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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion
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Finchinator if the walking wake suspect song isn’t Here Comes The Sun I’m gonna be upsetti spaghetti.
To make this not a one liner, yeah wake is dumb. Right now we just don’t have good enough switch ins to it. If you play wake well, you can almost always guarantee at least one kill a game. Most of the switch ins for Draco get bopped by hydro steam. Sun obviously is public enemy number one with Wake, but I think it’s also dumb in rain. Wake also kind of feeds into itself, since with its typing it’s a great switch into a water locked wake. It’s just so centralizing rn a suspect is probably worth a look. Idk if I’d vote ban because part of me still thinks wake usage might be a tad inflated due to new toy syndrome, but yeah suspect the dinosaur dog.
To make this not a one liner, yeah wake is dumb. Right now we just don’t have good enough switch ins to it. If you play wake well, you can almost always guarantee at least one kill a game. Most of the switch ins for Draco get bopped by hydro steam. Sun obviously is public enemy number one with Wake, but I think it’s also dumb in rain. Wake also kind of feeds into itself, since with its typing it’s a great switch into a water locked wake. It’s just so centralizing rn a suspect is probably worth a look. Idk if I’d vote ban because part of me still thinks wake usage might be a tad inflated due to new toy syndrome, but yeah suspect the dinosaur dog.
Cheryl.
Celesteela is Life
Not to distract from the Walking Wake convo but I did want to ask about people’s thoughts on Psychic Terrain teams that have been popping up over the last month. Not to say that they’re broken, but do you guys think they’re more than just another HO matchup fish? Personally, I despise their existence because of how Pokémon like Armarouge and Polteageist tend to work but if you can manage to set up a hazard against them they tend to fall apart quickly.
also uhh Walking Wake feels kinda broken but I also think Sun is pretty dumb as well so who knows!
also uhh Walking Wake feels kinda broken but I also think Sun is pretty dumb as well so who knows!
They're good but a matchup fish in the sense they sort of lose to the same things all the time, Roaring Moon, Meowscarda, Ting-Lu, random teras. Once rocks get up/stay up they also lose pretty hard too. I don't like facing them, but I also don't like using them they feel very inconsistent to me.
I'd personally favor a quick ban on walking wake, as I doubt that thing is staying in the tier and it seems there are also a lot of people interested in a volc suspect test instead. Taking a long time to ban wake and leaving the metagame as is only to take a long time for another suspect test on volc doesn't seem that great either imo. I'd rather have it quickbanned and suspect tested as home comes than lose time over something that has barely any switch ins and restricts teambuilding so much.
Should also mention, garganacl is a weird Pokemon in the sense that covert cloak ends almost everything you want to do with it aside from setting up rocks, however, your team is way more weak to the rest of the metagame as you will sacrifice, for example, a leftovers on a defensive pokemon, which would otherwise wall other pokemon better. It has good solid counterplay, just use it, and you might have worse matchups against other mons, worth it? Idk but I don't find it broken.
Should also mention, garganacl is a weird Pokemon in the sense that covert cloak ends almost everything you want to do with it aside from setting up rocks, however, your team is way more weak to the rest of the metagame as you will sacrifice, for example, a leftovers on a defensive pokemon, which would otherwise wall other pokemon better. It has good solid counterplay, just use it, and you might have worse matchups against other mons, worth it? Idk but I don't find it broken.
None of these are true counters besides maybe AV Azu.- It does what Pult has always done thanks to its great speed tier, and it can easily outspeed and threaten/revenge-kill the vast majority of Wake's sets (I don't really think that Booster Energy or Agility sets are that good since they lack the sheer power that makes the Specs set oppressive, and they're also not quite as popular).
- Its water resistance allows it to tank several non-Sun boosted Hydro Steams, and Multiscale prevents Dnite from getting OHKOd by Specs Draco. This means it can actually switch into Wake and use it as an opportunity to either set up and potentially sweep, or just use Roost to heal the damage and switch again later.
- Same stuff as Pult, Valiant is one of the most popular revenge-killers/speedsters in the tier, and can very easily kill Wake with a Moonblast.
