Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[1LDK]

Regardless of the banworthiness of Gholdengo right now, which I do not support since I consider it extremely good obviously but not broken at all, I'm 100% sure that once Home gets released Gholdengo will definitely become way easier to check and work around. Mons like Lando-T, Tornadus-T, Gren and Heatran have always seen widespread usage in OU, and are all incredibly good answers to Gholdengo:
Lando-T obviously outspeeds it and threatens it with an EQ or a Stone Edge if it Teras into a Flying type, and it's also bulky enough to tank a Make it Rain or a couple of Shadow Balls;
Tornadus-T will be crazy good with an AV and thanks to Regen it will be able to always switch in and check Gholdengo (unless it happens to be Specs Thunderbolt), and can threaten it back with an Heat Wave or a Knock Off (if it gets it back);
Greninja resists both of its STABS and could OHKO it with a Life Orb powered Dark Pulse or a Specs set;
Heatran is bulky enough to take multiple Shadow Balls without a problem, it resists Make It Rain and can completely destroy Gholdengo with any Fire move.
Other mons that could be very good against it are Moltres-G, Ursaluna, Typhlosion-H, Samurott-H and Arcanine-H, all of which outspeed it with the exception of Ursaluna and can easily 2HKO it, if not OHKO it.

One problem is that most of the usual deffogers lost defog, we have more than enough counters to gholdengo, what we need and we dont have are counters to gholdengo that can also defog/spin, none of the genies have defog anymore, Gren is too frail to take shit, Heatran is a good counter untill gholdengo starts using focus blast again

why is this distintion important? because it doenst matter if you can counter gholdengo because your defogger wont be able to take of hazards, and youll take DoA unless you equip boots, but then your just one knock off away

With this in mind, Hisuian Decidueye is gonna be THE hardest gholdengo counter in the game, and as long as gholdengo remains a threat, Decidueye-H will have a niche, which it makes me angry because this interfiers with my plans to promote to S+ on the viability rankings

 

[YNM]

One problem is that most of the usual deffogers lost defog, we have more than enough counters to gholdengo, what we need and we dont have are counters to gholdengo that can also defog/spin, none of the genies have defog anymore, Gren is too frail to take shit, Heatran is a good counter untill gholdengo starts using focus blast again

why is this distintion important? because it doenst matter if you can counter gholdengo because your defogger wont be able to take of hazards, and youll take DoA unless you equip boots, but then your just one knock off away

With this in mind, Hisuian Decidueye is gonna be THE hardest gholdengo counter in the game, and as long as gholdengo remains a threat, Decidueye-H will have a niche, which it makes me angry because this interfiers with my plans to promote to S+ on the viability rankings

So are the Defog cuts 100% confirmed or is there even the slightest chance that we'll be able to get some of the old movepools back with Home transfers? Cause if that ain't the case it really fucking sucks, and I still find it crazy how mons like Zapdos and Tornadus have lost Defog. Like, I could understand Lando, but the other two are both birds AND flying types, so it would only make sense for them to have it. Game Freak at it again with its non-sense bs.

 

[Seronius]

Question for anyone to answer. whose more uncompetitive? Espathra or Blaziken in any generation he was uber. Espathra feels very uncompetitive to me. He has roost and tera, two advantages Blaziken would of prayed for. I feel like it's a matter of time before its banned. Wish the Council would save us the trouble of having a suspect.

 

[Yahooboo]

legendary birds cannot summon wind to blow away obstacles, but lurantis and hisuian lilligant can

classic gamefreak

 

[charlieX7]

whose more uncompetitive?

*Who's

He has roost and tera, two advantages Blaziken would of prayed for.

*It
*Tera
*would've

I feel like it's a matter of time before its banned.

*it's

Wish the Council would save us the trouble of having a suspect.

*council

 

[SwaggySammy44]

So my votes go something like

4 Not as broken as Chi-Yu but still pretty busted. Pretty much eeverything I have to say about chien-pao has already said, so I'll just mention it has recover. There's no reason to run it, I just think it's kinda funny. Almost voted 5, but it is vulnerable to rocks and priority, so I guess there's some ways to handle it, but I still think it's far too overbearing and should definitely be suspected.

4 Even though I don't think garganacl is as broken as Chien-Pao, it pisses me off alot more. Salt cure is a fucking stupid move, there is very little risk to clicking it, 25% damage to water and steel types is absurd. Garg can wear down pretty much anything not using covert cloak, and can force out a lot of the breakers that can typically threaten it.

