Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[TCTphantom]

To me, Terrastralisation is a symptom rather than a cause.

Early metas tend to lean offensive, broken tends to check broken, etc. But this time we really lost a lot of the defensive backbones we had in Gen 8. Lando T, Clef, Ferrothorn, Skarmory, Tangrowth, you name it. Hazard removal is significantly worse than in Gen 8. We do not have access to transfer moves (if they even return), which cuts us down on reliable defoggers. Great Tusk and Iron Treads are good spinners, but removing hazards is still especially difficult right now. The defensive mons we did get are also notably nerfed. Slowbro doesn't have Teleport or Scald, Pex lost Scald, Blissey and Chansey lost Teleport, and across the board recovery moves have taken a huge hit. Even if we did hit Terrastralize, this meta would be one of the fastest we have had for OU.

And that is fine. A fast meta is not inheritly bad. Maybe when Lando T the lord and savior comes back, the meta will slow down a little. But Terrastralize is far from the reason fat teams are "dead". There is a decent chance they do find a way later down the line, once we tackle some of the more broken stuff in the meta.

Speaking of broken stuff, some broken mons are warping the meta and as a result the view around Terra. Palafin and Chien Pao are probably the two biggest offenders. I think its safe to say after more and more experimentation, Palafin looks to be public enemy number 1. While Terra Water Palafin is terrifying, I think most of us could agree it is not the main reason that Palafin is busted. Same thing goes for Chien Pao. Sure, with Terra it could get around its few checks, but it was already a scary mon to begin with. Heck, I would say Cyclizer is also a part of the reason Terra is as scary as it can be. That easy set up for your sweeper of choice makes it so they can abuse Terra to make them harder to take down or wall.

The other main argument I have seen against Terra is that it is unpredictable. Terra lets Pokemon get by their checks or counters and that it feels bad to lose to a random Terra type that just screws your counterplay over. First off, I think feels bad stuff is not a good enough reason for a ban. If it is pure RNG, sure. Heck, if it just decides games at team preview like full BP does, sure. But Terra just does not do that. I would honestly say the closest we could compare it to is Z Moves. Z moves also lead to plenty of dumb moments where pokemon could nuke their prospective checks or muscle through things. Granted, Z moves were more committal. But they still lead to plenty of dumb moments and were fine.

I also think that it is just way too soon to ban Terra just for being unpredictable. The meta is not even a week old. People are already finding defensive uses for it and counterplay. There are tons of other busted threats running around warping our view on it. I do not think we should seriously look at Terra until a few months down the road, after some of the obvious broken stuff is taken care of.

My ideal roadmap would be taking care of Palafin and Cyclizer first. I think Chien Pao, while super strong, also benefits a ton from how offensive this meta is. I think it easily could be a problem without those, and if it was banned I would not be surprised. I personally am not convinced Booster Energy, Iron Bundle, or Roaring Moon are banworthy yet. I am also pretty against an Iron Valiant ban comparatively and think it is worse than any of those rn.

 

[Mister Marshadow]

On the flip side of that, just because you know the Tera types of the other team doesn’t mean you know what mon or what time they’ll get Tera’d. there’s still plenty of room for creativity without the perceived randomness that people are complaining about

That only works for defensive tera. If it's an offensive tera, it's most likely going to be used as soon as that Pokemon comes in, if it's a defensive tera it's most likely getting used as soon as that Pokemon gets in a sticky situation. Just you wait for steel type toxapex....

 

[alephgalactus]

Imagine telling people at any point in the last 20 years that a Delibird form is being called out to be banned.

Hell, I wouldn’t have believed it 20 days ago. Nobody expected Delibird to get a form, much less a completely busted one.

 

[Avira]

I'm here to share a set that beats all Bulk Up Palafin-Hero sets.

