Metagame Views From The Council [ SEE POST 716 ]

[Avira]

Banning or even suspecting Pecharunt would be a mistake given how positive a presence it is for SV OU as a splashable check to many physical set-up sweepers in this hugely powercrept tier (the highest power level of any previous generation, even surpassing Gen 7 with Megas and Z-moves) while not being unreasonable to deal with there being two natural immunities to Malignant Chain and its special bulk being exploitable along with its natural typing having weaknesses to several common attacking types.

Sure, Pecharunt can turn the tables on you by Terastalizing into another type, but that goes for many of the top threats this gen. Maybe Zamazenta and Pecharunt make running purely physical HO unviable, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, and every offensive team should have at least one or maybe two strong special attackers to ensure it can beat down as much of the tier as possible.

Acting on Ting-Lu would also be a mistake as it is not broken, uncompetitive, or unhealthy, and it and Zama are probably the two mons doing the most to keep SV OU playable instead of being a completely offense-dominated tier. If anything, we should attempt to act on Kyurem again, and then also act on Kingambit and Gliscor after that.

 

[zioziotrip]

Pecharunt is a good reliable defensive piece in a tier where old/average defensive pieces have been struggling. In particular, it has been increasingly demanding and ridicilous to check Zamazenta with its massive set variety and effective inability to correct guage its set on preview as it can fit on most teams. Pecharunt offers a solution to this is that is fairly consistent though Zamazenta can still Crunch drop through Pecharunt pretty easily. Saying it's being "dominant" is akin to how well Ting Lu has been doing, it's naturally gonna show up more as its contemporary physical walls falter more and more as sweepers adapt to them. As a mon, Pecharunt is solid but far from anything remotely straining on the builder or in-game.

Malignant Chain is annoying RNG-wise but so are Static and Flame Body. Contact abilities if anything are significantly more problematic more often, they are incredibly easy to give multiple opprotunities and massively crippling when they work (when they only have to work once whereas you can swap out of confusion ocassionally and psn is not a massive deal.) I seriously fail to comprehend how Malignant Chain is anymore problematic than what we've let run around in the tier RNG-wise. I don't find Pech/Chain notably more demanding than other RNG elements we already have to play around.

Personally, I'm pretty against banning signature moves to preserve mons because you're not really preserving the mon, you're preserving a significantly weaker version of the mon with its key tool removed. That aside, I think if Chain was to be put on the chopping block there is a significantly larger discussion to be had about sig moves and how we treat RNG in policy changing.

I think Kyurem and Ogerpon are still 10 times over the most problematic mons in the tier, especially considering they don't really contribute anything beyond being insanely diffucult to handle breakers (we have good enough water resists already especially with mola freed up.) I think some "cornerstones" like Zamazenta, Gliscor, Ting-Lu, and Kingambit deserve serious discussion about how helpful they actually are to the tier. First things first though, the ludicrous breakers should go.

 

[Dragonair Bot]

I believe that we should NOT current suspect/ban pecha. While I personally believe it is uncompetitive, I think that it would not be banned right now. I think the voting playerbase is slightly overfocused on whether something us obviously broken vs whether something is competitive or healthy. I think after we test other contentious things and the tier has adjusted to those experiences would be a better time to test it.

I think it (and tinglu) should continue to have a place on surveys going forward.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Personally, I'm pretty against banning signature moves to preserve mons because you're not really preserving the mon, you're preserving a significantly weaker version of the mon with its key tool removed. That aside, I think if Chain was to be put on the chopping block there is a significantly larger discussion to be had about sig moves and how we treat RNG in policy changing.

i feel like for pecha in particular it might not even mind that much. sludge bomb's got 10 less power and a lower proc chance, but it compensates in part with the higher pp and regular poison's immediate damage output being better than toxic's (which is nice against pivots). still a downgrade, but i don't think it'd be a viability-killing one by any means

 

[ShizuOsaka]

I haven't been here for a few days, and now do I see Pecharunt's call to suspect?

 

[pika pal]

I haven't been here for a few days, and now do I see Pecharunt's call to suspect?

Moreso Pecharunt raising questions because of some RNG aspects that it's bulky enough to fish for during its normal game plan, and debate on whether that's unhealthy alongside its legitimate defensive utility in an otherwise heavily offensive meta.

To summarize more briefly: Pecha is up for discussion, but Council seems to just have it on the radar/talking points and majority community talk ranges from "no, I don't think so" to "I'd wait and see, we have more pressing topics"

 

[June Heat]

I don’t have much stake in the tier, but it seems crazy that both Pecharunt and Ting-Lu are up for discussion. I get that they’re frustrating, but at the same time they’re holding this tier together by being great blanket checks to a good portion of the meta. RNG feels bad, but staring down one of the 50 offensive Pokemon that you didn’t over prepare for feels worst imo.

Look into Wellspring, Kyurem, or Kingambit before either one of them.

 

[ausma]

Speaking for myself and not the council here:

Before I go any deeper into my stance I really need to make it clear that this is a Pecharunt problem and not a Malignant Chain problem. Part of what makes Pecharunt so contentious is Poison Puppeteer which is exclusive to Pecharunt and its access to Parting Shot to take advantage of switch-ins. Even if we could somehow attribute it to Malignant Chain (which is very difficult given Pecharunt is the only user of Malignant Chain), it still has access to Toxic which it has viably used for a consistent proc. Banning Poison Puppeteer also means banning Pecharunt by effect, so imo there’s no use for any middleman.

