Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3

[YubelVT]

do you mean "worse" as in "less strong" or "worse" as in "a bigger problem"? this sentence as it's written could mean one of two completely opposite things

I mean worse as in a bigger problem

 

[AlexIGuessNotFound]

Winter 2023 incident View attachment 556587

how does this affect the meta though

 

[Sahvyt]

https://pokepast.es/50f55c16a9ba134c

"Balance" team featuring a really annoying Gliscor set!

•Gliscor can use Fling after Protect when it comes in to both get Poison Heal and potentially toxic the opponent (as long as they don't switch to something like Garg or Ghold), while boosting Acrobatics. Thief is good if you see something like Leftovers being used, meaning you're getting around 18% health back every turn, further increased by Protect.

•Heatran to scare off anything threatening Gliscor with Ice Beam, plus obligatory Stealth Rocks because Magma Storm + Taunt isn't cancerous enough.

•Scizor, now that it has Bug Bite and Dual Wingbeat, is scarily powerful with Technician + CBand. If only it got Mach Punch too...

•Iron Moth is SEVERELY slept on. Although its 4× weakness to Ground is pretty debilitating, Energy Ball keeps Tusk off your ass. +Speed BE instead of +Sp. Atk is very good due to the fact Moth gets 349 Sp. Atk with 132 EVs, letting the rest be invested into HP for a bit of bulk which can be lifesaving. Dazzling Gleam could be replaced by Bug Buzz (lmao) or Psychic, but it's really up to preference.

•Skeledirge is the Countergambit for the team, since as you all know, +1 252+ SpA Skeledirge Torch Song vs. 112 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 440-518 (119.2 - 140.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO. Plus it has Unaware, which is pretty cool too.

•Piss Apple.

 

[RaikouLover]

My main problem with terastallization is that it breaks a core mechanic. Typings and type matchups have existed ever since generation 1. Grass beats water, water beats fire and fire beats grass. However, terastallization changes this. Now, water can beat any type it wants. If it wants to beat a dragon, it can terastallization into a fairy type and click tera blast. One of the big reasons that ursaluna, the suspected pokemon is as broken as it is, is due to tera. You can no longer toxic it. You can no longer use a grass type to beat a ground type and you can no longer rely on counterplay, which previously had always existed in past gens.

There is no reason for a polteageist to be able to beat kingambit. There is no reason for a sneasler to be immune to earthquake. Tera just creates a heinous type of mind games. If you close combat the opposing kingambit when it teras, you lose. If you ice spinner and they don’t tera, you win.

Thank you for so clearly articulating what I have been unable to. I am by no means an elite player. However, I have enjoyed and played semi competitive mons online since the days of shoddy battle. Going on twenty years. This generation makes my head explode. It is not enjoyable at all. I am so damn sick of my fighting types loose to Kingambit, my fast and powerful electric types lose to Manaphy, or even worse.. get completely walled by a goddamn Tera Dragon Dondozo. These are not things that can be accounted for in the builder outside of Trick and Encore. Each match comes down to guessing the exact turn a pokemon will Tera. If you guess correctly, you have a shot. If you guess wrong, the game is over on that turn. This is not the game I fell in love with.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

Thank you for so clearly articulating what I have been unable to. I am by no means an elite player. However, I have enjoyed and played semi competitive mons online since the days of shoddy battle. Going on twenty years. This generation makes my head explode. It is not enjoyable at all. I am so damn sick of my fighting types loose to Kingambit, my fast and powerful electric types lose to Manaphy, or even worse.. get completely walled by a goddamn Tera Dragon Dondozo. These are not things that can be accounted for in the builder outside of Trick and Encore. Each match comes down to guessing the exact turn a pokemon will Tera. If you guess correctly, you have a shot. If you guess wrong, the game is over on that turn. This is not the game I fell in love with.

Exactly. Learning Competitive Pokémon is at its core memorizing the relationships between Pokémon and how they interact. I really wish I had legitimately tried to learn competitve before Generation 9 because there is no such thing as a counter in the minefield of a Tera meta. We don't have 1000 Pokémon. We have 18,0000. "Reliable counterplay" does not exist. Pokémon were meant to have types that interact normally, not the mess that this mechanic leaves us with. I would love to stop playing Tera slot machine and start playing Pokémon.

