Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

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I think something that makes wake feel much more unbearable is the lack of any other really viable weather teams. At least if ONE other weather had the ability to compete with sun it might not feel oppressive, it might even be fun. Sun teams have 5-6 OU viable abusers with all the proto mons and maybe scovillian depending on how dedicated to sun you are and all of the proto mons are pretty much just as viable without sun. No other weather has anything close. Rain might have 3 if you count golduck, snow has cetitian, and I don't know if sand has anything.
I have been running chilly reception slowking to help mitigate sun but I gain nothing from setting snow besides stopping opposing sun and running a mon to set a weather you don't benefit from feels pretty warping.(I know chilly reception has other uses but I am choosing king over other special walls BECAUSE it sets snow which is the problem) The lack of almost any other team style on ladder makes the meta feel awful. You know at least 75% of teams (which is conservative) are going to be running some sun variant with wake + 2-3 other proto mons. Like others have said wake without sun is pretty manageable but it is amazing how wake took sun from a fringe viable cheese strategy to warping the meta around sun.

I would personally like to see wake get a suspect test to simply allow some people a little more time to innovate and experiment with how best to deal with it but I don't think a quick ban is a bad decision
 
SpritePony said:
Azu does well enough against it. Also where tf are you getting 2HKO after rocks???
244 SpA Choice Specs Walking Wake Hydro Steam (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 124 SpD Assault Vest Azumarill in Sun: 99-117 (29 - 34.3%) -- 99.9% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock
244 SpA Choice Specs Walking Wake Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 124 SpD Assault Vest Azumarill in Sun: 74-87 (21.7 - 25.5%) -- 100% chance to 4HKO after Stealth Rock
tf are you on, Corvi?
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244 SpA Choice Specs Walking Wake Hydro Steam (120 BP) vs. 116 HP / 0 SpD Azumarill in Sun: 171-201 (46.2 - 54.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

interesting spread for the AV set though since the sample set listed runs 252 HP EVs but no special defense investment. and while yes, AV azumarill does comfortably switch into it (unlike literally every other set), it completely lacks longevity. yeah, you force it out once, twice, maybe even three times, but eventually it'll get picked off by hydro steam on the switch. AV azu is not really a good long-term answer and any other set is not really an answer at all

the other points are valid however but this one i felt the need to clarify on
 
Wake under sun is broken but playing sun and keeping it up presents a notable opportunity cost. My opinion on it has evolved since it came out and I’d rather see another week or two of it in the meta before a decision is made. A suspect test would provide enough time for this and the council shouldn’t act unilaterally since there is no clear community consensus in forums like this or through a tiering survey.
 
Real_Corviknight said:
244 SpA Choice Specs Walking Wake Hydro Steam (120 BP) vs. 116 HP / 0 SpD Azumarill in Sun: 171-201 (46.2 - 54.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

interesting spread for the AV set though since the sample set listed runs 252 HP EVs but no special defense investment. and while yes, AV azumarill does comfortably switch into it (unlike literally every other set), it completely lacks longevity. yeah, you force it out once, twice, maybe even three times, but eventually it'll get picked off by hydro steam on the switch. AV azu is not really a good long-term answer and any other set is not really an answer at all

the other points are valid however but this one i felt the need to clarify on
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My spread on my AV Azu is this:

:azumarill: @ Assault Vest
Huge Power
Adamant Nature | Tera Water
252 Atk / 124 SpDef / 132 Speed
Liquidation
Play Rough
Ice Spinner
Aqua Jet

The reason for this was to have a decently bulky switch in to various Pokemon. 132 Speed allows you to outspeed opposing minimal investment Azu, Umbreon, Skeledirge, and Orthworm. (Plus other, low speed targets.) The rest is pumped into SpDef to aid the AV in doing its job.

It's not a good long-term answer, but it's an alright offensive response to Wake.
 