- Kingambit can only take 1 hit from Wake without getting KOd but it can still threaten it with a Sucker Punch, especially in the late game.
- Meowscarada's bulk sucks ass and yet Wake still fails to 2HKO it outside Sun with its Water STAB, and since it always outspeeds non Speed-boosted Wake sets it can very easily Knock its Specs off to survive potentially threatening hits and it can kill it the next turn, or simply OHKO it with Banded Flower Trick/Knock Off after some chip damage.
- Azu is a hard counter to Wake no matter what, so I don't really need to say much about it. Banded Play Rough can potentially OHKO it even at full health after it (Wake) Teras.
- Moon is by far the best check to Wake in the Sun, since it is usually EVd to get a Speed boost with Protosynthesis. It can easily switch into its non-Dragon moves and 2HKO it with Crunch or OHKO it with Dragon Claw, and it can Tera Steel (pretty popular) to tank Dracos coming its way.
- Yes, you can actually use Wake as an opportunity to set up and straight up win games with Volc, as long as you Tera to be neutral/resist Hydro Steam and Draco, like with Tera Fairy and Tera Steel. After a QD you outspeed Wake and are able to progressively get bulkier, so Wake's special attacks won't really matter.
- This speaks for itself, Wake usually checks opposing Wakes.
These are only the offensive mons, you obviously also have other defensive checks such as Clod, Dondozo, Pex, Gastrodon and Slowking. Now I'm not saying that Wake isn't problematic or that it doesn't deserve to get suspected (I do agree on that), but some people out here are acting like it's the next Chi-Yu or something, when it's not even close to being as threatening as Pao, Espathra and sometimes even other common offensive threats in OU. Also, HO is inherently flawed at being able to tank hits from other strong offensive mons, so it's only natural for those teams to have to sac some of their teammates before being able to switch into Wake itself.
Some are revenge killers, but cannot come in safely and require a fodder beforehand, which kind of proves my point. I’m not saying Walking Wake sweeps every game, but rather than it forces more kills than anything should or very specific, limiting defensive structures.
Ngl including Volcarona, Kingambit, and Walking Wake itself on a list in response to asking for reliable answers to Walking Wake itself feels like a major “you misunderstood the assignment”.
Volcarona is definitely problematic Imo and has been for a few weeks, but unfortunately the entire community came out and didn’t give it close to enough support in the survey no matter how we look at it.
Between Tera Ground/Grass/Fairy, it is very awkward to account for and that isn’t even included some fringe sets.
I do hope that these next couple of weeks continue to open some eyes as to how unhealthy the dynamic of being able to pick your own counterplay is — because it clearly breaks Volcarona to me — but we aren’t going to engage in a community suspect without close to enough (qualified) community support since the (qualified) community is the one voting at the end of the day. I’m hoping that community support comes in the near future if we don’t get owned by Home timing.
Speaking of Home, which of the current banned mons are mostly likely to be suspect tested for unban?
Unsure, we will likely vote on most, if not all, things once the time comes. Not a fan of speculating because if I say something now and later it is not the same, then I look like an ass (more of one than normal lmao)
Nobody claimed they were counters tho, we were talking about ways to manage Wake, specifically in a non-passive way. And these are all viable answers to it in HO strategies imo. How can you expect to play HO teams and at the same time be able to check defensively every single mon in the tier? If you wanted to do so you'd rather run Balanced or Bulky teams with the defensive mons mentioned above. Now as I said, I do agree that Wake should be looked into because of the pressure it puts in the meta, but it just feels weird to be using HO teams as an example to why Wake is hard to check defensively.
I said nothing about HO strategies. We were discussing things that work outside of stall that actually switch in to it.
Hence why I said you misunderstood the assignment. It is not really my fault you took my post and went off on a separate tangent.
HO tends to be able to conceal it ok enough if it does not have an untimely Tera due to offensive pressure, especially if it is not speed boosting in any capacity. The issue is that balance and bulky offense are really strapped for responses, and they went from making up a good portion of the metagame to fading very quickly within the last week.
