Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

Unfortunate but a necessary result. Hopefully something is done about Primarina next. This mon is 6-0ing every team.
What primarina is 6-0ing every team? lol
Unfortunate but a necessary result. Hopefully something is done about Primarina next. This mon is 6-0ing every team.
not me throwing primarina on my team thinking im missing out on some heat only realizing hours later, as the haha reacts roll in and seeing once again primarina being mid after dozens of battles, that this was a joke. had to be sure tho

its ok. with poison cure purified salt good as gold or unaware or something it could be broken

also i know its no ones fault and this is free but i hate the suprise of the days after ban getting excited for any aspect of freshness and ooooooooop volcarona is still here.
 
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I am at the point where I can safely say the Psychic Seed Gouging Fire experiment is a failure. I thought having the extra special bulk would make it easier to snowball, but it still takes too long most of the time. Two turn setups are just not very reliable on more offensive teams in this meta. You can live some cool hits with it. Doing something with that is another matter. I did briefly try a phasing set with Roar, but it had limited success on an archetype like Psychic Terrain. If you are going to do that, just use Ting-Lu. My opinion on Gouging Fire itself hasn't changed too much, but it was better using more traditional sets. Perhaps someone else might find a new set that is more reliable or threatening than the niche stuff I have been playing around with.

Another failed experiment was Electro Ball Iron Treads. I mean, I wasn't expecting much. But it was still disappointing. I have tried a few other sets to try and fix the hazards issue on PT teams. This was also underwhelming. Treads in general is a mon that I believe is quite underrated. It just doesn't fit on every type of team, PT apparently being one of them.

One thing I have had some recent success with on Psychic Terrain is Corv. It gives you a reliable slow pivot and an actual answer for Rillaboom. Ghold is an issue, but you have U-Turn and teammates. It needs more testing, but I noticed a huge upgrade over other things in that slot once I tried it.

Speaking of other things in that slot, Hatt is going to the long list of mons I have ultimately decided I don't like on Psychic Terrain. I was trying to use it as hazard prevention and a bulky pivot. But the pivot stuff is awkward with Eject Button and Healing Wish shenanigans. Red Card was a bit better, but harder to pivot and ultimately not as good as something else that could run Red Card. Hatt is slightly more helpful into Ghold hazard teams than Corv, but Hatt just flat loses to Ghold anyway and has trouble pivoting.

In the mean time, Roaring Moon is still doing its best to crush any hopes of the archetype's OU viability. Not the Dark types. Literally just Moon.
 
I am at the point where I can safely say the Psychic Seed Gouging Fire experiment is a failure. I thought having the extra special bulk would make it easier to snowball, but it still takes too long most of the time. Two turn setups are just not very reliable on more offensive teams in this meta. You can live some cool hits with it. Doing something with that is another matter. I did briefly try a phasing set with Roar, but it had limited success on an archetype like Psychic Terrain. If you are going to do that, just use Ting-Lu. My opinion on Gouging Fire itself hasn't changed too much, but it was better using more traditional sets. Perhaps someone else might find a new set that is more reliable or threatening than the niche stuff I have been playing around with.

Another failed experiment was Electro Ball Iron Treads. I mean, I wasn't expecting much. But it was still disappointing. I have tried a few other sets to try and fix the hazards issue on PT teams. This was also underwhelming. Treads in general is a mon that I believe is quite underrated. It just doesn't fit on every type of team, PT apparently being one of them.

One thing I have had some recent success with on Psychic Terrain is Corv. It gives you a reliable slow pivot and an actual answer for Rillaboom. Ghold is an issue, but you have U-Turn and teammates. It needs more testing, but I noticed a huge upgrade over other things in that slot once I tried it.