SpritePony said:
My spread on my AV Azu is this:

:azumarill: @ Assault Vest
Huge Power
Adamant Nature | Tera Water
252 Atk / 124 SpDef / 132 Speed
Liquidation
Play Rough
Ice Spinner
Aqua Jet

The reason for this was to have a decently bulky switch in to various Pokemon. 132 Speed allows you to outspeed opposing minimal investment Azu, Umbreon, Skeledirge, and Orthworm. (Plus other, low speed targets.) The rest is pumped into SpDef to aid the AV in doing its job.

It's not a good long-term answer, but it's an alright offensive response to Wake.
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Yeah a limited time response like this feels effective vs Wake IMO because of the inherent nature of weather / Terrain playstyles. Pokemon like Torkoal aren't going to stick around forever and when it inevitably goes down, Wake's threat level becomes much lower. Having a mon like Azu helps waste sun turns and forces Wake to make some hard reads like going for Tera Electric Tera Blast on the switch or something, which isn't even guaranteed to KO. That being said, Azu itself might be stretched thin to check big threats on Sun teams and I could see Sun teams finding creative ways to break it down so Wake can go ham.
 
Magcargo said:
Yeah a limited time response like this feels effective vs Wake IMO because of the inherent nature of weather / Terrain playstyles. Pokemon like Torkoal aren't going to stick around forever and when it inevitably goes down, Wake's threat level becomes much lower. Having a mon like Azu helps waste sun turns and forces Wake to make some hard reads like going for Tera Electric Tera Blast on the switch or something, which isn't even guaranteed to KO. That being said, Azu itself might be stretched thin to check big threats on Sun teams and I could see Sun teams finding creative ways to break it down so Wake can go ham.
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Yeah, that's entirely true. It's all upon how a team is built. I actually drafted a team around some Wake checks (namely Azu + Gastro) plus some other goodstuff pairings. It's... An okay team.

But yeah. Wake running about. Doing Wake things.
 
Lpow12 said:
I have been running chilly reception slowking to help mitigate sun but I gain nothing from setting snow besides stopping opposing sun and running a mon to set a weather you don't benefit from feels pretty warping.
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Chilly reception is a pivot move with the added effect of setting snow so it is a good move even outside the sub match up. Yeah, it is hard to take advantage of snow right now outside buffing Bax defense or running niche mons, but saying that Slowking using Chilly reception only works to stop sun is underselling both, the move and Slowking.
 
What happened to :slowking: anyways? It had a big popularity spike and it seemed like it might become OU, but then it just plummeted and was never seen of again. It seems like a half decent ww counter as well.
 
Soiramio3000 said:
are there any news on the next suspect test/quickban?
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Council will be in this weekend to talk about Wake (plus maybe some others IF we are lucky.) We'll probably see what's up by Sunday or Monday.
Poke nerd said:
What happened to :slowking: anyways? It had a big popularity spike and it seemed like it might become OU, but then it just plummeted and was never seen of again. It seems like a half decent ww counter as well.
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It's not a counter to Walking Wake. It's a check at best, and you still get chunked like Pex.
244 SpA Choice Specs Walking Wake Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking: 208-246 (52.7 - 62.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 
Soiramio3000 said:
are there any news on the next suspect test/quickban?
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Finchinator said:
Today the SV OU tiering council will be conducting a multi-step vote on Walking Wake.

The internal vote includes two prompts:
  • Do you want to quickban Walking Wake: yes or no
  • If “no”, do you want to suspect Walking Wake: yes or no
If the first question goes above our supermajority+ threshold (meaning at least 7/9 support, which is >2/3), then it will be quickbanned. If it does not, the second question will need a simple majority to trigger a prompt suspect of Walking Wake in SV OU. If neither threshold is hit, no action will occur.
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I don’t see WW as broken.

