Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[Mega Breloom]

a meta where well timed Teras are essential to flip games around and make progress, garg leading and clicking Tera turn 1 speaks volumes about its strength.

For a defensive mon it actually makes sense, changing rock for whatever type early helps to be a better check.
During my reqs run I did something similar, around 70% of my battles I used lead tera fairy Ting-Lu and it worked very well to either ensure hazards vs bad match ups (Pao, rain, choice valiant, an so on.) or use whirlwind and bring early booster energy mons and also be a more consistent check to several things after switching. Another thing to note is that most of the times I didn't tera Ting-Lu was vs screens to block taunt and parting shot.
Early tera in my opinion is the most optimal thing to do when you want to use it defensively.

 

[Komodo_Drogo]

So ready for these qbs, as meta is right now there's quite a few mons that are debatable in terms of influence and it's a little difficult to truly determine if they've passed a line with the bigger threats still active. Fish being gone alone will be a massive improvement, ape being gone will be a relief for slower play styles, and whatever the third is seems pretty justified already.

 

[Finchinator]

Quickbans will be made official tomorrow.

 

[Mega Breloom]

Cheese-Yu, Ape, and Espa are my QB guesses.
Although, I heard you confirmed that combination is incorrect by someone in chat lol

Pao and Garg suspects after that.

I mean if I had to bet money, it's Yu, Ape, and Cycle just on principle.
The meta has done a good job at adapting to Cylce, but I can see how, just as a concept, and on the principle of the thing, that shed tail is uncomp.
No one would really miss these 3 mons, and the meta wouldn't be worse without them.

QB on Pao would be very weird. We've had harder hitting mons in previous gens with literally no switch ins.
I don't even use Pao, and it feels very cheesy sometimes to vs, but it deserves a suspect, not a QB, imo.
It doesn't fit on that many teams, unlike Garg.
Both Pao and Garg are similar as in they feel broken sometimes, but with time they may just be high viability mons.
Or broken.
But the community should decide on these boys, at least give us something to do lol

Also, with Espa, please consider a QB, the MU fish is unreal and it strangles builder.
Unlike other MU fish such as Rain, there really aren't soft checks to Espa Fairy/Fighting.
You legit need a stupidly dedicated wall such as Dark Clod lol
If I have a team, I don't have to worry about auto-losing to Rain since I have mons that stop that but are also good for other MU.
It's just a v uncomp mon and really adds nothing to the meta besides hurting us in builder.

Pao is basically a physical Chi-Yu, which exchanges more speed for weaker moves.
Personally I think that it is in Kyurem-B spot rn, just waiting for a better move to be broken, if it doesn't go before DLC and it gets a good move there I can see it being stronger than Chi-Yu.

 

[Low-Key]

Quickbans will be made official tomorrow.

LET'S GOOOOOOO!! Please just step on the firey fish with your quick-banning boots!

 

[ApertureB]

Quickbans will be made official tomorrow.

Cheers to having a hopefully less broken meta.
My money is on Chi/Ape/Cyc

 

[Melbelle]

thinking emoji

edit: nice

 

[Empress Mobile]

Obviously will respect any QB decision that is made and I respect all the arguments people have made here too. Really has promoted some great discussion here (for the most part) and I can see really strong arguments for any of the radar mons. In a twisted alternate reality where I made the calls unilaterally (very unrealistic I know lmao!) I would probably QB Chi-Yu, Gholdengo, Cyclizar, Annihilape. I'm on the fence about Espathra for a QB but if not then definitely suspect worthy. Dragonite I've gone back and forth on. The others I think are suspect worthy. But I wouldn't bat an eye to any of them getting a QB.

 

[Ctann]

v.

Heatran goes an entire generation without being banned/suspected despite being overwhelmingly oppressive. A lot of the justification was that “it fills a gap uniquely”. Magma storm is basically salt cure on steroids, since the 100 BP off 135 SpA meant few offensive Pokémon could switch in more than once, and defensive Pokémon were trapped.

meanwhile…

garganacl is literally defensively worse than heatran. Doesn’t blank entire types from OU (heatran could solo almost every fairy/grass/bug/ice/fire/steel Pokémon in OU that didn’t have ground/fight moves, it also beats a lot of psychic, ghost, dragon, flying, electric and dark types + the majority of defensive types ) and.. to top it all off, garganacl often requires a games only opportunity to Tera in order to reach proper effectiveness.

——

keep in mind as the meta fills, we can almost assure that Garg will become less prevalent.

• more competing Tera-appropriate Pokémon means less attractive Tera user
• less immediate utility, doesn’t have the unique resistances and kit to reduce the output of high impact Pokémon (think lele, magearna, Kartana, landorus, tornadus, weather abusers, etc)

Whilst something like heatran will thrive in a diverse, Pokémon filled meta. Because it does something no other Pokémon can do, trap it’s checks, the rest of the trappers get banned!