Personally, I think Pecharunt is fine. While it is incredibly obnoxious and it has the ability to win some 1v1s it feels like it shouldn’t, I feel like a lot of the counterplay it encourages is not just splashable, but also not very far off from what people are running anyway. At least in regards to defensive counterplay, Poison- and Steel-type Pokemon (and Tera types) are resilient into both Toxic and Malignant Chain, which leaves it with a limp Hex and Parting Shot, turning it into a purely reactive and linear pivot for the most part. Defensive Gholdengo gives Pecharunt a big problem as it blocks both Malignant Chain and Parting Shot, and also takes very little from Hex. Nasty Plot sets can do better into Gholdengo and Pokemon like Galarian Slowking, but then you have a much harder time into Ting-Lu and Kingambit, and you lose out on Parting Shot which is a huge component around what makes its gameplan so frustrating. Foul Play is an amazing option but also is not fully reliable without Tera Dark since most targets resist the move, meaning it’s typically only going to 2HKO/3HKO its primary targets, but most notably means it has to drop its Ghost-type STAB which makes Galarian Slowking and Gholdengo absurdly good into it. Its set variety and ability to beat most Physically oriented Pokemon is very good but usually falls short of something that has a positive matchup into Pecharunt anyway, or forces it to commit to something like Tera/Tera Blast. Though, regardless of its set variety, good defensive backbones featuring Pokemon resilient to Toxic can also help teams maneuver its more frustrating dynamics by bottlenecking its move selection and making it considerably less useful when it comes to making progress. This is especially true if you are running Pokemon that it clicks Parting Shot into that also happen to be resilient enough into potential switch-ins to make use of the turn in a proactive way.

I’d like to also mention two other forms of counterplay: Clear Amulet and Covert Cloak. Clear Amulet is a bit more niche but I think is something that is quite useful anyway, mainly on Kingambit and similar setup-based Pokemon, where Intimidate and stat drops in general are very felt. Clear Amulet actually completely blocks Parting Shot, which is an interaction that is not very known but is very relevant into Pecharunt. If you run this on a Pokemon that is resilient to Malignant Chain, you can convert Pecharunt into an incredible opportunity to make progress or go for game. Covert Cloak is useful also for Garganacl and moves like Nuzzle; in particular, I’m super fond of Covert Cloak on setup sweepers with access to recovery such as Roaring Moon, which can also take advantage of Pecharunt. These items are more niche for sure, but their utility is not just Pecharunt and is relevant to the gameplans of the Pokemon who run them, which makes them healthier adaptations. Obviously these are less splashable measures but I do think to an extent encouraging these kinds of items also has other healthy ramifications, such as making teams more resilient into Garganacl which imo is more problematic than Pecharunt comparatively.

The main thing I wanted to say though is that I feel people comparing Pecharunt to Machamp are missing the mark a bit. Machamp forced very dedicated forms of counterplay to contest its RNG fishing dynamics, as it had access to a powerful Payback for Ghost-types and could more feasibly run Substitute to ease prediction. Lum Berry was the only truly splashable adaptation, and very niche Pokemon like Slowbro and Spiritomb are niche for a reason. I don’t like the Machamp comparison hugely because counterplay to Pecharunt’s unhealthy move and its gameplan in general are far more accessible and at the very least, allow teams to maneuver around it such that they can mitigate the RNG fishing without losing too much tempo. It obviously can respond to counterplay via options like Parting Shot, but even these dynamics can be responded to; as I mentioned, you can run items like Clear Amulet and Pokemon like Gholdengo/Garganacl, or mainly, you can play into the forced Parting Shot by contesting it with a more proactive play.

The whole dialogue around uncompetitive/unhealthy is a bit of a slippery slope. I know that’s bold as hell for me of all people to say as the biggest Tera Blast hater, but I do think the dynamic around these concepts changes quite a bit when you consider concepts like consistency/splashability in counterplay and how well you can take advantage of the predictability that comes from the intensity of said counterplay. While I do think Poison Puppeteer with Pecharunt’s defensive profile can be labelled an unhealthy element of the tier in a vacuum, the fact that counterplay is as accessible as it is does, in and of itself, reduce the extent by which these ideas manifest, since it introduces consistency into the equation. RNG is a fundamental part of this game and it sucks to deal with sometimes, but something that grounds its presence is consistent counterplay. Pecharunt has that, while Machamp does not, and unlike Machamp Pecharunt provides a ton of good to the tier.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

Is there a particular reason that "we can't ban it because it is so valuable for what is able to check and what it brings to the meta" is a legitimate argument with regards to Pecharunt or Ting-Lu, but not for Kyurem, Volcarona, Gliscor, or Kingambit? I agree with this logic, but shouldn't it be applied consistently?

Also I am not moved by the "malignant chain is uncompetitive" argument simply by virtue of rate of return. You have a roughly 15% chance of poison into a confusion proc. What's next, banning Draco meteor or play rough because they miss sometimes? Sure, suspect it for empowering spike stacking structures, and being unreasonable to wear down without taking huge chip, and contributing to ZapKingLuism, but not for a 15% proc. This is pokemon. You can abuse confusion and put the game in the hands of rolls but they're 33% so there's a 2 in 3 chance of that not working out for you, so the odds are stacked against you.