My bad I was tripping hard apparently, I was just reading your convo with SpritePony earlier and one of you guys was mentioning HO and BO strategies so I pretty much assumed you were talking about that, but that wasn't the case lol.
I actually doubt that Houndstone will be unbanned when the HOME update comes, as the move it has been banned for, Last Respects, is known by both forms of Basculegion, and the female form tends to have a stat spread leaning more towards the special, and I highly doubt that a Basculegion-F set will be using Last Respects
I mean it's still a 350 STAB move. I don't even think the higher attack stat of male Basculegion will matter at that point. LR getting banned from OU and possibly even Ubers when Basculegion drops seems like a pretty safe bet
That could be a more safer bet, since Houndstone without LR is actually pretty manageable and could even bring Sand teams back temporarily as Excadrill isn't in the game, although I hope that Excadrill, along with something like Ferrothorn comes back in either of the DLCs
Are two mons really enough to ban a move over them? And whos to say LR is broken on smeargle?
The closest example I can think of (not a move but an ability) is banned moody over smeargle/octillery/bidoof/glalie where the ability got banned to keep the mons.
I can't find record of a time when only 2 pokemon existed with access to something broken and that broken piece was banned. Would be funny if dog/fish were the only ones that could abuse it due to speed tiers but something like smeargle turned out pretty gimmicky and shit even with tera ghost LR.
Usually banned moves are tied to some kind of ban clause (baton pass clause, OHKO clause, etc).
The closest example I can think of (not a move but an ability) is banned moody over smeargle/octillery/bidoof/glalie where the ability got banned to keep the mons.
I can't find record of a time when only 2 pokemon existed with access to something broken and that broken piece was banned. Would be funny if dog/fish were the only ones that could abuse it due to speed tiers but something like smeargle turned out pretty gimmicky and shit even with tera ghost LR.
Usually banned moves are tied to some kind of ban clause (baton pass clause, OHKO clause, etc).
Will throw in as well that a) Volc also beats Dnite if it has Tera Fairy with Tera Blast (as long as you have a bit of physical bulk and it doesn't Tera Normal immediately), and b) +1 0 SpA Volcarona Tera Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Cinderace: 141-166 (46.8 - 55.1%) -- 69.5% chance to 2HKO, so Cinderace loses to Tera Blast Volc of any type if it comes in on a Quiver Dance.
I will say, though, that while Volcarona is still stupid, the meta has adapted somewhat around it. Double Unaware cores aren't as popular as they used to be, mostly because Skeledirge isn't as popular as it used to be, but I see lots of teams that bring two of Toxapex/Clodsire/Dragonite/Ting-Lu/Cinderace/Ceruledge/Moth, plus some emergency counterplay like Tera Kingambit, Dragapult and Nuzzle/Psyshock Hatterene, and while not all of them are going to win the 1v1, you can typically limit the damage to 1 or 2 kills even if you don't have a true counter for that set.
With that said, of course, I would argue that that is still an immensely restrictive presence on the team builder, where you kinda have to make half your team a potential Volcarona answer with at least one that you can count on in most matchups. Yes, Volc has always been matchup-fishy, but with Tera and no Heatran it is harder than ever to reliably contain it.
PS I have played like 6 sun teams in a row on ladder someone please end this nightmare
gen 5 Dark Void might be an example? unsure (and not in OU I believe?)
suspect will prob be up late night/early morning gmt-5 (est), just finished writing
0 Atk Basculegion-F Last Respects vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew: 300-354 (87.9 - 103.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
Mew changed to a neutral type, 300 BP Last Respects, no investment or items on either side. Notably, this is not using tera-ghost for Basculegion-F.
Let's look at what happens when we toss in some investment, shall we?
252 Atk Adaptability Tera Ghost Basculegion-F Last Respects vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mew: 418-493 (103.4 - 122%) -- guaranteed OHKO
This represents a Jolly Scarfed Basculegion-F deciding to nuke a fully invested Mew, after Mew has terastalized out of its Ghost weakness. It's packing 420 speed, too - Jolly Dragapult just barely outspeeds at 421, so you'll outrun most things.