Skeledirge (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Def / 128 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Slack Off
- Tera Blast
- Torch Song

Basically, once you Tera Fairy, there is nothing Palafin can do to you even if it Terastalizes. You can Torch Song up against it once and then blast with Shadow Ball or Tera Blast. Tera Blast lets you beat Bulk Up Taunt Annihilape, which is good at murdering stalls that don't have Ditto. These speed EVs let you outrun max Speed Adamant Kingambit so you can chip it in an emergency with Torch Song or have an outright chance to KO it at +1 if Kingambit tries to revenge you with Sucker Punch. Tera Blast also shatters Iron Hands to pieces unless it Terastalizes.

+1 0 SpA Skeledirge Torch Song vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Kingambit: 320-378 (93.8 - 110.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

 

[MasterPlayer]

(First post here don't come at me sideways pls)

So I've been trying to get a bit into competitive for this generation and tested a few things.And apparently Calm Mind Sylveon is quite decent, although I'm sure other Eeveelutions (namely Vaporeon and Espeon, probably Glaceon as well depending of the general direction the OU meta goes)


This is what I've been using:

Sylveon @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pixilate
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD/ 252 Spe
Modest Nature
-Calm Mind
-Tera Blast
-Protect
-Moonblast

Not really the best at teambuilding but I'm sure this is something that could be considered. (Also for Glaceon it is insanely hard to set up Calm Mind for a sweep without risking a KO from pretty much 75% of the current OU meta)

 

[VannAccessible]

(First post here don't come at me sideways pls)

So I've been trying to get a bit into competitive for this generation and tested a few things.And apparently Calm Mind Sylveon is quite decent, although I'm sure other Eeveelutions (namely Vaporeon and Espeon, probably Glaceon as well depending of the general direction the OU meta goes)


This is what I've been using:

Sylveon @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pixilate
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD/ 252 Spe
Modest Nature
-Calm Mind
-Tera Blast
-Protect
-Moonblast

Not really the best at teambuilding but I'm sure this is something that could be considered. (Also for Glaceon it is insanely hard to set up Calm Mind for a sweep without risking a KO from pretty much 75% of the current OU meta)

Hyper Voice will get you through Subs, mate. Best reason to use Sylveon, with this Shed Tail meta.

—————

I’ll just throw something out there, regarding Screens + Shed Tail HO. It’s really good obviously, but now that those two spooky bois are gone, Dragapult should become much more viable. As a result of being able to use Infiltrator, it should do work on balanced hazard stack teams to help curb the playstyle somewhat.

—————

I’ll also offer my thoughts on Trick Room! Trick Room is a playstyle that always thrives as an anti-meta pick in an HO environment, especially one like this where fat and balance are struggling to keep up.

I was tooling around using Houndstone as a breaker, at it was working pretty well, but that probably speaks more the how broken doggo was than TR being super good in this meta.

Unfortunately as near as I can tell, doggo was the best breaker for the playstyle, as we lost Marowak, Crawdaunt and Melmetal to dexit. Specs Torkoal can still spam Eruption, which is scary. Azurmarril can always still Play Miss costing games 90% of the time you need to land it. Oof, don’t use it. Conversely, slow bulky LD Technician Breloom nails everything with Spore for easy TR sets. I even opted to make Breloom Tera Fire so opposing Grasses couldn’t absorb Spore, while also letting it get sneaky kills against stuff like Volcorona, Dragonite and Fairies with Rock Tomb and Bullet Seed.

Other options for breakers might include Guts Hariyama or Iron Fists. I’m also thinking of trying Kingsgambit in that same roll as Houndstone, as Supreme Overload works similarly, but is no where near as OP as Last Respects.

For setters, the three best setters ones I found are Lead Sash Hatterene, who still here to screw over hazard stack HO, and there’s nary a Heatran in sight to slow down its offensive contributions. With Melmetal and Urishu gone Mimikyu can use Disguise for a guaranteed TR set up, and can also use Red Card to screw over Substitute + set up sweepers. Finally the third one I picked out is Klefki, who gained TR this Gen. All three have self destruct moves to get breakers in for free, Healing Wish, Curse and Steel Beam, respectively. Unfortunately Slowbro and Slowking lost Teleport, so they are less good at slow pivoting out after setting TR, but Chilly Reception on King could be a thing, I guess, provided the breaker is sturdy enough to take a hit.

