Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[Local Dog]

Quaquaval has the same typying and the ability to snowball its way to victory and it is going to drop to UU at the end of this month.
So I don't think that urshifu rapid stike will get banned.

There's a difference between being able to snowball with a few turns of setup and being able to spank ass after a SD. It's theorymoning anyways but I think there's a big difference between these two

 

[Aurist]

Ghost types can't be trapped, and I cant help but think that taking rocky helmet chip really doesn't matter [...]

[...] But I still think it should be wrap over fire spin, unless I'm underestimating how annoying rocky helmet/rough skin can be.

If anyone can give me a good reason to run fire spin over wrap on dragonite please tell me

I'd say Rocky Helmet is pretty common, it's on almost all Corviknights, a lot of Great Tusks (#1 used mon in the tier), Garchomp, and sometimes bulky regenerator mons like Toxapex, Amoonguss, Alomomola.

Additionally I'd say even though Ghosts can't be trapped you're usually better off chipping them with a small hit than not hitting them at all as OU is quite a chip oriented metagame at the moment. Fire immunities are also pretty uncommon and the only one that's OU is also immune to wrap anyway (Ceruledge). I'd say if you're going for this set fire spin is significantly better.

 

[BlackKnight_Gawain]

This is just a quick blurb about something I read a few days ago. There was a dragonite set with fire spin/hurricane/roost/encore that was talked about as a trapper, and I'm curious why it would be fire spin over wrap. Fire spin has 85% accuracy instead of wrap's 90%, and the only things that fire spin is better at is hitting ghost types and not proccing rocky helmet. Ghost types can't be trapped, and I cant help but think that taking rocky helmet chip really doesn't matter since I expect to take at least a little chip from the pokemon I trap and kill anyway.

Earlier this gen I was running a very similar set in wrap/thunderbolt/extremespeed/encore to beat and trap corv/dondozo/toxapex etc. and that worked really well. I guess this other version of the dragonite trapper can also take down great tusk with hurricane though. But I still think it should be wrap over fire spin, unless I'm underestimating how annoying rocky helmet/rough skin can be.

If anyone can give me a good reason to run fire spin over wrap on dragonite please tell me

Literally the only reason I can think of is the contact + physical caveat Wrap has, don't wanna trigger Toxic Debris or Helmet. Also Fire Spin does hit Baxcalibur and boost it but is anyone running thermal exchange over mold breaker if they use that in OU?

 

[1LDK]

To distract the general public from the 3 little pigs we have, i wanna talk about a mon that i have been having fun with



Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Poison Jab
- Drain Punch
- Sucker Punch

This fella right there is a fun mon to use on rain, because its a rain mon that posseses a Water Inmunity, a toxic inmunity and basically shits on Kingambit and Azumarill all day long, Azu OHKO´S with Play rough but your faster and you have a 75% chance to OHKO with Posion Jab, worse case scenario you deal 95% and poison damage and she dies, as for Kingambit, at full health it survives a +2 Kowtow cleave or a +2 Sucker Punch and you basically delete him from the earth with Drain Punch, it also invalidates Tera Fairy garganacl from existing due to the salt cure resistance and the poison jab that is coming from him, while afraid of ting lu, ting lu cant enter on croak because of drain punch and posion jab posion rate who makes it harder for his team to stand up against your repeated assaults, you can do 69.7 - 82% to dragapult with sucker punch, or just OHKO with tera dark, Breloom you saying? who? oh im sorry, i just saw a 70 - 83% with max roll bullet seed but your faster and OHKO with posion jab, Dragonite? you mean a mon who is deathly afraid of posion jab and has to decide where DD or EQ? opposing floatzel? you mean a mon that is forced to Ice Spinner because the other 3 moves cant touch you and you 2HKO with drain punch or posion jab? it also checks gholdengo only if scarf and locked into shadow ball

