Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[YubelVT]

That's probably why it was so chaotic, so in fact it didn't work. We don't take into account collateral when banning things, if something is kept in check by something else broken, that is not good. We ban the things that become broken, that's how things are done. Technically every mon can keep something in check, but nobody is saying that we should unban solgaleo because it can deal with kyurem (except for that one person, but I don't want to have another discussion about the metal lion.)

Gen 7 is the fun kind of chaotic tho, where if you're good you can make basically anything work. Yes that applies to most modern tiers but I genuinely think it applies to gen 7 the most. Like gen 9 wishes it was as fun as gen 7 when building jank because, while yes there are some offensive threats you do need to take into account, you can just do that over the course of giving pokemon normal coverage or just using a properly timed z move to kill a resist. Like in no other generation will you see thundurus therian beat blissey/chansey.

 

[Rekka's Backend]

yeah nah, i'm taking a break from OU until the sheer wall of bullshit is taken care of. Between half the ladder being rain and sun teams just mashing one boost turn to kill half the teams, shit isn't funny currently like it was before the DLC. Sucks but it feels bad to try and have actual fun teams in a meta game where if you don't account for either booster sweeper #45 or 78 you lose. Just highly frustrating gameplay all around.

 

[YubelVT]

yeah nah, i'm taking a break from OU until the sheer wall of bullshit is taken care of. Between half the ladder being rain and sun teams just mashing one boost turn to kill half the teams, shit isn't funny currently like it was before the DLC. Sucks but it feels bad to try and have actual fun teams in a meta game where if you don't account for either booster sweeper #45 or 78 you lose. Just highly frustrating gameplay all around.

Genuinely the only time gen 9 OU was ever actually fun was pre-home and it was even more fun in the small period between the release of h-zoro and h-sam. Can we pwease get a gen 9 OU pre-home ladder :3

If Ogerpon takes one CC just switch it out to a mon that can take the CC. Ogerpon still lives to disincentivize further water spam. Yeah, Ogerpon isn't a check in the traditional sense, but it does make gameplay a hell of a lot harder for Rain, especially when rain turns are so valuable.

Physdef Dozo with Boots does a good job handling Baraskewda. It takes negligible damage from any of its attacks. While Barraskewda can just click flip turn into a Dozo counter, that also means that your opponent has used up a rain turn dealing minimal damage. Furthermore, if you have hazards up, you can wear down Barraskewda and punish it for clicking flip turn repeatedly.

I mean being in kill range of pelipper's u-turn and having to fear literally every hit that isn't water type isn't really disincentivizing it imo.

The fact that Tera not getting banned singlehandedly derailed this entire generation but we keep trying to plug the leaks and banning individual Pokémon instead of revisiting it has probably been the worst decision we’ve made since release tbh.

I greatly enjoy tera as a mechanic and would ban like 7 pokemon to keep it, but you do have a point. I think randbats suspecting and then keeping dynamax in gen 8 is worse tho gen 8 rands is genuinely unplayable.

 

[658Greninja]

I will never get how people in this thread view bans vs dnbs

It doesn't really matter if Kyurem is "the most deserving", objectively just banning literally 1 or 2 of the high tier threats, at random, would improve the metagame.

You could literally put them into a random number generator, ban the two it gives and you will always get a better metagame than what we have right now.

The issue is threat saturation. There are too many good offensive threats that require too different of answers. It's kinda just that simple. If you try to find the """best""" to ban, you don't actually get why the tier is problematic.

Every threat gets less oppressive when you don't have to check it + 10 other setup sweepers at the same time, but I guess we will just try to find new reasons to stagnate the tier.

55 - 45, the classic

Or maybe Kyurem simply…wasn’t broken this whole time, or at least isn’t broken rn.

Vert, Storm Zone, and others made convincing arguments on why Kyurem should stay.

Some examples of counterplay including Weavile, Gking, Volcarona, Balloon Ghold, Balloon Tran, slow pivot + Dragapult, Hazards (vs non-HDB), Iron Crown, etc. Most of these are not just to deal with Kyurem, they are amazing Pokemon you would splash on a team either way.