 

[redninjapuffle]

Playing the ursaluna suspect test really made me think about how broken terastalization really was. Throughout the whole suspect, I was barely enjoying playing through it, and I was not really enjoying it at all in the first 20-25 games, if at all. I’ve always been a pro tera user. It enables more metagame development, and more fun when it comes to the team building as you can have a lot more variety. But all of that really changed when I started playing the suspect test. Throughout the most of the ladder, I used a psyspam team that I had some success with on the high ladder before the suspect. It was going well, and I managed to get a good 27-0 run before losing to some bad matchups and misplays. But i wasn’t enjoying playing the suspect. On my other suspect accounts, I had just been blown away, and was considering to take a break and get the reqs at the end of the suspect, or to not even get reqs at all. This meta just felt really heinous to me. And it all had to do with terastallization.

My main problem with terastallization is that it breaks a core mechanic. Typings and type matchups have existed ever since generation 1. Grass beats water, water beats fire and fire beats grass. However, terastallization changes this. Now, water can beat any type it wants. If it wants to beat a dragon, it can terastallization into a fairy type and click tera blast. One of the big reasons that ursaluna, the suspected pokemon is as broken as it is, is due to tera. You can no longer toxic it. You can no longer use a grass type to beat a ground type and you can no longer rely on counterplay, which previously had always existed in past gens.

There is no reason for a polteageist to be able to beat kingambit. There is no reason for a sneasler to be immune to earthquake. Tera just creates a heinous type of mind games. If you close combat the opposing kingambit when it teras, you lose. If you ice spinner and they tera, you win. This was more fine in the pre home meta. There weren’t any big threats barring stuff like kingambit, and you could still play around those big tera abusers. Now however, we have a whole new meta. A lot of the new broken pokemon would not function the same with tera. You can maybe claim a kill or two with bloodmoon until meowscarada comes out to revenge kill it, unlike the meta with terastallization. Now you can simply tera poison on the meowscarada, and now it’s helpless.

A big reason that so many pokemon uses encore is that there isn’t a lot of other counterplay. How are you planning on beating a shell smashed polteageist with tera? You basically can’t if you don’t have something such as a ting lu. That’s why encore is such a big move. You can now encore the polteageist into shell smash and then ko it before it’s unable to do something else. You can’t rely on a kingambit to beat it. If it was generation 8, a polteageist would never stay in on a bisharp, but now it’s a favorable matchup for polteageist in gen 9. Yes, you can also terastallize yourself and try to beat it. Maybe you tera fairy on the opposing tera blast and manage to win the trade, But that isn’t a sign of a good metagame. It’s a case of “broken beats broken” with the broken thing being the same.

I’d rather play a meta where I know that my meowscarada can safely ko the opposing ursaluna without having to scout for a tera just to lose another pokemon to see that it hasn’t terastallized. A pokemon already has a ton of variety. It can run any item it wants, any move it gets, a ton of different EV spreads and more. Giving a pokemon more flexibility just isn’t needed.

Historically, a lot of pokemon has been banned due to terastallization. There have been outliers in the beginning of the meta, such as chi yu or palafin which just used tera to boost them even stronger, but looking at pokemon such as volcarona, annihilape, or regieleki, the problem becomes quite clear.

The metagame has been aging for over a year soon, and the most recent tera suspect we’ve had was early december last year. With every new addition to the metagame, there comes more broken threats, and with dlc 2, that pattern is likely to repeat itself.

The meta has evolved enough since the last suspect test, and terastallization definitely deserves to be looked at, or suspected tested in the near future.

I agree with a lot of stuff here, and I'm sure the community here does as well. No matter if they feel like it needs to be restricted or straight up banned, they all agree that SOMETHING needs to be done about tera. I agree as well, lets us do something about tera and finally solve the issue that has been plaguing this generation from the very start.

 

[AlexIGuessNotFound]

Exactly. Learning Competitive Pokémon is at its core memorizing the relationships between Pokémon and how they interact. I really wish I had legitimately tried to learn competitve before Generation 9 because there is no such thing as a counter in the minefield of a Tera meta. We don't have 1000 Pokémon. We have 18,0000. "Reliable counterplay" does not exist. Pokémon were meant to have types that interact normally, not the mess that this mechanic leaves us with. I would love to stop playing Tera slot machine and start playing Pokémon.

