Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[senorlopez]

Gen 9 huh...Truly the generation that keeps shooting itself in the foot - where every suspect splits the player base in half and no one can agree on what is and isn't acceptable.

If you don't like this gen as it is, pack it up and play something else. The main players have decided on the identity of the tier and unless the almighty CTC himself bestows upon us mere mortals his teachings of what will bless the tier, nothing will gain enough traction for change. Barring some divine discovery, this is gen 9 folks.

With no clear direction of where to go from here, I implore those with power to use this time to reflect and consider modernizing some of the policies that got us here.

For instance, would have the tier been made more enjoyable if Supreme Overlord was banned? How about Electro Shot? Did we have to wait for a 2nd Last Respects user before the move was banned? I understand why things are as they are but modern mons are designed differently than how they were 10 years ago - we should seriously reconsider our collective stance on how exclusive moves and abilities are evaluated.

Look away now...

We have 3 different interpretations of sleep clause across the site. Regardless of your view whether it was the right thing to do or not, wouldn't it be nice to have consistency? Was it the right decision to ban sleep and not Darkrai on current tiering policy? I don't know (spoilers no one does because that meta doesn't exist) but I do know that that decision indirectly nerfed grass types, indirectly nerfed sun, indirectly buffed waterpon etc. Was it right to enact a change that had (unforeseen?) meta changing consequences when something much simpler could have been enacted and then, if that didn't settle the issue, ban sleep clause? Again, I don't know but if tiering policy drove us to make such a widespread change instead of a more granular one (Darkrai) that could have been built upon if that didn't work, then I think that policy should be reflected on.

Toss in updating species clause in some form as well - what's the problem with me using Zapdos and Zapdos-G on the same team for instance? They're completely different mons.

Good luck to the council for the rest of the gen because I would have no idea where to go from here to appease people.

 

[RaikouLover]

The time when there was significant interest in a Tera suspect is long gone. Most of the people who want one either don't play SV anymore or can't get reqs, so there likely won't even be a Tera Blast suspect as the unrestricted Tera camp has fully won out.

I think a lot of people who wanted Tera gone straight up stopped playing. I can think of a few off the top of my head. It’s a shame.

 

[Bakugames]

because we replaced third versions with dlc and connected remakes with legends/ilca stuff, the nature of modern cgou is to have a very turbulet first year or so but as we get all the dlc and basically gap years as the remakes bring no new things like oras/hgss did (at least not until Next Gen), things will stabilize. There's actually quite a bit of time. we have no main release this year and a main series release in 2024 isnt guaranteed (due to optics/scheduling and just time), so I dont think theres a need for doom and gloom yet. come back in like 3 or so months where nothing changed and people picked an unbalanced mon to scrapegoat and youll see a ban again tbh

 

[YubelVT]

Gouging Fire might be banworthy, but none of the ban advocates are saying anything other than that they are bad at the game. My brother in christ it is YOUR fault you got set up on for free. I personally didn't have a horse in this race, I was hoping for a ban because it would maybe start some momentum to get rid of other problems in the tier cough cough GAMBIT cough cough but that's all I cared about. I'm a cynic so I'm predicting that nothing else gets banned this gen but I hope to god I'm wrong because I want this tier to be fun again

 

[Finchinator]

Realistically I don't see any other Pokemon getting banned after this.

I just want to point out how profusely I disagree with this. The metagame is volatile and needs time to settle; public opinion and perception are swaying each week and that is as clear as day right now.

Survey results early in a month don't reflect suspect results later in a month, teams one week are no longer usable a few weeks later, and so on. With more time will come more clarity and more understanding of what is a lingering issue vs. what is more of a flavor of the week (like Breaking Swipes Gouging Fire).

We have been in similar situations, but to a less drastic degree, in prior generations and I think people just need to learn patience.

 

[VicBossMG]

Disappointed with the results. What's even more disappointing is that this is yet another case where survey scores seemingly didn't matter. Gouging went from a 4.1 on survey -> under 50% ban vote, while arch only got a 2.6 -> 75% bam. We saw this before with Ursaluna-BM and Urshifu.