Reason #1: Reliance on Sun
The calcs with WW under sun are scary, but it also only fits on sun teams which have several bad mus, mostly from the likes of Pult, Moon, Glimm, etc. (also rain teams to an extent). Chi-Yu didn’t need sun to blow up everything in sight. Pao didn’t need any weather to nuke shit. WW is a different case where it needs the weather to bring out its full potential, outside of rain it faces competition with the other special-oriented dragon Pult who is already one of the best mons in the tier. Alot of past paradoxes are broken under sun in theory. Sandy Shocks with nearly unwallable stabs, Volt Switch, and Spikes. Slither Wing’s powerful priority and STAB U-Turn. CB Tusk under sun has no counters. However only under the right conditions which itself can be turn off balance by pressuring Torkoal.

Reason #2: Checks
Many people have a problem with slotting in a water resist for WW. However with how polarizing rain can be without sturdy water resists, it should be a given. We are not short of them. SpD Wash, Slowking, Amoonguss, Pex, Dnite, Dozo, Gastro, Clod, Tera Water Garg, etc. Slowking is the most notable answer since it eats a Draco while being able to reset the weather with Chilly Reception and heal with Regen. Pex eats a Draco with SpD investment and treatens with Toxic. Draco is something to be concerned of, but it has its own drawbacks. 3/9 of these have regen meaning they can shrug off the dmg of Draco. Its resisted by steel types which consist of the most common mons in the meta. Cores like Washtom/Gambit are already common regardless of WW’s presence. More prediction reliant than Chi-Yu who didn’t mind clicking one button or Pao clicking Tera Dark Crunch. WW doesn’t have any boosting moves besides Agility and DD. One doesn’t boost its SpA stats while the other makes use of its weaker Atk stat.

Its no different from Valiant who has 5 points less SpA but higher speed or Pult. In fact I can see WW being a positive impact on Gen 9 OU. Reminds me of DPP Kingdra with the typing and versatile movepool. Its the Volc check we needed for so long, it boosts sun’s viability, and is a welcome breaker to the tier.


Side note: I’ve been testing Ttar and its not great, but it has a uniquely good mu vs sun and psyspam. CB with FS support from Slowking breaks plenty of holes. The 61 speed tier gets the jump on Gambit, and most Dirge spreads. Tusks and Gambit are way better options, but if you fucking hate running into the 50th psyspam team on ladder, you can use anti-cheese Gambit (Ttar).
 
I wouldn't be surprised to see things like Tera Steel or Fairy Wake pop up to flip the script on things like Moon, Valiant or Gamibt trying to RK it
Poke nerd said:
What happened to :slowking: anyways? It had a big popularity spike and it seemed like it might become OU, but then it just plummeted and was never seen of again. It seems like a half decent ww counter as well.
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Despite it still being able to do FuturePort shenanigans, it actually doesn't really match up well vs many meta special attackers, especially with Tera in the picture. I've been running it a bit recently and it definitely cannot be your only special wall. Water/Psychic is just a bit of an unfortunate typing in the current meta.

Looking at the VR, here's everything that can hit Slowking quite hard on the special side:
  • Dragapult hits it with stab Shadow Ball or U-turn
  • Gholdengo can Trick it, hit it with SBall, or just use it as set-up fodder
  • Valiant can Trick it or hit it with Thunderbolt, but Slowking can withstand it
  • Greninja has Dark Pulse or Grass Knot
  • Hatterene uses it as set-up, but has to be wary of FuturePort shenanigans
  • Volc can take advantage of Slowking's inability to hit it decently hard and you really dont want to give Volc free turns
  • Iron Moth can run Energy Ball
  • Hydreigon STAB Dark Pulses it, and Slowking can't really hit it back
This is ofcourse ignoring the plethora of Physical attackers running around that Slowking doens't want to go near whatsoever.

It's a pretty shaky special wall in the current meta. It's psychic typing really hurts its capability to switch in to a lot of threats, and though this is fixable via terastalization, you'd ieally tera something else. I like using it because Future Sight support can really pressure the opponent, but Slowking struggles to really 1v1 anything in the meta and is very team-reliant.