 

[Hydrametr0nice]

Is there a particular reason that "we can't ban it because it is so valuable for what is able to check and what it brings to the meta" is a legitimate argument with regards to Pecharunt or Ting-Lu, but not for Kyurem, Volcarona, Gliscor, or Kingambit? I agree with this logic, but shouldn't it be applied consistently?on

1. Most comments about Pecharunt focus on it not being broken, rather than the value it brings.
2. Among the Pokémon you listed, the only one people usually make that argument for is Kingambit.
3. I don't agree with that logic :D
4. Even with Kingambit, I think it's much more about it having enough counterplay than being valuable to the meta.

 

[Dead by Daylight]

and contributing to ZapKingLuism

Could you please stop using this phrase? ZapKingLu has never been this broken core you constantly strawman about and Pecharunt doesn't actually contribute all too much to it uniquely, as its use in SCL on many teams of all shapes and sizes illustrates. While I'm on your side, your arguments are basically strawmen.

Is there a particular reason that "we can't ban it because it is so valuable for what is able to check and what it brings to the meta" is a legitimate argument with regards to Pecharunt or Ting-Lu, but not for Kyurem, Volcarona, Gliscor, or Kingambit? I agree with this logic, but shouldn't it be applied consistently?

Pecharunt and Ting-Lu check far more things than Kyurem and Volcarona (as well as Kingambit) ever did - Pecharunt checks Zamazenta, Ogerpon-W, Iron Valiant, EQ + Facade Gliscor, Great Tusk if Balloon is up, and many more things, while Ting-Lu acts as a stat stick that sits in front of Gholdengo and basically any special attacker in the tier and walls them endlessly. Kyurem and Volcarona only barely checked a few of the many offensive threats in the tier.

 

[mailiam45]

With the SV OU landscape having few Poison-immune Pokemon, Pecharunt's Malignant Chain + Hex combination can be a real nightmare to switch into;

I count 12/39
(I assume this is referring to poison the status not the type, but even if it’s the type look at #2 and #3 lol)

And while we’re looking at the tier as a whole, I notice that the mons that are the most scared of getting Toxic’d by Pech are mostly setup sweepers. Moon, Dnite, Zama, Kyurem, Valiant, and Bolt to an extent (throw in Ogerpon too why not) all get punished by Malignant Chain. And honestly, I think that’s pretty healthy. Mind you, these mons are all constant threats to randomly pull out a tera that destroys your whole team. They’re already BS as it is, so I don’t see the problem with them having the BS turned onto them. Having this blanket check for these threats honestly feels pretty needed, especially for balance which really struggles with them.

Obviously Pech doesn’t only punish setup sweepers; it can poison something like Tusk or Lu which can be game changing. But let’s be real here. You have one of the Pokemon I highlighted on your team, maybe even two. If you see a Pecharunt on the other team, you can play around it and preserve your Toxic immune mons so Pech can’t get that crucial Toxic you’re so worried about.

Bulky Offense/Balance teams have the luxury to be able to switch out any mon at basically any time to avoid the Toxic from Pech. With Hyper Offense teams though you’re pretty much forced to stay in and play the Malignant Chain game. And I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. Ogerpon beats a lot of Balances, mixed Kyurem beats a lot of Stalls, and Pecharunt beats a lot of HO’s.

 

[UltraSword]

I have been looking at the Pecharunt discussion on this thread and I noticed there were a lot of comparisons made between it and DPP Machamp. There are of course plenty of similarities such as access to insane confusion hax and having insane abilities. However, while I do think it could have been handled differently (like say a dynamic punch suspect) Machamp was banworthy while Pecharunt isn't and here is why.

We will start with Machamp. Machamp had access to the deadly combo of the ability No Guard (you can't miss any moves) and Dynamic Punch (a 100 bp 50% accurate move that causes confusion every time it hits) which made it possibly the best rng dependent pokemon in DPP OU (aside from Jirachi). Machamp seemed to always have barely enough bulk to tank a hit, attack back with a powerful Dynamic Punch, and win the game through the opposing pokemon hitting themselves in confusion. Not even resists are safe thanks to this and some of Machamp's coverage moves. From the now never missing Stone Edge to Payback (which I will talk more about later) it had enough coverage for the whole tier once it got lucky. The only pokemon safe from Dynamic Punch were ghost types (Gengar and the Rotom appliances being the most popular) who of course are immune to Dynamic Punch. However, this is where Payback comes in. Payback is a dark type move that does more damage if it moves last and since both Gengar and Rotom appliances are faster than Machamp (and want to be faster for other matchups) Machamp easily threatens both of them with its 130 attack. Machamp had basically no checks/counters and even if something does threaten it it can just switch into one of its teammates who also usually happen to be rng dependent pokemon like Jirachi or Gyarados. All of this made Machamp absolutely and positively broken. My only regret is that they didn't decide to just ban Dynamic Punch as Machamp would have been perfectly ok without it.