Specs, and Sub sets were found to be more support reliant due to the obvious “weak to rocks” elephant in the room. While HDB is arguably the best set, it misses out on certain KOs or 2HKOs on targets like Clefable. Forcing Kyurem to Tera could be a win since if they for example, Tera Ground, it becomes an easy picking for Weavile, Ogerpon, or Meowscarada.

Kyurem’s low winrate in SPL could be contributed to stuff like Weavile, Comfey, HO, etc rising in usage. As well as people simply prepping for it one way or another.

Personally I think the issue of threat saturation is warranted, but a major contributor is that teams need to dump teambuilding resources to deal with Rain. You must stack your team with a specially bulky Ground type (Ting-Lu, SpD Lando, Clodsire) and a Water resist/immunity (Ogerpon, Toxapex, Dondozo, etc), which would be fine if the SpD Ground types actually did their jobs consistently, because Arch is so good at breaking them with chip or Electro Shot boosts.

Raging Bolt, another similar bulky offensive dragon imo is a healthy and good addition to the tier. It could very well be accounted for in the builder with Ting-Lu and other bulky ground types. While it is bulky, it isn’t so bulky to the point where offensive Tusk or Dragons can’t land KOs on it after chip, even Gking can trade health to Toxic Rbolt. On top of this, Rbolt adds value to the tier with its defensive profile, wallbreaking capabilities, and reliable speed control. However teams simply cannot handle both Raging Bolt and Archaludon at once due to their shared checks, it is why ppl clump Rbolt with the other brokens. Don’t blame long necc Raikou, this is all the Bridge’s doing. Its why despite a few weeks of SPL passing, rain is still seeing really good results.

Will Kyurem be broken? Maybe, after all, most people who voted DNB on Gambit in the Home meta regretted it. This happens, ppl’s opinions change. That is why suspect tests take time to finish (tho this one was short asf), so ppl could flesh out their thoughts and express them through a vote.

Also please do not doxx or send death threats to the council and those who voted DNB just cause a suspect test for a children’s game didn’t go in your favor, especially if you didn’t even get reqs to contribute to the vote.

 

[Finchinator]

The fact that Tera not getting banned singlehandedly derailed this entire generation but we keep trying to plug the leaks and banning individual Pokémon instead of revisiting it has probably been the worst decision we’ve made since release tbh.

I am not sure what more you expect, especially given that we just included it on a survey and it got very limited support:

Terastallization

Do you feel that an outright ban of Terastallization is needed in SV OU?

• Qualified: 39 said Yes, 115 said No -- 25.3% support for an outright ban of Terastallization
• General: 275 said Yes, 718 said No -- 27.7% support of an outright ban of Terastallization

We obviously cannot quickban a generational mechanic. We obviously cannot suspect it with this level of support (especially relative to other things).

 

[Joseph Gomes]

I am not sure what more you expect, especially given that we just included it on a survey and it got very limited support:

We obviously cannot quickban a generational mechanic. We obviously cannot suspect it with this level of support (especially relative to other things).

its understandable. But a lot of people genuinely don't find any specific mon more broken than tera. This Kyurem suspect threat result could be a sign of things to come. We should be prepared for have an unbalanced meta for rest of the gen, just in case.

 

[ant4456]

Or maybe Kyurem simply…wasn’t broken this whole time, or at least isn’t broken rn.

Vert, Storm Zone, and others made convincing arguments on why Kyurem should stay.

Some examples of counterplay including Weavile, Gking, Volcarona, Balloon Ghold, Balloon Tran, slow pivot + Dragapult, Hazards (vs non-HDB), Iron Crown, etc. Most of these are not just to deal with Kyurem, they are amazing Pokemon you would splash on a team either way.

Specs, and Sub sets were found to be more support reliant due to the obvious “weak to rocks” elephant in the room. While HDB is arguably the best set, it misses out on certain KOs or 2HKOs on targets like Clefable. Forcing Kyurem to Tera could be a win since if they for example, Tera Ground, it becomes an easy picking for Weavile, Ogerpon, or Meowscarada.