That said, it does still heavily disrupt weather-based playstyles - both sun and rain - and Future Sight + strong breakers like Specs Valiant or Banded Tusk are a good combo to force your opponent into a difficult situation. It's a pretty good anti-meta threat atm but I think once Wake gets banned, he'll start falling out the meta again
 
Finchinator said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1631742918313607183
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1677874593876.png
 
Finchinator said:
I personally will be voting to ban Walking Wake. However, I do want to add that I intend to vote to unban it upon the release of Pokemon Home.

I believe Walking Wake creates an unhealthy metagame dynamic, warping the spectrum of Sun match-ups all while having a very limited pool of counterplay. This makes the metagame unbearably limited and repetitive (far moreso than before). Teambuilding is dictated by a slew of arguably troublesome factors as is, but Walking Wake takes the cake as arguably the most restrictive presence there is upon its addition to the tier.

I am excited to see how the vote will go and I think Walking Wake may be more manageable with a larger dex of Pokemon in the future personally.
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I highly disagree with a quick ban and not a suspect test especially with pokemon like volcarona still floating around.

Walking wake is a versatile and powerful pokemon that can fit in sun, rain and also some balance teams. Standard set is of course choice specs or scarf, but other items like life orb or dragon fang works too, my favourite set is actually a sub roar variant on spike stack teams due to its great bulk and typing for the meta right now.

Now, why do i think its not quickban worthy?

Besides the fact that its nowhere as powerful or centralizing as the other quickbanned mons,

It doesn't just break everything, its stabs are also pretty easily walled, i haven't use clodsire and pex in this meta and i have been fine checking it with spdef rotom + fairy garg, hatt + dnite, and kingambit + amoonguss (under rain too). To me, Walking Wake is similar to that of Choice Specs Tapu Lele or Choice band Kartana, yes it is definetly powerful but overall, it is checked by a lot of good top tier mon and also isnt the fastest thing out there so it can easily get out offensed by some common mons and checked by 2-3 checks like i mentioned above.

Finchinator said:
The point is that if only passive Pokemon can check or counter something, then certain types of teams are invalidated. Passive Pokemon like Gastrodon and Clodsire do not fit on offense, let alone hyper offense.
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I just don't see or even feel how this mon invalidates offense, i made a post here before which i don't know you've read or not but in short A lot of the good offensive mons like valiant, dragapult, meowscarada, cinderace and scarfers can dance around it. Walking wake is not that fast which can be exploited easily and Its stabs are also not Dark/Ice or Dark/Fire where there is genuinely no mon that can wall it. Gholdengo + Meow was genuinely enough for me. here are the 4 teams i used on ladder going around 1810 - 1980 SD Bax HO, Snowveil, a balance spike stack team with spdef rotom fairy garg roar walking wake and an electric terrain team someone else made that has a dnite, moth and valiant. Non of those teams has hard counters, either just offense to overwhelm or stacking checks, no clodsire, no gastrodon, no pex and i still do fine vs walking wake, truth be told the pokemon i struggle with was sub volcarona.

For sun, yes walking wake has been an excellent probably staple for sun like roaring moon, but it doesn't just beat everything easily. Sun is the best weather yes, but it is also extremely exploitable, common pokemon like dragapult, dragonite, volcarona and iron moth just absolutely destroys this style even with the addition of walking wake. All the weakness of sun like hazard still exists after wake is introduced. Walking wake is very strong but its not so strong that its unbearable, its power is similar to that of volcanion under rain in gen 8 where it just kills everything with water move, but like volcanion it can be maneuvered around and then revenge killed. Remember, its only so powerful under sun, out of it its not over bearing at all offensively.