Here’s what I got so far. I haven’t tested King yet on the ladder, so let me know if you use it and have any other suggestions.

Here’s a vid of the team in action against fat, which is always TRs hardest MU. I don’t think I need to explain why this team dominates all standard HO at this point.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1716994329-wqqdof39hwq8vq86906olz0zv2k6miepw

—————-

Edit: Post Hound, Kingsgambit is doing fine work.
https://pokepast.es/7628d4ebe2b494f5

 

[Ema Skye]

Alright Palafin is pretty op right now so I'm gonna suggest some ways of countering it.

Meowscarada can use banded flower trick to guarantee a ko but it fears getting hit by drain punch and boosted jet punch. Not really reliable.
Toxic spikes can be good to make sure it gets chipped, ending leftovers recovery and hurting him while it tries to setup, giving enough room to try to ko, this however, has the problem of many poison types being in the tier right now. Toxic is unreliable since many palafins are running taunt.
Keeping a tera to brute force through is an option, but this limits teambuilding and gives you a disavantage when playing, since you can't waste your tera on another mon.
Defensive gyarados with thunderbolt is a set, but being real it kinda feels weird using it and it isn't rly good as a mon like this.
Clodsire either runs water absorb or unaware so he isn't really a lot option, specially with many running ice punch now.
Defensive dragonite can deal with it, but suffers from ice punch variations.
Pokemon with anti priority abilities can try to hope for a taunt/no ice punch variation and tera ghost in order to beat it, but once again, uses the tera.
Grass knot azumarill can counter it pretty well but gets chipped down hard in the process and if it already hard boosted it might beat azumarill.
Iron hands if power booster can brute force through it pretty well.
Hazards can help a lot against it.
Strong first impressions can take on a chipped down palafin.
Tauros water can try to wild charge on him but it's kinda bad.
Scarf rotom wash with will-o-wisp
Noivern can deal with it if it hasn't boosted too much.

Yeah there isn't anything here that can't be countered or isn't bad at the same time lmao

I want to throw Slowking out here, especially phys def with helmet. Really trivializes the mon (psychic does around 50%) and turns it into a non issue in my experience. Slowbro can do this too but it's not as viable without a pivot imo.

Palafin is also scared out by Iron Bundle (Freeze Dry does upwards of 70% and OHKOs with Proto or Specs).

Sludge Bomb Pex with Helmet also wins the war of attrition. 30% poison chance + helmet chip adds up and negates Drain Punch recovery, even at +6. Sludge Bomb on its own does 23ish% and the 12% poison and the 16% helmet add up. Sounds like a meme move but pex's movepool is gutted so there is definitely a slot available to run it.

 

[lionace]

I'm here to share a set that beats all Bulk Up Palafin-Hero sets.

Skeledirge (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Def / 128 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Slack Off
- Tera Blast
- Torch Song

Basically, once you Tera Fairy, there is nothing Palafin can do to you even if it Terastalizes. You can Torch Song up against it once and then blast with Shadow Ball or Tera Blast. Tera Blast lets you beat Bulk Up Taunt Annihilape, which is good at murdering stalls that don't have Ditto. These speed EVs let you outrun max Speed Adamant Kingambit so you can chip it in an emergency with Torch Song or have an outright chance to KO it at +1 if Kingambit tries to revenge you with Sucker Punch. Tera Blast also shatters Iron Hands to pieces unless it Terastalizes.

+1 0 SpA Skeledirge Torch Song vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Kingambit: 320-378 (93.8 - 110.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

Any teammates to go along with it?

