Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

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252+ SpA Choice Specs Fire Tera Type Chi-Yu Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Toxapex in Sun: 298-351 (98 - 115.4%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
This is with beads of ruin drop as well I forgot to mention earlier
 
Terastallizing is an affront to god for the reasons that have already been mentioned.

But Im wondering about booster energy. The item feels so strong on a high number of mons, but there's others like Scream Tail that are so trash that they cant be saved by booster energy. Does that mean that it can't be banned as an item? Can items even get banned?
Yeah on the donphans it feels pretty managable, but on stuff like iron bundle and flutter mane it can boost their stats to absurd levels, allowing Iron Bundle to beat and outspeed pult and for flutter mane to be an even bigger broken piece of crap.

So what mons do you think will be good once the meta settles? Quaquaval is already pretty good so I think it will only get a bit better once some of the faster threats get banned.
 
Can I ask about houndstone specifically? I get it's main power comes from last respects but I don't really see how it's on the same level as the rest of pokemon on here. I feel the meta is well equipped to handle it thanks to the amount of scarfers and ghost/dark types running around the tier that threaten houndstone. Also, houndstone is only really viable on sand teams and sand teams are facing a lot of competition from sun.
Yeah, it seemed broken af to me in the beginning, but after playing a ton today I don’t actually see houndstone doing much right now. Maybe that’ll change later, I’m sure more optimized players can break it to oblivion.

I’ve revised my number 2 most broken after Flutter Mane to Palafin.

I’ll say cyclizar adds a really fun element to the meta with the pivot shed tail stuff and having a normal type be meta feels healthy. I’d hate to see it quickbanned.
 

:blobthinking: coming soon to a thread near you
pre release, I remember lots of hype around tera ghost dragapult, especially from the physical side, along with specs being potentially amazing going into gen 9. Has that changed, or never been so, in the eyes of the council? Is dragapult not worthy of being suspect test worthy (or being on the radar) even with tera (maybe tera as a whole isnt as powerful as many initially believed it to be?)?
 

Finchinator

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pre release, I remember lots of hype around tera ghost dragapult, especially from the physical side, along with specs being potentially amazing going into gen 9. Has that changed, or never been so, in the eyes of the council? Is dragapult not worthy of being suspect test worthy (or being on the radar) even with tera (maybe tera as a whole isnt as powerful as many initially believed it to be?)?
It's too early to tell right now. It is being overshadowed by a certain other Ghost type in some contexts, but I am sure it is still great. As to how great or broken it may be, it is simply too soon -- we may know a lot more in the coming days or weeks, so stay tuned.
 
In my quest to find Lando-T at home, I found this guy to be arguably the best defensive ground immunity we have at the moment because it actually has a Fighting resist alongside it.

Gyarados @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Waterfall
- Iron Head
- Thunder Wave / Dragon Tail
- Protect / Dragon Tail

Palafin and Chien-Pao can't really touch it, Flutter Mane +1 Shadow Ball is only a 2HKO and gets OHKOed in return with Iron Head.
Valiant and Moon don't hit it particularly hard either, and either eats an Iron Head to the face (Valiant), or get T-waved/Phased when trying to set up.
I don't find myself using Waterfall too much, so maybe Chilling Water can work to deter setup, but lul its Chilling Water.
Tera Fairy with Tera Blast might be good for one shotting Roaring Moon if you are feeling funny, but I'm really liking the Ground immunity + Fighting resist it naturally has.
 
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One thing I do think people are sleeping on is Kilowattrel as an anti-Fogger. Even with Specs alone it's got two great STAB moves, but a lot of people seem to expect Volt Absorb when Competitive makes it an absolute beast capable of 2HKOing Blissey with Hurricane. While still not Thundurus, I think it's gonna be predominant on Rain.
 
pre release, I remember lots of hype around tera ghost dragapult, especially from the physical side, along with specs being potentially amazing going into gen 9. Has that changed, or never been so, in the eyes of the council? Is dragapult not worthy of being suspect test worthy (or being on the radar) even with tera (maybe tera as a whole isnt as powerful as many initially believed it to be?)?
I certainly don't think that Dragapult is bad - it'll probably be a top Pokemon when the meta stabilizes - but it's largely outclassed by the likes of Flutter Mane and Roaring Moon right now, so there isn't really much incentive to experiment with it until they're either banned or we find a way to deal with them.
 