Now lets take a look at Pecharunt. Pecharunt has access to the combination of the ability Poison Puppeteer and the move Malignant Chain. Like Machamp it is able to confuse hax many pokemon with the added benefit of also badly poisoning said pokemon. Unlike Machamp though it has a better defensive presence, is faster (one of Machamp's few problems), and has more utility moves such as Parting Shot and Recover. However, what makes Pecharunt (relatively) fine and Machamp broken is that Pecharunt has ways to beat it. The difference between Dynamic Punch and Malignant Chain is that Dynamic Punch has only one immunity with only 2 viable pokemon representing it (even if Rotom is an extremely common pokemon in DPP OU) while Malignant Chain has 2 immunities (Steel and Poison) with 9 pokemon (includig itself) representing those immunties combined (and those are just the ou proper ones). Also, unlike Machamp who could beat ghost types with Payback, Pecharunt can do almost nothing against pokemon immune to Malignant Chain. It can use Parting Shot against these pokemon or even use non status boosted Hex against some ghost weak Poison/Steel types (Glowking, Iron Crown, and Gholdengo) but none of these options let it outright beat these pokemon and Pecharunt must resort to its teammates. Another big issue for Pecharunt compared to Machamp is that power creep has made pokemon powerful enough to beat even Pecharunt's 160 defense (let alone 88 special defense) with super effective moves. Sometimes the answer to beating a pokemon isn't to wall it but to just straight up hit it like a truck and there are plenty of pokemon in ou who can do that such as Darkrai, Great Tusk, Roaring Moon, etc.

In conclusion, while Machamp and Pecharunt are comparable in many ways, Machamp was clearly broken and Pecharunt (while admittedly annoying) isn't. Not only are there plenty of pokemon immune to Malignant Chain but more importantly it has very little (effective) counter-play against these pokemon and the insane power creep allows for non-immune pokemon to beat Pecharunt anyway. In the end Pecharunt is not quite broken or unhealthy enough to be broken even if it is funny enough.

Thank you for reading all the way through. I am admittedly not that good of a player, but I feel like I know enough about both SV and DPP OU to share my thoughts on this matter. If I made any mistakes in this post please correct me by replying respectfully. Goodbye for now :)

 

[#1 Talonflame Enjoyer]

Hey guys, just here to throw in my opinion here.

Personally, I am very surprised the Cheeky Peach ended up in discussion. I haven't seen much of it recently, but if I'm being honest, I think it's more annoying than anything.

Despite it's actually decent defensive typing and speed tier, it doesn't tend to last long on the field due to its more specially frail side, and conveniently, a weaker special side that its main weaknesses usually specialize in. (Example, Ghost types like Gholdengo, Dragapult, typically run Hex / Shadow Ball for Ghost STAB, Darkrai's only meaningful STAB damage output is Dark Pulse, and literally any of the Psychic types use special Psychic moves, with the exception of maybe Iron Crown, who is known to more commonly runs Psyshock, which hits on the physical side.)

I do understand the fact it can be a nuisance to remove though, that 160 Defense stat is menacing, and just to prove that:

252 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Pecharunt : 260-308 (68.4 - 81%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Kowtow Cleave (127 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Pecharunt : 312-368 (82.1 - 96.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Knock Off (97 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Pecharunt : 288-338 (75.7 - 88.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Pecharunt : 236-278 (62.1 - 73.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Weavile Knock Off (97 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Pecharunt : 200-236 (52.6 - 62.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

None of this is factoring in Tera, or any Defensive investment outside of HP. And thois is not to say Pecharunt has bad special defense by any means...

252 SpA Gholdengo Shadow Ball (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Pecharunt : 296-350 (77.8 - 92.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Dragapult Hex (65 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Pecharunt : 200-236 (52.6 - 62.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Iron Treads Earth Power (90 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Pecharunt : 168-198 (44.2 - 52.1%) -- 13.3% chance to 2HKO

Although, despite these good defenses, one thing that sticks out to me is the fact that Pecharunt is very limited in what it can run, as it always needs a non-damaging move (Example, Parting Shot, Recover, Nasty Plot) to be of much use, so it can't run Assault Vest for special defense, and always needs to run a defensive Tera like Tera Dark, or Water. (Fighting, if you are like me and hate Kingambit and use Tera Blast, but that's an offensive tera that still gets wrecked by Psychic moves.) And its biggest Glaring weakness would be its lack offensive coverage outside of Tera Blast Fighting / Fairy, which means you have to give up another potentially very helpful status move, or not be able to hit common OU mons like the formentioned Kingambit, Garganacl, Ting-Lu, etc.

All in all, while I do think Pecharunt is pretty annoying at times, It isn't an unhealthy Pokemon for the metagame, just something to plan for.

Thanks for hearing out my opinion on this topic, and Have a great day, God Bless y'all.

 

[ShizuOsaka]

All in all, while I do think Pecharunt is pretty annoying at times, It isn't an unhealthy Pokemon for the metagame, just something to plan for.

I do think so too. And honestly, SVOU really needs some bulky pivots like Pecharunt.
Its role compression is so great. Poison type to remove Toxic Spikes, Ghost to block Rapid Spin, Parting Shot to switch out against Gambito and Pecharunt + Hex too.
Without Pecharunt, I think a lot of physical sweepers in the tier would break loose easily. Malignant Chain may be annoying, but it's nowhere near Serene Grace Iron Head Jirachi in DPP OU.

 

[Finchinator]

As I touched on here, the SV OU tiering council are seriously discussing Roaring Moon and Gliscor!

Roaring Moon was previously banned for the brute strength of the then-standard Tera Flying Dragon Dance variants. 3 attacks sets with Acrobatics, Knock Off, and one of Earthquake or Brick Break had very limited counterplay and that counterplay was dwarfed by the occasional Taunt variants. Roaring Moon then returned to OU with the release of DLC2 and was seen as good, but not broken, for a number of months. At times, calls to include it in tiering discussions were met with responses labeling it as "Roaring Mid" as the old tricks were capped by various revenge killing mechanisms and soft defensive counterplay.