Now, of course this mon has a gooooood share of flaws, mainly tera water garganacl, toxapex, dondozo, corviknight, clodsire, the donphans, scizor, Valiant, gholdengo and skeleridge are all just hard counters to it, not to meantion dry skin means that, while providing a water inmunity, your now weak to fire AND sun, which right now its a its strongest thanks to all the new mons, but Toxicroak is not a mon you use over Floatzel oh no, of course not, its a mon you use before unleashing floatzel because you dont want him to die for recoil damage before winning the game, you need to soften things first, here is where you use croak as a mon that softens the target, breaks a hole and then sacks itself so that floatzel can get safe entry and start shitting on it

Now, you might be asking yourself, why use over mons like , or aand the answer is, who said that you could only use 1? the all have different things to support themselves and others, Barrawskewda while the frailest of the 3, its the fastest and strongest of the 3 meaning you dont care about that many walls, Quaquaval while requiring a million turns to set up and sometimes having problems selecting its move set, once it gets going, you really need to put all you got to stop the dancing duck to kill them all, golduck separates from all of them by being a special attacker, toxicroak and floatzel having priority means qua and barra dont neceserally need it, so that you can run an extra move to smack something hard

Sometimes its about the friendship and not the competition
https://pokepast.es/a04b7f5b0c2ee0dd
This is the team i used, its more of a casual team to be honest, just for the fun, and im not gonna try to make a nomination out of this (at least not yet) but who knows, maybe you could be having fun with this

 

[MaahirMomtaz12]

the good news is that basculegion will either be banned or useless (either because last respects gets banned or the leaks were wrong)

oh wait hang on that's not good news if you're a basculin enjoyer, let me try again

uh

the good news is that barraskewda still exists?

Without Last Respects, Male Basculegion has to rely on Phantom Force for physical Ghost STAB whereas Female still has Shadow Ball

 

[Talpr0ne]

Also Fire Spin does hit Baxcalibur and boost it but is anyone running thermal exchange over mold breaker if they use that in OU?

Yes because this is OU and not AAA or BH.

 

[kosecant]

Without Last Respects, Male Basculegion has to rely on Phantom Force for physical Ghost STAB whereas Female still has Shadow Ball

Water STAB is still very strong, adaptability wave crash in rain is going to hit like an absolute truck, and you can potentially use Tera water on that as well

 

[XtheGAMEmaster]

Without Last Respects, Male Basculegion has to rely on Phantom Force for physical Ghost STAB whereas Female still has Shadow Ball

Consider: Mixed Basulegion? Even on the male version, you could slot in Shadow Ball for strong Ghost STAB damage (especially when using adaptability). You aren’t lacking a lot of power when running adaptability anyways- Splitting your offenses could prove useful to hit Ghost-weak mons instead of just relying on Wave Crash and taking a ton of recoil. Alternatively, you could also take a note from Dragapult’s book and use Tera Blast Ghost.

Also, on a slightly related note, have you guys been seeing the calcs this thing lives with an Assault Vest?? The super-effective calcs it lives go hard.

252 SpA Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 148 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Basculegion-F: 152-182 (36.3 - 43.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 148 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Basculegion-F: 188-224 (44.9 - 53.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Choice Specs Iron Moth Energy Ball vs. 148 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Basculegion-F: 198-234 (47.3 - 55.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Seriously, mess with it in the calc and see what else it tanks. I have less HP invested here so that it can OHKO offensive Gholdengo after a spike, but this Pokémon is a blast to make sets with…

 

[Autumar_]

Do people still run Trick + Choice Scart to counter people setting rocks early? Haven't seen it much while I was on ladder earlier but it's still handy to lock your opponent into hazards

 

[1LDK]

Do people still run Trick + Choice Scart to counter people setting rocks early? Haven't seen it much while I was on ladder earlier but it's still handy to lock your opponent into hazards

the amount of scarf rotoms that my ting lu attracks its just insane tbh, so yeah, they do

 

[Biannual Run]

Do people still run Trick + Choice Scart to counter people setting rocks early? Haven't seen it much while I was on ladder earlier but it's still handy to lock your opponent into hazards

Trick + Scarf is still common but not as much for hazard setters. It’s better for invalidating some of the more passive walls, screen setters, terrain setters, or setup pokemon, like Pex, Dozo, Ting-Lu, Blissey, Grimmsnarl, Torkoal, Espathra, Dragonite, and Garganacl. A lot of the non-sticky web hazard setters nowadays are actually quite threatening offensively (Garchomp, Great Tusk, Glimmora) so it might not be super wise to just give those a scarf; the sticky web setters are really only clicking webs and dying anyway so no real value in giving them a scarf either.