Dragapult is good but he's not on par with the paradox mons like Flutter Mane/Roaring Moon under sun, nor Chien Pao who's stronger due to Sword of Ruin giving free Life Orb boost without recoil. There are a lot of broken mons out there atm and Pult doesn't seem to be one of them
 
It's too early to tell right now. It is being overshadowed by a certain other Ghost type in some contexts, but I am sure it is still great. As to how great or broken it may be, it is simply too soon -- we may know a lot more in the coming days or weeks, so stay tuned.
is there an eta for when usage stats will be out? Will they come out early, like let's say a couple of days/week into the meta or will it just come out on regular time i.e. a few days into december?
 
Ok so

I'm looking at the meta, and a few things for teambuilding come up

1) Whirlwind / Roar. Cyclizar and its Shed Tail antics are a bit much combined with the Stored Power packing Speed Boost and Calm Minder that is Espathra. Its also helpful vs say a CM Flutter Mane or Quaquaval and Aqua Step + Moxie. Skeledirge is possibly the best phazer due to reliable recovery, Unaware and solid 104/100/75 bulk. It even has Torch Song as a secondary option to bypass these Substitute antics. Its only struggle is Stealth Rock - which can be dealt with via Heavy-Duty Boots or removing them

2) The offensive threats. Chien-Pao, Quaquaval, Flutter Mane. I know it'll take a while for the meta to settle, but that doesn't change the fact that its chaos. Chien-Pao is just... What the fuck. And Flutter Mane is on the verge of a suspect test. When the meta settlee, maybe these threats will be neutralized

3) Hazard control. It. Is. BAD. I'm going to say it - the hazard control is ass. Defog is less common than Rapid Spin yes - and being forced to use hazard control isn't bad. But who can do it is the issue. Ghost types are on nearly any good team (or should be) and Defog isn't as good as Rapid Spin cuz why get rid of your own hazards in such an HO metagame?

Oh well, things will settle in a month or so

And with that being said, goodbye
 
Was finally able to get 25 games in. I forgot what an up and down experience new meta ladder is. My teambuilding is embarrassingly bad, so I admittedly have a small sample size of experience, and also at the risk of repeating what everyone else is saying, here are my early meta thoughts.

Chien-Pao is pretty crazy. When people talk about priority being necessary, this is the mon they're worried about. This is the bog standard set I've been running, and have been seeing everyone else run too.
Chien-Pao @ Life Orb
Ability: Sword of Ruin
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch
- Icicle Crash
- Sacred Sword
LO might even be a bit overkill, you can play around with that a bit. This set trashes a good chunk of what's out there right now with very little difficulty.

Baxcalibur is a lot of fun. Dragon tera Glaive Rush hits hard, and Ice Shard is there to always have the speed advantage. Flutter Mane is holding this thing down right now, but once it inevitably flutters to Ubers, Bax might rise up quickly.

I've really enjoyed using Iron Moth. When I saw Booster Energied Fire Blast takes out Great Tusk, I was sold. I've been catching incoming water types with Discharge, but I think there's a lot of experimentation that can be done with the moveset. I'll be focusing on building around this one moving forward.

Maybe people just aren't using it right, but Cyclizar is really not that good. A gust of wind will kill it, and if not it'll at least drop it out of Shed Tail range. I've heard people talk about it passing subs more than once and healing up with Regen, but the only thing I've ever seen this mon do is die.

The jury is still out on Clodsire for me. I was hyping it up pre-release, but with more than one physical ice type around, it has a hard time getting set up. It has a massive moveset though, so I think a little more experimenting on my part may help out.

Weather wars feel like they may be important to the meta, but not defining. Rain has taken a pretty huge hit; sometimes you can still squeeze out a tera water Skewda win, but most of the time you'll get overwhelmed by offense. As much as I love Slowking becoming a hail snow setter, it's not easy to get it off without issue. Plus, with Pao on every team, you're usually working against yourself in some way.

I'm having a lot of fun, and I look forward to seeing how the tier develops from here.
 