——

im posting this short quip to encourage some more thoughts about the Garganacl discussion.

honestly I’m shocked that Chien Pao isn’t getting attention when it’s SD / Band sets are substantially better than Weavile last gen and it only needs mild support to be able to destroy teams. It’s surprising to see Garganacl being in the same discussion and even being perceived as more of a problem!

just like there was shed tail for toxapex, now there’s covert cloak for your toxapex too!

 

[G-Luke]

v.

Heatran goes an entire generation without being banned/suspected despite being overwhelmingly oppressive. A lot of the justification was that “it fills a gap uniquely”. Magma storm is basically salt cure on steroids, since the 100 BP off 135 SpA meant few offensive Pokémon could switch in more than once, and defensive Pokémon were trapped.

meanwhile…

garganacl is literally defensively worse than heatran. Doesn’t blank entire types from OU (heatran could solo almost every fairy/grass/ice/fire/steel Pokémon in OU that didn’t have ground/fight moves, it also beats a lot of psychic, ghost, dragon, electric and dark types) and.. to top it all off, garganacl often requires a games only opportunity to Tera in order to reach proper effectiveness.

——

keep in mind as the meta fills, we can almost assure that Garg will become less prevalent. Whilst something like heatran will thrive in a diverse, Pokémon filled meta. Because it does something no other Pokémon can do, they all get banned!

——

im posting this short quip to encourage some more thoughts about the Garganacl discussion.

honestly I’m shocked that Chien Pao isn’t getting attention when it’s SD / Band sets are substantially better than Weavile last gen and it only needs mild support to be able to destroy teams. It’s surprising to see Garganacl being in the same discussion and even being perceived as more of a problem!

just like there was shed tail for toxapex, now there’s covert cloak for your toxapex too!

Heatran used Salt Cure on his guy or sumn

 

[Ctann]

Heatran used Salt Cure on his guy or sumn

just stating a perspective which might help people appreciate that a slow monolith that annoys your switchins isn’t really comparable to the rest of the threats in the discussion for suspects/bans.

 

[Cheryl.]

v.

Heatran goes an entire generation without being banned/suspected despite being overwhelmingly oppressive. A lot of the justification was that “it fills a gap uniquely”. Magma storm is basically salt cure on steroids, since the 100 BP off 135 SpA meant few offensive Pokémon could switch in more than once, and defensive Pokémon were trapped.

meanwhile…

garganacl is literally defensively worse than heatran. Doesn’t blank entire types from OU (heatran could solo almost every fairy/grass/ice/fire/steel Pokémon in OU that didn’t have ground/fight moves, it also beats a lot of psychic, ghost, dragon, flying, electric and dark types) and.. to top it all off, garganacl often requires a games only opportunity to Tera in order to reach proper effectiveness.

——

keep in mind as the meta fills, we can almost assure that Garg will become less prevalent.

• more competing Tera-appropriate Pokémon means less attractive Tera user
• less immediate utility, doesn’t have the unique resistances and kit to reduce the output of high impact Pokémon (think lele, Kartana, landorus, tornadus, weather abusers, etc)

Whilst something like heatran will thrive in a diverse, Pokémon filled meta. Because it does something no other Pokémon can do, trap it’s checks, the rest of the trappers get banned!

——

im posting this short quip to encourage some more thoughts about the Garganacl discussion.

honestly I’m shocked that Chien Pao isn’t getting attention when it’s SD / Band sets are substantially better than Weavile last gen and it only needs mild support to be able to destroy teams. It’s surprising to see Garganacl being in the same discussion and even being perceived as more of a problem!

just like there was shed tail for toxapex, now there’s covert cloak for your toxapex too!

 

[Karxrida]

v.

Heatran goes an entire generation without being banned/suspected despite being overwhelmingly oppressive. A lot of the justification was that “it fills a gap uniquely”. Magma storm is basically salt cure on steroids, since the 100 BP off 135 SpA meant few offensive Pokémon could switch in more than once, and defensive Pokémon were trapped.

meanwhile…

garganacl is literally defensively worse than heatran. Doesn’t blank entire types from OU (heatran could solo almost every fairy/grass/ice/fire/steel Pokémon in OU that didn’t have ground/fight moves, it also beats a lot of psychic, ghost, dragon, electric and dark types) and.. to top it all off, garganacl often requires a games only opportunity to Tera in order to reach proper effectiveness.

——

keep in mind as the meta fills, we can almost assure that Garg will become less prevalent.