Its never too late to try out older generations. :)

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

Playing the ursaluna suspect test really made me think about how broken terastalization really was. Throughout the whole suspect, I was barely enjoying playing through it, and I was not really enjoying it at all in the first 20-25 games, if at all. I’ve always been a pro tera user. It enables more metagame development, and more fun when it comes to the team building as you can have a lot more variety. But all of that really changed when I started playing the suspect test. Throughout the most of the ladder, I used a psyspam team that I had some success with on the high ladder before the suspect. It was going well, and I managed to get a good 27-0 run before losing to some bad matchups and misplays. But i wasn’t enjoying playing the suspect. On my other suspect accounts, I had just been blown away, and was considering to take a break and get the reqs at the end of the suspect, or to not even get reqs at all. This meta just felt really heinous to me. And it all had to do with terastallization.

My main problem with terastallization is that it breaks a core mechanic. Typings and type matchups have existed ever since generation 1. Grass beats water, water beats fire and fire beats grass. However, terastallization changes this. Now, water can beat any type it wants. If it wants to beat a dragon, it can terastallization into a fairy type and click tera blast. One of the big reasons that ursaluna, the suspected pokemon is as broken as it is, is due to tera. You can no longer toxic it. You can no longer use a grass type to beat a ground type and you can no longer rely on counterplay, which previously had always existed in past gens.

There is no reason for a polteageist to be able to beat kingambit. There is no reason for a sneasler to be immune to earthquake. Tera just creates a heinous type of mind games. If you close combat the opposing kingambit when it teras, you lose. If you ice spinner and they tera, you win. This was more fine in the pre home meta. There weren’t any big threats barring stuff like kingambit, and you could still play around those big tera abusers. Now however, we have a whole new meta. A lot of the new broken pokemon would not function the same with tera. You can maybe claim a kill or two with bloodmoon until meowscarada comes out to revenge kill it, unlike the meta with terastallization. Now you can simply tera poison on the meowscarada, and now it’s helpless.

A big reason that so many pokemon uses encore is that there isn’t a lot of other counterplay. How are you planning on beating a shell smashed polteageist with tera? You basically can’t if you don’t have something such as a ting lu. That’s why encore is such a big move. You can now encore the polteageist into shell smash and then ko it before it’s unable to do something else. You can’t rely on a kingambit to beat it. If it was generation 8, a polteageist would never stay in on a bisharp, but now it’s a favorable matchup for polteageist in gen 9. Yes, you can also terastallize yourself and try to beat it. Maybe you tera fairy on the opposing tera blast and manage to win the trade, But that isn’t a sign of a good metagame. It’s a case of “broken beats broken” with the broken thing being the same.

I’d rather play a meta where I know that my meowscarada can safely ko the opposing ursaluna without having to scout for a tera just to lose another pokemon to see that it hasn’t terastallized. A pokemon already has a ton of variety. It can run any item it wants, any move it gets, a ton of different EV spreads and more. Giving a pokemon more flexibility just isn’t needed.

Historically, a lot of pokemon has been banned due to terastallization. There have been outliers in the beginning of the meta, such as chi yu or palafin which just used tera to boost them even stronger, but looking at pokemon such as volcarona, annihilape, or regieleki, the problem becomes quite clear.

The metagame has been aging for over a year soon, and the most recent tera suspect we’ve had was early december last year. With every new addition to the metagame, there comes more broken threats, and with dlc 2, that pattern is likely to repeat itself.

The meta has evolved enough since the last suspect test, and terastallization definitely deserves to be looked at, or suspected tested in the near future.

I think another point against Tera IMO is how unfun and fiddly it is to use as a mechanic. Megas and Z-Moves at the very least were determined to just a one-singular thing on the team, and required an item slot. Tera requires you to figure out the right ones for every member of your team, and the actual specifications on what actually works just becomes an annoying chore to work with in teambuilding. That's my experience, anyway.

 

[Kingdra7]

With all the talk of hazards, the focus has mostly been on the tiny pool of high-usage OU mons that can remove or flip hazards (tusk, ace, and corv).

But what do people think of our other options based on metagame trends?

Toeds feels very underrated on balance right now:
252+ SpA Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Blood Moon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toedscruel: 165-195 (45.3 - 53.5%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery. You can bring it in on the subject of our current suspect and easily get a spore off. Maybe that spore hits bloodmoon and you can do something with that momentum. Maybe they switch to ghold to spinblock and you put their spinblocker to sleep. It lives most any non-supereffective SpAtk, allowing it to make progress against things like special valiant (252 SpA Choice Specs Iron Valiant Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Toedscruel: 175-207 (48 - 56.8%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery, 3hko when you seed, and you can switch in on moonblast then spore or seed), switch in on specs pult sball (252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toedscruel: 103-123 (28.2 - 33.7%) -- 97% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery ), and can take a hit from wake. It folds to just about anything on the def side, but negates healing on gliscor and doesn't take much from EQ. It can help make progress, especially when paired with Hexmons that appreciate sleep.