After 50 matches I'm at 1344 elo, 63.2% gxe. I have changed my team and movesets a significant amount throughout that time period. Thoughts on these?:

Roaring Moon @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 220 Atk / 36 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Crunch

220 attack so Booster Energy gives +speed instead of +attack. Outrage instead of Dragon Claw but that might be dumb

Dondozo (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Wave Crash
- Body Press
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

My favorite pokemon in this meta. Unaware is godlike and it checks/counters Palafin and Roaring Moon. Tera fighting to secure a 2hko if needed: first body press does 40-49%, if Tera'd it'll do do enough to kill. Rest + Sleep Talk because I can't really think of anything else that is worthwhile.
 
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To add on to my previous post about trailblaze just going vroooooooooom on Scizor here's a replay of my opponent thinking I was choiced and me going zoom through his team. I really like the set personally too since with good predicts it really punishes Palafin and great tusk and just sometimes goes brrrrrrrrrrrr through teams for no reason.

Replay of me going brrrrr with this very set in low/mid ladder
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1714776100

and so you don't need to scroll up here's the set; try it out it's fun

Scizor @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Trailblaze
- Close Combat
Honestly, it seemed more like your opponent literally never saw scizor in their life.

Who is leaving in Flutter mane in against scizor?
 

Cheryl.

Celesteela is Life
your new dad (Palafin-Hero) @ Leftovers
Ability: Zero to Hero
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 236 HP / 252 Atk / 20 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Jet Punch
- Drain Punch
- Taunt
- Bulk Up

Don't ask me about the EVs, I stole this from a blunder video LOL. But this set is absolutely hilarious once it gets going, not a lot of people are running the hard Palafin checks like phys def Amoonguss yet so against most teams this set just gets to run a train once you get the transformation. Palafin-Hero has really good bulk to set up with and Taunt allows it to dodge status from Wisp mons like Skeledirge. With a few boosts in Jet Punch becomes ungodly to deal with, especially if you had room to go for Tera Water in the game. This set does need a bit of support for the harder Palafin checks out there but I cannot stress how strong it is as a snowball wincon, hopefully the blunder vid makes it more well-known.

some other notes:

bulky blanket check mons like Amoonguss and Toxapex are better than people think in this meta, especially Amoon. They can definitely be taken advantage of but Amoonguss makes that very hard between Spore and Clear Smog (Clear Smog is also hella clutch for Booster Energy mons and the set I just posted above). Avalugg is also a rather cool niche pick, it synergizes well with Tera and it got a better Ice STAB this gen in Ice Spinner. I personally enjoy Tera Ghost to dodge Fighting type moves, but I've seen Tera Fighting be used as well to good effect. It probably will fall off quickly once the meta isn't insane but for now it's a nice physical blanket check and one of the few "good" Chien-Pao checks until I get my ass clapped by Tera Psychic.
 
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After 50 matches I'm at 1344 elo, 63.2% gxe. I have changed my team and movesets a significant amount throughout that time period. Thoughts on these?:

Roaring Moon @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 220 Atk / 36 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Crunch

220 attack so Booster Energy gives +speed instead of +attack. Outrage instead of Dragon Claw but that might be dumb

Dondozo (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Wave Crash
- Body Press
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

My favorite pokemon in this meta. Unaware is godlike and it checks/counters Palafin and Roaring Moon. Tera fighting to secure a 2hko if needed: first body press does 40-49%, if Tera'd it'll do do enough to kill. Rest + Sleep Talk because I can't really think of anything else that is worthwhile.
I'm 1368 elo, 54% gxe now!!!! 360th place on the ladder!!!!!!! shinylugia

first top 500 ever!! I know it is early in the meta but still. My teambuilding is is elite muahahaha
 
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Forgive me if I'm misremembering policy, but what's preventing us from re-evaluating prior bans as new contexts develop? I bring this up because in the case of Houndstone, doing so would allow banning it until Home releases, and if Last Respects is deemed banworthy, Houndstone can simultaneously be unbanned, since it was its usage of that "signature" move that warranted it in the first place.

As for Terastal, this also allows us to more easily ban problematic Terastal users - while it won't change much for many, some such mons could be easily discernable as only banworthy due to terastal. If, later down the line, Terastal's usage on any pokemon was deemed too uncompetitive in the same method Dynamax was, this would also allow those theoretical pokemon to be re-released into the OU metagame, no longer problematic.
 
I've been messing around with team comps with Houndstone for a while. With the abundance of priority in the tier right now (Sucker Punch, Jet Punch, Mach Punch) and the difficulty in relying heavily on Sand Rush setups, I've been trying out a Fluffy Houndstone. It's probably not anything more than a quirky anti-meta pick, but Fluffy Houndstone tanks a lot of neutral hits and even some super-effective ones pretty easily and can revenge kill quite hard.