• more competing Tera-appropriate Pokémon means less attractive Tera user
• less immediate utility, doesn’t have the unique resistances and kit to reduce the output of high impact Pokémon (think lele, Kartana, landorus, tornadus, weather abusers, etc)

Whilst something like heatran will thrive in a diverse, Pokémon filled meta. Because it does something no other Pokémon can do, trap it’s checks, the rest of the trappers get banned!

——

im posting this short quip to encourage some more thoughts about the Garganacl discussion.

honestly I’m shocked that Chien Pao isn’t getting attention when it’s SD / Band sets are substantially better than Weavile last gen and it only needs mild support to be able to destroy teams. It’s surprising to see Garganacl being in the same discussion and even being perceived as more of a problem!

just like there was shed tail for toxapex, now there’s covert cloak for your toxapex too!

I skipped out on Gen 8 so maybe I'm missing something from there, but iirc a lot of Heatran sets didn't run Magma Storm unless they were Solar Beam lures trying to trap and snipe Water-types. Plus Magma Storm is Focus Miss levels of accurate and I'm pretty sure wears off if you switch out. Heatran also lacks any form of recovery outside of Leftovers, so it easily gets worn down over the course of a match.

Garganacl, meanwhile, can just mindlessly throw out Salt Cure and keeps itself alive with Recover.

 

[Snackard]

I am conflicted about Garg. While there has been a number of times it has walled my teams, it hasn't felt completely unfair. A fair majority I felt that if I played better then it wouldn't be as bad. Although, I admit I do tend to use mons that are being suspect tested now so my opinion may change depending on if anything gets QB. About Heatran the 4 times weakness to ground was always a good check, but Gargs recovery and lack of a 4x weakness makes it a stronger Pokemon in this restricted format. I'm interested in seeing when the format opens up if natural counters to Garg will appear on teams or if it will continue to be as oppressive.

 

[Goodbye & Thanks]

I skipped out on Gen 8 so maybe I'm missing something from there, but iirc a lot of Heatran sets didn't run Magma Storm unless they were Solar Beam lures trying to trap and snipe Water-types. Plus Magma Storm is Focus Miss levels of accurate and I'm pretty sure wears off if you switch out. Heatran also lacks any form of recovery outside of Leftovers, so it easily gets worn down over the course of a match.

Garganacl, meanwhile, can just mindlessly throw out Salt Cure and keeps itself alive with Recover.

I personally feel like you made a pretty good decision by skipping out on SS, but I think that Ctann was referring to SS with their Heatran comparison. Most Trans ran Magma Storm in SS for things like Pex and Blissey. Solar Beam with Power Herb was pretty rare in SS, and Sun as a whole wasn't too common either. Magma Storm + Z Solar Beam was used in SM though, so you may be thinking of that.

The rest of the points you made are good though

 

[Ctann]

I skipped out on Gen 8 so maybe I'm missing something from there, but iirc a lot of Heatran sets didn't run Magma Storm unless they were Solar Beam lures trying to trap and snipe Water-types. Plus Magma Storm is Focus Miss levels of accurate and I'm pretty sure wears off if you switch out. Heatran also lacks any form of recovery outside of Leftovers, so it easily gets worn down over the course of a match.

Garganacl, meanwhile, can just mindlessly throw out Salt Cure and keeps itself alive with Recover.

all fine, to explain gen 8:

- every viable heatran ran magma storm

- the 25% miss chance was cited by many to be one of the main reasons heatran was not quite OP, just borderline

- the balloon and leftover sets did not need to use reliable recovery. Heatran could provide immediate offensive pressure with eruption/magma storm and/or support or stall breaking with magma storm/taunt/SR.

Garganacl provides slow and steady chip damage. It punishes opponents that don’t have a direct counter play technique, and if they waste too many turns, suddenly they have Pokémon in KO ranges that shouldn’t be. At least you have choices against Garganacl and you’re not forced to run a premier ground type to reliably deal with it.

 

[fluff!!]

v.

Heatran goes an entire generation without being banned/suspected despite being overwhelmingly oppressive. A lot of the justification was that “it fills a gap uniquely”. Magma storm is basically salt cure on steroids, since the 100 BP off 135 SpA meant few offensive Pokémon could switch in more than once, and defensive Pokémon were trapped.

let's not get too ahead of ourselves, shall we. Magma Storm and Salt Cure are 2 vastly different moves:
- Magma Storm only has 8 PP, compared to Salt Cure's 24 PP
- Magma Storm has 75% accuracy, making it unreliable at times, where Salt Cure has 100% accuracy
- Magma Storm being a Fire-type move means Fire immunities can absorb it (Flash Fire), where Salt Cure is a Rock-type move, so no immunities there
- Magma Storm deals damage over time and traps only if Heatran stays in, where Salt Cure is the opposite: it stays active until the affected Pokemon switches out

I do understand where you're coming from with your post and I tend to agree with you on this:

garganacl is literally defensively worse than heatran. Doesn’t blank entire types from OU (heatran could solo almost every fairy/grass/ice/fire/steel Pokémon in OU that didn’t have ground/fight moves, it also beats a lot of psychic, ghost, dragon, flying, electric and dark types) and.. to top it all off, garganacl often requires a games only opportunity to Tera in order to reach proper effectiveness.