Kyurem’s low winrate in SPL could be contributed to stuff like Weavile, Comfey, HO, etc rising in usage. As well as people simply prepping for it one way or another.

Personally I think the issue of threat saturation is warranted, but a major contributor is that teams need to dump teambuilding resources to deal with Rain. You must stack your team with a specially bulky Ground type (Ting-Lu, SpD Lando, Clodsire) and a Water resist/immunity (Ogerpon, Toxapex, Dondozo, etc), which would be fine if the SpD Ground types actually did their jobs consistently, because Arch is so good at breaking them with chip or Electro Shot boosts.

Raging Bolt, another similar bulky offensive dragon imo is a healthy and good addition to the tier. It could very well be accounted for in the builder with Ting-Lu and other bulky ground types. While it is bulky, it isn’t so bulky to the point where offensive Tusk or Dragons can’t land KOs on it after chip, even Gking can trade health to Toxic Rbolt. On top of this, Rbolt adds value to the tier with its defensive profile, wallbreaking capabilities, and reliable speed control. However teams simply cannot handle both Raging Bolt and Archaludon at once due to their shared checks, it is why ppl clump Rbolt with the other brokens. Don’t blame long necc Raikou, this is all the Bridge’s doing. Its why despite a few weeks of SPL passing, rain is still seeing really good results.

Will Kyurem be broken? Maybe, after all, most people who voted DNB on Gambit in the Home meta regretted it. This happens, ppl’s opinions change. That is why suspect tests take time to finish (tho this one was short asf), so ppl could flesh out their thoughts and express them through a vote.

Also please do not doxx or send death threats to the council and those who voted DNB just cause a suspect test for a children’s game didn’t go in your favor, especially if you didn’t even get reqs to contribute to the vote.

none of these are convincing arguments to me

especially since I thought most of those arguments you mentioned (like vert's and zone's) were pretty bad

i genuinely dont care if other mons are more broken or not, like i said, if you just randomly removed two threats it'd be done

you can say get rid of rain, but rain wouldn't be as hard if other threats did not also take up a lot of the builder; it really does not matter what we get rid of, we just have to get rid of something

by the point of voting, you can wish it was a different pokemon being suspected all you want, but IMO it's pretty obvious that axing kyurem would only have improved the tier by alleviating matchups

also god that "so many checks" argument is stupid; THOSE LITERALLY ONLY WORK ON OFFENSE. THEY ARE TEMPORARY CHECKS.

If your fucking "answer" requires Air Balloon, it works once. Your answer to a Pokemon literally being axed if it gets hit by a 2% damage U-Turn is not a strong answer.

Weavile is not an answer like wtf lmao, it is a mon that can help in the matchup but it isn't something you can continuously switch into

Air Balloon only works for Offense which can try and win first. But guess what, the tier should not try to balance itself just around Offense lmao

 

[ianlazerbeem]

on day 1 there were at least 10 broken/uncompetitive mons in the meta (flutter mane, palafin, iron bundle, chi-yu, annihilape, espathra, chien-pao, houndstone, cyclizar, and orthworm—technically last respects and shed tail were the broken elements but they did break the mons—plus a bunch of other shit that never got addressed). on day 1 of home there were 10 (eleki, magearna, zama-c, shifu-r, volc, bax, ghold, gambit, sneasler, valiant). on day 1 of dlc1 there were 11 (bax, firepon, waterpon, moon, bloodmoon, gliscor, sneasler, ghold, gambit, valiant, manaphy). i don't think it's particularly unreasonable in this climate to expect a double-digit number of broken mons every meta shift

lmao at sneaking Valiant onto the brokens list

 

[YubelVT]

lmao at sneaking Valiant onto the brokens list

Valiant is extremely cracked tbf and might actually be 1 defensive answer ban away from being banworthy itself. I don't think it's banworthy atm but good players could convince me. Anyway uh, SD Iron Valiant genuinely goes insane on rain. Like half of the barraskewda answers just fold immediately if the valiant can find a swords dance turn and you can just tera water liquidation to kill most kingambits immediately regardless of tera.