Hat makes gliscor cry and fits many playstyles. And any other non-Hamrott hazard setter. Calm mind sets can build momentum once checks are out of the way as well. Meta trends look good for our only magic bounce user.

Quaq spins and beats dengo/poses problems for gliscor. Scizor defogs and beats dengo. Hstack meta trends make both more viable than before DLC. Both can serve as cleaners, providing good role compression for balance and BO.

Treads is still hanging around, and the string cheese man doesn't like dealing with it. Feels like meta trends are against it, requiring stuff like AV to put in work. Big minus points for being unable to help with gilscor as well.

Bramble feels frail, but with a bunch of wind moves flying around, you can get it in. Like the others listed here, it kills everyone's least favorite steel/ghost, while providing you with a spinblocker of your own if your team sets hazards too. New tools, and a meta that is friendlier to it than before.

Gweez with toxic gas just straight up ignores good as gold, and is in general pretty annoying to mons who rely on their ability/is a great status spreader. It loves working with Gterrain and the wish fish - another example where a hazard remover that can get around good as gold fits on balance.

These mons either lean into current metagame trends or make the premier hazard removal blocker incapable of doing his work, while fitting on the playstyles most vulnerable to Hstack. What do people think, are these tools of any use? Are we really down to three mons that can do anything on the other side of the hazard game? Or do we really have closer to a dozen once you factor in glimm?

Hazards feel like a decent push and pull right now. Yeah, you might not get them removed or flipped immediately and need to switch through HDB mons or flying mons depending on what's been put down in order to kill the removal blocker, but there's some cool interactions between mons to be had. Most hazard setters can set once and then die, and the ones that can really last (looking at you gliscor) aren't fans of tusk carrying ice spinner or can be beat by more niche picks that are slottable on teams that find themselves vulnerable to the flying scorpion. And that seems ok, the top mons in any tier should bring some UU mons into the fray.

IDK, to me it seems like 1/20 teams can carry one of these 11 or so options (I wish it was an even dozen but maus is so hard to use), aka I'm surprised that more of these aren't OU. Teams that don't need to bother (via bootspam, superman, or HO just not giving a shit if their mons take chip) also exist. So, it doesn't seem like hazards are out of control because removal is unviable. Instead, it just seems like there are too many strong mons out there with either crazy attack stats or high BP moves that really take advantage of chip, making hazards feel strong. I agree that more removers would help, but we might have just enough right now if people are willing to open their minds a little bit.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

We don't have 1000 Pokémon. We have 18,0000.

eighteen zero thousand?

With all the talk of hazards, the focus has mostly been on the tiny pool of high-usage OU mons that can remove or flip hazards (tusk, ace, and corv).

But what do people think of our other options based on metagame trends?

Toeds feels very underrated on balance right now:
252+ SpA Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Blood Moon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toedscruel: 165-195 (45.3 - 53.5%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery. You can bring it in on the subject of our current suspect and easily get a spore off. Maybe that spore hits bloodmoon and you can do something with that momentum. Maybe they switch to ghold to spinblock and you put their spinblocker to sleep. It lives most any non-supereffective SpAtk, allowing it to make progress against things like special valiant (252 SpA Choice Specs Iron Valiant Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Toedscruel: 175-207 (48 - 56.8%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery, 3hko when you seed, and you can switch in on moonblast then spore or seed), switch in on specs pult sball (252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toedscruel: 103-123 (28.2 - 33.7%) -- 97% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery ), and can take a hit from wake. It folds to just about anything on the def side, but negates healing on gliscor and doesn't take much from EQ. It can help make progress, especially when paired with Hexmons that appreciate sleep.

Hat makes gliscor cry and fits many playstyles. And any other non-Hamrott hazard setter. Calm mind sets can build momentum once checks are out of the way as well. Meta trends look good for our only magic bounce user.

Quaq spins and beats dengo/poses problems for gliscor. Scizor defogs and beats dengo. Hstack meta trends make both more viable than before DLC. Both can serve as cleaners, providing good role compression for balance and BO.

Treads is still hanging around, and the string cheese man doesn't like dealing with it. Feels like meta trends are against it, requiring stuff like AV to put in work. Big minus points for being unable to help with gilscor as well.

Bramble feels frail, but with a bunch of wind moves flying around, you can get it in. Like the others listed here, it kills everyone's least favorite steel/ghost, while providing you with a spinblocker of your own if your team sets hazards too. New tools, and a meta that is friendlier to it than before.

