be better off without crawdaunt prime demanding most teams to have some form of defensive counterplay (which is often very temporary) to it which is awfully restricting.
Tera Blast: 1
I personally do not think its the most unhealthy part of tera (not that I would support some form of tera ban) since its dead weight if its not on the tera hog and requires a complete sacrifice of your original typing to a single one, which isn’t without its drawbacks, theres also the aspect of it not breaking enough pokemon (something like roaring moon is already unhealthy since all it needs is a single turn of set up to devastate a team to the point that even if it does not outright sweep, it leaves enough damage for something else to take advantage of the damage caused to the enemy team) as it has only broken volcarona, regieleki and espathra (which can still use tera fairy dazzling gleam on anything that can switch into a heavily boosted stored power!) with gouging fire using tera in multiple other sinister ways and dragonite being too exploitable imo to be broken, so I do not think a tera blast ban would be necessary or help the meta in a noticable way.

 

[Achohermano]

Enjoyability: 7
The game has gotten quite better to play since the Moon's ban, as I said before it wasn't my priority but it was a change in the right direction. You still face a lot of MU fish which is quite lame but in general the game is a lot more fun to play at the moment. You can be a bit more creative on the builder.

Competitveness: 5

Tera + Tera Blast will ALWAYS encourage MU fish and it's easy to do both in tournaments (from what I've seen) and in the ladder (I play around the 1750 - 1850s therefore maybe higher or lower it's different). Roaring Moon was a good step on the right direction, but sometimes when the team that you just built around 10+ different sweepers each one with at least 3 teras suddently loses to tera mickey mouse sweeper it is a bit annoying.

Dragonite: 2

Annoying as hell honestly and probably one of the most brainless sweepers in the tier when you stack it alongside other physical threats. I personally thing it's a top 3 Pokémon in the tier right now but it has a fair amount of answers, some of them pretty common in the tier.

Gliscor: 3

Pretty tamed right now but we should keep an eye on it in the future, specially if any tier shift happens. Really versatile and makes progress without thinking with knock off aganist anything that isn't Clefable or stuff like that.

Kyurem: 4

Meta without it was so much better tbh. I don't even think it's the most broken Pokémon in the tier, 95 speed makes it feel sometimes manageable, but man when you guess the wrong set it slams you like a ragdoll. I think the variety is what really turns it from a top tier to a problematic and bannable Pokémon. As Tio Chico said before me, you have to take into account a lot of sets and we are not wizards, we can't guess the set properly all the time.

Ogerpon - Wellspring: 5

Nothing excepting Pecharunt or Mandibuzz full PhysDef can switch completly safely aganist this Pokémon. And one of those two Pokémon has to take care of basically any physical attacker in the enemy team, and the other is a really specific niche that it's hard to fit on teams

Skarmory, Zapdos or Corv tanking a hit to then Roost? Encore into an SD that means a sack and sometimes a path to winning.
Hydrapple? Knock + Uturn and now you have to care for hazards so you can't heal that much from Regenerator.
Toxapex? Power Whip from Adamant is comfortably a 2HKO

This mon can set up hazards, heal itself, setup with SD, setup speed with Trailblaze, Knock, Pivot, Encore, tag dragons with Play Rough, heal itself while attacking, giga counters Alomomola which is a glue mon on a lot of teams and has a 20% boost on any moves for some reason AND a signature move with a high crit chance, 16 PP which is not bad 0 drawbacks, not even contact for para/burn chance.

I think Ogerpon Wellspring is a good candidate for a suspect test down the line.

 

[Dragonair Bot]

Personally, I think the metagame is better now than it's ever been. My only real standout I want to mention is giving Tera Blast a 5.

I don't think Tera Blast is broken, but I believe it has a negative impact on the tier which will only worsen when there is a different current gen. While Teras are often predictable in preview, and experienced players will know what to prepare for throughout the game, Tera types do have a somewhat cyclical pattern of popularity. I believe this will make the tier extremely difficult to keep up with and even harder to pick up competitively when it isn't the main generation being played.

I also think 100% it should eventually be suspected before the next generation comes, and it's outcome will most likely effect other suspect tests (including possible unbanned). Because of this I believe Tera Blast should be suspected now rather than later.