However, Magma Storm is not "Salt Cure on steroids", and also... Why are we bringing Heatran to the conversation ?

 

[1LDK]

v.

You know what? lets generate some discussion

Honestly, i would not see both as rivals but possible partners, imagine tera flying heatran to shit on tera ground volcarona or the multiple EQs, and Tera fairy garganacl that just eats your shit, hmmmm defensive mons

In my personal opinion, sure, garganacl has the freest move in the history in salt cure and can easily stand his ground against most things, but honestly, cloak is not that bad because you have effectevly prevented all kinds of cheese and bullshit happening, and even without cloak, Garga is tera dependant, like a lot, withouth it, his rock type shows hard, so you know whats the main focus, and its not impenetrable, i would argue is about the same as tran, who also gets a reputation of somehow tanking every single move in existance and unlike blissey, just shit on you with Magma Storm + Taunt, and sure, unlike heatran, garga does have recover, which helps alot in the stalling effort, but thanks to the ban, you can stall his recovers before he kills you with boredom

the garganacl debacle is a heavely wattered down version of the early gen 8 Clefable, where nothing realaly could break trough it, now we do have some options to kill it or hit it hard

 

[Ctann]

let's not get too ahead of ourselves, shall we. Magma Storm and Salt Cure are 2 vastly different moves:
- Magma Storm only has 8 PP, compared to Salt Cure's 24 PP
- Magma Storm has 75% accuracy, making it unreliable at times, where Salt Cure has 100% accuracy
- Magma Storm being a Fire-type move means Fire immunities can absorb it (Flash Fire), where Salt Cure is a Rock-type move, so no immunities there
- Magma Storm deals damage over time and traps only if Heatran stays in, where Salt Cure is the opposite: it stays active until the affected Pokemon switches out

I do understand where you're coming from with your post and I tend to agree with you on this:

However, Magma Storm is not "Salt Cure on steroids", and also... Why are we bringing Heatran to the conversation ?

just to clarify I’m not trying to make this about heatran, it’s more of a thought provoking post of two Pokémon that are very notably similar with “move that causes chip damage”.

in regards to your points, thanks for sharing:

- 8 PP is more than enough for every game with a move that strong

- the unreliable accuracy is fair, 25% of the time you waste a turn. Still worth the risk due to the upside. salt cure has less risk, less reward. Salt cure only punishes poor play. Magma storm literally allows you to win some matchups with force, due to the trapping.

- flash fire is an adequate immunity, and fortunately earth power / flash cannon are great ways to beat immunities and/or balloons

- the trapping element is part of why it was salt cure on steroids. A trap often meant forcing a KO or low HP on a key switch in. This can force an outcome in a matchup. Salt cure can’t force an outcome. It can only punish wasted turns

 

[Vastus]

I mean, it's not like Salt Cure would be oppressive on literally any pokemon no matter who you gave it to. It just gives an otherwise passive mon an easy way to progress the game. Garg is one of the bulkiest pokemon out there (100/130/90 is incredible), that is also immune to status, that also has access to Recover. It's the combination of factors, so the comparison falls kind of moot in my opinion, even discounting the fact that they are very different moves.

 

[pikachu<3]

3 bans seem likely. Potentially as early as later this weekend.

Since voting is taking place soon I'd like to take the opportunity to comment on 2 of the mons on the radar. Hopefully this changes the minds of some of those voting.



Chi-Yu is a strong breaker, no doubt. However, we've seen similar levels of power in OU before at the speed tier, viz (calculating against Arceus due to balanced defenses):

252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Arceus: 373-439 (97.9 - 115.2%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Victini V-create vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Arceus: 313-370 (82.1 - 97.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (gen 5-8 legal, probably legal gen9 once available)
252 Atk Choice Band Teravolt Kyurem-Black Outrage vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Arceus: 307-363 (80.5 - 95.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (gen 5-7 legal)

so it takes more than raw power to break a pokemon.

People are using Chi-Yu in high ladder and, from what I can tell, people aren't using things like Blissey, Specially Def TTar, or Dashburn to check it (despite what some people might claim). So what are people using to check Chi-yu? I personally didn't have many problems with Chi-yu during my reqs run (although I did spam CB Ttar + physically def Toxapex + TankChomp to be fair), so I wanted to do an analysis of Chi-Yu counterplay in the OU tier. For simplicity, we're going to assume Chi-yu is running the following set:

Chi-Yu @ Choice Specs
Ability: Beads of Ruin
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Flamethrower
- Dark Pulse
- Psychic
- Overheat

Counters:
Note: Pokémon A counters Pokémon B if Pokémon A can manually switch into Pokémon B and still win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax. (see: https://www.smogon.com/smog/issue32/checks-and-counters). I will keep the list to B ranks and above (so no meme picks like Dashburn).