 

[Samirsin]

Anyone else been using Tinkatuff with eviolite? I know Tinkaton is better, at least for now, but I've been experimenting and she's not that bad with Swords dance

 

[Talpr0ne]

What about this little guy?

It has Last Respects too and is probably not broken with it since it's not STAB. Does it just not factor in the debate because it's NFE?

 

[GraylyHen94]

Sleep Clause and the like are mistakes from the past that are kept for the sake of convenience and just following of the general principle of not fixing what's not broken. They shouldn't have existed but we've moved on from that now.

That's not even Tera though, that's just a new mechanic of your own creation at this point. Such a mechanic was never added to SV.

It's not a "mechanic of my own creation", it's an idea for the job the council is supposed to get off their asses and do. Quit the bullshit. Having an OU council isn't an in-game mechanic but it makes the game better when the job is actually done. No larping about codes or a system, do something about it instead of deleting it because it might've taken a bit of extra time to think about

What about this little guy?

It has Last Respects too and is probably not broken with it since it's not STAB. Does it just not factor in the debate because it's NFE?

City slickers don't have time to consider these things, they do it for free and don't do it right. Banning the move is the most obvious choice in the world. Let the dogs out instead of waiting three months to make a two seconds of thought decision when a SWIFT SWIM Dual type Mon gets Last Respects to say hmmm well gee I guess the move is broken who'd of thunk it

 

[Ctann]

Following up from my post yesterday about Iron Hands, I want to talk about Satan's Little Helper a bit.
View attachment 467254
Iron Bundle is an absurdly strong presence in SV, with incredibly strong offences of 124 base Sp Atk. and 136 base Spd. Its speed reaches 408 with max investment, meaning it is the third fastest Pokémon in the current meta tied with Barraskewda, coming in just behind Dragapult in #2 and Electrode in #1. However, considering Electrode is in fact Electrode, in reality the only Pokémon consistently faster than Iron Bundle outside of weather is Dragapult. Iron Bundle's speed is absolutely incredible, allowing to outspeed and nuke notoriously fast threats like Flutter Mane and Chien-Pao. Its speed is boosted even further under Electric Terrain due to its ability Quark Drive, which can make it an excellent reverse sweeper on Terrain teams. But of course, speed isn't everything; this is where Iron Bundle's devastating offensive prowess comes in.

Iron Bundle @ Choice Specs
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Freeze-Dry
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- U-turn

The comprehensive list of mons in the current SV OU meta who can safely switch into the combo of Specs Freeze-Dry and Hydro Pump coming off 124 base Sp Atk is as follows:

Specs Iron Bundle Switch-Ins

Sp Def Abomasnow
Blissey
Sp Def Corv
Max Sp Def Cryogonal
Sp Def Florges
AV Goodra
AV Iron Hands
AV Kingambit
Sp Def Scream Tail

This is a very small list indeed, and out of those the mons you will be realistically encountering with any frequency are Blissey, Sp Def Corv AV Iron Hands and Sp Def Scream Tail. And of course, if you know the opponent has one of these, you can simply U-Turn out. Ice Beam is there if the opponent doesn't have Water mons so you can make use of the extra power if needed, but it could be swapped out for Tera Blast Fighting if you want. Given the perfect coverage of Freeze-Dry and Hydro Pump however, I don't consider this to be a good use of your team's Terastilization.

Iron Bundle also has suprisingly decent physical bulk, which can allow it to live through some priority. Here are some calcs:

Iron Bundle Priority Calcs

252 Atk Choice Band Adaptability Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Iron Bundle: 102-121 (40.3 - 47.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252 Atk Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Iron Bundle: 37-43 (14.6 - 16.9%) -- possible 6HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Iron Bundle: 193-228 (76.2 - 90.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom Mach Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Iron Bundle: 229-273 (90.5 - 107.9%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Iron Bundle: 144-171 (56.9 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Adaptability Tera-Normal Dragonite Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Dewgong: 176-208 (69.5 - 82.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

In my opinion, Specs is the only set you should consider running on Iron Bundle. While you could use Booster Energy or Scarf to outspeed Dragapult and various other +1 mons, you will really miss the raw power of Specs and the opponent will have an easier time switching in and dealing with you. You could potentially run an Agility set with a Modest nature and Booster Energy, but you'll have a very hard time finding an opportunity to set up given Iron Bundle's relatively meager bulk. Encore could potentially be used to find an opportunity, but this seems very situational and gimmicky at face value.