With some support from Cyclizar or Masquerain, it can pretty easily blow holes in teams. Mostly because Last Respects is broken, though. Either way, Houndstone definitely looks strong and doesn't seem to solely rely on Sand Rush if played as a tankier mon.
 

Finchinator

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Forgive me if I'm misremembering policy, but what's preventing us from re-evaluating prior bans as new contexts develop? I bring this up because in the case of Houndstone, doing so would allow banning it until Home releases, and if Last Respects is deemed banworthy, Houndstone can simultaneously be unbanned, since it was its usage of that "signature" move that warranted it in the first place.
Well this is a portion of the debate -- if we can proactively ban Last Respects now or if it would have to wait until then, incurring the Houndstone collateral in the meantime. It's a good point you bring up and it really just depends how much we value supposedly credible future information when it comes to Pokemon preservation.
 
My first thoughts on this metagame are that Terastilization is a pretty big problem that pushes a lot of things over the edge and introduces some really obnoxious guessing games around what checks a Pokemon, but I understand why the tiering leaders are choosing to pursue Pokemon before the mechanic. I think that Flutter Mane and Chien-Pao are definitely the most problematic Pokemon in this metagame, Flutter Mane especially has predominantly grounded checks to Shadow Ball, and it's basically unwallable with hazards up. This thing is only going to get nastier as people optimize getting spikes up. Palafin is also really strong and likely too powerful, but I would honestly really like to see it in a metagame without Tera; it would be nice to see just how much of its absurd cleaning power with Jet Punch is up to basically having Adaptability.

I've been having a lot of fun with Garganacl early on in this metagame. The ghost resist gives it genuinely impressive bulk into both Flutter Mane and Houndstone, and blanking the odd Crocodirge and many Volcarona variants is cute. It also beats Corviknight 1v1 as well, which is super nice for a rocker. It can actually turn some of these Pokemon into momentum with Salt Cure, a powerful signature move that absolutely nothing wants to eat.

Junkhead (Garganacl) @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Body Press
- Salt Cure
- Recover

I've been running full spdef to be able to blank any and all specs or +1 cm boosted Flutter Mane hits, but obviously this can be further optimized to eat hits from Last Respects (four teammates dead) a little bit better. I might run some calcs and tune things up later tonight.

While Garganacl isn't that great of a Pokemon, there are certain popular cores that let it in extremely frequently to spread strong passive damage (it really threatens teams that don't have Great Tusk). I think it will fall off as the meta progresses and certain things that I've been using it to check potentially get banned, but it's definitely been a valuable member of my Day 0 and Day 1 balance team.

https://pokepast.es/508097b14880027d

Here's the full team for those interested in trying Garganacl out, it's pretty solid into most things and got me into top 10 on ladder at one point before I went to bed and ladder got taller lmao. The two biggest threats to this imo are into Great Tusk in sun and Tera-Grass Volcarona, so just watch out and play careful.
 

Baloor

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short first impressions of things ive tried / played agaisnt today / last night