For context, this person has played against me before on ladder like 2 games ago (for me at least) and should have remembered what valiant did to them last time; they did not. I, on the other hand, remembered their gambit was tera flying. SD Iron Valiant is genuinely fucking nuts and should be used more: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2052235540

 

[Anchor9]

Valiant is extremely cracked tbf and might actually be 1 defensive answer ban away from being banworthy itself. I don't think it's banworthy atm but good players could convince me. Anyway uh, SD Iron Valiant genuinely goes insane on rain. Like half of the barraskewda answers just fold immediately if the valiant can find a swords dance turn and you can just tera water liquidation to kill most kingambits immediately regardless of tera.

For context, this person has played against me before on ladder like 2 games ago (for me at least) and should have remembered what valiant did to them last time; they did not. I, on the other hand, remembered their gambit was tera flying. SD Iron Valiant is genuinely fucking nuts and should be used more: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2052235540

Dude shoulda sent Skarm back in when he realized it was SD.

 

[YubelVT]

Dude shoulda sent Skarm back in when he realized it was SD.

The skarm dies either way. +2 Iron Valiant CC is ridiculously strong
+2 252 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory: 237-280 (70.9 - 83.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Tera Water Iron Valiant Liquidation vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory in Rain: 253-298 (75.7 - 89.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
The game was just over the moment valiant got a SD off.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

Valiant is extremely cracked tbf and might actually be 1 defensive answer ban away from being banworthy itself. I don't think it's banworthy atm but good players could convince me. Anyway uh, SD Iron Valiant genuinely goes insane on rain. Like half of the barraskewda answers just fold immediately if the valiant can find a swords dance turn and you can just tera water liquidation to kill most kingambits immediately regardless of tera.

For context, this person has played against me before on ladder like 2 games ago (for me at least) and should have remembered what valiant did to them last time; they did not. I, on the other hand, remembered their gambit was tera flying. SD Iron Valiant is genuinely fucking nuts and should be used more: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2052235540

Why did you flash cannon a second time on Glowking

 

[YubelVT]

Why did you flash cannon a second time on Glowking

I didn't want to switch anything in and there was an off chance this 1300s player sent in something that could actually take damage from it.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

The skarm dies either way. +2 Iron Valiant CC is ridiculously strong
+2 252 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory: 237-280 (70.9 - 83.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Tera Water Iron Valiant Liquidation vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory in Rain: 253-298 (75.7 - 89.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
The game was just over the moment valiant got a SD off.

The skarm dies either way. +2 Iron Valiant CC is ridiculously strong
+2 252 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory: 237-280 (70.9 - 83.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Tera Water Iron Valiant Liquidation vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory in Rain: 253-298 (75.7 - 89.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
The game was just over the moment valiant got a SD off.

He could have revenged with skarm, clicked ID, and roosted up, he just forfeit because he saw big scary +2

+2 252 Atk Tera Water Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. +2 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory: 118-141 (35.3 - 42.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

 

[RaikouLover]

We obviously cannot quickban a generational mechanic. We obviously cannot suspect it with this level of support (especially relative to other things).

What about results on Tera action of some sort? Lack of support for Full ban doesn't mean Tera isn’t problematic. Lot of people are somewhere between “Tera is perfectly fine” and “fuck Tera it needs to go.”

 

[Finchinator]

What about results on Tera action of some sort? Why was that question excluded? Full ban lack of support doesn't mean Tera isn’t problematic. Lot of people are somewhere between “Tera is perfectly fine” and “fuck Tera it needs to go.”