Speaking of other things in that slot, Hatt is going to the long list of mons I have ultimately decided I don't like on Psychic Terrain. I was trying to use it as hazard prevention and a bulky pivot. But the pivot stuff is awkward with Eject Button and Healing Wish shenanigans. Red Card was a bit better, but harder to pivot and ultimately not as good as something else that could run Red Card. Hatt is slightly more helpful into Ghold hazard teams than Corv, but Hatt just flat loses to Ghold anyway and has trouble pivoting.

In the mean time, Roaring Moon is still doing its best to crush any hopes of the archetype's OU viability. Not the Dark types. Literally just Moon.
Could unaware clefable be good? You beat moon quite consistently, and you can pass wishes to your teammates. You could still go magic guard to ignore hazards.
252 Atk Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 144-170 (36.5 - 43.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Here are two sets that could work.
Clefable @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Future Sight/Flamethrower
- Moonblast
- Wish
- Protect
Clefable @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
- Flamethrower
- Moonblast
- Moonlight
- Knock Off
I could also see geezing working. +1 E-quake from moon doesn't ohko you, and you can just strange steam it back, while t-wave or wisp on ghold (or flamethrower). But I think that's worse than clefable, but just thought I'd share that cause it could potentially work.
 
What's up with all of the double dance Gilscor's on low ladder? trying to grind back up to 1500 and the 1300's and seemingly 1400 has a ton of them. Free wins sure but where are all of you guys coming from lol

Speaking of other things in that slot, Hatt is going to the long list of mons I have ultimately decided I don't like on Psychic Terrain. I was trying to use it as hazard prevention and a bulky pivot. But the pivot stuff is awkward with Eject Button and Healing Wish shenanigans. Red Card was a bit better, but harder to pivot and ultimately not as good as something else that could run Red Card. Hatt is slightly more helpful into Ghold hazard teams than Corv, but Hatt just flat loses to Ghold anyway and has trouble pivoting.
Try Hatt with AV on that team with mystic fire, tera fire if you wish to go psycho but it helps the match up vs Ghold and vs sun times can do serious dmg.
 
Could unaware clefable be good? You beat moon quite consistently, and you can pass wishes to your teammates. You could still go magic guard to ignore hazards.
252 Atk Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 144-170 (36.5 - 43.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Here are two sets that could work.
Clefable @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Future Sight/Flamethrower
- Moonblast
- Wish
- Protect
Clefable @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
- Flamethrower
- Moonblast
- Moonlight
- Knock Off
I could also see geezing working. +1 E-quake from moon doesn't ohko you, and you can just strange steam it back, while t-wave or wisp on ghold (or flamethrower). But I think that's worse than clefable, but just thought I'd share that cause it could potentially work.
It's possible. Clef is a good mon. What I don't know is PT teams have limited room for defensive cores since they tend to be more offensive or outright HO. I suppose you could try to build it more towards balance, but balance is tricky this gen even without trying to do it under PT. Pairing Clef with Corv might be difficult for a couple of overlapping issues. Specifically, I worry about Clef losing to Ghold and Gambit's Steel STAB.

Geezing could be removal. I have tried it on other teams to some success. I don't know if it would like PT very much, but it is an option to consider if hazards become too problematic. It could be good into Rillaboom. So there is that. I think I might try it before Clef, tbh.

My current teams structure includes the best 3 from all my PT testing. That is Indeedee, Polteageist, and D-Speed. The 4th slot is Rillaboom to fix the priority issue. The 5th slot is currently Corv, which fixes a ton of things that were wrong with the team. Those 5 seem really solid together.

The 6th slot is more difficult to figure out. I tried and got rid of a lot of stuff. Currently, I'm running Zama in the 6th slot because it has a great combination of bulk, speed, and a typing I need. I can also use it as an emergency phaser. It has at least performed better than the rest of this stuff. It is also helpful against more offensive teams, which is nice because it turns out my first 4 slots are all good against stall.

Try Hatt with AV on that team with mystic fire, tera fire if you wish to go psycho but it helps the match up vs Ghold and vs sun times can do serious dmg.
Thank you for the suggestion. I will consider it. I'm going to guess that it still won't stick with this team for reasons I stated earlier. But AV His interesting.
 