The only real glaring flaw of Iron Bundle is its Stealth Rock weakness, which is definitely unfortunate. However, I find that given the incredibly fast speed of the current SV meta it is quite difficult to get Rocks up safely. There are also several great hazard removers in the meta in Great Tusk, Iron Treads and Corviknight, who are all great supports for Iron Bundle. I'll repost my example Electric Terrain team here if you need a simple Iron Bundle team:

Electric Terrain Team

Iron Bundle @ Choice Specs
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Freeze-Dry
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- U-turn

Pincurchin (M) @ Terrain Extender
Ability: Electric Surge
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Discharge
- Spikes
- Recover
- Surf

Iron Valiant @ Life Orb
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spirit Break
- Close Combat
- Thunder Punch
- Swords Dance

Iron Treads @ Leftovers
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rapid Spin
- Stealth Rock

Iron Jugulis @ Choice Specs
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Hurricane
- Fire Blast
- Flash Cannon

Iron Hands @ Assault Vest
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Thunder Punch
- Drain Punch
- Heavy Slam
- Volt Switch

tl;dr you can't switch into the funny penguin

I would say the HDB set with chilly reception support is far superior to specs. Realistically there isn’t many options for opponents to switch in, and blizzard with its freeze chance doesn’t have long term checks outside of blissey.

Slowking is decent, and the 216 Def Bold set can switch in on most defensive Pokémon as well as offensive threats like baxcalibur and palafin, before pivoting out

I find that the Tera ice adaptability boost is enough to break through the most difficult switch ins, as with 1.33x on blizzards 110 base power, you’re technically outperforming specs ice beam, and can switch up moves or pivot out with u turn after they switch in. Heavy duty boots is really good due to the lowered distribution of knock off.

 

[MasterPlayer]

Hyper Voice will get you through Subs, mate. Best reason to use Sylveon, with this Shed Tail meta.

Didn't thought about that option.

Also to add more reasoning about Calm Mind setups being insanely hard with Glaceon, the only thing that really hold Glaceon off from being a legit threat even with Calm Mind is mainly it's speed stat, which is (obviously) a problem in a meta where everything is quite fast, Iron Bundle being the prime example now that Flutter Mane is banned. And if you can pull off a Calm Mind, you still have to not get KOed, which more or less happens 90% of the time. So still no OU niche, but maybe in lower tiers for sure depending of how stuff goes. And not even the Defense buff from the new snow weather helps Glaceon take a hit.

 

[Msousagamer]

I want to throw Slowking out here, especially phys def with helmet. Really trivializes the mon (psychic does around 50%) and turns it into a non issue in my experience. Slowbro can do this too but it's not as viable without a pivot imo.

Palafin is also scared out by Iron Bundle (Freeze Dry does upwards of 70% and OHKOs with Proto or Specs).

Sludge Bomb Pex with Helmet also wins the war of attrition. 30% poison chance + helmet chip adds up and negates Drain Punch recovery, even at +6. Sludge Bomb on its own does 23ish% and the 12% poison and the 16% helmet add up. Sounds like a meme move but pex's movepool is gutted so there is definitely a slot available to run it.

Reason I didn't include slowking was because he was the first pokemon i experimented with and it was always getting 2 shot by the things it should wall. You can use chilly reception as a pivot even outside of snow teams, it actually helps countering stuff like sun/rain/sand so it's pretty cool.
Iron bundle gets one shot by a cc so I don't really see it as a defensive mon, but pex is amazing. I just find it really walled by many mons like water absorb clodsire. Good wall tho so yeah. Could work against bulk up palafin too so definitely interesting.