Gweez with toxic gas just straight up ignores good as gold, and is in general pretty annoying to mons who rely on their ability/is a great status spreader. It loves working with Gterrain and the wish fish - another example where a hazard remover that can get around good as gold fits on balance.

These mons either lean into current metagame trends or make the premier hazard removal blocker incapable of doing his work, while fitting on the playstyles most vulnerable to Hstack. What do people think, are these tools of any use? Are we really down to three mons that can do anything on the other side of the hazard game? Or do we really have closer to a dozen once you factor in glimm?

Hazards feel like a decent push and pull right now. Yeah, you might not get them removed or flipped immediately and need to switch through HDB mons or flying mons depending on what's been put down in order to kill the removal blocker, but there's some cool interactions between mons to be had. Most hazard setters can set once and then die, and the ones that can really last (looking at you gliscor) aren't fans of tusk carrying ice spinner or can be beat by more niche picks that are slottable on teams that find themselves vulnerable to the flying scorpion. And that seems ok, the top mons in any tier should bring some UU mons into the fray.

IDK, to me it seems like 1/20 teams can carry one of these 11 or so options (I wish it was an even dozen but maus is so hard to use), aka I'm surprised that more of these aren't OU. Teams that don't need to bother (via bootspam, superman, or HO just not giving a shit if their mons take chip) also exist. So, it doesn't seem like hazards are out of control because removal is unviable. Instead, it just seems like there are too many strong mons out there with either crazy attack stats or high BP moves that really take advantage of chip, making hazards feel strong. I agree that more removers would help, but we might have just enough right now if people are willing to open their minds a little bit.

for some reason, a lot of people seem to think that the "people are running otherwise-questionably-viable things to counter this, therefore it should be banned" argument applies to entire playstyles

 

[ianlazerbeem]

eighteen zero thousand?

for some reason, a lot of people seem to think that the "people are running otherwise-questionably-viable things to counter this, therefore it should be banned" argument applies to entire playstyles

in fact it does. If a common archetype's solution to a Pokémon is "run a different archetype" then that's invalidating entire playstyles which is the definition of metagame warping & overcentralizating. That's why "Gliscor loses to rain" is not a real argument - you can't just say "just run a rain team" as if every team should be a rain team. For example Annihilape made balance entirely unviable

 

[Geodude6]

https://pokepast.es/50f55c16a9ba134c

"Balance" team featuring a really annoying Gliscor set!

•Gliscor can use Fling after Protect when it comes in to both get Poison Heal and potentially toxic the opponent (as long as they don't switch to something like Garg or Ghold), while boosting Acrobatics. Thief is good if you see something like Leftovers being used, meaning you're getting around 18% health back every turn, further increased by Protect.

•Heatran to scare off anything threatening Gliscor with Ice Beam, plus obligatory Stealth Rocks because Magma Storm + Taunt isn't cancerous enough.

•Scizor, now that it has Bug Bite and Dual Wingbeat, is scarily powerful with Technician + CBand. If only it got Mach Punch too...

•Iron Moth is SEVERELY slept on. Although its 4× weakness to Ground is pretty debilitating, Energy Ball keeps Tusk off your ass. +Speed BE instead of +Sp. Atk is very good due to the fact Moth gets 349 Sp. Atk with 132 EVs, letting the rest be invested into HP for a bit of bulk which can be lifesaving. Dazzling Gleam could be replaced by Bug Buzz (lmao) or Psychic, but it's really up to preference.

•Skeledirge is the Countergambit for the team, since as you all know, +1 252+ SpA Skeledirge Torch Song vs. 112 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 440-518 (119.2 - 140.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO. Plus it has Unaware, which is pretty cool too.

•Piss Apple.

What's the purpose of Recycle on Dipplin?

 

[cyrtie]

Anyone know what time the usage stats/tier changes will happen?

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

What's the purpose of Recycle on Dipplin?

obviously to recycle the eviolite after dipplin eats it, duh

 

[Moyashi]

With all the talk of hazards, the focus has mostly been on the tiny pool of high-usage OU mons that can remove or flip hazards (tusk, ace, and corv).

But what do people think of our other options based on metagame trends?