Realistically I don't see any other Pokemon getting banned after this. I'm likely to vote dnb on Volcarona and am undecided on Waterpon / Raging Bolt. Tera Blast will never get banned I think.

Remember when 4/5 meant council take action on the vote and not sus test it? Good times

 

[Carl_the_turtle]

With no clear direction of where to go from here, I implore those with power to use this time to reflect and consider modernizing some of the policies that got us here.

For instance, would have the tier been made more enjoyable if Supreme Overlord was banned? How about Electro Shot? Did we have to wait for a 2nd Last Respects user before the move was banned? I understand why things are as they are but modern mons are designed differently than how they were 10 years ago - we should seriously reconsider our collective stance on how exclusive moves and abilities are evaluated.

I'm really tired of people acting like Supreme Overlord is an ability that is worth taking action on in any regard. It's an objectively worse ability than Huge/Pure Power on the one 'mon that it's available on, since it's dependent on mons being fainted and gives a weaker boost than those two would to gambit, with the only benefit being if you were to run some godawful special set. The ability itself is no more broken than those two are, and if Kingambit is broken, it's not just the ability, it's the combination of that with its stellar base stats, typing, movepool, and ability to tera.

 

[RaikouLover]

Gouging Fire might be banworthy, but none of the ban advocates are saying anything other than that they are bad at the game. My brother in christ it is YOUR fault you got set up on for free. I personally didn't have a horse in this race, I was hoping for a ban because it would maybe start some momentum to get rid of other problems in the tier cough cough GAMBIT cough cough but that's all I cared about. I'm a cynic so I'm predicting that nothing else gets banned this gen but I hope to god I'm wrong because I want this tier to be fun again

The problem is Tera. Nothing is broken when you can Tera defensively to stop it!

Disappointed with the results? Organize against Tera!

 

[YubelVT]

I just want to point out how profusely I disagree with this. The metagame is volatile and needs time to settle; public opinion and perception are swaying each week and that is as clear as day right now.

Survey results early in a month don't reflect suspect results later in a month, teams one week are no longer usable a few weeks later, and so on. With more time will come more clarity and more understanding of what is a lingering issue vs. what is more of a flavor of the week (like Breaking Swipes Gouging Fire).

We have been in similar situations, but to a less drastic degree, in prior generations and I think people just need to learn patience.

I really hope you're right, but after Kyurem and to a lesser extend the Gambit suspect a while back, I don't think anything is getting banned while this is the current generation. I'm probably just a cynical man suffering from skill issues but the tier is so saturated with broken shit that I just don't see anything getting banned because everything broken happens to check something else broken defensively/offensively. And this isn't gen 7, this isn't a fun broken checks broken metagame. This is just annoying and frustrating, in my opinion. But again I could have major skill issues.

The problem is Tera. Nothing is broken when you can Tera defensively to stop it!

You're preaching to the converted friend. I enjoy tera as a mechanic but it's really just not something that can really exist in a format so saturated with priority.

 

[Bakugames]

i actually believe the "theres too many bans" people have a point. I think quite a few mons deserved bans, but I think theres 2 main factors making suspects less optimal:

- the fact we've had to deal with flavor of the week mons that actually lost their shine which creates a frustrating experience for both pro banners and anti ban people

- the community itself is unfocused and rallies to just Get Bans Done, even if less optimal dont seem to work. People wont vote for banning something they dont think its banworthy, plain and simple.

now that theres no more dlc and this is the meta we're sticking with, we could stand to have less suspect tests, which imo would solve the above issue and actually lead to MORE bans. Removing the possibility of flavor of the week and arguments around that, and letting the community come to focus onto a mon.
and sure, you could say this is bad because its making the time spent with these things longer, but i dunno, its not like theyre being banned anyway, and id rather wait more for a more guaranteed meta improvement than try to "get things out of the way" and eiter waste time w mons that werent as much of an issue or that the community cant seem to make their mind on and it doesnt get banned anyway

 

[sims796]

I just want to point out how profusely I disagree with this. The metagame is volatile and needs time to settle; public opinion and perception are swaying each week and that is as clear as day right now.