 

[MaahirMomtaz12]

Water STAB is still very strong, adaptability wave crash in rain is going to hit like an absolute truck, and you can potentially use Tera water on that as well

I can see Ghost Tera making waves

 

[Autumar_]

Trick + Scarf is still common but not as much for hazard setters. It’s better for invalidating some of the more passive walls, screen setters, terrain setters, or setup pokemon, like Pex, Dozo, Ting-Lu, Blissey, Grimmsnarl, Torkoal, Espathra, Dragonite, and Garganacl. A lot of the non-sticky web hazard setters nowadays are actually quite threatening offensively (Garchomp, Great Tusk, Glimmora) so it might not be super wise to just give those a scarf; the sticky web setters are really only clicking webs and dying anyway so no real value in giving them a scarf either.

I use Trick + Scarf on Meowscarada with the other 3 moves being Flower Trick, Play Rough, and Brick Break, (to break the occasional screen setters I run into.) Meowscarada not only has the speed, but also the attack stat to disrupt hazard setters/ setup mons and lock them into one move. The only flaws I've seen are its frailty and it's inabillity to remove hazards. Otherwise it fits a great role in my team as a lead.

 

[BlackKnight_Gawain]

Yes because this is OU and not AAA or BH.

My brain honestly got mixed up with Haxorus for a bit actually, which is hilarious bc I did just play a normal game testing a Bax set

 

[Morkal]

Checking this thread after a few days, the constant switching between "x is broken" was funny to read. We've been told we're getting a survey soon ish, so getting all that out now felt a little for naught since it'll probably be tackled there soon enough.


Also shoutout to Morkal, dude your posts have been absolute fire to read and really demonstrate some niche tactical sets and tera usage, please keep them coming!

Thank you so much! I love posting about niche Pokemon as a whole in OU because I feel that the more people explore unconventional options, the more it diversifies the Meta and helps to make things like teambuilding more fun and varied as a whole! Also, I love challenging myself to find ways to use some of my favorite Pokemon in OU
Next up is likely either a Snowscape meta-analysis or a

analysis (depending on whether I can finally figure out the proper optimization for its defensive EVs within the next century x-x)

To distract the general public from the 3 little pigs we have, i wanna talk about a mon that i have been having fun with



Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Poison Jab
- Drain Punch
- Sucker Punch

This fella right there is a fun mon to use on rain, because its a rain mon that posseses a Water Inmunity, a toxic inmunity and basically shits on Kingambit and Azumarill all day long, Azu OHKO´S with Play rough but your faster and you have a 75% chance to OHKO with Posion Jab, worse case scenario you deal 95% and poison damage and she dies, as for Kingambit, at full health it survives a +2 Kowtow cleave or a +2 Sucker Punch and you basically delete him from the earth with Drain Punch, it also invalidates Tera Fairy garganacl from existing due to the salt cure resistance and the poison jab that is coming from him, while afraid of ting lu, ting lu cant enter on croak because of drain punch and posion jab posion rate who makes it harder for his team to stand up against your repeated assaults, you can do 69.7 - 82% to dragapult with sucker punch, or just OHKO with tera dark, Breloom you saying? who? oh im sorry, i just saw a 70 - 83% with max roll bullet seed but your faster and OHKO with posion jab, Dragonite? you mean a mon who is deathly afraid of posion jab and has to decide where DD or EQ? opposing floatzel? you mean a mon that is forced to Ice Spinner because the other 3 moves cant touch you and you 2HKO with drain punch or posion jab? it also checks gholdengo only if scarf and locked into shadow ball