For now, we'll assume the defending pokemon has to switch into Stealth rock, while Chi-yu is at full health and can Terrastialize, while the defending pokemon cannot Terrestialize. Keep in mind the list of counters will often be longer than this because Chi-Yu does not always want to Terra.

Hard Counters: These pokemon can Counter Chi-yu multiple times over the course of the game.

Has Recover to do this over the course of the game, and can even run covert cloak to ensure it doesn't get haxed via Dark Pulse.

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Overheat over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey: 510-602 (71.4 - 84.3%) -- not a KO

Specially Defensive Heals up with Rest to ensure Chi-yu can't break it over the course of a game; also sets up Rocks to make sure Chi-yu takes 25% on switch-in.

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Overheat over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 210-248 (51.9 - 61.3%) -- not a KO

Specially Defensive Has Roost to stay healthy over the course of the game, and outspeeds and KOs Chi-yu with EQ if it tries to stay in.

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 252 HP / 152 SpD Roaring Moon: 249-293 (60.1 - 70.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Soft Counters: These pokemon can switch into Chi-yu and win 1v1.

Tank

Takes any hit, even Tera Fire Overheat, and forces Chi-yu out with the threat of EQ, and can even set Rocks to make Chi-yu take 25% on switch-in:

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Garchomp: 332-391 (79 - 93%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
- 0 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Fire Chi-Yu: 324-384 (129 - 152.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

And that's it! That's all the Chi-Yu counters in the current metagame. Don't worry though, there are more ways to beat a wallbreaker than countering it; wallbreakers would quite frankly be pretty bad if they had a lot of counters because it means they would be getting walled instead of wallbreaking. Instead, wallbreakers quite frequently have a lot of Checks, and this is how most teams handle them. Let's see the list:

Checks:
Pokémon A checks Pokémon B if, when Pokémon A is given a free switch into Pokémon B, Pokémon A can win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax. (see: https://www.smogon.com/smog/issue32/checks-and-counters). I will keep the list to B ranks and above (so no meme picks like Dashburn).

Hard Checks: These pokemon can switch into anything but Tera Fire overheat and win 1v1.



- CB can switch into any move other than Tera Fire Overheat and force it out with Banded Aqua Jet.
- AV variants don't get 2hkod by moves not named Tera Fire Overheat, and can KO back with Liquidation or 2HKO with Aqua Jet (or OHKO with SR chip)

CB
TTar easily tanks a hit if Chi-yu doesn't tera and forces it out:

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 145-171 (42.5 - 50.1%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO

Offensive

- Roaring moon tanks any hit if Chi-yu doesn't Tera, and forces it out with the threat of EQ:
- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Roaring Moon: 216-254 (61.5 - 72.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Can force Chi-yu out if it doesn't Tera with the threat of EQ, and can set up Rocks to ensure it takes 25% on the next switch.

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 407-483 (79.1 - 93.9%) -- not a KO

Soft Checks: These pokemon win against Chi-Yu 1v1 with a free switch, even if Chi-Yu chooses to Tera.

Offensive KO's with EQ.
Multiscale tanks and hit and KOs back with +1 eq, or Earthquake + Espeed.
KO's with Draco Meteor:
- 252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Chi-Yu: 226-267 (90 - 106.3%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
KO's with Wave Crash.
Scarf KO's with Power Gem
Outspeeds and KO's with EQ
Scarf Ditto checks every offensive mon out there
Scarf Rotom KO's with Hydro Pump
Close combat has a chance to KO even if Chi-yu decides to Tera.

Softer Checks: These pokemon force Chi-Yu to Terra to win 1v1.

HJK ko's if Chi-Yu doesn't terra
Scarf Focus Blast KO's if Chi-Yu doesn't tera
Heals back up with Drain Punch if Chi-Yu doesn't tera, and if Tera is availbile can even Tera to halve the damage from Fire STAB.
KO's with Secret Sword if Chi-yu does not Tera.
If Chi-Yu does not Terra, Fighting STAB OHKOs (and OHKO's anyway if Chi-yu has taken Rocks chip)
Takes anything but Tera Fire Overheat and KO's back with EQ
Mach punch KO's if Chi-Yu does not tera.
Close Combat KO's if Chi-yu does not Tera.
Banded First Impression KO's if Chi-Yu does not Tera.