Thank you for the suggestion. I will consider it. I'm going to guess that it still won't stick with this team for reasons I stated earlier. But AV His interesting.
I'm a firm believer of AV Hatt a good pivot/future sight/hazard controller. I've been reading your PT journey and I think it'd work alright as a stand in, customized a bit of course. It's especially solid vs Ghold due to being able to tank a Make It Rain or a few Shadowballs allowing you to really stick it to them. Tera Magnifies this, but I imagine with Grassy Terrain for healing outside of Draining Kiss it should stick around longer than the teams I run.
 
It's possible. Clef is a good mon. What I don't know is PT teams have limited room for defensive cores since they tend to be more offensive or outright HO. I suppose you could try to build it more towards balance, but balance is tricky this gen even without trying to do it under PT. Pairing Clef with Corv might be difficult for a couple of overlapping issues. Specifically, I worry about Clef losing to Ghold and Gambit's Steel STAB.
Okay, here's a fun little tera you could use on clef, tera electric. This helps you beat ghold since you resist make it rain and +2 shadow ball never ohkos you back while you can always 2hit ko with flamethrower with like 1% chip, plus helps against moon since now you resist flying.
Maybe this set.
Clefable @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Def / 52 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Moonlight
- Flamethrower
- Future Sight/Stealth Rock/Knock Off/Calm Mind
252 Atk Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 252 HP / 120+ Def Clefable: 166-196 (42.1 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
52+ SpA Clefable Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 156-184 (49.5 - 58.4%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO
52+ SpA Clefable Future Sight vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire in Psychic Terrain: 180-212 (38.8 - 45.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
 

Finchinator

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Every single Pokemon has been banned “because” Tera. Every single Pokemon has stayed OU “because” Tera. Each Pokemon has intimate interactions with the mechanic that tell the story of our metagame. Yes, Volcarona abuses it a lot, but blindly pointing a finger at this and claiming it’s defensive value should’ve preserved it is more silly than productive.
 
Every single Pokemon has been banned “because” Tera. Every single Pokemon has stayed OU “because” Tera. Each Pokemon has intimate interactions with the mechanic that tell the story of our metagame. Yes, Volcarona abuses it a lot, but blindly pointing a finger at this and claiming it’s defensive value should’ve preserved it is more silly than productive.
Oh no, Volcarona definitely should not have been saved. It's just the latest casualty. That was me pointing out that banning Volcarona is an admission that the mechanic is toxic. Too many people getting steamrolled by the (mis)matchups it creates.
 

Ehmcee

A Spoopy Ghost
is a Tiering Contributor
Volcarona was an incredibly useful mon defensively. I take it this ban as people admitting that Tera is unhealthy. Pity we can't get action on the elephant in the room.
No one is admitting that Tera as a whole is unhealthy, people believe that Quiver Dance + Flame Body / Swarm + Great Offensive Coverage + Recovery + Incredible offensive stats + An incredible set variety that modifies it's checks and counters at will is unhealthy with Tera.

It's been a year and a half with a Tera metagame, I think Tera Ban advocates kinda need to just bite the bullet here. A change / ban on Terastalisation is not happening, it is at the core of the identity of the Gen 9 Metagame and it's removal flips the entirety of the metagame on it's head, resulting in essentially ground zero, requiring a rebuild from the ground up.

Removing Pokemon to get a healthier metagame is a good thing, people often see bans as a net negative for tiers, with most people wondering how could bans result in anything else than less freedom? The teambuilder opens up greatly when these massive threats get removed, this allows room for multiple options to rise up and gain niches and strengths, usually with 3+ of these now being available.