However, a recent shift in set mix has catapulted Roaring Moon back into the forefront of tiering discussions. Bulky Roost variants are perhaps the largest development, but Tera Blast Fairy sets is in the equation as well. Starting with the former, Roaring Moon is able to ditch some speed and even attack investment to go bulkier. This in conjunction with a defensive Tera type like Fairy or Ghost can give you a lot more set-up opportunity and make you less susceptible to priority than standard 3 attacks variants. Tera Blast Fairy is more simple, giving you the ability to flip the match-up into Zamazenta, Great Tusk, Iron Valiant, Raging Bolt, and various others while remaining resistant to Sucker Punch and becoming neutral to Ice Shard. You still are going to be vulnerable to Dragonite Extreme Speed and defensive stalwarts like Dondozo, but it has huge match-up swaying potential into opposing offense at a bare minimum.

These two sets now being common make playing around Roaring Moon, especially when you factor in the classic variants of it, challenging at best and guesswork at worst. There is counterplay to every variant of Roaring Moon and some overlap can exist, but most of it is archetype specific and all of it needs to remain healthy throughout a game despite being needed for common Roaring Moon partners on offensive teams. This dynamic puts a strain on teambuilding and has been met with many Roaring Moon sweeps throughout high ladder and tournament play. Numerous council members have expressed support for a suspect test.

Recent tournament games where Roaring Moon popped off from the last 3 weeks alone:

• Storm Zone vs Pais
• The Franklin vs LpZ
• vk vs The Franklin
• leng loi vs Fogbound Lake
• aesf vs JJ09LIE

Gliscor is another ex-Uber that has been dancing in-and-out of tiering talks. The tier's most durable swordsman has drawn the ire of many players due to it being a potent bulky win condition that is hard to pin down, especially with Tera options nullifying weaknesses like Ice and Water type attacks. The general sense is that Roaring Moon is closer to a suspect test right now, but Gliscor is hard to ignore with how common it is and how many resources it demands from opposing teams to contain.

Swords Dance Gliscor has been at the forefront of tiering talks, but it is worth noting that at least one council member sees Toxic variants as even more problematic as it is able to force incrimental progress without being threatened imminently enough in return at times. As for Swords Dance Gliscor, the best and most common variant is Swords Dance, Facade, Knock Off, and Protect. Earthquake is still a fine option, but being walled by specific Flying types or Air Balloon Gholdengo can prove costly. Tera Normal is a great option to tank attacks from Kyurem, Ogerpon-Wellspring, and other threats with coverage like Ice Spinner Great Tusk or Ice Beam Darkrai; the bonus of boosting Facade's power and immunizing Hex from Dragapult helps matters even more. Tera Water and Fairy are also great options for a plethora of possible match-ups depending upon your team.

We have noticed a lot of teams either need to run a combination of Pokemon like a Kyurem/Ogerpon-Wellspring/Great Tusk with initially effective attacks and then also something to take advantage of Normal type Gliscor like Zamazenta or Encore+Close Combat Iron Valiant, which can even fail to OHKO Gliscor from full. This is an enormous strain on team construction for archetypes like bulky-offensse as is, but it can get even more nuanced for bulky teams. Corviknight with Iron Defense is a great 1-on-1 stop, but it is possible for it to run out of Roost PP well before Gliscor is out of attacking PP, and things like Dondozo lack longevity once they lose Heavy-Duty Boots as well. This has meant Pokemon like Salt Cure + Ice Punch Garganacl, Weezing-Galar to flip Poison Heal into a major self-hit, or Big Stall favorite Knock Off + Sticky Barb Clefable cores to keep Gliscor's from recovering can check Gliscor, but many teams have to go off the beaten path to assure it does not threaten a sweep. Counterplay very much does exist, but is it convenient enough and numerous enough within the confines of our metagame for Gliscor to be balanced? That is what it boils down to!

Recent tournament games where Gliscor popped off from the last 3 weeks alone:

• Mada vs aesf
• lax vs DugZa
• Stareal vs Hiko
• S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs pdt
• laroxyl vs TNunes
• One Last Kiss vs Ahy Wddicted
• Lily vs Stareal
• DugZa vs Crying
• tko vs vk

Both of these Pokemon are performing at elite levels consistently, threatening to end or at least derail games despite facing some semblance of counterplay. It is possible we proceed with a public suspect test without a formal, public survey depending upon support in this thread and the council. Please voice your thoughts on Roaring Moon and Gliscor in this thread in the immediate future!

 

[Audio Peel]

Roaring Moon's recent set developments have proven quite scary to face. Even with full HP bulky dtail dnite, you can just get blown up by bulky fairy roost, physdef prima also loses, and pech dies to +2 knock and cannot switch in. Lando pivoting is also untenable for the bulky sets unless you're offensive lando which is uncommon.

Of course, it still has its own counterplay, but imo its suuper demanding to face and can potentially have you shoot yourself in the foot if you try to account for bulky DD into a full offensive set. roar/wisp physdef molt is about the only full stopper that doesn't require an opposing exhaust and a knocked molt at 40 is basically dead.