2 I think Gholdengo is mostly fine. The ability to block hazard removal is a lot less scary when 2 of the better hazard control mons (great tusk and iron treads) are able to force it out with EQ/knock off. Cinderace provides another option for hazard removal that is generally unbothered by gholdengo as well. I'm glad alot of the initial hostility towards gholdengo is dying down, as I think that it is a very good but balanced mon, and there are many things in the tier that are much more problematic.

1 I don't really know why espathra keeps appearing in these tiering surveys. The main argument for it being unbalanced was how good it was at abusing shed tail, but now that Cyclizar is gone, espathra is much easier to deal with. I also just don't see it that much on the ladder.

 

[Turtlek]

I believe Spikes should be banned. It is able to do enormous damage. It is impossible to remove them. A PROOF IT'S CENTRALISING: ALL POKEMON OF OU can use Heavy-Duty Boots.

 

[Athyestic]

I believe Spikes should be banned. It is able to do enormous damage. It is impossible to remove them. A PROOF IT'S CENTRALISING: ALL POKEMON OF OU can use Heavy-Duty Boots.

least deranged verlisify fan take

 

[Turtlek]

least deranged verlisify fan take

can you say anything that really go against my statement?

 

[Vall]

So are the Defog cuts 100% confirmed or is there even the slightest chance that we'll be able to get some of the old movepools back with Home transfers? Cause if that ain't the case it really fucking sucks, and I still find it crazy how mons like Zapdos and Tornadus have lost Defog. Like, I could understand Lando, but the other two are both birds AND flying types, so it would only make sense for them to have it. Game Freak at it again with its non-sense bs.

It's theoretically possible, as most of the evidence that transfer moves don't occur is circumstantial...

But if we're being completely honest with ourselves there's no way its coming. The changes to ability patch means that machamp can never be in a game with transfer moves, Chilling water as a move becomes completely obsolete if scald comes back via transfer moves, and there's been an apparent effort to limit distribution of knock off & toxic in the past few gens.

 

[Athyestic]

can you say anything that really go against my statement?

If you had argued Stealth Rock there would be some merit, but Spikes has direct counterplay in flying types, or Pokémon with Levitate. Additionally, though Gholdengo exists, clearing the spikes away is a possibility (with the two best spinners being able to threaten gholden joe heavily). Finally, with them requiring 3 layers to really dish out the hurt, it’s easy for one to take advantage of all the turns your opponent clicks Spikes.

 

[Turtlek]

If you had argued Stealth Rock there would be some merit, but Spikes has direct counterplay in flying types, or Pokémon with Levitate. Additionally, though Gholdengo exists, clearing the spikes away is a possibility (with the two best spinners being able to threaten gholden joe heavily). Finally, with them requiring 3 layers to really dish out the hurt, it’s easy for one to take advantage of all the turns your opponent clicks Spikes.

Do you know about the move Gravity?

 

[Vall]

Has anyone else been struggling a lot more with Volc than normal?

The Will-o-Wisp/Quiver/Roost/Coverage sets feel impossible to beat - physical attackers get burnt and special attackers get set up on.
I feel like the unaware mons and occasional haze pex are probably the only thing stopping volc from steamrolling everything.

 

[Vall]

Do you know about the move Gravity?

Ok that's just ridiculous. I have only seen gravity on some niche landorous sets last Gen, and that had nothing to do with hazards but with EQ spam.

 

[Athyestic]

Do you know about the move Gravity?

I do, love it to death. One of my favorite strategies was Gravity Magnezone.

But it's not a panacea for calling spikes broken. The only viable users are Blissey and Sandy Shocks, and both of those have their own flaws. I'll leave them in a spoiler.

Blissey

-Horribly passive, even more than before. It's only a fit on the hardest of hard stall, and even then, it's arguably the most exploitable member on those cores.
-It can't really fit gravity. It needs all of Soft Boiled, Thunder Wave, Seismic Toss, Stealth Rock, and Shadow Ball.
-Even if it could, the process of setting up hazards -> going Blissey on the few pokemon that don't threaten it -> clicking Gravity -> Forcing a ton of switches (already annoying enough w stall this gen) is incredibly inconvenient and hard to pull off. And you only get it for 5 turns.

Sandy Shocks

I'll admit it, this is a pretty good user of Gravity. But it's not particularly overwhelmingly excellent, and either wants to run Choice items, or all of VS, EP, Thunderbolt, Stealth Rock, Spikes, and now Gravity. It just doesn't work.