Basically, bans are good sometimes, and Tera is here to stay
 
I'm a firm believer of AV Hatt a good pivot/future sight/hazard controller. I've been reading your PT journey and I think it'd work alright as a stand in, customized a bit of course. It's especially solid vs Ghold due to being able to tank a Make It Rain or a few Shadowballs allowing you to really stick it to them. Tera Magnifies this, but I imagine with Grassy Terrain for healing outside of Draining Kiss it should stick around longer than the teams I run.
To be clear, I don't dislike the suggestion. I will be testing multiple iterations of the team. I'm just telling you that I would more likely be taking the team in a more offensive direction. But I will test it. Maybe it will surprise me.

Okay, here's a fun little tera you could use on clef, tera electric. This helps you beat ghold since you resist make it rain and +2 shadow ball never ohkos you back while you can always 2hit ko with flamethrower with like 1% chip, plus helps against moon since now you resist flying.
Maybe this set.
Clefable @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Def / 52 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Moonlight
- Flamethrower
- Future Sight/Stealth Rock/Knock Off/Calm Mind
252 Atk Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 252 HP / 120+ Def Clefable: 166-196 (42.1 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
52+ SpA Clefable Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 156-184 (49.5 - 58.4%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO
52+ SpA Clefable Future Sight vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire in Psychic Terrain: 180-212 (38.8 - 45.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Tera Electric is actually interesting because I am running Rillaboom to fix the priority issue. You also absorb Tera Flying Acrobatics from Moon, which is a plus. I would prefer not to have to burn a Tera defensively in most situations when things like Polteageist, D-Speed, and Rillaboom tend to need it more. But if the matchup dictates it, I can obviously Tera a defensive mon.

As far as matchups go, killing Ghold isn't actually that hard for my team by itself. There are a lot of ways for me to kill it. The bigger issue is that it can switch in any time to block Defog, essentially preventing me from clicking the move. It's only so helpful to chase it out and still have to worry about it blocking Defog, particularly with a more passive mon like Clef where you might give up momentum. The other problem with Ghold is more about the combination of it and Dark types. But I find it's simply easier to deal with the Dark types than blame Ghold for it. It will still die to Psyspam and/or coverage eventually if there is no immunity to cover for it.

Of course, the primary reason to run this Clef would be Roaring Moon. This is a bigger issue for the team. I don't want to make the team overall worse just to hit Moon. But it's hard to say without testing it. Moon is such a problem that I really might need a change like this.

Volcarona was an incredibly useful mon defensively. I take it this ban as people admitting that Tera is unhealthy. Pity we can't get action on the elephant in the room.
I'm an anti-Tera person, but Volc's so called defensive utility has been probably the most overstated point in this DLC. It's useful in a couple areas and that's it. Volc's primary purpose is clearly QD and cheese.

As for the so called defensive utility you miss, we have a bunch of Fire and Steel types that can resist Ice and/or Fairy moves. You can look at options such as Scizor, Iron Moth, and possibly Hisuian Arcanine to fit on more offensive teams. Moltres is a Flame Body mon that is pretty good on some balance teams. I have heard AV Iron Crown is pretty decent as well. Just a few examples of viable mons people can use with somewhat similar defensive utility.
 
To be clear, I don't dislike the suggestion. I will be testing multiple iterations of the team. I'm just telling you that I would more likely be taking the team in a more offensive direction. But I will test it. Maybe it will surprise me.
nah don't worry about it, i was just laying out my rationale more than anything. best of luck in your chances, its tough for PT users (myself included)
 