Definitely one of the most scary mons at the moment, and I wouldn't be particularly sad to see him go, even if he can serve a good role as a hard punish to the average Zama Pech Pon type structures which in his absence, are likely to improve in viability a lot, along with other structures that are scared in the moon matchup. Dnite gets better, Pon gets better, the birds get better and worse, etc. Probably still a good idea though, imo.

 

[Avira]

I've said it before in the metagame discussion, but I find all of Kyurem, Gliscor, Kingambit, and Roaring Moon to be better suspect targets than Ogerpon-Wellspring with Wellspring being perfectly fine for the meta given how little set variety she has compared to the others and since her Tera Type is locked to Water and for how useful she is in preventing certain mons from having even higher usage than they do now, making her an overall healthy presence in the meta.

Roaring Moon is currently the most dangerous sweeper in SV OU and can do serious damage to a team or even end a game entirely if it gets in on something that doesn't check it. The Tera Blast Fairy sets are the most egregious, and accounting for both fully offensive and bulky sets is hard to do. If you try to waste its Booster Energy at +1 with Red Card, Ting-Lu is basically the only mon that can live any hit but still be crippled and useless for the rest of the match with most other Red Card options being unviable into Roaring Moon.

+1 252 Atk Protosynthesis Tera Fairy Roaring Moon Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Ting-Lu: 440-522 (85.6 - 101.5%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

There is a lot of guesswork involved in checking Roaring Moon if it hasn't taken taken damage yet, and even if you have an idea of what the EVs are since you did manage to get a hit on it, it's still not always that simple dealing with it since it can use Taunt against status or Roost up on mons that don't adequately threaten it. It's definitely one of the hardest mons to prep for at the moment.

Gliscor also has counterplay that isn't widely overlapping for both its SD and support sets, and stuff that beats the SD set, such as Iron Defense Corv, can be used as fodder for the Spikes sets. I know Ting-Lu had the most write-ins for a support mon on the previous survey, but I find Gliscor to be by far the most egregious support mon to face, especially since it can also make use of an SD set as well. Ting-Lu is fine while Gliscor isn't.

SV OU currently has too many threats, which is stretching building thin, and we must do something about it instead of keeping the status quo, which is untenable given how Tera increases the number of threats by design since it increases the volatility of every mon. Dropping more Ubers will not solve this since it'll increase the number of threats with each unban due to Tera, which is why we need to cull the worst offenders now.

I'm for suspecting whichever mon's the most likely to be banned at a given time, and if that's Roaring Moon, so be it. Gliscor, I'm less convinced will go given Kyurem's presence in the meta, so I believe Roaring Moon should be more of a priority. Personally, I would survey the playerbase since tiering administration has personally shut down talks on banning Tera, so a new data point from the qualified playerbase might be needed.

 

[viivian]

i haven't played on ladder in a while but i don't think gliscor has evolved enough to warrant a another suspect test within less than 6 months of the last one. it's a tricky pokemon to handle for sure but it struggles to fit everything it wants into one set, is highly susceptible to the ever-present taunt and encore, and its most potent set is a massive tera hog and operates much less effectively without it. i'd definitely wait a little while before retesting this one a second time.

roaring moon is weird. i've been against banning it in the past past but the fact that there's been so many different sets popping up recently is definitely very concerning. standard DD w/ coverage or taunt can definitely be scary but it was held back by its predictability, since you knew how to play around it from preview. but when you factor in tera ground + sub, TB fairy, bulky DD, etc. roaring moon becomes far less telegraphed and much harder to account for, which is definitely a massive concern when all of these different sets and options are on a pokemon that was already problematic when you only had play around its one set that had one tera type. so while i don't know if it should be outright banned, i would not be opposed to a RM retest in the near future.

do take all of this with a grain of salt though since again, i haven't had the time nor motivation to be closely following the metagame recently.
but those are my overall thoughts on gliscor and roaring moon, for what it's worth.

 

[LovelyLuna]

Dropping my thoughts :3

I strongly support action on Roaring Moon, I've begun to build accepting my fate because I believe every single team loses to one Roaring Moon set. A variety in movesets makes defensive counterplay shaky, but a variety in teras as well helps deny common offensive counterplay. I've seen the aforementioened Tera Fairy and Tera Ghost, but the standard Tera Flying and Tera Ground are also very common, have been goobed by Tera Fire more than I'd like to admit. I think the stress it involves in builder is already a lot, and then it hits you with twice the stress in play, where guessing wrong and letting it get to +2 or steal another kill is gg. Roaring Moon seems like the most deserving Pokemon of a suspect as of right now imo, despite the amount of outcries some other Pokemon are receiving.

I'm not too keen on Gliscor, but not very against it either. I agree with pretty much everything viviann said in their post, and feel like it'd take more for Gliscor to be broken than for other Pokemon. Gliscor is best on Balance and Stall, two of the weakest viable styles right now due to some Pokemon I don't intend to name. So even if Gliscor was textbook broken, it could be fine and positive for the metagame. You could also interpret this as Gliscor helping keep the styles alive in the offensive meta, which is cool. It has stolen a handful amount of games and can be argued as textbook broken though, so I think suspecting it some time in the future is also very fair, definitely less urgent than Roaring Moon with its recent suspect though.

 

[GrimtheImpy]

For Gliscor I am indifferent to, but for Roaring Moon, I have a lot to say.

And a quick disclaimer before anything, I am not a particularly good player. I just have very strong feelings towards Roaring Moon.