:flutter-mane: broken
:houndstone: really fun and love using it but I understand why people want it gone
:cyclizar: shed tail is broken, without it, still a cool scarfer
:roaring-moon: insanely strong wincon, broken with terra but might be okay in a no terra meta? (if we ever get there)
:palafin-hero: this guy is the fucking man, easily the best mon to come out of this gen just in general not strength wise. really fun breaker with a cool gimmick, I think hes fine right now but can see him being annoying a few months down the line once the power creep goes down in the tier
:chien-pao: really strong cleaner who can be a pain to deal with, but I dont really get the people who think his ban should be on the first slate of qbs. i dont think hes that bad.
:great-tusk: rly fun offensive spinner + wincon, can see him being a meta staple down the line. ou chat says hes a little underwhelming at times but thats just because everything hits like a semi truck.
:iron-treads: worse than tusk, still good. defensive typing saves it from being a flop. prob will be a good steel down the line
:gholdengo: annoying but also a little underwhelming at the same time? typing is really good, ability is awesome, has really good stabs but seems to get overwhelmed in game. i use him mostly for the ability more than i have anything else. probably a general power creep issue
:baxcalibur: not gonna lie this guy is fucking crazy, I really like him. hes hard to fit on structures right now but still performs when you use him. might end up being a future ban? can't tell really tell yet but he hits hard as hell.
:kingambit: upgraded sharp kinda, def feels better than bish but he doesnt feel too crazy either. offensively nice and sucker is good rn but super slow compared to everything else around rn.
:iron-valiant: seems good, nice typing and moves but never used him nor has he done anything when i played agaisnt him? maybe im just that guy
:veluza: really cool set up mon, prob will end up in a lower tier but clicking fillet away and then terraing into a fighting type is incredibly fun
:clodsire: im expecting this guy to be a ou defensive staple, literally has all the defensive utility in the world and uses both of its abilities insanely well
:Garganacl: actually surprisingly decent for a defensive rock type, probably will fall a tier or two after we have our ghost problem sorted but i have a feeling he will remain relevant compared to a similar mon in gigalith.
:dondozo: I havent seen many people use this but this mon is hilarious, it basically soft checks everything and the curse set sometimes just wins. probably wont be OU but being a unaware mon means its likely to be a defensive player somewhere
:kilowattrel: zapdos at home (stole the mons movepool). only used it on rain but was a okay replacement. weaker defensively but slightly better offensively which slightly hurts it in comparison to zap tbh. can be good sometimes, other times it sucks
:maushold: both horrible and amazing. really depends on the mu it rolls. sometimes population bomb just wins outright.
:cetitan: looks crazy on paper but even with snow buff it doesnt do much? perhaps will be better down the line but rn its meh
:scovillain: really good sun sweeper, gets revenged kinda easy but is the best the playstyle has to offer thats not a Protosynth mon
:iron-bundle: this is kyurem pretending to be delibird (its really good)
:orthworm: slow shed tail is good if you can pull it off. outside of shed tail its not bad, its defensive stats are good enough and its a steel type with a ground immune ability. feeling it will fall a few tiers because its really passive outside of being a hazard setter and shed tail but its cool.
:skeledirge: honestly, bros cool as fuck. really nice stats, ability and movepool and ive seen people use terra on it with cool applications (terra fairy. torch song is good as well. overall really solid starter that I can see being used on fat teams from time to time if terra stays. if terra leaves it will prob fall a few tiers because ghost fire sucks defensively but overall is a cool niche mon for fat
:Meowscarada: havent seen people use this effectively yet so i dont know what to make of it because theres some really cool stuff that it can do when you look at its movepool. i still feel it will be alright after bans but right now its not doing much
:Quaquaval: every time i used this i wanted to use palafin instead, hes still prob solid but palafin just plays better.
:annihilape: hes bad tbh but im holding out hope hes better after we ban stuff and he takes the spot of some other mon
:chi-yu: this is lowkey really good but its not really apparent because its a bit slow compared to everything else + gets revenged by palafin. but the switchins are very limited.
:iron-moth: ngl this guy has done nothing every time i played vs it but die lol
:slither-wing: better than iron moth imo just because band first impression hits insanely hard
:glimmora: probably will be the go to lead for most hazard stack hos, dont see its niche being much more than that
:ting-lu: idk why this mon is actually not bad because its typing loses to most of the top mons but this guy EATS hits. will probably be a okay tool for defensive teams in the future.
:tatsugiri: i didnt know it had storm drain and it 6-0'd me with specs hydro after that
:Espathra: ass right now but might be okay as some jank speed boost stored power mon for ho in the future (i tried to make it work)
:ceruledge: this is not good but ghost oblivion wing is really scary so im hoping hes better later

TERRA: Its really hard for me to figure out where I want to stand in regard to Terra. Its easily the most fun mechanic we've had (megas is just a form change bros) but its applications can be incredibly annoying at times. Being able to randomly change your typing while keeping your old stabs is incredibly silly and can lead to some scenarios that you simply cannot outplay which can lose you the game. I think it makes sense to remove it when you're looking at it from the stance of "what is most competitive" and feel that is probably the proper direction since the introduction of its guessing game is obnoxious but terra does an excellent job in adding a new layer to the game we play thats actually sort of fun and not just "haha big mon funny".

just because i didnt mention a mon or I said something is "meh" or "bad" doesnt mean its actually bad. These are simply first day impressions, I could be wrong because I havent played with or agaisnt these mons enough. We are also expecting quick bans soonish which will certain cause a shift.
 
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