Why is no one talking about iron valient? Mon pretty op when you can usually run 5 + a shitmon to sack for entry and it would sweep.
I mean, its coverage is wide and it is insanely fast, nobody is denying that, but fairy+fighting while it has its good traits, isn't always the best offensively. Valiant has a bit of 4mss, if its going special calm mind (probs the best set, but sd is still good), it wants all of calm mind, moonblast, shadow ball, encore, thunderbolt, aura sphere, psyshock and any coverage to hit things. If its going physical sd, it wants all of sd, cc, spirit break, encore, knock off, liquidation and any coverage. Ghold is mostly a hard counter unless it runs said coverage, which means something else counters it. On sd sets, if its running cc and knock, tusk counters it. On calm mind sets, if it runs t-bolt and moonblast, clodsire counters it. This may not seem much of an issue, but its bulk is poor and while it does have a quad dark resistance, it's typing isn't too great otherwise (though fighting resistance is nice). It also only has one opportunity to sweep due to booster.
Combine all these things, and valiant is still a great mon, but nowhere close to banworthy. Priority in general screws it over and every team usually has one thing that can take it on.
As far as matchups go, killing Ghold isn't actually that hard for my team by itself. There are a lot of ways for me to kill it. The bigger issue is that it can switch in any time to block Defog, essentially preventing me from clicking the move. It's only so helpful to chase it out and still have to worry about it blocking Defog, particularly with a more passive mon like Clef where you might give up momentum. The other problem with Ghold is more about the combination of it and Dark types. But I find it's simply easier to deal with the Dark types than blame Ghold for it. It will still die to Psyspam and/or coverage eventually if there is no immunity to cover for it.
Wouldn't defog be worse on psychic terrain due to removing it, meaning that you have to switch indeedee in again? You don't have to run clef if you don't want to though, that's just a suggestion and you probably know more about the teamstyle.
Also, but just wondering is how have you optimised indeedee? It's not a horrible mon by any means, its no pincurchin, but does hold the teamstyle back a bit.
 
Wouldn't defog be worse on psychic terrain due to removing it, meaning that you have to switch indeedee in again? You don't have to run clef if you don't want to though, that's just a suggestion and you probably know more about the teamstyle.
Also, but just wondering is how have you optimised indeedee? It's not a horrible mon by any means, its no pincurchin, but does hold the teamstyle back a bit.
Is Defog worse on Psychic Terrain? I mean, theoretically yes. But actually not so much in practice. I'm running double terrain because Rillaboom fixes the priority issue. This means that I often have shifting terrain conditions. The only mon I have that is truly reliant on Psychic Terrain besides the setter Indeedee is Polteageist. Something like D-speed can function in and out of it. The main problem with hazards is the Focus Sash on the teapot, T-spikes a little bit, and if hazards get stacked too much. Generally, I would only need one or maybe 2 Defogs in an entire match. This is not so disruptive.

As for Clef, I don't know yet. I'm going to test it. But generally, I want momentum. Momentum doesn't help if you get swept by Moon, though.

Here is the Indeedee set:

Indeedee @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Expanding Force
- Tera Blast
- Trick
- Healing Wish

It must be said that Indeedee is not a real pokemon. It's not OU level. At least Choice Scarf makes it much better on several counts. Against stall or slow defensive mons, you can cripple them with a Trick. Expanding Force also hits pretty hard against mons that don't resist it. You can move before some offensive mons. It just help with speed control. Finally, a faster Healing Wish can make a really good transition into an attacker if you time it well.

The biggest danger with Choice Scarf here is Dark types. They switch in on the Expanding Force and you totally lose momentum. This is worse with Roaring Moon since they get a free DD. But it's bad in general. This also necessitates bringing it in to immediately switch it out far more than is ideal. It's a huge momentum sink, hence the need for pivoting.

The biggest tech I have for this is Tera Blast. In general, I feel like Tera Blast is underexplored as an option on Normal mons. Because it is Normal STAB, you don't necesarrily have to rely on Tera or Expanding Force to do damage. It's not a ton of damage, but it's usable in certain situations. If the Dark type switches in, you have a way to hit it. You can also switch coverage while being choice locked, which can be crucial. Generally, Indeedee isn't typically the mon you want to Tera. But sometimes it is necessary. I have beaten a triple Dark team this way.

I debated on going Tera Ghost or Dark in order to hit ghosts, but I decided it was better to get rid of the Dark types. Once they are out of the way, all the ghosts besides Ghold can lose to Psyspam.
 

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