Now, of course this mon has a gooooood share of flaws, mainly tera water garganacl, toxapex, dondozo, corviknight, clodsire, the donphans, scizor, Valiant, gholdengo and skeleridge are all just hard counters to it, not to meantion dry skin means that, while providing a water inmunity, your now weak to fire AND sun, which right now its a its strongest thanks to all the new mons, but Toxicroak is not a mon you use over Floatzel oh no, of course not, its a mon you use before unleashing floatzel because you dont want him to die for recoil damage before winning the game, you need to soften things first, here is where you use croak as a mon that softens the target, breaks a hole and then sacks itself so that floatzel can get safe entry and start shitting on it

Now, you might be asking yourself, why use over mons like , or aand the answer is, who said that you could only use 1? the all have different things to support themselves and others, Barrawskewda while the frailest of the 3, its the fastest and strongest of the 3 meaning you dont care about that many walls, Quaquaval while requiring a million turns to set up and sometimes having problems selecting its move set, once it gets going, you really need to put all you got to stop the dancing duck to kill them all, golduck separates from all of them by being a special attacker, toxicroak and floatzel having priority means qua and barra dont neceserally need it, so that you can run an extra move to smack something hard

Sometimes its about the friendship and not the competition
https://pokepast.es/a04b7f5b0c2ee0dd
This is the team i used, its more of a casual team to be honest, just for the fun, and im not gonna try to make a nomination out of this (at least not yet) but who knows, maybe you could be having fun with this

Toxicroak is an underrated mon with a great movepool, interest stat spread, uniquely strong typing, and a great ability. I think I'm gonna give it a more dedicated try on one of my teams, nice post!

 

[1LDK]

Toxicroak is an underrated mon with a great movepool, interest stat spread, uniquely strong typing, and a great ability. I think I'm gonna give it a more dedicated try on one of my teams, nice post!

thank you man, just learning from the GOAT of these kinds of post

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Toxicroak is an underrated mon with a great movepool, interest stat spread, uniquely strong typing, and a great ability. I think I'm gonna give it a more dedicated try on one of my teams, nice post!

maybe try a special set alongside zoroark? i was completely bamboozled by that once because i didn't expect the thing running sludge bomb, nasty plot, dark pulse and focus blast to actually be a toxicroak

 

[Morkal]

maybe try a special set alongside zoroark? i was completely bamboozled by that once because i didn't expect the thing running sludge bomb, nasty plot, dark pulse and focus blast to actually be a toxicroak

I've been running a physical utility hybrid Zoroark, so that could actually work quite well! I've been needing some better Illusion-bait teammates to take advantage of Zoroark's utility, and a Pokemon with a 4x Psychic weakness seems like it would be really great here for said bait! NP + Three Attacks, or maybe even NP + 2 attacks with Sucker Punch and mixed EVs? Still have to test, but Toxicroak seems really neat right now

 

[carbonlifeform]

A fun tech I've been playing with: Nasty Plot on standard bulky

There's a lack of bulky water resists in the tier without resorting to tera, and the most common tera type to resist water is...water, which you can still volt-switch out on. Also, there are a *lot* of other Washtoms running around that will basically let you NP for free in weird Protect/Volt Switch speed tie wars if you run SpD instead of Def.

Even without any SpA investment, Washtom gains the ability to chunk a lot of neutral threats (and frailer resits) after a NP in the mid-game:

Assorted Artisanal Calcs

+2 0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 236 HP / 0 SpD Scizor: 297-349 (87.3 - 102.6%)
+2 0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 112 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 282-333 (76.4 - 90.2%)
+2 0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Gholdengo: 267-315 (70.6 - 83.3%)
+2 0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Corviknight: 280-330 (70.1 - 82.7%)
+2 0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Garchomp: 280-331 (66.6 - 78.8%)
+2 0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 308-366 (59.9 - 71.2%)
+2 0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Iron Hands: 247-292 (55 - 65%)
+2 0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. +1 252 HP / 0 SpD Hatterene: 160-190 (50.3 - 59.7%)
+2 0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dragapult: 156-183 (49.2 - 57.7%)

Obviously, you're not gonna sweep anything (slow, PP/accuracy issues with Hydro Miss, etc.), but you create a lot more pressure against switch-ins than pure pivot sets do. I've been running NP over Protect but would consider ditching TWave/WoW and keeping Protect for longevity if Chien-Pao ever gets banned. Hope to see other people give it a shot. Or, y'know, maybe I want to keep being the only person to surprise people with it :shrug:

 

[Ctann]

What I’m observing about the current metagame that is noticeable different than last gen, is the lack of diversity.

to hit 1900s + in elo consistently you really need 4-5 Pokémon’s that are at the absolute top of the viability charts. Last gen you could do it with an all UU team!

anyone else share the sentiments?