 

[ghostofgralton]

Eviolite Primeape isn't terrible surprisingly. Might be good in UU or RU eventually:

Primeape @ Eviolite
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 HP / 228 Atk / 28 SpD
Careful Nature
- Drain Punch
- Bulk Up
- Rage Fist
- Bulldoze

Something I've been messing around with. Quite good late game as Rage Fist will likely have gotten a few boosts

 

[alephgalactus]

Eviolite Primeape isn't terrible surprisingly. Might be good in UU or RU eventually:

Primeape @ Eviolite
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 HP / 228 Atk / 28 SpD
Careful Nature
- Drain Punch
- Bulk Up
- Rage Fist
- Bulldoze

Something I've been messing around with. Quite good late game as Rage Fist will likely have gotten a few boosts

If Revival Blessing stays legal, I imagine Rage Fist will be pretty useful—from what I’ve heard, even fainting doesn’t reset the “times hit” counter, so you can take even more hits and buff Rage Fist even more.

 

[Ctann]

If last respects caused the dog to get banned, then rage fist might have the same effect. It has a lot of potential after the most overpowered threats leave OU. You can use u turn bait like the new grass/dark defensive mon to build up the rage-o-meter, or simple repeatedly switch annihlape in to hits from tanks, it tends to easily survive them.

 

[Msousagamer]

If last respects caused the dog to get banned, then rage fist might have the same effect. It has a lot of potential after the most overpowered threats leave OU. You can use u turn bait like the new grass/dark defensive mon to build up the rage-o-meter, or simple repeatedly switch annihlape in to hits from tanks, it tends to easily survive them.

Does it stack even after switching? Cause if so I could see it being op, if not it's just bad

 

[Samirsin]

Does it stack even after switching? Cause if so I could see it being op, if not it's just bad

It stacks after switching and even after fainting

 

[BeeOrSomething]

My thoughts on why I think Roaring Moon will get banned now that Flutter Mane is gone ft. Tera, Acrobatics, and Booster Energy

Dragon Dance, 119 base speed, 135 attack stat, dark and dragon stabs and a solid 105 hp + 101 sp. def.
In addition, booster energy/sun for an attack/speed boost.
Flutter Mane was one of the biggest things holding this back (assuming it was running more attack and not more speed), because with a booster energy it could still outspeed +1 moon. Of course, moon had ways to play around it with steel/poison tera, but if the opp's tera was burned already, it was helpless.
Of course, there are plenty of other ways to beat a roaring moon. Ice shard from chien-pao or baxcalibur, first impression from slither wing, avalugg, body press corviknight, great tusk, booster energy delibird ballin' (iron bundle), ditto, choice scarf meowscarada, scizor, choice band talonflame, mach punch breloom, and ting-lu.
As you may notice, that is a long list.
HOWEVER
The point I am here to make is that Roaring Moon can beat every single one of the checks to its dragon dance set with a combination of speed boosting booster energy, tera flying/poison/steel, and acrobatics.
Ice shard folds into tera steel, first impression folds into all 3 teras and roaring moon kills slither wing back with acrobatics, avalugg loses to tera steel and if they have it, even harder to stab iron head, corv loses to tera poison/flying, great tusk dies to acrobatics, delibird ballin' loses to tera steel, ditto does the best but is still an awkward speed tie and loses to tera flying, scarf scarada loses to all 3 teras and dies to acro, scizor loses to scarf steel, talonflame loses to scarf steel AND is useless if rocks are up, mach punch does little into tera poison/flying and breloom dies to acrobatics, and ting-lu loses to tera flying.
Roaring Moon now becomes EXTREMELY constricting with one of its main sources of counterplay/forcing it to reveal tera, flutter mane, banned, as you now have to have multiple pokemon dedicated to beating the different tera types roaring moon can run if you don't want to play a game of russian roulette when your opp uses it.