Other Counterplay:

Toxapex: Can Scout moves (other than a predicted Psychic) and switch into the appropiate resist (or switch into something that can take overheat after a -2 drop)
Good Prediction: Predicting between Fire/Dark resists (viz: Cendeluge + Iron Valient) can be enough to beat Chi-yu in a game

Overall, I view Chi-Yu as a mon that punishes the metagame's over centralization around Great Tusk + Recover Gholdenego metagame. Other ground types (Garchomp, Ting-lu, Iron Treads) have a better matchup against Chi-Yu. I've also seen more Scarf Gholdenego in high ladder matches to punish Chi-yu when it attempts to use Gholdenego as a way to get a kill against offense.

In addition, I don't think it's too much to ask stall to run a Blissey to counter Chi-Yu, nor it is too much to ask Balance to run 2+ Hard Checks/Soft Counters (Viz: TankChomp + Azumarill or Roaring Moon + Azumarill or CB Tar + TankChomp or CB Tar + Ting-Lu, or other combinations), or a Hard Check + 2 other Checks (Roaring Moon + Iron Treads + Rotom-W, among other combinations); and offense can easily run multiple (4+) checks--in fact, it's easy enough to build a team full of the checks on this list.

There's also the opportunity cost of running Chi-Yu to consider. I suspect Chi-yu's usage will continue to drop over the month even if it's legal due to competition with Cinderace as an offensive Fire-type; Cinderace's Court Change is super valuable in a hazard centric metagame like this one, and Cinderace has a pivoting move with U-turn to boot. Over time, I suspect people will regard Chi-Yu as just another strong breaker, like Banded Victini or Kyurem-Black, instead of something that needs to be banned.

I'll write up my thoughts on Annaliape later.

Oh, and please ban Chien-Pao.

 

[Rootb]

- the unreliable accuracy is fair, 25% of the time you waste a turn. Still worth the risk due to the upside. salt cure has less risk, less reward. Salt cure only punishes poor play. Magma storm literally allows you to win some matchups with force, due to the trapping.

- the trapping element is part of why it was salt cure on steroids. A trap often meant forcing a KO or low HP on a key switch in. This can force an outcome in a matchup. Salt cure can’t force an outcome. It can only punish wasted turns

There was a replay posted last night of an incredibly long game where a Garganacl nearly ran out of Salt Cure PP, and the entire time I was watching it, all I could think was "why do you keep switching in. the base hit is dealing 10%. it has no other attacking moves." The fact that you have to do more than juggle pokeballs around against it is very much a feature, not a bug.

Also, to throw more fuel on the legendary comparison: vs ? -10 def and a bunch of stats that barely even matter to its primary role.

 

[Bakugames]

Honestly, i would not see both as rivals but possible partners,

so proud of nacl and tran for coming out, i hope their relationship flourishes

For real though, I'm mixed on nacl. I can't compare it with heatran bc I never got to play on gen 8, but I feel like nacl is on a weird limbo state between overpowered and manageable. An incredible mon that punishes bad switches and made covert cloak such a good item (i dont really buy the fact cloak would be considered without nacl tbh. Sure, you can talk about mons not in here, but for this meta? Eh).

But sometimes it feels easy to exploit and overwhelm with good play, salt cure can only go so far, and its hard to be surprised by it. I guess i'd be interested in a suspect test, but not a quickban. I also feel like nacl will get worse as we get more mons, but we don't tier for the future so. not sure if this is a post with much merit though lol

 

[1LDK]

Since voting is taking place soon I'd like to take the opportunity to comment on 2 of the mons on the radar. Hopefully this changes the minds of some of those voting.



Chi-Yu is a strong breaker, no doubt. However, we've seen similar levels of power in OU before at the speed tier, viz (calculating against Arceus due to balanced defenses):

252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Arceus: 373-439 (97.9 - 115.2%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Victini V-create vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Arceus: 313-370 (82.1 - 97.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (gen 5-8 legal, probably legal gen9 once available)
252 Atk Choice Band Teravolt Kyurem-Black Outrage vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Arceus: 307-363 (80.5 - 95.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (gen 5-7 legal)

so it takes more than raw power to break a pokemon.

People are using Chi-Yu in high ladder and, from what I can tell, people aren't using things like Blissey, Specially Def TTar, or Dashburn to check it (despite what some people might claim). So what are people using to check Chi-yu? I personally didn't have many problems with Chi-yu during my reqs run (although I did spam CB Ttar + physically def Toxapex + TankChomp to be fair), so I wanted to do an analysis of Chi-Yu counterplay in the OU tier. For simplicity, we're going to assume Chi-yu is running the following set:

Chi-Yu @ Choice Specs
Ability: Beads of Ruin
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Flamethrower
- Dark Pulse
- Psychic
- Overheat

Counters:
Note: Pokémon A counters Pokémon B if Pokémon A can manually switch into Pokémon B and still win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax. (see: https://www.smogon.com/smog/issue32/checks-and-counters). I will keep the list to B ranks and above (so no meme picks like Dashburn).