Roaring Moon, this thing just sorta explodes teams when it gets 1 or 2 Dragon Dances. Previously it was a relatively linear threat which was already a bit questionable. Though the counterplay was very much there, a key thing was that Roaring Moon couldn’t really beat things that could survive a hit from its onslaught without being punished or could act before it after 1 Dragon Dance. So you think Ting-Lu with Whirlwind, Multiscale Dragonite with Extreme speed, Dondozo being Dondozo, etc. However, with the change in mindset of Roaring Moon being a far more versatile Pokemon than previously thought, it has become a Pokemon that requires so much better play to beat than to use it in a manner I believe is unhealthy. So the first thing I want to highlight is Roaring Moon’s 2 open moveslots that it has great flexibility with, the only thing you need on every Moon outside of sun is Dragon Dance and Knock Off but otherwise you can mix and match. With the classic Acro+Eq, you are an excellent sweeper with coverage on most of the meta. With Roost/Eq or Acro or Tera Blast Fairy, you become a sweeper that sets up on things it shouldn’t with Tera(like Thunder Wave Gholdengo and Utility Clefable if you have Tera Ground or Choice Band Dragapult with Tera Fairy to give examples). Taunt is a good option to mess with traditional checks such as Gliscor, Ting-Lu, and with enough chip damage, even Dondozo. A common thing you’ll notice is that this silly Dragon gets to choose what counters it just bypasses. What Tera is the Roaring Moon is a game of chance you will have to play when fighting this thing and call it wrong and it’s often game over. This is a Pokemon that can often be an autolose even if the other player doesn’t know it simply based on its Tera. Not to say it’s impossible to beat Moon but for the player fighting Roaring Moon they have to make several calls just to not die or sometimes they just lose because the set the other player has just so happens to kill their entire team, lovely. The damage calculator isn't even reliable against Bulky Moon because depending on their investment sometimes things that should normally kill a standard spread just don't and scouting in what spread it is can be difficult a lot of the time.

I also personally do not think this meta would lose much by banning Roaring Moon. Roaring Moon is a sweeper first and foremost, not a utility Pokemon or something that keeps broken stuff in check, it is the broken thing. Roaring Moon has Knock Off sure but that thing’s utility is an afterthought when its main purpose is to explode everything. There’s no shortage of Viable Knock Off Pokemon that fit on all sorts of teams.

For Physical sweepers, we got a fair bit of those.

Dragon Types

Dark Types

So overall Roaring Moon is a sweeper that strains teambuilding, requires more effort on the part of the opponent to deal with it, is an extremely versatile sweeper that chooses what counters it, and I personally think it should be at the very least suspect tested because it feels unhealthy to me at the moment.

 

[Shaymin Sky]

Big on action on Roaring Moon, not so much on gliscor although id still vote to ban it anyways. Moon forces a lot of messy scinereos for either player to be clear, and it's not really a hard mon to get in either I mean it plays itself really. I don't think it adds to the meta in a healthy way besides checking Ogerpon but Moon is mainly a BO/offense guy anyways which have zama or great speed control > oger anyways. Moon is nothing more than SV ou's 14th high variance offense mon with wishy washy counterplay + immense builder strain and for moon specifically this hasn't changed much for me in 1900's/2000's elo from last month from my play, I'd go through with a test on it.

 

[Nitro611]

For Gliscor I am indifferent to, but for Roaring Moon, I have a lot to say.

And a quick disclaimer before anything, I am not a particularly good player. I just have very strong feelings towards Roaring Moon.

Roaring Moon, this thing just sorta explodes teams when it gets 1 or 2 Dragon Dances. Previously it was a relatively linear threat which was already a bit questionable. Though the counterplay was very much there, a key thing was that Roaring Moon couldn’t really beat things that could survive a hit from its onslaught without being punished or could act before it after 1 Dragon Dance. So you think Ting-Lu with Whirlwind, Multiscale Dragonite with Extreme speed, Dondozo being Dondozo, etc. However, with the change in mindset of Roaring Moon being a far more versatile Pokemon than previously thought, it has become a Pokemon that requires so much better play to beat than to use it in a manner I believe is unhealthy. So the first thing I want to highlight is Roaring Moon’s 2 open moveslots that it has great flexibility with, the only thing you need on every Moon outside of sun is Dragon Dance and Knock Off but otherwise you can mix and match. With the classic Acro+Eq, you are an excellent sweeper with coverage on most of the meta. With Roost/Eq or Acro or Tera Blast Fairy, you become a sweeper that sets up on things it shouldn’t with Tera(like Thunder Wave Gholdengo and Utility Clefable if you have Tera Ground or Choice Band Dragapult with Tera Fairy to give examples). Taunt is a good option to mess with traditional checks such as Gliscor, Ting-Lu, and with enough chip damage, even Dondozo. A common thing you’ll notice is that this silly Dragon gets to choose what counters it just bypasses. What Tera is the Roaring Moon is a game of chance you will have to play when fighting this thing and call it wrong and it’s often game over. This is a Pokemon that can often be an autolose even if the other player doesn’t know it simply based on its Tera. Not to say it’s impossible to beat Moon but for the player fighting Roaring Moon they have to make several calls just to not die or sometimes they just lose because the set the other player has just so happens to kill their entire team, lovely. The damage calculator isn't even reliable against Bulky Moon because depending on their investment sometimes things that should normally kill a standard spread just don't and scouting in what spread it is can be difficult a lot of the time.