Moral Of The Story:
I give this thing until maybe friday until they decide to ban it

 

[thecolinater5]

Stop running your suicide sash lead glimmora with max speed. It makes it so you will get up at best the same amount of hazards if you were no speed invested and at worst less. This is cause the enemy spin lead can just ev to be slower and spin to break your sash clear your hazards and then be faster and kill you. I'm lazy so I didn't type out every interaction, but I can type out the whole flow chart if people want it.

 

[Unlimited Breadsticks]

Man I don't post here often but the Houndstone ban being up to Last Respects, a move that literally only it can learn and nothing else has a risk of getting for the immediate future and the only thing elevating it above mediocrity really reinforces my belief that the way competitive singles is managed needs an overhaul. It's like the council has the directions printed out but decides to take 12 extra turns and end up parking across the street from the obvious issue. Sorry but damn.

 

[Delibird Heart]

I'm here to talk to you about a mon that didn't get to shine last gen but that might just be able to pull through this time...

Eiscue @ Salac Berry / Heavy-duty Boots
Ability: Ice Face
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute / Snowscape
- Belly Drum
- Ice Spinner
- Tera Blast

The mon in question is none other than my second favorite penguin pokemon, Eiscue. Strangely enough, I think Eiscue is one of the mons that benefits the most from gen 9's new toys. Thanks to terastallization, Eiscue is able to turn it's laughable movepool into a decent boltbeam, making it much more of a threat (especially against offensive teams). Now that Flutter Mane has been banned, Iron Bundle is the only remaining mon that can outspeed Eiscue-Noice after a Salac Boost, but it has to be in Eterrain or use up a Booster Energy for that. It also appreciates the introduction of Ice spinner, as relying on Icicle crash can sometimes be a pain. What's more, now that hail is an archetype that isn't just Atales + Arctozolt, you can perhaps slot this guy in and ACTUALLY use of your Ice Face several times to block hits as Game freak intended by regenerating it when you come out in snowscape to help stop sweeps from Roaring Moon and the likes. He might not be good in OU (especially if tera gets banned), but I feel like gen 9 might just be the wacky penguin's gen.

Here's another set I've been testing on hail:

Slowking @ Icy Rock
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Chilly Reception
- Slack Off
- Future Sight
- Focus Blast

A great hail setter which is able to come back in multiple times thanks to regen, and immediately switches you out into an abuser. What's not to like ? Of course, this is nothing new, as Slowbro was identified as the prime hail setter very early in the gen, being leagues better than abomasnow, due to having better typing, stats, utility, being less susceptible to chip, and chilly reception being better than snow warning. However, focus blast is really nice to hit opposing Cyclizars that might think they counterlead you as they go for taunt turn 1 to prevent you from setting hail up. Additionally, terastallizing into the Fighting type allows you to surprise opposing Chi-Yus and Chien-Paos to survive their hit and score an easy OHKO back (70% of the time, of course).

 

[Rarycaris]

nothing else has a risk of getting for the immediate future

Boy do I have a datamine for you.

But in general, OU prefers to ban Pokemon first and foremost, and only does surgical bans of broken specific elements under very rare circumstances. Otherwise, why don't we surgically nerf every Uber until they're somehow manageable?

 

[Unlimited Breadsticks]

But in general, OU prefers to ban Pokemon first and foremost, and only does surgical bans of broken specific elements under very rare circumstances. Otherwise, why don't we surgically nerf every Uber until they're somehow manageable?

Because it's one attack that (as of now I guess) literally only one Pokemon has? No one's asking for an exception like "Houndstone can only use Last Respects if it doesn't have sand rush and no more than 2 party members have fainted and it's a tuesday." The only explanation I can think of that makes actual sense is that it's harder to enforce complex bans on hardware but, also, you can't actually enforce the simple bans on cart anyway. Whatever, I know I shouldn't waste my mental energy on this anymore but I can't help it.