 

[1LDK]

What I’m observing about the current metagame that is noticeable different than last gen, is the lack of diversity.

to hit 1900s + in elo consistently you really need 4-5 Pokémon’s that are at the absolute top of the viability charts. Last gen you could do it with an all UU team!

anyone else share the sentiments?

itss because of the overall low pool of mons and the 3 mons i wont mention, but these have been mentioned so much that people got bored and are starting to do theorymonning about hisuin mons, home mons and lower tier mons like Klawf, Toxicroak and a lot more

 

[Wolf-X]

To distract the general public from the 3 little pigs we have, i wanna talk about a mon that i have been having fun with



Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Poison Jab
- Drain Punch
- Sucker Punch

This fella right there is a fun mon to use on rain, because its a rain mon that posseses a Water Inmunity, a toxic inmunity and basically shits on Kingambit and Azumarill all day long, Azu OHKO´S with Play rough but your faster and you have a 75% chance to OHKO with Posion Jab, worse case scenario you deal 95% and poison damage and she dies, as for Kingambit, at full health it survives a +2 Kowtow cleave or a +2 Sucker Punch and you basically delete him from the earth with Drain Punch, it also invalidates Tera Fairy garganacl from existing due to the salt cure resistance and the poison jab that is coming from him, while afraid of ting lu, ting lu cant enter on croak because of drain punch and posion jab posion rate who makes it harder for his team to stand up against your repeated assaults, you can do 69.7 - 82% to dragapult with sucker punch, or just OHKO with tera dark, Breloom you saying? who? oh im sorry, i just saw a 70 - 83% with max roll bullet seed but your faster and OHKO with posion jab, Dragonite? you mean a mon who is deathly afraid of posion jab and has to decide where DD or EQ? opposing floatzel? you mean a mon that is forced to Ice Spinner because the other 3 moves cant touch you and you 2HKO with drain punch or posion jab? it also checks gholdengo only if scarf and locked into shadow ball

Now, of course this mon has a gooooood share of flaws, mainly tera water garganacl, toxapex, dondozo, corviknight, clodsire, the donphans, scizor, Valiant, gholdengo and skeleridge are all just hard counters to it, not to meantion dry skin means that, while providing a water inmunity, your now weak to fire AND sun, which right now its a its strongest thanks to all the new mons, but Toxicroak is not a mon you use over Floatzel oh no, of course not, its a mon you use before unleashing floatzel because you dont want him to die for recoil damage before winning the game, you need to soften things first, here is where you use croak as a mon that softens the target, breaks a hole and then sacks itself so that floatzel can get safe entry and start shitting on it

Now, you might be asking yourself, why use over mons like , or aand the answer is, who said that you could only use 1? the all have different things to support themselves and others, Barrawskewda while the frailest of the 3, its the fastest and strongest of the 3 meaning you dont care about that many walls, Quaquaval while requiring a million turns to set up and sometimes having problems selecting its move set, once it gets going, you really need to put all you got to stop the dancing duck to kill them all, golduck separates from all of them by being a special attacker, toxicroak and floatzel having priority means qua and barra dont neceserally need it, so that you can run an extra move to smack something hard

Sometimes its about the friendship and not the competition
https://pokepast.es/a04b7f5b0c2ee0dd
This is the team i used, its more of a casual team to be honest, just for the fun, and im not gonna try to make a nomination out of this (at least not yet) but who knows, maybe you could be having fun with this

While i agree toxicroak is kinda viable and have used it myself, it still is very frail and the ''shit in kingambit'' bit is a bit of an overstatement as iron head 2hkos the frog and Kingambit frequently teras, after which the frog struggles quite a bit more.