 

[Goodbye & Thanks]

can you say anything that really go against my statement?

I'm not the person that you originally responded to, and I can't tell if you're trolling, but here are some responses to your statement.

I believe Spikes should be banned. It is able to do enormous damage.

I agree that Spikes can do big damage, but:
1. They only affect grounded Pokemon (disregarding Boots), and those without Magic Guard (although that's not relevant in the current meta).
2. Doing 12.5% with one layer up is good, consistent chip, but if something is holding Lefties, it's only two rounds of Leftovers away from negating Spikes damage. I also wouldn't consider 1/8 to be "enormous damage" because something like regular Poison or Salt Cure against a non Water or Steel type does that every turn, and it's not like people look at one round of that amount of damage the same way that they do Specs Lele in SM or anything.
3. Getting up multiple layers of Spikes is difficult and usually if someone is able to get and keep up three layers or something throughout a game, they probably just won the game handily anyway.

It is impossible to remove them.

This is hyperbole - it's not impossible to remove hazards. Sure, Gholdengo makes it so that Corviknight can't Defog, but that doesn't mean that dynamic alone makes it "impossible to remove" Spikes. Gholdengo isn't a guaranteed way to prevent Spin from Tusk or Treads either, since Gholdengo can't freely switch into Knock or EQ from them (unless it's on a Balloon, but Knock is very common on Tusk and Treads anyway and it can be difficult for Gholdengo to keep its Balloon in tact). I honestly feel like it's easier to remove hazards in SV then it was in Gens 4-6, and I could even see a case being made that it's harder to keep hazards up in GSC and ADV as well, although I don't really play those tiers.

A PROOF IT'S CENTRALISING: ALL POKEMON OF OU can use Heavy-Duty Boots.

Every Pokemon can hold a Utility Umbrella - does that mean that Rain and Sun are overcentralizing? I personally dislike Boots a lot, but I think it's a fallacy to say that since every Pokemon can use it, hazards are overly centralizing. Unless you mean that every Pokemon can benefit from Boots, which sure, that's true, but you can say that about almost any item. Everything can benefit from Leftovers, but something like Iron Valiant probably won't run Lefties since it benefits more from other items. Similarly, you won't see Garchomp running Boots because they don't help it nearly as much as something like Leftovers or Helmet does. Boots are also less common in SV than SS anyway, although I feel like they'll probably pick up in usage in time. It's also odd to me that you claim that Boots are proof that Spikes should be banned, since the fact that Boots exist means that there is a method of completely invalidating hazards. And again, I really dislike Boots and would prefer it if they were never introduced so that hazards could be even more impactful on the meta, but I'm also an SM player and I understand that views differ on this. Either way, Spikes and Stealth Rock are extremely powerful and hazards have completely shaped competitive play since GSC, but I think they're positive aspects of Pokemon and shouldn't in any way be considered for a ban.

 

[YNM]

Has anyone else been struggling a lot more with Volc than normal?

The Will-o-Wisp/Quiver/Roost/Coverage sets feel impossible to beat - physical attackers get burnt and special attackers get set up on.
I feel like the unaware mons and occasional haze pex are probably the only thing stopping volc from steamrolling everything.

Specs Iron Moth with Fiery Dance is also very good against this set, since Volc takes around 45-50% after a Quiver Dance and its STAB moves are resisted by the former. Fiery Dance also has a 50% chance to raise Moth's SpA by 1 stage, so Quiver Dance is not really a problem. Other mons I've used to deal with it quite easily are Calm Mind Hatterene with Psyshock and Scarf+Trick Rotom-W (or any Scarfed mon that can use Trick, in theory).

 

[Mikegengsta]

Garg is 4-5 on the votes. It seems you are unaware that covert cloak is an item or you just choose to not run it and hope you don’t see it on the ladder. Pao I understand but garg needs to stick around and let more creativity evolve in the meta. Run the cloak and run good ol substitute.

 

[YNM]

Do you know about the move Gravity?

Turtlek stop trolling and get back to playing your 1000th tournament in the Tours Plaza.

 

[BlackKnight_Gawain]

- strong 3, I am fairly neutral on it but I see and recognize the calls for banning it. I do think burning a tera as a reactionary precaution is very annoying though, and probably my most disliked part of facing one if I brought a team that doesn't handle a particular set well.