Survey results early in a month don't reflect suspect results later in a month, teams one week are no longer usable a few weeks later, and so on. With more time will come more clarity and more understanding of what is a lingering issue vs. what is more of a flavor of the week (like Breaking Swipes Gouging Fire).

We have been in similar situations, but to a less drastic degree, in prior generations and I think people just need to learn patience.

Isn't this the most explosive generation yet? The devs are clearly trying to one up themselves, and this one seemed to increase exponentially. I can totally understand why everyone is so frazzled.

I say this having skipped the last gen, I don't know how hectic that meta was.

Sorry dunno wtf happed there

 

[YubelVT]

Isn't this the most explosive generation yet? The devs are clearly trying to one up themselves, and this one seemed to increase exponentially. I can totally understand why everyone is so frazzled.

I say this having skipped the last gen, I don't know how hectic that meta was.

Sorry dunno wtf happed there

so other than the gen 8 OU beta, which might have been the single worst generation of OU ever thanks to dynamax (yes it was worse than gen 5 peak weather OU), gen 8 OU was relatively fine outside of just after the release of the DLCs, which was expected to be hectic. I think it's a boring format so I don't play it, but it's not explosive like this one is

 

[sims796]

I was completely taken back that Dyna wasn't instantly banned, I'm so sorry y'all had to go through that.

But yeah, this is a crazy gen, and not to get all sentimental, but I was surprised at how efficiently things progressed. We had two dlcs just to shake things up, and we're still alive.

I miss Bloodmoon.

 

[RudeLiees]

Remember when 4/5 meant council take action on the vote and not sus test it? Good times

I remember those times :(

 

[RS25802580]

I’m glad Gouging Fire wasn’t banned.

I was initially pro-ban, particularly because of the bulky DD breaking swipes set, which could 1v1 Dozo, Glisc, and others.

But as people explored counterplay, it became clear that bulky DD GF was quite manageable alongside its other sets. With an uninvested 115 base attack alongside 60 BP Breaking Swipes, it needed multiple boosts to become immediately threatening. Once people started adapting to the anti-meta set, it became a lot less problematic. For example, the same Dozo and Glisc sets that bulky GF was supposed to beat could turn the tables with Tera Fairy. Some common defensive checks include:
- Landorus
- Tera Fairy or Rocky Hemet Dozo
- Tera Fairy Glisc
- Skeledirge
- A core of Glisc + Future Sight Glowking/Alomomola

Public sentiment changing over the course of a suspect is the sign of a playerbase that is willing to investigate new counterplay, hear out new ideas, and critique the old rather than staying stagnant in their views. This is a good thing. 42% is not a swing vote but the result of many players changing their opinion after thinking critically.

I disagree with the idea that nothing else will get banned this Gen. The results of this suspect cannot be extrapolated to that of a different mon like Waterpon or RM. If this suspect demonstrates anything, it’s that public opinion can readily change, people are receptive to new info, and that future results are not set in stone and cannot be predicted weeks in advance.

 

[RudeLiees]

I’m glad Gouging Fire wasn’t banned.

I was initially pro-ban, particularly because of the bulky DD breaking swipes set, which could 1v1 Dozo, Glisc, and others.

But as people explored counterplay, it became clear that bulky DD GF was quite manageable alongside its other sets. With an uninvested 115 base attack alongside 60 BP Breaking Swipes, it needed multiple boosts to become immediately threatening. Once people started adapting to the anti-meta set, it became a lot less problematic. For example, the same Dozo and Glisc sets that bulky GF was supposed to beat could turn the tables with Tera Fairy. Some common defensive checks include:
- Landorus
- Tera Fairy or Rocky Hemet Dozo
- Tera Fairy Glisc
- Skeledirge
- A core of Glisc + Future Sight Glowking/Alomomola

Public sentiment changing over the course of a suspect is the sign of a playerbase that is willing to investigate new counterplay, hear out new ideas, and critique the old rather than staying stagnant in their views. This is a good thing. 42% is not a swing vote but the result of many players changing their opinion after thinking critically.