Toeds feels very underrated on balance right now:
252+ SpA Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Blood Moon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toedscruel: 165-195 (45.3 - 53.5%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery. You can bring it in on the subject of our current suspect and easily get a spore off. Maybe that spore hits bloodmoon and you can do something with that momentum. Maybe they switch to ghold to spinblock and you put their spinblocker to sleep. It lives most any non-supereffective SpAtk, allowing it to make progress against things like special valiant (252 SpA Choice Specs Iron Valiant Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Toedscruel: 175-207 (48 - 56.8%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery, 3hko when you seed, and you can switch in on moonblast then spore or seed), switch in on specs pult sball (252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toedscruel: 103-123 (28.2 - 33.7%) -- 97% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery ), and can take a hit from wake. It folds to just about anything on the def side, but negates healing on gliscor and doesn't take much from EQ. It can help make progress, especially when paired with Hexmons that appreciate sleep.

Hat makes gliscor cry and fits many playstyles. And any other non-Hamrott hazard setter. Calm mind sets can build momentum once checks are out of the way as well. Meta trends look good for our only magic bounce user.

Quaq spins and beats dengo/poses problems for gliscor. Scizor defogs and beats dengo. Hstack meta trends make both more viable than before DLC. Both can serve as cleaners, providing good role compression for balance and BO.

Treads is still hanging around, and the string cheese man doesn't like dealing with it. Feels like meta trends are against it, requiring stuff like AV to put in work. Big minus points for being unable to help with gilscor as well.

Bramble feels frail, but with a bunch of wind moves flying around, you can get it in. Like the others listed here, it kills everyone's least favorite steel/ghost, while providing you with a spinblocker of your own if your team sets hazards too. New tools, and a meta that is friendlier to it than before.

Gweez with toxic gas just straight up ignores good as gold, and is in general pretty annoying to mons who rely on their ability/is a great status spreader. It loves working with Gterrain and the wish fish - another example where a hazard remover that can get around good as gold fits on balance.

These mons either lean into current metagame trends or make the premier hazard removal blocker incapable of doing his work, while fitting on the playstyles most vulnerable to Hstack. What do people think, are these tools of any use? Are we really down to three mons that can do anything on the other side of the hazard game? Or do we really have closer to a dozen once you factor in glimm?

Hazards feel like a decent push and pull right now. Yeah, you might not get them removed or flipped immediately and need to switch through HDB mons or flying mons depending on what's been put down in order to kill the removal blocker, but there's some cool interactions between mons to be had. Most hazard setters can set once and then die, and the ones that can really last (looking at you gliscor) aren't fans of tusk carrying ice spinner or can be beat by more niche picks that are slottable on teams that find themselves vulnerable to the flying scorpion. And that seems ok, the top mons in any tier should bring some UU mons into the fray.

IDK, to me it seems like 1/20 teams can carry one of these 11 or so options (I wish it was an even dozen but maus is so hard to use), aka I'm surprised that more of these aren't OU. Teams that don't need to bother (via bootspam, superman, or HO just not giving a shit if their mons take chip) also exist. So, it doesn't seem like hazards are out of control because removal is unviable. Instead, it just seems like there are too many strong mons out there with either crazy attack stats or high BP moves that really take advantage of chip, making hazards feel strong. I agree that more removers would help, but we might have just enough right now if people are willing to open their minds a little bit.

It's nice to see people try to and solve problems, but taking the stance of "if people are willing to open their minds" implying people haven't tried to experiment already is not a great way to top it off. As no one is more willing to experiment than high level players.

Toedscruel is a poor hazard removal tool because it outside spinning, it does nothing useful and is a wholly passive blob. Lack of recovery and a bad typing also means it gets worn down extremely fast, and the tier is not short on spore absorbers. Nevermind Gliscor which sits on you and spikes all day long.

Hatt is good, but not really meant to be used as a sole source of anti hazard support because it has very underwhelming longterm survivability. It's better off as a calm mind sweeper that can emergency block hazards.

Quaq does not spin on Dhengo at all, especially the common bulky variants. Scizor isn't reliable either because it has a terrible hazard vulnerability and struggles to defog vs bulky Dhengo. Bramble is way too frail to reliably do its job, as any wrong predict leaves it crippled. And it can't spin vs air balloon Gholdengo if the balloon finds itself pooped early.

Treads is fine on certain teams, but still lacks relevant offensive pressure and struggles to justify usage.over Tusk. And it's even worse into Gliscor than Tusk is. GWeez is probably the best of the unconventional removers, but it still has major issues in longevity and it doesn't have a ton of offensive presence. And it has bad moveslot issues too.

in general most of these, barring Hatterene and somewhat GWeez, are extremely fringe, niche or just just bad.