- I forgot if I put 4 or 5, but I think comparisons to Heatran are unfounded. Heatran existed with an ability and typing that let at least one common status (paralysis) hit as well as not resist ghost spam, which these days is more common. Plus, Magma Storm sets are much more fallible, with being a less spammable move bc of typing, PP and accuracy. Salt Cure is far more problematic. Heatran sets also didn't have tera, which makes counterplay much more simpler. I truly think Garganacl is worth some consideration for a suspect of all the big 3 on the survey.

- think I voted a 1 or 2, fairly obvious here why. It's good, splashable, but I think we can all agree most teams are carrying some counterplay to its set variety. Least worthy of a look imo.

- 2, annoying but that's about it. I think its usage has straight up fallen off since HO as a playstyle is the weakest it's been since the gen began.



Looking forward to seeing the full community votes, I'm thinking Pao's gonna get the first look but community's been surprising me a lot lately, so maybe nacl it is?

 

[ant4456]

*Who's

*It
*Tera
*would've

*it's

*council

Quick Smogon Forum grammar lesson for y'all (for funsies, explaining what charlie said, and knowledge!):

it's = it is
its = (it has ownership of -> ["its move, Thunderbolt"])

whose = subject's ownership ["Pikachu, whose house is worth $2,000"]

who's = who is ["Who's that?"]

Terastilization/Tera is a noun, so "tera" is inaccurate.

would've = would have ["I would've gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!"]

"It" is a gender neutral pronoun, which is correct for most Pokémon without a set gender (inaccurate use of that word, but I think the accurate one may be banned on the forum). Blaziken, for instance, is not guaranteed male or female; so "It" or "They" is correct, unless it is a specific one. As well as this, a lot of legendaries cannot be male or female, so it's also the only canonically accurate choice there.

Council being capitalized or not depends on context. If I say "The Smogon Council", that is the name of a group of people, and therefore still correct. However, if you say "The Council" and it's not a set group of people, I think it's supposed to be lowercase. Correct me if wrong!

 

[TheMantyke]

So are the Defog cuts 100% confirmed or is there even the slightest chance that we'll be able to get some of the old movepools back with Home transfers?

Just wanted to pop in with some relevant in game knowledge: We have nothing confirmed yet on transfer moves being in or not for certain.

There is circumstantial evidence they might not be in with gen 8’s treatment of intergenerational transfer moves and how SV lacks a battle ready NPC so older gen Pokémon can have their movesets wiped for cartridge formats, but that’s it for now. Both of these could be pretty easily addressed since Gen 9 isn’t hampered by supporting three games and the NPC could simply be patched in with the Feb update a la what SWSH did with IoA. Some rumors spread early off bad info that they were gone for good. Unless there’s some new development i’m not aware of, the truth is now we simply don’t know.

 

[Skyuchi]

I believe Spikes should be banned. It is able to do enormous damage. It is impossible to remove them. A PROOF IT'S CENTRALISING: ALL POKEMON OF OU can use Heavy-Duty Boots.

I know this is a meme but I think there would genuinely be merit to looking at an entry hazard ban, in any given generation from 3 onward.
When you think about it logically, there are so many Pokemon pushed over the top by entry hazards in every generation they've been in that you'd have to ask at what point it stops keeping things in check and starts needing to be kept in check itself.
Although at that point it does cease to be the same Pokemon we've been playing this whole time.

 

[viivian]

Do you know about the move Gravity?

please don't feed the troll y'all

 

[1LDK]

unironically
ban all hazards
now Gholdengo has nothing to block, because theres nothing, and he drops to PU
there, problem solved

Okay but for real tho, Gholdengo aside from getting new checks in the form on new mons and getting a true counter in Hisui Decidueye, it also gains new partners, Kleavor and Hisuin Samurott are the prime 2, but stuff like sneasler, overquill, chesnaught, greninja, and even Mega Diancie for the guys working at the national dex department, and thats just for the spikes/rocks department, depending of the amount of deffogers we get (which at this very moment, are low) then he might as well be running scarf again, i mean, garganacl is gonna get checks too, if you think about it, Heatran lost toxic so he gets a new slot, so he can slap something like Flash cannon or solar beam if you really wanna meme with it, if not running tera water, gren shits on it, the genies are back with a new friend in e n a m o r U S, a genie of love who will serve as a wall and a contrary sweeper depending of the mon

so the point is, the future is not looking bad for goldilocks at all