I disagree with the idea that nothing else will get banned this Gen. The results of this suspect cannot be extrapolated to that of a different mon like Waterpon or RM. If this suspect demonstrates anything, it’s that public opinion can readily change, people are receptive to new info, and that future results are not set in stone and cannot be predicted weeks in advance.

Or that none of these Pokémon core or Pokémon can check him in long term..

 

[Mikegengsta]

Just read the news that Gouging Fire stays in OU. I had a feeling the result would end up like Walking Wake similar to its release where it did seem banworthy at first but wasn’t worth banning at all as people began to play it more. Didn’t mind the outcome but just wanted to post that here.

 

[RKOtaku]

Well, time to stop playing. I was pretty 50/50 about GF so I'm not that shocked by the result but it just seems like nothing will change if even GF received such low results.

If people thought the metagame was bad during last survey I can't wait to see how they will feel when they found out how homogenized it is becoming with all the brainless hazard stack boots spam teams that are taking control of high-mid and high ladder. I'm so tired of facing the same Gliscor, Glowking, Dragapult, Alomomola, & fillers like Zamazenta, Landorus/Tusk, Kyurem, Meowscarada 9 times out of 10.
Second gen in a row I'll have to quit because of how boring the tier is and the worst thing is people complain but when they have the opportunity to vote they are scared of changes.

Unless something is made about hazards (whether it's Gliscor, Boots, Ceaseless or Tera because f*** tera Ghost) I can only see the metagame becoming even worse than it already is. Definitely not looking to play gen 8 2.0

 

[YubelVT]

Well, time to stop playing. I was pretty 50/50 about GF so I'm not that shocked by the result but it just seems like nothing will change if even GF received such low results.

If people thought the metagame was bad during last survey I can't wait to see how they will feel when they found out how homogenized it is becoming with all the brainless hazard stack boots spam teams that are taking control of high-mid and high ladder. I'm so tired of facing the same Gliscor, Glowking, Dragapult, Alomomola, & fillers like Zamazenta, Landorus/Tusk, Kyurem, Meowscarada 9 times out of 10.
Second gen in a row I'll have to quit because of how boring the tier is and the worst thing is people complain but when they have the opportunity to vote they are scared of changes.

Unless something is made about hazards (whether it's Gliscor, Ceaseless or Tera because f*** tera Ghost) I can only see the metagame becoming even worse than it already is. Definitely not looking to play gen 8 2.0

Bring Back Terapagos he will save OU. The format is already bad so let's make it even worse!

 

[Soiramio3000]

Gouging Fire lives to see another day: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...-round-11-voting.3739011/page-5#post-10031544

I had a feeling this would happen.

Personally I don't hate this thing.

I don't even use it.

 

[RKOtaku]

Bring Back Terapagos he will save OU. The format is already bad so let's make it even worse!

Lol, I know it's a joke but I honestly would not mind having Terapagos and Bloodmoon in the metagame for a bit since I wasn't playing when they were released haha. But tbh Terapagos probably would not be able to spin either in the current metagame so I don't know what the solution is but it's definitely not voting DNB on everything.

 

[YubelVT]

Lol, I know it's a joke but I honestly would not mind having Terapagos and Bloodmoon in the metagame for a bit since I wasn't playing when they were released haha. But tbh Terapagos probably would not be able to spin either in the current metagame so I don't know what the solution is but it's definitely not voting DNB on everything.

Legit I am only half joking when I say unban terapagos. It's got just enough of everything to actually be a viable spinner in OU and has the typing to check ghost spam.

 

[Magcargo]

I disagree with the idea that nothing else will get banned this Gen. The results of this suspect cannot be extrapolated to that of a different mon like Waterpon or RM. If this suspect demonstrates anything, it’s that public opinion can readily change, people are receptive to new info, and that future results are not set in stone and cannot be predicted weeks in advance.