I was quoting a post that specifically noted banning Tera outright...read context

I have been very open about being willing to act on Tera Blast and committed to including Tera in future surveys

 

[YubelVT]

He could have revenged with skarm, clicked ID, and roosted up, he just forfeit because he saw big scary +2

+2 252 Atk Tera Water Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. +2 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory: 118-141 (35.3 - 42.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

You forget that the skarm was at like 41% with rain up. I agree that if my opponent played better I wouldn't have won automatically, but they didn't (also rain was up so your calc is a little weaker than it should be +2 252 Atk Tera Water Iron Valiant Liquidation vs. +2 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory in Rain: 127-150 (38 - 44.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO)

 

[RaikouLover]

I was quoting a post that specifically noted banning Tera outright...read context

I have been very open about being willing to act on Tera Blast and committed to including Tera in future surveys

If I may contribute to the suggestion box. Can we make tangible Tera solutions included on the next survey? That would gauge community support on specific courses of action to be tested or possibly even bypass a suspect test. Examples:

How do you feel about (1-5 scale just like suspects) ?

Tera Blast Ban
Tera Preview
Tera Captain

 

[Anchor9]

Daily Dose of Stall:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2052265925

 

[UnusualBoy]

I really thought Kyurem was leaving but if Kyurem stayed, I don't see Archaludon leaving. Although it's kind of funny how some people found it underwhelming at first (Mostly due to needing rain for ES and its bad sp def) and now it's in talks for being problematic lol.

 

[yomaalt]

Genuinely the only time gen 9 OU was ever actually fun was pre-home and it was even more fun in the small period between the release of h-zoro and h-sam. Can we pwease get a gen 9 OU pre-home ladder :3

Yeah... Pre-Home ladder... Free the goldfish, Pao, ape and shed tail... Atp they're balanced cause with rain everywhere chi can't spam free overheats..... Trust me guys...

Ok but jokes aside this entire gen from start to finish has been the most.... How do I put it? It's has the most bans yet every time after a month or so, it feels stale. Like dry bread left out for 4 days type stale, it just isn't fun at all. For a gen with so many twists and turns, you'd expect it to be more Invigorating then whatever it is right now.

I can't with this gen it's so unserious when you look at it from an outsiders perspective. May as well drop rayquaza since it neutralizes and beats both rain and sun easily.....

 

[YubelVT]

Yeah... Pre-Home ladder... Free the goldfish, Pao, ape and shed tail... Atp they're balanced cause with rain everywhere chi can't spam free overheats..... Trust me guys...

Ok but jokes aside this entire gen from start to finish has been the most.... How do I put it? It's has the most bans yet every time after a month or so, it feels stale. Like dry bread left out for 4 days type stale, it just isn't fun at all. For a gen with so many twists and turns, you'd expect it to be more Invigorating then whatever it is right now.

I can't with this gen it's so unserious when you look at it from an outsiders perspective. May as well drop rayquaza since it neutralizes and beats both rain and sun easily.....

Pre-Home to me is when they started releasing hisuian pokemon into the format. The wild west of everything before doesn't matter to me and isn't real and cannot hurt us anymore

 

[Welcome to mars]

Just wanted to say im happy for kyurem, sure dragon dance is some rare no skill cheese that only functions because surprise but i find any other set to be very endearing knowing how good he has it now

i still find this current metagame to be very enjoyable and a breath of fresh air compared to the current state of ZU and RU
roaring moon is the only thing i would personally want an eye kept on, the rest of the suspicious pokemon are fine to me

and i’m hoping for the safety of archaludon

 

[Soiramio3000]

Let's see which generation has the most and least OU Pokémon!

"OU pokemon"?
you may want to edit this part of your comment.
what pokemon are you talking about?
maaaayyyybee you mean starters, but even then it still does not make sense.

 

[JunkoAJ]

I have been very open about being willing to act on Tera Blast and committed to including Tera in future surveys

Tera Blast Ban
Tera Preview
Tera Captain

I still don't really buy the Tera Blast ban solution because yes it removes one facet of Tera that people have problems with but it truly feels like a half-measure if we were to actually take action on Tera.

Tbh I don't really like any in-between measures. TB still has the defensive tera issue where people flip the type matchup. Team Preview deletes the creative aspect of Tera team-building. Tera Captain is okay? But it still has the "50/50" problem that everyone complains about

I don't want Tera to be restricted at all but if it is, I think it needs a full ban.