I concur. It’s my favorite song of all time. It always picks me up when I’m feeling down. :)
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May I cycle back for a moment to the notion of banning Tera Blast? I don’t think this idea has gained much traction, but I find this is a pretty bad idea. I would like to take a second to articulate why I feel this way.
This intent with this idea is to exclusively limit offense, correct? Honestly, I find defensive Tera to be more problematic than offensive Tera personally, but that point isn’t relevant to the Tera Blast discussion. Obviously, banning Tera Blast would do nothing to combat defensive Tera.
I would argue that the best offensive users of Tera would prefer to NOT USE Tera Blast, but rather use their Tera types to augment existing coverage (think of mons like Normal ESpeed Dragonite, Grass Giga Drain Volc, Flying Acrobatics Moon, Fighting Focus Blast Goldenghoul, etc.) Otherwise, they just give themselves a spammable super STAB (as in the case of Water Tera Floatzel, Ghost Tera Dragapult or Fairy Tera Valliant).
While using Tera Blast can patch up substandard coverage, or for some surprise factor to catch a would be check off guard, the larger issue with placing Tera Blast on a moveset for any given mon is that it is very committal. You HAVE to Tera this Mon to make Tera Blast a viable move (barring a very few rare exceptions on special attacking Normal types, like Arboliva).
For this reason, committing a slot to Tera Blast makes your team as a whole less flexible. In the event you need to emergency Tera a different mon to deal with a threat you cannot otherwise handle, Tera Blast becomes a wasted slot, and the mon you’ve put it on becomes highly suboptimal. Using Tera Blast is always a gamble, because if you don’t commit to using Tera on this particular Mon, you’ve wasted potential coverage you could’ve had. This is why Tera Blast is actually one of the more balanced nuances of Terastalization as a whole.
Put another way, Giga Drain is a good move on Volcorona regardless of whether or not it Tera’s into Grass, because it’s coverage against Water and Rock types that would’ve blanked its Fire STAB, in addition to its utility to heal Volc. Conversely, things like Grass Tera Blast on Kingsgambit, Fire Tera Blast Brute Bonnet, or Electric Tera Blast on Haxorus are some cool anti-meta tech, but if you are forced to Tera one of your other 5 mons reactively, good luck using your offensive mon to do much of anything against their typical checks. They are effectively dead weight.
Tl;dr: What does all this amount to if Tera Blast was banned? It means that defensive Tera is untouched, suboptimal offensive mons reliant on Tera Blast become completely unviable in OU, while the already dominant offensive mons become even more dominant.
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*Garg QB followed by a Shed Tail suspect.
The whole Tera ghost basculin thing kinda throws a wrench into banning last respects. But even still it should be banned regardless of if it’s broken on a NFE mon.
Walking Wake is a prime example of a mon that’s just broken because of the limited dex we have. He completely alters what a sun team but we just currently don’t have any good offensive checks.
it’s frustratin cause I want a competitive and fun meta, but I’m not sure it’s possible with the Pokémon we have available currently.
Walking Wake is a prime example of a mon that’s just broken because of the limited dex we have. He completely alters what a sun team but we just currently don’t have any good offensive checks.
it’s frustratin cause I want a competitive and fun meta, but I’m not sure it’s possible with the Pokémon we have available currently.
Yeah, I don't think there's any way either Basculegion will stay out of Ubers if they have Last Respects. If they're not preemptively banned, they're almost certainly going to get quickbanned in mere days.
I maintain that the real candidate for Last Respects potentially remaining unbanned will be White-Striped Basculin, the pre-evolution. (Assuming Serebii is correct in saying it gets the move, anyway.)
It lacks Swift Swim, is much more fragile, and doesn't have Ghost STAB without Tera. It might still be Ubers-worthy(which would probably result in Last Respects being banned, yeah), but I can also imagine it remaining in OU or even briefly terrorizing UU before being banned to UUBL.
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