Fair point. For me personally though, I don't think I plan on voting ban on any of the future suspects aside from Waterpon and Raging Bolt, both of which I have tempered my perceptions on and would be open to voting DNB on. Raging Bolt has Kyurem syndrome, where it is a pain to face, but also a pain to use. The main thing that makes bolt "Broken" is Booster Energy CM Draco, which very few Ground-types want to take, but like most Booster Energy mons it is limited by when it come in, since you ideally need Ting-Lu / Clod removed before it can begin sweeping. I am finding Leftovers to be the more consistent item, and when it uses Leftovers, it doesn't feel as overwhelming, but it also feels more generally useful. Being one of the best Zapdos answers is also pretty useful since that mon is still a pain to face. If another survey were to happen, I'd give it a 3 most likely.

Waterpon is an easier mon for me to vote ban on, but even still, I'm mixed on it since it is fairly flawed between being vulnerable to hazards, no priority, a bit of 4MSS, and narrow (though valuable) defensive utility due to its average bulk. There is fear-mongering about Ursaluna + Mola teams becoming OP if it gets banned, which I didn't buy at first until I started using one of these teams for myself and honestly... I see why people feel this way. Ursaluna + Mola feels like it chains KOes after KO very easily in some match-ups. I also really enjoy Waterpon's presence for myself when building Bulky Offense, but there are good replacements if it gets banned, namely Samurott-H which I'm using anyways because of that broken move and its own defensive qualities. I'd give it a 4 on a survey if one were conducted.

Roaring Moon, I'd vote ban on because it adds nothing to the metagame, but calling it an issue is a stretch since its basically locked to one set and feels like it rarely ever sweeps + is mostly just locked to HO. I can't ever vote ban on Volcarona even if it is limiting at times because of how neccessary it is to check other threats in the tier, same with Gambit. I'm 50/50 on Tera as well, leaning towards no ban, but other actions such as some restrictioins (whether it be Tera Preview, Tera Blast ban, etc.) I am very much open to. I think a meta where Tera is outright banned could be an interesting change of pace as well since we'd get some new options like Terapagos, Ogerpon-H, and Palafin (unsure on this one, but likely balanced in Teraless) to play around with (Eleki and Espathra aren't real Pokemon so those don't count IMO).

 

[viivian]

Gouging Fire lives to see another day: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...-round-11-voting.3739011/page-5#post-10031544

the west has fallen.

Legit I am only half joking when I say unban terapagos. It's got just enough of everything to actually be a viable spinner in OU and has the typing to check ghost spam.

now how exactly are you going to do that? unless you either ban tera (which isn't likely) or implement some weird and borderline unnecessary complex ban that forbids specifically terapagos from utilizing terastallization then unbanning it simply isn't worth it. like just use great tusk bruh it's already better and more splashable than teraless terapagos anyway. ghost types are also annoying but terapagos is most certainly not going to be much help in dealing with them either

 

[Alternator]

If the reasons for not banning Terapagos-Stellar did not include, "We do not have the ability to track this mon separately," then I would be happy to launch a crusade to bring base Terapagos back to OU; it's got some useful traits, even if it'd likely end up low on the VR. Sadly, needing core engine work for a single mon would require personal interest from the Showdown devs, and they've spoken against it.

On more topical news, Gouging Fire surviving its suspect is a sign that the suspect test system still works. The entire point of a suspect test is to test the potentially broken element, and suspect tests extend over two weeks (less during short-lived metas before final DLC) not just to give busy people an opportunity to make voting reqs, but to allow time for adaptations. Those adaptations were found, people changed their minds, this isn't a problem, it's how the system is intended to work.

I'm going to again toss out that, if the OU community wants to ban something strictly for the purpose of reducing threat diversity, Booster Energy should be looked at. It's not broken, but it does increase set diversity on already-good mons, and banning it would then reduce the number of distinct threats in the tier. Booster Energy would not be a 'this item is broken' ban, but a 'we need a more centralized tier, there are too many offensive threats' ban.