For now, we'll assume the defending pokemon has to switch into Stealth rock, while Chi-yu is at full health and can Terrastialize, while the defending pokemon cannot Terrestialize. Keep in mind the list of counters will often be longer than this because Chi-Yu does not always want to Terra.

Hard Counters: These pokemon can Counter Chi-yu multiple times over the course of the game.

Has Recover to do this over the course of the game, and can even run covert cloak to ensure it doesn't get haxed via Dark Pulse.

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Overheat over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey: 510-602 (71.4 - 84.3%) -- not a KO

Specially Defensive : Tyranitar: Heals up with Rest to ensure Chi-yu can't break it over the course of a game; also sets up Rocks to make sure Chi-yu takes 25% on switch-in.

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Overheat over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 210-248 (51.9 - 61.3%) -- not a KO

Specially Defensive Has Roost to stay healthy over the course of the game, and outspeeds and KOs Chi-yu with EQ if it tries to stay in.

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 252 HP / 152 SpD Roaring Moon: 249-293 (60.1 - 70.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Soft Counters: These pokemon can switch into Chi-yu and win 1v1.

Tank

Takes any hit, even Tera Fire Overheat, and forces Chi-yu out with the threat of EQ, and can even set Rocks to make Chi-yu take 25% on switch-in:

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Garchomp: 332-391 (79 - 93%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
- 0 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Fire Chi-Yu: 324-384 (129 - 152.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

And that's it! That's all the Chi-Yu counters in the current metagame. Don't worry though, there are more ways to beat a wallbreaker than countering it; wallbreakers would quite frankly be pretty bad if they had a lot of counters because it means they would be getting walled instead of wallbreaking. Instead, wallbreakers quite frequently have a lot of Checks, and this is how most teams handle them. Let's see the list:

Checks:
Pokémon A checks Pokémon B if, when Pokémon A is given a free switch into Pokémon B, Pokémon A can win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax. (see: https://www.smogon.com/smog/issue32/checks-and-counters). I will keep the list to B ranks and above (so no meme picks like Dashburn).

Hard Checks: These pokemon can switch into anything but Tera Fire overheat and win 1v1.



- CB can switch into any move other than Tera Fire Overheat and force it out with Banded Aqua Jet.
- AV variants don't get 2hkod by moves not named Tera Fire Overheat, and can KO back with Liquidation or 2HKO with Aqua Jet (or OHKO with SR chip)

CB
TTar easily tanks a hit if Chi-yu doesn't tera and forces it out:

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 145-171 (42.5 - 50.1%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO

Offensive Roaring Moon:

- Roaring moon tanks any hit if Chi-yu doesn't Tera, and forces it out with the threat of EQ:
- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Roaring Moon: 216-254 (61.5 - 72.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Ting-lu: Can force Chi-yu out if it doesn't Tera with the threat of EQ, and can set up Rocks to ensure it takes 25% on the next switch.

- 252 SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 407-483 (79.1 - 93.9%) -- not a KO

Soft Checks: These pokemon win against Chi-Yu 1v1 with a free switch, even if Chi-Yu chooses to Tera.

Offensive KO's with EQ.
Multiscale tanks and hit and KOs back with +1 eq, or Earthquake + Espeed.
KO's with Draco Meteor:
- 252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Chi-Yu: 226-267 (90 - 106.3%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
KO's with Wave Crash.
Scarf KO's with Power Gem
Outspeeds and KO's with EQ
Scarf Ditto checks every offensive mon out there
Scarf Rotom KO's with Hydro Pump
Close combat has a chance to KO even if Chi-yu decides to Tera.

Softer Checks: These pokemon force Chi-Yu to Terra to win 1v1.

HJK ko's if Chi-Yu doesn't terra
Scarf Focus Blast KO's if Chi-Yu doesn't tera
Heals back up with Drain Punch if Chi-Yu doesn't tera, and if Tera is availbile can even Tera to halve the damage from Fire STAB.
KO's with Secret Sword if Chi-yu does not Tera.
If Chi-Yu does not Terra, Fighting STAB OHKOs (and OHKO's anyway if Chi-yu has taken Rocks chip)
Takes anything but Tera Fire Overheat and KO's back with EQ
Mach punch KO's if Chi-Yu does not tera.
Close Combat KO's if Chi-yu does not Tera.
Banded First Impression KO's if Chi-Yu does not Tera.