I also personally do not think this meta would lose much by banning Roaring Moon. Roaring Moon is a sweeper first and foremost, not a utility Pokemon or something that keeps broken stuff in check, it is the broken thing. Roaring Moon has Knock Off sure but that thing’s utility is an afterthought when its main purpose is to explode everything. There’s no shortage of Knock Off Pokemon that fit on all sorts of teams.
View attachment 719896
For Physical sweepers, we got a fair bit of those.
View attachment 719897
Dragon Types
View attachment 719900
Dark Types
View attachment 719899
So overall Roaring Moon is a sweeper that strains teambuilding, requires more effort on the part of the opponent to deal with it, is an extremely versatile sweeper that chooses what counters it, and I personally think it should be at the very least suspect tested because it feels unhealthy to me at the moment.

Weavile erasure is crazy but your point stands

 

[GrimtheImpy]

Weavile erasure is crazy but your point stands

There's a lot I didn't mention

Like Weavile Tinka Lokix etc etc, which yeah also do Knock Stuff and are OU viable but the point is that there are so many Knock Off Users that actually use Knock Off for utility or are Darks that have well defined checks and counters. I only listed proper ou stuff for easy reference

 

[mailiam45]

I also personally do not think this meta would lose much by banning Roaring Moon. Roaring Moon is a sweeper first and foremost, not a utility Pokemon or something that keeps broken stuff in check, it is the broken thing. Roaring Moon has Knock Off sure but that thing’s utility is an afterthought when its main purpose is to explode everything.

This is pretty much what I’ve been coming to think as well recently. I genuinely don’t know what positive value Roaring Moon brings to the tier right now. As many have pointed out, there are so many offensive threats in this tier that it’s too hard to build a team that can withstand them all (which is why I think Pecharunt is so valuable to the tier as a blanket check; look a few posts back if you want to see my full thoughts on that, but I digress). There are teams you’ll come across that your broken setup sweeper can easily deal with. I for one am not a huge Moon user, but I use DD Tera Fire Kyurem a lot. That set can just destroy some teams if given the right opportunity to setup. But let’s say you’re running a team that is able to deal with Tera Fire Kyurem consistently. Congrats! You won! Now you load up your next game, and your opponent has Tera Blast Fairy Roaring Moon. Was your team equipped to handle that? What if the Moon was bulky roost? What about Tera Normal Gliscor?

Tera will inherently cause setup sweepers to be broken in this gen. I mean, just think about how many mons have been banned so far because they’re too good with a specific Tera (probably all if not most of this gen’s bans). But does that mean that we should stop trying to take tiering action and let Tera abusers roam free? No, absolutely not.

I believe that the best course of action is to take action against the mons that are nigh unbeatable with the right Tera, i.e. Roaring Moon, Gliscor, and Kyurem. Those are the main three mons in the tier that can have a Tera type that destroys entire teams. Raging Bolt, Iron Moth, Dragonite, and Iron Valiant are all great Tera abusers, but they are not near banworthy since they have consistent counterplay within the tier now even if they Tera. This isn’t the case of “oh, if we ban Roaring Moon, Gliscor, and Kyurem, something else is going to be the broken threat that everyone wants to ban!!!” As we remove the most broken of the oversaturated amount of setup Tera abusers in the tier, the remaining ones will be even easier to deal with in the teambuilder since 1) their defensive checks are still in the tier and 2) teams won’t have to worry about [trying to] answer every single broken threat (which isn’t even really possible in the first place).

The tier would be in a much better place defensively if Roaring Moon, Gliscor, and Kyurem are banned. Once they’re all gone, then I think we could look into potentially taking action against the more broken defensive mons like Pecharunt and Ting-Lu. But right now, those mons are way too important defensively in this offensively dominated meta to even entertain banning before we deal with the setup sweepers.


{cut to a separate point because it didn’t really fit anywhere up there}
The bulky Roaring Moon sets have become a huge problem recently imo. A lot of the time, the main strategy a team has to beat a Roaring Moon is to gradually chip it down, either by attacking it as it clicks DD, switching in a Rocky Helmet user, or using priority moves. But if the Moon is bulky roost, then that whole strategy becomes invalidated, especially with moves like Kingambit Sucker Punch or Raging Bolt Thunderclap. The biggest drawback to Roost sets is obviously that Moon can only run two attacks. However, that’s still extremely hard to play around. By the time that Moon reveals Roost, it will most likely be at least +1 and will have burnt Tera. But in the meantime, you had to respect the possibility that it was running Knock, EQ, and Acro, as well as respect all possible Teras. If it’s Knock/EQ/Roost, you can’t Headlong Rush it with your Tusk because you have to respect the Tera Flying Acro. If it’s Knock/Acro/Roost, you can’t attack it safely with your Raging Bolt because you have to respect the Tera Ground EQ that OHKOs you. So you make a midground play. You Tera Steel and Ice Spinner with your Tusk, or you Tera Fairy and Draco with your Raging Bolt. However, I clicked Roost on your Tusk and I Tera Ground EQ you the next turn, and I clicked Tera Fairy on your Bolt and DD then kill you with +2 Fairy Blast next turn. Ggs, shake my hand.

(Sorry if any of this doesn’t make sense, I wrote this at 3 am lol)