 

[658Greninja]

Quaq does not spin on Dhengo at all, especially the common bulky variants.

Not if you run Wave Crash ;)

252 Atk Quaquaval Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 196+ Def Gholdengo: 145-172 (38.3 - 45.5%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes

Also being able to outspeed and 2hko faster varients with Knock + Water STAB is a deal breaker. Plus the fact it always lives Ghold Sball. Plus it doesn’t hurt to deal more to Gliscor if you’re running Wave Crash. Pretty underrated imo.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Not if you run Wave Crash ;)

252 Atk Quaquaval Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 196+ Def Gholdengo: 145-172 (38.3 - 45.5%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes

Also being able to outspeed and 2hko faster varients with Knock + Water STAB is a deal breaker. Plus the fact it always lives Ghold Sball. Plus it doesn’t hurt to deal more to Gliscor if you’re running Wave Crash. Pretty underrated imo.

that calc still seems kinda underwhelming considering that bulky ghold sets tend to run recover, but i can see the merits of running wave crash quaquaval

 

[ianlazerbeem]

Not if you run Wave Crash ;)

252 Atk Quaquaval Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 196+ Def Gholdengo: 145-172 (38.3 - 45.5%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes

Also being able to outspeed and 2hko faster varients with Knock + Water STAB is a deal breaker. Plus the fact it always lives Ghold Sball. Plus it doesn’t hurt to deal more to Gliscor if you’re running Wave Crash. Pretty underrated imo.

+2 0 SpA Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Quagsire: 313-369 (94.5 - 111.4%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

Better hope that 14.1% chance works out, and that spikes are up!

Also as DaddyBuzzwole said above they'll literally just use Recover and recoil stall you - the amount of things that have to go right for you for this to actually work on Ghold is hilarious and proves literally nothing

 

[658Greninja]

Quaq does not spin on Dhengo at all, especially the common bulky variants.

Not if you run Wave Crash ;)

252 Atk Quaquaval Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 196+ Def Gholdengo: 145-172 (38.3 - 45.5%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes

Also being able to outspeed and 2hko faster varients with Knock + Water STAB is a deal breaker. Plus the fact it always lives Ghold Sball.

+2 0 SpA Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Quagsire: 313-369 (94.5 - 111.4%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

Better hope that 14.1% chance works out, and that spikes are up!

Also as DaddyBuzzwole said above they'll literally just use Recover and recoil stall you - the amount of things that have to go right for you for this to actually work on Ghold is hilarious and proves literally nothing

Bro Quaquaval literally outspeeds Gholdengo by 1 point. 85 speed vs 84 speed. Its not rocket science. Wave Crash or even Aqua Step out pp’s Recover, meanwhile Ghold doesn’t even one shot you. Also good luck setting up on the duck while risking a 2HKO.

 

[Wapf]

Playing the ursaluna suspect test really made me think about how broken terastalization really was. Throughout the whole suspect, I was barely enjoying playing through it, and I was not really enjoying it at all in the first 20-25 games, if at all. I’ve always been a pro tera user. It enables more metagame development, and more fun when it comes to the team building as you can have a lot more variety. But all of that really changed when I started playing the suspect test. Throughout the most of the ladder, I used a psyspam team that I had some success with on the high ladder before the suspect. It was going well, and I managed to get a good 27-0 run before losing to some bad matchups and misplays. But i wasn’t enjoying playing the suspect. On my other suspect accounts, I had just been blown away, and was considering to take a break and get the reqs at the end of the suspect, or to not even get reqs at all. This meta just felt really heinous to me. And it all had to do with terastallization.

My main problem with terastallization is that it breaks a core mechanic. Typings and type matchups have existed ever since generation 1. Grass beats water, water beats fire and fire beats grass. However, terastallization changes this. Now, water can beat any type it wants. If it wants to beat a dragon, it can terastallization into a fairy type and click tera blast. One of the big reasons that ursaluna, the suspected pokemon is as broken as it is, is due to tera. You can no longer toxic it. You can no longer use a grass type to beat a ground type and you can no longer rely on counterplay, which previously had always existed in past gens.

There is no reason for a polteageist to be able to beat kingambit. There is no reason for a sneasler to be immune to earthquake. Tera just creates a heinous type of mind games. If you close combat the opposing kingambit when it teras, you lose. If you ice spinner and they tera, you win. This was more fine in the pre home meta. There weren’t any big threats barring stuff like kingambit, and you could still play around those big tera abusers. Now however, we have a whole new meta. A lot of the new broken pokemon would not function the same with tera. You can maybe claim a kill or two with bloodmoon until meowscarada comes out to revenge kill it, unlike the meta with terastallization. Now you can simply tera poison on the meowscarada, and now it’s helpless.