Toxicroak sadly has a few issues, first its kinda frail, and if you want to have a decent bulk you gotta sacrifice speed, and then it also suffers from 4 move syndrome, toxicroak really wants to run the following moves:
-Sucker punch for priority bc its speed is nothing to brag about
-SD to be able to actually threaten relevant stuff
-Gunk Shot to have a hard hitting stab
-Drain punch for another stab and recovery
-Taunt to deal with stall

So its kinda frustrating, bc its so close to been really good but it just isnt there, imo he could use some Bisharp treatment and get another evolution with better stats and maybe something else to make it shine. It really needs it a lot more than Bisharp did lol

Also Sneasler is about to come and except the water inmunity it pretty much does everything toxicroak does but better.

 

[1LDK]

While i agree toxicroak is kinda viable and have used it myself, it still is very frail and the ''shit in kingambit'' bit is a bit of an overstatement as iron head 2hkos the frog and Kingambit frequently teras, after which the frog struggles quite a bit more.

Toxicroak sadly has a few issues, first its kinda frail, and if you want to have a decent bulk you gotta sacrifice speed, and then it also suffers from 4 move syndrome, toxicroak really wants to run the following moves:
-Sucker punch for priority bc its speed is nothing to brag about
-SD to be able to actually threaten relevant stuff
-Gunk Shot to have a hard hitting stab
-Drain punch for another stab and recovery
-Taunt to deal with stall

So its kinda frustrating, bc its so close to been really good but it just isnt there, imo he could use some Bisharp treatment and get another evolution with better stats and maybe something else to make it shine. It really needs it a lot more than Bisharp did lol

Also Sneasler is about to come and except the water inmunity it pretty much does everything toxicroak does but better.

Yeah, obviously not the top of the mountain mon but an interesting option nonthelesss
Sneasler tho, I theorycrafted 2 sets with it


Sneasler @ Psychic Seed/Something that serves as 1 time use idk
Ability: Unburden
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Acrobatics
- Close Combat
- Dire Claw
- Swords Dance

THE ONE SWEEEEEEEEEEEP
THE ONE SWEEEEEEEEEP IS REEAAALL
Its literally Hawlucha but weak to ground and psychic, but just as annoying and strong, if not more, this is self explanatory

Sneasler @ Choice Band
Ability: Poison Touch
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dire Claw
- Close Combat
- Night Slash/Switcheroo
- U-turn

Offensive U-turn Pivot that can be a stall breaker thanks to Switcheroo, Poison Touch + Dire Claw is nuts, as its chances to toxic everything by touch, i can see this on offensive/HO teams that one momentum, but also appreciate the status by touch, what do you guys think?

 

[Deesu]

Offensive U-turn Pivot that can be a stall breaker thanks to Switcheroo, Poison Touch + Dire Claw is nuts, as its chances to toxic everything by touch, i can see this on offensive/HO teams that one momentum, but also appreciate the status by touch, what do you guys think?

i think sneasler will fit on every archetype outside of full stop stall (return of weavile sneasler semi-stall?) dire claw is absolutely insane and very spammable. close combat for steel types. poison types are at risk of getting paralyzed or slept. night slash for gholdengo. pivot out of undesirable matchups with u-turn. same-type tera may become the more common use for sneasler, but tera blast can brute force through other undesirable matchups as well. magnezone can trap and remove corv as well. i see rocky helmet becoming mandatory and covert cloak becoming even more popular in the future.

 

[Morkal]

What I’m observing about the current metagame that is noticeable different than last gen, is the lack of diversity.

to hit 1900s + in elo consistently you really need 4-5 Pokémon’s that are at the absolute top of the viability charts. Last gen you could do it with an all UU team!

anyone else share the sentiments?

Honestly, I felt more constrained in Gen 8 teambuilding-wise than I currently do in Gen 9.
Sure there are some very centralized threats (especially the big three). Still, at the same time, I've had a far easier time justifying solid niches for my sub-OU picks this gen because I was able to customize them way more readily with Terastallizing and movepool changes.

I think it feels a little strained right now because of said big three OU that I won't mention by name, but I feel that once the Pokemon Home update drops, we're going to see even more diversity crop up throughout the meta. I can definitely understand why people feel more constrained right now though