 

[Magcargo]

Enjoyment: 8
Competitive: 7
Ban of Roaring Moon has shifted the metagame in a much bulkier direction. I believe this leads to some generally negative impacts such as 0 sill boots spam teams + Hazard Spam teams becoming more popular, but.... I like using these teams. A high variety of teams and structures seem to be viable, coming from a more casual outlook. I also don't find this claim of "No good SV teams existing" or "teams are outdated in 2 weeks" to be true when legends are still topping the ladder with Primepult.

: 3 - Annoying mon, probably more broken than either Roaring Moon or Gouging Fire, but I believe it brings a lot of good to the metagame with its strong ESpeed, ability to blanket check key threats in the metagame with multiscale, and general utility on all structures.

- 3 - The trend to a bulkier metagame makes SD sets feel significantly more powerful, and Spikes sets are starting to creep back up as a potential issue. That said, it is a very important Pokémon to keep the RNG antics of other Pokémon such as Zapdos, Pecharunt, and Moltres in check. I wouldn't get too hasty in trying to ban this Pokémon.

- 2 - Mon can be annoying but is also extremely inconsistent and I find it difficult to fit on any structure. Lack of defensive utility, vulnerability to all hazards, and inability to switch into anything (even slam dunk MUs like Ting-Lu or Gliscor are dangerous since they can Ruination or Knock it Off and cripple it for the rest of the game).

- 2 - Another annoying Pokémon, but I feel its very overrated. Locked to one Tera-type, vulnerable to all hazards, and possess quite a few soft and hard checks. I find Darkrai / Weavile more annoying than this Pokémon, and I probably wouldn't want to ban those either.

Tera Blast - 4 - Enables a lot of cool shit, like Serperior, Enam, Hisuian-Lilligant, etc. That said, most of the cheesers I don't like Polteageist and friends are primarily annoying because of TB. And TB I think is a big reason mons like Kyurem or Dragonite are still being surveyed. I'd rather just axe the move and retest some of the previous suspects.

Anything else: Volcarona, Stored Power, Webs, Spikes, Archaludon + Electroshot ban, Terapagos-Terastal Form, Speed boosting moves / abilities

Volcarona would be cool with Tera Blast ban. Would provide some nice defensive utility for those 6 Fairy weak structures.
Stored Power is annoying cheese that I will forever want banned. Most non ting-lu builds feel like they can easily get cheesed by it and I don't like that.
Webs - Bullshit cheese that is annoying to prep / sequence against w/o running mono-boots spam or hazard spam of your own.
Spikes - They are becoming increasingly oppressive every metagame shift. I'd sooner ban spikes than any of the users or abusers.
Archaludon + Eshot ban -This guy did nothin wrong.
Terapagos-Terastal form - Gives teams more options to handle Spikes, Webs, & Gliscor

 

[Moyashi]

Archaludon + Eshot ban -This guy did nothin wrong.

It did everything wrong. :/

But being serious, I don’t know why even in theory anyone would want non eshot Arch back. Its home was on rain, and especially by now it’s demonstrated in other tiers (natdex cough) that non rain Arch is wholly mediocre in terms of OU play. It’s an average steel at best otherwise that’s only slightly better than Goodra (debatably anyways since that has knock off instead of stealth rock).

 

[Seraphyde]

Not touching Enjoyability or Competiveness rn because I have been running into a lot of disgusting cheese sets recently and I feel like that might skew my perception.

2
Kyurem is annoying to deal with but such is the case with any Dragon Dancer and it’s not particularly different from the others. Its presence can have downsides but I find that it also has some healthy elements, namely restricting stall and hampering the splashability of Great Tusk, Ting-Lu, and Dragonite.

Ogerpon-Wellspring: 2
Ogerpon has a few similarities with Kyurem regarding its metagame presence, providing the same benefits of restricting stall and bulky grounds/waters. However, it’s admittedly a bit harder to deal with due to its reliable recovery and Tera gimmick which can allow it to win by just mashing Ivy Cudgel late game. I almost rated this a 3 but honestly it’s not really overbearing in any way and it’s honestly easy to predict when it will Tera especially given that it can’t MUFish like any other mon with Tera types.