Other Counterplay:

Toxapex: Can Scout moves (other than a predicted Psychic) and switch into the appropiate resist (or switch into something that can take overheat after a -2 drop)
Good Prediction: Predicting between Fire/Dark resists (viz: Cendeluge + Iron Valient) can be enough to beat Chi-yu in a game

Overall, I view Chi-Yu as a mon that punishes the metagame's over centralization around Great Tusk + Recover Gholdenego metagame. Other ground types (Garchomp, Ting-lu, Iron Treads) have a better matchup against Chi-Yu. I've also seen more Scarf Gholdenego in high ladder matches to punish Chi-yu when it attempts to use Gholdenego as a way to get a kill against offense.

In addition, I don't think it's too much to ask stall to run a Blissey to counter Chi-Yu, nor it is too much to ask Balance to run 2+ Hard Checks/Soft Counters (Viz: TankChomp + Azumarill or Roaring Moon + Azumarill or CB Tar + TankChomp or CB Tar + Ting-Lu, or other combinations), or a Hard Check + 2 other Checks (Roaring Moon + Iron Treads + Rotom-W, among other combinations); and offense can easily run multiple (4+) checks--in fact, it's easy enough to build a team full of the checks on this list.

There's also the opportunity cost of running Chi-Yu to consider. I suspect Chi-yu's usage will continue to drop over the month even if it's legal due to competition with Cinderace as an offensive Fire-type; Cinderace's Court Change is super valuable in a hazard centric metagame like this one, and Cinderace has a pivoting move with U-turn to boot. Over time, I suspect people will regard Chi-Yu as just another strong breaker, like Banded Victini or Kyurem-Black, instead of something that needs to be banned.

I'll write up my thoughts on Annaliape later.

Oh, and please ban Chien-Pao.

Okay so

1) a pokemon with 197 SpA thanks to its shitty ability is broken, pokemon like victini and kyurem black (the ones you mention) had problems like weakness to rocks, blockable stabs and lack of coverage (untill gen 8)

2) even if blissey doesnt die, its still forced to softboil, giving a free turn to anything to enter, and while both are good mons, both suffer from ape and other attackers, azumarill can be overwhelmed if chien pao is added to the mix, the rest of your checks implies something died, and even then, you can just switch out to something like garganacl

3) how dare you not put as a viable check to specs if locked into dark pulse, your free trial of life has expired

 

[Magcargo]

v.

Heatran goes an entire generation without being banned/suspected despite being overwhelmingly oppressive. A lot of the justification was that “it fills a gap uniquely”. Magma storm is basically salt cure on steroids, since the 100 BP off 135 SpA meant few offensive Pokémon could switch in more than once, and defensive Pokémon were trapped.

meanwhile…

garganacl is literally defensively worse than heatran. Doesn’t blank entire types from OU (heatran could solo almost every fairy/grass/bug/ice/fire/steel Pokémon in OU that didn’t have ground/fight moves, it also beats a lot of psychic, ghost, dragon, flying, electric and dark types + the majority of defensive types ) and.. to top it all off, garganacl often requires a games only opportunity to Tera in order to reach proper effectiveness.

——

keep in mind as the meta fills, we can almost assure that Garg will become less prevalent.

• more competing Tera-appropriate Pokémon means less attractive Tera user
• less immediate utility, doesn’t have the unique resistances and kit to reduce the output of high impact Pokémon (think lele, magearna, Kartana, landorus, tornadus, weather abusers, etc)

Whilst something like heatran will thrive in a diverse, Pokémon filled meta. Because it does something no other Pokémon can do, trap it’s checks, the rest of the trappers get banned!

——

im posting this short quip to encourage some more thoughts about the Garganacl discussion.

honestly I’m shocked that Chien Pao isn’t getting attention when it’s SD / Band sets are substantially better than Weavile last gen and it only needs mild support to be able to destroy teams. It’s surprising to see Garganacl being in the same discussion and even being perceived as more of a problem!

just like there was shed tail for toxapex, now there’s covert cloak for your toxapex too!

Between Heatran and Garganacl, I do agree that Heatran was arguably the more centralizing and powerful presence. Arguably the main reason perfectly viable Pokemon such as Hatterene in the IoA metagame fell off during the CT metagame was because Heatran came back (and its very likely the same thing will happen again when Pokemon Home releases). Functionally had a lot of the same utility as Garg too, as it could be used as a Dragapult switch in and it basically was immune to status due to its immunity to Burn and Poison. I guess the key point in Garganacl's favor is that it can do its whole thing a bit longer thanks to more Salt Cure PP + Recover, which certainly can make it more tricky to play around. Also, switching feels a bit harder in this metagame due to all the entry hazards, which is why Salt Cure feels trickier to play around in this meta, esp since a lot of the "go-to" switch-ins to the move either don't have recovery or take 25% from the move.