My verdict? i think this is a bit of an overreaction, Walking wake is a very powerful pokemon, no doubt will be meta, but its just not that centralizing or powerful. Yes it can feel like dracovish lite with its tera water specs hydro steam under sun but it needs quite a bit to be right for wake to be able to dish out that damage. It's versatile but not so much so that it can be slapped everywhere, it's powerful but not so much so that you always need dedicated counters like chien pao, espathra or iron bundle. The meta is very well equipped to handle it and even if its too powerful, a quick ban just jumps the shark too much, especially with pokemon like volcarona still around.


Edit: Well that first part got answered with a post immediately after i was done writing, good that its suspected first before qb, but my points on why wake is not a problem still stands
 
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Mimikyu Stardust said:
I highly disagree with a quick ban and not a suspect test especially with pokemon like volcarona still floating around.
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It’s going to be a suspect test.
Mimikyu Stardust said:
Now, why do i think its not quickban worthy?

Besides the fact that its nowhere as powerful or centralizing as the other quickbanned mons,
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I dislike this logic though. This is mostly a nitpick, but context and timing matters as we have showcased in this sprint across the last few months.

Right now we have Home coming out at an unforeseen time in the soon-to-immediate future to give us a fresh slate. In the meantime, we now have to deal with a metagame that is flipped where old teams are almost entirely no longer viable and new conventions are very volatile while going through the stretch run of SPL, the later rounds of OST, and the start of STour. While unnecessary bans should still not happen, the goalposts clearly move given all of these circumstances just like they have up to this point.

Obviously it is no Flutter Mane, but comparing relative brokenness in vastly different metagame states is a fool’s errand. In general, we try to avoid this in tiering contexts unless absolutely necessary.

You’re 100% entitled to just thinking it’s not a problem or too soon to tell, and there’s no issue with that if so. I welcome all people from every side to share their stances. And if it’s not broken, it’ll just stay during the suspect test regardless of course. But I think context and how this is framed matter a ton.
 
WW is incredibly good and I could see it getting 50% usage before Home drops, like Great Tusk before it.
However, I don't believe its ability as a wallbeaker goes beyond what we've been dealing with since day 1. Adapting your gameplan to handle more boosted dracos/crashes/pumps should be part of the competitive nature of the game. This thing is not OP, banning it just because it's clumsily barging its way to the high viability rankings is cowardly.

proto spam is, and always was, cheap. WW pushed into viability at the top level but several mons make up the issue.
 
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Joseph Gomes said:
Is this the fastest that any brand new mon has got suspect tested after release? 4 days is pretty nuts
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Maybe but it's definitely worthy, like I said before a quick ban might be too much especially without a survey result, but I think a general suspect test to gauge the opinion of qualified voters is the way to go on top of giving 2 weeks to let the storm settle and see what we're really dealing with in terms of how much of a threat Walking Wake is.

edit: It's not like absurdly broken, there was no one arguing the ban of Flutter Mane because it was obvious, this not so much.
 
Finchinator said:
It’s going to be a suspect test.

I dislike this logic though. This is mostly a nitpick, but context and timing matters as we have showcased in this sprint across the last few months.

Right now we have Home coming out at an unforeseen time in the soon-to-immediate future to give us a fresh slate. In the meantime, we now have to deal with a metagame that is flipped where old teams are almost entirely no longer viable and new conventions are very volatile while going through the stretch run of SPL, the later rounds of OST, and the start of STour. While unnecessary bans should still not happen, the goalposts clearly move given all of these circumstances just like they have up to this point.

Obviously it is no Flutter Mane, but comparing relative brokenness in vastly different metagame states is a fool’s errand. In general, we try to avoid this in tiering contexts unless absolutely necessary.

You’re 100% entitled to just thinking it’s not a problem or too soon to tell, and there’s no issue with that if so. I welcome all people from every side to share their stances. And if it’s not broken, it’ll just stay during the suspect test regardless of course. But I think context and how this is framed matter a ton.
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Wow. 4 days in and it's immediately going to be suspect tested. I wonder what the reqs will be this time. I kind of want to vote on it and see if I can get them this time around.
 
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