A big reason that so many pokemon uses encore is that there isn’t a lot of other counterplay. How are you planning on beating a shell smashed polteageist with tera? You basically can’t if you don’t have something such as a ting lu. That’s why encore is such a big move. You can now encore the polteageist into shell smash and then ko it before it’s unable to do something else. You can’t rely on a kingambit to beat it. If it was generation 8, a polteageist would never stay in on a bisharp, but now it’s a favorable matchup for polteageist in gen 9. Yes, you can also terastallize yourself and try to beat it. Maybe you tera fairy on the opposing tera blast and manage to win the trade, But that isn’t a sign of a good metagame. It’s a case of “broken beats broken” with the broken thing being the same.

I’d rather play a meta where I know that my meowscarada can safely ko the opposing ursaluna without having to scout for a tera just to lose another pokemon to see that it hasn’t terastallized. A pokemon already has a ton of variety. It can run any item it wants, any move it gets, a ton of different EV spreads and more. Giving a pokemon more flexibility just isn’t needed.

Historically, a lot of pokemon has been banned due to terastallization. There have been outliers in the beginning of the meta, such as chi yu or palafin which just used tera to boost them even stronger, but looking at pokemon such as volcarona, annihilape, or regieleki, the problem becomes quite clear.

The metagame has been aging for over a year soon, and the most recent tera suspect we’ve had was early december last year. With every new addition to the metagame, there comes more broken threats, and with dlc 2, that pattern is likely to repeat itself.

The meta has evolved enough since the last suspect test, and terastallization definitely deserves to be looked at, or suspected tested in the near future.

This for sure. I really tried to like this gen but I find myself just…not playing anymore. I still watch and enjoy the idea of competitive Pokémon but it really isn’t fun to play in this state for me. I find it so weird that they took hidden power out of the game seemingly because it was letting Pokémon cheese past their counters but then added an entire mechanic that does that in the very next gen

 

[Napoli Burns]

Are we really down to three mons that can do anything on the other side of the hazard game?

one time the hazard control role in a team was:

latios (110 spe, can run defog, 120 stab, psyshock + a lure of thorn or tran)
latias (110 spe, supreme bulkyness even uninvested, healing wish)
excadrill (135 atk, can also set rocks, had toxic + mold breaker for bypassing mbounce, can double is speed under sand)
forretress (spin + spikes + rocks + volt switch)
starmie (115 spe, giant movepool, free life orb if hits last)
landorus (lol)

all these pokemons are good even outside the role of hazard control, compare the ones u listed to them.

Quaquaval really can't try to 1vs1 dengo if not full health and also scout for twave. Also need to be really careful on oger water switching and intercept wave crash, which is one of scariest thing in the tier right now. Pult is also immune to both spin and fight, even more problematic than dengo. If gamefreak gave him 120 satk over 120 atk was very solid, able to 2kho dengo with hpump even uninvested.
Gweezing if he was able to run 2 abilities at the same time was in every team.

 

[Kingdra7]

one time the hazard control role in a team was:

latios (110 spe, can run defog, 120 stab, psyshock + a lure of thorn or tran)
latias (110 spe, supreme bulkyness even uninvested, healing wish)
excadrill (135 atk, can also set rocks, had toxic + mold breaker for bypassing mbounce, can double is speed under sand)
forretress (spin + spikes + rocks + volt switch)
starmie (115 spe, giant movepool, free life orb if hits last)
landorus (lol)

All very fair, the balance has indeed shifted. I would love it if drill was still here, and technically we still have forretress. I'm just wondering if things are as dire as some feel things are. Are we getting anything back in the next DLC? Like how are hazards going to look in January?

 

[artificialdeath]

All very fair, the balance has indeed shifted. I would love it if drill was still here, and technically we still have forretress. I'm just wondering if things are as dire as some feel things are. Are we getting anything back in the next DLC? Like how are hazards going to look in January?

Drill is coming back as far as we know. It's speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if defog comes back as a TM. That'll at least give us some defoggers that can punish Ghold and Hamurott.

 

[Sahvyt]

What's the purpose of Recycle on Dipplin?

In case of Eviolite getting knocked off.

 

[woodgoldtwo]

In case of Eviolite getting knocked off.

Why are you using supersweet syrup instead of sticky hold?