- 5
As it’s lost another check in RM I do not feel like the metagame has adjusted to this thing in any way. Glistall sets are less common but still obscenely resilient and SD sets are becoming more common and harder to counter. Ghosts are no longer as reliable of an answer as Knock Off is now much more common on any set and we’re even starting to see U-Turn pop up now. Of course, there’s still one mon I’d like to see gone even more than Gliscuck and that’s

- 50

I hate this piece of shit so much. It is everything wrong with the tier. The day that RM got banned I ran into the same set that got Moon banned but with this thing instead and it worked flawlessly. Absolutely brainless mon that can very easily choose its checks and answer common counters much like RM except (I’m going to say it again) you could at least OKO RM. This doesn’t even mention stuff like CB or Fire Spin + TWave + Roost stall cancer. This thing is going to become more problematic as time goes on, mark my words. Even its standard set which is insanely predictable can still be difficult to deal with just because of its ability to set up on quite literally anything that isn’t Kyurem or a TAxel user (basically only Weavile and the rare Meowscarada or Hilligant).

Tera Blast - 5

Banning this would objectively improve the tier and I question the IQ of anyone who is against banning it. This would neuter every broken sweeper and likely avert a Kyurem suspect in addition to allowing for potential retests of Volc and RM as well as generally reducing the MUFishing and cheesing level of the tier. There are no downsides whatsoever. If a Pokemon gets less viable because of losing TB, it frankly deserves to be less viable.

Anything Else: SHITmazenta suspect + everything Macagro said

 

[Avira]

Enjoyability: 7 - The meta is largely pretty playable after Roaring Moon's ban (RM is my favourite Dark-type mon ever, but shit was broken) with the most variety it has had this generation. All of the gigabusted threats are gone.
Competitiveness: 6 - I think there's still a bit too many threats in the meta, mainly thinking of Kyurem or Tera Blast enabling mons to blast through things that would otherwise be solid answers, which makes building harder than it should be.

Dragonite: 1 - It often not carrying STAB on sweeper sets means it'll lack power unless you commit your Tera to it, which can cost you the game since you won't be able to react to your opponent's Tera. Its low base Speed, reliance on Multiscale to set up, and base typing having many common weaknesses all set it back.
Gliscor: 3 - Still a potent win condition with its SD set, and the support set still needs to be respected due to how difficult it is to KO. Not convinced it's broken right now, but I believe you can make the argument that it's unhealthy due to how easily it makes progress coupled with its longevity.
Kyurem: 4 - The biggest threat in the tier due to its baseline strengths and set variety. While it's not exactly unplayable, it's the most constraining mon in the builder to deal with.
Ogerpon-Wellspring: 2 - This is largely not an issue unless you play very slow-paced teams. Gholdengo is also a bigger threat to fat balance and stall than Ogerpon-Wellspring. Being locked to one Tera Type and being easily chipped by hazards limits its threat level despite the huge initial power.

Tera Blast: 3 - Tera Blast is not broken but contributes to the fishy nature of the tier since it allows many mons to beat otherwise solid answers. Yeah, the worst abusers who can end games on the spot are gone, but it still contributes to the high volatility of SV OU in an arguably unhealthy way.

 

[gephicka]

idr exactly what my votes were but this is a decent approximation:
dnite: 4
gliscor: 3
kyurem: 3
wellspring: 2
tera blast: 5

to me, dragonite and kyurem are only really broken by tera blast sets. beyond subtect or mixed, full physical DD rem is only as much of a threat as it is because tera blast is able to let it bypass mons it would otherwise be walled by. if you look at basically any team in SV OU, there's probably at least one dnite set that can 6-0, but if you remove tera blast the amount of viable dnite sets decreases by a lot, and it removes some of dnite's available counterplay into its checks/counters. going from 6ish viable sets/teras (normal espeed, fly blast, fire scale shot, ground eq, ghost blast, fairy blast) to 3, with scale shot being even more specific because of the hazard control required to preserve multiscale & the difference between tera ground and tera normal dnite's counterplay being much more forgiving than having to account for any possible tera blast variant. ofc, i will stress that it does depend on team style and meta knowledge when guessing dnite teras in battle, but i do think that overall tera blast dnite (& rem & gambit to an extent) sets just allow them to overcome their counterplay, which i don't think is truly a healthy dynamic. basically i think that tera blast almost introduces too much set variance to mons that can be pretty volatile if you allow them free turns.

you'll notice that the vast majority of things that have been considered problematic using tera blast are really powerful setup sweepers (volc, moon, dnite, gambit, dd rem, etc), a lot of which were pushed over the edge by tera blast to an extent. i just think it adds more volatility to an already volatile tier & overall just feels like the tier would be better off without it.

 

[UltraSword]

Enjoyment: 7
Competitiveness: 8

I am not going to explain enjoyment but for competitiveness I don't think anything is necessarily unhealthy or broken in the tier right now except for maybe tera blast but I am giving things a little bit more time before I decide fully whether I think tera blast is banworthy.

Warning: I do not remember the scores I put on the survey at the time I am making this post, so these are probably different than what I actually put on the survey. Also I am admittedly not that good so take what I say with a grain of salt (except the Ogerpon-Wellspring section please I beg of you the pokemon is so overrated).

Dragonite: 2
As cool (and funny) as it would be for my favorite pokemon of all time to get bestowed the highest honor a pokemon like it can recieve, I do not think Dragonite is banworthy at the moment. It is top 3 in the tier for multiple reasons such as having a great ability, plenty of variety, priority, high attack, encore, etc. However, it does have flaws holding it back like a weakness to stealth rock (making it harder to run non hdb sets), low speed, and no flying stab without tera blast. I could see it possibly becoming more overwhelming as more experimentation with Dragonite's vast movepool keeps happening but for now I think it is fine.

Gliscor: 2
I really just do not care about this pokemon. Sure, it is annoying and sure it has a lot of tera variety but figuring out what Gliscor set you are facing is usually pretty easy and without tera that 4 times ice weakness is pretty damn scary. I am not saying that it is bad or anything, but it is a bit overrated and probably doesn't need to be looked at.

Ogerpon-Wellspring: 1
Take my opinion on Gliscor and turn it up to 11. Wogerpon is pretty damn threatening, and I get that. Great typing, solid ability, and good defensive typing. However, Wogerpon has 2 major weaknesses in having only one tera type and essentially not having an item slot. It has other weaknesses too such as being susceptible to hazards (especially webs) and status, having a good speed tier but nothing super special, not having recovery aside from horn leech (and I guess water absorb), and having a pretty mid stat boost from using tera. This pokemon is a really strong breaker/sweeper but it is nowhere near banworthy in my opinion.

Kyurem: 2
Kyurem is definitely threatening without a doubt. It can be either a physical or special attacker and both sets are really strong. It also has quite a bit of tera variety (especially on physical sets) and pretty good defensive stats. However, I do think it can be pretty easy to figure out what set it has based on the team it is on (similar to Dragonite which is another thing it has going against it) and its tera types are pretty easy to figure out as well. Kyurem is also weak to hazards which is a way bigger issue than with Dragonite because even though it doesn't have the need to be at full health when it switches in as to not deactivate multiscale, it uses non hdb items way more. It needs loaded dice on physical sets so that it doesn't have to rely solely on rng and while it can use hdb on special sets, specs is better on 4 attacks and leftovers is better on subtect sets (for obvious reasons). Kyurem is still really good but unless something major is discovered about it I don't think Kyurem is really banworthy.

Tera Blast: 3
As you can imagine by all of my low scores I don't really think anything is banworthy. However, I do think that tera blast should be suspected. Tera Blast has been the main source of I believe 4 pokemon bans including the Roaring Moon ban and for good reason. It has a high degree of variety, and it has none of the drawbacks that hidden power does. However, it does have drawbacks such as the need to tera to use it effectively and only being useful on the pokemon you tera. I am not sure whether I really think it is broken or unhealthy, but I believe this time around the community might give it enough support to test.

 

[JackRG]

enjoyment & competitiveness: 6.5

This may seem low but considering I gave it a 3 before I think it's safe to say roaring moon's ban improved the meta a lot.

Dragonite: 3

Annoying with tera blast, but get rid of that and he's fine

Gliscor: 1

Annoying little shit but fairly easy to take advantage of, he's fine

Ogerpon-Wellspring: 5

Hits way to hard considering the fact he has a broken signature item, the whole locked into a item isn't the big deal people make it out to be, remember the creation trio's orbs (Yes, this little shit's item is more powerful than the FUCKING CREATION TRIO) are the same boost but only to STABs. Pecharunt is the only thing saving us rn.

Kyurem: 5

Specs is skillless and broken, dd is annoying but atleast will be forced to go mixed with a tera blast ban which would probably bump this down to a 3 or 4.

Tera Blast: 5

Is this tier not volatile enough? this shouldn't have lasted as long as it has.